The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1910-02-03
Love for the Home.

The Importance of Home Life
in all That Makes for True
Manhood and True Woman
hood. A Lesson That Amer
cans Need to Learn More
Than Amy Others, Declares
Washington City Minister
Some Things That Have
Left Our National Character
Devoid of Many of Those
Virtues Which Only Thrive
at Home.
Love for the Home was the theme
of strong sermon recently preached
by Rev. DR.. Russell, pastor of one of
the churches i'll Washington City,
from which the Washington Herald
quotes literally. The following ex-
tracts make timely reading:
Hotels and sky-scraping apart
ment houses are taking the place of
the private dwelling and furnish a
garish setting for pretentious semi
public lives said DR.. Russell
So-called social obligations and the
various charities run on scientific
principles came in for criticism, and
the perils that ensue to younger
members of a family whose mother is
continually in u mad and breathless
rush from engagement to engage
ment were described.
IF there is a lesson that we Ameri-
cans need to learn more than any
other, it is the Importance of home
life in all that makes for true man.
hood and true womanhood. The
thirst for exciting pleasures, the lust
of travel and the greed for gain have
robbed the home of it's attractions,
and in consequence have left our ma
tional character devoid OF many of
those virtues which only thrive at
home.
Vulgar Ostentation, display, and
| conspicuOusness are no longer
thought incompatible with the title
| 'gentlewoman'-a title in these days
too often found divorced from all
those characteristics that once upon
a time it stood for as symbol.
"Hotels and sky-scraping apart
ment houses are taking the place o.
the private house and furnish gar
ish setting for pretentious semi-publiC
lives. The daily papers are invited
eagerly to throw their limelight into
every corner and upon the small
existence.
"Picture that through courtesy, OF
for the Want of a more appropriate
title, We shall call the home life of {
majority of our families. The differ
ent members hardly ever meet durin.
the entire day.
1.-THE men are absorbed in thei
business affairs, the children al
school and the mother passing in {
mad and breathless rush from en-
gagement to engagement has less in
terest in her home. less love for bel
children, less ambition to fulfill hel
divinely appointed vocation o
motherhood than she has to becom,
the president of one of the innumer
able clubs of which she is a member
She lives and moves and has he
being in her club life-clubs Of al
sorts and conditions, with every rea
son for their being that can he vel
imagined.
The men and boys dispense t.
their clubs, saloons, or favorite stree
corners. The daughters seek to giIt
existence in euchre parties. dance
and miscellaneous balls, or meet thei
friends in the soft moonlight OF th,
parks, if they do not choose to mo
nopolize for the purpose the onl!
comfortable aud attractive room a
home, from which the rest of the fam
lily is vigorously excluded.
rs it a great wonder, then, tina
the men, driven from what is prob
ably the one attractive spot an
banished to rooms bleak aud barren
cold and comfortIess, perhaps, spel
outside for a vitiated form of thos
pleasures and entertainments which
are denied them under their owl
roof-denied, only to be bestowed OIL
those who have no right or title Il
them strange men their sister
friends?
III nothing in the house is too
good for the daughters, the YER,
best should not he too good for TIN
| SONS.
This, then, is the American home
In former DE- g, when the young maj
or woman came of age friends OF tb'
family deemed suita bic We're invited
to the home, which was bedecked on
in holiday attire for the occasion.
ut is to the American mother tina
the nation must look for its uplifting
its p-buildinc-fOr the saving Of 1T
very sOul--from wandering through
dry places to the garden-close o
domesticity-to the old pure higI
ideals Oh womanbood, OF wifehoOd
and of motherhood. Then it shall
relearn the old-time lessons OF calm
eelf-poise, and self control, and make
to live again the long dead sanctitie'
of simplicity and candor, self-forget
fuIness and honor in its finest phases
delicacy, duty, family affection-witi
all the old exquisite meaning o
peaceful happiness. whose symbol il
the home"