Love in the Home by Mary Alice Hare Loper, M.S.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 21, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 20.

Love in the Home

By Mary Alice Hare Loper, M.S.

HE earthly home was founded upon the great principle of love — love to God and love to man. The first home was established in the Garden of Eden, and was the divine ideal which should have remained forever. But sin entered, and the first household suffered the awful consequences, which were destined to affect more or less every household from Paradise lost to Paradise restored. Through disobedience the human race came under the sentence of death, and only love, divine love, could commute it. The whole universe of God stood in awe before the amazing love and condescension of Christ hanging upon Calvary's cross, suffering the agonies of death, that man might find salvation through obedience.

This old earth has many lingering traces of Eden yet remaining, which enrapture the eye of the beholder. But there is no sight in all this world so beautiful as that of a well-ordered, harmonious Christian home — a home where love reigns, where each esteems the other better than himself, where the parents are careful to practise what they preach, where the daily lessons instilled into the minds of the children from babyhood to maturity always and forever are given in tenderness and love.

God rules in love, and it was His design that the domestic machinery of the earthly home should run as smoothly as the celestial machinery of the great universe. Only disobedience could cause friction; only love could remove it.

The home life of a child determines what his after-life shall be. The foundation laid in childhood foretells the character of the superstructure of older years. How important, then, that only the gold, silver, and precious stones of loving service shall find a place, leaving entirely out the wood, hay, and stubble of selfish disobedience! O, how many a home government is established upon a cobblestone foundation of threats, cemented with a very unreliable mixture of punishments of various kinds and degrees, which can never withstand the floods of opposition that are sure to come! Love is the fulfilling of God's law. And love is the fulfilling of parental law in the home where God's law is revered. Tyranny has no place; oppression has no place.

When John Howard Payne wrote the immortal words of "Home, Sweet Home," adapting them to the beautiful Sicilian melody now so familiar to us all, he gave to the world a precious legacy which has brought sunshine into millions of hearts. "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." And there is no other place in all the world where the little courtesies of life should be so tenderly given; where loving ministrations should be so cheerfully bestowed; in short, where the sweet principle of love in all the varied details of life should be so diligently practised.

"Home, sweet home!" the place where childhood days are spent, where habits are formed which are to continue through the future! What a halo lingers about the blessed spot! and how the soul of the exile cherishes the pictures which adorn the halls of memory — pictures which the rude hand of time can never efface! There is father with his cares, mother with her perplexities, the children sharing the burdens and responsibilities of every-day life.

There, too, is the family altar, about which were gathered, morning and evening, those who were near and dear, to study God's Word, and to commune with Heaven. Ah! one never becomes so wayward or so aged as to forget the blessed influence of the morning and evening worship where it was once his joy to participate. Only eternity will reveal the number of the multitude saved forever as the direct result of family prayers in the home. The prayer circle is so much nearer Christ than the prayerless circle. But there is no other prayer circle in all the world that should be so important a factor in the salvation of souls, as the family prayer circle. It is there that heart to heart prayers may be offered in the sweetest sense, while the suppliants become more and more firmly bound by the sacred ties of family relationship. And when one goes out from such a home to enter upon a wider sphere of usefulness, he carries with him the fragrance of the blessed incense of the morning and evening offerings.

"The music of life's harp is strangely sweet When it recalls the dear old scenes of home. The wanderer in fancy turns his feet, And half forgets they were taught to roam. A halo seems to linger o'er the place Where childhood days were spent, its joys and tears. Again he greets each dear familiar face, And hears the loving words of former years."

Yes, many of us have just such recollections of the dear old home which is now only a matter of history, while father and mother sleep side by side in the cherished spot made sacred to their memory.

But let us not forget that not every one has such tender recollections as those just pictured. Some never think of home without memories of the birch, the hickory, the willow, the "cat-o'-nine-tails," or the dark closet. Some never think of home without remembering the things which they might have had to make life happy, but of which they were constantly deprived. Weird echoes of father's whippings and mother's scoldings still vibrate in memory, while the list of "don'ts" seems to remain as a permanent cloud over the place once known by the endearing name of home. There are natures in this world that seem to ferment when in close contact with the sweetness of childhood. And the trouble is they blame the children for their own acidity, altho they were just as sour before, only they did not realize it. It requires tests to develop character. In natural chemistry an alkali will neutralize an acid — will so change it that it will no longer react as an acid. In mental chemistry the Holy Spirit will so neutralize the natural acidity of the human nature that association with childhood will no longer cause an unpleasant reaction. Children are in the home not such a little while that parents should cherish their sweetness while it lasts. Parents are so soon gone, that children

should appreciate their advice and counsel, and seek to cast rays of sunshine upon the pathway of advancing years. The home life day by day should be filled with loving ministrations of mutual service and help.

"Its hallowed influence should teach the soul To live for that sweet life which is to come, To struggle on to reach that blessed goal, Beyond which lies eternal 'home, sweet home.'"