Editorial March 17, 1934 Issue

The Sanctity of the Home

Duncan Sinclair

It is generally conceded that one of the strongest influences in the lives of the people is the home. The days of childhood and youth are highly impressionable days, and in them habits of thought and action are readily acquired. Instinctively the child copies the ways of his parents, their attitude to each other and to himself often making a deep impression upon him, molding his thought and his life. One often wonders if those who have the upbringing of children realize as they should the responsibility that rests upon them because of the effect their lives have upon those entrusted to their care!

The ideal home for the child is that in which love reigns, for in an atmosphere of love he is free to develop along every good line. Think how love guides in sweet and wise ways; how thought that is loving corrects the erring one wisely and firmly, yet withal gently, mindful of the wise man's words, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Think of the patience of love, of its gentleness, of its persuasiveness. Think of love's reasonableness, its basis established in an understanding of the power of good. And when, through Christian Science, the parents' thought is illumined by the knowledge that the power of good is unlimited and that evil is false and powerless, what an influence it is in the lives of the young!

There can be no question of the fact that a righteous home life aids tremendously the moral and spiritual life of the child. If parents are themselves moral; if they are pure in their thoughts and upright in their dealings with others; if they consistently uphold the Decalogue, acting honestly and justly by their fellow men, bearing no false witness against their neighbor but testifying in their hearts to the perfection of man in God's image, what an example they are bound to be to those of tender years! Unselfishness, sister of affection, how it blesses its surroundings! And in the home it should be found in all its self-forgetfulness, a steady influence for good. "Home is the dearest spot on earth," says Mrs. Eddy on page 58 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures;" "and it should be the centre, though not the boundary, of the affections."

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