# Summer Reading Series | JR Miller's Homemaking Ch 8 & 9, "Religion in the Home" and "Home Memories"

An episode of [The Art of Home: A Podcast for Homemakers](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1557993655), 31 Aug 2022, 1 h 35 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1587457/episodes/11230723-summer-reading-series-jr-miller-s-homemaking-ch-8-9-religion-in-the-home-and-home-memories.mp3

Send me a text about this episode! Join us for our summer reading series. During the month of August we are working through JR Miller's classic, Home-Making, published in 1882. Each Wednesday your host, Allison, will read two chapters from this short book. Each Friday, The Art of Home will distribute corresponding reflection questions to our email subscribers. All resources created by The Art of Home for this summer reading series are provided free of charge. Since we are presenting the book in audio form via the podcast you do not need a hard copy. However, it might be helpful for working through the reflection questions. This book is in the public domain, therefore you can access the text for free in various places online. We will link some below. If you desire, you can purchase a paperback copy for less than $10 on Amazon. In this installment of the summer reading series we present Chapters 8 & 9, "Religion in the Home" and "Home Memories". RESOURCES *contains affiliate links Sign Up for Summer Reading Questions Purchase a copy of Home-Making by JR Miller *optional Free Online Versions of Home-Making by JR Miller, Public Domain • web.archive.org • Google Books • DIY Homeschooler We Want Your Feedback on This Episode! • Leave Us a Voicemail or Send Us an Email Free Weekly Newsletter from The Art of Home • Subscribe Leave Us A Review • Love The Podcast (works on any device) Stay In Touch with The Art of Home Podcast • Instagram | Facebook |Pinterest | Website | Email Follow The Art of Home on Your Listening App • Follow The Podcast (works on any device) Support The Art of Home • Buy Me a Coffee ☕️ • Purchase homemaking resources through our website and our resource links. *As an Amazon Affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. If you purchase an item through one of our links we earn a small commission which helps fund more great content from The Art of Home. Thank you for partnering with us! Support the show HOMEMAKING RESOURCES • Homemaker's Journal, AoH Seasonal Magazine • Private Facebook Group, Homemaker Forum • JR Miller's Homemaking Study Guide SUPPORT & CONNECT • Review | Love The Podcast • Contact | Text/Voicemail-use the link at top of description | Website | Email • Follow | Follow The Podcast • Support | theartofhomepodcast.com/support DISCLOSURE • **Buy | as an Amazon affiliate, AoH receives a small commission at no extra cost to you when you use our links to purchase items we recommend • AI Content | Portions of this episode’s copy and/or show notes may have been drafted with the assistance of AI and then reviewed and edited by a human, Allison Weeks.

## Chapters

- 0:00 Welcome and Narrator Notes
- 1:59 Ch 8, Religion in the Home
- 23:58 The Home Altar
- 49:54 Ch 9, Home Memories

## Transcript

[0:03] Allison: Hello homemakers and welcome to our final installment of The Art of home podcast summer reading series 2022. I am your host Allison weeks. I'm a wife, a mom to four grown kids, grandmother to one baby boy due to arrive this fall, and I have been practicing the art of home for 30 years. Welcome back to our regular listeners. And thank you for being here each and every week. If you're new here, welcome. I am so glad you found us. Today I'm presenting the final two chapters of the 1882 classic homemaking by the Reverend Jr. Miller. Reverend Miller has instructed us in the wedded life as well as all the parts that each family member plays in the making of a true Christian home. Today we will discuss religion in the home and the powerful lasting influence of home memories. In the chapter on home religion, Miller implores his readers to set up a vibrant, faithful family altar at the center of their home. He gives many practical suggestions for what that might look like.
[1:10] Allison: And then Miller concludes his beautiful book reflecting on the power of home memories to either carry us through life with hope, strength and joy, or weigh us down with regret and with remorse. As is his way, he does not shy away from addressing hard things. And for mourning readers to take heed. I pray that his words will take root in your hearts and your minds and inspire you to faithfully build well within your own doors. I do have a few closing thoughts at the end of today's episode. But this is another lengthy installment so I will get right to it. Take your time listening and enjoy chapters eight and nine of JR Miller's home making.
[1:59] Allison: Chapter Eight religion in the home. A German sculptor occupied eight years and making a marble statue of Christ. When he had wrought two years upon it, the work seem to be finished. To test his success he called a little child into his studio and showing her his statue I asked her who is that? She looked at it and replied, a great man. The artist was discouraged. He had hoped that his conception of the master had been so true that the pure eye of the child would recognize it at once. He began to new and after a year or two more had passed. He invited the child again into his studio and pointing to his new statue asked the same question as before. Who is that? She looked at it in silence for some time, a feeling of awe and reverence sweeping through her heart and expressing itself on her face. Until with eyes full of tears, she said in low and gentle tones. Suffer the little children to come unto me.
[3:07] Allison: This time his work was not a failure. He had produced a figure in which the untaught instinct of the child saw the features of the Redeemer. His work had stood the severest test. A somewhat similar test must be applied to all our homemaking. After we have done all in our power in building up a home, the husband his part, the wife hers the parents there's the brothers and sisters there's and when our home life is full and complete. Before we can say that we have realized the ideal of a true Christian home. We must prove its spirit.
[3:46] Allison: What impression would our home and its life make upon a pure and simple hearted child. We may build a palace of marble. We may fill it with the rarest beauties of art, we may adorn it in the most luxurious fashion. We may furnish it in the most costly manner. It may be perfect as a gym and all its appointments, a piece of art in itself. Then our home life may be a stately as royalty itself. There may be the most perfect order, the loftiest courtesy, the utmost precision of movement. Each member of the family may fulfill his part with unfailing promptitude bring in the child and ask it what it thinks of your home. It is very beautiful. responds the little one. It is very grand. It is a palace. Does a king live here.
[4:47] Allison: You turn away disappointed. You have failed to make such a home as you wished. You have piled up grand year. You have made a splendid piece of art. You have succeeded in setting Have a model which all will admire. But you have not made a home of love, of tenderness and of praise. You begin a new, you do not seek this time for grandeur.
[5:11] Allison: You build your home with taste and thought you put into it as many lovely things as you can afford. You set up your household life and fill it with the spirit of prayer, of love, of gentleness of unselfishness.
[5:29] Allison: Again, you call the child, she moves up and down, in and out.
[5:34] Allison: She sleeps under your roof. She eats at your table. She tastes of your pleasures. She mingles in the life of your household.
[5:43] Allison: You ask her what she thinks of your home and she replies, I think Jesus lives here. It is not the grand jury that impresses her now, but the Spirit that dwells within not the stateliness but the affectionate pneus not the courtliness but the sweetness.
[6:01] Allison: She finds love everywhere, love that shows itself in tone, in Act, in look, in word and in countless little manifestations of thoughtfulness and unselfish tenderness. It impresses the untaught feeling of the child as a home like that in which the master would live. This is the true test of homemaking. It matters not how little or how much grander of luxury of costly adornment, there may be. Money and art can do many things, but they cannot make a home. There may be more of the spirit of a true home and a lowly cottage, or in the one room where poverty finds a shelter than in the state liest mansion. What is it that makes a home complete?
[6:52] Allison: After all, that the architect the builder, the painter, the upholsterer, or the furniture maker and the decorator can do?
[7:00] Allison: What is it that comes into the furnished house and makes it a home? This is the question to which answer has been sought in all the former pages of this little book. The duties of the several members of the household have been considered. Suppose they all do their part with the highest fidelity possible in this world. What more is needed to complete the ideal Christian home? Is not the answer found in one word, God. If we leave him out, our most perfect home will be but like a marble statue, with all the grace and beauty of life, but having neither breath nor heartthrob. There are many reasons why religion is needed to complete the happiness and blessedness of a home. One is that nothing in this world is full and complete without the benediction of Heaven. The blessing of the Lord it maketh rich. All that labor and skill and soil and seeds can do for a field or garden will not avail unless heaven give rain and sunshine. Our very breath is God's gift moment by moment. Our Daily Bread must come day by day from his hand. All our plans are dependent upon his prospering favor. Nothing can succeed without his approval and help.
[8:21] Allison: We are taught in the scriptures to look to God for His blessing on every undertaking. The people were to bring the first sheaf of their harvest and the first ripe clusters from their vineyard to God's altar before they had reaped a handful or gathered a great for themselves, that his blessing might rest upon the whole harvest and vintage. They were to bring their children to God in the very opening of their life for consecration to him, that his blessing might rest upon all their years. In the old patriarchal days when the tent was set up, if only for a night, an altar was also erected and sacrifices of prayer and praise were offered to God. We need the divine blessing on everything we have in everything we do. Surely there is no work, no plan, no undertaking in all the range of the possible things we may do in the longest and busiest lifetime, on which we so much need God's benediction as upon our home. In nothing else are so many sacred interests and such momentous responsibilities involved. No where else in life do we meet such difficult and delicate duties? In nothing else is failure so disastrous? A business venture may miscarry, and the consequences will be much chagrin and disappointment, some pecuniary loss some hardship and suffering. But if one's home is a failure, who can tell what reckon sorrow may result? If we need the divine blessing on some little work of an hour or how much more do we need it in the setting up of our home, which carries in itself, our own happiness, and the happiness of the hearts that are dearest to us, and the eternal destinies of souls that shall creep into our bosom and find shelter beneath our roof. I have read that when the stones were all being carried away, one by one, from an old ruin in Rome, thus destroying one of the grandest relics of antiquity.
[10:26] Allison: The ruling pontiff to preserve it set up a cross in the midst of it, consecrating it by this act. It was thus made holy, and no one would touch it. The venerable pile was saved in this way from spoil ation. Every home in this world is exposed to 1000 dangers, enemies seek to destroy it, to desecrate its holy beauty and to carry away its sacred treasures.
[10:52] Allison: The very institution itself is assailed by the apostles of infidelity, and licentiousness.
[10:56] Allison: Countless social influences tend to disintegrate the home, to rob it of its sanctities. To break down its sacred barriers and to sully its purity. Nothing but the cross of Christ will save it. Those who are setting up a home, their hearts full of precious hopes of happiness and blessing should consecrate it at once by erecting the altar of God in the midst of it. This will throw over it the protecting Aegis of divine love.
[11:25] Allison: We need religion in our homes to help us do each his own part faithfully. Take the parents, for example, whose duties and responsibilities have been considered in a former chapter, into whose hands come tender young lives with infinite possibilities of development.
[11:46] Allison: They are to train these immortal souls into beauty, and build up in them a noble manhood or womanhood. These lives are so sensitive, that the slightest influences will leave imperishable impressions upon them, that a wrong touch may Mar them forever. They may have in them the elements of great power or usefulness, God may want them trained to be leaders in the world, for the upbuilding of their character, for the impressions that shall be stamped upon their souls, for their protection from unholy influences, for the molding and shaping of their lives, for the development and training of their powers. And for their preparation for life's mission, and for eternity. The parents are responsible, who is sufficient alone for these things? Where is the parent who feels ready in himself to assume all this responsibility to take an infant child from God's hands to be tended, sheltered, taught, trained and LED? And to answer at the end before God's bar for the faithful keeping of his sacred trust? Where is the parent who is prepared to engage to do all this, and who wants no help from God? That so many do become fathers and mothers who never asked divine aid and wisdom only proves how thoughtlessly men and women can enter the most solemn mysteries of life. And with how little conception of their responsibility they accept the most momentous duties. Only the religion of Christ can fit parents for their high and holy responsibility. We need religion in our homes in the time of sorrow. And where is the home into which sorrow comes not? We can build no walls strong enough or high enough to shut it out?
[13:35] Allison: We can gather within our doors no treasures are so sacred that sorrow will never lay its hand upon them. Then when sorrow comes, where shall we find comfort? If not in the religion of Jesus Christ? Shall we find anything in the splendors of architecture, in the beauties of art, in the luxuries of costly furnishing or adorning to bring calm and comfort to our hearts when one of our household lies in the struggle of death?
[14:03] Allison: It is related of Heinrich Heine that he found himself in Paris during the scenes of the revolution of 1848. And the very midst of the Mad excitements weary, unbelieving and almost hopeless in his endeavors to escape, he entered a room of the Louvre and fell down before that wonder of ancient art the Venus de Milo, he looked up with almost worship of its divine beauty, and with a vague desire for help, as if this splendid figure could deliver him. But though an object of exquisite beauty, its arms were broken off, and it could not reach down to give him any aid. Its ears were marble, and could not hear his cries. Its heart was stone and could not feel for him in his peril and alarm. So earthly grandeur and beauty always are to the human heart in its deep sorrow. A palace filled with rarest works of art can give comfort to the stricken father and mother, who in one of its gilded and tapestry chambers are sitting in anguish beside a dying child. I have seen such grief in the Christ Lois Prayerless home, and pitiable indeed it was in its wild agony of despair. Though in the days of health and joy no I there was ever turned to God. No heart was ever lifted to him in praise or prayer. No voice ever cried to him for help or blessing. The religion was despised or ridiculed and there was no desire for God's Minister within their doors, yet in the bitterness and hopelessness of their grief, when their refuge failed them. When only God could give help. They turned to him and begged for the ministry of religion. They wanted to hear the Word of God read and prayer offered by the bed where the struggle with death was going on. There is something very sad and this despairing resort to the comforts of religion in the hour when all else has failed.
[16:00] Allison: Yet it ought to teach us the lesson that none but God will suffice in the time of great grief. Earth can build no home so beautiful, so perfect, that sorrow shall find there all it needs for comfort. But in the home of prayer, when trial comes there is help at hand. An unseen presence walks amid the shadows.
[16:20] Allison: A voice others hear not whispers peace. A hand others see not ministers constellation.
[16:27] Allison: Religion pours light in the darkness. The sorrow is no less bitter, but the stricken hearts are sustained in their pain or loss by the rich consolations of divine love. No home is prepared for the trials which are at some time inevitable, which has not its altar standing in the center, where on the fires burn perpetually. every home needs the refuge of religion. We live in a world of danger. Every life that grows up here must grow up amid countless perils. Human souls are delicate and tender.
[17:05] Allison: Our dear ones are exposed on every hand. Storms sweep the sea and the wreck goes down, burying noble lives beneath the waves.
[17:14] Allison: There is sorrow in homes when the missing ones come not. The battle rages on the bloody field and many a brave soldier falls to rise no more, or to rise scarred, maimed for life. There is grief in the homes where the cruel ball strikes. But there are fiercer storms raging in this world than those upon the sea, and our dear ones are exposed to them. There are more terrific battles on Earth than those whose crash makes the mountain shake and which decide the fate of nations and the tender souls of our households are in the very center of the strife. When our children go out from us in the morning to the day's duties, or in the evening to the nights scenes and pleasures, we no not to what terrible dangers they will be exposed before we see them again. We mourn for our dead, but if they have died in the arms of Christ, they are safe.
[18:09] Allison: No danger can ever reach them.
[18:14] Allison: They have no more battles to fight. Do we never weep for our living when we remember to what perils they are exposed. Lord, we can trust the for our holy dead, they underneath the shadow of the tomb have entered into peace. With bended head we thank thee for their rest and for our lightened gloom, but Lord are living, who on stormy seas of sin and sorrow still are tempest tossed, are dead have reached their heaven but for these teach us to trust the Lord for these our loved ones, and last. For these we make our passion prayer at night. For these we cry to thee through the long day.
[19:01] Allison: Yes, our dead in Christ are safe. They are folded away under the shadow of God's wings. What is death father? The rest my child, when the strife and toil are or the angel of God, who calm and mild says we need fight no more. Who driving away the demon band bids the din of the battle cease, takes banner and spear from our trembling hand and proclaims an eternal peace.
[19:32] Allison: The children that we laid in Christ's arms in infancy in the sleep we call death are forever safe. The children that we laid in Christ arms in infancy, in the sleep we call death are forever safe. It is our living that are in peril. It is life that is hard and full of danger.
[19:49] Allison: It is for our living that we need to be anxious, lest they be defeated in the field where foes are thick and battles sore Where shall we find protection for these tender lives save in the keeping of the Almighty savior, we cannot shelter them ourselves. We cannot make our home doors strong enough to shield them. We cannot protect them even by love's tenderness or by the influence of beautiful things, of art of luxury music, or by the refinements of the truest and best culture. From amid all these things, children's souls are everyday stolen away. All history and all experience proves that nothing but the religion of Christ can be a shelter for our loved ones from this world's dangers and temptations. A friend was telling of a wonderful little flower which he discovered high up on the Rocky Mountains in a deep fissure among the rocks.
[20:43] Allison: One midsummer day, he found the snow still lying unmelted, and on the surface of the snow, he saw a lovely flower. When he looked closely, he perceived that it had a long delicate stem, white as a tuberosus, coming up through the deep snow from the soil and a crevice of the rock underneath. The little plant had grown up in spite of all obstacles. Its tenderstem, unharmed by the cold drifts, until it blossomed out in loveliness above the snow. The secret was its root in the rich soil in the cleft of the rock, from which it drew such fullness of life that it rose through all to perfect beauty. Fit picture is that little flower of every tender child life in this world, over it are chilling masses of evil and destructive influences, and if it ever grows up into noble and lovely character, it must conquer its way by the force of its own inward life, until it stands crowned with beauty, with every obstacle beneath it. This it can do only through the power of the Divine Grace within its root must be homed in the sheltered warmth of piety in the cleft of the rock of ages. Those who grow up in truly Christian homes imbibing in their souls from infancy the very life of Christ will be strong to overcome every obstacle, and resist every temptation. The influence of godly example the memories of the home altar, the abiding power of Holy teachings and the grace of God descending perpetually upon the young life, in answer to believing prayer, give it such inspirations and impulses toward all that is noble and heavenly, that it will stand at last crowned with honor and beauty. To make a home godless and Prayerless is to send our children out to meet all the world's evil without either the shelter of covenant love to cover them in the storm, or the shelter of holy principle in their hearts to make them able to endure. But what is it that makes a home a Christian home? What is home religion?
[22:59] Allison: These questions are important enough for most thoughtful consideration.
[23:04] Allison: Those who wish to cultivate flowers so as to bring out the richest possible beauty in them study long and diligently the nature of plant life and the many conditions of soil, of temperature of air, and moisture essential to the growth of each particular kind of plant, and the development of each variety of flower. And then with scientific exactness produce in each case, the right conditions.
[23:27] Allison: In our homes, we are growing immortal lives. The problem is to bring out in each one, the very highest possible development of manly or womanly character. There are certain conditions which are essential to all true growth. If men take such pains to know how to grow flowers, which fade in a day, should we not take pains to know how to grow souls which live forever?
[23:58] Allison: What should be the religious atmosphere of a home to make it a true spiritual conservatory, there must be a home altar. No Christian home life can be complete where the family do not daily gather for worship. All the members may meet in God's house on the Sabbath for public service. Each one may maintain a strict habit of secret devotion.
[24:19] Allison: But if there is to be a family religion, a home life blessed and sweetened by the grace of Christ, there must also be a family worship. Were all assembled to listen devoutly to God's word and bow reverently and supplication at God's feet.
[24:35] Allison: There are many reasons why such worship should be observed.
[24:40] Allison: Shall we take all God's daily benefits from his hand and return to him? No thanks. Shall we be dependent continually on his bountiful Providence for food, for arraignment, for protection, for love, and all the tender joys of home and shall we never ask him For one of these blessings, shall we call our home a Christian home and yet never worship Christ within our doors? Shall we call ourselves God's children and yet never offer any praise to our father? should there not be some difference between a Christian and a heathen home? Should not God's children live differently from the children of this world?
[25:20] Allison: What mark is there that distinguishes our home from the home of our godless neighbor if there is to be no family altar.
[25:27] Allison: There are many things that tend to cause friction and household.
[25:32] Allison: There are daily cares. There are annoyances of 1000 kinds that break in upon the even flow of the family life. None of us are angels, and our intercourse together is oftentimes marred by selfishness or impatience or irritability, or carelessness.
[25:49] Allison: Sometimes our quick lips speak the harsh word that gives pain to more than one tender heart in the household. We sometimes misunderstand each other and a shadow hangs between two souls which love each other very truly, there is nothing that will smooth out all the little tangles and set all wrong things right again, like the daily worship together. Every burden is there brought and laid off on the great burden bearer. harsh feelings are softened as the admonitions of God's word fall on the ear. Hearts are drawn closer together as they approach the same throne of heavenly grace and feel the Spirit's power. Impatience vanishes from face and speech. While all wait together for God. No bitterness against another member of the family can live through a tender season of household worship.
[26:43] Allison: While we plead with God to forgive our sins, we cannot but forgive one another piece comes to the Perplexed soul while bowing at God's feet, and feeling the great calm of his own peace brooding over us and lying all about us. We are ashamed of our disquiet, and worry when we look up into our father's face, and see how faithfully he loves and cares for us. My mind was ruffled with small cares today. And I said pet ish words, and did not keep long suffering patients well.
[27:17] Allison: And now how deep my trouble for this sin? In vain I weep for foolish words I never can unsay yet not in vain. Oh, surely not in vain. This sorrow must compel me to take heed. And surely I shall learn how much I need my constant strength my own to supersede and all my thoughts to patients to constrain. Yes, I shall learn at last, though I neglect day after day to seek my help from the Oh aid me that I may always recollect this gentle heartedness and oh correct whatever else of sin thou CST in me.
[28:03] Allison: Bowing in prayer together in the morning strengthens all the household for life's active duties. Wisdom is sought and obtained for the decisions and plans of the day. Guidance is asked and received. Help is drawn down from the throne of God. The children go out under sheltering wings and are safe in danger, guarded by angels and kept by Christ Himself. Thus, reasons multiply where there should be family worship in every home. It is hard to see how any parent who realizes his responsibility can fail to have his household altar. Consider the matter frankly, and honestly, you are a Christian man or a Christian woman. Your children look to you for the witness of Christ. What do they think of the absence of family prayer in their home? How does it impress them? Is your testimony before them what it should be? Can your religious life stamp itself on them if you never bow with them in prayer?
[29:03] Allison: Are you bringing to bear upon their tender lives all the Halloween influences needed to purify and keep pure the fountains of their hearts? You want their characters to be permeated with the truth of God's Word. Can you hope that this will be so if they are not from childhood accustomed daily to hear these truths in their own homes? It is impossible to estimate the influence of the reading of the word in a home day after day and year after year. It filters into the hearts of the young it is absorbed into their souls. It colors all their thoughts. It is wrought into the very fiber of their minds. It imbues them with its own spirit.
[29:48] Allison: Its holy teachings become the principles of their lives, which rule their conduct and shape all their actions where every day that by I've always read in a home in the ears of the children, and its lessons simply and prayerfully taught, the effect is incalculable. It was thus that God himself commanded his ancient people to do to teach the truths of His word diligently to their children when they sat in the house. And when they walked, by the way, when they rose up, and when they lay down, this was the divine plan for bringing up a family.
[30:23] Allison: Not a lesson now and then, but the incessant, uninterrupted and continuous teaching of the Holy Scripture in the ears of the children. Such teaching unconsciously assimilates the character to the Divine likeness can any parents who desire to see their children Christians afford to lose out of the school for their nurture these mighty influences, even if there were no family prayer, the mere daily reading of the scriptures year after year continuously, would be in itself and inestimable influence for good but where prayer is added, the household waiting together daily around God's feet, while heavenly gifts and favors are tenderly supplicated, who can sum up the total of blessing? What parent can afford to omit this duty and lose out of his home nurture this mighty element of power?
[31:15] Allison: The excuses that are offered for the admission are familiar. One pleads want of time, but he finds time for everything else that he really wants to do.
[31:29] Allison: Besides, time taken for duty is never lost. Will not the divine benediction on the day be worth more than a few moments of time it takes to invoke it, then is there nothing worth living for in this world busyness and money making? Is the culture of one's home such a trivial matter that it must be neglected to get a few moments more each day for toiling and boiling in the fields of Mammon is the spiritual nurture of one's children so unimportant, that it may with impunity be crowded out all together to give one time to sleep a little later or read the morning paper more leisurely or chat with one's neighbor a few minutes longer. But honesty will compel men to confess that this excuse is never offered in sincerity.
[32:15] Allison: Another pleads timidity. He cannot make a prayer in his family, he would break down but is timidity a sufficient plea to excuse one from a duty so solemn, on which such vital interest of time and eternity depend? We had better test all our actions as we go on through life by inquiring how they will look at Judgment Day, or from amid their own consequences at the end, when a parent stands at God's bar, and this sin of omission is charged against him?
[32:42] Allison: Will his answer, I was too diffident, be sufficient to wipe out the charge. If his children left unblessed in their tender years by the influence of household worship, grow up worldly and godless drift away in sin and are lost, will it console the father and satisfy him as he sits in the shadows of his old age, and sees their ruin to say, I was too timid. A Christian mother says that her husband is not a Christian, and that she has never had the courage to establish family worship. But many godly mothers have done so. There are mothers who every morning and every evening, gathered their children together, sing a hymn with them, read a chapter from God's word, and then bow in prayer, invoking Heavens grace upon their heads and upon the beloved father. It would be easy to cite examples proving the power of such hallowed faithfulness. It may at first be a cross for a mother to take up. But like all crosses taken up, for Christ's sake and for love's sake, the burden becomes a joy, and an uplifting influence. And out of the hard duty comes such blessing, that the hardness is soon forgotten.
[33:56] Allison: There are men in heaven today, or engaged now in earnest Christian service on Earth, because their godly wives had the courage to establish a family altar in the home. There are children all over the Christian world, in whose hearts the sweetest memory of early years is that of the tender moments in the old home when they bowed in the daily prayer, and the mother with trembling tones implored God's blessing upon her household. Little Willie Newton was a child about five years old. One day his mother had taken him into her own room and prayed for him by name. And when she arose, he exclaimed, Mama, Mama, I am glad you told Jesus my name. Now he'll know me when I get to heaven. When the kind angels that carry little children to the Savior, take me and lay me in his arms. Jesus will look at me so pleased and say, why this is Little Willie Newton. His mother told me about it. him how happy I am to see you, Willie.
[35:03] Allison: Won't that be nice mama. Such links as this between a child's soul and heaven become in the end of chain of gold which no power can break. It would be easy to add many other words to enforce and illustrate the importance of this duty. If these pages are read by parents who have no household altar, they are affectionately entreated for the sake of their children, to set it up at once.
[35:27] Allison: It will bind the family more closely together, it will sweeten every joy and lighten every burden. It will brighten every path of toil and care. It will throw about the children a holy protection as they go out amid dangers. It will fill their hearts with the truths and influences of the Divine Word.
[35:48] Allison: It will weave into the memory of their home golden and silver threads, which will remain bright forever. It will keep continually open away between the home and heaven, setting up a ladder from the hearthstone on Earth to the Father's house in glory, on which the angels shall come and go continually in faithful ministry. Bless it is the home which has its family altar whose fires never go out.
[36:18] Allison: But sad is the home though it be filled with splendors and with the tenderness of human love, in which the household never gathered for United prayer. It is very important that the family worship be conducted in such a way as to interest the younger members of the household, and even the little children. It ought to be made the brightest and most pleasant exercise of the day.
[36:41] Allison: In some instances it is rendered irksome and worrisome. long chapters are read and read in a lifeless and unintelligible manner. The prayer is the same day after day, a series of petitions of the most general kind, reaching out over all classes and conditions of men, except the little group that Neil's about the altar, and embracing all the great needs and wants of the world save the needs and wants of the family itself that bows together. If singing is part of the worship, the psalm or hymn is not carefully chosen for its appropriateness and fitness to the experiences and hearts of those who are to sing it. In the whole exercise, there is nothing to win the attention of the children or to interest them in the holy service. It has taken for granted that because it is a religious act, it cannot be made pleasant and attractive, that children ought to sit still and listen attentively, even if the service is dull and worrisome.
[37:36] Allison: And that it is an evidence of their depravity that they fidget and wriggle on their chairs, or carry on their slide mischief while the saintly father with closed eyes is droning over his stereotyped prayer. But there is no reason in the world why religious exercise should be made dull and irksome. The family worship should be of such character that it would be anticipated with eagerness, and that its memories would ever be among the most hallowed recollections of the childhoods home. Each portion of the exercise should be enlivened by pleasing variety. Instead of being stately and formal, it should be made simple and familiar. Instead of requiring the children to listen in silence, while the father goes through the whole worship alone, a part should be given to each member. Just in what manner it is best to do this, each household must decide for itself. Indeed, no one method is always best as variety is one of the elements of interest. In some families, the Scripture is read by versus in turn, every member reading and others it is read responsively. The leader taking one verse and all the members together the next. In others the Father alone reads, the matter of the selection of passages to read is important.
[38:57] Allison: Some heads of families follow the order of the Bible itself, going through in its course not omitting a chapter or a verse, Even stumbling over the long list of names in the Chronicles.
[39:09] Allison: Many in these later days. Read the selection assigned for the day in the home readings and the Sabbath School lesson. This is a good method as it aids in the preparation of the lesson for the week, gathering the whole seven days reading and study around some one scripture passage in which the children are for the time particularly interested. And occasional topical lesson is pleasant and helpful. For instance, on Sabbath morning, let the reading consist of verses and brief passages from different parts of the Bible, all bearing upon the central topic of the day's lesson. On Sunday in the spring, let all the verses that refer to flowers and plants be cold and red. When the first snow falls, let all the passages that relate to snow be gathered from the Bible with an appropriate word concerning each one. It will add to the end Just in these exercises if the topic is announced and advanced and each member of the family requested to find as many verses as possible bearing upon it, All scripture reading in the family worship will be brightened and its interest for children enhanced by an occasional explanatory remark, or by an incident that illustrates the thought. Singing should form part of the worship whenever possible. Occasionally, for instance, on the Sabbath evenings, it will be found profitable to hold a little family service of song, reading a verse or two from Scripture and then singing a stanza of a psalm or hymn appropriate to the sentiment of the Bible passage.
[40:42] Allison: A prayer in the household worship should be brief, particularly when the children are young. It should be fresh, free from all stereotyped phrases couched in simple language that all can understand. It should be a prayer for the family at whose altar it is offered, not altogether omitting outside interest, but certainly including the interest of the household itself. It should be tender and personal, frequently taking up the members by name and carrying to the Lord the particular needs of each remembering any who are sick or in trouble, or exposed to danger or temptation.
[41:23] Allison: Some part in the prayer may also be given to the children. If the children are young, they may repeat the entire prayer after the father phrase by phrase, The Lord's Prayer may be used at the close, all uniting in it. In these ways, the whole family will be interested in the worship and it will become a delightful exercise full of profit and instruction and rich with influences for good. But family worship is not enough.
[41:51] Allison: There are homes where prayer is never omitted, yet in which there is not the Spirit of Christ, and only the Spirit of Christ and a household makes a truly Christian home. If the altar is in the midst, the whole life of the home should be filled with the incense that burns upon it. There are some fields of grass from which in summer days rise a sweet fragrance, although not a flower is anywhere to be seen. But when you park the tall grass and look down among its roots, they're close on the ground. Hidden under the showy waving grass.
[42:26] Allison: You see multitudes of small flowers, modest and lowly, yet pouring forth a delicate and delicious aroma, filling all the air. There are homes in which there is nothing remarkable in the way of grandeur or elegance.
[42:39] Allison: Yet the very atmosphere as you enter it is filled with sweetness, like the smell of a field which the LORD hath blessed. It is the aroma of love, the love of Christ shed abroad in human hearts. Religion is lived there. The daily prayers bring down the spirit of heaven. Christ dwells there and his blessed influence fills with divine tenderness all the home life. It was said of one that she looked like a prayer. If we would make our homes truly Christian homes our daily lives must be like our daily prayers.
[43:19] Allison: If the members of the family wrangle and quarrel, the fact that the father is a minister or an elder, and the mother, president of a Dorcas, society or secretary of an association to send the gospel to China does not make the home religious. If a blessing is asked at the table before the meal begins, and if then, instead of cheerful and affectionate conversation, the Table Talk is made up of faultfinding with the food of ill tempered disputes and acrimonious pickerings. The asking of a blessing scarcely makes the intercourse Christian.
[43:54] Allison: If family worship is observed with scrupulous fidelity, and the members rise from their knees to violate the simplest lessons of Christian love and kindness and their fellowship as a household, the fact that there is family worship does not make a Christian home. The prayers must be lived. The Scripture lessons must find their way into the heart, and then into the speech and conduct. The songs must sing themselves over and over all day in the household intercourse. The same German artist referred to in the opening of this chapter, who made such a marvelous statue of the Savior firmly believed that he had seen Christ in a vision, and that the form he had chiseled in the marble was the very image of the glorious person he had seen. Afterward he grew famous and was asked to make statues of certain heathen deities, but he refused, saying, a man who has seen Christ would commit sacrilege if he should employ his art in the carving of a pagan goddess. My art is henceforth a consecrated with During the lips that have breathed the sacred words a family prayer should never speak bitter, angry or unkind words. A home in which the altar has been set up is thenceforth a consecrated spot to surrender it to pickerings. And Stripes is sacrilege. It is holy unto the Lord and should be a scene only of love and tenderness, of joy and peace. It is said that in Greenland when a stranger knocks at the door, he asks, Is God in this house? If the answer is yes, he enters so blessings enjoys pause at our doors and not to ask if God is in our dwelling. If he is, they enter.
[45:46] Allison: If he is not, they flee away, for they will not enter or Terry in a godless home. A young girl engaged in a wealthy but Prayerless household as a domestic servant. After spending one night under the roof, she came to her mistress pale and agitated and told her she could not stay with her any longer.
[46:06] Allison: When pressed for her reason, she at length replied that she was afraid to live and sleep in a house in which there was no prayer. And there are no heavenly blessings that will enter or abide in a Prayerless home. No divine guest is there.
[46:20] Allison: No wings of love drooped down to cover the dwelling. It is a house without a roof as it were, for it is written that God will pour out His fury upon the families that call not upon his name. But into the home where God abides. Heavens richest blessings come and come to stay.
[46:35] Allison: Angels in camp around it, it is roofed over with the wings of God. Its joys are all sweetened by the Divine gladness. It sorrows are all comforted by the Divine sympathy. It's been addiction rests upon all who go out from its doors. It is but the vestibule to Heaven itself.
[47:01] Allison: There is no inheritance which the richest parent can bequeath to a child that can compare for one moment, with the influence and blessing of a truly godly home. It gives to the whole trend of the life away into the eternal years, such a direction and such an impulse that no after influence, no false teachings, no terrific temptation. No darkening calamity can ever altogether turn it away from its course.
[47:28] Allison: For a time, it may be drawn aside by some mighty power of evil. But if the work in the home has been true and deep, permeating the whole nature, the deviation from rectitude will be but temporary. If parents give money to their children, they may lose it in some of life's vicissitudes. If they bequeathed to them a home of splendor, they may be driven out of it. If they pass down to them as heritage only an honored name, they may sell it. But if they fill their hearts with the holy influences and memories of a happy Christian home, no calamity, no great sorrow, no power of evil, no earthly loss can ever rob them of their sacred possessions. The home songs will sing themselves out again in the years of toilsome duty, the home teachings will knit themselves into a fiber of character, rich in its manly or womanly beauty, and invulnerable as a coat of mail. The home prayers will bind the soul with gold chains fast around the feet of God. Then as the years go on, and the old home of Earth is broken up, it only moves from behind as it were and goes on before where it draws the soul toward the better life. For there is a home of which this earthly home even at its best, is but a type into that home. God is gathering the great family. The Christian household that is broken here, or scattered shall be reunited there. A father and his son were shipwrecked at sea. They clung to the rigging for a time and then the sun was washed off. The father suppose he was lost. In the morning, the father was rescued in an unconscious state, and after many hours, awoke in a fisherman's hut, lying on a soft, warm bed. He turned his face and there lay his son beside him on the same bed. So one by one, our families are swept away in the sea of death.
[49:32] Allison: Our homes are emptied and our fondest ties are broken. But one in Christ Jesus we shall awake in the other world to see beside us again, our loved ones whom we have lost here yet who have only gone before us into the eternal home.
[49:54] Allison: Chapter nine home memories we are all All making in our today's the memories of are tomorrow's. Whether these shall be pleasant or painful to contemplate depends on whether we are living well or ill.
[50:08] Allison: memory writes down everything where we shall be compelled to see it perpetually. There have been authors who in their last days would have given worlds to get back the words they had written. There have been men and women who would have given their right hands to blot out the memories of certain passages in their lives. Certain acts done certain words sent forth to scatter sin or sorrow.
[50:41] Allison: On the wall I see them outlines vague and Dreier strange, mysterious shadows, fraught with nameless fear, sometimes moving slowly, sometimes moving fast.
[50:52] Allison: shadows from another world, shadows of the past, shadows faint and tangible shadows, shadows all, yet my eyes discern them passing on the wall, sometimes moving slowly, sometimes moving fast. Still, they're sad reflection or my soul they cast on the other hand, there are memories that shed a perpetual benediction.
[51:22] Allison: There have been artists whose eyes looked in old age upon the pictures they had painted, finding rare pleasure in the contemplation of the lovely things they had made. And there are hearts that are picture galleries filled with the memories of lives of sweetness, purity, and unselfishness. We are each preparing for ourselves the house our souls must live in in the years to come. The poet Longfellow in one of his tender poems has these lines. Childhood is the bow where slumbered birds and blossoms, many numbered age that bow with snows encumbered.
[52:03] Allison: Gather then each flower that grows when the young heart or flows to embalm that tent of snows. The thought is very beautiful, that youth must gather the sweet things of life, the flowers, the fragrant odors, which lie everywhere, so that old age may be clothed with gladness. We do not realize how much the happiness of our after years will depend upon the things we are doing today. It is our own life that gives color to our skies and tone to the music that we hear in this world. The memories he makes along his years are the old man's heritage, his very home. He may change houses or neighbors or companions or circumstances, but he cannot get away from his own past the song or the discord that rings in his ear. He may think it is made by other voices, but it is really the echo of his own yesterday's. If you hold a polished shell to your ear, you shall hear as from within it a strange sound like the distant roar of the ocean.
[53:08] Allison: You even hear it said by people with fine imaginative powers, that this shall once lay by the shore of the sea and not the sounds you hear as you hold it to your ear are the treasured echoes and old memories of the Wild Waves thunder, which it carries hidden in its recesses.
[53:30] Allison: But when you have made a few experiments with the shell, this pretty fancy vanishes. You lay it on a table and apply your ear and then you do not hear the sound at all. It is only when you hold it in your hand that you hear this strange murmur. So the fact is learned that it is only the quivering of your own fingers, the throbbing of your own pulse against the hollow resonant shell that makes the sound in like manner, the music which we hear as our years go on, whether it be sweet or discordant is but the pulse beat of our own hearts. We may think it comes from outside and we may blame our circumstances if we are unhappy. But really it is the Mone of the memories of our own past lives that sad in us.
[54:17] Allison: What is true of our individual lives is true also of our homes.
[54:22] Allison: We are making their memories day by day and year by year. And what they shall be in the future will depend on the home life we are living now. We make our homes a palace, filling it with delights, covering the walls with beautiful pictures, planting flowers to fill the halls and chambers with fragrance and hanging cages of singing birds everywhere to pour out sweet notes of song. Or we may cover the walls with hideous images and ghastly Specter is to look down upon us and plant only Briars and thorns about the doors to flaunt for themselves in our faces when we sit in the gloom of life's nightfall we may make the memories of our home so tender, so precious, so sacred, that each life that goes out of our doors shall carry a blessing upon it wherever it moves. Or, we may make its memories a perpetual pillow of thorns for our heads, a burden of bitterness and anguish, which shall never be lifted or removed. There is no need for argument to prove the influence of the home memories and the formation of character.
[55:34] Allison: When one's childhood home has been true and sweet, it's memories never can be a faced, its teachings may long be unheated, and life may be a miserable waste. Sin may sweep over the soul like a devouring flame, leaving only blackened ruins. Sorrows may quench every joy and hope, and the life may be crushed and broken. But the memory of the early home lives on like a solitary star burning in the gloom of night. Even in Rebels and chorale puzzles, it's picture floats in the mind like a vanished dream. It's voices of love and prayer and song, come back like melodies from some faraway island in the sea, when the lips that first breathe them out, have long been silent in the grave. There ought to be a powerful motive in this truth to lead us to watch the character of the memories we make in our homes. How will those who go out of our doors be affected in later life? By what they remember of their early home?
[56:40] Allison: Will the memory be tender, restraining, refining and inspiring? Or will it be sad, bitter, and to curse? Cooper's mother died when he was only six years old. Yet so deep was the impression made upon him by her character, that he said there was not a day in all his manhood years, when he did not remember and think of her. The memory of her tenderness hung over him like a soft summer sky. Will it be so with the children who are playing now in our homes, is the mother who reads these words, so impressing the tender lives of her children with the goodness of her own character, that the memory and the influence shall remain when their hairs are white with age, and when she is long gone from earthly scenes.
[57:26] Allison: There is a story of one who to his latest years was blessed by the memory of one incident in his childhood home. When only a few years old, he was brought to his father's death chamber to say goodbye to him. The godly man spoke a few words of wise loving counsel to the boy, then drew him close to the bed, gave him a tender farewell kiss, and then laying his trembling hand upon his child's head, uttered a blessing solemnly giving him to God. Remember, said he, that your dying father kissed you, blessed you, and gave you to God. All through his life, the memory of these solemn acts and words lingered with him. In his youth, when there came a temptation to do something wrong, the thought would flash, no, I must not do this. For I am the boy that was kissed and blessed and given to God. This memory saved him many a time from yielding to sin. He must keep his soul clean because he had been given to God. When later in life, burdens pressed and sorrows weighed heavily, and he was about to give way to discouragement to doubt or despair, again, there would rise up before him, the scene in that hallowed death chamber, and the remembrance would sustain and support him. I must not succumb to these sore trials. The Lord has not forsaken me. There must be something good yet to come out of all this darkness and bitterness. For am not I the boy that was kissed and blessed and given to God. This memory was a star and the darkest midnight of his life, a morning star for toking always the breaking of the day. At last in the sore stress of life's burdens, his mind gave way and he spent several years in hospital for the insane. Sometimes in his brighter moments, he would speak as to his daughter in a strain like this. Here I am, shut away in this tearless place, away from those I love. I am very lonely. I have no one now to play and sing for me as you used to do. Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly, or Rock of Ages Cliff for me. Let me hide myself in the it all seems very…
[1:00:32] Allison: One has written this testimony, many a night, as I remember lying quietly in the little upper chamber. Before sleep came on, there would be a gentle footstep on the stair, the door would noiselessly open, and in a moment, the well known form, softly gliding through the darkness would appear at my bedside. First, there would be a few pleasant inquiries of affection, which gradually deepened into words of counsel.
[1:01:00] Allison: Then kneeling her head close to mine, her most earnest hopes and desires would flow forth in prayer. How largely a mother can wish for her boy, her tears bespoke the earnestness of her desire. I seem to feel them yet where sometimes they fell on my face. Rising with a good night kiss, she was gone. The prayers often passed out of thought and slumber, and came not to mind again for years, but they were not lost. They were safely kept in some secret place of memory, for they reappear with a beauty brighter than ever. I willingly believe they were an invisible bond with heaven that secretly preserved me while I moved carelessly amid numberless temptations and walked the brink of crime. It would seem to be worthwhile for every mother to try to weave such memories into the early years of her children's lives. There is no surefire way to bind them with chains of gold to God's throne.
[1:02:00] Allison: Where is the busy mother who cannot find time enough to spend thus a few moments every night with each child before it falls asleep, in sweet loving talk and tender earnest prayer. far down into the years the memory of such sacred moments will go, proving 1000s of times a light in darkness, and inspiration and discouragement, a secret of victory in hard struggle, a hand to restrain from sin in time of fierce temptation. God has thus put into the hands of parents at their own Hearthstone, a power greater than that which kings and queens wield, and which must issue in either the wheel or the world of their children. It would surely seem to be worthwhile to make any sacrifice of personal comfort or pleasure to transmit a legacy of holy memories that shall be through all the years like a host of pure angels hovering over those we love to guard and guide them.
[1:02:57] Allison: There is one particular class of home memories of which a few words must be said. These are the memories we make in our intercourse with one another.
[1:03:11] Allison: Washington Irving wrote, ah, go to the grave of buried love and meditate. There settle the account with die conscience of every past endearment unregarded, of that departed being who never never can be soothed by contrition. If thou art a child, and has ever added a sorrow to the soul or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent. If thou art a husband, and has to ever cause the fond bosom that ventured its whole happiness in my arms, to doubt a moment of thy kindness or Thy truth. If thou art a friend, and has ever injured by thought, word or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee. If thou are the lover, and has ever given one unmerited pain to the true heart that now lies cold beneath my feet. Then be sure that every unkind look, every ungenerous word, every ungentle action will come thronging back upon my memory and knock dolefully at thy soul.
[1:04:09] Allison: Be sure that thou will lie down sorrowing and repenting on the grave, and utter THE UNHEARD groan and pour the unavailing tear, bitter because unheard and unavailing. The continual remembrance of this truth would sweeten all our tones, and give gentleness to all our actions in our home intercourse. If we only could keep in mind all the while how the memory of unkindness, bitterness or selfishness, one toward another will pain our hearts when one is taken and the other left. It would be one of the mightiest of all motives for members of a family to dwell together in unity. A personal friend relates this incident. It was on a bright winter morning that A young man remarkable for gentleness of manner and cleanliness of heart went out from his father's house to his daily occupation. Within half an hour suddenly and without warning, he was called from time to eternity. And before a third of the time he was usually absent had passed. His lifeless form was carried into the home he had left so happily a few hours before.
[1:05:24] Allison: parents, brothers and sisters comforted each other as best they could. But the sister nearest and age to the dead brother, whose love and gentleness toward him, none would question seemed to have a sorrow peculiar to herself, which found vent to one who sought to comfort her in the bitter and regretful words. I was not kind to him as he left home this morning. No one ever knew to what she alluded. It may have been too keen a sense of delinquency, which caused a bitter pain in her heart, or it may have been a playful word spoken, or perhaps, the mere absence of the usual tenderness.
[1:06:02] Allison: With her loving nature and her unveiled gentleness toward this brother, it could have been nothing really unkind. Yet it caused her sore pain as she looked upon the dead face. He could not hear her request now to forgive her. Nor could any lavish tokens of love now atone for that which caused her pain.
[1:06:21] Allison: She had not been so kind as usual to him at partying that morning, and the memory added much to the grief of her loving tender heart over its sudden loss. One bright summer morning, a young man bade his wife and bade goodbye and went away to his work. before midday, there was an accident on the street.
[1:06:40] Allison: The scaffolding on which he was working gave way, and his lifeless body was carried back to his home, from which only a few hours before he had gone out so happily. The shock was terrible, though the news was broken as gently as possible.
[1:06:55] Allison: But there was one comfort that came with wondrous power to the crushed heart of the devoted young wife. The last hour they had spent in each other's company, in the morning, had been peculiarly happy, and they're partying at the door had been unusually tender. She had not dreamed at the time that it would be their last talk together. Yet there was not a word spoken which caused one painful memory now that she should never see him more, nor speak with him again in this world. Every memory of that quiet talk at the breakfast table of the morning worship when they knelt side by side in prayer, and of the tender goodbye on the doorstep was full of comfort, through years of loneliness and widowhood. The remembrance of that last hour has been an abiding source of gladness in her life, like a lamp of holy peace. These two incidences illustrate the importance of unbroken tenderness and affection witness in the family intercourse. In each moment, in our home fellowship, we are making memories which may become to us a source either of pleasure or of pain through long future years. We never can tell when we are having our last talk together, or our last meal, or when we are parting at the door never to meet again. Suppose then, that as you go out in the morning, you have a little strife or quarrel with one of the household whom you truly love, and you part perhaps in anger, with sharp, stinging words, perhaps only in sullen silence. Do you not see how that party may become a lifelong bitterness to you? Death may come to one of you to prevent your ever meeting again. And then the last memory will be one of pain. What a motive this should be to make the household intercourse tender and loving, without break or interruption, so that any word spoken if it should prove to be the last, we'll leave a hollowed memory for the lonely years. Coventry Pat Moore's words are well worth remembering, applying them to our home, friends. If thou dost bid thy friend farewell, but for one…
[1:09:45] Allison: We are never sure that we shall have an opportunity to unsay the angry word and have it forgiven.
[1:09:48] Allison: The only safe way is to make every hours fellowship in the household so sweet, that if it should be the last, it would leave a memory without regret.
[1:10:01] Allison: There is another class of memories, which sooner or later become part of the history of every home. These are the memories of sorrows and losses.
[1:10:07] Allison: There is no flock however watched intended, but one dead lamb is there, there is no fireside howsoever defended, but has one vacant chair, the air is full of farewells to the dying and mornings for the dead.
[1:10:26] Allison: There is no home and to which grief does not come in some form. Nearly every house has its secret drawer, which is not very often opened, which contains the dresses, the tiny shoes, the dolls or toys of a little prep blur whom God took. And oh, since that baby slept, so hushed, how the mother has kept with a tearful pleasure, that little treasure, and or it thought and wept, as it lies before her there. They are babbles from chair to chair, a little sweet face, that's a gleam in the place, with its little gold curls of hair. Or perhaps it was not a child that died. But when he would live to grow into all the life of the home and becomes its inspiration, the sorrow is not the same, the sense of loss is different. The longer we have had the loved ones in our class, but the more is there to remember, the more touches are there left on the things about us to store our hearts when we come upon them. Or it may not have been in bereavement, that the sorrow came. Ah, there are griefs worse than those which death causes. There are losses that leave a blacker blank than when the coffin lid shuts down on the face and the grass grows green over the grave of one home we shall see no more in this world. It needs no skillful hand to touch and awaken the memories of sorrow in almost every home.
[1:11:46] Allison: Sometimes the whole household life has been changed into a tone of sadness, by a grief bitter than is common. Sometimes it has been a gentler stroke that has fallen, and the effect is only a deepening of seriousness and thoughtfulness, a softening of the tones of speech, a growing tenderness and all the intercourse. But sooner or later, the music of every home must have its minor chords.
[1:12:13] Allison: There is a picture that is laid away. There is a vacant chair.
[1:12:17] Allison: There is a wreath of a Mortalis sacredly kept underclass, there are mementos of one who comes no more. There are songs that when sung choke every voice because they were favorites of one whose faces see no more in the circle.
[1:12:30] Allison: There are books whose pages have a language for the heart, not printed in words. There are places in scenes which bring up 1000 Sacred memories. Thus woodier sings of the losses in the home. How strange it seems with so much gone, of life and love to still live on. Ah, Brother, only I end thou are left of all that circle now. The dear home faces were upon that fitful firelight paled and shown hints forward, listen as we will, the voices of that hearth are still look where we may the wide earth or those lighted faces smile no more. We tread the path their feet have worn, we sit beneath their orchard trees, we hear like them the hum of bees and rustle of the bladed corn, we turn the pages that they read their written words we linger or, but in the sun, they cast no shade. No voice is heard. No sign is made. No step is on the conscious floor. Such memories affect the home life.
[1:13:42] Allison: They sober it sometimes sad in it. Sorrow was not always rightly born. Sometimes it puts out all the lights. But if it is endured in the right spirit, it leaves a blessing. Sorrow does not make any true Christian homeless tender. Rather it makes it all the tender. Grief brings the members closer together. We never love one another so much.
[1:14:04] Allison: We are never so gentle toward one another so thoughtful, so unselfish as when a common grief has touched us all. Indeed, sanctified sorrow transfigures a home. It brings more of Heaven down into it. It sweeps away something of the earthiness that clings always to unchastened Love. It brings out many of the better qualities of the household lives. It takes something of the hardness out of every heart. It deepens the meaning of life. If the music is not so loud afterward, yet it is sweeter. If the joy is less boisterous, it is richer and fuller after the grief has come.
[1:14:46] Allison: Heaven is not mounted to on wings of dreams Nordoff the unthankful happiness of youth aim through their word, but floats from Bloom to bloom with Earth's warm patch of sunshine.
[1:14:59] Allison: Welcome sent to his sorrow builds the shining ladder up, whose golden rounds are our calamities were on our firm feet planting nearer God, the Spirit climbs and half its eyes unsealed. Through the clouded glass of our own bitter tears, we learn to look on dazzled on the kindness of God's face.
[1:15:24] Allison: Earth is too dark, and heaven alone shines through.
[1:15:30] Allison: It may truly be said that no home ever reaches its highest blessedness and sweetness of love and its richness fullness of joy, till sorrow enters its life in some way. The best home music can be brought out only in the fire of trial. Did you ever sit on a winter's evening before an old fashioned fireplace with its and neurons and its blazing log of wood. As you sit there and watch the fire playing about the log, you begin to hear a soft sound, a clear musical note perhaps, or a tender quavering strain, plaintiff and sad. It takes every tone as the evening passes. Sometimes it sounds like a whole chorus of bird songs.
[1:16:12] Allison: Sometimes it dies away into a faint murmur. What is it? Are there birds hiding in the chimney that give out these strange notes? Are there invisible spirits hovering about the room that breathe out these plaintive strains? No, the music comes from the log in the fire.
[1:16:28] Allison: The flames bring it out. If you are of a poetical turn of mine, you will imagine that long ago in the forest. The birds sat on the branches of the tree from which this backlog was taken and sang their and their songs hid away in the wood where they have remained ever since. Or you will fancy that the winds side and murmured through the branches and gentle summer breezes or swept through them in furious storms, and that the music of the breezes or of the storms has been imprisoned in the heart of the tree all these many years.
[1:17:06] Allison: And now in the hot flames. All this long slumbering music is brought out. This may be but a pretty poetic fancy so far as the weird music of the log on the hearth is concerned. But it is no more fancy that the sweetest fullest music of the home is not drawn out until the fires of trial come. The bird notes of joy that warble about the ears in the sunny days of childhood and youth sink away into the heart and hide there.
[1:17:35] Allison: The lessons, the influences the gladness, the peace of quiet, prosperous days seem to happen last, the life does not appear to yield its true measure of joyfulness than the fires of trial Kindle about it. And in the flames. The long gathering and the imprisoned music is set free and flows out. We all know lives of which this is the true history. The world's richest songs have been sung in the midst of the hot fires. What is true of individual life is true also of household life. Our love for one another may be true and deep in the sunny days, but it never reaches its richest development until pain or suffering touches us and calls out all the hidden wealth of affection. The mother's love for her child, rich and deep as it is never attains its full wonder isness of self denial and sacrifice until the child is sick or in some pain, and the mother bends over it in yearning solicitude and unselfish ministry. The same is true of all the home affections. It is the fire that brings out the imprisoned music. The household that has endured sorrow in the true spirit of faith and resignation comes out of it with a richer and tender love.
[1:18:53] Allison: Husband and wife that been side by side over a dead child are drawn to each other as never before. The other children are dearer to the parents after one has been taken. Brothers and sisters grow more patient and thoughtful toward one another when their circle has been broken. An empty chair has a wonderful power to soften home hearts and refine the feelings of nature. Thus, the memories of grief and trial in a truly Christian home are not discordant notes in the song, but become really it's sweetest voices. As the years come and go. The remembrance of losses and disappointments, loses its bitterness and becomes a source of joy rather than a pain. Gene and glow writes sorrows humanize our race. Tears are the showers that fertilize the world and memory of things precious keepeth warm the heart that once did hold them. They are poor that have lost nothing. They are poor or far who losing have forgotten. They most poor of all who lose and wish they might for Get for life is one and in its warp and woof there runs a thread of gold that glitters fair. And sometimes in the pattern shows most sweet where there are somber colors. Let us turn off and look back upon the wondrous web. And when it shines, sometimes we shall know that memory is possession.
[1:20:23] Allison: So it oftentimes comes that the very tenderest and richest memories of a home are the memories of its sorrows. They are golden chains that bind hearts together in tenderest clasp. Then, when Christian faith rules in the heart, the mementos of grief and loss become inspirers of new hopes.
[1:20:41] Allison: We are richer for having loved although we have lost Tennyson in In Memoriam says, this truth came born with Breyer and Paul.
[1:20:53] Allison: I felt it when I saw erode most tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. We are richer also for having suffered if we have suffered with resignation and trust in God. Then we are richer also an immortal possessions are dead are not lost to us. They have only passed into a higher, fuller, safer life, where they are secure forever from danger and trial and secure also for us. As Whittier writes again, and yet dear heart, remembering the am I not richer than have old, safe in my immortality, what change can reach the wealth I hold? What chance can mar the pearl and gold I love half left and trust for me. And while in life's late afternoon, we're cool and long the shadows grow.
[1:21:46] Allison: I walk to meet the night that soon shall shape and Chateau overflow. I cannot feel that thou art far, since near at need the angels are. And when the sunset gates unbar Shall I not see the waiting stand and white against the Evening Star, the welcome of thy beckoning hand.
[1:22:10] Allison: And again, the same gentle poet writes yet lovable, dream and faithful trust, since he who knows our need is just that somehow somewhere meet we must.
[1:22:21] Allison: Alas for him who never sees the stars shine through his cypress trees, who hopeless lays his dead away nor looks to see the breaking day across the mournful Marvel's play, who have not learned in hours of faith, the truth to flesh and sense unknown, that life is ever lord of death and love can never lose its own. It is not every home whose memories are such a heritage of blessing and ungodly home twines about the tender lives of the young no such sacred cords to bind them to truth, to virtue and to love.
[1:23:05] Allison: The intercourse of an unloving household leaves no such joy fountains in the hearts of its members. In a Christ Lois Prayerless home, sorrows are not thus transfigured and changed into blessings. It is only word Christ is a guest that the home life is so enriched and illumined. It is only his presence that will sanctify every influence and Hallo every memory.
[1:23:30] Allison: It has been pointed out that the upper half of the panels in our common doors represents the cross. If the panels are taken out, the cross appears in true and exact proportion. Many persons may have noticed this, but not many know perhaps that this form was purposely adopted in the Middle Ages, and that it is no mere accident of architecture. Dr. Phelps, speaking of this says it was no fortuitous circumstance or geometric convenience in domestic building. It had its origin in the religious fervor of the Crusades, which made everything that could be thus employed an emblem of the central truths and forms of Christian worship, the same religious taste which constructed the ancient cathedrals in the form of the cross, the scattered crosses and the instruments of our Lord's Passion everywhere by the roadside, gave structure to windows and doors, windows in medieval castles, and in the upper class of humbler Holmes as well. Were divided by the Roman Cross, the pillar running perpendicularly through the center and the crossbeam near the top, so that every eye that looked out upon the outside world should look through the type of the central thought of the Christian faith. With the same design, the paneling of doors was so constructed as to form the same device. From that day to this, this usage of household architecture has remained A silent witness to the devotion of another age. To medieval piety, it must have been an impressive circumstance of daily life, that every time one passed through a doorway, when faced with the emblem of the great Christian tragedy, entering the room where the daily meals were served or going to the Chamber of repose at night, every intimate of that home looked upon the sign of the sacrifice on which the salvation of all depended. And the same token was one of the first images to greet the eye in the morning. The Christian home however lowly if it rose to the dignity of panel doors, and transom Windows was thus crowded with reproductions of…
[1:25:56] Allison: It can do us no harm in these later days to recall and keep in mind the medieval piety which sought thus to place a memorial of Christ at the entrance to every room, building into every part of the very house itself, the symbol of his great love.
[1:26:12] Allison: The form itself is nothing it Ward's off no evil, it brings no blessing to a home. But if the symbol suggest thoughts of Christ and His love and holiness, wherever the eye rest upon it, it's influenced must be to soften the heart to check and restrain evil words and tempers, to candle the spirit of devotion and to sweeten all the life of the home. Anything that helps to keep us in mind at the presence of Christ, and of His loving spirit cannot do us harm. But far more important is it for us to make sure that we have Christ Himself in our home. Symbols are nothing unless they are the true pictures of sacred facts. If Christ be indeed remembered daily and hourly in the home, if his presence be consciously realized, and it's transforming power felt in each heart, and if everything be done, and every word spoken in his name, the household life will be pervaded by the spirit of heaven, and the home memories will be tender with all the hallowed tenderness of the warmest love. We are fast moving on through this world.
[1:27:18] Allison: Soon all that will remain of us will be the memories of our lives. No part of our work will then afford such a true test of our living as the memorials we leave behind us in our homes. No other work that God gives any of us to do is so important, so sacred, so far reaching and its influence, so delicate and easily marred as our home making. This is the work of all our life that is most divine.
[1:27:46] Allison: The carpenter works in wood, the Mason works in stone. The Smith works in iron, the artist works on Canvas, but the homemaker works on Immortal lives. The wood or the stone or the iron or the canvas may be marred and it will not matter greatly in 50 years. But let a tender human soul be marred in its early training and ages hence the effects will still be seen.
[1:28:12] Allison: Whatever else we slight, let it never be our homemaking. If we do nothing else well in this world, Let us at least build well within our own doors.
[1:28:28] Allison: The last song and the most beautiful that Mozart saying was his Requiem. He had been engaged upon this exquisite piece for several weeks, his soul filled with inspirations of richest malady after giving the last touch, and breathing into it that undying spirit of song which was to consecrate it for all time, he fell into a gentle and quiet slumber. At length the light footsteps of his daughter are welcome. Come hither, my Emily, he said, For my task is done. The Requiem my Requiem is finished. Say not so dear father spoke the gentle girl. You must be better. Even now your cheek has a glow upon it. Do not deceive yourself, my child, said the dying father. This wasted form can never be restored by human aid. Take these my last notes, sit down by my piano here and sing them with the hymns of thy sainted mother. Let me once more hear those tones which have so long been my solace and delight. Emily obeyed with a voice enriched by the tenderest emotion. Then turning from the piano when she had finished, she looked in silence for the approving smile of her father.
[1:29:48] Allison: But there was instead only the still passionless smile which the wrapped spirit had left with the seal of death upon his features. He had gone home on the wings of his own Requiem There is no Requiem so sweet for the departing spirit as the hallowed memories of a true home. They will make music in the heart in its last moments, inspiring as the songs of angels. Make God help every one of us to live at home so tenderly, so unselfishly, so lovingly, that the memories we make within our own doors shall be our own holiest Requiem, on the breath of which our spirits may be wafted away to glory, in the home of our Father's house.
[1:30:39] Allison: The end.
[1:30:40] Allison: Well, Homemakers, we did it. We made it all the way through this deep and profound filmmaking handbook. It's my prayer that you have not been overwhelmed, but encouraged and motivated by this book. I also pray that you will revisit a chapter or two when you feel the need to be equipped in a particular area of your home making. Maybe you go through a season of marital coldness or strife. Give the first three chapters another lesson. Perhaps you're having a hard time teaching siblings to get along and live in harmony.
[1:31:09] Allison: Go back and listen to the chapter on brothers and sisters, you get the idea? This reading series is meant to be a resource for you whenever you need it. So please, please take advantage of it. And let me know how it's impacted your homemaking, your attitude, and the environment of your home, you can contact me by using the link in the notes or just go to the art of home podcast.com/contact. Over there, you can leave me a voicemail, or you can drop me a note. I love to hear from listeners. So please don't be shy. Also, please do take advantage of the companion study for this book.
[1:31:46] Allison: Currently the chapter reflection questions go out to our newsletter mailing list on Friday mornings, so be sure that you're on that list. And if you missed previous chapters, I send the links out every Friday for whatever chapters have been released. So this Friday, all nine chapter questions, there will be links for all of those, you can sign up below or at the art of home podcast.com/summer.
[1:32:08] Allison: Eventually, the study will be on the website with the full audio altogether and a nice little package. I'm not sure when that's going to happen. But I will let you know as soon as it's available.
[1:32:22] Allison: I will be taking a little break for a couple of weeks. But the art of home podcast is coming back on September 21. With a brand new season of five homemaker portraits, and a deep dive episode on homemaking with special needs children. It's going to be a great fall season.
[1:32:36] Allison: And I'm really looking forward to sharing these stories of home with you all. Thank you to everyone who has followed and left ratings and reviews on your listening apps. That helps me so much because it's an indication that what I'm producing this content I'm producing is stuff that people want to hear. And your reviews help potential listeners decide whether or not this show is a good fit for them. Thank you to all the friends who have given financially to support this project that also shows that you value this kind of content and you want to partner with us and getting it out to more homemakers all over the world.
[1:33:15] Allison: If you would like to give to this project, please visit our virtual tip jar, buy me a coffee.com/the art of home. I know that not everyone can give financially and that is totally fine. I completely trust God to provide the means to produce this show. As long as he wants it to go on. He is always faithful. The best way that you can help is by joining me in prayer for this ministry to strengthen homemakers as they faithfully serve their families and run this race that God has laid out for them. And you can share the podcast with a homemaker that you personally know who could use this kind of encouragement.
[1:33:51] Allison: We need one another. That is the whole point of this project. For the more than 20 years that I have been involved in women's ministry, I have firmly believed that women must not neglect their relationships with one another. Marriage, motherhood and homemaking are all consuming. But we can't do this on our own. We need to learn from and build up and challenge and continually encourage one another. And we have to be intentional about maintaining those relationships. Hebrews 1024 through 25 has been a key verse for me in my role as a women's ministry leader. It's my heart's cry to myself and to the women around me. And I love the New Living Translation that reads "let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together as some people do. But encourage one another, especially now that the day of His return is drawing near." Homemakers let's keep meeting together here and around our kitchen tables with other women in our community. I am praying for you to find those women around you and to faithfully follow Jesus together as you work toward the common goal of pursuing the holy and sanctifying art of home.

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