Chapter 30—Choice and Preparation of the Home

The gospel is a wonderful simplifier of life’s problems. Its instruction, heeded, would make plain many a perplexity and save us from many an error. It teaches us to estimate things at their true value and to give the most effort to the things of greatest worth—the things that will endure.MHH 206.1

This lesson is needed by those upon whom rests the responsibility of selecting a home. They should not allow themselves to be diverted from the highest aim. Let them remember that the home on earth is to be a symbol of and a preparation for the home in heaven. Life is a training school from which parents and children are to be graduated to the higher school in the mansions of God. As the location for a home is sought, let this purpose direct the choice. Do not be controlled by the desire for wealth, the dictates of fashion, or the customs of society. Consider what will tend most to simplicity, purity, health, and real worth.MHH 206.2

Cities are becoming hotbeds of vice the world over. On every hand are the sights and sounds of evil. Everywhere are enticements to sensuality and dissipation. The tide of corruption and crime is continually swelling. Every day brings the record of violence—robberies, murders, suicides, and crimes unnamable.MHH 206.3

Life in the cities is false and artificial. The intense passion for money getting, the whirl of excitement and pleasure seeking, the thirst for display, the luxury and extravagance, all are forces that, with the great masses of people, turn the mind from life’s true purpose. They open the door to a thousand evils. Upon the youth they have almost irresistible power.MHH 206.4

One of the most subtle and dangerous temptations that assail the children and youth in the cities is the love of pleasure. Holidays are numerous; sports events draw thousands, and the whirl of excitement and pleasure attracts them away from the sober duties of life. Money that should be saved for better uses is frittered away on amusements.MHH 207.1

Through the working of monopolies and the results of labor unions and strikes, conditions of life in the city are constantly becoming more and more difficult. Serious troubles are before us, and for many families moving out of the cities will become a necessity.MHH 207.2

The physical surroundings in the cities are often a peril to health. The constant likelihood of contact with disease, the prevalence of foul air, polluted water, impure food, the crowded, dark, unhealthful dwellings are some of the many evils to be met.MHH 207.3

It was not God’s purpose that people should be crowded into cities, huddled together in terraces and tenements. In the beginning He placed our first parents amidst the beautiful sights and sounds He desires us to rejoice in today. The more nearly we come into harmony with God’s original plan, the better chance we will have to secure health of body and mind and soul.MHH 207.4