Editorial October 25, 1919 Issue

Home

Ella W. Hoag

PERHAPS few words in the English language carry with them greater possibilities and breadth of vision than does the word "home." From the veriest child to the man of many years it speaks in a multitude of tones. To be sure it may sometimes be linked in thought with disappointed hopes and shattered purposes, but nevertheless the ideal home still stands as a synonym for protection, safety, peace,—for the quiet opportunity of pursuing high desires, for rest from turbulence, for comfort and assurance,—for that which strengthens the understanding of good and lessens the belief in evil. Around this sense of home there cluster an innumerable company of angels, and there is no one in all the world who does not contemplate the thought of it with at least some degree of consideration, if not with positive interest. Its influence reaches out through every one's life, molding and controlling in a variety of ways. Hence, there is no ideal which should be more carefully guarded or more tenderly cherished.

Every one longs to realize the happiness for which home is intended to stand, and men have always been endeavoring to gain such realization. The so-called human mind, with its material concepts, has approached this subject, as it does every other, from the material viewpoint and thus has fallen far short of winning anything like the satisfaction it has expected. Because it has measured its ideals of home largely in square feet and multiplicity of persons and things, it has often found itself disappointed and disheartened. The illumination of Christian Science with its teaching that "all is Mind and Mind's idea" (Science and Health, p. 492), strikes the axe at the root of this as of all difficulties. To begin to discern that home is really made up of mental qualities instead of material objects, and therefore is to be experienced rather than manufactured, sets one's thoughts at work in a new direction.

Although it has already been recognized that the rude hut may embrace within its modest walls more of the elements of the true home than does the stately mansion, since all that matter can give has again and again proved powerless to bring lasting satisfaction, and although mortal mind acknowledges that its best concept of home is but fleeting, there still remains the necessity of improving the beliefs of the world on this subject in order that even the human sense of home may be placed upon a better foundation. This can only be done through gaining a more spiritual concept which will tend to purify and exalt where there has been falsity and debasement and which will render yet finer what has already touched some loftier heights.

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