LAWTON CHURCH OF GOD, LAWTON OKLAHOMA

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CHAPTER 11

HOME

WHAT a hallowed name! How full of enchantment and how dear to the heart! Home is the magic circle within which the weary spirit finds refuge. Home! That name touches every fiber of the soul and strikes every cord of the human heart with its angelic fingers. Nothing but death can break its spell.

What tender associations are linked with home! What pleasing images and deep emotions it awakens! It calls up the fondest memories of life and opens in our nature the purest, deepest, richest gush of consecrated thought and feeling. Home of my childhood! What words fall upon the ear with so much of music in their cadence as those which recall the scenes of innocent and happy childhood now numbered with the memories of the past? How fond recollection delights to dwell upon the events which marked our early pathway when the unbroken home circle presented a scene of loveliness vainly sought but in the bosom of a happy family! Intervening years have not dimmed the vivid coloring with which memory has adorned those joyous hours of youthful innocence. We are again borne on the wings of imagination to the place made sacred by the remembrance of a father’s care, a mother’s love, and the cherished associations of brother and sister.

Home! How often we hear persons speak of the home of their childhood. Their minds seem to delight in dwelling upon the recollection of joyous days spent beneath the parental roof, when their young and happy hearts were as light and free as the birds who made the woods resound with the melody of their cheerful voices. What a blessing it is, when weary with care and burdened with sorrow, to have a home to which we can go and there, in the midst of friends we love, forget our troubles and dwell in peace and quietness!

There is music in the word “home.” Among the many songs we are wont to listen to, there is not one more cherished than the touching melody of “Home, Sweet Home.” None can tell how often the commission of crime is prevented by the memories of home and loved ones. If, then, the spell of home is so powerful, how important it is to make it pleasant and lovable! Many a time a cheerful home and smiling face do more to make good men and women than all the learning and eloquence that can be used.

How sweet the words “Mother, Home, and Heaven”! And one might almost say that the word “home” includes them all; for who can think of home without remembering the gentle mother who sanctified it by her presence? and is not home the dearest name for heaven? We think of that better land as a home where brightness will never end in night. Oh, then, may our homes on earth be the centers of all our joys; may they be as green spots in the desert, to which we can retire when weary of the cares and perplexities of life, and drink the clear water of a love which we know to be sincere and always unfailing.

Heaven is to be our eternal home. Through the rich grace of Christ Jesus may we all reach it.