The Home Council

The Little Child That Was

(Mothers who grieve for a child that was should remember that God is Mother too. How great is the love of the most devoted mother for her babe! It is not one millionth of God’s love for the same babe.)

The night throbs on; Oh, let me pray, dear Lord!
Crush off his name a moment from my mouth.
To Thee my eyes would turn, but they go back,
Back to my arm beside me where he lay—
So little, Lord, so little and so warm!
I cannot think that thou hadst need of him!
He was so little, Lord, he cannot sing,
He cannot praise Thee; all his life had learned
Was to hold fast my kisses in the night.
Forgive me, Lord, but I am sick with grief.
And tired of tears and cold to comforting.
Thou art wise, I know, and tender, aye, and good,
Thou hast my child, and he is safe in Thee,
And I believe—
Ah, God, my child shall go
Orphaned among the angels! All alone,
So little and alone! He knows not Thee,
He only knows his mother—give him back!

—Josephine Daskam.

The Growth Of Civilization

Great truths are portions of the soul of man;
Great souls are portions of eternity;
Each drop of blood that e’er through true heart ran
With lofty message, ran for you and me;
For God’s law, since the starry song began,
Hath been, and stiU forevermore must be,
That every deed which shall outlast life’s span
Must goad the soul to be erect and free.

—James Russell Lowell.

Alternate Reading: I Corinthians 1:18-31.

The Path To Greatness

Those who are regarded as rulers of the heathen, as you know, lord it over them, and their great men are their masters. But among you it must not be so. On the contrary, whosoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whosoever wishes to take a first place among you must be at the call of everyone; for even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.

—Jesus.

When A Man Comes To Himself

What every man seeks is satisfaction. He deceives himself so long as he imagines it to lie in self-indulgence, so long as he deems himself the center and object of effort. His mind is spent in vain upon itself. Not in action itself, not in “pleasure” shall it find its desires satisfied, but in consciousness of right, of powers greatly and nobly spent. It comes to know itself in the motives which satisfy it, in the zest and power of rectitude. Christianity has liberated the world, not as a system of ethics, not as a philosophy of altruism, but by its revelation of the power of pure and unselfish love. Its vital principle is not its code, but its motive. Love clear sighted, loyal, personal, is its breath and immortality.

Christ came not to save Himself, assuredly, but to save the world. His motive, His example, are every man’s key to his own gifts and happiness. The ethical code He taught may no doubt be matched, here a piece, there a piece, out of other religions, other teachings and philosophies. Every thoughtful man with a conscience must know a code of right and of pity to which he ought to conform, but without the motive of Christianity, without love, he may be the purest altruist and yet be as sad and as unsatisfied as Marcus Aurelius.

Christianity gave us, in the fullness of time, the perfect image of right living, the secret of social and of individual well-being; for the two are not separable, and the man who receives and verifies that secret in his own living has discovered npt only the best way to serve the world, but also the one happy way to satisfy himself. Then, indeed, has he come to himself. After this fretfulness passes away, experience mellows and strengthens and makes more fit, and old age brings, not senility, not regret, but higher hope and serene maturity.

—Woodbow Wilson.

First of all, I must make myself a man; if I do not succeed in that, I can succeed in nothing.

—James A. Garfield.

Alternate Reading: Romans 15: 7-21.

The Last Supper

So Peter and John went on, and found everything just as Jesus had told them, and they prepared the Passover.

When the time came, Jesus took his place at table, and the Apostles with him.

“I have most earnestly wished,” he said, “to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you that I shall not eat it again, until it has had its fulfilment in the Kingdom of God.”

Then, on receiving a cup, after saying the thanksgiving, he said:

“Take this and share it among you. For I tell you that I shall not, after to-day, drink of the juice of the grape, till the Kingdom of God has come.”

Then Jesus took some bread, and, after saying the thanksgiving, broke it and gave to them, with the words:

“This is my body, [which is now to be given on your behalf. Do this in memory of me.”

And in the same way with the cup, after supper, saying:

“This cup is the New Covenant made by my blood which is being poured out on your behalf.] Yet seel the hand of the man that is betraying me is beside me upon the table! True, the Son of Man is passing, by the way ordained for him, yet alas for that man by whom he is being betrayed! ” Then they began questioning one another which of them it could be that was going to do this.

—Luke.

The Holy Of Holies

In ancient Jerusalem the Holy of Holies in the center of the Temple was so sacred that it could not be entered by anyone but the High Priest and by him only once a year. The Home is in reality God’s Holy of Holies in which He means for His priest and priestess, father and mother, to officiate day and night.

The Choir Invisible

O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence: live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge man’s search
To vaster issues.
So to live is heaven:
To make undying music in the world,
Breathing as beauteous order that controls
With growing sway the growing life of man.
So we inherit that sweet purity
For which we struggled, failed, and agonised
With widening retrospect that bred despair.
Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,
A vicious parent shaming still its child
Poor anxious penitence, is quick dissolved;
Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies,
Die in the large and charitable air.
And all our rarer, better, truer self,
That sobbed religiously in yearning song,
That watched to ease the burthen of the world,
Laboriously tracing what must be,
And what may yet be better—saw within
A worthier image for the sanctuary,
And shaped it forth before the multitude
Divinely human, raising worship so
To higher reverence more mixed with love—
That better self shall live till human Time
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky
Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb
Unread forever.
This is life to come,
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven, be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony.
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty—
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense.
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.

—George Eliot.

Alternate Reading: Psalms 98.

The Virgin Martyr

Every wild she-bird has nest and mate in the warm April weather,
But a captive woman, made for love, no mate, no nest, has she.
In the spring of young desire, young men and maids are wed together.
And the happy mothers flaunt their bliss for all the world to see.
Nature’s sacramental feast for them—an empty board for me.

I, a young maid once, an old maid now, deposed, despised, forgotten—
I, like them, have thrilled with passion and have dreamed of a nuptial rest,
Of the trembling life within me, of my children unbegotten,
Of a breathing new-born body to my yearning bosom prest,
Of the rapture of a little soft mouth drinking at my breast.

Time, that heals so many sorrows, keeps mine ever freshly aching.
Though my face is growing furrowed and my brown hair turning white,
Still I mourn my irremedial loss, asleep or awaking;
Still I hear my son’s voice calling “Mother” in the dead of night,
And am haunted by my girl’s eyes that will never see the light.

O my children that I might have had! My children lost forever!
O the goodly years that might have been, now desolate and bare!
O God, what have I lacked, what have I done, that I should never
Take my birthright like the others, take the crown that women wear,
And possess the common heritage to which all flesh is heir?

—Ada Cambridge.

In The Hollow Of God’s Hand

At the heart of the cyclone tearing the sky
And flinging the clouds and towers by
Is a place of central calm:
So here in the roar of mortal things,
I have a place where my spirit sings,
In the hollow of God’s Palm.

—Edwin Markham.

Alternate Reading: Romans 14:1-11.

Home In A Cottage

I knew by the smoke, that so gracefully curled
Above the green elms, that a cottage was near,
And I said, “If there’s peace to be found in the world,
A heart that is humble might hope for it here!”

It was noon, and on the flowers that languished around
In silence reposed the voluptuous bee;
Every leaf was at rest, and I heard not a sound
But the woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree.

And, “Here in this lone little wood,” I exclaimed,
“With a maid who was lovely to soul and to eye,
Who would blush when I praised her, and weep if I blamed,
How blest could I live, and how calm could I die!”

—Thomas Moore.

A Cottage Lone And Still

If there were dreams to sell,
Merry and sad to tell,
And the crier rang the bell,
What would you buy?

A cottage lone and still
With bowers nigh,
Shadowy, my woes to still,
Until I die. Such pearl from Life’s fresh crown
Fain would I shake me down.
Were dreams to have at will
This would best heal my ill,
This would I buy.

—T. L. Beddoes.

Alternate Reading: Romans 11: 25-36.

The Wife To Her Husband

Linger not long. Home is not home without thee:
Its dearest tokens do but make me mourn.
O, let its memory, like a chain about thee,
Gently compel and hasten thy return!

Linger not long. Though crowds should woo thy staying.
Bethink thee, can the mirth of thy friend, though dear,
Compensate for the grief thy long delaying
Costs the fond heart that sighs to have thee here?

Linger not long. How shall I watch thy coming,
As evening shadows stretch o’er moor and dell;
When the wild bee hath ceased her busy humming,
And silence hangs on all things like a spell!

How shall I watch for thee, when fears grow stronger,
As night grows dark and darker on the hill!
How shall I weep, when I can watch no longer!
Ah, art thou absent, art thou absent still?

Haste, haste thee home unto thy cottage dwelling,
Haste, as a bird unto its peaceful nest!
Haste, as a skiff, through tempests wide and swelling,
Flies to its haven of securest rest!

—Anon.

Home, Sweet Home

‘Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home!
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
Which, sought through the world, is ne’er met with elsewhere.
Home! home! sweet, sweet home!
There’s no place like home!

—John Howard Payne.

Alternate Reading: Mark 3: 20-35.

The Plot Against Jesus

When Jesus had finished all this teaching, he said to his disciples:

“You know that in two days’ time the Festival of the Passover will be here; and that the Son of Man is to be given up to be crucified.”

Then the Chief Priests and the Councillors of the nation met in the house of the High Priest, who was called Caiaphas, and plotted together to arrest Jesus by stealth and put him to death; but they said: “Not during the Festival, for fear of causing a riot.”

Jesus Anointed By A Woman At Bethany

After Jesus had reached Bethany, and while he was in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came up to him with an alabaster jar of very costly perfume, and poured the perfume upon his head as he was at table. The disciples were indignant at seeing this.

“What is this waste for?” they exclaimed. “It could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to poor people.”

“Why are you troubling the woman?” Jesus said, when he noticed it “For this is a beautiful deed that she has done to me. You always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. In pouring this perfume on my body, she has done it for my burying. I tell you, wherever, in the whole world, this Good News is proclaimed, what this woman has done will be told in memory of her.”

Judas Agrees To Betray Jesus

It was then that one of the Twelve, named Judas Iscariot, made his way to the Chief Priests, and said, ” What are you willing to give me, if I betray Jesus to you? The Priests “weighed him out thirty pieces of silver” as payment. So from that time Judas looked for an opportunity to betray Jesus.

—Matthew.

Woman Sets Her Own Price

Ah, wasteful woman!—she who may
On her sweet self set her own price,
Knowing he cannot choose but pay—
How has she cheapened Paradise!
How given for naught her priceless gift,
How spoiled the bread and spilled the wine,
Which, spent with due, respective thrift,
Had made brutes men, and men divine!

—Coventry Patmore.

Love Of Husband And Wife On The Sinking Titanic

(This poem is a picture of enduring love that should make careless and flippant couples feel ashamed of their lives.)

Husband to Wife:

Beloved, you must go—ask not to stay,—
You are a mother and your duties call,
And we, who have so long been all in all,
Must put the human side of life away.
For one brief moment let us stand and pray,
Sealed in the thought that whatso’er befall
We, who have known the freedom and the thrall
Of a great love, in death shall feel its sway,—
You, you must live, because of his dear need,
You are the one to bear the harder part—
Nay, do not cling—’tis time to say good-by.
Think of me then but as a spirit freed,
Flesh of my Flesh, and Heart of my own Heart,
The love we knew has made me strong to die!

Wife Answers:

I cannot leave you, ask me not to go,
Love of my youth and all my older years—
We, who have met together smiles or tears,
Feeling that each did but make closer grow
The union of our hearts—Ah! say not so
That death shall find us separate. All my fears
Are but to lose you. Life itself appears
A trifling thing—But one great truth I know,
When heart to heart has been so closely knit
That Flesh has been one Flesh and Soul one Soul,
Life is not life if they are rent apart,
And death unsevered is more exquisite
As we, who have known much, shall read the whole
Of Life’s great secret on each other’s heart.

—Corinne R. Robinson.

Alternate Reading: John 10: 22-41.

The Things That Are More Excellent

As we wax older on this earth,
Till many a toy that charmed us seems
Emptied of beauty, stripped of worth,
And mean as dust and dead as dreams,—
For gauds that perished, shows that passed,
Some recompense the Fates have sent:
Thrice lovelier shine the things that last,
The things that are more excellent.

Shall we perturb and vex our soul
For “wrongs” which no true freedom mar,
Which no man’s upright walk control?
And from no guiltless deed debar?
What odds though tonguesters heal, or leave
Unhealed, the grievance they invent?
To things, not phantoms, let us cleave—
The things that are more excellent.

In faultless rhythm the ocean rolls,
A rapturous silence thrills the skies;
And on this earth are lovely souls,
That softly look with aidful eyes.
Though dark, O God, Thy course and trade, I think Thou must at least have meant
That nought which lives should wholly lack
The things that are more excellent.

—William Watson.

Never Grow Old

Never grow old. Time’s furrowed lines
Of pain, of sorrow, and of tears
Must leave their impress, wide and deep,
On the face of declining years.

But the gentle spirit, fraught with love-
Bright deeds of happiness unfold;
Grows brighter, lovelier with age—
More winsome still—grows never old.

—F. M. Vancil.

Alternate Reading: Acts 9: 32-43.