The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1899-07-14

plete that it is world in itself, no one
entering except by permission-bolted
and barred and chained against all out
side inquisitiveness. The phrase so
often used in law books and legal circles
is nightly uggestive-every mans
house is his castle. AS much as though
it had drawbridge, portculis, redoubt,
bastion and armed turret. Even the Of
ficer of the law may not enter to serve
q writ except the door be voluntarily
opened unto him. Burglary or the inva-
sion of it is a crime so offensive that the
law clashes its iron jaws on anyone who
attempts it. Unless it be necessary to
stay for longer or shorter time in fam
lily hotel or boarding house-and there
are thousands of instances in which it
is necessary, as l showed you at
the beginning-unless this exceptional
case, let neither wife nor husband con-
sent to such permanent residence.
The probability is that the wife will
have to divide her hus bands time with
public smoking or reading-room or with
some coquettish spider in search of I'M
wary flies, and if you do not entirely
lose your husband it will be because he
is divinely protected from the disasters
that whelmed thousands of husbands
with as good intentions as yours.
Neither should the husband without
imperative reason consent to such a
life unless he is sure his wife can with
stand the temptation of social dissipa-
ton which sweeps across such places
with the force of the Atlantic ocean
when driven by September equinox.
Many wives give up their homes for
these public residences so that they
may give their entire time to operas,
theaters, balls, receptions and levees,
and they are in perpetual whirl like
a whiptop spinning round and round
and round very prettily, until it loses
its equipoise and shoots off into tan
gent. But the difference is, in one case
it is a top and in the other a soul.
Besides this there is an assiduous ac-
emulation of little things around the
private home, which in the aggregate
make a great attraction, while the den
izen of one of these public residences
is apt to say: what is the use? l
have no place to keep them if l should
take them" Mementos, bric-a-brac, GU
riosities, quaint chair or coy lounge,
upholsteries, pictures and thousand
things that accrete in home are dis
carded or neglected because there is no
And yet they are the case in which the
pearl of domestic happiness is set. You
can never become as attached to the
appointments of a boarding house or
family hotel as to those things that you
can call your own and are associated
with the different members of your
household or with scenes of thrilling
import in your domestic history.
Blessed is that home in which for
whole lifetime they have been gather
ing until every figure in the carpet and
every panel of the door and every case
ment of the window has chirographE
of its own, speaking out something
about father or mother or son or daugh-
ter or friend that was with us awhile.
What sacred place it becomes when
one can say: I'm that room such a one
was born; in that bed such one died;
in that chair l sat on thenight | heard
such one had received a great public
honor; by that stool my child knelt for
her last evening prayer; here / sat to
greet my son as he came back from sea
voyage; that was fathers cane; that
was mothers rocking chair" What a
joyful and pathetic congress of remi-
niscences
The public residence of hotel and
boarding house abolishes the grace of
hospitality. Your guest does not want
to come to such a table. No one wants
to run such gantlet of acute and mer-
CHESS hypercriticism. Unless you have
home of your own you will not be able
to exercise the best rewarded of all the
graces. For exercise of this grace what
blessing came to the Shunammite in the
restoration of her son to life because
she entertained Elisha, and to the wild
ow of Zarephath in the perpetual oil
well of the miraculous cruise because
she fed hungry prophet, and to Ra-
hab in the preservation of her life at the
demolition of Jericho because of his
entertainment of Jacob, and to Lot in
his rescue from the destroyed city be-
cause of his entertainment of the an
gels, and to Mary and Martha and
Zaccheus in spiritual blessing because
they entertained Christ, and to Pubius
in the island of Melita in the healing of
his father because of the entertain
ment of Paul, drenched from the ship. |
wreck, and of innumerable houses
throughout Christendom- upon which |
have come blessings from generation
to generation because their doors
swung easily open in the charging, en-
nobling, irradiating and divine grace
of hospitality. l do not know what
your experience has been, but | have
had men and women visiting at my
house who left benediction on every |
room-in the blessing they asked at the
table, in the prayer they offered at the
family altar, in the good advice they
gave the children, in the gospelization
that looked out from every lineament |
of their countenances, and their depar-
ture was the sword of bereavement.
The queen of Norway, Sweden and Den
mark had a royal cup of ten curves, or