The Cure for Wretched Homes
By Walter Wynn
Walter Wynn, in the New Zealand “Christian Herald” The home is the foundation of church and state. The homes of the people contain the real, unwritten history of the life of any nation. There is no place like home, whether it be good or bad; for if it be good it is heaven, and if it be bad no hell in the universe can surpass its possibilities of wretchedness. And what cure, immediate, direct, have we for wretched homes? I have a cure, and have proved that it is a perfect one: Allow Christ to enter them. Do some men sneer at that cure? I care nothing for their sneers. Sneers at Christianity are the tainted property of little men. I have seen Christ enter homes, and work miracles of transformation in them. They have become attractive and wholesome, sober and clean. That fact should place all sneers at a discount. I have seen dirt, drunkenness, lust, lying, deceit, and hatred all vanish like creeping fiends at the approach of Christ. Directly you open the door of your heart, and take Christ into your home, and keep Him there, mark my words—all devils will make room for Him. I go into homes sometimes, and it is no surprise to me that fathers and sons spend their evenings outside them. When mothers and daughters prefer novels to cleanliness, and bickering to cheerfulness, you need not be surprised what happens. The home should be attractive, clean, wholesome, morally pure. Otherwise, men seek clubs; and when they commence that kind of thing, it is hard work getting them to love their homes. My sisters, and you, dear mothers, believe me, your responsibility at home is great. What I owe to my mother! She was the angel of my young days. To her, religion was not a pious sham, but a solid reality. Her daily example was the most eloquent sermon ever preached to me. It went to the core of my being, and will linger with me all my days. Talk about preachers! I have heard the best of them. I thank them for the good they have done me; but if they and all of us could only preach as my mother preached to me, I tell you, dear friends, Christ would begin to reign in this world. She loved me even when I did not deserve her love. These memories wring our hearts. “Do your duty, my boy. Love Jesus. He will supply all your needs. Learn to be good, and brave, and true.” Blessed mother! I thank thee. I have heard no preacher in this world who could preach like thee. Tongue of fire, tongue of love, tongue of grace, Jesus was thine. A good mother, she is mightier than all the pulpits, all senates—she rules the planet in righteousness; but a bad mother—! Let me tell you two life-stories. Richard Cecil, the great London preacher, says that he tried to be an infidel when he was a youth, but he could not gainsay or resist his mother’s beautiful piety. He tells us that “she used to talk to me, and weep as she talked. I flew out of the house with an oath; but I cried, too, when I got out into the street.” “Yes,” says Dr. Cuyler, “if all mothers were but fervent in prayer, the church in the home would feed the communion table in God’s house.” Richard Cecil became a great preacher. My second life-story is this: A man told me his home life was like being in hell. His mother was irreligious, and quarreled, and bickered, and snarled at his father—a quiet, good man. “I would have died for my mother as against my father,” he said, “but I had to live to discover that my mother was a fool.” Terrible thing when natural affection can be won to ruin a father’s life! You need not remind me of men’s sins in relation to their home life—I know them. My point now is that it is to the mothers of our land we must look for cooperation and sympathy in our efforts to win men for Christ.