HOME COURTESIES | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 19, 1871

HOME COURTESIES.

A retired governess says: “I am one of those whose lot in life has been to go out into an unfriendly world at an early age; and of nearly twenty families, in which I made my home in the course of about thirty years, there were only three that could be designated as happy families. The source of trouble was not so much the lack of love, as the lack of care to manifest it.” The closing words of this sentence give us the fruitful source of family alienations, of heart-aches innumerable, of sad faces, and gloomy home circles. “Not so much the lack of love, as the lack of care to manifest it.” What a world of misery is suggested by this brief remark! Not more than three happy families in twenty!—and the cause so manifest, and so easily remedied! Ah! in “the small, sweet courtesies of life,” what power resides! In a look, a word, a tone, how much of happiness or disquietude may be communicated! Think of it, reader, and take the lesson home with you.