The Newtown bee., 1894-04-27
Around the Preside.
A SPRING INVENTORY.

A SPRING INVENTORY.
 LET THE HOUSE BE A HOME IN THE
 TRUE HOME THERE WILL BE PARENTS,
 REST, WORK FOR ALL, AND LONE.-A
 SERMON PREACHED IN THE CONGRE-
 GATIONAL CHURCH, VIEWPOINT, ON
 APRIL l5 9l, BY REV OTIS W. BAR
 kER.
 Text, 2d KIL,S, I:2, "Tell me, what hast thou ill the house?"
 Here is poor widow in trouble. Her husband has died, and the creditors have come to collect debt which she cannot pay. She is not to blame for the debt i; perhaps it was contracted in her hus- bands last sickness, when nothing was coming in and the little store that had been laid by was spent in staving off the final dread hour. Oh! it was enough to be left a widow, enough that the stay and prop of the household had been removed |; this in itself was crushing blow; but there was added the burden of poverty. Poverty is at any time grim and gaunt figure to take his place at the board, but at no time is his face so wan and his form so emaciated and his fingers so fleshless and thin as when he follows closely in the steps of death. And this
 
 band had been member of the schools of the prophets, Elisha was the head of the schools, and so naturally she came to him for aid; but, when he asked her what she had in the house with which she could begin to help herself, how much do you think she had? One pot of oil, and she was even poorer than tlfat might at first show; the oil was not of the finest sort, such as would be used for cooking food, but coarse oil, such as every Oriental kept for amounting the body after bath. In the papers quite | frequently to-day we see advertisements of insurance companies and stock com panies in which tables are given; and on one side are put the assets, how much the company owns, and on the other side the liabilities, how much the company owes. Sometimes the figures which eX- press these facts run into the millions If such table had been made out al this time for this poor widow, how dc you think the showing would have stood About in this way: Assets, one small cruet of coarse oil; liabilities, two sons all who were left, the only hope for Ob l taining a fair livelihood, to be sold as slaves for debt, and then the little homt gone, and then-what? Perhaps starva tion, perhaps death.
 THAT, MY FRIENDS,
 was an inventory, that was taking ac count of stock. l admit it was fearful | ly poor showing, l admit that not many would have cared to accept those condi tions, but that taking account of stock was the making of that house. That ou( solitary eruet was the vanguard in long | line of cruets, that measure of poor oil | XUo p fa in NUh copious stream of oil that only stayed when the supply of vessels ran out, anG where there was only threatening ruin there came comfort and joy. Now lei us look over what we own this morning | let us take an account of our stock anC may God grant, before we get through that, where in our blinded vision we saw only one pot of poor oil, we may set copious streams of blessing flowing | Inventories are generally taken at thC first of the year; but I have purposely postponed taking ours till now for ono reason, and I'll tell you what that is There is something now to aid us. Thi is what is popularly called the season O spring house-cleaning. Corners are ran sacked now which, during all the rest O the year, suffer undisturbed repose; olt trunks are rumaged; dark closets clean | ing-place which can escape the goo6 housekeeper's eye. In the cleaning w generally think only of dusty floors anC well-worn carpets and soot-blackeneC ceilings, and think that is about all tha we own. l want to direct your atten tion higher this morning I want you tt think of other possessions than these and l do so by putting Elisha's question to the poor widow plainly before you Tell me, what hast thou in the house ? But do not care to word my question exactly that way. You do not live in house; you do not care to speak of it il that fashion; you live in home. 4 house! Ia shelter for animals,'' hous, may be that. A house may be simply place that has covering above the heaC to keep out the rain, and a flooring be heath the feet to keep from mud, and on, room in which to sleep, and anothe room in which to eat, and, in general, { place in which to live and get alons from day to day-that's house; but d. not degrade the sacred name, do not cal | such place a home. But are ther many such places in which people live The worst feature of the heather re ligions is that none of them know the meaning of home. Are not thos, "homes" of the heather Zulus which NJ Ireland exhibited here still staring yol in the face? and are you not thinking o the heather
 GIRLS WHO RUN AWAY
 l from their foulness and filthiness and be! to be kept anywhere but in the home where they had the misfortune to b. born? Yet we do not need to invade tn fastnesses of darkest Africa to fint travesties of the home. What about tht home of the drunkard, where cursing ant low talk make the atmosphere in whicl the children live, and their shiverins forms crouching in the corner at tn sound of their fathers snuffiing gait il the entry-way, suggest to you some ty rant torturing prisoners for his owl amusement rather than the coming of parent to those who are flesh of his fiesl and the offspring of his Joins But tn, thought is too low down in humanity's scale come up higher. What about the home of the rich, where elegance anc luxury dwell, where seemingly every thing is provided that heart could desire soft draperies at the windows, oil paint. ings on the walls. dainty viands on the table, and all that-but then the father comes in from his business at evening l (when he is not at the club and sits by the lamp and reads his newspaper-tc himself--unti it is time to go to bed, and the son goes up to his room to read the latest novel, and the mother plans where she will shop next day, and every one l has as little to do with every one else as | pos sible Those are houses, they arc | not homes. The drunkard's is at the