The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-07-21

apt to a v What is the user I have
no place to keep them IL I should take
them" Mementos, b~ric-a-brac, curl
osities, quaint chair or coy lounge, up
holsteries, pictures and a 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 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. Bless
| ed is hat home in which for a whole
| lifetime they nave been gathering. un-
| til every figure in the carpet, and every
| panel Of the door, and every easement
| of the window has a chirography Of its
own, speaking out something about ia
Their or mother, or son or daughter, or
friend that was with us awhile. What
a sacred place it becomes when one can
1 say: In that room such a one was
born; in that bed such a one died; in
that chair / sat on the night / heard
such a n had received a great public
honor; by that stool my child knelt for
he 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 chairi" What a
joyful and pathetic congress of remi-
n~iscences,
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
ITO run such a gauntlet of acute and
merciless 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 h entertained
/ Elisha, and to the widow of Zerephate
in the perpetual oil we'll of the miracu-
lOuS cruise because h fed a hungry
prophet, and to Rahab in the preserva-
ton of her life at the demolition of
Jericho because she entertained the
| spies, and to Laban in the formation of
an interesting family relation because
Of his entertainment Of Jacob, and to
Lot in his rescue from the destroyed
| city because of his entertainment of
the angels, and to Mary and Martha
and Zaccheus in spiritual blessings be-
| cause they entertained Christ, and to
| PubliuS in the island of Melita in the
| healing of his father because of the
entertainment of Paul, drenched from
the shipwreck, and of innumerable
I IlOuSCS SiOuL NIIlSlcIluOIl upol
! which have come blessings from gen.
| GRAFTON to generation because their
| doors swung easily open in the enlarg-
ing, e~nnobling, irradiating and divine
| grace of hospitality! I do not know
| what your experience has been, but I
| rave had men and women visiting at
my house who left a 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 gospel
| cation that looked out from every line
| ament of their conference.-the their
| departure was the sword of bereave-
| ment. The queen Of Norway, Sweden
| and Denmark had a royal cup of ten
| curves, or lips, each one having on it
! the name of the distinguished person
/ who a drunk from it. And hat cup
! which we offer to others in Christian
! hospitality, though it be of the plain
| est e~arthenware, is a royal cup, and
God can read on all it's sides the anne
! of those who nav taken from It re-
freshment. But all this is impossible
| unless you have a home of you own.
|. A COMMON DELUSION!
1t is the delusion as to what is neces-
| sary for a home that hinders so many
from establishing me-. Thirty rooms
are not necessary, nor 20. nor Is, nor
! 10, nor 5, nor 3. In the right way plant
a table and couch and knife and fork,
and a cup, and a chair, and you can
raise a young paradise. Just start a
home on however small a scale, and it
will grow. When King Cyrus was in
vited to dine with a humble friend,
the king made the one condition of his
| coming that the only dish be one loaf
of bread, and the most imperial salts
factions have sometimes Oanqueted on
the plainest fare. Do not be caught in
the delusion of man. thousands in
%postponing a home until they can have
an expensive one. That idea is the
DEVILS trap that catches men Inc wo-
men innumerable who will never have
any home at all. Capitalists of Amer
lea, 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 a nave their w fire.
sides and their own altar. In this
great continent there is enough
for every man and woman to have a
home. Morals and civilization and re-
ligion demand it. We want done all
over this land what George Peabody
and Lady Burdett-C outts did in Eng
land, and some of h large manufac-
turers of this country have done for
the villages and cities in building
small house at low rents SO that the
middle classes a have separate
homes. They are the only class not
provided for. The rich have their pal
aces and h poor have their poor
houses, and criminals have their jails,
but what about the honest middle
classes, who are able and willing to
work and yet have small income? Let
the capitalists, inspired of God and
pure patriotism, rise and build whole
streets Of small residences. The la
borer may have, at the close Of the
day, to walk " ride farther than is de-
sirable to reach it, but when he gets
to his destination in the eventide he
l will find something worthy of being
! called by that glorious and impas-
stoned n heaven descended word
"home."
PLEA FOR CHILDREN.
:. Young married man, as soon as o
can, buy such a place eve if you have
to put on 1T a mortgage reaching from
base to capstone. The much abused
mortgage, which is ruin to a reckless
man, to n prudent and provident is
the beginning Of a competency and a