Home: The Savior of Civilization
What is the Home Council?
“No other success can compensate for failure in the home.” – J. E. McCulloch
The Home Council is a daily devotional, intended to be held as a family. It is a time for parents to teach children, and to review everyone’s day. Is is a character school, helping to train up families and children with strong morals through scripture, poetry, and quotes.
The home council was created by and laid out by J. E. McCullough in 1924 in his book, “Home: The Savior of Civilization.” The bulk of the book is poems, scriptures and quotes to be used as daily readings in a Home Council.
Largely forgotten now, this page endevors to bring this book back into the public mind.
Why?
Families are important. The home is the best place for a child to establish core beliefs of what is right and wrong. As homes fail, society’s ills increase manyfold.
The life of Christ is the perfect place to learn to love God above all else, and love thy neighbor as thyself.
All families are different, with different needs and different schedules. This website and podcast are to be a resource in individuals’ and families’ lives, helping in some small way to strengthen homes.
How this came to be.
I heard about Home: The Savior of Civilization forever ago, but could never find a copy. I found that a local university had one, but by the time I got around to trying to check it out there, they had sold it. One day, on a whim, I looked for my own copy - but I wasn't willing to pay $800 for it. Eventually, a scanned version showed up on google books! What a wonderful day. I had wanted to know what the book was about for years, and finally I had me chance.
Home: The Savior of Civilization
McCullogh’s book is split into three sections:
- The Home Council: This section describes the importance of families and the concept of having a regular meeting as a family, to discuss important matters. He calls this meeting, “The Home Council.”
- The Daily Readings: Short readings that can be discussed as a family. This is the bulk and the meat of the book. These readings include scriptures that trace the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, thought-provoking poetry, and inspiring quotes.
- Additional Resources: Various ideas and itineraries to help along with family life.
Downloads
Here is the full book in epub. Home: The Savior of Civilization
A pdf scan of an original copy can be found on Google Books. (original)
Paperback version now available.
Changes in my version.
- There were a bunch of page references which I removed. In every instance, I’ve made it easier to find the referenced information, through a listing in the table of contents. For example, every daily reading entry used to have a listing that said, “Program for Daily Council, page 81”.
- I removed sections that were regularly placed in the text to use as a weekly family journal. There are much better ways to record those things these days, from high-quality notebooks to Google docs.
- I have rearranged a couple of the helps, for instance, I’m moving the daily program to be the first item of Part III.
- I’ve corrected any obvious typos that I have found.
- I’ve have updated spellings of many words to modern versions. The biggest change this way was “to-day” to “today” in many places.
- There was a brief piece of Part I which I removed entirely. I do not believe that it fit in with Christ’s teachings and the spirit of the rest of the book. I believe readers could instantly be turned off by it and thus miss all the wonderful teachings presented in the rest of the book.
Some of my favorite bits from the book
Home is the character school; all other education is secondary to this.
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On why we should do these studies in the home:
There never was, and there never can be, a club, or society, or party, or anything else that the sun shines on, important enough, or attractive enough, to justify members of the family in habitually neglecting this school of character and fellowship. If one's soul is worth more than a little gold or pleasure, he should do this thing seriously and in dead earnest.
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On the importance of home life:
When one puts business or pleasure above his home, he that moment starts on the down grade to soul ruin. The loss of a fortune is nothing compared with the loss of home. When the club becomes more attractive to any man than his home, it is time for him to confess in bitter shame that he has failed to measure up to the supreme opportunity of his life and has flunked in the final test of true manhood. No other success can compensate for failure in the home. This is the one thing of limitless potentialities on earth. The poorest shack of a home in which love prevails over a united family is of greater value to God and future humanity than the richest bank on earth. In such a home God can work miracles and will work miracles.
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The home and civilization will perish together.
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The sweet joys of home—even in a shack—can never be equaled by all the luxuries of palaces.
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A true gentleman is the flower of a good home.
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A good home is the noblest monument anyone can build.
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No nation can ever rise higher than the level of culture in the homes of the people.
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"He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home." —Goethe.
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Keep your home with all diligence, for out of it God is building civilization.
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Pure hearts in a pure home are always in whispering distance of Heaven.
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An immoral home is an open door to the bottomless pit.
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The loss of a battle, or of a million dollars, is nothing compared with the loss of a home.
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When the homes of the people become immoral the nation's grave is already dug.
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"Nip sin in the bud. It is easier blowing out a candle than a house on fire." -Anon
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The poor man with a pure home gets more out of life than any millionaire that ever lived.
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On Spiritual Freedom, by William E. Channing:
The human soul is greater, more sacred than the State, and must never be sacrificed to it. The distinction of nations is to pass away. But the individual mind survives, and the obscurest subject, if true to God, will rise to power never wielded by earthly potentates.
A human being is a member of the community, not as a limb is a member of the body, or as a wheel is a part of a machine, intended only to contribute to some general joint result. He was created not to be merged- in the whole, as a drop in the ocean, or as a particle of sand on the seashore, and to aid only in composing a mass. He is an ultimate being, made for bis own perfection as his highest end; made to maintain an individual existence, and to serve others as far as consists with his own virtue and progress. Hitherto governments have tended greatly to obscure this importance of the individual, to depress him in his own eyes, to give him the idea of an outward interest more important than the invisible soul, and of an outward authority more sacred than the voice of God in his own secret conscience.
Rulers have called the private man the property of the State, meaning generally by the State themselves, and thus the many have been sacrificed to the few, and have even believed that this was their highest destination. Nothing seems to me so needful as to give to the individual mind the consciousness, which governments have done so much to suppress, of its own separate worth.
Let the individual feel that through his immortality he may concentrate in his own being a greater good than that of nations. Let him feel that he is placed in tire community, not to part with his individuality or to become a tool, but that he should find a sphere for his various powers, and a preparation for immortal glory. To me the progress of society consists in nothing more than in bringing out the individual, of giving him a consciousness of his own being, and in quickening him to strengthen and elevate bis own mind.
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Begin your day with this reflection: I shall meet the meddler, the ingrate, the scorner, the envious one, the cynic. Yet these men are thus because they know not how to distinguish between good and evil. But I, who am able to discern the quality of goodness, that it is beautiful, and of evil, that it is loathsome, know also the real being of the wrong-doer that he is kindred to me; not kindred in blood or race, but partaker in intelligence and part also of the Divine.
None of these men can harm me, for none of these can force upon me the evil that I hate. I cannot, then, be angry with my kinsmen nor scorn them. For we are all made to work together, like feet, hands, eyelids, the rows of the upper and lower teeth. Not to work together, therefore, is against nature. And to be vexed with and scorn one another is to strive against one another.
Our life is but a point in time; our bodies hasten to their decreed decay; the future is a mystery, and glory is vanity. Life itself is a battle, or the sojourn of a traveler. What, then, shall guide man aright? One thing, and one thing alone-the love of wisdom. And this is wisdom to keep the Divine spirit within us serene, undefiled, high above pleasure and pain; acting always thoughtfully, simply, sincerely; not dependent upon another man's action or inaction; accepting all that befalls us or is decreed unto us as coming thence whence we ourselves have come.
Be always doing something serviceable to mankind, and let this constant generosity be your only pleasure, not forgetting in the meantime a due regard to the Deity.
By Marcus Aurelius Antonius.
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On hypocrisy, by Moliere.
There is no longer any shame in hypocrisy: it is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtues. To act the part of a good man is the best part one can act. The profession of hypocrisy has wonderful advantages. It is an art the imposture of which is always looked upon with respect; and although the world may see through the deceit, it dares say nothing against it. All the other vices of mankind are open to censure, and every one is at liberty to attack them boldly; but hypocrisy is a privileged vice, which closes the mouth of every one, and enjoys in peace a sovereign impunity. By dint of cant we enter into a kind of league with those of the same party, and whoever falls out with one of us has the whole set against him; whilst those who are really sincere, and who are known to be in earnest, are always the dupes of the others, are caught in the net of the hypocrites, and blindly lend their support to those who ape their conduct.
You could hardly believe what a number of these people I know, who, with the help of such stratagem, have put a decent veil over the disorders of their youth, have sought shelter under the cloak of religion, and under its venerable dress are allowed to be as wicked as they please. Although people are aware of their intrigues, and know them for what they are, their influence is none the less real. They are well received everywhere, and a low bending of the head, deep sighs, and rolling eyes, make up for all they can be guilty of.
It is under this convenient dress that I mean to take refuge and put my affairs to rights. I shall not give up my dear habits, but will carefully hide them, and avoid all show in my pleasures. If I am discovered, the whole cabal will take up my interests of their own accord, and will defend me against everybody. In short, it is the only safe way of doing all I like with impunity. I shall set up for a censor of other people's actions. I shall speak evil of everybody. If I am ever so slightly offended, I shall never forgive, but bear an irreconcilable hatred. I shall make myself the avenger of the interests of Heaven; and under this convenient shelter I will pursue my enemies, will accuse them of impiety, and know how to let loose against them the officious zealots who, without understanding how the truth stands, will heap abuse upon them and damn them boldly on their own private authority. It is thus that we can profit by the weaknesses of men, and that a wise man can accommodate himself to the vices of his age.
