Get you no hint of cheerfulness from grasshopper's leap, and lamb's
frisk, and quail's whistle, and garrulous streamlet, which from the
rock at the mountain-top clear down to the meadow ferns under the
shadow of the steep, comes looking for the steepest place to leap off
at, and talking just to hear itself talk? If all the skies hurtled
with tempest and everlasting storm wandered over the sea, and every
mountain stream went raving mad, frothing at the mouth with mud foam,
and there were nothing but simooms blowing among the hills, and there
were neither lark's carol nor humming bird's trill, nor waterfall's
dash, but only a bear's bark, and panther's scream, and wolf's howl,
then you might well gather into your homes only the shadows. But when
God has strewn the earth and the heavens with beauty and with
gladness, let us take into our home circle all innocent hilarity, all
brightness, and all good cheer. A dark home makes bad boys and bad
girls in preparation for bad men and bad women.
Above all, my friends, take into your homes Christian principle. Can
it be that in any of the comfortable homes of my congregation the
voice of prayer is never lifted? What! No supplication at night for
protection? What! No thanksgiving in the morning for care? How, my
brother, my sister, will you answer God in the Day of Judgment, with
reference to your children? It is a plain question and therefore I ask
it. In the tenth chapter of Jeremiah God says He will pour out His
fury upon the families that call not upon His name. O parents! when
you are dead and gone, and the moss is covering the inscription of the
tombstones will your children look back and think of father and mother
at family prayer? Will they take the old family Bible and open it and
see the mark of tears of contrition and tears of consoling promise
wept by eyes long before gone out into darkness?