The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1899-1900, 1899-07-12

Win dA BOOu ihtchAlOhp 40 yOuAos
Neither should the husband without
imperative reason consent to such
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 leyees,
and they are in perpetual whirl, like
a whiptop spinning round and round
and round very prettily, until 1t loses
its equipoise and shoots off into tan
gent But the difference is, in one case
it is top and in the other soul.
Besides this there is an assiduous ac-
emulation of little things around the
private home, which in the aggregate
make great attraction, while the dem
izen of one of these public residences
is apt to say: what is the use? /
have no place to keep them If should
take them Mementos, bric-a-brac, cu-
riosities, quaint chair or cozy lounge,
upholsteries, pictures and thousand
things that accrete in a home are dis
carded or neglected because there is no
homestead in which TO arrange them.
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 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 a
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 chirography
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 one
was born; in that bed such one died;
in that chair | sat on thenight / heard
such a one had received great public
honor; by that stool my child knelt for
her last evening prayer; here I sat TO
greet my son as he came back from sea
voyage; that was fathers cane; that
was mothers rocking chair" What
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 table. No one wants
to run such gantlet of acute and mer-
ciless hypercriticism. Unless you have
a 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
|
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 Publius
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 Christepdom upon which
have come blessings from generation
to generation because their doors
swung easily open in the enlarging, en-
nobling, irradiating and divine grace
of hospitality. | 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-
lure was the sword of bereavement.
The queen of Norway, Sweden and Den
mark had royal cup of ten curves, or
kps, each one having on it the name
Of the distinguished person who had
drunk from it. And that cup which we
offer to others in Christian hospitality,
though it be of the plainest earthen-
ware, is a royal cup, and God can read
on all sides the names of those who
have taken from it refreshment, but
all this is impossible unless you have
home of your own.
1t is the delusion as to what is neces-
sary for home that hinders so many
from establishing one. Thirty rooms
are not necessary, nor 20, nor IS, nor
ten, nor five, nor three. In the right
way plant table, and couch, and knife,
and fork, and cup, and a chair, and
you can raise a young paradise. just
start home on however small scale,
and it will grow. When King Cyrus
was invited to dine with humble
friend, the king made the one condition
| VI Nhul NhN tioA pS ChN
loaf of bread, and the most imperial
satisfactions have sometimes banqueted
on the plainest fare. Do not be caught
in the delusions of many thousands in
postponing a home until they can have
an expensive one. That idea is the dew
n's trap that catches men and women
innumerable who will never have any
home at all. Capitalists of America,
build plain homes for the people. Let
this tenement-house system, in which
hundreds of thousands of the people
of our cities are wallowing in the mire,
be broken up by small homes, where
. people can have their own fresides and
their own altars. In this great conti-
nent there isroom enough for every man
and woman to have home. Morals and
civilization and religion demand it. We
want done all over this land what
, George Peabody and Lady Burdett-