A HOME CHAT | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 16, 1896

A HOME CHAT.

PEOPLE are apt to go long distances and pay extravagant sums of money to see and hear what are, in reality, the commonest things.

Mr. A. suddenly makes a fortune by speculating in wheat, and himself and wife betake themselves to foreign lands, where she raves over sunsets no more lovely than those in plain sight from the door of her humble home all the years past. He buys famous paintings, for which he pays thousands of dollars, their one great merit consisting in their being true to nature; but far lovelier and “truer” pictures have been framed for a score of years by the window casements of his rural cottage.

It was something worth while for the country dweller to travel to the city to hear a Patti sing, yet sweeter strains are poured forth every summer morning just outside her window, but she never rouses herself to listen. A bit of cunning legerdemain will set a whole neighborhood agog with wonderment, and yet it gives never a thought to the miracles of nature all about it—such miracles as the birth of a flower, the springing of grain, the metamorphose of a caterpillar into a butterfly.

Some one claims to have been cured of a bodily malady through faith and prayer. Incredulous Christians shake their heads, forgetting that a still greater miracle hath been wrought in them, for “whether is it easier to say, . . . . Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?”

Faith seems a natural thing to exercise in some instances, an unnatural thing in others.

While it is our duty to employ means provided, it is none the less a duty to recognize that the same Infinite One who brings satisfactory results from the use of means, is able to bring about the same results without the means. Above everything else, he would have us recognize his omnipotence.

There is a deal of unrest and discontent in the world because none of us have eyes to see the beauty all about us, or ears to hear the music in the air. Children are now being taught to use the physical eye and ear; would that they, as well as we older ones, might learn to use the spiritual eye and ear.

The humblest laborer has the beautiful sky above, the magnificent landscape about, the glorious sunlight, the pure air, the song of birds, the perfumed flower, the rain, the dew, and, above all, he has God himself, and as clear a title to an equal inheritance of the riches over there as has the millionaire. Not one of us but is abundantly blest if we could but realize it, if we would once stop looking over into “someone’s else garden.”—The Word and the Way.