There are many influences at work which seek to minimize the
importance of the home life and to undermine it.
There are four quite well defined lines of the attack upon the life of
the family.
The Assault Upon the Marriage Relation.--The moral leper advocates
that marriage be dissolvable at will, not by mutual consent alone, but
when either party to the contract desires its conclusion. The church,
in its different branches, stands as a unit against this iniquitous
proposition. But how far the civil power has yielded, by the pressure
which has been brought to bear, is made manifest by the fact that in
the different states of the Union there are now recognized by the
courts forty-six legal causes of annulling a marriage. Our courts are
crowded with divorce cases and the suits which grow out of them in
regard to property and the care of children. That the odour of
scandal, going up from such cases is bad, is unquestioned. That the
influence, of such proceedings upon the morals of the country, is evil
is also sadly admitted. A blow struck at marriage is one which is felt
not only by the family but by society and the state. The fall of the
Roman empire was preceded by an extraordinary laxness of the marriage
tie. It is time the church bestirred itself to oppose more strongly
the theory and practice of the moral leper.
The Assault Upon the Quiet of the Home.--In the modern stress and
strain of life there is need of a quiet place in which to rest, to get
acquainted with God, to know one's family, to live to the best things
and to get ready again to engage enthusiastically in the daily battle
of life. The home is designed to furnish such a place of rest, when
the work of the day is done; it is here, in a Christian home, that
there should be an atmosphere of supreme love and care. It is,
however, when night comes that all the attractions, which appeal to
the love of excitement, put forth their most strenuous efforts to draw
to them the inmates of the home. There are amusements and amusements;
a person, however, who looks only to be amused seeks by and by those
of the strongest flavour and those which border very closely on the
forbidden land. The love of excitement grows upon what it feeds and
soon, to the habitual pleasure-seeker, the quiet atmosphere and love
of the home no longer appeal; he has begun a chase for excitement and
pleasure which will never satisfy him. Multitudes of wrecked homes and
burned out characters, show the disastrous work of this assault upon
the quiet of the home.
The Assault Upon the Purity of the Body.--We are told by Paul that our
bodies are temples of God and members of Christ and therefore they
should be kept pure and clean (1 Corinthians 3:16,17; 6:15,16). Yet a
certain class of so-called reformers are seeking to teach men that to
sit in a saloon drinking the beverages there served out, and which
defile the purity of the body, makes for manhood.
The modern saloon, which destroys the purity of the body, is one of
the most successful of all agencies for the demoralization and the
destruction of the home. Once it has fastened its hold upon a man,
the time which he should spend with his family is spent in defiling
his body in this place; the money which should be spent, in clothing
and feeding his wife and children, is squandered here; until the home
loses its hold upon him and he selfishly indulges his appetite, no
matter who suffers. We are faced with actual conditions and no
substitutes of better kept saloons or purer beverages can help very
much. It is a travesty of the truth to call a saloon a working men's
club; it is his destruction. What is actually needed is a reform
which will send men, who frequent saloons back to their homes. The
real problem is not how to reform the saloon, but how to make the home
better so that father, mother and the children may take delight in
spending their evenings there. The policy of some social
organizations, which work in the slums of our great cities, seems to
be by providing great public dance halls and fostering the saloons to
draw the people still further away from the home life and to make it
harder to maintain it.
After all the only real remedy for the saloon habit is
Christianity. It is only when Christ comes into the heart of a man
that he begins to care for his home and to spend his evenings
there. The Church, then as possessing the lure for the home, ought to
take more seriously to this work in the slums. But the trouble is that
the slums do not receive very pleasantly those who seek to cleanse
their hearts and bodies, but they do take kindly to the agencies, and
often throng them, which look kindly on those things which really keep
them down, and insure them miserable homes. Still it remains true that
the teaching of Christianity, even when received with hostility, is
the only leavening power for better things in the slums. It is one of
the hard things to cleanse a man's body before his heart is made
clean, but let his heart be purified, and the purity of the body will
follow; then the first thought of that man will be for his home and
its betterment.
The Assault of Freedom of Speech.--In no place is there more need of
kindliness of speech and manner than in the home, yet in no other
place is there more plain speaking. The mask of pleasantness, which
may be worn all day in business or social relations, may be in the
home laid aside; and the character revealed and the vigour of language
used may easily drive away every vestige of happiness. When people
live together under the same roof the feelings become very tender and
are easily hurt. What is said outside may be thought little of, but in
the home it is different. "Take us the foxes, the little foxes that
spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes" (Song of Solomon
2:15).
Incompatibility of temper is a reason sometimes given for the breaking
up of a home, but the real reason is an undue familiarity and freedom
of speech. Because persons live together in families there should be
no license to say everything and anything, no matter who is hurt.
Home happiness is a tender plant, it needs much care and watching, but
when it blooms the flowers are of a rare beauty of form and their
fragrance exceeds that of all others.