DEFECTS IN OUR AMERICAN HOMES.[M]
Dr. Vincent: The subject for conference this evening at this hour is “Defects in Our American Homes.” This is not a lecture; it is a conversation. You are to give your thoughts, I am to record them, and we shall then discuss them.
Every organization has a spirit in it, and out of the spirit come influence and action. Out of wrong ideas come mistakes. Out of impotency—where one has an ideal, and not moral force enough to carry it out—comes failure. In the Syrian homes there are defects that belong to their civilization, their doctrines, their modes of life, their limitations. In Italian homes there are defects; so in German and in English homes. The defects of the Italian home differ from those of the English. There are defects in our American homes. What are they? There are defects which characterize us as well as other nations, in this nineteenth century; and defects which are the products or the results of our peculiar doctrines of society and of government. As we go about in our neighborhoods; as we travel to and fro in the land, read the papers and listen to lectures and sermons on the subject, we find peculiar evils that exist to-day in American families. It is to look at the dark side of the American home that we are met to-night. I want you to think and I want you to speak. If any of you has a thought to give, and don’t like to speak it out, write it and I shall be glad to read it for the instruction of all. We take the American home, and I ask you for a list of the defects which belong to the average American home. First—What?
[The various defects mentioned by different speakers are given without the names of the speakers; the comments usually are by Dr. Vincent.]
Selfishness.
Rev. B. Adams: I should group the defects of the homes, as I know them, in the region where I live, under the following letters: I, irreligion; second I, indulgence; third I, ignorance; P, pride; C, covetousness; four L’s, laziness, lying, levity and lust.
Dr. Vincent: Where do you live? [Laughter.]
Mr. Adams: In the State of Connecticut, where there is one divorce in every nine marriages. I propose to try to reform my part of it.