One summer afternoon during our Civil War, some Southern generals were sitting under a tree, when suddenly a shell from a Northern battery crashed over their heads. The officers hastened to seek a safer place. But one of the party lingered; and the others, glancing round, saw him stooping to the ground as if he had found something of great value. The crashing of the shell through the branches had torn a bird’s nest from its place, and hurled it to the ground. And the general of armies was gathering up this nest, with its sacred burden of young bird-life, to replace it among the branches.
This little book may come into the hands of some whose home happiness has been shattered – its torn fragments lying now on the ground. It would be a comfort to the author if these simple words should put fresh hope into a discouraged heart, and thus be the hand to help restore the home to its true place, amid the branches of the tree of love.
Home is among the holiest of words. A true home is one of the most sacred of places. It is a sanctuary into which men flee from the world’s perils and alarms. It is a resting-place to which at close of day the weary retire to gather new strength for the battle and toils of tomorrow. It is the place where love learns its lessons, where life is schooled into discipline and strength, where character is molded. Out of the homes of a community comes the life of the community, as a river from the thousand springs that gush out on the hillsides.
We are all concerned in the making of some one home – our own home. One instrument out of tune in an orchestra mars the music which breaks upon the ears of the listeners. One discordant life in a household mars the perfectness of the music of love in the family. We should make sure that our life is not the one that is out of tune. We do not need to worry about the other lives; if each looks to his own, that will do.
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