The Home Council

The Wisdom Of Brotherly Living

Where are the wise and intelligent men among you? Let them show that their actions are the outcome of a life in the humility of true wisdom. But while you harbor envy and bitterness and a spirit of rivalry in your minds, do not assert your superiority over or give the lie to the Truth. That is not the wisdom which comes from above; it is earthly, animal and devilish. For where envy and rivalry exist, there you will also find disorder and all kinds of mean actions. But the wisdom from above is, before anything else, pure. Beyond that it is peace-loving, gentle, open to conviction, rich in compassion and good deeds, and free from partiality and insincerity. And righteousness, which is the fruit of this wisdom, is the crop that is sown in a peaceful life and which will be harvested by those who work for peace.

—James, the Brother of Jesus.

The Joy Of Peace

There is a peace which no men know
Save those whom suffering hath laid low,—
The peace of pain.
A strength, which only comes to those
Who’ve borne defeat,—greater, God knows,
Than victory.
A happiness which comes at last,
After all happiness seems past,—
The joy of peace.

—Anon.

Inspiration

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The Youth replies, I can.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson.

A New Arrival

There came to port last Sunday night
The queerest little craft,
Without an inch of rigging on;
I looked and looked and laughed.
It seemed so curious that she
Should cross the Unknown water,
And moor herself right in my room,
My daughter, O my daughter!

Yet by these presents witness all
She’s welcome fifty times,
And comes consigned to Hope and Love
And common-meter rhymes.
She has no manifest but this,
No flag floats o’er the water,
She’s too new for the British Lloyds—
My daughter, O my daughter!

Ring out, wild bells, and tame ones toot
Ring out the lover’s moon!
Ring in the little worsted socks!
Ring in the bib and spoon!
Ring out the muse! ring in the nurse!
Ring in the milk and water!
Away with paper, pen, and ink—
My daughter, O my daughter!

—-George W. Cable

O Little Feet!

O little feet! that such long years
Must wander on through hopes and fears,
Must ache and bleed beneath your load;
I, nearer to the wayside inn
Where toil shall cease and rest begin,
Am weary thinking of your road!

—Henry W. Longfellow.

Alternate Reading: John 14: 22-31.

The Perfect Father

The more perfect a father is, the more of a sovereign will he be; the better he is as a sovereign, the more excellently will he fulfil his functions as a father. The forms and sanctions of his authority will vary, but the less formal it grows the more real it will become. There is nothing so absolute as the paternal reign in its earliest form. The infant is the most helpless creature in nature; depends for food, clothing, tendance, everything essential to its continued being, on other hands than its own; and the parent’s sovereignty is then a sovereignty of carefulness, a mindfulness which feels every moment that the child can live only in and through those to whom it owes its being. Here the law governs the parent, though the law be love; and in obedience to it the work, as it were, of creating a subject still proceeds, and only as it is well and thoughtfully done can the subject ever be created.

But in due course the new mind and will awake, and sovereignty then assumes a new form, becomes legislative and administrative, frames laws which the child must be now persuaded, now compelled, now beguiled to obey. Here the authority is autocratic, yet with an autocracy which is most tender where most imperious. But the child becomes a youth, and the sovereignty again changes its form, becomes flexible in means that it may be flexible in end, loving the boy too well to tolerate his evil, so watching him that he may by a now regretted severity and a now gracious gentleness be trained and disciplined to good. And when the youth becomes a man, the sovereignty does not cease, though its form is altogether unlike anything that had been before; it may be the fellowship by which the old enrich and ripen the young and the young freshen and enlarge the old; it may be by a name which filial reverence will not sully, or a love and a pride which filial affection will delight to gratify; or it may only be by a memory which, as the years lengthen, grows in beauty and in power. But in whatever form, the sovereignty of a father who has been a father indeed, is of all human authorities the most real and the most enduring.

—A. M. Fairbairn.

Where children honor their parents, there God dwells, there God is honored.

—The Talmud.

Alternate Reading: Matthew 26: 20-35.

The Builders

All are architects of Fate,
Working in these walls of Time;
Some with massive deeds and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme.

Nothing useless is and low;
Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;
Leave no yawning gap between;
Think not, because no man sees,
Such things will remain unseen.

In the days of elder Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the Gods see everywhere.

Let us do our work as well,
Both the unseen and the seen;
Make the house, where Gods may dwell,
Beautiful and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete,
Standing in these walls of Time,
Broken stairways, where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb.

Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure
Shall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain
To those turrets, where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain,
And one boundless reach of sky.

—Henry W. Longfellow.

Alternate Reading: Matthew 25: 31-46.

The Widow’s Offering

Then Jesus sat down opposite the chests for the Temple offerings, and watched how the people put money into them. Many rich people were putting in large sums; but one poor widow came and put in two farthings, which make a half-penny. On this, calling his disciples to him, Jesus said:

“I tell you that this poor widow has put in more than all the others who were putting money into the chests; for every one else put in something from what he had to spare, while she, in her need, put in all she had—everything that she had to live on.”

—Mark.

The Need Of Sunny People

Christianity wants nothing so much in the world as sunny people, and the old are hungrier for love than for bread, and the oil of joy is very cheap, and if you can help the poor on with the garment of praise, it will be better for them than blankets.

—Henry Drummond.

Good Out Of Contrast

These stones that make, the meadow brooklet murmur
Are the keys on which it plays.
O’er every shelving rock its touch grows firmer,
Resounding notes to raise.

If every path o’er which footsteps wander,
Were smooth as ocean strand,
There were no theme for gratitude and wonder
At God’s delivering hand.

—W. E. Winks.

What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!—
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,—act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

—Henry W. Longfellow.

Alternate Reading: Matthew 22:1-13.

How Love Lightens Labor

A good wife rose from her bed one morn,
And thought, with a nervous dread,
Of the piles of clothes to be washed, and more
Than a dozen mouths to be fed.
“There’s the meals to get for the men in the field,
And the children to fix away
To school, and the milk to be skimmed and churned;
And all to be done this day.”

It had rained in the night, and all the wood
Was wet as it could be;
There were puddings and pies to bake, besides
A loaf of cake for tea.
And the day was hot, and her aching head
Throbbed wearily as she said,
“If maidens but knew what good wives know,
They would not be in haste to wed!”

“Jennie, what do you think I told Ben Brown?”
Called the farmer from the well;
And a flush crept up to his bronzed brow,
And his eyes half bashfully fell.
“It was this,” he said, and coming near
He smiled, and stooping down,
Kissed her cheek,—”’twas this, that you are the best
And the dearest wife in town!”

The farmer went back to the field, and the wife,
In a smiling, absent way,
Sang snatches of tender little songs
She’d not sung for many a day.
And the pain in her head was gone, and the clothes
Were white as the foam of the sea;
Her bread was light, and her butter was sweet,
And as golden as it could be.

“Just think,” the children all called in a breath,
“Tom Wood has run off to sea!
He wouldn’t, I know, if he’d only had
As happy a home as we.”
The night came down, and the good wife smiled
To herself, as she softly said:
“‘Tis so sweet to labor for those we love—
It is not strange that maids will wed!”

—Anon.

Alternate Reading: Matthew 22:1-13.

The New Year Ledger

I said one year ago,
“I wonder, if I truly kept
A list of days when life burnt low,
Of days I smiled and days I wept,
If good or bad would highest mount
When I made up the year’s account?”

I took a ledger fair and fine,
“And now,” I said, “when days are glad,
I’ll write with bright red ink the line,
And write with black when they are bad,
So that they’ll stand before my sight
As clear apart as day and night.

I will not heed the changing skies,
Nor if it shine nor if it rain;
But if there comes some sweet surprise,
Or friendship, love or honest gain,
Why, then it shall be understood
That day is written down as good.

When hands and brain stand labor’s test,
And I can do the thing I would
Those days when I am at my best
Shall all be traced as very good.
And in red letters, too, I’ll write
Those rare, strong hours when right is might.

And when pure, holy thoughts have power
To touch my heart and dim my eyes,
And I in some diviner hour
Can hold sweet converse with the skies,
Ah! then my soul may safely write:
“This day has been most good and bright!”

What do I see on looking back?
A red-lined book before me lies,
With here and there a thread of black,
That like a gloomy shadow flies,—
A shadow it must be confessed,
That often rose in my own breast.

And I have found it good to note
The blessing that is mine each day;
For happiness is vainly sought
In some dim future far away.
Just try my ledger for a year,
Then look with grateful wonder back,
And you will find, there is no fear,
The red days far exceed the black.

—Amelia E. Barr.

Alternate Reading: Matthew 21: 12-17.

When Troubles Make Smiles

I wrote down my troubles every day;
And after a few short years,
When I turned to the heart-aches passed away,
I read them with smiles, not tears.

—John B. O’Reilly.

Victory From Defeat

If you’ve tried and have not won,
Never stop for crying;
All that’s great and good is done
Just by patient trying.

Though your birds, in flying, fall,
Still their wings grow stronger;
And the next time they can keep
Up a little longer.

Though the sturdy oak has known
Many a blast that bowed her,
She has risen again and grown
Loftier and prouder.

If by easy work you beat,
Who the more will prise you?
Gaining victory from defeat,
That’s the test that tries you!

—Phoebe Cary.

God’s Lamp

If I stoop
Into a dark, tremendous sea of cloud,
It is but for a time; I press God’s lamp
Close to my breast; its splendor, soon or late,
Will pierce the gloom: I shall emerge one day.

—Robert Browning.

Alternate Reading: Psalms 36: 5-12.

Home

Home ain’t a place that gold can buy or get up in a minute;
Afore it’s home there’s got to be a heap o’ livin’ in it;
Within the walls there’s got t’ be some babies born, and then
Right there ye’ve got t’bring ’em up t’ women good, an’ men;
And gradjerly, as time goes on, ye find ye wouldn’t part
With anything they ever used—they’ve grown into yer heart;
The old high chairs, the playthings, too, the little shoes they wore
Ye hoard; an’ if ye could ye’d keep the thumb-marks on the door.

Ye’ve got t’ weep t’ make it home, ye’ve got to sit and sigh,
And watch beside a loved one’s bed, an’ know that Death is nigh;
An’ in the stillness o’ the night t’ see Death’s angel come,
An’ close the eyes o’ her that smiled, an’ leave her sweet voice dumb.
Fer these are scenes that grip the heart, an’ when yer tears are dried,
Ye find the home is dearer than it was, an’ sanctified;
An’ tuggin’ at ye always are the pleasant memories
Of her that was an’ is no more—ye can’t escape from these.

Ye’ve got t’ sing an’ dance fer years, ye’ve got t’ romp an’ play,
An’ learn t’ love the things ye have by usin’ ’em each day;
Even the roses ’round the porch must blossom year by year
Afore they ‘come a part o’ ye suggestin’ someone dear
Who used t’ love ’em long ago, an’ trained ’em jes’t’ run
The way they do, so’s they would get the early mornin’ sun;
Ye’ve got t’ love each brick an’ stone from cellar up t’ dome:
It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home.

—Edgar A. Guest.

No nation can ever rise higher than the level of culture in the homes of the people.

Alternate Reading: Matthew 19: 27-30.