p. 11 | The Home and the Youth by G. B. THOMPSON

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Oct 26, 1905

The Home and the Youth

By G. B. THOMPSON

G. B. THOMPSON

THE work of saving the young from the evil influences of the world is no small task. It requires much study, hard, faithful work, and earnest prayer. But they are well worth the required effort, and everything possible should be done to save them from the paths of sin.

We believe that one of the strongest factors in the solution of this problem is to have the right influence in the home. Too little emphasis has been placed on this matter. Parents can not relegate their responsibility in the work of training their children to the church-school, the Sabbath-school teacher, or some Young People’s Society. The efforts of every agency God has established outside of the home for the salvation of our young people can be vitiated by the wrong influence and surroundings in the home. Much of the work in their behalf has been completely undone in this way in the past.

Home should be the sweetest and most desirable place on earth for the young, and if it is a proper home, it will be. Around the recollections of our childhood home cluster memories which passing years never efface. It may be a snow house in the frozen Klondike, or in the region of perpetual snow in Siberia. It may be some humble place hidden away among the foliage and perfume of perennial flowers in some sunny, southern clime. It may possibly be a tent on some arid waste, or a dugout on the plains. It may be a cabin in the woods, or a cottage where the music of the restless ocean waves is heard. It may be a princely mansion of a king, the palace of a millionaire, or some congested tenement located in the midst of outlawry and crime, yet there is “no place like home.”

Then here is a child, innocent and pure. Its surroundings in the home determine to a great extent its future destiny. If born in the home of a king, it is a member of a royal family. If born in squalor, amid the haunts of vice and immorality, its training and surroundings will likely produce a criminal. If reared in the atmosphere of a Christian home, the opportunities for a noble, useful life are greatly enhanced.

Parents should seek in the home not simply to teach the younger members of the family the principles of the message in abstract, but they should live before them the sincere life of a Christian. The home should be a place of culture, cheerfulness, and heavenly contentment,—a place where the sweet graces which come from communing with the Lord are manifest to win the youth to Christ. All criticism and faultfinding should be excluded.

Then, too, I believe we should study to make the home inviting, so that the children will love home better than any other place. Be happy yourself, and strive to make them happy. Let the home be for the children rather than strangers. Give them the freedom of the home. Let them have access to the best rooms. Nothing is too good for them. Open the windows and let in the fresh air of heaven. Have no damp, musty rooms which are rarely opened, except when strangers come, or when there is a funeral in the family. Open the blinds, and let in the light and sunshine though they fade the carpet. Better to have the carpets faded, than the children lost. Have you any of these dark, gloomy rooms in your home? If so, open them up, and let their walls echo with the laughter and merry voices of the children. Don’t forever be finding fault with them, causing them to feel as if they were in the way. This wicked thing has placed many a noble boy and girl beyond the reach of hope, and ruined their lives of usefulness forever. We should strive in every way possible to make our home attractive. Governor Warfield, of Maryland, in a recent speech, said:—

“The requisites of a perfect home are love, neatness, cheerfulness, contentment, mutual helpfulness, unselfishness, and the Christian virtues. No home can be attractive unless there is cleanliness within and without. No cheerfulness is possible unless harmony and affection prevail, leavened with the spirit that brings united action by the household in all domestic relations and duties. It is beautiful to see a husband and wife go hand in hand through life, enjoying its pleasures together, dividing its duties, and mingling their sympathy in the hour of trial and disappointment.

“Nothing makes a more favorable impression when you enter a home than cleanliness, and a neat and orderly condition of all the household effects. I have no patience with a slovenly man or untidy woman, and I believe that such personal carelessness produces more unrest, discontent, and unhappiness than anything else in domestic life.

“A man who is wearied and worn by his daily routine work upon the farm or in his place of business, returning at night to find his home in disorder, a wife with disheveled hair and soiled garments, the food placed upon the table in a helter-skelter way and served in a slovenly manner, has much to discourage and depress him. And a husband who won’t tidy himself up and show some appreciation of what his wife does to make his home attractive and refined is equally culpable. In every household order and neatness should prevail, the table should be neatly set, and the meals daintily served; and instead of pushing the dishes aside unwashed to attract flies, a tidy and neat housekeeper will, as soon as the meal is over, clear the table, polish the ware, and place it aside in the cupboards until it is needed again.”

We write these things in behalf of our youth. We believe that greater emphasis must be given to the place the home has in the special work now being undertaken in behalf of the youth. While we all can not be rich, we can all be neat, clean, and cheerful, and can have in our lives and homes the winning graces of Christian love and deportment.

Take time for prayer and the study of God’s Word. Take some time each day to interest yourself in the younger members of your household. Proper co-operation in the home, with the efforts being made outside of the home, will do much toward solving the problem which confronts us in the work of training our youth to become laborers in the cause of God.

Washington, D. C.