or lips, each one having on it the name of the distinguished person
who had drank from it. And that cup which we offer to others in
Christian hospitality, though it be of the plainest earthenware, is a
royal cup, and God can read on all its sides the names of those who
have taken from it refreshment. But all this is impossible unless you
have a home of your own. It is the delusion as to what is necessary
for a home that hinders so many from establishing one. Thirty rooms
are not necessary, nor twenty, nor fifteen, nor ten, nor five, nor
three. In the right way plant a table, and couch, and knife and fork,
and a cup, and a chair, and you can raise a young paradise. Just start
a home, on however small a scale, and it will grow. When King Cyrus
was invited to dine with an humble friend the king made the one
condition of his coming that the only dish be one loaf of bread, and
the most imperial satisfactions have sometimes banqueted on the
plainest fare.
Do not be caught in the delusion of many thousands in postponing a
home until they can have an expensive one. That idea is the devil's
trap that catches men and women innumerable who will never have any
home at all. Capitalists of America, build plain homes for the people.
Let this tenement-house system, in which hundreds of thousands of the
people of our cities are wallowing in the mire, be broken up by small
homes, where people can have their own firesides and their own altar.
In this great continent there is room enough for every man and woman
to have a home. Morals and civilization and religion demand it.