Home and Blessings by Theodore L. Cuyler

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Sep 23, 1875

Home and Blessings.

By Theodore L. Cuyler

While among the invisible things the foot of the Cross is the most sacred place, home is the most precious among visible; society roots in it; in it careers are made or marred, and seed sown to bear fruit for eternity. How, then, shall we make home happy and holy? To business men, who make their daily bread in a very hot oven, this is a very important question, and their homes will be what they make them. If prosperous, spend some of your surplus in adorning home; if things are awry, learn from a wife and child that every man is not a cheat; watch your little shaver as he builds his block houses, and see how very easily things tumble down that are out of the perpendicular. To have a good home, stay in it. All wives hate the name of clubs, and if there should be a righteous uprising, to make a conflagration of all club-rooms, billiard-tables, gambling-tables and liquor saloons, it would be such a good demonstration of woman's rights as ought not to provoke the interference of the fire department.

God designed to pack men into families, and home religion reaches all the way from the cradle to the judgment seat; the church in the house must supplement that in the temple if religion is to control mankind. To fill homes with sunshine and holiness, there is one watchword, one key-note, whose variations will fill the house with harmony. Love! Love God supremely and sincerely, and his smile will fill your dwelling. Let love to Jesus reign, and your home shall be another Bethany; love will break the alabaster box of ointment, rear the altar of devotion, and offer not only the yearly but daily sacrifice.

Our homes are what we choose to make them; we cannot all have luxury, but we can have love; if we do not have style, we can have sympathy. If we cannot keep a carriage, we can a good conscience. We cannot keep away death; but our houses need not be dark, for if the bright-eyed sisters—Faith, Hope and Charity—be kept abiding, they will lift up the windows to let in the sunshine from God's throne.

Light, then, the lamp of cheerfulness; invite them to abide, and ask Jesus to go with you, and take an inventory of your mercies. That wife can only be reckoned by Solomon's label. The hungry boy is worth his weight in gold. You will only know the value of those daughters when somebody comes to transfer them. Your Bible is an unfailing casket of treasure.

Our cup is overflowing. It contains—if not all we desire—more than we deserve.

The good Spirit is not taken away. Christ is yours, and all in Him.—Rev. Dr. Cuyler.