The Home Circle | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 22, 1880

The Home Circle.

A LESSON FOR ALL.

THE following lines bring to mind a touching incident that took place in a town where I once resided. A large school-house stood on the opposite side of the street from our dwelling where scores of children daily assembled. One day nearly every boy and girl, in one of the rooms, as they came to their accustomed seats, placed a flower on the desk of one of the seats that was vacant. Their little schoolmate who usually occupied that place had that morning fallen in death, and these flowers were a tribute of affection from her friends. Happy indeed were those children in this if they were conscious that they had never caused the absent one needless pain. And as we are in the land of the dying we commend the following, from the Christian Register, as a good lesson to all loving hearts:—

“Wait not till the little hands are at rest Ere you fill them full of flowers; Wait not for the crowning tuberose To make sweet the last sad hours; But while in the busy household band, Your darlings still need your guiding hand, Oh, fill their lives with sweetness.

“Wait not till the little hearts are still, For the loving look and phrase; But while you gently chide a fault The good deed kindly praise. The word you would speak beside the bier Falls sweeter far on the living ear; Oh, fill young lives with sweetness.

“Ah! what are kisses on clay cold lips To the rosy mouth we press. When our wee ones fly to their mother’s arms, For love’s tenderest caress! Let never a worldly bauble keep Your heart from the joy each day should reap, Circling young lives with sweetness.

“Give thanks each morn for the sturdy boys, Give thanks for the fairy girls; With a dower of wealth like this at home, Would you rifle the earth for pearls? Wait not for death to gem love’s crown, But daily shower life’s blessing down, And fill young hearts with sweetness.

“Remember the home where the light has fled, Where the rose has faded away; And the love that glows in youthful hearts, Oh! cherish it while you may! And make your home a garden of flowers, Where joy shall bloom through childhood’s hours, And fill young hearts with sweetness.”

A. P. VAN HORN.