Part 43

ELMER: Where shall we go first?

MOTHER: I think you will like to look in here, where the master keeps his pets. He is fond of birds, cats, dogs, and all kinds of animals; and where this room is large in the mind, you will find the master kind to them all. He will not give them pain if he can help it, and takes pleasure in making them happy.

AMY: I think I should like to visit this room often.

MOTHER: In this smaller room he keeps his money. Sometimes this room is so small, and he cares for it so poorly, that he wastes about all that he gets, and keeps very little. In some houses this room is very large, and the master lives here nearly all the time. His greatest delight is to shut himself in and count his money over and over. He becomes very selfish by doing in this way, and he will not part with what he has either for his own comfort or that of others. People who have such large rooms, and use them in this way, are called misers.

PERCY: I don’t want to be one.

MOTHER: I am glad you do not. It is best to have only a medium-sized room of this kind. Here is the room where Taste sends his messages. If the room is very large, you may be sure that the master enjoys nothing so much as something good to eat. This is not a good room in which to spend much of one’s time, though every one should visit it several times each day. There are quite a number of small rooms not far from this one. In one the master goes to study his a-rith´me-tic. In another, he measures things. In another, he has a pair of scales to weigh them. In another, he keeps samples of all shades of colors. But we can not stop in these small rooms.

Ah, here is Memory Hall! Many persons like to spend most of their time here. See what a great number of pictures are hanging on the wall.

HELEN: O mother, let us stop and look at some of them!

MOTHER: Perhaps I should first tell you that the master of every house is all the time making pictures, whether he is an artist or not. His acts, good and bad, make pictures in the mind. When they are finished, he hangs them in this hall. Some are in dark corners, and he hardly ever looks at them after they are made; he even forgets that he made them. The masters of some houses spend many happy hours in this hall. Others do not like to go near it. Their pain or pleasure depends on the kind of pictures they have made. I have seen some who would weep in sorrow of heart as they looked over the different pictures that they had hung there, and some they would not for anything have any one see. There is only One who can take away these sinful pictures, but He can make them white as snow.

ELMER: Then we ought to have all our actions such that pleasant pictures will be hung in our hall of memory.

MOTHER: I think so; but we will pass on to some of the higher, more important rooms. Here we find the place where the master receives the poor, and where his acts of kindness are done. In some houses this is the smallest room of the whole. In others, it is large and lofty, and the master spends much time there. He is so good and kind that people can not help loving him when this is the case.

AMY: This next room looks like a church.

MOTHER: We might call it the chapel; for it is here that the master goes to pray, and worship God. Some use this room a great deal; others, very little. It is the highest, best room in the house, and the master ought to visit it many times each day.

PERCY: And what is this large room?

MOTHER: This is where the master thinks things over, and “makes up his mind,” as we say. This is the “will” room; that is, the person decides what he will or will not do. This is an important room indeed. It is a good thing to have a good, strong will if we only will to do the right thing, for it helps any one in doing right; but if he is doing wrong, it causes him to do more wrong.

To show what I mean, we will say that a man who has been drinking beer or cider learns that the reason he likes these drinks is because there is alcohol in them, and he sees that they will do him harm, and that the more he drinks them, the more he will want them. He doesn’t want weak muscles, a bloated body, a fatty liver, or a weak brain and nerves. He does not wish to go to the insane asylum, to the jail, to the poor-house, or into a drunkard’s grave. But he likes the alcohol. It is hard to give it up, and his friends will call him a “temperance man,” and will jeer at him, and say that he is a coward. Now what will he do? He goes into his “will room,” and he says to himself: “I have been a slave long enough. From now on I will be master of this body-house. It makes no difference how loudly Taste may call, nor how badly I want him to have his own way, I WILL NOT give up, God helping me, and I am going to put my will on the right side of this question.”

ELMER: Couldn’t he overcome any other bad habit in just the same way?

MOTHER: Yes; whether he wants food that is not good, or too much of that which is good; whether he wishes to leave off using tobacco, or other bad habits of any kind, when he gets his will on the right side, the battle is more than half over.

AMY: Then a person can not have too much will.

MOTHER: Not if he wills to do right; but if he places his will on the wrong side, it is a sad thing. Sometimes he wills to have his own way, no matter how it may affect himself or others, and that is bad for him and for his friends.

Here is a room where the master measures people. We can imagine that they stand about like statues, and some he places high in his esteem, and the others lower down. I think about the worst thing he could do would be to place himself higher than any one else. Boys and girls are sometimes in danger of doing this, even thinking that they know more than their father and mother. It is well to have a fair-sized room of this kind, but bad to have one which is large. We shall not have time to visit more of the rooms to be found in the mind, though there are many others that we might visit.

HELEN: I wish we might hear about all of them.

MOTHER: You may, as you grow older. You must be very careful to have the master of your own house live in the best and highest rooms. Strange as it may seem, yet it is true that the rooms he stays in most will grow larger the more they are used. Some live in the lower, poorer rooms all their lives. The people we love best spend most of their time in the highest rooms.

PERCY: Is there any way by which we can tell where the master spends most of his time?

MOTHER: Yes; clean, kind thoughts make marks on our faces, and wicked, cruel thoughts leave their print also. Our thoughts pull up or draw down the corners of the mouth, and they make little wrinkles under the eyes and in the forehead. Sometimes they make little holes in the cheeks, which we call dimples. If our thoughts are kind, pleasant, happy thoughts, they draw the corners of the mouth upward; the wrinkles are smoothed out of the forehead, and there are some merry ones which gather round the eyes and make the face look so pleasant that we want to get near its owner and become better acquainted.

AMY: I didn’t know that our thoughts looked out in our faces.

MOTHER: If either good or bad thoughts come to live in your mind all the time, they will print themselves on your face and change your looks. The good thoughts will make your face beautiful, though your hair may be as straight as an Indian’s, your nose crooked, and your mouth large. On the other hand, though your hair may curl, your skin be as fair as a peach blossom, your features be perfect, yet if you let bad thoughts live in the mind, your face will no longer look lovely to others. It is only a kind, unselfish heart that can give true beauty.

HELEN: I have often wished that I might be pretty, like some of the girls at school, but I know now how to be lovable if I am not beautiful.