| Home Making |
Chapter 9 |
Page 12 |
Such memories affect the home life. They sober it, sometimes sadden it. Sorrow is not always rightly borne. 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 home less tender. Rather it makes it all the tenderer. Grief brings the members closer together. We never love one another so much; 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 earthliness 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.
“Heaven is not mounted to on the wings of dreams,
Nor doth the unthankful happiness of youth
Aim thitherward, but floats from bloom to bloom,
With earth’s warm patch of sunshine well content.
‘Tis sorrow builds the shining ladder up,
Whose golden rounds are our calamities,
Whereon, our firm feet planting, nearer God
The spirit climbs, and hath its eyes unsealed.
* * * * * *
Through the clouded glass
Of our own bitter tears we learn to look
Undazzled on the kindness of God’s face;
Earth is too dark, and heaven alone shines through.”
Page 12
<< Prior Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Next Page >>