Domestic Life by Rev. C. Giles

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 30, 1873

Domestic Life

By Rev. C. Giles

DOMESTIC life is the school of patience. Its duties, its difficulties, and its delights, too, are constantly recurring. Only the work of to-day can be done to-day. There is a sameness, also, in the mere external form, an ever-occurring round that must disgust, or make one a mere mechanical drudge, unless the heart is put into the work, and the little, common, trivial acts are made the embodiment of noble ends. Step by step, stitch by stitch, stroke by stroke, the work goes on. One round of duty is completed only to commence another. Every day is a lesson and a practical exercise in patience. It is a good lesson, and we need to learn and practice it. It helps us to do another work, which is absolutely necessary to the perfection of human character and the happiness of home, and that is the surrender of self. When two persons unite in the marriage relation, they become one by mutual concessions. They mutually approach each other. There is much to give up, as well as to give, on both sides. There are many sharp corners to be rounded off, many rough surfaces to be made smooth, and many crooked ways to be made straight, and irregularities to be adjusted. Some of these are in the very grain of the constitution; some of them have been confirmed and hardened into habit, and it is difficult to make any impression upon them. Neither must seek to make self the standard, and to expect all the surrender and conformity from the other. Neither must seek to become the other, but something better than either. When two substances unite chemically, the result is a substance different from either of its components. So it should be in marriage. The result should be favorable to the husband and wife. Each one should become freer, nobler, stronger, purer, and wiser—should attain a higher excellence than either could attain alone. This will always be the result when the rule of action is mutual surrender, accommodation, and help. Each should inquire, What can I yield? In what respect, and how far, can I reform?

Every day will bring occasions to put our principles to the test. There are diversities of taste, of feeling, of judgment, of principle. Happy are those who can yield their own preferences so cheerfully that the diversities of character are softened and shaded off into harmonious varieties, and not hardened into irritation and hostile opposition.

A great part of the sum of domestic misery is caused by this want of mutual accommodation in apparently trivial things. It is as though the builder had left here and there in the floor, partitions and passages, and sharp points of nails to pierce the feet and rend the garments; or as though a thousand rough surfaces and sharp corners were fretting the inmates, and loose, ill-fitting joints were annoying them. If we could see the spiritual house as we see the natural, we should discover all the defects in the very walls. We would see the marks and scars of painful collisions; the want of proportion and harmony in the various apartments. I repeat, then, if we desire to have the work in our spiritual building go on harmoniously to a successful and noble issue, we must seek harmony in little things. Our intercourse must be courteous and respectful. We must be filled with that worthy fear which is the offspring of love—not fear of each other, but fear for each other; fear of ourselves that we may be wanting in some attention or respect; fear that we may do less for each other and exact more from each other than we ought. In a word, we must seek the good of each other and of all in the house, and around that end, as a center, the life of each and all should revolve in freedom. —Rev. C. Giles, in New Jerusalem Messenger.