p. 226 | Home Memories

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 17, 1883

Home Memories.

THERE is one particular class of home memories of which a few words must be said. These are the memories we make in our intercourse one with another. Washington Irving wrote: "Ah! go to the grave of buried love and meditate. There settle the account with thy conscience of every past endearment unregarded of that departed being who never, never can be soothed by contrition. If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent; if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms to doubt a moment of thy kindness or thy truth; if thou art a friend, and hast ever injured by thought, word, or deed the spirit that generously confided in thee; if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one unmerited pang to the true heart that now lies cold beneath thy feet,—then be sure that every unkind look, every ungenerous word, every ungentle action, will come thronging back upon thy memory and knock dolefully at thy soul; be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrowing and repenting on the grave, and utter the unheard groan and pour the unavailing tear—bitter because unheard and unavailing."

The continual remembrance of this truth would sweeten all our tones and give gentleness to all our actions in our home intercourse. If we only could keep in mind all the while how the memory of unkindness, bitterness, or selfishness, one toward another, will pain our hearts when one is taken and the other left, it would be one of the mightiest of all motives for members of a family to dwell together in unity.

A personal friend relates this incident: It was on a bright winter morning that a young man remarkable for gentleness of manner and kindness of heart, went out from his father's house to his daily occupation. Within half an hour, suddenly and without warning, he was called from time to eternity; and before a third of the time he was usually absent had passed, his lifeless form was carried into the home he had left so happily a few hours before. Parents, brothers, and sisters comforted each other as best they could, but the sister nearest in age to the dead brother, whose love and gentleness toward him none would question, seemed to have a sorrow peculiar to herself which found vent to one who sought to comfort her in the bitter and regretful words, "I was not kind to him as he left home this morning."

No one ever knew to what she alluded. It may have been too keen a sense of delinquency which caused the bitter pain in her heart, or it may have been a playful word spoken, or perhaps the mere absence of the usual tenderness. With her loving nature and her unfailing gentleness toward this brother it could have been nothing really unkind. Yet it caused her sore pain as she looked upon the dead face. He could not hear her request now to forgive her, nor could any lavish tokens of love now atone for that which caused her pain. She had not been so kind as usual to him at parting that morning, and the memory added much to the grief of her loving, tender heart over its sudden loss.

One bright summer morning a young man bade his wife and babe good-bye and went away to his work. Before midday there was an accident on the street; the scaffolding on which he was working gave way, and his lifeless body was carried back to his home, from which only a few hours before he had gone out so happily. The shock was terrible, though the news was broken as gently as possible; but there was one comfort that came with wondrous power to the crushed heart of the devoted young wife. The last hour they had spent in each other's company, in the morning, had been peculiarly happy, and their parting at the door had been unusually tender. She had not dreamed at the time that it would be their last talk together, yet there was not a word spoken which caused one painful memory now that she should never see him more nor speak with him again in this world. Every memory of that quiet talk at the breakfast-table, of the morning worship when they knelt side by side in prayer, and of the tender good-bye on the door-step, was full of comfort. Through years of loneliness and widowhood the remembrance of that last hour has been an abiding source of gladness in her life, like a lamp of holy peace.

These two incidents illustrate the importance of unbroken tenderness and affectionateness in the family intercourse. In each moment of our home fellowship we are making memories which may become to us a source either of pleasure or of pain through long future years. We never can tell when we are having our last talk together, or our last meal, or when we are parting at the door never to meet again. Suppose, then, that as you go out in the morning you have a little strife or quarrel with one of the household whom you truly love, and you part, perhaps in anger, with sharp, stinging words, perhaps only in sullen silence. Do you not see how that parting may become a life-long bitterness to you? Death may come to one of you to prevent your ever meeting again, and then the last memory will be one of pain. What a motive this should be to make the household intercourse tender and loving without break or interruption, so that any word spoken, if it should prove to be the last, would leave a hallowed memory for the lonely years!—From "Home Making."