around him. The spiritual light within the home, however, is greater than this—the kindliness of husband and wife toward each other and toward the children, the light on the faces of the home circle, this is a more precious gleam than any which shines from star or sun.—Francis J. McConnell.
(1421)
HOME, LONGING FOR
Come away! come away! you can hear them calling, calling,
Calling us to come to them, and roam no more,
Over there beyond the ridges and the land that lies between us,
There's an old song calling us to come!
Come away! come away! for the scenes we leave behind us
Are barren for the lights of home and a flame that's young forever;
And the lonely trees around us creak the warning of the night-wind,
That love and all the dreams of love are away beyond the mountains,
The songs that call for us to-night, they have called for men before us,
And the winds that blow the message, they have blown ten thousand years;
But this will end our wander-time, for we know the joy that waits us
In the strangeness of home-coming, and a faithful woman's eyes.
Come away! come away; there is nothing now to cheer us—
Nothing now to comfort us, but love's road home:
Over there beyond the darkness there's a window gleams to greet us,
And a warm hearth waits for us within.
—Edward Arlington Robinson, "The Wilderness."
(1422)
Home Privacy—See Privacy, Lack of.
HOME, THE OLD AND NEW
The old home, with its family-room, evening-lamp,
regular life, and community of
interests, has given place to a home in which
the family are all together for the first time
in the day at the evening meal, and then
only for a brief hour, after which they scatter
to their several engagements. A little
boy was asked by a neighbor, as his father
was leaving the house one morning, who
that gentleman was, and he replied: "Oh, I
don't know; he's the man who stays here
nights." This might well be a leaf from the
actual home life in our cities. In some
cases fathers and mothers too seldom see
their children. Business claims their daylight
hours; committee, board, or lodge
meetings claim their evenings; and so the
fathers are unavoidably, as it would seem,
away from home. The church and sundry
organizations for social service or self-improvement
leave the mothers little time for
their own needy but uncomplaining households.
The children have their own friends
and social life, in which the parents have all
too small a place and influence.—George B.
Stewart, "Journal of the Religious Education
Association," 1903.
(1423)
HOME VALUES
"American art-students," says Mr. L. Scott
Dabo, a writer in The Arena, "make a mistake
when they seek an 'artistic atmosphere'
in Europe. To go abroad in search of
beauty betrays soul poverty. The American
who fails to find beauty in American landscape
or artistic atmosphere among his fellow
students, will never find either abroad,
whatever he may induce himself to think.
After the student has been thoroughly
formed at home and merged into the artist,
and not before, will he be capable of appreciating
at its true value what the rest
of the world has to offer."
(1424)
HOME WHERE THE HEART IS
The following story is told of Hiram Powers, the sculptor:
Hiram Powers for thirty years wrought
in Florence, Italy, away from his native land.
Here he produced the "Liberty" which surmounts
the Capitol at Washington, and such
idealizations as "The Massachusetts Puritan,"
and "The California Pioneer." When asked
once how he could keep so closely in touch
with American life, tho he had been away
from his native land so long, he replied, "I
have never been out of touch with America
itself. I have eaten and slept in Italy for
thirty-odd years, but I have never lived anywhere
but in the United States."
As the sculptor lived in the United
States while working in Italy, so it is
possible for the Christian to be a citizen
of heaven while staying and working
here on earth. (Text.)
(1425)
