| Week-Day Religion |
Chapter 8 |
Page 3 |
But whole family religion implies regular devotions, there is something else required. There are homes in which family worship is never neglected in which there is yet a painful absence of home religion. Religion is love, and a religious home is one in which love reigns. There must be love in action, love that flows out in all the home intercourse, showing itself in a thousand little expressions of thoughtfulness, kindness, unselfishness and gentle courtesy. There are homes in which there is truest love. The members of the household would give their lives for each other. When grief or pain comes to any one of them, the hearts of all the others are touched and at once go out in deepest sympathy, in warmest expressions of affection and in self forgetful ministries. There is no question as to the reality and the strength of the attachment that mutually exists between the hearts of the household. And yet in their ordinary associations there is a great lack of those exhibitions of kindly feeling which are the sweetest charm of love. There is a lack of words. Husband and wife pass week after week without one harsh word, it may be, but also without one of those endearing expressions such as made their early love days so sunny and radiant. And the intercourse of the whole household is characterized by the same lack of warmth and tenderness. The conversation is about the most commonplace matters, is often constrained, and in many cases consists only of occasional monosyllables. Many a meal is eaten almost in silence. The tone of the home life is cold. All sentiment is avoided, no compliments are uttered. Even the simplest courtesies of manner are often neglected. Favors are asked, given and accepted without one of those sweetening graces of politeness which we are all so careful to observe in our intercourse with strangers, and which add so much to the pleasure of such intercourse.
Sorrow falls upon one of the family, and immediately all is changed. The coldness of manner passes into tenderness. This proves the reality and power of the family bond. But ought the love to be so locked up and hidden away in the crannies of the heart and in the inner recesses of the nature as to require affliction or sorrow to call it out? Should not love celebrate its sweetest summer all the while in the home? Should it require calamity or pain to woo out its fragrance and its beauty?
What a wondrous charm it gives to family life when all the members let their hearts’ love flow out in all those tender graces of expression which have so much power to give joy! There are such homes. The very atmosphere, as you enter the door, seems laden with fragrance. The rarest courtesy marks all the intercourse of the family. Each one is thoughtful of the other’s comfort and pleasure. No harsh word is spoken. The conversation at table flows on in musical sweetness, bright, sparkling and cheerful, without one jar. There is no sullen look on any face. There is no disregard if politeness. There is no lying aside of good manners.
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