Chapter II
Ideal of the True Man’s Home
Nor do I find that the Heaven of heavens, which is the Lord’s, can be better called than Thine House, which contemplateth Thy delight without any need of going forth to another.... That chaste City of Thine, our Mother, which is above, and is free... clinging unto Thee with sublime love, shineth and gloweth from Thee like a perpetual noon. O House full of light and splendor! I have loved thy beauty, and the place where dwelleth the glory of my Lord, thy builder and owner.
St. Augustine.
There is a most beautiful and affecting passage at the close of the very last historical book left us by one of the greatest of patriots and legislators, reciting the magnificent prospect afforded him, just before his death, of the beautiful country divinely promised to his race. From the top of a mountain, at its southernmost extremity, he beheld the lovely home of his people stretching out before him in its length and breadth, smiling like the Garden of God in the world’s prime. The sight was the last earthly reward bestowed on upward of a century’s labors, hopes, and sufferings, before the eternal rest came to the great pilgrim and prophet.
Can we not, at the outset of our quest after true manhood, its ideal types, and glorious realizations, cast a glance at God’s beautiful earth before us, in which He bids us to create ourselves a paradise with his own assistance, bethinking us of the Eternal Home which is to be our rest, and animating ourselves to make of the earthly home its image and counterpart!
Is it not significant of a deep purpose that we should read in the very first pages of Holy Writ, how “the Lord God took man and put him into the paradise of pleasure, to dress it, and to keep it”?1 There is no doubt but this Garden of Delights, selected by the All-Father from out the wide and lovely land of Eden, was the blissful home which he destined to our innocent First Parents and their innocent offspring. Fairer far than all the earth beside, the manifold beauties which this abode displayed, its peace, its security, the visible manifestations vouchsafed to its inhabitants of the Divine Presence and of the angelic spirits,—were all intended to lift up man’s thoughts and hopes toward the Eternal Paradise, prepared for him and his, as their resting place after labor and the crown of all the merits acquired by trial here below.
Fair, indeed, as was the portion of earth thus set apart by the Creator for the dwelling of his privileged creatures, and filled, as we may fancy it, with all the delights that made it a vision and foretaste of Heaven,—yet did God leave much to man to do, in order to make of that Garden a home which should be truly his own,—the creation of his own love and industry.
Adam had been created outside of this Garden of Delights, in some less favored portion of the vast domain reserved for his descendants. He thus was enabled, when transferred by his Divine Benefactor to the earthly paradise, to judge by comparison of the immense superiority of his new abode to all that his eyes had beheld hitherto. This brief experience prepared him to improve by his own husbandry even the teeming soil of paradise, and to guard with unwearied watchfulness the untold wealth,—intrusted to him not only in all the produce of this fairy spot, but in his own soul and its destinies, in the companion soon given to him in Eve, in their united innocence and bliss, and in the welfare of their offspring.
Thus, in the Home bestowed on him who first on earth bore the name of father and discharged its duties, we find that there was imposed a double law, regarding solely home-happiness and well-being,—the law of labor and of vigilance.
This law is still the blessed necessity which ennobles the life of man, and creates within his earthly home all that it can possess of bliss and nobleness: Every true man has to work to create his home, when he has it not; to preserve and increase its stores, where he receives it by inheritance; and he has to watch over its honor, its happiness, its security, with a most loving care.
We recall this primordial law, as well as the existence of the home to which it immediately applied, not that we may insist on its scope and fulfillment in this chapter—that must be reserved to another part of our work—but that we may set forth the design of the Almighty Wisdom, as displayed in His own labors in preparing us a Home eternal in the heavens, and in aiding us to be ourselves worthy of it in our own home-life here below.
The Work of the Almighty Father is to prepare our Eternal Home
In setting before your minds, O Christian men, who take up this book and peruse its pages, the great central fact in all religion and in all history, that the mighty “Work of God in the midst of years,”2 the divine work of Redemption in its complete economy, is but the preparation in time of the Home of eternity, there is a twofold fear that oppresses the writer. Were he to express in befitting words the glorious reality so magnificently and still so imperfectly described in Scripture, he would feel as if the reader might justly suspect him of exaggeration. And when he would attempt to convey in the simplest terms the overwhelming truth about God’s love for the human race, as manifested in the almost deified condition reserved in the life to come to His faithful servants, and in the Godlike rank and virtues, which are to be the condition of the true Christian in the present life, he cannot but dread lest the infirmities of language should fail to convey the great transcendent truth.
And yet the entire scheme of God’s work in creating the world and man, in appointing to him a supernatural rank and destiny, in raising him up through Christ, when fallen from his high estate, in creating through Christ a Spiritual House and Kingdom for the whole race, which is only a type of the Eternal Home and Kingdom, and in making of that Home above the masterpiece and crowning work of His power, His wisdom, and His love,—may be best stated to the mind alike of untutored childhood, and of cultivated manhood, by saying that the joint labors of God the Father, of Christ His incarnate Son, and of the Divine Spirit abiding with man evermore,—consist in preparing for mankind a HOME in the heavens worthy of God’s utmost magnificence, and of enabling mankind in this life to deserve the unspeakable glories of that Eternal Home.
Do not weary yet of the golden thought held out to you, like a potent spell-word, which, if you grasp and retain it lovingly, will open to your soul many ravishing prospects and sunny horizons stretching away among the eternal hills. Hear, rather, one or two mighty voices whose accents thrill upon the reverent soul, startling it like lightning flashing from opposite sides of the heavens.
“From the beginning of the world they have not heard, nor perceived with the ears; the eye hath not seen, O God, besides thee, what things thou hast prepared for them that wait for thee.”3—“Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him.”4
Hear how he whose pen was said to drop honey, the great St. Bernard, comments on this passage:
“Tell us, O Thou who preparest these things, what it is that thou preparest:—‘we shall be filled with the good things of thy house.’5—But what are these good things? Wine, oil, and bread?—With all these we are familiar; we see them with our eyes, they pall upon our taste. What we seek is what eye hath not seen, O God, besides thee.... Here it is: God shall be all things in all of us. In the present life our reason is liable to frequent error in its conclusions, our will is swayed by a fourfold disturbing influence, and our memory is confused by obliviousness of every kind. To these three infirmities is thy glorious creature subjected, O God, sadly to his discomfort, but not hopelessly. For He who satisfieth in good things the desire of the soul, will Himself be to our reason the fullness of light, to our will the deep and overflowing tide of peace, and to our memory the unbroken course of eternity.”
“O Truth! O Love! O Eternity! O blessed and bliss-bestowing Trinity! for thee doth this threefold wretchedness of mine ever miserably yearn, exiled as I am from Thee!”6
The Chief Work of every True Father among men, is to create a Home
It is clear, from all this, that, after the salvation of one’s own soul, which must underlie the aims, thoughts, and actions of every Christian man, what is chiefly to be the end of every true father’s efforts, is the building up and sanctifying of a home, if he has none; or the maintaining and perfecting it in all honor, peace, prosperity, and happiness, where it exists.
This is, in God’s design and under His expressly declared will, the first and chief object of a true man’s solicitude.
Thus, while the divine Architect of the universe, conjointly with the angels who are the ministers of his fatherly providence over us, and with all true men who are laboring in conformity to the divine will,—is preparing in heaven a dwelling-place for all his faithful children, more magnificent than human intelligence can conceive of,—even so must you, beneath His eye, blessed and aided by him and his Angels, set about rearing your home or making of it the image here below of that House of God on high, where, in the words of St. Bernard, all shall be “Truth, and Love and Eternity,”—truth in your faith and your life, charity in your dealings with your household and all outside of it, and eternity so far as you can secure it, in the independence gained for your dear ones, in the spirit of faith and honor which you bequeath to them, in the very homestead itself which is to be a lasting center for their children’s children.
Nor, in the place of Him who, true Father as he is, knows no acceptation of persons,—is this primary and all-important duty of providing, maintaining, and brightening the family home, the exclusive duty of the great and the rich. There is not a poor laboring-man, who makes it his care to procure shelter, food, and raiment for his dear ones,—that is not obliged to aim at having his own home for them, and of making that home an image of heaven. There is not a youth who takes on himself the responsibilities of husband, who binds to his own lot the young wife of his choice,—who does not thereby bind himself to separate her from the whole world, to give her a home of her own, where she shall be sole mistress and queen.
Whether you be of high or of low degree, a man of wealth or a poor man depending on the earning of each day, whether advanced in years and with much experience of life’s difficulties, or just setting your foot on the path,—be earnest in your resolution to work in building up your home, and with it the honor and happiness of a family, and sing in your heart as you begin the effort of each new day and hour!
This is the Golden Rule of life for all of us, men of the world, or ministers of God’s sacraments, to set our hands earnestly and joyously to the joint work God appoints us to do—
To build up True Christian Homes!
The teaching and guidance of the priest are ordained only as a help to fathers of families,—from those who rule States, to those who are the lowliest and poorest. The help of the governing classes, in their turn, as well as of the wealthy, is, by the law of Christian charity, due to their dependent and fortuneless brethren. So that the whole effort of religion and of the most favored members of the social body, should aim at assisting the poor man to create for himself a home, and to adorn it with all the best virtues of fatherhood.
This is the need of the age. We must have true Christian fathers and true Christian homes. Socialism and Communism present a frightful caricature of the helpful brotherly love which is the soul and the bond of unity in all States obeying the law of the Gospel. The earnest and successful labors of the directing classes to inculcate parental duty, to practice and enforce the sweet home-virtues, and especially to aid the laboring-man in securing for himself the privacy and the sanctities of home-life, constitute the only efficacious corrective to the pestilential errors of communistic declaimers and conspirators.
The charity which we thus urge upon the men of our day is not the exercise of a new virtue, nor the application of a new remedy to social evils unheard of till now.
The very birds of the air, the very insects in the field would teach mankind how to make of the creation of the home a joint labor, and a labor of love as well. To be sure, we know that it is the special part of a man to provide a home for his companion and their children, as well as to labor for its support and to watch over its security. We are here talking not only of the house which shelters the family, but of the love which brightens and warms it, and of all the admirable virtues that should make its chief ornament. Even in the building up of the material walls, the poor man’s wife will have to be most frequently his loving assistant, while in all the affections and virtues that make it a paradise, both have to contribute a generous share.
Just now, however, as the apostles of evil are endeavoring to inculcate on the mind of the laborer, that home and its sanctities and duties are the creation of the laborer’s worst enemies, it will be well, after seeing the example which God sets to man in His own most glorious work, to take a lesson from the bird and the bee.
Man Taught to Labor by the Birds
See how they labor together, impelled by that instinct or half-intelligence given them by their wise Creator, to construct a nest in which they can shelter and rear their young. And how admirable are both their labor and their intelligence! Just when the first sure signs of returning spring and settled weather tell the husbandman that he can trust his seed to the ground, we see in our northern climates the birds in pairs selecting proper sites for their nests. The amount of labor, industry, and perseverance, which even the very smallest of these feathered tribes display in this, surely ought to be a lesson to the observant among us. Both birds are equally diligent in collecting materials and in rearing the walls of the structure, though it would appear that the task of giving the interior its shape, and of lining it with the soft materials that are to keep the eggs warm and to shield the callow young during their first period of helplessness, is left to the female,—not a little suggestive of the mother’s office in regulating and adorning the interior of her home.
They often work from the first peep of dawn till after the last glow of twilight to complete their undertaking. And what intelligence is displayed in the selection of the site, the choice of the materials, and the wonderful and varied industry with which these materials are employed for their destined purpose! For among birds there are miners, and carpenters, and masons, as well as weavers, tailors, and felt-makers, manifesting in their craft a skill so marvelous, and such a science of adaptation to climate, locality, and danger, that one is struck with admiration in studying the masterpieces which these feathered artisans produce. These weaver and tailor birds know also how to associate into guilds for mutual protection against their many foes, and their numbers render them secure against the most powerful birds of prey.
Taught by the Bee and the Ant
Need we descend to the well-known examples of the bee and the ant? Indeed, the admirable constructions of these little insects (we omit to mention so many other species well known to the reader), are more like the homes of civilized folk, than the most elaborate nests of birds, whether solitary or gregarious. The nests of these are, for the most part, temporary, made of perishable materials, and destined to rear the brood of the season. Not so the hive of the honey-bee, or the prodigious structure reared by the white ant; these are permanent homes, where generation after generation of laborers is born and reared, and whence, the old home becoming too narrow, and not admitting of enlargement, colony after colony will issue forth to create new homes, adorned by the same intelligence, laborious habits, thrift, order, sobriety, and indomitable perseverance, displayed in the ways of their ancestors.
Yes, all nature teaches man these golden lessons of industry, loving co-operation, mutual aid, and dependence, order, purpose, system, devotion to the welfare and happiness of others, union of minds and hearts and hands under God to create and preserve anything lasting and glorious.
What is man without a home? More helpless and wretched than the beast, the fowl, or the insect. He is both the enemy and the prey of every creature on the face of the earth. But with a home, which he has labored to create, or to preserve and perfect, which he lights up with the lofty examples of his life, where,—like God Himself in the world,—he only lives to do good and make others good and happy, where the love he gives is returned to him a hundred-fold by the dear ones who owe him everything,—is not man a most Godlike being?
With this rapid glance at that sweet and sublime ideal which Religion holds up to the true man, let us now turn to the beautiful and soul-stirring realities of actual life, to the mighty divine-human forces at work beneath our eyes in creating and embellishing true Christian Homes.
