FATHER, Mother, Children, Home! What beautiful words they are ! They rekindle the fondest memory of childhood. They bring us through the years our most blessed experiences. All life indeed is bound up with family joys and sorrows. Home is the keystone of the arch of human happiness. It surely is timely that a Sabbath be given to study the needs, the perils, and the blessings of a godly home. There could hardly be a topic more needful.
To-day the sacred marriage institution is belittled, neglected, and even opposed. Parental love and care, home discipline, and the training of children are, with many, a lost art. It is not only in Russia that we find thousands of poor little waifs wandering about without shelter, because through lax laws on divorce the home ties are lightly broken. With us, too, there are thousands of crushed hearts and ruined homes. Many children drift far away into the world with no one to care for their souls. The old standards of right and wrong seem out of date.
We appeal for an earnest return to the Bible ideals of the home life. We cannot stress this too much. Adventist homes, above all, should be models of piety, order. and love. This will not come by accident. To build a house is quickly done. But to build a home is a slow process, requiring persistent effort and careful thought. The duties and privileges of fatherhood and motherhood should be studied anew. The true relation of parents to each other and to their children ought to be restated. The blessing and glory and purity of having children must be exalted. More effort and more prayer than ever before should be put forth to lead our children in the ways of eternal life. In the world, the club, the cinema, the newspaper, the radio, the hurry and haste, the travel and pleasure of modern life, is causing thousands of homes to wither and die. Our homes should be havens of rest, joyful and happy, a foretaste of heaven. The only thing Adam saved out of Eden was the home, and home is yet the way leading back to God. Let us do our best to make our homes what the Lord would have them be.
BY L. H. CHRISTIAN
