THE HEARTHSTONE | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 18, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 32.

THE HEARTHSTONE.

MAN IN THE HOME.

A MAN'S real character will always be more visible in his household than anywhere else; and his practical wisdom will be better exhibited by the manner in which he bears rule there than even in the large affairs of business or public life. His whole mind may be in his business; but, if he would be happy, his whole heart must be in his home. It is there that his genuine qualities most surely display themselves,—there that he shows his truthfulness, his love, his sympathy, his consideration for others, his uprightness, his manliness,—in a word, his character. If affection be not the governing principle in a household, domestic life may be the most intolerable of despotisms. Without justice, also, there can be neither love, confidence, nor respect, on which all true domestic rule is founded. Erasmus speaks of Sir Thomas More's home as "a school and exercise of the Christian religion." "No wrangling, no angry word was heard in it; no one was idle; everyone did his duty with alacrity, and not without a temperate cheerfulness." Sir Thomas won all hearts to obedience by his gentleness. He was a man clothed in household goodness; and he ruled so gently and wisely that his home was pervaded with an atmosphere of love and duty. He himself spoke of the hourly interchange of the smaller acts of kindness with the several members of his family as having a claim upon his time as strong as those other public occupations of his life which seemed to others so much more serious and important.

MAN AND HIS WIFE.

For a man to enjoy true repose and happiness in marriage, he must have in his wife a soul-mate as well as a help-mate. But it is not requisite that she should be merely a pale copy of himself. A man no more desires in his wife a manly woman than the woman desires in her husband a feminine man. A woman's best qualities do not reside in her intellect, but in her affections. She gives refreshment by her sympathies, rather than by her knowledge. "The brain women," says Oliver Wendell Holmes, "never interest us like the heart women." Men are so often wearied with themselves that they are rather predisposed to admire qualities and tastes in others different from their own. "If I were suddenly asked," says Mr. Helps, "to give proof of the goodness of God to us, I think I should say that it is most manifest in the exquisite difference he has made between the souls of men and women, so as to create the possibility of the most comforting and charming companionship that the mind of man can imagine." But though no man may love a woman for her understanding, it is not the less necessary for her to cultivate it on that account. There may be difference in character, but there must be harmony of mind and sentiment,—two intelligent souls as well as two loving minds:—

"Two heads in council, two beside the hearth, Two in the tangled business of the world, Two in the liberal offices of life."

DISAPPOINTMENT IN MARRIAGE.

Some persons are disappointed in marriage because they expect too much from it, but many more, because they do not bring into copartnership their fair share of cheerfulness, kindliness, forbearance, and common sense. Their imagination has perhaps pictured a condition never experienced on this side of heaven; and when real life comes, with its troubles and cares, there is a sudden waking up as from a dream. Or they look for something approaching perfection in their chosen companion, and discover by experience that the fairest of characters have their weaknesses. Yet it is often the very imperfection of human nature, rather than its perfection, that makes the strongest claims on the forbearance and sympathy of others, and, in affectionate and sensible natures, tends to produce the closest unions. The golden rule of married life is "Bear and forbear." Marriage, like government, is a series of compromises. One must give and take, refrain and restrain, endure and be patient. One may not be blind to another's failings, but they may at least be borne with good-natured forbearance. Of all qualities, good temper is one that wears and works the best in married life. Conjoined with self-control, it gives patience,—the patience to bear and forbear, to listen without retort, to refrain until the angry flash has passed. How true it is in marriage that "the soft answer turneth away wrath!"

MORAL INFLUENCE OF A WIFE.

There are few men strong enough to resist the influence of a lower character in a wife. If she does not sustain and elevate what is highest in his nature, she will speedily reduce him to her own level. Thus a wife may be the making or the unmaking of the best of men. An illustration of this power is furnished in the life of Bunyan. The profligate tinker had the fortune to marry, in early life, a worthy young woman of good parentage. "My mercy," he himself says, "was to light upon a wife whose father and mother were accounted godly. This woman and I, though we came together as poor as poor might be (not having so much household stuff as a dish or a spoon betwixt us both), yet she had for her part 'The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven' and 'The Practice of Piety,' which her father had left her when he died." And by reading these and other good books, helped by the kindly influence of his wife, Bunyan was gradually reclaimed from his evil ways, and led gently into the paths of peace.—Selected.