The World of Home

A church withing a church, a republic within a republic, a world within a world, is spelled by four letters- Home! If things go right there, they go right everywhere; if things go wrong there, they go wrong everywhere. The door-sill of the dwelling house is the foundation of Church and State. A man never gets higher than his own garret nor lower than his own cellar. In other words, domestic life over arches and under girds all other life. The highest House of Congress is the domestic circle; the rocking chair in the nursery is higher than a throne. George Washington commanded the forces of the United States, but Martha Washington commanded George. Chrysostom's mother made his pen for him. If a man should start out and run seventy years in a straight line he could not get out from under the shadow of his own mantle-piece.

I have a word of advice to give to those who would have a happy home, and that is, let love preside in it. Why your behavior int he domestic circle becomes a mere matter of calculation, when the caress you give this merely the result of deliberate study of the position you occupy, happiness lies stark dead on the hearthstone. When the husband's position as head of the household is maintained by loudness of voice, by strength of arm, by fire of temper, the republic of domestic bliss has become a despotism that neither God nor man will abide. O ye who promised to love each other at the altar, how dare you commit perjury? Let no shadow of suspicion come on your affection. It is easier to kill that flower than it is to make it live again. The blast from hell that puts out that light leaves you in the blackness of darkness forever.

~T. DeWitt Talmage