people who made a nice appearance. She was also pleased that her husband had other strong inclinations as well. He loved to read. One of the first gifts she gave him after they were married was a book on the Christian home. This book is still in existence, and on the fly-leaf these words are written in her handwriting: “Received from my dear husband, May 5, 1867.” This was five months after they were married, and as it stands, it suggests that the husband had given the bride the book. But knowing both as we do, we may safely conclude that it was Mother who bought the book, and inscribed it to herself, and gave it to her husband for him to give it to her—but for him to read. How much he ever read we do not know. This book as inscribed does give us at least this hint—that it was her determination that so far as possible her home would be a Christian home. This home had other books, most of them of a religious nature; Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”—Boston’s “Four-fold State”; Baxter’s “Saint’s Rest”, and others, which were classics of the post-Reformation period. And in this home, too, there were periodicals, daily papers, monthly magazines. One of the scenes vividly remembered by the writer, is that of the family around the fireplace at night—Father with his paper, Mother with her journal in which she recorded the day’s happenings of the family, and to complete the picture, the children if any of them were home, with their noses in a book or magazine. But the greatest thing that Martha Elizabeth Murdock did for the home, was to maintain a family altar. While we have no direct information on the subject, we may well assume that since this was a Covenanter home, there was a family altar when Martha Elizabeth Murdock came into it. As her husband was the only man in the home after David McMillan’s death, it is quite likely that he conducted family prayers. But from what we know of this home in later years, we know that it was Mother and not Father who would be the most determined in all the things connected with the home’s highest welfare. She was the one who would never have given up, as this narrative will endeavor to show. It was primarily Mother’s determination which resulted in every member of the family getting the education they received, although in each case it meant that she as well as her husband would have to sacrifice in many ways to make this possible. In this, too, she was ahead of her time, as she was determined that 23
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