Most of our households are quieted after the great annual upsetting. The last carpet is tacked down. The strings that were scattered along the floor have been rolled up in a ball. We begin to know the turns in the stairway. Things are settling down, and we shall soon feel at home in our new residence. If it is a better house than we had, do not let us be too proud of the door-plate, nor worship too ardently the fine cornice, nor have any idea that superb surroundings are going to make us any happier than we were in the old house.
Set not your affections on luxurious upholstery and spacious drawing-room. Be grateful and be humble.
If the house is not as large nor in as good neighborhood as the one you formerly occupied, make the best of it. It is astonishing what a good time you may have in a small room. Your present neighbors are just as kind as those you left, if you only knew them. Do not go around your house sticking up your nose at the small pantry, and the ugly mantel-pieces, and the low ceiling. It is a better place than your divine Master occupied, and to say the least you are no better than He. If you are a Christian, you are on your way to a King's mansion, and you are now only stopping a little in the porter's lodge at the gate. Go down in the dark lanes of the city and see how much poorer off many of your fellow-citizens are. If the heart be right, the home will be right.
CHAPTER LVI.
FRIDAY EVENING.
Our friend Churchill was a great man for religious meetings. As he shoved back from our tea-table he said, "I must be off to church."
Then he yawned as though he expected to have a dull time, and asked me why it was that religious meetings were often so very insipid and that many people went to them merely as a matter of duty. Without waiting for me to give my opinion, he said he thought that there was a sombre hue given to such meetings that was killing and in a sort of soliloquy continued:
There is one thing Satan does well. He is good at stating the discouraging side. He knows how to fish for obstacles, and every time brings up his net full. Do not let us help him in his work. If you have anything to say in prayer-meeting that is disheartening, may you forget your speech! Tell us something on the bright side.
I know a Christian man who did something outrageously wrong. Some one said to me: "Why do you not expose him?" I replied: "That is the devil's work and it will be thoroughly done. If there is anything good about him, we would rather speak of that."