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Selfishness in the Home

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 19, 1911

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 88, No. 42.

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Selfishness in the Home

SELFISHNESS is a vice that may intrude itself on a household in the ugliest of forms, but it is also apt to insinuate itself in numberless little requirements, which in the end are most exasperating and injurious. It may be almost impossible to verify the individual act of exaction, it is so trifling and momentary; but the numberless acts which evince the selfish mind are like a cloud of midges. It is a grand rule in the house to ask others to do nothing for us that we can do for ourselves; and when any service is rendered us, to let it be clearly seen that we receive it as a gift, not as a right. The selfishness of our nature needs careful watching and incessant discipline; everything that enters into ideal home life is peculiarly delicate and beautiful, and for the spirit of egotism and selfishness to get into a household is like blight sitting upon a garden of roses. — Selected.