| The Beauty of Self Control |
Chapter 8 |
Page 6 |
These are only a few of the specific qualities of love which are mentioned in a few verses of one chapter of the New Testament. Many more might be cited. These rules of love were not given specifically with reference to home life, but as to the way a Christian should live anywhere. They are suggested here as touching the home, because home is where love should always reach its best. Home should be love’s school; there we should learn love’s lessons. Then when we go out into the world and take up our tasks and duties we will be ready for them, and the lessons we have learned in the school of home we shall go on practicing in daily life.
Is it not time we tried to make more of our homes? It is not time we got more love into them? For one thing, there is pitiful need of cheer and encouragement in most homes. There is more blame heard than praise. There are those who give their lives without reserve for the good of the household, and scarcely ever hear a word of thanks. How much comfort and help it would give to faithful household servants to hear now and then a word of appreciation! How it would cheer many a wife and mother whose life is given out in untiring work, if she heard words of praise from those for whom she lives! It is not monuments when they are dead that women want – they would rather a thousand times have a simple word of kindness and appreciation, day by day, as they toil. A poet puts into the lips of one of these unappreciated wives these words:
“Carve not a stone when I am dead,
The praises which remorseful mourners give
To women’s graves, a tardy recompense;
But speak them while I live.
Forget me when I die; the violets
Above my rest will blossom just as blue
Nor miss thy tears; e’en natures’ self forgets:
But while I live be true.”
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