The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-10-01

daughters went to visit a school friend
 in the east or on the ranch, your wife had
 to take the sick child down to the sea
 shore you as the husband and father
 were away for some time on a business
 trip and when you returned you had to
 spend most of your time in the city. You
 snatched your Sundays off and a few days
 here and there to go to the country. but
 for the most part you were alone. Now the family is reunited. Schools have opened. The boys and girls have to come
 back to their books The many dangers of travel are past. Say what you will you worried great deal about that boy
 of yours using that gun. Yes; you are all
 home again, safe and we'll Thank God today for your reunited families! "AmenI
 Amenl' I can hear from dozens of grate-
 full lips as great climax to this domes-
 tic thanksgiving.
 Thanks for Reunited Families. Then, again, I want you to thank God that you have returned to the work of the store, or the factory, or the office.
 Let me see how long were you out In tho country? Two weeks? Three weeks? Ten days? Oh. it does not matter much how | long. l know one fact about you, and | that is you were away long enough to | know that the hardest work a strong, healthy man ever has to do is to learn | how to do nothing When you left the | city some months ago you went off in 1 high hopes. Nothing to do; nothing to | do,' was your congratulatory cry. The | first night you went to bed in the country | you said to yourself: Now l am going | to stay in bed just as long as l wish. I am not going to get up until Il o'clock if l do not desire" Did you stay in bed 1 until Ii o'clock? Oh, no. You arose at 1 your regular time. Old habits cannot be I broken in day.
 1 Then after a few fishing trips and a few mountain climbs you began to grow l restless. You wanted to get back to work. Then. If I mistake not. 1t has been | your good fortune during this vacation | to be thrown with few chemically un- | happy men-unhappy because they have I nothing to do. Perhaps on account of | inherited wealth or from the fact that l fhey have made money they retired from | business to have a good time What a | miserable mistake they have made. h. stead of being happy with nothing to do, you have found that they are the most unhappy of men. They spend most of their time in playing nurse girl or picking | up pins or in finding fault with their chill | dren or in making the lives of their wives | as miserable their own. The simple | fact is full blooded man like you has | no business loafing around the house with nothing to do. If you loiter about the
 house thus you will degenerate Into noth- ] ing but a first-class "fusser" and a genu- | inc masculine nuisance. You know that 1 you never felt happier than when you | boarded the street car the other day and | started for the store. In my time have | hundreds of healthy men who had retired | from business because they had amassed | a competency. I never envied one of | them. I have always thanked God, first, 1 that he has given me health; secondly, | that he has compelled me to work. Thank
 God today that you have been able to l cast off the inactivities of vacation and have been compelled to go back to the | daily treadmills of manual and mental l toll. The financial struggles of life not 1 only earn bread for our children, but also
 unlimited joys for our own healthful phy- i sical and mental existence.
 Vacation From Church.
 1 But as I welcome you back to the store ! and to the domestic firesides and to your l reunited families l also welcome you ! back to your church home and to your l family pew. I welcome you home to the household of faith" l welcome you | home to Gods temple, where you can worship God better than in any other | church in all this round planet. I well come you back from this pulpit and to | this altar
 1 What do I mean by making such a | statement as this? You may have sat In | finer churches than your own while ou have been away: you may have heard
 moro eloquent preachers than your own