p. 14 | Untitled article by Mrs. L. D. Avery-Stuttle

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Feb 11, 1913

Homesickness — No. 3

By Mrs. L. D. Avery-Stuttle

By Mrs. L. D. Avery-Stuttle

“GET thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee.”

It was unmistakably the voice of the Almighty. The man of simple faith must have been well acquainted with that voice before; and he had already learned to obey. But let me tell you, that command caused a tremendous sensation in the camp of Abraham. It meant something to him to leave all his family ties behind, and set out for a strange country — a stranger in a strange land. I suppose it would have been easy to have argued that he was very well fixed as it was — very comfortably located. His relatives were all about him, and he was prospering. But the command was imperative. And as if the Lord anticipated the natural objections which might be raised by the loved ones whom he was to leave, He says, “From thy country and from thy kindred.”

We may be sure that this command implied a tremendous sacrifice. But finally they were ready. The flocks and the herds all on foot; the packing all done; the sad farewells all said.

“Well,” says somebody, “I don't see anything so very sad about all that; probably Abraham knew that he was going to a better place than Haran.”

Ah, he went out, “not knowing whither he went.” It took a good deal of faith to do that. He asked no questions as to whether he could make a good living or not, or whether the new country would be hot or cold, wet or dry. It was enough that he heard the voice of Jehovah.

But the weary caravan hardly had opportunity to settle down, before a dreadful famine consumed the country. Starvation and death on every hand! Skeleton forms and pinched faces and hollow eyes! Do you suppose that Abraham knew no pangs of homesickness all this time? Do you suppose that he drew no mental comparisons between that famine-pinched country and the dear home land he had left behind?

But with Abraham it was not a question of desire or of homesickness; it was not a question of money-making or of property-getting. These things weighed nothing in comparison to his conviction of duty. Obedience was more to him than even life itself.

Passing on a few years in the sacred history, we read the strangely fascinating narrative of Jacob. His mother's best loved son, humored and petted as he was, he must have developed a great love for his home, and perhaps, especially, toward his fond and doting mother. But as the logical outcome of a deed of selfishness and fraud, suggested and urged upon him by that mistaken and misguided mother, we see the tenderly reared and home loving young man, a lonely wanderer in a strange and barren land. We see him lying down at night, weary and homesick, under strange skies, with his staff by his side, and a cold rock for his bolster instead of the soft pillow to which he had always been accustomed. But the eye of the pitying God is upon him, as with aching heart full of thoughts of the dear home land and the fond mother, he lies down to rest.

We remember the beautiful story of the angels that came to him that night in his dream. O, I tell you, that if ever the angels from the glory land are needed, it is when a man is downright homesick, and I believe that if ever they are commissioned to “fly swiftly” on one errand of mercy above another, it is to hasten to the relief and comfort and encouragement of the lonesome stranger in a strange land. And that brings us to a brief consideration of this thought: we ought to be wonderfully kind and tender toward the stranger.

But are we? Have we been?

We meet them everywhere,—in the cars, on the boats, in the streets. We jostle them rudely with our elbows, and stare at their peculiar and foreign dress as persistently as if we had forgotten that we are all brothers, and that from one blood hath He made all the inhabitants of the earth, and expressly declared that He has fashioned their hearts alike.

O, I wonder why we forget this so often. When we realize very well that our own hearts cry out for sympathy and love and good will and appreciation, what is the reason that we are so slow about giving them freely to the strangers who throng our pathway?

Well, of course, it is only natural to forget the stranger, when we can not even remember to be kind and loving and tender toward our very own.

Stand with me on the crowded street, and watch the different forms and faces that pass us for a little while. What a motley throng! Sad faces and glad faces and bright eyes and dim eyes and sad eyes and tired eyes and furrowed brows and faded cheeks; people who go hobbling along as best they can on one leg; wretched cripples and ragged newsboys, jostling, hurrying, pushing, scrambling; touching elbows with the woman of fashion, the pompous millionaire, the drunken reveler, and the shameless prostitute,—all hurrying somewhere. Some hastening on deeds of love and mercy; some on selfish, lustful, cruel errands. Each heart beating with its own anxieties, its own sorrows, its own hopes; each bosom throbbing with its own haunting fear,—and for every one of these, has an infinite price been paid — an infinite Sacrifice been offered.

Ah, there is a lesson here for us all to learn. Believe me, it is high time to learn it,—to learn that the sorrowing world needs sympathy and k i n d n e s s,—friend and stranger alike.

Each heart has its own homesick corner. With some it is a wayward son or daughter; with some it is cruel poverty; with others it is disappointed hopes and ambitions; and alas, with some it is a haunting fear of the discovery of some awful crime committed in the darkness of the past, the awful memory of which robs the soul of peace. Men and women may be brave, and struggle manfully to hide it; but ah, there come times in the lives of all of us when we are hungry for human love and sympathy; for how true it is that “underneath the merriest smile may dwell the saddest heart.”