Our Words and Thoughts

Notes

1. "He [the husband] should encourage her [the wife] to lean upon his large affections, and direct her mind to heaven, where there is strength and peace, and a final rest for the weary. He should not come to his home with a clouded brow, but should with his presence bring sunlight into the family, and should encourage his wife to look up and believe in God. Unitedly they can claim the promises of God, and bring His rich blessing into the family. Unkindness, complaining, and anger shut Jesus from the dwelling. I saw that angels of God will flee from a house where there are unpleasant words, fretfulness and strife."—Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 1, page 307.

"A house with love in it, where love is expressed in words and looks and deeds, is a place where angels love to manifest their presence, and hallow the scene by rays of light from glory. There the humble household duties have a charm in them."—Idem, Vol. 2, page 417.

2. "Those who profess to believe the Third Angel's Message often wound the cause of God by lightness, joking, and trifling. I was shown that this evil was all through our ranks. There should be a humbling before the Lord; the Israel of God should rend the heart, and not the garment."—Idem, Vol. 1, page 133.

"Jesting, joking, and worldly conversation belong to the world. Christians who have the peace of God in their hearts will be cheerful and happy without indulging in lightness or frivolity. While watching unto prayer, they will have a serenity and peace which will elevate them above all superfluities."—Idem, Vol. 3, page 241.

3. "Is it not a better thing to seek to make the living happy than to leave them to walk along dreary paths without sympathy,—unhelped, neglected, perhaps wronged,—and then flood their coffins with sunshine? Many a man goes down under the pressure of life's hardship and the weight of its burdens, never hearing the voice of human sympathy. What matters it to him, when the agony is over and he lies dead in the field, that friends come in throngs to lament his fall and to utter his praises? May it not be that a tithe of the sympathy and appreciation wasted and unavailing now would have kept his heart bravely beating for many another year?

"Do not, then, keep the alabaster boxes of your love and tenderness sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak approving, cheering words while their ears can hear them. The things you mean to say when they are gone say before they go. The flowers you mean to send for their coffins send to brighten and sweeten their homes before they leave them."—Week Day Religion, pages 159, 160.