Home-Making by J.R. Miller

I received my 1882 copy of this book from an online friend several years ago. The book has since been republished as The Family. About all the roles of family members, Home-Making, I suppose, sounded too feminine.

The first chapters of the book describe the roles of husband, wife, parents, children, and brothers and sisters and the relationships between members. The last few chapters describe family life, family religion, and home memories. As I read, I felt like I was listening to an old preacher gently and graciously share tidbits of wisdom he had picked up over the years.

I really enjoyed the structure and tone of the book. In the initial chapters that address the roles of family members, he speaks to those members very personally. In the chapter addressed to children, for example, you get the sense that he imagines he is actually speaking to the children. It is not written as a theological treatise on the duties of children, with every biblical command to children expounded in the text. In this way, this book would be very good to read aloud with all family present. For my parts as wife and parent, I found the chapters regarding the duties of those to be very helpful in seeing areas that could use some (or a lot) of improvement.

This book is full of encouragement and great advice. Miller’s picture of the family as loving, peaceful, and full of life made me love mine more and want to work harder at doing my part to create a home life like the one he describes.