p. 765 | THAT "SPARE ROOM." by A Minister

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 16, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 48.

THAT "SPARE ROOM."

By A Minister

It makes us shiver to write of it; it has no place in our casket of pleasant memories. Away off in the farther corner of the house, separated from the fire by one or two rooms, unused for several weeks, the same air remaining in the room for the same length of time, and the bedclothing cold, damp, and musty. How the chills creep over you as you enter that room! How like a subterranean vault it smells; and you almost imagine you see the demons of disease lurking in the dark corners, and laughing at the prospect of another victim.

You rush to the window, thinking to admit the pure, free, life-giving air as a welcome guest, and drive out the enemy from his dominion, although he has peaceable possession. But lo! to your dismay the window cannot be raised, and you are doomed to pass the night in misery. You turn to the bed, and the climax is reached. There you find a great, overgrown, disease-breeding feather-bed, that has come down through succeeding generations from the time when the "memory of man runneth not to the contrary."

Undergoing a slow decomposition, it has also within itself the germs of disease of those who have at different times been enveloped within it. You retire, and with you all sweet, pleasant thoughts and happy dreams of childhood, when you slept on straw and husk mattresses, in a chamber where the moon and stars shone through the cracks. Yes; sweet rest is driven away by the demons of that "spare room." You arise in the morning with cold, headache, dullness, and weariness. Your kind hostess asks you how you rested; and you are constrained by her kindly manner to answer, "As well as usual." And indeed you usually have rested badly.

We are glad this picture is not universally true. We try to appreciate the motives and intentions of our kind hostess; but, dear sisters, please "suffer a word of exhortation" from one who has suffered from "that feather-bed" and "spare room." Just open the windows; air the bedclothing; take off that feather-bed; give us a husk or straw mattress, and we will doubly bless you. No matter if it does seem "hard" and poor to you, let us decide that. Give us these, with good, plain food, and we'll try to give better sermons. But of all luxuries, spare us the feather-bed.

A MINISTER.