THE MOTHER'S OFFICE

BY MRS. S. M. I. HENRY.

      

THE best result which I can wish to obtain from this article would be to bring to the discouraged mother, who has no heart in her work, such an understanding of the dignity of her office that she shall take on enthusiasm, as the old apple-trees take on bloom in May, and breathe out rejoicing like a sweet odor.

“What is motherhood that I should be glad in it?”  sighs some woman. “It has brought me endless care and worry.”

 Let us see, then, what it is; for worry is no necessary part of it, and should be wholly escaped. Motherhood is not simply the result of having borne a child; one may have borne many, and yet not have known one throb of genuine motherhood. One may have drained the bitterness of the curse to the dregs, and have missed entirely the sweetness of the blessing, because she has not taken her work from God, and done it in his name.

There can be no real motherhood without a practical Christian experience. It is by far more spiritual than physical. It is a Christian grace. It is the rich storehouse where the fruits of the Spirit are garnered for practical daily use. Motherhood is, in a broader sense than anything else, co-partnership with God. It is that link in character by which God takes hold of humanity,—the one element of human nature which has passed the ordeal of the fall, and retained somewhat of its likeness to the original thought of God. It has made many a virgin aunt the sweetest mother of the whole family, and a few men have worn this rare blossom in their own hearts, and so proved themselves to hold a peculiar kinship to Christ.

Motherhood is God's chosen instrument for his best work in the world; without it he could do nothing with men as they are, but with it he can do almost anything.

For a woman to have within her that which brings the memory of his mother to any man, is to hold one of the rarest gifts by which souls are won from sin ; for the thought of his mother is invariably the purest and truest in the memory of a profligate man, and nearest to his thoughts of God. It may be mixed with much that is neither true nor pure; but as it reaches back to his own innocent days, it holds the sweetest that he can know, and is the fertile soil in which God would plant the seeds of truth. There would be little hope of reformation for him if he had no reverence for this memory. In all the years of work among the very sinful, I have never found a man who would not respond to a judicious reference to his early days with his mother. The hardest thing I ever heard from any man about his mother was this: “I don't s'pose my mother mounted to much; she ran off and left me when I was a little shaver, and I have been lonesome allus.” The most pathetic was from a hardened criminal, whose mother was herself a criminal. He had come to appreciate how much this had to do with the “hard luck” of his life, but said: “I am sure we should both have been differ'nt if she could 'a had half a chance; but she didn't know nothin', and I ain't blamin' her.”

In the midst of every-day prosy duties, it is very difficult to appreciate how important is the office to which woman has been appointed, — its sacred character, its exalted dignity, as well as its corresponding responsibilities, which are so great that she could never bear them alone.

The third chapter of 1 Corinthians is especially the word of inspiration to mothers. The pronoun “we” in the ninth verse (“For we are laborers together with God”) means us. I would like to get a few drops of the honey of this consolation into the heart of the perplexed mother who reads this. It means something to be a laborer together with God. In the first place, God would never call us to this partnership, and then himself flinch from his share of responsibility. His share is to give strength for our need;  answer our calls for help; take anything which we have begun in his name, when we have done our best with it, and finish it. In this he will never fail us. To have done our part, to the best of our ability, means to have God finish the work for us.

“What is my share?  O, if I could but  know!” I hear some woman sob again, as one did years ago, while we talked together. Our share is summed up in one word, obedience, or willingness, which, in this case, means the same thing. Willingness to be taught of God, to take his word as it reads, to be controlled by it in all things, to be subject to the power of the Holy Spirit as he abides in that word, — willingness to acknowledge and correct an error in judgment or motive, before it passes into sin or bad example. Many a mother has failed at this point in dealing with her children. She has taken a position thoughtlessly, and found it wrong, while the children, if she has taught them well, knew that it was wrong as well as she did, but her pride rebelled against making confession to them, so it was allowed to stand,— a, wrong to herself, her children, and God. The result of her final decision in such a crisis is tremendous. Holding to the error, for the sake of “dignity,” she has lost the chance to lead her flock beside the still waters, when to have sacrificed self and said, “I am wrong, but will not stay wrong; we must all do right together, at all hazards,” would have been enthronement in the hearts of her children, and the planting of truth from which faith would have grown. Unbelief grows from enthroned error; from humbled truth, never.

Willingness means also ready trust in God. We must be willing to leave him to do his part, without jealous or fearful watching. One mother said to me, “I have no rest; I am growing ill; I lie awake nights, I am so burdened. I do not know what more I can do for my son. I am sure I have done the best I know, and yet he is going wrong.” When it is true of any mother that she has done the best she can, she can safely pass her work over to her divine Partner, and be free from any sense of burden.

Even if she has the bitter knowledge that she has not done her best, there is yet a way for her to lay the responsibility off onto God; and when God takes the responsibility, he knows where to lay it next. Confession of failure made frankly to her child, a clear setting forth of truth as seen in better light, a faithful testimony by obedience for the future, will relieve her of all necessary burden. To be conscious that one has done the best she knew, as she was going along, with a willingness to correct errors at sight, ought in itself, to be an assurance that God has his hands on the work, and will see it through; this should make peace for any mother.

“But,” says one, “how could I rest, even in God, and see my boy going wrong every day? How can I help sadness and worry!”  Ah, but one has not done her part yet, until she has dropped the whole case, with all the worry and anxiety, upon God.

A sad face is poor testimony to the power of salvation. To worry is to repudiate the promise, and brand it as worthless. And since it is by testimony given by what we are, and how we live, as well as by our words, that we are to honor God before our children as well as the world, so we cannot expect him to take our burdens upon himself until we have made that testimony complete. The complete testimony includes a peaceful face, well-kept person, a voice that breaks into song, and a sweet and winsome graciousness amid life's vexing cares, and is mighty in keeping at bay the snarling dogs of unbelief, that hound the steps of every boy and girl in this age of the world; while an untidy dress, unkempt hair, a woebegone expression, and a peevish tone, suggestive of heart-break, will never awaken in them the desire to follow Christ. They will rather flee the wearisome spell of such evident unrest, and disbelieve the practical helpfulness of the gospel. Joy, not sorrow, is the factor which the problem calls for, without which we can never get the promised result.  If we substitute sorrow for joy, the responsibility of failure is ours, not God's.

A mother gives her child a piece of work to do, with all neccessary instructions. The child follows instructions faithfully, but the work is a botch. Upon whom but the mother does the responsibility of failure fall? But if the child deviates in any degree from instructions, the mother is free, and the child must bear the responsibility.  So between us and our God in our mutual labor. Happy is that mother who so accepts her sacred office, so works the will of God in caring for body and soul, so perfectly trusts him, that she can say, with David, '' Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope.” Ps. 119:49.

I have before me the vision of such a mother. Through many years of her only son's profligacy, she carried in her face the peace of God. She looked her faith in the promise, until her boy was compelled to acknowledge that she was sustained by an arm that must be strong enough to hold him up, if he would but trust it as she did. The God who could keep a drunkard's mother peaceful and quiet so long, could certainly save the drunkard, was the message which came to him at last. He was never afraid to send for her when trouble came through sin, for he knew her faith, and believed its testimony; and in his time of shame and disgrace, it was like a hiding place. One day he telegraphed, “I am coming to Christ, if I can find him.” She answered with a “live wire” and followed in person as fast as she could. Later on, she had the great joy of hearing that son preach the everlasting gospel, and at last, of seeing him fall asleep in peace, after years of blessed service. ~

ADVENT  REVIEW AND SABBATH HERALD. 

 JANUARY 19, 1897 Vol. 74. No. 3

Written from the Sanitarium in Battle Creek MI

HOME-WORK

BY MRS. S. M. I. HENRY.

THERE is a vast difference between housework and home-work. The world has been accustomed to think of housework as the one legitimate occupation of woman, and to consider that in it she should find abundant scope for all her abilities, and that from it she should draw the keenest pleasures of her life.

Young women have been made to think that they were so much less than their men friends expected them to be, as they failed to accomplish all that is included in “good housekeeping.” To know how to cook, to wash and iron, to make and mend, and to do these things with her own hands, was — in the ordinary walks of life — to assume that a girl would make an exemplary wife and mother.

There have been men of culture and influence who have deliberately chosen women of a lower order of intelligence as wives, and mothers of their children, because they did not wish anything of them beyond such service as can be summed up in housekeeping and nursing. And “good housekeeping” is a most excellent accomplishment,—a beautiful gift,—to be cultivated as one cultivates art and music; but it has often been costly in both souls and bodies.  It is also a necessity; it must be done and done well. The growing family must be housed, and fed, and clothed; kept clean, and made comfortable. This part of our life-work is so exacting that it will be a diligent woman indeed who can keep the house, full of growing boys and girls out of whom men and other housekeepers are to be developed, in good comfort during the process.

But with the world as it is to-day, if this woman be the mother, she must become much more than a housekeeper,—she must be able to do much more and better than a housekeeper need do, or the whole is in peril, and the end of all her weary service may be failure and sorrow.  There is danger that the real claim of “good housekeeping” may be overridden by the pressure of greater interests, because it has been dragged out of its own place, into a prominence which does not belong to it, and at the sacrifice of vital interests to which it stands simply as an accessory.

The home is greater than the house, as the heart in its relation to the man, is greater than the hand. The man may live happy and useful without a hand, but without a heart he is nothing but dead clay. The strong action of a sound heart compensates for many physical losses; and with a true home-keeper in charge, all is assured that is really necessary to the house. The home must have a house, as the heart must have a body in which to operate; so while we are building and caring for the one, we cannot safely forget the other.

The home idea has, in the past, been ignored to such an extent in the efforts to secure the house and its furnishings, that it has become imperative that special attention be called to it, and that its claims be strenuously urged.

The conditions of commerce and society tend to break down all that remains of this fragment of Eden in the world; and the pressure of necessities which crowd the working man and woman into “tight places,” threatens to destroy it altogether. It seems almost certain that it is to become lost to the world; but God's people are never left to any such disaster as that would be. The angels have never looked on a more pitiful sight than the homes that lie dead and buried under great houses ; that, well-kept, rich, and beautiful in all that can satisfy the sensual nature, are still cold and empty of that light and life of love that makes the safety and delight of the home.

The people of God must come to an intelligent understanding of what the home is, and of its importance in the plan of salvation, or suffer from this ignorance as from no other; for this is a point where ignorance means death. The work of the home once done, well or ill, must remain forever. It cannot be pulled down like a wall, and rebuilt, or raveled like a seam, or painted over like a picture. It cannot be patched like a rent, or cemented like broken china, so that it will be as “good as new.” The work of the home is writing on wax which becomes adamant, and retains the every mark of touch forever. Housework is for today; home-work is for eternity ; and every father and mother must make the choice as to which shall receive the, most careful attention.

The home was God's first building on the earth. A great port of entry from the   nowhere into the here, it stands on the shores of time, its numberless gates wide open ; its lights, countless as the stars of heaven, shining out into the darkness; its voices, sweet with songs first breathed out of the heart of infinite Love, filling the world with harmonies. Of all the creations of God, it is the most marvelous. Its ministry, like the forces of nature, has all seasons and methods for its own; at its will it fashions the character and destiny of man, as well as the institutions of the earth. Under God, by the work of the homekeeper, nations rise and fall, kings reign, republics are built, laws are made and enforced, or left to lie dead in the musty books of old libraries.

By her needs, commerce has become the great fact of the world's processes; and retail traffic, the great occupation of the masses of her people. Because of her the school and the college flourish, and the church is compassing sea and land in sending forth the Heaven-sent message to the ends of the earth.  And because of the usurpation of this throne and kingdom of the home by the servile housekeeper, there sits to-day throughout the land of Bibles, in the “ lurking-places of the villages,” that “wicked” whose mouth is full of “cursing and deceit and fraud;” who  “in the secret places doth murder the innocent” (or innocence); who “lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den ... to catch the poor” (or unwary; maybe our own children); who “doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net.”

Nothing can save the children of the church, to say nothing of the others, from falling into this snare of that “wicked,” but the restoration of the home to its appointed office in the divine plan as it concerns man. The recovery of the two Edenic institutions, the Sabbath and the home, from the secondary places to which the lust of man has crowded them, must be the crowning work of the gospel in the world.

So far-reaching is the influence of the home, that any danger which threatens it threatens equally every human interest, and that much of the designs of eternal Love as concerns human well-being. It behooves us, therefore, to bring a candid mind and an honest heart to its consideration, and to the study of the responsibilities with which its keepers have been invested.  I say “keepers,” because it is evident that God never intended to place this, which is the center of all things in the earth, in the hands of a fractional part of the human unit for its keeping. “God said, It is not good that the man should be alone;” and the fact that man was created first, and held in waiting to receive the woman as she came from the hand that formed her, proves that other truth,—that she was not to be left solitary in her work. “They twain shall be one flesh,”—they shall jointly keep that which has been placed in their care, working together, a united head, for one grand purpose. God's idea of home-keeping degenerated into modern housekeeping because this unity of the two in one was broken, and man went his selfish way, leaving woman to an equally selfish “sphere.”

There can be no mother without a father, no child without both; and there can be no just division, but there should be a mutual sharing of all responsibilities which the conditions involve. No house can become a home if either the father or the mother element is lacking, in either office of provider or keeper.

A crying need of the home, as it has been bequeathed to this generation, is a nearer fatherhood and a larger motherhood, — both made so true, and pure, and one, by the Holy Spirit's abiding love, that God the Father shall find a real representation of himself therein,— a representation which the children shall recognize, reverence, love, and obey; and by which they shall be led to know his Christ. To know God, through that translation of himself which a true father and mother may be, is to love him. So to learn to love him is the most blessed experience that can come to any son of man, excepting that which results from personal trust in Christ. And that first leads surely to this last and best, by a short, safe way, which leaves small room for ruin. ~

ADVENT REVIEW & SABBATH HERALD  

 Jan. 12, 1897   Vol. 74 No. 2 

Written from the Sanitarium in Battle Creek, MI

“NEITHER DO I CONDEMN THEE.”

BY MRS. S. M. I. HENRY.

                 

WHEN Christ came into the world, he expected to find sin of the vilest types. He followed the law, which had been teaching God's standard of judgment, and making man know that someone, between whom and himself there was much in common, measured the possibilities of both sin and purity, although the experience of each man revealed the fact that he, of himself, was unable to avoid the one or attain to the other. Imperfection was his lot. Personal condemnation —the mother of despair — was a companion from whom there was no escape.

The mission of Christ was to break this spell which caused despair, and to create hope. To do this he must not tolerate anything which could separate him from man. Sin had done that already, and this he must take out of the way, by putting himself between it and him whom sin would destroy, and he would save. He could not afford to bring with him into the world anything else that would necessarily keep him and man apart.

Nothing can ever be so effectual a barrier between individuals who ought to love and help one another, as a spirit of judgment and criticism.  Hence he, the Judge of the whole earth, must empty himself of his eternal prerogative, disguise his knowledge of the sinner and sin, and treat him as a friend. However amenable to the law the culprit might be, Christ must condescend to win him to himself and to love of the law which condemned him to punishment, which punishment this strangely disguised Judge had taken upon himself.

Only the “mind of Christ” could ever have conceived such a scheme. Only those who have “partaken” of that mind can comprehend it.  The Pharisees who brought the guilty woman to Christ (John 8:3-5) thought they knew the law, and the poor sinner believed they represented it, and was afraid, as well she might be; for, not knowing the mind which framed the law, neither she nor they could comprehend the depths of love of which its most arbitrary power was only an expression.  There is nothing so arbitrary as love. It will stop at nothing that can compass the welfare of the loved object.

The sinful woman and the unloving scribes and Pharisees had no foundation for a knowledge of the deep, fatherly tenderness out of which the law had come, with all its penalties, as well as this Christ, who was charged with its fulfilment, and the revelation of the spirit which inspired it. This ignorance not only caused the sinner to despair, but made the scribes and Pharisees arrogant. Christ had to meet both this arrogance and fear with a spirit which was the life of the law; and also teach those to whom he was to leave his-unfinished work how, through all time, to meet them as he had, until he should come again with judgment.

By nothing is the work of God hindered more than by failure to learn this lesson of “no judgment.” “Neither do I condemn thee,” said Christ; because condemnation is fatal to a work of salvation, and he came to save. Whom the judge condemns is never led away to liberty, to honor, to safety, but to punishment. Condemnation is the seal of doom. The work of salvation and of judgment can never be done at the same time and in the same office. So imperative was it that Christ should observe this necessity, in his work, that he refused to judge those who denied his own words. He said: “If any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.” John 12:47.

In keeping with this he has forbidden the work of judgment to his fellow laborers in the gospel, but has, instead, committed to us the “ministry of reconciliation.”  2 Cor. 5:18, 19. The work of the gospel is still to seek and to save those whom the law has doomed, and who, once they know their guilt, must stand overwhelmed with foreboding. Nothing will make a strong man so weak, a proud woman so desolate, as to become genuinely convicted of sin. To be found out by the search-light of the eternal law will turn the brightest and happiest soul sick unto death. Pitiable beyond compare, even in the sight of one who knows how quickly hope and joy may replace despair, is the condition of such a soul until it has heard the word of Him who said, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.”

The most terrible mistake which any Christian worker can make, outside of actual sin, is to build up a wall of criticism and prejudice between him and those who ought to receive a message of warning and salvation from him. It is of no use to carry a message if one cannot deliver it. Many a would-be messenger has made his message of non-effect, because he has gone first as a judge into the house of sin and the presence of the foolish, where only a Saviour could be tolerated. If any man ever walked the earth who had the right to judge and condemn those who did not look at things from his standpoint, or know what he knew, or believe what he said, it was Jesus Christ; for he had the words which are life. If any man would not receive those words, he must die, and yet Christ said, “I judge him not.” Even if he says to me that I have not told the truth, he said, “I judge him not.”

How can the Lord withhold judgment when he knows so perfectly?  some one may ask. Because “God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved,” would be his reply now as then. John 3:17.

“But,” says one, “did not the Lord say that ‘by their fruits ye shall know them’? Is not that equivalent to judgment?” —Not to the mind of Christ, which must be in us  if we are in him. He knew what was in man better than man himself knew. But that knowledge moved him to pity and brotherly love, to that sort of tenderness which will keep it all a secret between himself and the poor, vile heart. This is a matter, says this Lover of our soul,  that must not be bruited abroad.  It must be kept between us; since he (the sinner) knows it of himself, he will have all that he can endure from the law, which has already condemned him. I must make him know me, as well as the law. “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father : there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust.” John 5:45.

Then notice how this Lover of the soul begins to excuse the poor sinner, and lay out his work for his relief. I know where the trouble is, he says, in 'effect; you have not believed. Something is wrong that we, together, must set right, so that you may be able to believe the law first, and then me, and the love which I am. If you cannot believe the one, how can you the other? “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?”  Verses   46,  47.  I, as your Advocate, must see that you have sufficient evidence to force conviction of truth. I must gather it, and pile it up before you. My love is great enough to wait for this evidence and the witness to do their work. “The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things.”  John 14:26. “When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.”  John 15:26.  “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.”  John 14:20.

The witness has done his work; the testimony has been received; and the result, even to the one who was waiting for condemnation, is knowledge that brings assurance and joy; and also a commission to take the same testimony and carry it farther on, with the requirement to avoid anything that would spoil its  effectiveness.

So great was the necessity that those messengers should be fully qualified, that Christ himself prayed for them; not alone for his disciples, but for us, that we might be kept “from the evil” — that particular evil — which would injure us as bearers of the testimony of the gospel.

“Neither pray  I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word. John 17:20. This brings his prayer down to our own time, and to you and me. “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and. I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” Verse 21, The  supreme gift given of God through Christ is the power of the Holy Spirit; and -this is given for one purpose, — thoroughly to qualify a true witness, one who will bear unimpeachable evidence of the truth.

“Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me.”  Acts 1:8.  It would be assuming a most terrible responsibility for one called to be a witness, as every Christian is, to cultivate, or even tolerate, anything in himself which would destroy the effectiveness of this power in his work, or make it impossible for him to lodge that testimony where it would tell in establishing the truth, and secure the salvation of a soul. And yet just that thing is done every day by the critical spirit of judgment which is abroad in the church.

We must of course know the evil as well as the good in the lives of men, but we should know it as Christ did; that is, we must recognize the sinner's lack, and his need of that radical change which shall make it possible for the wild olive to bring forth good fruit. By such knowledge only shall we be able to apply what we know of Christ. We must cultivate that sort of acquaintance with men that will arouse tenderness and not judgment; concern, not criticism; that will make us realize the desperate need of the poor sinner, so that we shall be ready to live for the same purpose for which Christ died; that will beget in us the instincts of the good physician and nurse combined, which produces that motherly nature, as it came out from God, by which alone the world can be won to him.

The time will be when Christ will judge men; when men will be made judges of one another; but then salvation will have become a history without a future. Let us fear to anticipate that time by one thought concerning any human soul. In my work with the most unfortunate classes of sinners, I have come to believe more and more that only God, who knows the heart, is capable of estimating the proportion of good or evil in any man, or of measuring out his responsibility. God was wise to reserve judgment unto himself, and his own set time; and he was good to us with a great benevolence, in that he gave us a message of pure, unadulterated truth to carry abroad to our fellows. Happy is he who does his part faithfully, and leaves God's part carefully alone. ~

ADVENT REVIEW AND & SABBATH HERALD.

 Jan 5, 1897  VOL. 74, No. 1.

(Written from the Sanitarium in Battle Creek MI)