There is one word in my text around which the most of our thoughts
will this morning revolve. That word is "Home." Ask ten different men
the meaning of that word, and they will give you ten different
definitions. To one it means love at the hearth, it means plenty at
the table, industry at the workstand, intelligence at the books,
devotion at the altar. To him it means a greeting at the door and a
smile at the chair. Peace hovering like wings. Joy clapping its hands
with laughter. Life a tranquil lake. Pillowed on the ripples sleep the
shadows.
Ask another man what home is, and he will tell you it is want, looking
out of a cheerless firegrate, kneading hunger in an empty bread tray.
The damp air shivering with curses. No Bible on the shelf. Children
robbers and murderers in embryo. Obscene songs their lullaby. Every
face a picture of ruin. Want in the background and sin staring from
the front. No Sabbath wave rolling over that door-sill. Vestibule of
the pit. Shadow of infernal walls. Furnace for forging everlasting
chains. Faggots for an unending funeral pile. Awful word! It is
spelled with curses, it weeps with ruin, it chokes with woe, it sweats
with the death agony of despair.
The word "Home" in the one case means everything bright. The word
"Home" in the other case means everything terrific.
I shall speak to you this morning of home as a test of character, home
as a refuge, home as a political safeguard, home as a school, and home
as a type of heaven.
And in the first place I remark, that home is a powerful test of
character. The disposition in public may be in gay costume, while in
private it is in dishabille. As play actors may appear in one way on
the stage, and may appear in another way behind the scenes, so private
character may be very different from public character. Private
character is often public character turned wrong side out. A man may
receive you into his parlor as though he were a distillation of
smiles, and yet his heart may be a swamp of nettles. There are
business men who all day long are mild, and courteous, and genial, and
good-natured in commercial life, damming back their irritability, and
their petulance, and their discontent; but at nightfall the dam
breaks, and scolding pours forth in floods and freshets.