Editorial December 8, 1917 Issue

"The home of Love"

Annie M. Knott

No one would deny that the love of home is deeply implanted in human consciousness and that it persists in spite of many disappointments. We are all apt to think that a home means a house, when instead it really is a spiritual shelter to which the heart's deepest desire goes out. Alas, that we should so often miss the mental way to it, misled it may be in earth's darkness by the false lights which ever lead astray. This reminds us of our Leader's words in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 84), "The discipline of the flesh is designed to turn one, like a weary traveller, to the home of Love."

We may remember too that the patriarchs did not realize in outward form their concept of home, for they lived in tents and moved from place to place; but we read in the epistle to the Hebrews that Abraham "looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God," and this is surely a hint of what we should do in looking for a home. The real home is in Mind, and while we are advancing toward its realization we cannot do better than cultivate the qualities which alone can make the quest worth while. If we happen to have places of abode and yet fail to realize in them our ideal of home, it is very evident that something unlike God must be cast out in order that what is needed to express the divine Mind may reign therein and that Love may be its light at all times. In his "Sesame and Lilies" Ruskin says: "This is the true nature of home—it is the place of Peace; the shelter, not only from all injury, but from all terror, doubt, and division. In so far as it is not this, it is not home ... it is then only a part of that outer world which you have roofed over, and lighted fire in."

It is deeply touching to read that our Master had not where to lay his head; yet we find him, when on the cross, making provision for his mother so that she would not be a homeless wanderer, and we read that John, the beloved disciple, in obedience to Jesus' request, took Mary from that very hour to his own home. We find in this transaction a wonderful hint of true values, for there were doubtless those among the disciples who were possessed of greater riches than was this poor fisherman; but where could Mary have been cared for so tenderly as in the home of the disciple who is known throughout Christendom to-day as the one who above all others of the Master's followers understood and expressed the Love which is Life indeed.

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