"Friend,--when in trial and suffering,
Where dost thou find thy home?
Where in thy pain canst thou seek relief,
Where in thy sorrows come?
Where from the world's rude conflict
Canst thou find a calm retreat?
Where learn afresh with courage
Thy trials and sorrows to meet?
Where is thy shield from adversity's dart?
Friend, thy home is a loved one's heart.
Man,--when thy heart is torn with grief,
When thy hopes are for ever gone,
When adversity's cloud hangs over thy head,
And earth's troubles weigh thee down,--
When those whom thou lovest have turned away,
And cruelly slighted thee,--
When thy heart is crushed, and thy joys are gone,--
For shelter, oh! where canst thou flee?
Man, though from comfort on earth thou'rt driven,
Thy home and thy joys are with God in Heaven."
L. Jewitt.
Home! What a word that is. Is there any word like it? Any that brings so much joy, or so much sorrow, into the human breast? The fisherman who has toiled all night and caught nothing, looks anxiously for dawn, because he knows that then he will return home to wife and children. The sailor, toiling over the endless sea, rejoices as he thinks that each moment he is nearing home. The labourer in the fields is glad when the hot sun sinks towards the west, because it is nearly time to go home. The boy at school longs for the holidays to come because it means home, and to him home is everything. The weary traveller, well-nigh dead with fatigue, who sees his distant home from the top of a neighbouring hill, gathers fresh strength from the sight to continue his journey.
But the home can only be really home in the truest and best sense of the word, when the people who live there make it home-like. It need have no costly adornments, but every member of the family should have "the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price." There should be no display of angry tempers, or of hard words. Kindness should reign there; gentleness and love should be practised there. In short, that home can only be a happy one which is a copy of the home in heaven. Parents have a very solemn and important duty to perform here. It is for them to make their homes not nurseries of vice and sin, but homes of love and happiness, where Jesus and His angels will be glad to come. How many men and women there are who can trace an evil, misspent, sinful life back to their early home. It was, may be, from a father's lips they first learnt to swear; perhaps from a mother's example they first learnt to lie. And the children, too, have a solemn duty to perform with regard to home. There are life lessons which must be learnt at home, if we would learn them at all. Obedience, purity, love, and piety, all must be learnt at home; and if these are indeed to be found there, the home on earth is a fit type of the home in heaven.
Reader, are you doing your utmost to make your home on earth like the home beyond? Perhaps you have never thought much about it. Perhaps you have never considered that there was any connection between them. But there is; there should be. They should be, as it were, the same home, separated indeed by a narrow gulf, but joined by a bridge over which all must pass, even death itself.
Some people look upon death quite wrongly, for this reason. If one of their children die, they almost think that when the earth covers it they will never see it again; but the Bible does not teach that. Rather should we feel, in the beautiful words of the hymn, that our little ones are going home--
"They are going--only going--
Jesus called them long ago;
All the wintry time they're passing
Softly as the falling snow.
When the violets in the spring-time
Catch the azure of the sky,
They are carried out to slumber
Sweetly, where the violets lie.
All along the mighty ages,
All adown the solemn time,
They have taken up their homeward
March to a serener clime,
Where the watching, waiting angels
Lead them from the shadow dim,
To the brightness of His Presence
Who has called them unto Him."
Yes, it is even so, "they are going, only going," from the home on earth to the home in heaven. Going from pain and sorrow and sin to a better home, where there is no bitter parting, no more sorrow, and no more death. And looking at it in this light, would you wish to keep them, would you even seek to stay their departure for one short hour. The home on earth is subject to sickness, to sorrow, and partings. But the home in heaven knows none of these. We cannot always stay at home on earth, but must needs go out to work for our living among strangers. But when we once reach the many mansions of our Father's house, we shall go no more out. There will be no more sleepless nights, or sunless days, for the Sun of righteousness shines on all alike, "and there is no night there."
Strive then to dwell together in unity on earth; doing your best to make home what home should be, and God will do the rest.
HEAVEN OUR HOME. PART I.
"There is a blessed Home
Beyond this land of woe,
Where trials never come,
Nor tears of sorrow flow.
There is a land of peace,
Good angels know it well:
Glad songs that never cease
Within its portals swell."
Baker.