important rooms. Here we find the place where the master receives the
poor, and where his acts of kindness are done. In some houses this is
the smallest room of the whole. In others, it is large and lofty, and
the master spends much time there. He is so good and kind that people
can not help loving him when this is the case.
AMY: This next room looks like a church.
MOTHER: We might call it the chapel; for it is here that the master
goes to pray, and worship God. Some use this room a great deal; others,
very little. It is the highest, best room in the house, and the master
ought to visit it many times each day.
PERCY: And what is this large room?
MOTHER: This is where the master thinks things over, and “makes up his
mind,” as we say. This is the “will” room; that is, the person decides
what he will or will not do. This is an important room indeed. It is
a good thing to have a good, strong will if we only _will_ to do the
right thing, for it helps any one in doing right; but if he is doing
wrong, it causes him to do more wrong.
To show what I mean, we will say that a man who has been drinking
beer or cider learns that the reason he likes these drinks is because
there is alcohol in them, and he sees that they will do him harm, and
that the more he drinks them, the more he will want them. He doesn’t
want weak muscles, a bloated body, a fatty liver, or a weak brain and
nerves. He does not wish to go to the insane asylum, to the jail, to
the poor-house, or into a drunkard’s grave. But he likes the alcohol.
It is hard to give it up, and his friends will call him a “temperance
man,” and will jeer at him, and say that he is a coward. Now what
will he do? He goes into his “will room,” and he says to himself: “I
have been a slave long enough. From now on I will be master of this
body-house. It makes no difference how loudly Taste may call, nor how
badly I want him to have his own way, I WILL NOT give up, God helping
me, and I am going to put my will on the right side of this question.”
ELMER: Couldn’t he overcome any other bad habit in just the same way?
MOTHER: Yes; whether he wants food that is not good, or too much of
that which is good; whether he wishes to leave off using tobacco, or
other bad habits of any kind, when he gets his will on the right side,
the battle is more than half over.
AMY: Then a person can not have too much will.
MOTHER: Not if he wills to do right; but if he places his will on the
wrong side, it is a sad thing. Sometimes he wills to have his own way,
no matter how it may affect himself or others, and that is bad for him
and for his friends.
Here is a room where the master measures people. We can imagine that
they stand about like statues, and some he places high in his esteem,
and the others lower down. I think about the worst thing he could do
would be to place himself higher than any one else. Boys and girls are
sometimes in danger of doing this, even thinking that they know more
than their father and mother. It is well to have a fair-sized room of
this kind, but bad to have one which is large. We shall not have time
to visit more of the rooms to be found in the mind, though there are
many others that we might visit.
HELEN: I wish we might hear about all of them.
MOTHER: You may, as you grow older. You must be very careful to have
the master of your own house live in the best and highest rooms.
Strange as it may seem, yet it is true that the rooms he stays in most
will grow larger the more they are used. Some live in the lower, poorer
rooms all their lives. The people we love best spend most of their time
in the highest rooms.
PERCY: Is there any way by which we can tell where the master spends
most of his time?
MOTHER: Yes; clean, kind thoughts make marks on our faces, and wicked,
cruel thoughts leave their print also. Our thoughts pull up or draw
down the corners of the mouth, and they make little wrinkles under
the eyes and in the forehead. Sometimes they make little holes in the
cheeks, which we call dimples. If our thoughts are kind, pleasant,
happy thoughts, they draw the corners of the mouth upward; the wrinkles
are smoothed out of the forehead, and there are some merry ones which
gather round the eyes and make the face look so pleasant that we want
to get near its owner and become better acquainted.
AMY: I didn’t know that our thoughts looked out in our faces.
MOTHER: If either good or bad thoughts come to live in your mind all
the time, they will print themselves on your face and change your
looks. The good thoughts will make your face beautiful, though your
hair may be as straight as an Indian’s, your nose crooked, and your
mouth large. On the other hand, though your hair may curl, your skin be
as fair as a peach blossom, your features be perfect, yet if you let
bad thoughts live in the mind, your face will no longer look lovely to
others. It is only a kind, unselfish heart that can give true beauty.
HELEN: I have often wished that I might be pretty, like some of the
girls at school, but I know now how to be lovable if I am not beautiful.
MOTHER: There are a few other things which will help you to have a
good-looking face. First, keep it clean. Then the next thing is to eat
good food, that you may have a clear, healthy skin and bright eyes.
You should also be careful to brush your teeth, that these little
guards may always be dressed in the cleanest of white uniforms. Then
keep your hair in good order. Brush it often, and keep the whole head
sweet and clean. If you do these things, you will always be pleasant to
look at.
I was reading not long ago about a little girl who was told of the
wrinkles that smiles leave on our faces, and the wrinkles that scowls
leave, as well as those left by pain, thought, and care. The child
listened, and then said brightly, “My grandma has _lots_ of wrinkles,
but they’re all _smile_ wrinkles, _every one of them_.”
So, my children, as the days pass by, see that your mind is pleasant,
and your body-temple kept clean and pure. Thus you will live useful
lives, and be a blessing to yourselves and others.
“If I knew the box where the smiles are kept,
No matter how large the key
Or strong the bolt, I would try so hard,
’Twould open, I know, for me.
Then over the land and the sea, broadcast,
I’d scatter the smiles to play,
That the children’s faces might hold them fast
For many and many a day.
“If I knew a box that was large enough
To hold all the frowns I meet,
I would like to gather them every one,
From nursery, school, and street;
Then, folding and holding, I’d pack them in,
And, turning the monster key,
I’d hire a giant to drop the box
To the depth of the deep, deep sea.”
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