Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1897-02-11

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not lnsle we have it moi anywhere. II
we have not genuine grace in the fam
lily circle, all our outward and public
FEASIBILITY merely springs from a fear
of the world or from the Shiny, putrid
pool of our " se!fishness. l tell you
the home is a mighty test of character.
What YOU are at home you are every
where, whether you demonstrate it or
not.
Again. l remark that home is a ref
uge. Life is the United States army
on the national road to Mexico, a long
march with ever and anon a skirmish
and a battle. Al eventide we pitch our
tent and stack our arms; we hang up
the war cap and lay our head on the
knapsack; we sleep until the morning
bugle calls us to marching and action.
How pleasant it is to rehearse the vic
tories and the surprises and the at
tacks of the day, seated by the still
campfire of the home circle!
Yea, life is a stormy sea. With shiv-
cred masts and torn sails and hulk
aleak, we put into the harbor of home.
Blessed harbor! there we go for repairs
in the dry dock of quiet life. The
candle in the window is to the toiling
man the lighthouse guiding him into
port. Children go forth to meet their
fathers as pilots at the Narrows take
the hand of ships. The door-sill of the
home is the wharf where heavy life
is unladen.
There is the place where we may
talk of what we have done without be-
ing charged with self-adulation. There
is the place where We may lounge with
out being thought ungraceful. There
is the place where we may express af-
lection without being thought silly.
There is the place where we may for
get our annoyances and exasperations
and troubles. Forlorn earth-pilgrim!
no home? Then die. That is better.
The grave is brighter and grander and
more glorious thar this world with no
tent from marchings, with no
harbor from the storm, with no place
to rest from this scene of greed and
gouge and loss and gain. God pity the
man or I'M who has no home!
Get you no hint of cheerfulness from
grasshopper's leap and lambs frisk,
and quail's whistle, and garrulous
streamlet, which, from the rock at the
mountain-top clear down to the mead
ow ferns under the shadow OF the
steep. comes looking for the steepest
place to leap off at, and talking Just
to hear itself talk? If all the skies
hurtled with. tempest, and everlasting
storm wandered W. the sea. and every
mountain stream went raving mad,
frothing at the mouth with mad foam,
and there were nothing but simoons
blowing among the hills, and there
were neither lark's carol nor hummine
birds trill, o waterfalls dash; only
bears bark, and p%anther's scream, and
VOLTS howl, then you might we'll gath
er into your homes only the shadows,
But when God has strewn the ear, th
and the heavens with beauty and with
gladness, let us take unto our home
circles all innocent hilarity, all bright.
ness, and all good cheer A dark home
makes bad girls, in prep.
aratfon Tor Udu men ii BAD women,
Above all, my friends, take into
your homes Christian principle. Can
it be that in any of the comfortable
homes of my congregation the voice OF
prayer is never lifted? What! No sup.
plication at hight for protection
What! No thanksgiving in the morning
for care? How, my brother, my sister
will you answer God in the day of judg.
ment with reference to your children:
. 1t is a plain question, and therefore
ask it. In the tenth chapter of Jeremiah
God says he will pour out his fury upo
the families that call not upon His
name. o, parents, when you are dead
and gone, and the moss is covering the
inscription of the tombstone, will Won,
children look back and think of fathe,
and mother at family prayer? Will
they take the old family Bible and omen
it and see the mark of tears of contri.
ton and tears of consoling promise
wept by eyes long before gone out into
darkness? oh, if You do not inculcate
Christian principles in the hearts OF
your children. and do not warn them
against evil. and do not invite them tc
uCllueSS anu " HOu, anu lney wander
off into dissipation and into infidelity,
and at last make shipwreck of their i'm
mortal souls. on their deathbed and in
the day of Judgment they will curse
you! Seated by the register or the
stove, what if on the wall should come
out the history of your children? What
a history-the mortal and the immor.
tai life of your loved ones! Every
parent is writing the history of his
child. He is writing it, composing il
into a song or tuning it into a groan.
Again, 1 remark that home Is a type
of heaven. To bring us to that home
Christ left his home. Far up and fal
back in the history of heaven there
came a period when it's most illustrioui
citizen was about to absent himself
He was not going to sail from beach tt
beach: we have often done that. He
was not going to put out from one
hemisphere to another hemisphere;
many of us have done that. But hi
was to sail from world to world, the
spaces unexplored and immensities un.
Travelled. No world had ever hailed
heaven, and heaven had never hailed
any other world. l think that the win
dows and the balconies are thronged