Lecture Nine. HOME. Maternal Love--Ideas of Future Home Universal--Heaven's Home Perfected--Home the Garden of Virtue--Home Influence Permanent--Home is Woman's World--Place does not constitute Home--Our Homes will be like us--Home a Sensitive Place--Home Habits Second Nature.
My theme is Home. If my essay could be as good as my subject it would be worthy of devoutest attention. I believe that there are three things of universal interest among men—Mother, Home, and Heaven. In all ages and countries mother has been a sacred word. It has laid on the heart of childhood like a dew-drop on the rose, sweetening and refreshing it. A man loves to think of his mother; of her watchful care, her tender vigils, her holy charity, her forgiving goodness, her matchless and marvelous love.
What a great refreshing fountain of life is a mother's love! We all turn to it as the heart's common resting-place. We love to think of our mothers. They loved us with such a deep devotion; did, and sacrificed, and suffered so much for us; were so unselfish and ready to forgive, so vividly alive to our interests, and felt their beings so intertwined with ours that we feel that we must love them. It is the last and lowest ingratitude of a human heart not to love its mother. God made the mother. Such love is Heaven's work. Not in angels' hearts beats a sweeter, deeper, richer feeling. Mother is another name for consecrated love. Not all the theologians in the world could convince me that the natural mother-heart is not holy. I have seen too deeply into my own mother's soul; I have felt too much of the fire of her deathless love; I have witnessed too many evidences of its immaculate purity to believe it inherently depraved. I have always felt that it was a slander against our own mother to believe the mother-heart naturally corrupt. Yes, all the mother is holy. God loves the mother for what she is. She is a reflection of himself. The gates of his everlasting Home will never close against a mother. Though she may be wicked in other respects, in her maternal heart lives a germ of the tree of life which can never wholly die. What love sometimes beams in a wicked mother's heart! All mothers are alike. The wise and the foolish, the idiotic and philosophic, the rich and poor, the cultivated and barbaric, are all the same in love; the same beautiful, tender, forgiving spirit of devoted affection dwells in all. Oh, see the mother as she gazes fondly upon her child; as she feeds him from her breast; as she watches by his sick couch; as she counsels him to virtue and goodness; as she weeps over his waywardness and toils for his happiness!
All the arching glory of the moral world bows in reverence before the mother's love. This is the radiant center, the focus of human affection. And this is the central sun of Home! Home has no permanent force, no abiding stability without a mother's love. Take mother out of Home, and the Home is gone. She is the regulator, the main-spring, the center around which all else revolves. How rich is every Home that has in it a true mother! If there were no other attraction in this sacred spot, no other charm, the mother's presence would make it dear and glorious. While a mother lives, Home will be a blessed place. Then heaven is another word of universal use and power. In every human soul there lies an idea of heaven; dim and shadowy sometimes, bright and glorious at others; but yet everywhere present. The Arab wanderers, the wild men of the forest, the jabbering Ajetas, the South Sea Islanders, the wall-girt Chinamen, the sable Ethiopians, the cultured Christians, all cherish the thought of heaven—another home, a final resting-place from all that wearies or troubles. It seems as though God in goodness had implanted this thought in all creatures' minds as the germ of eternal life, to cheer and support them in the shadowy hours of earth and time. Yes, the thought and hope of heaven is universal. Many men cherish ideas of hell, the very opposite of heaven; but this does not interfere with their own hope of heaven. All men hope for heaven for themselves. Hell is always for somebody else, if they are so unfortunate as to be tormented with so fearful and saddening a thought. And this thought of heaven, this universal impression of a better land, a spirit-bower, so comforting, so elevating, so inspiring, grows naturally out of our primary conceptions of Home. We all love Home—Home that is a Home—and this love enlarged by the imagination, pictured in perfection by the quick hand of Faith, consecrated by natural religion, is our idea of heaven. Heaven is Home perfected, the consummation of the heart's love of Home. In our ideas of heaven we gather our loved ones about us just as we do in our Homes. What would heaven be to us without our mother, our brothers and sisters, the dear home-companions of our hearts? It would not be heaven because it would not be Home. The heart could not rest there. It would fly away on the quick wings of its love to the dear absent ones. A heaven half filled would not be a heaven. A heaven with broken families would be heaven with broken hearts.
Every heart would pine in sadness in the loss of some of its dear ones—some of its Home souls. Home-love is the germ of heaven-love. God plants in Homes the seeds that shall bear fruit in heaven. Thus we see that Mother, Home, and Heaven—these three words of such universal interest and power—are associated and related words. They convey a blessed trinity of ideas meeting in one associated glow of spiritual beauty. They belong together and can not be separated. They are parts of the same golden whole. Home, in all well-constituted minds, is always associated with moral and social excellence. The higher men rise in the scale of being, the more important and interesting is Home. The Arab or forest man may care little for his Home, but, the Christian man of cultured heart and developed mind will love his Home, and generally love it in proportion to his moral worth. He knows it is the planting-ground of every seed of morality—the garden of virtue, and the nursery of religion. He knows that souls immortal are here trained for the skies; that private worth and public character are made in its sacred retreat. To love Home with a deep and abiding interest, with a view to its elevating influence, is to love truth and right, heaven and God. I envy not the soul that loves not Home. There is moral safety and force in this love. Many a man who is an ornament to his family and a blessing to the world would have gone to ruin had it not been for the love he bore his Home and its inmates. A weakness of the home-love is often the cause of moral ruin. Many a man of strong impulses and impetuous character has braved hardships, faced dangers, resisted temptations which would have been too powerful for him had it not been for his strong love of Home. A strong love of Home in any man's heart is a triple wall of brass around his moral nature—an impregnable bulwark against the assaults of moral evil. No labor is too great for the strong lovers of Home to accomplish. See them on ocean's billowy bosom; on mountains of ice and snow; on fields of bloody strife; on burning deserts; in trackless forests; amid disease, danger, and death, braving every foe to life and peace, and all to fill their homes with comfort and joy. In every proper sense in which Home can be considered, it is a powerful stimulant to noble action and a high and pure morality. So valuable is the love of Home, that every man should cherish it as the apple of his eye. As he values his own moral worth, as he prizes his country, the peace and happiness of the world; yea, more: as he values the immortal interests of men, he should cherish and cultivate a strong and abiding love of Home.
I take it that it affects our whole lives; ay, that it runs over the grave, sweeps by death, and affects our future condition. Then is not the idea of Home important? Shall we look thoughtlessly upon these nurseries of immortal fruits? Shall we pollute and degrade the Homes in which we dwell? Shall we send out from them unholy influences to corrupt the world? These Home questions are the most important ones we can raise. Their decision is to affect us more than any decision by the supreme authority of our country. Not all the judges in the world ever decide questions half so important and pregnant with solemn results as those we are left to decide in our own Homes. Hence I would present the subject of Home to young women as one in which they are as deeply interested as they can be in any subject. It is expected that every young woman will preside over the destinies and interests of a Home. In some way her interests, through her whole earth-life, will be connected with Home. Woman's nature and tastes fit her in a peculiar manner to be the presiding genius of Home. However widely may be extended the rightful sphere of woman's operations, the mass of women will find employment and usefulness in the embossmment of their families.
Home will always be woman's world. She will be queen over its rich and far-stretching realms. In the studios of Home she will carve the statuary of her moral heroism, and picture the spiritual beauty of her faith and love. Home is her kingdom, and she will always reign over it. Though she may go out to do great deeds of goodness in the world, though she may speak from forums, teach from college chairs, write books, fill offices of trust and profit, go on missions of truth, peace, and mercy among her fellows, she will still love best of all places the sequestered scene of Home. I would not, either by law, or custom, or public opinion, confine woman's powers to the routine of domestic duties. I would open the whole world to her, and tell her to find employment, usefulness, and happiness wherever she can; but in so doing I should feel that not a Home would be desolated; not a woman would become less a lover and blesser of Home. On the contrary, woman would love her Home all the more, and make it all the purer and nobler. She would choose its sweet vocations, not from the stern dictation of society, but from her soul's choice. Every family must have a Home; and every Home must have a head, a heart, a guardian. Woman is nobly fitted to fill this responsible post of honor and trust; but let her do it from choice. Do not compel her to do it. Woman does not like compulsion. It is not human to like compulsion. Give to woman the same freedom you do to man. Open the whole width of the field of life to her, and she will choose with avidity her own appropriate place. She has a strong sense of propriety and a good judgment in the choice of her sphere of activity.
Every young woman should early form in her mind an ideal of a true Home. It should not be the ideal of a place, but of the character of Home. Place does not constitute Home. Many a gilded palace and sea of luxury is not a Home. Many a flower-girt dwelling and splendid scansion lacks all the essentials of Home. A hovel is often more a Home than a palace. If the spirit of the congenial friendship link not the hearts of the inmates of a dwelling it is not a Home. If love reign not there; if charity spread not her downy mantle over all; if peace prevail not; if contentment be not a meek and merry dweller therein; if virtue rear not her beautiful children, and religion come not in her white robe of gentleness to lay her hand in benediction on every head, the Home is not complete. We are all in the habit of building for ourselves ideal homes. But they are generally made up of outward things—a house, a garden, a carriage, and the ornaments and appendages of luxury. And if in our lives we do not realize our ideals, we make ourselves miserable and our friends miserable. Half the women in our country are unhappy because their Homes are not so luxurious as they wish.
Somebody has more ornament and style about their Homes than they, and so they worry their souls to death about it. This is one of the most fruitful sources of disquiet in nearly all our Homes. Our women want more show, fashion, luxury, outward ornament than they can afford, or than is necessary to their happiness. All around us there is a great sea of disquiet from this one cause. We forget that Homes are not made up of material things. It is not a fine house, rich furniture, a luxurious table, a flowery garden, and a superb carriage that make a Home. A world-wide distance from this is a true Home. Our ideal Homes should be heart-homes, in which virtues live, and love-flowers bloom, and peace offerings are daily brought to its altar. Our ideal Homes should be such as we can and will make in our own lives. We should not expect Homes better and happier than we are. Our Homes will be sure to be much like us. If we are good, kind, and happy, our Homes will be likely to be. If we are craving, selfish, discontented, our Homes will be. If all the wealth in the world were laid at our feet and lavished on our Homes, we should not be happier unless our hearts are better. Wealth, luxury, ornament bring care, anxiety, and a craving for more, which render them nearly valueless unless the heart is filled with virtue and contentment. If I could moderate the material desires of the young women I address, and elevate their spiritual longings in relation to their future Homes, I should do a good service to them and their families. The grand idea of Home is a quiet, secluded spot, where loving hearts dwell, set apart and dedicated to improvement—to intellectual and moral improvement. It is not a formal school of staid solemnity and rigid discipline, where virtue is made a task and progress a sharp necessity, but a free and easy exercise of all our spiritual limbs, in which obedience is a pleasure, discipline a joy, improvement a self-wrought delight. All the duties and labors of Home, when rightly understood, are so many means of improvement. Even the trials of Home (for every Home must have its trials, and severe ones, too) are so many rounds in the ladder of spiritual progress, if we but make them so.
One idea concerning Home should be deeply impressed on our minds. Of all places in the world, Home is the most delicate and sensitive. Its springs of action are subtle and secret. Its chords move with a breath. Its fires are kindled with a spark. Its flowers are bruised with the least rudeness. The influence of our homes strikes so directly on our hearts that they make sharp impressions. In our intercourse with the world we are barricaded, and the arrows let fly at our hearts are warded off; but not so with us at Home. Here our hearts wear no covering, no armor. Every arrow strikes them; every cold wind blows full upon them; every storm beats against them. What in the world we would pass by in sport, in our Homes will wound us to the quick. Very little can we bear at Home. Home is a sensitive place. If we would have it a true Home, we must guard well our words and actions. We must be honest and kind, constant and true, to the very extent of our capacity. All little occasions of offense and misapprehension should be avoided. Little things make up the web of our life at Home. Little things make us happy, and little things make us miserable. A word, a hint, a look has power to transport us with joy or sting us with anguish. If we would make our Homes what they should be, we must attend faithfully to the little things which make them so.
Our life abroad is but a reflex of what it is at Home. We make ourselves in a great manner at Home. This is especially true of woman. The woman who is rude, coarse, and vulgar at home, can not be expected to be amiable, chaste, and refined in the world. Her Home habits will stick to her. She can not shake them off. They are woven into the web of her life. Her Home language will be first on her tongue. Her Home by-words will come out to mortify her just when she wants most to hide them in her heart. Her Home vulgarities will show their hideous forms to shock her most when she wants to appear her best. Her Home coarseness will appear most when she is in the most refined circles, and appearing there will abash her more than elsewhere. All her Home habits will follow her. They have become a sort of second nature to her.
Every young woman should feel that just what she is at Home she will appear abroad. If she attempts to appear otherwise, everybody will soon see through the attempt. We can not cheat the world long about our real characters. The thickest and most opaque mask we can put on will soon become transparent. This fact we should believe without a doubt. Deception most often deceives itself. The deceiver is the most deceived. The liar is often the only one cheated. The young woman who pretends to what she is not, believes her pretense is not understood. Other people laugh in their sleeves at her foolish pretension. If young women were what they ought to be at Home, they would never have to put on a mask when they go into company. How uncomfortable it must be to have to cover up the Home character the moment we appear in the world! Nothing should be said or done at Home that would make us appear in a bad light in the world. If this one rule is constantly kept, how pleasant will be our Homes, how proper our habits, how beautiful our lives! How easy and graceful will become our Home manners, how elegant and appropriate our Home language, how pure and lovely our Home characters! Home excellences are the ones we should covet. Home morality and religion are the best. Home love and worth only are real and lasting. Home virtue is for the skies. A Home woman of worth is the most beautiful and lovely woman in the world. A Home character is the one that will stand the scrutiny of the All-Seeing Eye. If these were the last words I had to say to young women, I would say, Be at Home what you would be abroad; what you ought to be everywhere; what all good people would have you; what God requires you to be.
