Arizona republican., 1911-08-07
INVITATION
 ID EARTH Would Bring Happiness to
 The Heart TEXT FROM REVELATIONS
Secretary Compares Gentle man Owl Club With Ari- zona and Afro-American Clubs -"If We Are Wrong So Are They"

Clarence Spaulding, who fills the pulpit of the first Prsbyterian church of Phoenix during the absence of the pastor, Rev. Henry Martin Campbell, D. b, preached yesterday morning from the text, Behold, stand at the door and knock" taken from Revela- ton 8: 20. He said:
 Behold I stand at the door and knock-if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and sup with him and he with me-
 What are some of the ways m which Christ knocks at our hearts? I believe you will agree with me that the most impressionable age of our life is child hood. Then we are learning things for the first time; we are laying the foun- dation of our lives. We are more ready to listen to the promptings of the inner voice What are the ways? How does Christ knock at the heart of a little child? It has been said that Jesus, home and mother are the sweetest words in language. Home, Home, Sweet Home What a world of mem. ories that one words brings up!
 Home is the safe place; home is the familiar place: home is the place of refuge. Home is the place where moth
 CT is, the place where life began, the place where, deep down in our hearts We hope it will end. I believe I am speaking a truth when I say that no matter how far astray a person has gone iH sin: no matter how dehauched his manhood may be, be he an outcast from society or at cross purposes with the world, to the last, the heart of man or woman will soften and the eyes blur with tears as the thoughts of the Christian home flash across his mind. and he think of the mother and her tender care to make his life pure and true in the image. after the pattern of Him who taught us to pray Our Father Who art in Heaven and who said Suffer little children to come unto Me. and forbid them not for such is the kingdom of Heaven Surely, surely, Christ knocks at the heart of a child through the home.
 But closely allied. closely linked and interwoven with the influence of the home is the influence of the mother. The mother in no small sense makes the home. Love makes the mother. Some one has said that the richest her itage any child could have is the mem ory Of mother who prays. The Ro- man Catholic church makes the boast that if you give to them the training of the infant until itJ seventh year. it will be Roman Catholic the rest of Its days. and the record of the church proves the truth of the statement. It is a true and terrifying testimony tol the wonderful receptivity of the child's nature, to absorb and be guided. If it only takes seven years of Christian dis cipline and teaching to insure that a child will walk in line with the church. how many years of evil association and influence do you imagine will be needed for the devil to feel assured that the young life will be his in spite of all efforts made later in life to obtain ii? Right earnestly indeed then need weI pray, God bless our homes. God save our homes. God make them an influence for good on the young lives sheltered there For the home. life is the index to the national life; The home that is founded on purity and truth and cd Is the pillar of society and the salvation of the state. Through the home does Christ knock at our hearts 10 attain to purer domestic life and more es- pecially through the mother in thel home. In the songs that are sung or hummed as the little one is being put to sleep; in the little prayer it is taught to say, Now lay me down to sleep; in the thousand and one ways mothers have of impressing their own person alities on their children and in teach ing them the beauties of truth and hol- mess: and the home that is not thus fulfilling its mission i. falling far short of the Christian ideal.
 Why is it that in the family, in the home. the mother is the best be- loved? Because she is the most self sacrificing; because she is the servant of all. If there is anything wanting the mother denies herself for those shel loves. And when death takes her pres ence from the circle there is a great gap, a vacant place left which cannot be filled Even so in the family of cd. He is the greatest who is the ser want of all
 q was reading not long ago of lit- tie boy, eleven years old, who fell outl of a tree and was fatally injured, as hei vas climbing to feed a nest of little birds whose parents had been killed by boys of the neighborhood. and who had left the little ones to starve. Therel was something in that boys training that had put him in sympathy with suffering and pain, even in brute crea- ton. ou remember the story of the Ancient Mariner? By the wanton killing of an albatrcs terrible misfor- tune befell the ship, and the poets con- clusion at the end of the poem is HeI liveth best who loveth best, all things both great and small. for the Dear Lord who loveth us, He made and boveth