p. 143 | What Is Home?

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 9, 1878

What Is Home?

HOME is not based upon riches. Wealth weighs down the purse, and there is a certain satisfaction in holding it, yet a heavy heart outweighs rubies. Many a mother whispers in the ear of her daughter flattering words for the suitor of wealth, and against the other, honorable but poor. Yet silks and velvets and laces form no part of home—there is many a homeless house.

Home is not based on art or culture. These have their place—yet what charms the intellect may freeze the soul. The old clock of the last century; the tall straight-backed chair; the open fire-place with the old fire utensils; these things which whisper of home, and tell old stories of love and war, are more valuable than the products of art.

Home is not based on friendship. Friendship means sympathy and assistance, but home is more than these.

Love is the distinctive characteristic of home, and the power of home is measured by the power of love. That which is the basis of the divine family is likewise the basis of the human; love in all its forms; the love of husband and wife—conjugal; the love of parents for children—parental; the love of children for parents—filial; the love of children for each other—fraternal; and above all, to make the home what it was designed to be, the love of the family must be centered on God.

Marriage is not a human partnership, it is God's decree. With the birth of children comes a responsibility which no one can throw off. Home, the first institution of God's decree, stands first in the world to-day, as a means of good and evil. Summon to yourselves all sacred recollections of the past; gather up the teachings of the blessed book; and look upon the question—what extenuation can there be in a legal breaking-up of home? Differences of taste and judgment may arise, but they ought not to be made so important as to separate the father and mother, and part the children? The magnitude of this theme is shown by the fact that Christ made it one of his leading truths in his sermon on the mount, and a truths we have no right to reject.—Sel.