Real Homes by Golden Rule

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 28, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 21.

Real Homes.

By Golden Rule

Will it not be well for parents to reconsider thoughtfully the question of home-making? Do your children love their home? Do they prize it? Is it the "dearest spot on earth," or a mere boarding-house? If there is a fault, whose is it? If a lack, who is to blame?

Home-making, be it remembered, is a work in which all have a part. Fathers may not shirk their duty by saying that it is "woman's business." Neither can it be done without forethought, direction, and effort. Oftentimes it involves the sacrifice of selfish comforts and pleasures. The happy tumult of the youngsters play may disturb your after-dinner doze. A "children's hour" in the early evening, given up to games and entertainments, in which you are their companions and leaders, may not be so agreeable as to spend the time at play, at the club, or in neighborhood gossip. But you are under bonds, morally, to give yourselves to your family as the need requires. If you do no more than to "raise" your children, you have, before God, no right to have any.

Make your house a real home—cheerful, bright, beautiful in spirit, happy in all its expressions—and you will be a good deal better fitted to begin enjoying Heaven at once, when you get there.—Golden Rule.