The Happy Home by John Hall

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 25, 1886

The Happy Home.

By John Hall

I HAVE peeped into quiet "parlors," where the carpet is clean and not old, and the furniture polished and bright; into "rooms" where chairs are neat and the floor carpetless; into "kitchens" where the family live and the meals are cooked and eaten, and the boys and girls are as blithe as the sparrows in the thatch overhead; and I see that it is not so much wealth and learning, nor clothing, nor servants, nor toil, nor idleness, nor town, nor country, nor station, as tone and temper, that render homes happy or wretched. And I see, too, that in town or country, good sense and God’s grace make life what no teachers or accomplishments, no means or society, can make it,—the opening stave of an everlasting psalm; the fair beginning of an endless existence; the goodly, modest, well-proportioned vestibule to a temple of God’s building that shall never decay, wax old, or vanish away.—Dr. John Hall.