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Charles Spurgeon · John Ploughman's Talk; or, Plain Advice for Plain People
Merry times in Ploughman's Cottage.— Page 114.
THAT word home always sounds like
poetry to me. It rings like a peal
of bells at a wedding, only more soft and
(in)
112 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
sweet, and it chimes deeper into the ears of
my heart. It does not matter whether it
means thatched cottage or manor house,
home is home, be it ever so homely, and
there's no place on earth like it. Green
grow the houseleek on the roof for ever, and
let the moss flourish on the thatch. Sweetly
the sparrows chirrup and the swallows twit-
ter around the chosen spot which is my joy
and rest. Every bird loves its own nest ;
the owl thinks the old ruins the fairest spot
under the moon, and the fox is of opinion
that his hole in the hill is remarkably cosy.
When my master's nag knows that his head
is towards home he wants no whip, but
thinks it best to put on all steam ; and I am
always of the same mind, for the way home
to me, is the best bit of road in the country.
I like to see the smoke out of my own chim-
ney better than the fire on another man's
hearth ; there's something so beautiful in
the way in which it curls up among the
trees. Cold potatoes on my own table
taste better than roast meat at my neigh-
bor's, and the honeysuckle at my own door
is the sweetest I ever smell. When you are
out, friends do their best, but still it is not
HOME. 113
home. " Make yourself at home," they say,
because everybody knows that to feel at
home is to feel at ease.
" East and west,
Home is best."
Why, at home you are at home, and what
more do you want ? Nobody grudges you,
whatever your appetite may be ; and you
don't get put into a damp bed. Safe is his own
castle, like a king in his palace, a man feels
himself somebody, and is not afraid of being
thought proud for thinking so. Every cock
may crow on his own dunghill ; and a dog
is a lion when he is at home. A sweep is
master inside his own door. No need to
guard every word because some enemy is
on the watch, no keeping the heart under
lock and key ; but as soon as the door is
shut it is liberty hall, and none to peep and
pry. There is a glorious view from the top
of Leith Hill, in our dear old Surrey, and
Hindhead and Martha's Chapel, and Box-
hill, are not to be sneezed at, but I could
show you something which to my mind
beats them all to nothing for real beauty :
I mean John Ploughman's cottage, with the
114 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
kettle boiling on the hob, singing like an
unfallen black angel, while the cat is lying
asleep in front of the fire, and the wife in her
chair mending stockings, and the children
cutting about the room, as full of fun as
young lambs. It is a singular fact, and
perhaps some of you will doubt it, but
that is your unbelieving nature, our little
ones are real beauties, always a pound or
two plumper than others of their age, and
yet it don't tire you half so much to nurse
them as it does other people's babies. Why,
bless you, my wife would knock up in half
the time, if her neighbor had asked her to
see to a strange youngster, but her own
children don't seem to tire her at all ; now
my belief is that it all comes of their having
been born at home. Just so is it with
everything else; our lane is the most
beautiful for twenty miles round, because
our home is in it ; and my garden is a per-
fect paradise, for no other particular reason
than this very good one, that it belongs to
the old house at home.
I cannot make out why so many work-
ing men spend their evenings at the public
house, when their own fireside would be so
HOME. 115
much better and cheaper too. There they
sit, hour after hour, boozing and talking
nonsense, and forgetting the dear good souls
at home who are half starved and weary
with waiting for them. Their money goes
into the publican's till when it ought to
make their wives and children comfortable ;
as for the beer they get, it is just so much
fools' milk to drown their wits in. Such
fellows ought to be horse-whipped, and those
who encourage them and live on their
spendings deserve to feel the butt end of
the whip. Those beershops are the curse
of this country — no good ever can come
of them, and the evil they do no tongue
can tell ; the publics were bad enough,
but the beershops are a pest ; I wish the
man who made the law to open them had
to keep all the families that they have
brought to ruin. Beershops are the ene-
mies of home, and therefore the sooner
their licenses are taken away the better;
poor men don't need such places, nor rich
men either, they are all worse and no bet-
ter, like Tom Norton's wife. Anything that
hurts the home is a curse, and ought to be
n6 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
hunted down as gamekeepers do the vermin
in the copses.
Husbands should try to make home happy
and holy. It is an ill bird that fouls its own
nest, a bad man who makes his home
wretched. Our house ought to be a little
church, with holiness to the Lord over the
door, but it ought never to be a prison where
there is plenty of rule and order, but little
love and no pleasure. Married life is not all
sugar, but grace in the heart will keep away
most of the sours. Godliness and love can
make a man, like a bird in a hedge, sing
among thorns and briers, and set others a
singing too. It should be the husband's
pleasure to please his wife, and the wife's
care to care for her husband. He is kind
to himself who is kind to his wife. I am
afraid some men live by the rule of self, and
when that is the case home happiness is a
mere sham. When husbands and wives are
well yoked, how light their load becomes !
It is not every couple that is a pair, and the
more's the pity. In a true home all the
strife is which can do the most to make the
family happy. A home should be a Bethel,
not a Babel. The husband should be the
HOME. 117
houseband, binding all together like a corner
stone, but not crushing everything like a
mill-stone. Unkind and domineering hus-
bands ought not to pretend to be Christians,
for they act clean contrary to Christ's
commands. Yet a home must be well or-
dered, or it will become a Bedlam, and be a
scandal to the parish. If the father drops
the reins, the family-coach will soon be in
the ditch. A wise mixture of love and
firmness will do it ; but neither harshness nor
softness alone will keep home in happy order.
Home is no home where the children are
not in obedience, it is rather a pain than
a pleasure to be in it. Happy is he who
is happy in his children, and happy are
the children who are happy in their father.
All fathers are not wise. Some are like
Eli, and spoil their children. Not to cross
our children is the way to make a cross
of them. Those who never give their
children the rod must not wonder if their
children become a rod to them. Solomon
says, " Correct thy son, and he shall give
thee rest ; yea, he shall give delight to thy
soul." I am not clear that anybody wiser
than Solomon lives in our time, though
Ii8 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
some think they are. Young colts must
be broken in or they will make wild
horses. Some fathers are all fire and
fury, filled with passion at the smallest
fault ; this is worse than the other, and
makes home a little hell instead of a heaven.
No wind makes the miller idle, but too
much upsets the mill altogether. Men
who strike in their anger generally miss
their mark. When God helps us to hold
the reins firmly, but not to hurt the horses'
mouths, all goes well. When home is
ruled according to God's word, angels
might be asked to stay a night with us, and
they would not find themselves out of their
element.
Wives should feel that home is their
place and their kingdom, the happiness of
which depends mostly upon them. She
is a wicked wife who drives her husband
away by her long tongue. A man said to
his wife the other day, " Double up your
whip ; " he meant, keep you tongue quiet :
it is wretched living with such a whip al-
ways lashing you. When God gave to
men ten measures of speech, they say the
women ran away with nine, and in some
HOME. 119
cases I am afraid the saying is true. A
dirty, slatternly, gossiping wife is enough
to drive her husband mad ; and if he goes
to the public house of an evening, she is
the cause of it. It is doleful living where
the wife, instead of reverencing her hus-
band, is always wrangling and railing at
him. It must be a good thing when such
women are hoarse, and it is a pity that
they have not as many blisters on their
tongues as they have teeth in their jaws.
God save us all from wives who are an-
gels in the streets, saints in the church, and
devils at home. I have never tasted of such
bitter herbs, but I pity from my very
heart those who have this diet every day of
their lives.
Show me a loving husband, a worthy
wife, and good children, and no pair of
horses that ever flew along the road could
take me in a year where I could see a more
pleasing sight. Home is the grandest of
all institutions. Talk about parliament,
give me a quiet little parlor. Boast about
voting and the Reform Bill if you like,
but I go in for weeding the little garden,
and teaching the children their hymns.
iio JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
Franchise may be a very fine thing, but I
should a good deal sooner get the free-
hold of my cottage, if I could find the
money to buy it. Magna Charta I don't
know much about, but if it means a quiet
home for everybody, three cheers for it.
I wish our governors would not break
up so many poor men's homes by that
abominably heartless poor law. It is far
more fit for a set of Red Indians than
Englishmen. A Hampshire carter told
me the other day that his wife and chil-
dren were all in the union, and his home
broken up, because of the cruel working
of the poor law. He had eight little ones
and his wife to keep on nine shillings a
week, with rent to pay out of it ; on this
he could not keep body and soul together;
now, if the parish had allowed him a mere
trifle, a loaf or two and a couple of shil-
lings a week, he would have jogged on,
but no, not a penny out of the house ;
they might all die of starvation unless they
would all go into the workhouse. So, with
many bitter tears and heartaches, the poor
soul had to sell his few little bits of furni-
ture, and he is now a houseless man, and
HOME. 121
yet he is a good hard-working fellow, and
served one master for nearly twenty years.
Such things are very common, but they
ought not to be. Why cannot the really
deserving poor have a little help given
them ? Why must they be forced into the
union house ? Home is the pillar of the
British Empire, and ought not to be knocked
to pieces by these unchristian laws. I wish
I was an orator and could talk politics, I
would not care a rush for Whigs or Tories,
but I would stand up like a lion for the
poor man's home, which, let me tell the
Lords and Commons, is as dear to him as
their great palaces are to them, and some-
times dearer.
If I had no home the world would be a
big prison to me. England for me for a
country, Surrey for a county, and for a vil-
lage give me — no, I shan't tell you,
or you will be hunting John Ploughman
up. Many of my friends have emigrated,
and are breaking up fresh soil in Australia
and America. Though their stone has rolled,
I hope they may gather moss, for when
they were at home they were like the set-
ting hen, which gets no barley. Really
122 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
these hard times make a man think of his
wings, but I am tied by the leg to my own
home, and, please God, I hope to live and
die among my own people. They may do
things better in France and Germany, but
old England for me, after all.