By C. H. Spurgeon.
The famous London minister wrote a book entitled, “John Ploughman’s Talk.” His object was to express plain and homely truths in a quaint, humorous way, and thus gain the attention of common people whose reading is confined mostly to murder and divorce cases in newspapers. The enjoyment of the public in reading Mr. Spurgeon’s pithy sayings was evinced by the enormous sale of the book. The extract here given is a fair specimen of its unique style.
That word home always sounds like poetry to me. It rings like a peal of bells at a wedding, only more soft and sweet, and it chimes deeper into the ears of my heart. It does not matter whether it means thatched cottage or manor-house, home is home, be it ever so homely, and there’s no place on earth like it. Green grow the houseleek on the roof forever, and let the moss flourish on the thatch.
Sweetly the sparrows chirrup and the swallows twitter around the chosen spot which is my joy and my rest. Every bird loves its own nest; the owl thinks the old ruins the fairest spot under the moon, and the fox is of opinion that his hole in the hill is remarkably cozy. When my master’s nag knows that his head is towards home he wants no whip, but thinks it best to put on all steam; and I am always of the same mind, for the way home, to me, is the best bit of road in the country. I like to see the smoke out of my own chimney better than the fire on another man’s hearth; there’s something so beautiful in the way in which it curls up among the trees.
Cold potatoes on my own table taste better than roast meat at my neighbor’s, and the honeysuckle at my own door is the sweetest I ever smell. When you are out, friends do their best, but still it is not home. “Make yourself at home,” they say, because everybody knows that to feel at home is to feel at ease.
“East and west,
Home is best.”
Why, at home you are at home, and what more do you want? Nobody grudges you, whatever your appetite may be; and you don’t get put into a damp bed. Safe in his own castle, like a king in his palace, a man feels himself somebody, and is not afraid of being thought proud for thinking so. Every cock may crow on his own dunghill; and a dog is a lion when he is at home. No need to guard every word because some enemy is on the watch, no keeping the heart under lock and key; but as soon as the door is shut it is liberty hall, and none to peep and pry.
It is a singular fact, and perhaps some of you will doubt it—but that is your unbelieving nature—our little ones are real beauties, always a pound or two plumper than others of their age; and yet it don’t tire you half so much to nurse them as it does other people’s babies. Why, bless you, my wife would be tired out in half the time, if her neighbor had asked her to see to a strange youngster, but her own children don’t seem to tire her at all. Now my belief is that it all comes of their having been born at home.