CHARACTER OF THE MASTER

OTHER: We have now taken a hasty look at the larger rooms in the body-house. I hope that the short visit we have made to each will create in you all a wish to know more about them. Do not think you have learned it all; for we have only begun to study its beauties and wonders.

Helen: But why do we need to know so much about it?

Mother: That you may be able to care for it properly, and “glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” We are not our own, and some day we must give account for the way in which we have treated this holy temple given into our care. “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”

The house we live in was not made for us simply to look at and admire its beauty. It was made to be useful, as well as beautiful. We have brains, to think and plan. We have eyes, to see what needs to be done, and ears, to hear what we are told to do. We have two hands, with ten fingers, which makes it easy for us to handle different objects; and they must be taught to be skilful. We also have two feet, to carry us wherever work needs to be done. A doll may be pretty, but it is not very useful, for it can not do anything.

Percy: And there seems to be plenty of work to be done everywhere.

Mother: There certainly is! Just think of how many houses must be built, how many clothes must be made, how many breakfasts and dinners must be cooked, how many schools there are to teach, how many fields to plow, sow, and reap, how many books and papers to be made that we may have something to read, and ever so many other kinds of work to be done to make ourselves and others comfortable and happy.

Amy: Can we children help?

Mother: Yes, indeed; there is something for every boy and girl to do in lifting burdens, and making the world better and brighter because they have lived in it.

Elmer: What can boys do?

Mother: One of the best things which can be said of any boy is that he is a real help at home. Of course he should go to school and learn many things there; but he should also learn to work. A boy can learn to drive a team, plow, hoe, plant, rake, and do the different kinds of work to be done on a farm or in a shop. He should learn how to use tools, the hammer, saw, plane, and others; for almost every man at some time in his life needs to have knowledge of this kind.

Percy: Should boys ever do housework, mother?

Mother: It is no disgrace to them to know how to wash dishes, make a bed, sweep a floor, or to set the table. If they can do such things they will be a help to mother as well as to father. They may bring in the wood and coal, and so save many steps for mother and sister. Nothing that a boy can do in the house makes him unmanly. It rather marks as a true gentleman one who is able and willing to do whatever needs to be done, no matter what it is. There is one other thing that he should not fail to learn.

Helen: What is that?

Mother: To keep his own room in order. He should hang up his clothes, and have a place in which to keep his things, and see that they are kept there. There is no reason why a boy’s sister should hang up his coat and hat, put away his books, or keep his room in order. He can do all these things for himself. I once went into a boy’s room after he had dressed to go for a visit. It looked as though a small cyclone had passed through it. Soiled clothes were on the table and under the bed. A muddy boot was on a chair, and his jacket and trousers were thrown in a heap in a corner. The bed was unmade. Dirty water stood in the wash-basin. The comb was on the floor. All was confusion and disorder. A dis-or´der-ly boy makes a dis-or´der-ly man.

Elmer: But you haven’t told us what the girls should do.

Mother: Some girls seem to think that if they can have a pale face, white hands, and a slender form, this makes them ladies. But a girl can be healthy, strong, and useful without being rough, coarse, or unladylike. Perhaps you have seen girls who thought it was all right for their mothers to cook, wash, scrub, and do all that must be done in a home, but who seemed to think that their own hands were too pretty and were not made to do that kind of work. Some one ought to whisper to such girls that their hands are no better than their mother’s. Their hands have ten fingers, just as hers have. They were made to work, just as hers were; and they should be trained to be so loving and helpful that those persons for whom they care most will not stop to ask if they are white or brown.

Learning to sew.

Helen: I am not afraid to use my hands, mother. What shall they be taught to do?

Mother: How to wash, to sweep, scrub, cook, and sew; how to make a bed, and sweep in the very best way; how to wash and iron well. It may be that girls who do this kind of work will get tired, and their backs and arms will ache, but it will not hurt them. A night’s sleep will rest the muscles and make them ready for another day’s work. It is right for girls to excel at school; but while studying their books, they should learn to be useful and lighten the burdens at home.

Amy: But should girls work out-of-doors, mother?

Mother: If they live where they can, it is well for them to do so, at least to learn how to do some of the lighter work that comes to father and brothers. They should be able to milk a cow, harness a horse, make a garden, and do some of the lighter kinds of farm-work. Miss Frances Willard was taught this when a girl, and it proved to be a lifelong blessing. But in this, our last talk, we will take just a peep at the rooms in which the master of the body-house lives. In these rooms no one may enter but the master himself.

Percy: But where shall we find these rooms?

Mother: They are in the mind. I must tell you before we go further that they are our thoughts. I can not tell what you think about, and you can not tell what is in my mind, only as we put our thoughts into words. I wish I could help every boy and girl to feel how important it is to have clean, good thoughts. “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he;” that is, a person is no better than his thoughts are, and he is just as good. If the thoughts are wrong, the person is all wrong, no matter how good he may appear to be.

Helen: I found a little poem about our thoughts and put it in my scrap-book. May I read it, mother?

Mother: Please do; I know we all want to hear it.

Helen: Here it is:—

“There were idle thoughts came in at the door,

And warmed their little toes,

And did more mischief about the house

Than any one living knows.

“They scratched the tables and broke the chairs,

And soiled the floor and wall;

For a motto was written above the door,

‘There’s a welcome here for all.’

“When the master saw the mischief done,

He closed it with hope and fear,

And he wrote above, ‘Let none

Save good thoughts enter here.’

“And the good little thoughts came trooping in,

When he drove the others out;

They cleaned the walls, they swept the floor,

And sang as they moved about.

“And last of all an angel came,

With a kindly, shining face,

And above the door he wrote, ‘Here

Love has found a dwelling-place.’”

Mother: That is very good. Let us all take for our motto, “Let none save good thoughts enter here.” Now I think you understand that as we are talking of passing through different rooms, we mean that we are in the “chambers of the mind,” and we imagine that we are looking at a person’s thoughts. We will look inside of just a few rooms, and from them we can form an idea of the rest.

Elmer: Where shall we go first?

Mother: I think you will like to look in here, where the master keeps his pets. He is fond of birds, cats, dogs, and all kinds of animals; and where this room is large in the mind, you will find the master kind to them all. He will not give them pain if he can help it, and takes pleasure in making them happy.

Amy: I think I should like to visit this room often.

Mother: In this smaller room he keeps his money. Sometimes this room is so small, and he cares for it so poorly, that he wastes about all that he gets, and keeps very little. In some houses this room is very large, and the master lives here nearly all the time. His greatest delight is to shut himself in and count his money over and over. He becomes very selfish by doing in this way, and he will not part with what he has either for his own comfort or that of others. People who have such large rooms, and use them in this way, are called misers.

Percy: I don’t want to be one.

Mother: I am glad you do not. It is best to have only a medium-sized room of this kind. Here is the room where Taste sends his messages. If the room is very large, you may be sure that the master enjoys nothing so much as something good to eat. This is not a good room in which to spend much of one’s time, though every one should visit it several times each day. There are quite a number of small rooms not far from this one. In one the master goes to study his a-rith´me-tic. In another, he measures things. In another, he has a pair of scales to weigh them. In another, he keeps samples of all shades of colors. But we can not stop in these small rooms.

Ah, here is Memory Hall! Many persons like to spend most of their time here. See what a great number of pictures are hanging on the wall.

Helen: O mother, let us stop and look at some of them!

Mother: Perhaps I should first tell you that the master of every house is all the time making pictures, whether he is an artist or not. His acts, good and bad, make pictures in the mind. When they are finished, he hangs them in this hall. Some are in dark corners, and he hardly ever looks at them after they are made; he even forgets that he made them. The masters of some houses spend many happy hours in this hall. Others do not like to go near it. Their pain or pleasure depends on the kind of pictures they have made. I have seen some who would weep in sorrow of heart as they looked over the different pictures that they had hung there, and some they would not for anything have any one see. There is only One who can take away these sinful pictures, but He can make them white as snow.

Elmer: Then we ought to have all our actions such that pleasant pictures will be hung in our hall of memory.

Mother: I think so; but we will pass on to some of the higher, more important rooms. Here we find the place where the master receives the poor, and where his acts of kindness are done. In some houses this is the smallest room of the whole. In others, it is large and lofty, and the master spends much time there. He is so good and kind that people can not help loving him when this is the case.

Amy: This next room looks like a church.

Mother: We might call it the chapel; for it is here that the master goes to pray, and worship God. Some use this room a great deal; others, very little. It is the highest, best room in the house, and the master ought to visit it many times each day.

Percy: And what is this large room?

Mother: This is where the master thinks things over, and “makes up his mind,” as we say. This is the “will” room; that is, the person decides what he will or will not do. This is an important room indeed. It is a good thing to have a good, strong will if we only will to do the right thing, for it helps any one in doing right; but if he is doing wrong, it causes him to do more wrong.

To show what I mean, we will say that a man who has been drinking beer or cider learns that the reason he likes these drinks is because there is alcohol in them, and he sees that they will do him harm, and that the more he drinks them, the more he will want them. He doesn’t want weak muscles, a bloated body, a fatty liver, or a weak brain and nerves. He does not wish to go to the insane asylum, to the jail, to the poor-house, or into a drunkard’s grave. But he likes the alcohol. It is hard to give it up, and his friends will call him a “temperance man,” and will jeer at him, and say that he is a coward. Now what will he do? He goes into his “will room,” and he says to himself: “I have been a slave long enough. From now on I will be master of this body-house. It makes no difference how loudly Taste may call, nor how badly I want him to have his own way, I WILL NOT give up, God helping me, and I am going to put my will on the right side of this question.”

Elmer: Couldn’t he overcome any other bad habit in just the same way?

Mother: Yes; whether he wants food that is not good, or too much of that which is good; whether he wishes to leave off using tobacco, or other bad habits of any kind, when he gets his will on the right side, the battle is more than half over.

Amy: Then a person can not have too much will.

Mother: Not if he wills to do right; but if he places his will on the wrong side, it is a sad thing. Sometimes he wills to have his own way, no matter how it may affect himself or others, and that is bad for him and for his friends.

Here is a room where the master measures people. We can imagine that they stand about like statues, and some he places high in his esteem, and the others lower down. I think about the worst thing he could do would be to place himself higher than any one else. Boys and girls are sometimes in danger of doing this, even thinking that they know more than their father and mother. It is well to have a fair-sized room of this kind, but bad to have one which is large. We shall not have time to visit more of the rooms to be found in the mind, though there are many others that we might visit.

Helen: I wish we might hear about all of them.

Mother: You may, as you grow older. You must be very careful to have the master of your own house live in the best and highest rooms. Strange as it may seem, yet it is true that the rooms he stays in most will grow larger the more they are used. Some live in the lower, poorer rooms all their lives. The people we love best spend most of their time in the highest rooms.

Percy: Is there any way by which we can tell where the master spends most of his time?

Mother: Yes; clean, kind thoughts make marks on our faces, and wicked, cruel thoughts leave their print also. Our thoughts pull up or draw down the corners of the mouth, and they make little wrinkles under the eyes and in the forehead. Sometimes they make little holes in the cheeks, which we call dimples. If our thoughts are kind, pleasant, happy thoughts, they draw the corners of the mouth upward; the wrinkles are smoothed out of the forehead, and there are some merry ones which gather round the eyes and make the face look so pleasant that we want to get near its owner and become better acquainted.

Amy: I didn’t know that our thoughts looked out in our faces.

Mother: If either good or bad thoughts come to live in your mind all the time, they will print themselves on your face and change your looks. The good thoughts will make your face beautiful, though your hair may be as straight as an Indian’s, your nose crooked, and your mouth large. On the other hand, though your hair may curl, your skin be as fair as a peach blossom, your features be perfect, yet if you let bad thoughts live in the mind, your face will no longer look lovely to others. It is only a kind, unselfish heart that can give true beauty.

Helen: I have often wished that I might be pretty, like some of the girls at school, but I know now how to be lovable if I am not beautiful.

Mother: There are a few other things which will help you to have a good-looking face. First, keep it clean. Then the next thing is to eat good food, that you may have a clear, healthy skin and bright eyes. You should also be careful to brush your teeth, that these little guards may always be dressed in the cleanest of white uniforms. Then keep your hair in good order. Brush it often, and keep the whole head sweet and clean. If you do these things, you will always be pleasant to look at.

I was reading not long ago about a little girl who was told of the wrinkles that smiles leave on our faces, and the wrinkles that scowls leave, as well as those left by pain, thought, and care. The child listened, and then said brightly, “My grandma has lots of wrinkles, but they’re all smile wrinkles, every one of them.”

So, my children, as the days pass by, see that your mind is pleasant, and your body-temple kept clean and pure. Thus you will live useful lives, and be a blessing to yourselves and others.

“If I knew the box where the smiles are kept,

No matter how large the key

Or strong the bolt, I would try so hard,

’Twould open, I know, for me.

Then over the land and the sea, broadcast,

I’d scatter the smiles to play,

That the children’s faces might hold them fast

For many and many a day.

“If I knew a box that was large enough

To hold all the frowns I meet,

I would like to gather them every one,

From nursery, school, and street;

Then, folding and holding, I’d pack them in,

And, turning the monster key,

I’d hire a giant to drop the box

To the depth of the deep, deep sea.”