| Home Making |
Chapter 9 |
Page 15 |
So it ofttimes 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. We are richer for having loved although we have lost. Tennyson in “In Memoriam,” says:
“This truth came born with bier and pall–
I felt it when I sorrowed 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 in immortal possessions. Our dead are not lost to us; they have only passed into a higher, fuller, safer life, where they are secure for ever from danger and trial, and secure also for us. As Whittier writes again:
“And yet, dear heart! Remembering thee,
Am I not richer than of old?
Safe in thy immortality,
What change can reach the wealth I hold?
What chance can mar the pearl and gold
Thy love hath left in trust for me?
And while in life’s late afternoon,
Where cool and long the shadows grow,
I walk to meet the night that soon
Shall shape and shadow 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 thee waiting stand,
And, white against the evening star,
The welcome of thy beckoning hand?”
And again the same gentle poet writes:
“Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust
(Since He who knows our need is just),
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.
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 marbles play!–
Who hath 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. An ungodly home twines about the tender lives of the young no such sacred cords to bind them to truth, to virtue and to love. The intercourse of an unloving household leave no such joy fountains in the hearts of its members. In a Christless, prayerless home sorrows are not thus transfigured and changed into blessings. It is only where Christ is a guest that the home life is so enriched and illumined. It is only his presence that will sanctify every influence and hallow every memory.
Page 15
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