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Rev. Henry Ward Beecher Speaking on The Strength of the Family Institution, adapted from "The Original Plymouth Pulpit" Brooklyn, NY ca. 1868
“Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind ; and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee; for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just."
-LUKE XIV., 12-14.
The Loving Household
 Beecher Family Portrait - The Beecher Family, ca. 1859, photographed by Mathew Brady. |
The household is founded upon love; and with all its imperfections it is still the best institution which society has ever had, or which it has now.
Though its foundations are the natural affections; though it is very possible for father and mother to manifest love full of self-denial; though every part of the household, acting in a little sphere, is drawn to every other part by the cords of true affection, which should produce a disinterested service of kindness; nevertheless, the true love of the household and its disinterestedness are liable to be perverted to all the ends of selfishness.
Serving the Family
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| Rev. Henry Ward Beecher and his older sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe |
A man who makes the household a place where every person is to bow down to him and serve his selfishness, has corrupted the fundamental idea of the family institution. We are bound to take our part, and bear our lot of service there.
There are men who smell like a May morning all through the business hours of the day. They save their ugliness for their wife and children at home. When they come back at night, they are sharp, quick, irritable.
The coming of the father into the house is oftentimes an end of all liberty to the little ones. The moment his footstep is heard, it is, “Hush! your father is coming, and you must not make a noise.”
How many households are there which every week, and perhaps every day, are scenes of aggravation, and irritation, and discomfort, and disputation, and from which happiness is mostly banished!
Sharing a Family's Love
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| Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist (Correggio, Orléans) |
We ought not to live to please ourselves; “For none of us liveth to himself.” Where a household is organized for the pleasure of the few that belong to it, and does not let its light shine out to others who are around it, it is not fulfilling its true mission of a family. I call them "secluded families."
The family is like a garden. There are some gardens with ten-feet brick walls built up, iron-spiked or glass-defended on the top. Within some of the richest walled gardens are the world's unknown treasures. Outsiders can only wonder as they can not see what lies behind these walls. Imagine, there are vines with luscious clusters. There are fruits appropriate to the season. There are every color of flower. Everything hangs lush. Everything is full of glowing beauty. But these things are all hidden. There is not even a peep-hole. No child, no weary workman, nobody, can see what lies beyond these walls.
The men behind these walls, bottled up, and lying back, have it all for their own enjoyment. And they say to themselves, “ This is my garden. What if my neighbors cannot see into it? I did not make it for my neighbors; I made it for myself. I have a right to be solitary. There shall be some place in this world where only I can go.”
So they seclude all this wealth from view. And yet, they would not be defrauded if some light and open fence permitted every poor sewing-woman to stop and breathe the perfume of the flowers, and look wearily at the things within. And the child that played by would regale itself, The laborer would be a happier man for looking upon the graceful sweep of ornamental trees, the cluster-laden vines, and the beds of purfled flowers. Nobody would be cheated because these fed the taste and enjoyment of unnumbered ones besides the owners.
The Family Garden
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| Louis XIV and the royal family, Jean Nocret, 1670, From the collection of: Palace of Versailles |
There are many sweet households that could breathe inspiration for a better way of life all through the neighborhood; but they are shut up like a garden with a high wall around it. It is known that there is something there, but no one knows what it is. Such a seclusion of a household is a corruption of it; and we have no right to make our households selfish.
But it is our duty in a general way to employ the whole force of our organized households for the exercise of kindness toward those who need kindness. It is a man's duty to entertain people who do not belong to his family. We rarely use our houses as much as we can for the real promotion of happiness in others.
Needing Each Other
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| Five generations on Smith's Plantation, Beaufort, South Carolina, black-and-white photograph, 1862, photographer: Timothy H. O'Sullivan |
There are many noble men and women in very lowly places. And when you exercise true hospitality and you “condescend to people of low degree,” you rise up better compensated than they do. There is something in the higher forms of society which tends to conventionalism and artificiality; but in the lower ranges of society there is something more natural.
However, neither the high nor the low are perfect. Neither of them are whole men and women. We are all partial. Whether you are at the top, middle, or bottom of society, one thing which is for certain, is that we all need each other. Those who are high need to feel the sympathy of those who are low. And, those who are low are wonderfully helped and cheered in the way of life if they are permitted to take hold of the hands of those who are high. We are traveling together. Let us therefore help one another by the use of the household.
And may the day speedily come when love shall triumph over hatred, selfishness, and all evil ways whatsoever, and when thy kingdom shall come and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, And to thy name shall be the praise, forever and forever, Amen!