| The Beauty of Self Control |
Chapter 8 |
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A writer suggests that members of a family, when they separate for the night or even for the briefest stay, should never part in any way but an affectionate way, lest they shall never meet again. Two incidents illustrate the importance of this rule. A distinguished man, when much past middle life, related an experience which occurred in his own home in his young manhood. At the breakfast table one morning he and a younger brother had a sharp quarrel about some unimportant matter. He confessed that he was most unbrotherly in his words, speaking with bitterness. The brother rose and left the table and went to his business, very angry. Before noon the younger man died suddenly in his office. When, twenty years afterward, the older brother spoke of the occurrence, he said that it had cast a shadow over all his life. He could never forgive himself for his part in the bitter quarrel. He had never ceased to regret with sore pain that no opportunity had come to him to confess his fault and seek forgiveness and reconciliation.
The other incident was of the parting of a working man and his wife. He was going forth to his day’s duties and there was a peculiar tenderness in his mood and in their good bye that morning. He and his wife had their prayer together after breakfast. Then he kissed the babies, sleeping in their cribs, and returned a second time to look into their sweet faces. The parting at the door never had been so tender as it was that morning. Before half the day was gone the men brought him home dead. The wife got great comfort in her sorrow from the memory of the morning’s parting. If their last words together had been marked by unkindness, by wrangling or quarrelling, or even by indifference, or lack of tenderness, her grief would have been harder to bear. But the lovingness of the last parting took away much of the bitterness of the sorrow.
If we keep ourselves ever mindful of the criticalness of life, that any day may be the last in our home fellowships, it will do much to make us gentle and kind to each other. We will not act selfishly any hour, fro it may be our last hour together. We will not let strife mar the good cheer of our home life any day, for we may not have another day.
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