The record-union., 1899-10-01
WHAT is AN IDEAL HOME?
SOME WORD PICTURES DRAWN
BY H. wEINSTOCK.
Address Delivered at the Syna-
gogue at Friday Nights
Service.

Service.
At the Friday evening service at the
Synagogue H. Weinstock delivered the
second of his series of addresses, the
subject being THE Ideal Home" ME-
Weinstock said:
Mid pleasures and palaces,
Though we may roam,
BE 1t ever so humble,
Inere'S no place ike nome.
A charm from the skies
Seems to hallow us there,
Which seek thro' the world,
Is not met with elsewhere.
Thus beautifully does the poet speak
of home.
Who can picture the charm of a per-
feet home?
What other spot on earth so like
unto paradise? What other place
nearer and dearer to the human heart?
and vet. how comparatively few are
the perfect homes. How rarely do we
find the spot which can truly be called
the ideal home?
Ask some to give you a picture of the
ideal home, and they will paint you
place filled with all that wealth, taste
and culture can buy. They will draw
upon your Imagination and present 10
your bewildered gaze a spot covered
with a palatial mansion, surrounded by
beautiful gardens, bedecked with the
choicest flowers and the rarest plants.
They will picture the floors OF this
mansion covered with the eostllest
rugs, the walls hung with the rarest
works of art, the rooms filled with the
most magnificent furnishings and the
most exquisite bits of sculpture, the
library crowded with the finest collec-
tions of books. the dining-room re-
splendent with the richest plate, the
most beautiful china and the most
artistic glassware.
Such, to some would be an ideal
home, where happiness must surely
prevail
Alas how many such magnificent
homes are to be found thickly scat
tered throughout the world, where
happiness ever has been and is ever
likely to be a stranger.
If costly rugs, rare pictures, over
loaded shelves, rich plate, palatlai
chambers and beautiful gardens could
make ideal homes, there doubtless
would be much less misery in the
world. But, sad as it may seem, these
things never have and never can make
a perfect home. They may be helps
they may add to the beauty, the COM
fort and pleasures of home, but al
best they go to make the shell, and
not the home itself. They are
to the family what the garment is 10
the body-merely the outer covering,
and not the thing itself.
How often, oh, how often, has the
occupant of the palace envied the
humble dweller in the lowly thatched
cottage, his peace of mind and his
cheerful spirit. How gladly would the
former exchange the rarities of art
with which his costly mansion is filled
for the serene soul and the purity o.
heart and mind to be found under the
lowly roof of his neighbor.
How often, oh, how often, has the
envied inmate Of palatial home COW
eted the happiness he has seen at the
modest fireside of his humble servitor.
If, then, art and sculpture, flowers
and plants, plate and books, rich fur
nishings and costly paintings do not
make the ideal home, what does?
The things that go to make the ideal
home are not the visible, tangible
things; they are not the things that
can be bought and sold, that can be
looked upon and admired; they are the
qualities within heart and mind, the
things that no man sees and yet that
all can be made to feel.
The ideal home is not the place where
the father is feared and dreaded, where
his homecoming sends the smile and
the merry laughter into hiding, where
his presence causes restraint and heaV-
mess of heart and his absence brings
relief; where he is looked upon as
despot and a tyrant; where his ribald
language and bitter tongue causes
daily anguish to the others under his
roof. or where he is simply tolerated
and regarded as a cross or necessary
evil. The ideal home is not where the
mother frets and fumes, where she
grumbles and croaks, where she Is
glum and sulky, where she is soured
and irritable, where she nagS ana
scolds. where she sees no virtues In
the other members of the household
and uses her tongue only to lash and
to find fault The ideal home is not
where the genius of the mother is de-
voted to scheming and planning how
TO outdo her neighbor in dress or in
inery: not where the mothers ambi-
ton lies for example, in establishing
for herself the reputation of being the
most fashionably dressed woman in the
community. The ideal home is not
where the mother develops into
iaded society woman, whose heart and
i'll eHed with thoughts only OF
ces of yesterday and the
so-morrow The ideal home
s....... Ne ere the son comes when there
is no other place to go; where he looks
upon his father as a nuisance and his
mother as a burden: where he Is
ashamed to bring his friends, ana
where he seldom, if ever. hears a cheer
full. pleasant word. The ideal home is
not where the daughter looks upon
parents as her slaves, to- work and to toll
for her pleasures and pastimes; where