Sunday Column.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 30 November 1912, Page 4

Sunday Column.

(By Her. Hyde.) THE MAKING OF A HOME. (By tho lato J. K. Miller, D.D.) We do not realise what the daily life of the homo means in the future of the children. Example is most important. One said to a minister: "Tho memory of my father is a sacred influence to mo; yet I can romember the day when 1 wan hungry because of my father's conduct. I can romember my mother crying as she cut the last loaf, keeping none for herself and gave us what there was.", Tlie father had been turned away from his business for refusing; to do a mean and slialiby thing. They gave him three days to think it over and then he came home with no prospects and no money. The mother said to her children, "ft breaks my heart to see you hungry, but f will tell you what kind of a man your father is," and sho told them. Tlie son, far on in years, testified: "Many a time have T boon tempted to do wrong, and then there aroso licforo mo the figiiro of n- man who (Tared oven to see his children suffer before ho would sully his own conscience, and sin agninst God.' And this recollection constrained ■him 'and kept him true. Tt is a groat thing for n boy to hnvo such memories of his father as that. That is tho kind of religion that Christ would have us live in our homos. Whnt others do does not make the ideal for us. !S T o matter what goes on in other homes dose to ours where we visit, and whose

inmates visit us, we must live right within our own doors. Tf wo are sordid, selfish nnd hitter in our spirit, if we ,iro moan or dishonest, we cannot expect onr children to ho any hotter than we are. The very first placo for us to practise truth, honesty, right and love, is at home, the holiest place on earth, the very presence of tlie Lord to us. If we arc untrue and unloving at home, there is little- use of us professing saintliness outside. But 'paroute are not tho only members of a •household who have to do with the making of a homo. Children have their share of responsibility. Said Charles Lamb: "What would 1 not give to call mother back to earth for a single day, to ask her pardon upon my knees for all those- acts by which I grieved her gentle spirit.' . Many persons carry a like- feeling of regret throughout all the years. .By far the keenest olomcnt of a child's grief beside a parent's coffin is remorse caused by the memory of unkindness along the days. Sometimes it is thought to make atonement for tho wrongs committed, for hurts caused to a gentle heart, by bringing flowers to a coffin. Hut the placo for a child to scatter flowers in along the parents' hard path of toil

and cam. The love of parents for their clii Wren should be rcpnid with gratitude and' by love's ministry all the days down to life's very end. How happy is the home where all parents and children, not one imV sing, aro together in the family of God. Very sweooi is the joy of fellowship in a homo like this. Such a home is a foretaste of heaven.. There never can he any real separation in it. One may be taken, but the home is not broken. A father and his son were shipwrecked. They olinie to tlie ricirine: for a time, and then the son was washed off. In the morning tho father was rescued in an unconscious state, and after many hours awoke in a fisherman's hut, lying (in ;i soft, warm bod. He

tnrnod his face, and there lay his son .beside on the same lied. So one by otic our households aro swept away in the sea of death. Our homes aro emptied and our fondest ties fl.ro broken. Rut, if we α-m all united in Christ, we skill awake, in t]io other world to see besido us again lorod ones we linre lost awhile hut who have only gone on before ue into the- eternal homo.