| Home Making |
Chapter 9 |
Page 9 |
One bright summer morning a young man bade his wife and babe good bye and went away to his work. Before midday there was an accident on the street; the scaffolding on which he was working gave way, and his lifeless body was carried back to his home, from which only a few hours before he had gone out so happily. The shock was terrible, though the news was broken as gently as possible; but there was one comfort that came with wondrous power to the crushed heart of the devoted young wife. The last hour they had spent in each other’s company, in the morning, had been peculiarly happy, and their parting at the door had been unusually tender. She had not dreamed at the time that it would be their last talk together, yet there was not a word spoken which caused one painful memory now that she should never see him more nor speak with him again in this world. Every memory of that quiet talk at the breakfast table, of the morning worship when they knelt side by side in prayer, and of the tender good bye on the doorstep, was full of comfort. Through years of loneliness and widowhood the remembrance of that last hour has been an abiding source of gladness in her life, like a lamp of holy peace.
These two incidents illustrate the importance of unbroken tenderness and affectionateness in the family intercourse. In each moment of our home fellowship we are making memories which may become to us a source either of pleasure or of pain through long future years. We never can tell when we are having our last talk together, or our last meal, or when we are parting at the door never to meet again. Suppose, then that as you go out in the morning you have a little strife or quarrel with one of the household whom you truly love, and you part, perhaps in anger, with sharp, stinging words, perhaps only in sullen silence. Do you not see how that parting may become a lifelong bitterness to you? Death may come to one of you to prevent your ever meeting again, and then the last memory will be one of pain. What a motive this should be to make the household intercourse tender and loving, without break or interruption, so that any word spoken, if it should prove to be the last, would leave a hallowed memory for the lonely years! Coventry Patmore’s words are well worth remembering, applying them to our home friends:
“If thou dost bid thy friend farewell,
But for one night though that farewell may be,
Press thou his hand in thine
How canst thou tell how far from thee?
Fate or caprice may lead his steps ere that tomorrow comes”
Men have been known lightly to turn the corner of the street
And days have grown to months,
And months to lagging years, ere they
Have looked in loving eyes again.
* * * * *
Yea find thou always time to say some earnest word
Between the idle talk, lest with thee, henceforth,
Night and day, regret should walk.”
So uncertain is life that any leave-taking may be forever. We are never sure that we shall have an opportunity to unsay the angry word and have it forgiven. The only safe way is to make every hour’s fellowship in the household so sweet that if it should be the last it would leave a memory without regret.
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