A Happy Home by J. R. Miller, D. D.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 30, 1903

A Happy Home

By J. R. Miller, D. D.

REALLY the making of the home begins before the home is set up—it begins when two agree to unite their lives in marriage. The marriage ceremony does not necessarily ordain happiness. There are lives wedded which never blend. Marriage should not be entered upon hastily, heedlessly, but always reverently, discreetly, prayerfully.

When the marriage tie has been formed, each has a sacred part to perform in making the home one of happiness, of love, of blessing. The husband has a share. Not every man who assumes this relation thinks of the responsibility he accepts when he takes a young girl away from the shelter of parents’ love, the warmest, softest nest in the world, and leads her into a new home, where henceforth his love is to be her only shelter. No man is fit to be a husband who is not a good man. He need not be great, nor rich, nor brilliant, nor clever, but he must be good. His love must be so true that it will not fail in any experience, and will continue strong as ever when both have grown old; and it must be so warm and tender that it will never weary in its thoughtfulness and kindness. The love a true woman’s heart craves is gentle as well as strong, affectionate as well as true.

Home is a woman’s kingdom. There the wife must be strong and beautiful. There she must be her best, and always bring her best. She may do good things outside, in church and society, if she can do them without slighting the duties that are hers within her own doors. But if any calls for service must be declined, they should not be the duties of her home. These are hers, and no other one’s. Whatever may be the share of others, the happiness of the household, in the last analysis, depends upon the wife. Her spirit gives the home its atmosphere; her heart makes its warmth. And the end is so worthy, so noble, so divine, that no woman who has been called to be a wife, should consider any price too great to pay in order to be the light, the joy, the inspiration, of a home. Men with splendid gifts think it worth while to live to paint a few pictures which shall be admired for generations; or to write a few songs which shall sing themselves into people’s hearts. But the woman who makes a sweet, beautiful home, filling it with love and prayer and holy inspirations, is doing something finer than aught else her hands could find to do beneath the skies.—J. R. Miller, D. D.