owners call it, in their hearts, "God's house," they speak of it to
others, always as "our house."

Twenty-five years ago a sturdy, brave-hearted young mechanic bought
this one acre of land, and with his own hands dug and walled a cellar,
at times when he had no work to do for others. When he had earned an
additional hundred or two dollars he bought lumber and began to build
a house. People asked him what he was going to do with it, and he
replied that if he should live to finish it, he was going to live in
it.

Well, in two years the house was finished, to the last nail and hook.
Then he went away, as it was thought, for a wife. In a week he
returned, bringing with him some neat household furniture, and three
persons instead of only one.

He did bring a wife--a bright-eyed, merry-hearted young girl--and
also two aged women, "our mothers," as he called them.

The first night in the house they dedicated their humble home--"our
house" to God, and in the name of the Lord they set up their banner,
praying that ever after this his banner over them might be love.

Many a family moves into a new home and asks God to come in and
prosper them, and take up his abode there; but they do nothing to draw
him thither. They begin for self, and go on for self; and sometimes
God leaves them to themselves.

But the young owners of "our house"--the children of "our
mothers"--made their little home His home and the home of His poor