THE ANTITYPE OF THE CHRISTIAN HOME.--Typical Relation between Home and
Heaven. The Christian's Tent-Home in its Relation to Heaven. The
Antitypical Character of Heaven. A Comparative View of our Earthly and our
Heavenly Home. Christ the Center of Heaven's Joy and Attraction. Union
between Home and Heaven. A Conscious Union of the Members in Heaven. Family
Recognition and Love in Heaven. Family Greeting and Joy in Heaven. Longings
after Heaven. Conclusion.
CHAPTER I.
WHAT IS THE CHRISTIAN HOME?
SECTION I.
HOME IN THE SPHERE OF NATURE.
"My home! the spirit of its love is breathing
In every wind that plays across my track,
From its white walls the very tendrils wreathing
Seem with soft links to draw the wanderer back.
There am I loved--there prayed for!--there my mother
Sits by the hearth with meekly thoughtful eye,
There my young sisters watch to greet their brother;
Soon their glad footsteps down the path will fly!
And what is home? and where, but with the loving?"
Home! That name touches every fibre of the soul, and strikes every chord of
the human heart as with angelic fingers. Nothing but death can break its
spell. What tender associations are linked with home! What pleasing images
and deep emotions it awakens! It calls up the fondest memories of life, and
opens in our nature the purest, deepest, richest gush of consecrated
thought and feeling.
"Home! 'tis a blessed name! And they who rove,
Careless or scornful of its pleasant bonds,
Nor gather round them those linked soul to soul
By nature's fondest ties,...
But dream they're happy!"
But what _is_ home,--home in the sphere of nature? It is not simply an
ideal which feeds the fancy, nor the flimsy emotion of a sentimental heart.
We should seek for its meaning, not in the flowery vales of imagination,
but amid the sober realities of thought and of faith.
Home is not the mere dwelling place of our parents, and the theater upon
which we played the part of merry childhood. It is not simply a habitation.
This would identify it with the lion's lair and the eagle's nest. It is not
the mere mechanical juxtaposition of so many human beings, herding together
like animals in the den or stall. It is not mere conventionalism,--a human
association made up of the nursery, the parlor, the outward of domestic
life, resting upon some evanescent passion, some sensual impression and
policy. These do not make up the idea of home.
Home is a divine institution, coeval and congenital with man. The first
home was in Eden; the last home will be in Heaven. It is the first form of
society, a little commonwealth in which we first lose our individualism and
come to the consciousness of our relation to others. Thus it is the
foundation of all our relationships in life,--the preparation-state for
our position in the State and in the Church. It is the first form and
development of the associating principle, the normal relation in which
human character first unfolds itself. It is the first partnership of nature
and of life; and when it involves "the communion of saints," it reaches its
highest form of development. It is an organic unity of nature and of
interest,--the moral center of all those educational influences which are
exerted upon our inward being. The idea of the home-institution rests upon
the true love of our moral nature, involving the marriage union of
congenial souls, binding up into itself the whole of life, forming and
moulding all its relations, and causing body, mind and spirit to partake of
a common evolution. The loving soul is the central fact of home. In it the
inner life of the members find their true complement, and enjoy a kind of
community of consciousness.
"Home's not merely four square walls,
Though with pictures hung and gilded;
Home is where affection calls--
Filled with shrines the heart hath builded."
Home may be viewed in a two-fold aspect, as simply physical, and as purely
moral. The former comes finally to its full meaning and force only in the
latter. They are interwoven; we cannot understand the one without the
other; they are complements; and the complete idea of home as we find it
in the sphere of nature, lies in the living union of both.
By the physical idea of home, we mean, not only its outward, mechanical
structure, made up of different parts and members, but that living whole or
oneness into which these parts are bound up. Hence it is not merely
adventitious,--a corporation of individual interests, but that organic
unity of natural life and interest in which the members are bound up. By
the moral idea of home, we mean the union of the moral life and interests
of its members. This explodes the infidel systems of Fourierism, Socialism,
Mormonism, and "Woman's Rights." These forms of Agrarianism destroy the
ethical idea and mission of home; for they are not only opposed to
revelation and history, but violate the plainest maxims of natural
affection.
Love is an essential element of home. Without this we may have the form of
a home, but not its spirit, its beating heart, its true motive power, and
its sunshine. The inward stream would he gone, and home would not be the
oneness of kindred souls. Home-love is instinctive, and begets all those
silken chords, those sweet harmonies, those tender sympathies and
endearments which give to the family its magic power. This home-love is the
mother of all home delights, yea, of all the love of life. We first draw
love from our mother's breast, and it is love which ministers to our first
wants. It flashes from parent to parent, and from parent to child,
making-up the sunshine and the loveliness of domestic life. Without it
home would have no meaning. It engenders the "home-feeling" and the
"home-sickness," and is the moral net-work of the home-existence and
economy. It is stronger than death; it rises superior to adversity, and
towers in sublime beauty above the niggardly selfishness of the world.
Misfortune cannot suppress it; enmity cannot alienate it; temptation cannot
enslave it. It is the guardian angel of the nursery and the sick-bed; it
gives an affectionate concord to the partnership of home-life and interest.
Circumstances cannot modify it; it ever remains the same, to sweeten
existence, to purify the cup of life, to smooth our rugged pathway to the
grave, and to melt into moral pliability the brittle nature of man. It is
the ministering spirit of home, hovering in soothing caresses over the
cradle and the death-beds of the household, and filling up the urn of all
its sacred memories.
But home demands not only such love, but ties, tender, strong, and sacred.
These bind up the many in the one. They are the fibres of the home-life,
and cannot be wrenched without causing the heart to bleed at every pore.
Death may dissect them and tear away the objects around which they entwine;
and they will still live in the imperishable love which survives. From them
proceed mutual devotions and confiding faith. They bind together in one
all-expanding unity, the perogatives of the husband, and the subordination
of the wife, the authority of the parent and the obedience of the child.
"O, not the smile of other lands,
Though far and wide our feet may roam,
Can e'er untie the genial bands
That knit our hearts to home!"
The mother is the angel-spirit of home. Her tender yearnings over the
cradle of her infant babe, her guardian care of the child and youth, and
her bosom companionship with the man of her love and choice, make her the
personal center of the interests, the hopes and the happiness of the
family. Her love glows in her sympathies and reigns in all her thoughts and
deeds. It never cools, never tires, never dreads, never sleeps, but ever
glows and burns with increasing ardor, and with sweet and holy incense upon
the altar of home-devotion. And even when she is gone to her last rest, the
sainted mother in heaven sways a mightier influence over her wayward
husband or child, than when she was present. Her departed spirit still
hovers over his affections, overshadows his path, and draws him by unseen
cords to herself in heaven.
Our nature demands home. It is the first essential element of our social
being. The whole social system rests upon it: body, mind and spirit are
concerned in it. These cannot be complete out of the home-relations; there
would be no proper equilibrium of life and character without the home
feeling and influence. The heart, when bereaved and disappointed, naturally
turns for refuge to home-life and sympathy. No spot is so attractive to the
weary one; it is the heart's moral oasis; there is a mother's watchful
love, and a father's sustaining influence; there is a husband's protection,
and a wife's tender sympathy; there is the circle of loving brothers and
sisters,--happy in each other's love. Oh, what is life without these? A
desolation!--a painful, glooming pilgrimage through "desert heaths and
barren sands." But home gives to life its fertilizing dews, its budding
hopes, and its blossoming joys. When far away in distant lands or upon the
ocean's heaving breast, we pine away and become "home-sick;" no voice there
like a mother's; no sympathy there like a wife's; no loved one there like a
child; no resting place there like home; and we cry out, "Home! sweet,
sweet home!"
Thus our nature instinctively longs for the deep love and the true hearts
of home. It has for our life more satisfaction than all the honors, and the
riches and the luxuries of the world. We soon grow sick of these, and
become sick for home, however humble it may be. Its endearments are ever
fresh, as if in the bursting joys of their first experience. They remain
unforgotten in our memories and imperishable in our hearts. When friends
become cold, society heartless, and adversity frowns darkly and heavily
upon us, oh, it is then that we turn with fond assurance to home, where
loved ones will weep as well as rejoice with us.
"Oh, the blessing of a home, where old and young mix kindly,
The young unawed, the old unchilled, in unreserved communion!
Oh that refuge from the world, when a stricken son or daughter
May seek with confidence of love, a father's hearth and heart;
Come unto me, my son, if men rebuke and mock thee,
There always shall be one to bless,--for I am on thy side!"
SECTION II.
HOME IN THE SPHERE OF THE CHURCH.
"A holy home,
Where those who sought the footprints of the Lord,
Along the paths of pain, and care, and gloom,
Shall find the rest of heaven a rich reward."
What is the _Christian_ home? Only in the sphere of christianity does the
true idea of home become fully developed. Home with the savage is but a
herding, a servitude. Even among many of the Jews it was little better
than a Mahommedan seraglio. The most eminent of the heathen world degrade
the family by making it the scene of lust, and introducing concubinage and
polygamy. Plato, one of the most enlightened of the heathen, had base
conceptions of home, and abused its highest and holiest prerogatives by his
ideas of polygamy. We find too that in the ethics of Aristotle, the most
lovely and sacred attributes of the family are totally discarded. The home
which he holds up to view is unadorned with chastity and virtue. And
Sophocles follows in the same path, stripping home of all that is sacred
and essential to its true constitution. And when we come down to the
present age, and view this divine institute in the light of Mormonism and
Socialism, who will say that here we have unfolded its true idea and sacred
character?
How different is the true Christian home! Here the marriage union is
preserved "honorable," held sacred, and woman is raised to her true
position. In the sphere of the Christian church, home is brought fairly and
completely into view. Here it rises above the measure of natural affection,
and temporal interest. It enters the sphere of supernatural faith, and
becomes the adumbration of our home in heaven.
The Christian home is a true type of the church. "The husband is the head
of the wife, as Christ is of the church." The love of the family is
self-denying and holy, like that between Christ and His church. The
children are "the heritage of the Lord;" the parents are His stewards.
Like the church, the Christian home has its ministry. Yea, the church is in
the home, as the mother is in her child. We cannot separate them; they are
correlatives. The one demands the other. The Christian home can have
existence only in the sphere of the church. It is the vestibule of the
church, bound to her by the bonds of Christian marriage, of holy baptism,
and of the communion of saints, leading to her in the course of moral
development, and completing her life only in the church-consciousness.
Home is, therefore, a partnership of spiritual as well as of natural life.
The members thereof dwell "as being heirs together of the grace of life."
"Heavenly mindedness," "the hidden man of the heart," and a "hope full of
immortality," are the ornaments of the Christian home. Hers is "the
incorruptibility of a meek and quiet spirit;" her members are "joint heirs
of salvation;" they are "one," not only in nature, but "in Christ." They
enjoy a "communion in spirit," that their "joy might be full." "What God,
therefore, hath joined together, let not man put asunder."
Such a home, being "right with God," must be "full of good fruits, without
partiality and without hypocrisy." Here the Christian shows his real
character. In the sphere of the church, the family reaches its highest
excellence and its purest enjoyment. Says the learned D'Aubigne, "Without
the knowledge and the love of God, a family is but a collection of
individuals who may have more or less of natural affection for one another;
but the real bond,--the love of God our Father, in Jesus Christ, our
Lord,--is wanting."
We, therefore, abuse the idea of home when we divest it of the religious
element. As the family is a divine institute and a type of the church and
of heaven, it cannot be understood in its isolation from christianity; it
must involve Christian principles, duties, and interests; and embrace in
its educational functions, a preparation, not only for the State, but also
for the church. The church gives to home a sacred religious ministry, a
spiritual calling, a divine mission; investing it with prophetic, priestly
and kingly prerogatives, and laying it under religious responsibilities.
This gives to the Christian home its true meaning, and secures for its
members--
"A sacred and home-felt delight,
A sober certainty of waking bliss."
Such was the home of Abraham, who "commanded his children and his household
to keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment,"--of Joshua, who
with "his house served the Lord,"--of David, who "returned to bless his
household,"--of Job, who "offered burnt-offering according to the number of
his sons,"--of Cornelius, who "feared God with all his house,"--of Lydia,
and Crispus, and the jailor of Philippi, who "believed in the Lord with all
their house."
How many Christian parents practically discard this attribute of home!
While all their temporal interests cluster around their home, and their
hearts are fondly wedded to it as their retreat from a cold and repulsive
world, they never think perhaps that God is in their family, that He has
instituted it, and given those cherished ones who "set like olive plants
around their table." They are faithful to all natural duties, and make
ample provision for the temporal wants of their offspring; the mother bends
with untiring assiduity over the cradle of her babe, and ministers to all
its wants, watching with delight every opening beauty of that bud of
promise, and willingly sacrificing all for its good. With what rapture she
catches its first lispings of mother! The father toils from year to year to
secure it a fair patrimony, a finished education, and an honorable position
in life. How unremittingly these parents watch over the sick-bed of their
children and of each other; and oh, what burning tears gush forth as the
utterance of their agonizing hearts, when death threatens to blight a
single bud, or lay his cold hand upon a single member!
This is all right, noble, and faithful to the natural elements of home.
Natural affection prompts it, and it is well. But if this is all; if
Christian parents and their children are governed only by the promptings
of nature; if they are bound together by no spiritual ties and interests
and hopes; if they are not prompted by faith to make provision for the
soul, and for eternity; then we think they have not as yet realized the
deepest and holiest significance of their home.
The Christian home demands the Christian consciousness,--the sense of a
spirit-world with all its obligations and interests and responsibilities.
Oh, is it not too often the case that even the Christian mother, while she
teaches her babe the accents of her own name, never thinks of teaching it
to lisp the name of Jesus,--never seeks to unfold its infant spirit,--never
supplies it with spiritual food, nor directs its soul to the eternal world!
In the same way the pious wife neglects her impenitent husband; and the
pious husband, his reckless wife. There is too much such dereliction of
duty in the homes of church members.
Our homes give us an interest in, and bind us by peculiar bonds to, the
eternal world; those loved ones who have gone before us, look down from
heaven upon those they have left behind; though absent from us in body,
their spirits are still with us; and they come thronging upon glowing
pinions, as ministering spirits, to our hearts. Mother! that little babe
that perished in your arms, hovers over thee now, and is the guardian angel
of your heart and home. It meets thee still! And oh, how joyful will your
home-meeting be in heaven! Children! the spirit of your sainted mother
lingers around your home to minister in holy things to thee. She has left
you in body; she lies mouldering now in the humid earth; but she is with
thee in spirit. Your home, dwelling in the sphere of the church on earth,
has a spiritual communion with the sainted ones of the church in heaven.
Thus, as the home-feeling can never he eradicated, so the home-meetings can
never be broken up. Even the dead are with us there; their seats may be
empty, and their forms may no longer move before us; but their spirits meet
with us, and imprint their ministrations upon our hearts. The dead and the
living meet in home!
"We are all here!
Father, mother,
Sister, brother,
All who hold each other dear,
Each chair is filled, we're all at home!
Let gentle peace assert her power,
And kind affection rule the hour--
We're all--all here!
Even they--the dead--though dead so dear,
Fond memory to her duty true,
Brings back their faded forms to view.
How life-like through the mist of years,
Each well-remembered face appears;
We hear their words, their smiles behold,
They're round us as they were of old--
We are all here!"
CHAPTER II.
THE MISSION OF THE CHRISTIAN HOME.
"If in the family thou art the best,
Pray oft, and be mouth unto the rest;
Whom God hath made the heads of families,
He hath made priests to offer sacrifice."
The home is a divine institution, and includes the religious element,
moving in the sphere of nature and of the church, then its calling must be
of God; its mission is divine; it is designed to subserve a spiritual
purpose; it has a soul-mission. This was the view of David when he
"returned to _bless_ his household." To him his family was a church in
miniature, and he its priest. Thus too Joshua felt that his service of God
must include family worship.
What then is the mission, of the Christian home? It is two-fold,--the
temporal and eternal well-being of its members. It is the mission of home
to provide for the temporal well-being of its members. They are parts of
one great whole. Each must seek the welfare of all the rest. This involves
obedience to the law of co-operation; and has special reference to that
provision which the heads of families should make for the wants of those
who are placed under their protection. As the parent sustains a physical,
intellectual and moral relation to the child, it is his mission to provide
for its physical, mental and moral wants. "He that provideth not for his
own house hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." Natural
affection will prompt to this. Children are in a state of utter
helplessness. The infant is at the mercy of the parent. Instinct impels the
parent to provide for its wants. Even the brute does this.
That it is a part, therefore, of the home mission to provide for the
physical wants of the dependents there, is very evident. To refuse to
fulfill it is a crime against nature. This part of the home-mission
includes the education of the body, by properly unfolding and directing its
powers, and providing it with appropriate nutriment, raiment and shelter.
In a word, we should make proper provision for the development and maturity
of the physical life of our children. This is the mission of the parent
until the child is able to provide for itself. This, says Blackstone, "is a
principle of natural law;" and, in the language of Puffendorf, is "an
obligation laid on parents, not only by nature herself, but by their own
proper act in bringing them into the world." The laws of the land also
command it. The child has a legal claim upon the parent for physical
sustenance and education.
It is another part of the home-mission to provide for the intellectual
wants and welfare of the child. Children have mind as well as body. The
former needs nourishment and training as well as the latter. Hence it is as
much the mission of the family to minister to the well-being of the mind of
the child, as to that of its body. Civil law enforces this. Children have a
legal as well as a natural claim to mental culture. In a word, it is the
home-mission to provide for the child all things necessary to prepare it
for a citizenship in the state.
Parents abuse this mission in two ways, either when they by their own
indolence and dissipation compel their children to support them; or, on the
other hand, when they become the willing slaves of their children, labor to
amass a fortune for them, and, in the anticipation of that, permit them to
grow up in ignorance, idleness, and prodigality, fit only to abuse and
spend the fruit of parental servitude. In this way the misapplied provision
made by parents often becomes a curse, not only to the members of the
family, but to the state and church.
Another part of the home-mission is, the spiritual and eternal well-being
of its members. This is seen in the typical character of the Christian
family. It is an emblem of the church and of heaven. According to this,
parents are called to administer the means of grace to their household, to
provide for soul as well as for body, to prepare the child for a true
membership in the church, as well as for a citizenship in the state, to
train for heaven as well as for earth.
Parents are "priests unto their families," and have the commission to act
for them as faithful stewards of God in all things pertaining to their
everlasting welfare. Their souls, as well as their bodies, are committed to
their trust, and God says to them,--
"Go nurse them for the King of Heaven,
And He will pay thee hire."
This is their great mission, and corresponds with the conception of the
Christian home as a spiritual nursery. The family is "God's husbandry;" and
this implies a spiritual culture. As its members dwell as "being heirs
together of the grace of life," it is the function of each to labor to make
all the rest "fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of
God." Parents should provide for the religious wants of their children.
Mere physical maintenance and mental culture cannot supersede the necessity
of spiritual training. Children have a right to such training.
This religious provision is twofold; their moral and spiritual faculties
should be developed; and their moral nature supplied with appropriate
nutriment. All the wants of their moral nature are to be faithfully
provided for. The home-mission involves the business of education of body,
of mind, and of spirit;--of preparation for the state, for the church, for
eternity. It is this which makes it so sacred and responsible. Strip the
Christian family of its mission as a nursery for the soul; wrest from the
parents their high prerogative as stewards of God; and you heathenize home,
yea, you brutalize it! Tell me, what Christian home can accomplish its holy
mission, when the soul is neglected, when religion is left out of view,
when training up for God is abandoned, when the church is repudiated, and
eternity cast off? You may provide for the body and mind of your children;
you may amass for them a fortune; you may give them an accomplished
education; you may introduce them into the best society; you may establish
them in the best business; you may fit them for an honorable and
responsible position in life; you may be careful of their health and
reputation; and you may caress them with all the tender ardor of the
parental heart and hand; yet if you provide not for their souls; if you
seek not their salvation; if you minister only to their temporal, and not
to their eternal welfare, all will be vain, yea, a curse both to you and to
them. Husband and wife may love each other, and live together in all the
peace and harmony of reciprocated affection; yet if the religious part of
their home-mission remain unfulfilled, their family is divested of its
noblest attraction; its greatest interests will fall into ruin; its highest
destiny will not be attained; and soon its fruits will be entombed in
oblivion; while their children, neglected and perishing, will look back
upon that home with a bitterness of spirit which the world can neither
soothe nor extract!
How many such homes there are! Even the homes of church members are too
often reckless of their high vocation. Their moral stewardship is
neglected; their dedications, formal and heartless. No prayers are heard;
no bible read; no instructions given; no pious examples set; no holy
discipline exercised. Their interests, their hopes and their enjoyments;
their education, their labor and their rest, are all of the
world,--worldly. The curse of God is upon such a home!
The importance and responsibility of the home-mission may be seen in its
vicarious character, and in its influence upon the members. The principle
of moral reproduction is manifest in all the home-relations. What the
parent does is reproduced, as it were, in the child, and will tell upon the
generations that follow them. Those close affinities by which all the
members are allied, give to each a moulding influence over all the rest.
The parents live, not for themselves alone, but for their children, and the
consequence of such a life is also entailed upon their offspring. "The
iniquity of the fathers shall be visited upon the children unto the third
and fourth generation." If the parent "sow to the flesh," the child, with
him, "shall of the flesh reap corruption;" but if he "sow to the spirit,"
his offspring, with him, shall "of the spirit reap life everlasting."
Sacred and profane history proves and illustrates this great truth. Did
not God punish the first born of Israel, because their fathers had sinned?
And is it not a matter of daily observation that the wickedness of the
parent is entailed upon the child? Such is indeed the affinity between them
that the child cannot, unless by some special interposition of Providence,
escape the curse of a parent's sin. "If one member suffer, all the members
suffer with it."
The guilt and condemnation of unfaithfulness to the home-mission may be
inferred from its importance and responsibility. Those who are unfaithful
are guilty of "blood." We see the curse of such neglect in that
deterioration of character which so rapidly succeeds parental delinquency.
They must answer before God for the loss which the soul, the state, and the
church sustain thereby. "It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah
in the day of judgment than for them."
The Christian home should be qualified for this mission. There can be no
such qualification, however, where the marriage alliance involves
inequality--one of the parents a Christian, the other not; for they cannot
"dwell together as heirs of the grace of life," neither can they
effectually dispense that grace to their offspring. When thus "the house is
divided against itself, it must fall." "Be ye not, therefore, unequally
yoked together." If one draws heavenward and the other hellward, there will
be a halting between Baal and God, and the influence of the one will be
counteracted by that of the other. What communion hath light with darkness?
"What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What part hath he
that believeth with an infidel?" Thus divided, their home will be unfit for
its high vocation. Hence parents, in their marriage alliance as well as in
their individual character, should qualify themselves for the responsible
mission of home. Can the ungodly wife or husband fulfill this mission? Can
the irreligious parent bring up his offspring "in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord?"
Many parents disqualify themselves for their home-mission by devoting too
much attention to society,--by spending more time abroad, at parties,
theaters and masquerade balls, in gossiping and recreation, than at home
with each other and with their children. They commit their children, with
all the family interests, to nurses and servants. They regard their
offspring as mere playthings to be dandled upon the knee, brought up like
calves in the stall, and then turned out to shape their own destiny.
This is a sad mistake! There is no substitute for home,--no transfer of a
parent's commission, no adequate compensation for a parent's loss. None can
effectually take the parent's place. Their influence is overwhelming and
absolute.
"With what a kingly power their love
Might rule the fountains of the new-born mind!"
Not even the dark villainies which have disgraced humanity can neutralize
it. Gray-haired and demon guilt will weep in his dismal cell over the
melting, soothing memories of home. Their impressions are indelible, "like
the deep borings into the flinty rock." To erase them we must remove every
strata of their being. They give texture and coloring to the whole woof and
web of the child's character. The mother especially preoeccupies the
unwritten page of its being, and mingles with it in its cradle dreams,
making thus a deathless impress upon its soul.
"The mother in her office, holds the key
Of the soul; and she it is who stamps the coin
Of character, and makes the being who would be a savage
But for her cares, a Christian man!"
What a folly and a sin, therefore, for Christian parents to give over their
holy mission to another, while they immerse themselves in the forbidden
pleasures and recreations of the world! Oh, if you are loving, faithful
parents, you will love the society of your household more than the fashions
and the fashionable resorts of the world; you will not substitute the
"nurse" and the "boarding school" for the more efficient ministrations of
the Christian home.
"If ye count society for past time,--what happier recreation
than a nursling,
Its winning ways, its prattling tongue, its innocence and mirth?
If ye count society for good,--how fair a field is here,
To guide these souls to God, and multiply thyself in heaven!"
"Walk, therefore, worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all
lowliness and meekness." "Magnify your office." Be faithful to your
home-mission. Draw your pleasure from it. Souls are committed to your trust
and hang upon your hire. Your regard for the temporal and eternal welfare
of your children should prompt you to faithfulness to the holy mission of
your family. You love your children, and desire their welfare and
happiness. But do what you will for them, if you are unfaithful to their
souls, you wrest from them the means of safety and of happiness; you aid in
their misery in this and in the world to come. You are more cruel to them
than was Herod who slew the bodies of children. You murder their souls. He
murdered the children of others; you murder your own; he employed others to
do it for him; you do the work of slaughter yourself! If, then, you love
your children; if their souls are committed to you; if your unfaithfulness
to them may result in their ruin; if God blesses the holy mission of your
home to their temporal and eternal welfare; if its fulfillment by you be
"like words spoken in a whispering-gallery, which, will be heard at the
distance of years, and echoed along the corridors of ages yet to come;" and
if it will prove to them in life like the lone star to the mariner upon the
dark and stormy sea,--should you not be faithful to your home-vocation!
Not only so, but your regard for your own comfort and happiness here and
hereafter should impel you to this faithfulness. Do you love yourself? Do
you regard your own comfort and welfare? Would you avoid painful
solicitude, bitter reflection, heart-burning remorse, dreadful foreboding?
Then be faithful to the home-mission. If you are, God will bless you for it
through your children. What a comfort it will be to you to see them become
Christians, enter the church, and, at their side around the Lord's Table,
hold communion with them in the joys of faith and in the anticipations of
heaven! And should God remove them from you by death, you will be cheered
amidst the agonies of separation by their dying consolation. The hope of a
speedy reunion with them in heaven would afford a sweet solace to your
bereaved heart.
Or should you be taken before them, what a comfort would they afford you in
your last moments! With the glow of Christian faith and hope, they would
whisper to you the consolations of the gospel, and bless you for your
faithfulness to them. And when you and they shall meet at the bar of God,
they will rise up and call you blessed.
But, on the other hand, should you neglect them; and, as a consequence,
they grow up in wickedness and crime; oh, what a source of withering
remorse they would cause you! No sin more heavily punishes the guilty, and
mingles for him a more bitter cup, than the sin of parental neglect. What
if after the lapse of a few years, your neglected child be taken from you,
and consigned to the cold grave, think you not that when you meet it before
the bar of God, it will rise up as a witness against you, and pour down its
curses upon your head!
But suppose that child grows up, unprovided for by you in its early life;
and profligacy mark his pathway, and demon guilt throw its chains around
him in the prison cell; and he trace back the beginning of his ruin to your
unfaithfulness, oh, with what pungency would the reflection send the pang
of remorse to your soul!
"Go ask that musing father, why yon grave So narrow, and so noteless,
might not close Without a tear?"
Because of the bitter and heart-stricken memories of a neglected, ruined
child that slumbers there!
Or suppose that you die before your neglected children, think you not that
the recollection of your past parental unfaithfulness will plant thorns in
your pillow, and invest with deeper shades of horror your descent to the
dark valley of death? And oh, when you meet them before the bar of the
avenging judge, most fearful will be your interview with them. Tell me, how
will you dare to meet them there, when the voice of their blood will cry
out from the hallowed ground of home against you! And then, eternity, oh,
eternity! who shall bring out from the secrets of the eternal world, those
awful maledictions which God has attached to parental unfaithfulness?
Provide, therefore, for your family as the Lord commands. Remember that if
you do not, you "deny the faith and are worse than an infidel;" and in the
day of Judgment "it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for
you."
CHAPTER III.
FAMILY RELIGION.
"Lo! where yon cottage whitens through the green,
The loveliest feature of a matchless scene;
Beneath its shading elm, with pious fear,
An aged mother draws her children near,
While from the Holy Word, with earnest air,
She teaches them the privilege of prayer.
Look! how their infant eyes with rapture speak;
Mark the flushed lily on the dimpled cheek;
Their hearts are filled with gratitude and love,
Their hopes are centered in a world above!"
The Christian home demands a family religion. This makes it a "household of
God." Without this it is but a "den of thieves." It is "the one thing
needful."
What is "family religion?" It is not an exotic, but is indigenous to the
Christian home. It is not a "new measure," but an essential ingredient of
the home-constitution,--coexistent with home itself. The first family
"began to call upon the name of the Lord;" the first parent acted as
high-priest of God in his family.
It is not individual piety as such, not simply closet devotion, but family
service of God,--religion taken up in the home-consciousness and life.
Hence a family, and not simply a personal religion.
Such religion, we say, is as old as the church. We find it in Eden, in the
tents of the patriarchs and in the wilderness of the prophets. We find it
in the tent of Abraham in the plains of Mamre, in the "house" of Moses, in
the "service" of Joshua, in the "offerings" of Job, and in the palace of
David and Solomon. It is also a prominent feature of the gospel economy.
The commendation bestowed by Paul upon Timothy, was that "from a child" he
enjoyed the "unfeigned faith" of his mother Eunice and his grandmother
Lois. Paul exhorts Christians thus: "Rule well your own houses; speaking to
yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." The same family
religion was a prominent feature of the homes of the primitive Christians.
With them, every house was a sanctuary, and every parent a minister in holy
things to its members. The bible was not only a parlor ornament, but a lamp
to their feet and a guide to their path, used, meditated upon, prayed over.
Says Turtullian of its members, "They are united in spirit and in flesh;
they kneel down together; they pray and fast together; they teach, exhort
and support each other with gentleness."
How, alas! have Christian homes degenerated since then in family piety!
They received a reviving impulse in the Reformation; yet even this was
meteor-like, and seemed but the transient glow of some mere natural
emotion. The fire which then flashed so brilliantly upon the altar of home,
has now become taper-like and sepulchral; and the altar of family religion,
like the altar of Jehovah upon Mt. Carmel, has been demolished, and
forsaken. Only here and there do we find a Christian home erect and
surround a Christian altar. Parents seem now ashamed to serve the Lord at
home. They have neither time nor inclination. Upon the subject of religion
they maintain a bashful, sullen, wonderful silence before their families.
They seem to be impressed with the strange idea that their wives and
children put no confidence in their piety, (and may they not have reason
for it?) and that it would, therefore, be vain for them to pray, or exhort
their households. "Many walk thus," says Paul, "of whom I have told you
often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the
cross of Christ!" Upon them shall be answered the prayer of Jeremiah, "Oh
Lord, pour out thy fury upon the families that call not upon thy name!"
Thus, therefore, we see that the Christian home demands a family religion.
The private devotion of the individual can be no effectual substitute for
it.
"The parents pair their secret homage,
And offer up to heaven the warm request,
That He who stills the raven's clamorous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flowery pride,
Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,
For them and for their little ones provide."
Family religion includes parental bible instruction, family prayer, and
religious education, government, discipline and example. These involve the
parent's position in his household as a prophet, priest, and king. "Thou
shalt teach my words diligently unto thy children, and talk of them when
thou sittest in thy house."
"Daily let part of Holy Writ be read,
Let as the body, so the soul have bread.
For look! how many souls in thy house be,
With just as many souls God trusteth thee!"
Thus felt and acted our primitive fathers. By every winning art, they
sought to fill their children with the knowledge of God's Word. The entire
range of nursery instruction and amusement was comprised in scripture
pictures and hieroglyphics. They intermingled religion with all their home
pursuits, and entwined it with their earliest and purest associations of
childhood. If Christian parents would follow their example now, in these
days of parental delinquency, we would not behold so many of their children
grow up in religious ignorance and indifference.
The same may be said of the family altar and prayer. A prayerless family
is an irreligious, godless family. Says Henry, "They who daily pray in
their houses do well; they that not only pray, but read the scriptures, do
better; but they do best of all, who not only pray and read the scriptures,
but sing the praises of God."
Besides, the religion of home implies that we "command our children and
household to keep the way of the Lord,"--that we "bring them up in His
nurture and admonition," and "train them up as He would have them go;" and
that in things pertaining to their spiritual welfare we "go in and out"
before them as their pattern and example, bidding them to "follow us even
as we follow Christ," and living in their midst as "the living epistles of
Christ, known and read" of them all.
Family religion must "show itself by its works" of Christian charity and
benevolence to the poor, the sick and the distressed. We should "lay by" a
certain amount each year of what God bestows, for the support of the church
and the propagation of the gospel. Oh, how little do Christians now give to
these benevolent objects! A penurious, close-fisted, selfish home cannot be
a religious household. Family religion must be reproductive, must return to
God as well as receive from Him. But as these characteristic features of
the Christian home will be considered hereafter, we shall not enlarge upon
them here. Suffice it to say that the mission of home demands family
religion. Its interests cannot be secured without it. Let our homes be
divorced from piety, and they will become selfish, sensual, unsatisfactory,
and unhappy. Piety should always reign in our homes,--not only on the
Sabbath, but during the week; not only in sickness and adversity, but in
health and prosperity. It must, if genuine, inspire and consecrate the
minutest interests and employments of the household. It must appear in
every scene and feeling and look, and in each heart, as the life, the
light, the hope, and the joy of all the members.
The necessity of family religion is seen in the value of the soul. The soul
is the dearest treasure and the most responsible trust of home. What shall
it profit the family if its members gain the whole world and lose their own
souls? What would Christian parents give in exchange for the souls of their
little ones? Is it not more important that they teach them to pray than to
dance, to "seek the kingdom of heaven" than the enjoyment of "the pleasures
of sin for a season?" Oh, what is home without a title to, and personal
meetness for, that kingdom? It is a moral waste; its members move in the
putrid atmosphere of vitiated feeling and misdirected power. Brutal
passions become dominant; we hear the stern voice of parental despotism; we
behold a scene of filial strife and insubordination; there is throughout a
heart-blank. Domestic life becomes clouded by a thousand crosses and
disappointments; the solemn realities of the eternal world are cast into
the shade; the home-conscience and feeling become stultified; the sense of
moral duty distorted, and all the true interests of home appear in a haze.
Natural affection is debased, and love is prostituted to the base designs
of self, and the entire family, with all its tender cords, ardent hopes,
and promised interests, becomes engulfed in the vortex of criminal
worldliness!
But reverse the picture! See what home becomes with religion as its life
and rule. Human nature is there checked and moulded by the amiable spirit
and lovely character of Jesus. The mind is expanded, the heart softened,
sentiments refined, passions subdued, hopes elevated, pursuits ennobled,
the world cast into the shade, and heaven realized as the first prize. The
great want of our intellectual and moral nature is here met, and home
education becomes impregnated with the spirit and elements of our
preparation for eternity.
The relations of home demand family religion. These are relations of mutual
dependence, involving such close affinity that the good or evil which
befalls one member must in some degree extend to all the other members.
They involve "helps." Each member becomes an instrument in the salvation or
damnation of the others. "For what knowest, O wife, whether thou shalt save
thy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy
wife?"--1 Cor. vii., 16. "If one member Suffer, all the members suffer with
it." They stimulate each other either to salvation or to ruin; and hence
those children that go to ruin in consequence of parental unfaithfulness,
will "curse the father that begat them, the womb that bare them," and the
day they entered their home.
Many parents seek to excuse themselves from the practice of family
religion, upon the ground that they have not the capacity nor the time. If
so, you should not have married. But if you are Christians, you have the
capacity, and you will take the time.
But some are ashamed to begin family religion. Ashamed of what? of your
piety? of your children? of the true glory and greatness of your home? Then
you are ashamed of Jesus! You should rather blush that you have not begun
this good work.
The great defect of family religion in the present day is, that it is not
educational. Parents wait until their children have grown up, and
established habits of sin, when they suppose that the efforts of some
"protracted meeting" will compensate for their neglect in childhood. They
overlook the command of God to teach them His words. The influence of this
defect and delusion has been most destructive. Many Christian homes are now
altogether destitute of religious appliances. If the angel that visited the
homes of Israel were to visit the Christian homes of this age, would he not
be tempted to say, as Abraham said to Abimelech, "Surely the fear of God is
not in this place!"
One great reason, perhaps, why there are so many such homes is, that there
are now so many irreligious marriages, where husband and wife are
"unequally yoked together," one a believer and the other not. "How can two
walk together except they be agreed?" Can there be family religion when
husband and wife are traveling to eternity in opposite roads? No! There
will be hindrances instead of "helps." If they marry not "in the Lord,"
religion will not be in their home. Says the pious Jay, "I am persuaded
that it is very much owing to the prevalence of these indiscriminate and
unhallowed connections, that we have fallen so far short of those men of
God, who are gone before us, in the discharge of family worship, and in the
training up of our households in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."
Family religion is implied in the marriage relation and obligation. It is
included in the necessities of our children, and in the covenant promises
of God. The penalties of its neglect, and the rewards of our faithfulness
to it, should prompt us to its establishment in our homes. Its absence is a
curse; its presence a blessing. It is a foretaste of heaven. Like manna, it
will feed our souls, quench our thirst, sweeten the cup of life, and shed a
halo of glory and of gladness around our firesides. Let yours, therefore,
be the religious home; and then be sure that God will delight to dwell
therein, and His blessing will descend, like the dews of heaven, upon it.
Your children shall "not be found begging bread," but shall be like "olive
plants around your table,"--the "heritage of the Lord." Yours will be the
home of love and harmony; it shall have the charter of family rights and
privileges, the ward of family interests, the palladium of family hopes and
happiness. Your household piety will be the crowning attribute of your
peaceful home,--the "crown of living stars" that shall adorn the night of
its tribulation, and the pillar of cloud and of fire in its pilgrimage to a
"better country." It shall strew the family threshold with the flowers of
promise, and enshrine the memory of loved ones gone before, in all the
fragrance of that "blessed hope" of reunion in heaven which looms up from a
dying hour. It shall give to the infant soul its "perfect flowering," and
expand it in all the fullness of a generous love and conscious blessedness,
making it "lustrous in the livery of divine knowledge." And then in the
dark hour of home separation and bereavement, when the question is put to
thee, mourning parents, "Is it well with the child? is it well with thee?"
you can answer with joy, "It is well!"
CHAPTER IV.
THE RELATION OF HOME TO THE CHURCH.
The Christian home sustains a direct relation to the church. This relation
is similar to that which it sustains to the state. The nature and mission
of home demand the church. The former is the adumbration of the latter. The
one is in the other. "Greet the church that is in thine house." The church
was in the house of Aquila and Priscilla, in the tent of Abraham, and in
the palace of David. It must be in every Christian home, and every
Christian home must be in the church. In a word, our families must be
churchly.
This relation is vital and necessary,--a relation of mutual dependence. The
family is a preparation for the church, subordinate to it, and must,
therefore, throw its influence in its favor, be moulded by it, and labor
With direct reference to the church in the way of training up for
membership in it. As the civil and political relations of home involve the
duty of parents to train up their children for efficient citizenship in the
state, so its moral and religious relations involve the duty of education
for the church. Hence the Christian home is churchly in its spirit,
religion, education, influence, and mission.
Family religion is an element of home, not only as a mere fact or principle
in its subjective form, but in the form and force of the church. In its
unchurchly form it is powerless. It must be experienced and administered in
a churchly spirit and way, not as something detached from the organic
embodiment of Christianity. The relation of the church to the family
forbids this. The church pervades all the forms of society. It includes the
home and the state. It gives to each proper vitality, legitimate
principles, proper direction, and a true destiny.
But home is not only a preparation for the church, but completes itself in
the church,--never out of the church. By the "mystery" of marriage and the
sacrament of holy baptism, home and the church are bound up into each other
by indissoluble bonds. The one receives the mark and superscription of the
other; the one is the type or emblem of the other.
The church, through her ordinances, ministry and means of grace, is brought
directly "into the house," and operates there constantly as a spiritual
leaven. It is the purpose of God that our homes be entrenched within the
sacred enclosures of His church. The former, in its relation to the latter,
is like "a wheel within a wheel,"--one of the parts which make up the great
machinery of the kingdom of grace, operating harmoniously and in its place
with all the rest, and for the same end. The former is built upon the
latter,--receives her dedication and sanctity from it. They are
correlatives. The one demands the other. Hence they cannot be divorced. The
individual passes over to the church through the Christian home. The one is
the step to the other. They have the same foundation. Home is not erected
upon a quicksand, but reared upon the same rock upon which the church is
built. Like the church, it rises superior to all the fluctuations of civil
society, and will live and flourish in all its tender charities, in all its
sweet enjoyments, and in all its moral force, in the humble cottage as well
as in the costly palace, under the shadow of liberty as well as under the
frowns of despotism, in every nation, age, and clime. Like the church of
which it is the type, it can never be made desolate; break it up on earth,
and you find it in heaven. Its nuptial union with the church is like that
between the latter and Christ. Nothing can throw over our homes a higher
sanctity, or invest them with greater beauty, or be to them a greater
bulwark of strength, than the church. Home is the nursery of the church.
"Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the
courts of our God, and shall bring forth fruit in old age."
Thus, therefore, we see that the relation between the Christian home and
the church is one of mutual dependence. The latter, as the highest form of
religious association, demands the former, and the former looks to the
latter as its completion. Where the religion of the family does not move in
the element of the church, it is at best but sentimentalism on the one
hand, and rationalism on the other. It is a spurious pietism. To be genuine
it must be moulded by the church. Without this it is destitute of sterling
principle, of a living-faith, of well-directed effort and lofty aims. The
family which does not move in the element of the church is a perversion of
the true purpose of God in its institution. It will afford no legitimate
development of Christian doctrine, and the whole scheme of its religion
will rest for its execution upon unreliable agencies extraneous to home
itself. Hence we find that the piety of those families or individuals that
isolate themselves from the church, is at best but ephemeral in its
existence, contracted in spirit, moving and operating by mere impulse and
irregular starts, and withal destitute of vitality and saving influence. A
death-bed scene may awaken a transient and visionary sense of duty;
adversity may startle the drowsy ear, and cause the parents to turn for the
time to the souls of their children; but these continue only while the tear
and the wound are fresh, and the apprehensions of the eternal world are
moving in their terrible visions before them!
The efficacy of the Christian home, therefore, depends upon its true
relation to the church. The members should be conscious of this. Then both
parents and children Will appreciate the religious ministrations of home.
Then the former will not grow weary in well doing, but will have something
to rest upon, something to look to; and the latter will love the church of
their fathers, and venerate the family as its nursery.
But the relation between the Christian home and the church implies
reciprocal obligations and duties. The former should not only exist under
the patronage of the latter, but in the spirit of a true subordination.
Parents should teach and rule and appropriate the means of grace under the
supervision of the church. They should take their household, with them to
her public service, send their children to her schools, and in all respects
bring them up in her nurture and admonition.
Thus the family should exist as the faithful daughter of the church; and as
the latter in the wilderness "leaned upon her beloved," so the former
should repose itself upon her who is "the mother of us all," and in whom,
as the "body of Christ," shall "all the families of the earth be blessed."
As her loving and confiding daughter, the family should live under her
government and discipline, listen to her maternal voice, and be led by her
maternal hand. The minister in his pastoral functions, is the
representative of the church in each of the families of his flock; and
should, therefore, be received, loved, confided in and obeyed, as such. The
home that repels his proffered ministrations in the name and according to
the will of the church, throws off its allegiance to the latter, and
through it, to Christ,--her glorious head, and is hence unworthy of the
name of Christian home. The true Christian home yearns after the church,
loves to lean upon it, to look up to it, to consecrate all to it, to move
and develop its interests in the sphere of the church, and to labor to
complete itself in it.
"For her my tears shall fall;
For her my prayers ascend;
To her my cares and toils be giv'n,
Till toils and cares shall end."
CHAPTER V.
HOME INFLUENCE.
"By the soft green light in the woody glade,
On the banks of moss, where thy childhood play'd;
By the gathering round the winter hearth,
When the twilight call'd unto household mirth,
By the quiet hour when hearts unite
In the parting prayer and the kind 'Good night;'
By the smiling eye and the loving tone,
Over thy life has the spell been thrown,
And bless that gift, it hath gentle might,
A guarding power and a guiding light!"
The Christian home has an influence which is stronger than death. It is a
law to our hearts, and binds us with, a spell which neither time nor change
can break. The darkest villainies which have disgraced humanity cannot
neutralize it. Gray-haired and demon guilt will make his dismal cell the
sacred urn of tears wept over the memories of home; and these will soften
and melt into penitence even the heart of adamant.
[Illustration: Maternal Influence]
The home-influence is either a blessing or a curse, either for good or for
evil. It cannot be neutral. In either case it is mighty, commencing with
our birth, going with us through life, clinging to us in death, and
reaching into the eternal world. It is that unitive power which arises out
of the manifold relations and associations of domestic life. The specific
influences of husband and wife, of parent and child, of brother and sister,
of teacher and pupil, united and harmoniously blended, constitute the
home-influence.
From this we may infer the character of home-influence. It is great,
silent, irresistible, and permanent. Like the calm, deep stream, it moves
on in silent, but overwhelming power. It strikes its roots deep into the
human heart, and spreads its branches wide over our whole being. Like the
lily that braves the tempest, and "the Alpine flower that leans its cheek
on the bosom of eternal snows," it is exerted amid the wildest storms of
life, and breathes a softening spell in our bosom even when a heartless
world is freezing up the fountains of sympathy and love. It is governing,
restraining, attracting and traditional. It holds the empire of the heart,
and rules the life. It restrains the wayward passions of the child, and
checks him in his mad career of ruin.
"Hold the little hands in prayer, teach the weak knees their kneeling,
Let him see thee speaking to thy God; he will not forget it afterward;
When old and gray, will he feelingly remember a mother's tender piety,
And the touching recollection of her prayers shall arrest the strong
man in his sin!"
Home-influence is traditional. It passes down the current of life from one
generation to another. Its continuity is preserved from first to last. The
homes of our forefathers rule us even now, and will pass from us to our
children's children. Hence it has been called the "fixed capital" of home.
It keeps up a continuous stream of home-life and feeling and interest.
Hence the family likeness, moral as well as physical,--the family virtues
and vices,--coming from the family root and rising into all the branches,
and developing in all the elements of the family history.
Home-influence is attractive. It draws us to home, and throws a spell
around our existence, which we have not the power to break.
"The holy prayer from my thoughts hath pass'd,
The prayer at my mother's knee--
Darken'd and troubled I come at last,
Thou home of my boyish glee!"
Home-influence may he estimated from the immense force of first
impressions. It is the prerogative of home to make the first impression
upon our nature, and to give that nature its first direction onward and
upward. It uncovers the moral fountain, chooses its channel, and gives the
stream its first impulse. It makes the "first stamp and sets the first
seal" upon the plastic nature of the child. It gives the first tone to our
desires, and furnishes ingredients that will either sweeten or embitter the
whole cup of life. These impressions are indelible, and durable as life.
Compared with them, other impressions are like those made upon sand or wax.
These are like "the deep borings into the flinty rock." To erase them we
must remove every strata of our being. Even the infidel lives under the
holy influence of a pious mother's impressions. John Randolph could never
shake off the restraining influence of a little prayer his mother taught
him when a child. It preserved him from the clutches of avowed infidelity.
The promises of God bear testimony to the influence of the Christian home.
"When he grows old he will not depart from it!" History confirms and
illustrates this. Look at those scenes of intemperance and riot, of crime
and of blood, which throw the mantle of infamy over human life! Look at
your prisons, your hospitals, and your gibbets; go to the gaming-table and
the rum-shop. Tell me, who are those that are there? What is their history?
Where did they come from? From the faithful Christian home? Had they pious
fathers and mothers? Did they go to these places under the holy influence
of devout and faithful parents? No! And who are they that are dying without
hope and without God? Who are they that now throng the regions of the
damned? Those who were "trained up in the way they should go?" No! if they
are, then the promises of God must fail. You may perhaps find a few such.
But these are exceptions to a general law. The damning influence of their
unfaithful home brought them there. Could they but speak to us from their
chambers of wo, we should hear them pouring out curses upon their parents,
and ascribing the cause of their ruin to their neglect. On the other hand,
could we but listen to the anthems of the redeemed in heaven, we should
doubtless hear sentiments of gratitude for a mother's prayer and a father's
counsel.
Let us now briefly advert to the objects of home-influence. It is exerted
upon the members of home, especially upon the formation of their character
and destiny. It moulds their character. The parents assimilate their
children to themselves to such an extent that we can judge the former by
the latter. Lamartine says that, when he wants to know a woman's character,
he ascertains it by an inspection of her home,--that he judges the daughter
by the mother. His judgment rests upon the known influence the latter has
over the former. It gives texture and coloring to the whole woof and web of
character. It forms the head and the heart, moulds the affections, the will
and the conscience, and throws around our entire nature the means and
appliances of its development for good or for evil. Every word, every
incident, every look, every lesson of home, has its bearing upon our life.
Had one of these been omitted, our lives would perhaps be different. One
prayer in our childhood, was perhaps the lever that raised us from ruin.
One omission of parental duty may result in the destruction of the child.
What an influence home exerts upon our faith! Most of our convictions and
opinions rest upon home-teaching and faith. A minister was once asked, "Do
you not believe christianity upon its evidences?" He replied, "No; I
believe it because my mother taught me!"
The same may be said of its influence upon our sympathies, and in the
formation of habits. It draws us by magnetic power to home, and develops in
us all that which is included in home-feeling and home-sickness.
"I need but pluck yon garden flower,
From where the wild weeds rise,
To wake with strange and sudden power,
A thousand sympathies!"
In this respect how irresistible is the influence of a mother's love and
kindness! Her very name awakens the torpid streams of life, gives a fresh
glow to the tablets of memory, and fills our hearts with a deep gush of
consecrated feeling.
Our habits, too, are formed under the moulding power of home. The "tender
twig" is there bent, the spirit shaped, principles implanted, and the whole
character is formed until it becomes a habit. Goodness or evil are there
"resolved into necessity." Who does not feel this influence of home upon
all his habits of life? The gray-haired father who wails in his second
infancy, feels the traces of his childhood-home in his spirit, desires and
habits. Ask the strong man in the prime of life, whether the most firm and
reliable principles of his character were not the inheritance of the
parental home. What an influence the teaching's and prayers of his mother
Monica had upon the whole character of the pious Augustine! The sterling
worth of Washington is a testimony to the formative power of parental
instruction. John Quincy Adams, even when his eloquence thundered through
our legislative halls, and caused a nation to startle from her slumber,
bent his aged form before God, and repeated the prayer of his childhood.
"How often in old age," says Bishop Hall, "have I valued those divine
passages of experimental divinity that I heard from the lips of a mother!"
Dr. Doddridge ever lived under the influence of those scripture
instructions his mother gave him from the Dutch tiles of her fireside. He
says, "these lessons were the instruments of my conversion." "Generally,"
says Dr. Cumming, "when, there is a Sarah in the house, there will be an
Isaac in the cradle; wherever there is a Eunice teaching a Timothy the
scriptures from a child, there will be a Timothy teaching the gospel to the
rest of mankind." By the force of this same influence, the pious wife may
win over to Christ her ungodly husband, and the godly child may save the
unbelieving parent. "Well," said a mother one day weeping, "I will resist
no longer! How can I bear to see my dear child love and read the
scriptures, while I never look into the bible,--to see her retire and seek
God, while I never pray,--to see her going to the Lord's table, while His
death is nothing to me! I know she is right, and I am wrong. I ought to
have taught her; but I am sure she has taught me. How can I bear to see her
joining the church of God, and leaving me behind--perhaps forever!"
The Christian home has its influence also upon the state. It forms the
citizen, lays the foundation for civil and political character, prepares
the social element and taste, and determines our national prosperity or
adversity. We owe to the family, therefore, what we are as a nation as well
as individuals. We trace this influence in the pulpit, on the rostrum, in
the press, in our civil and political institutions. It is written upon the
scroll of our national glory.
The most illustrious statesmen, the most distinguished warriors, the most
eloquent ministers, and the greatest benefactors of human kind, owe their
greatness to the fostering influence of home. Napoleon knew and felt this
when he said, "What France wants is good mothers, and you may be sure then
that France will have good sons." The homes of the American revolution made
the men of the revolution. Their influence reaches yet far into the inmost
frame and constitution of our glorious republic. It controls the fountains
of her power, forms the character of her citizens and statesmen, and shapes
our destiny as a people. Did not the Spartan mother and her home give
character to the Spartan nation? Her lessons to her child infused the iron
nerve into the heart of that nation, and caused her sons, in the wild
tumult of battle, "either to live behind their shields, or to die upon
them!" Her influence fired them with a patriotism which was stronger than
death. Had it been hallowed by the pure spirit and principles of
Christianity, what a power for good it would have been!
But alas! the home of an Aspasia had not the heart and ornaments of the
Christian family. Though "the monuments of Cornelia's virtues were the
character of her children," yet these were not "the ornaments of a quiet
spirit." Had the central heart of the Spartan home been that of the
Christian mother, the Spartan nation would now perhaps adorn the brightest
page of history.
But the family, whether Christian or heathen, exerts an overwhelming
influence over the state. It is on the family altar that the fire of
patriotism is first kindled, and often, too, by a mother's hand.
"It hath led the freeman forth to stand
In the mountain battles of his land;
It hath brought the wanderer o'er the seas,
To die on the hills of his own fresh breeze."
The same, too, may be said of the influence of home on the church. It is
the nursery of the church, lays the foundation of her membership, and
conditions the character of her members. The most faithful of her ministers
and members are those generally who have been trained up in the most
faithful families. Wherever there is the greatest number of such homes,
there the church enjoys the greatest prosperity.
What a fearful responsibility must rest, therefore upon the Christian
home! If its influence is for good or for evil, for weal or for woe, for
heaven or for hell; if it is either a powerful emissary of Satan for the
soul's destruction, or an efficient agent of God for the soul's salvation,
then how responsible are those who wield this influence!
"Upon thy heart is laid a spell,
Holy and precious--oh! guard it well!"
Are you not, Christian parents, responsible to God for the exercise of such
sovereign power over the character and well-being of your dear children?
And will not the day soon come when you must "give an account of your
stewardship?" Oh! what if it be exerted for the ruin of your loved ones,
and they "curse the day you begat them?" What if, in the day of final
reckoning, you find your hands drenched in the blood of your offspring, and
hear the voice of that blood cry out from the hallowed ground of home
against you, saying, "How long, oh Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge
and avenge our blood on them that dwell on earth?" Oh see, then, that your
influence be wielded for good.
"For round the heart thy power hast spun
A thousand dear mysterious ties;
Then take the heart thy charms have won,
And nurse it for the skies!"
CHAPTER VI.
HOME AS A STEWARDSHIP.
"Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy
wages."--EXODUS II., 9.
"For look, how many souls in thy house be,
With just as many souls God trusteth thee!"
The Christian home is a stewardship. The parents are stewards of God. A
steward is a servant of a particular kind, to whom the master commits a
certain portion of his interest to be prosecuted in his name and by his
authority, and according to his laws and regulations. The steward must act
according to the will of his master, in his dealing with what is committed
to his care. Such was Eliezer in the house of Abraham; and such was Joseph
in the house of Potiphar. One of the specific duties of a steward was to
dispense portions of food to the different members of the household, to
give servants their portion in due season, and to superintend the general
interests of the master's household.
In a religious sense, a steward is a minister of Christ, whose duty is to
dispense the provisions of the gospel, to preach its doctrines and to
administer its ordinances. It is required of such that they be found
faithful.--1 Cor., chap. iv.
In its application to the Christian home, it expresses its relation of
subordination to God, and the kind of services which the former must render
to the latter. The stewardship of home is that official character with
which God has invested the family. In this sense the proprietorship of
parents is from God. They are invested only with delegated authority. Their
home is held by them only in trust. It belongs to them in the same sense in
which a household belongs to a steward. It is not at their absolute
disposal. It is the "household of the Lord," and they are to live and rule
therein as the Lord directs. They are to appropriate it and dispose of its
interests according to the known law and will of their divine Master, and
in this sense, yield, with their whole household, a voluntary subordination
to His authority.
As a stewardship, God has entrusted the Christian home with important
interests. He has committed to her trust, body and soul, talents and means
of grace. He has entrusted to the parents the training of their children
both for time and for eternity. These children are the heritage of the
Lord; they are not at the absolute disposal of their parents; but merely
entrusted to their care to be educated and dealt with according to the will
of God.
There is one great peculiarity in this stewardship of the Christian
family,--the absolute identity of interest between the Master and the
steward. The interest of the former is that also of the latter; and the
latter, in promoting the interest of his Lord, is but advancing his own
welfare. Such is the economy of the gospel, and it is this which makes the
servitude of the Christian so delightful. Faithfulness to God is
faithfulness to our own souls. Parents who are thus faithful to God must be
faithful to themselves and to their children. Thus, then, the interest of
God in our families is the welfare of all the members. When we act towards
our children as God directs, we are but promoting their greatest welfare.
This is one prominent feature of God's mercy towards us in all His dealings
with us. He identifies His interest with the interest of His people. This
is a powerful incentive to parental integrity, and is beautifully
exemplified in the mother of Moses. When the daughter of Pharaoh said to
her, "Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will pay thee thy wages,"
was not the interest of the queen and the nurse the same? In nursing him
for the queen, that devoted mother nursed him also for herself; and in
doing this, she was also promoting the welfare of her son, and executing
the will of God concerning him. This illustrates the principle of
stewardship in the Christian home. Of every child, God says to its
parent,--
"Go nurse it for the King of heaven,
And He will pay thee hire."
Here is the important trust; here, too, is the duty of the steward. It is
a trust from God, and the nursing is for God. The child is a tender plant,
an invaluable treasure, more priceless than gold, or pearls, or diamonds.
Your duty as a steward, is to nurse it, to cultivate it, to polish the
lovely gem, to take care of it. And in doing this for God, are you not also
doing it for the child,--yea, if you are Christian parents,--for
yourselves? Will not even natural affection, as well as the discerning eye
of faith, like that of the mother of Moses, detect in this stewardship an
identity between the interest of the Master and that of the steward? It was
not the simple compensation which stimulated the mother of Moses to accede
to the proposition of Pharaoh's daughter. What cared she for the "hire," if
she could but save her son! This was her great reward.
Thus the interest of the child should be the reward of the parent. God
will, it is true, reward the faithful steward of the family; but He
specially rewards and blesses parental faithfulness in making His purposes
concerning home, identical with the parent's and the children's welfare. In
this domestic stewardship,
"Like warp and woof, all interests
Are woven fast;
Locked in sympathy like the keys
Of an organ vast."
"Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you
the kingdom. Who, then, is that faithful and wise steward whom his Lord
shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in
due season? Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, shall
find so doing. Of a truth I say unto you, that He will make him ruler over
all he hath. But and if that servant say in his heart, my Lord delayeth His
coming, and shall begin to beat the men-servants and maidens, and to eat
and drink, and to be drunken; the Lord of that servant will come in a day
when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will
cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.
And that servant which knew his Lord's will and prepared not himself,
neither did according to His will, shall be beaten with many stripes."
Here, then, we have the character and duties of the steward in the
Christian home, the rewards of their faithfulness, and the penalties of
their unfaithfulness. As the stewards of God, we must be faithful, giving
the souls as well as the bodies of our children "their meat in due season;"
we must not "waste the goods" of our Lord, but be "blameless, not
self-willed, not soon angry, not given to filthy lucre, but a lover of
hospitality, sober, just, holy, temperate, holding fast the faithful word
as we have been taught." As the faithful stewards of God, we should
dedicate our household in all respects to Him, and make it tributary to His
glory. "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be
added unto you." The unjust steward will first seek the world and the
things of the world, its gold, its pleasures and its honors; and after that
seek the kingdom of heaven. But this is reversing the order of procedure as
prescribed by the Master; it is running counter to His will, and,
consequently, wasting His goods.
But the greatest trust committed to parents is, the souls of their
children; and hence their most responsible duty, as the stewards of God, is
to attend to their salvation. You should "give them the bread of life in
due season." It will be of no avail for you to inquire, "What shall they
eat, and what shall they drink, and wherewithal shall they be clothed;" if
you neglect this their highest interest and your greatest trust? "What
shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" It is not the wealth, nor the
magnificence of life which will make your home happy; these are but the
outward and fleeting ornaments of the world, and are too often the gaudy
drapery in which demon guilt and misery are clothed.
"The cobwebbed cottage, with its ragged wall
Of mouldering mud, is royalty to me,"
if souls are there "fed upon the sincere milk of the word," and "trained up
in the ways of the Lord." The training of the soul for heaven is both the
duty and the glory of our homes. What if parents lay up affluence here for
their children, and secure for them all that the world calls interest,
while they permit their souls to famish, and do nothing for their
redemption! Will not such parents be denounced in the day of judgment as
unjust and unfaithful stewards? And yet alas! how many such Christian
parents there are who prostitute this highest interest of home either at
the altar of mammon or of fashion! The precious time and talents with which
God has entrusted them, they squander away in things of folly and of sin,
leaving their children to grow up in spiritual ignorance and wickedness,
while they resort to balls and theaters and masquerades, in pursuit of
unhallowed amusement and pleasure.
Such are unnatural parents as well as unjust stewards, and their homes will
ere long be made desolate. Other parents prostitute the holy trust of home
to money. They are "self-willed" stewards, "given to filthy lucre," who,
for the sake of a few dollars, will "waste the goods" of their Lord, make
their homes a drudgery, and work their children like their horses, bring
them up in ignorance, like "calves in the stall," and contract their whole
existence, and all their capacities, desires and hopes, in the narrow
compass of work and money.
We would direct the attention of such parents to our last thought upon the
stewardship of the Christian home, (the practical view of which we shall
consider in the next chapter,) viz., that it involves the principle of
accountability. It implies a settlement, a time when the Master and his
steward shall meet together to close accounts. "Give an account of thy
stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward." That time will be when
"the dead, both small and great, shall stand before God." Then He will
examine into your stewardship. He will ask you how you employed your
talents, and to what purpose you appropriated those interests He committed
to your trust; and whether you were faithful to those souls which "hung
upon your hire;" whether you "nursed them for him," and whether you
provided them with "their meat in due season." And if you can answer, "Yea,
Lord, here are those talents which thou hast given me; behold I have gained
for thee five other talents. Here, Lord, are those children whom thou hast
given me; I have brought them up in thy nurture, and trained them in thy
ways." Your Lord will then answer, "Well done, thou good and faithful
servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things; behold I will make thee
ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!"
But if you have been unfaithful as stewards, and have made your household
unproductive for God, then you shall hear from his lips the dreadful
denunciation, "Thou wicked and slothful servant!" "Take the talent from
him, and cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness; there shall
be weeping and gnashing of teeth; for unto every one that hath shall be
given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be
taken away even that which he hath!"
CHAPTER VII.
RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE CHRISTIAN HOME.
"What a holy charge
Is theirs!--with what a kingly power their love
Might rule the fountains of the new-born mind!
Warn them to wake at early dawn, and sow
Good seed before the world has sown its tares."
From the potent influence and moral stewardship of the Christian home, we
may infer its responsibility. The former is the argument for the latter.
The extent of the one is the measure of the other. "To whom much is given,
of them much will be required." Our responsibilities are thus commensurate
with our abilities. If the latter are properly devoted, we have our reward;
if not, our curse. God will hold us accountable for the achievements we
make by the abilities he has given us. If he gives us a field to cultivate,
seed to sow, plants to train up, then we are responsible for the harvest,
just in proportion to our agency in its production. If there is not a
harvest of the right kind, because we neglected to cultivate the soil, to
sow the proper seed, and to train up the plants, then He will hold, us
accountable, and "we shall not come out thence till we have paid the
uttermost farthing."
This is an evident gospel principle. Who will doubt its application to the
Christian home? The family is such a field; the seed of good or evil the
parents can sow therein; their children are young and tender plants,
entrusted to their care; their mission from God is to "bring them up in his
nurture" and to "train them in his ways." And where God gives the command,
he also gives the power to obey.
If, then, by their neglect, these tender plants are blighted, grow up in
the crooked ways of folly and iniquity, and the leprosy of sin spread its
dreadful infection over all the posterity of home; if, as a consequence of
their unfaithfulness, the family becomes a moral desolation, and the
anathemas of unnumbered souls in perdition, rise up in the day of judgment
against them; or if, on the other hand, as the fruit of their faithful
stewardship, blessings and testimonials of gratitude are now pouring forth
from the sainted loved ones in glory, is it not plain that a responsibility
rests upon the Christian home, commensurate with, those abilities which God
has given her, and with those interests he has entrusted to her care?
Let us look at the objective force of this. The family is responsible for
the kind of influence she exerts upon her members Look at this in its
practical light. There is a family. God has given children to the parents.
How fondly they cling to them, and look up to them for support and
direction. They inherit from their parents a predisposition to evil or to
good; they imitate them as their example, in all things, take their word as
the law of life, and follow in their footsteps as the sure path to
happiness. These parents are members of the church, and, as such, have
dedicated their children to the Lord at the altar of baptism, and there in
the presence of God and a witnessing assembly, they vowed to bring them up
in the nurture of their divine Master, and to minister in spiritual things
to their souls.
Yet in this home, no prayer is offered up, no bible instructions given, no
holy example set, no Christian government and discipline instituted, no
religious interests promoted. But on the other hand, sin is overlooked,
winked at, and the world alone sought. These children behold their parents
toil day after day to provide for their natural life; they notice the
interest they take in their health and education, and the self-denial with
which they seek to secure for them a temporal competency. And from all this
they quickly and very justly infer that their parents love their bodies and
value this world, and by the force of filial imitation they soon learn to
do the same, and with their parents, neglect their souls and kneel at the
altars of Mammon rather than bow in prayer before God. And thus they go on
from one step in departure from God to another, until they die without hope
and without salvation.
Tell me now, will not God hold these parents responsible for the ruin of
their children? Will not the "blood of their destruction rest upon them?"
Will not the "voice of that blood" cry out from their family against them?
If, as a consequence of their negligence and of the unholy influence they
exerted upon them, they become desperadoes in crime and villainy, and at
last drench their hands in a brother's blood; and expiate their guilt upon
the gibbet, and from there go down to the grave of infamy and to the hell
of the murderer, will not their blood, "cry unto them," and will not the
woes and anathemas of Almighty God come in upon them like a flood?
Home-responsibility may be inferred from the relation of the family to God
as a stewardship. We have seen that parents are stewards of God in their
household, and that as such they are placed over their children, invested
with delegated authority. God entrusts them to the care of their parents.
Their nature is pliable, fit for any impression, exposed to sin and ruin,
entering upon a course of life which must terminate in eternal happiness or
misery, with bodies to develop, minds to educate, hearts to mould,
volitions to direct, habits to form, energies to rule, pursuits to follow,
interests to secure, temptations to resist, trials to endure, souls to
save! Oh, how the parental heart must swell with emotions too big for
utterance, when they contemplate these features of their important trust.
What a mission this, to superintend the character and shape the destiny of
such a being! Such is the plastic power you exert upon it, that upon your
guidance will hinge its weal or its woe; and yours, therefore, will be the
lasting benefit or the lasting shame. What you are now doing for your
children is incorporated with their very being, and will be as imperishable
as their undying souls. As the stewards of God, your provision for them
will be "either a savor of life unto life or a savor of death unto death."
We have seen that God has given to you the ability and means of making them
subservient to his glory; and hence from you he will require them as
entrusted talents. If you have been unfaithful to them, your punishment
will be in proportion to the wretchedness entailed upon your children. If,
instead of the bread from heaven, you feed their souls with the husks of
life, and lead them on by the opiates of bastard joys; if, "when they ask
of you bread, you give them a stone, or for a fish, you give them a
serpent," will it not be "more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day
of judgment than for you?"
Thus, therefore, you see, christian parents, how your responsibility is
measured, by the magnitude of those interests committed to your care, by
the kind of influence you exert over them, and by the enormity of that
guilt and wo which are consequent upon your unfaithfulness. Let this be an
incentive to parental integrity. The day is rapidly approaching when you
must give an account of your stewardship. Oh, what, if in that day you
behold your children "fit for the eternal burning," and remember that that
fitness is but the impress of a parent's hand!
Though it is painful to lose a child here; bitter tears are shed; pungent
agonies are felt; there are heart-burnings kindled over the grave of buried
love. But oh, how much more agonizing it is to bend over the dying bed of
an impenitent, ruined child! And especially if, in that terrible moment, he
turns his eyes, wild with despair and ominous of curses, upon the parents,
and ascribes his ruin to their neglect! Let me ask you, would not this part
of that sad drama add to your cup of bitterness, give a fearful emphasis to
all your sighs, and burnings to your flooding tears? God would also speak
to you, and say as he did to Cain, "the voice of thy" children's "blood
crieth unto me!" "And now thou art cursed from the earth which hath opened
her mouth to receive thy" children's "blood from thy hand."
But the scene would not close at the death-bed of your child; the second
act would open at the bar of God. The maledictions of that ruined one would
there be poured out with increased fury upon you. Parents of my home on
earth! I am lost--lost forever! Soon I shall go where "the worm dieth not,
and the fire is not quenched." Had you, in the home of my childhood, but
instructed me, and been as faithful to my soul as you were to my body, I
might stand here with a palm of victory in my hand, a crown of glory on my
head, the joy of the redeemed in my heart, and with hosannas of praise
upon my lips, rise upward to the untold felicities of God's eternal throne!
But you did not! You fed my body, but you starved my soul, and left it to
perish forever! Cursed, be the day in which you begat me, and the paps that
gave me suck! Cursed be the years that I lived under your roof,--cursed be
you! Oh, parents, such rebuke would leave an undying worm in your souls;
and would cry unto you from the very depths of hell.
This is no over-wrought picture. It is but the scripture prospectus of that
terrible scene which shall be enacted "in the terrible and notable day of
the Lord," when every Christian home shall be called to give an "account of
her stewardship," and be dealt with "according to the deeds done in the
body."
And let me say too, that a similar and corresponding responsibility rests
upon those children who enjoy the benefits of a faithful Christian home.
They must answer to God for every blessing there enjoyed. If they turn a
deaf ear and a cold heart to all the entreaties of their parents, and
resist those saving influences which are brought to bear upon them, and as
a consequence, become outcasts from society and from heaven, then let me
warn them that, every prayer they heard at the family altar, every lesson
given, every admonition delivered, and every holy example set them, by
their pious parents, will be ingredients in that bitter cup which it will
take eternity for them to exhaust! Oh, children of the Christian home!
think of this, and remember the responsibility of enjoying the precious
benefits of a pious, faithful parent. They will be your weal or your
woe,--your lasting glory or your lasting shame!
And, ye parents, be faithful to those little ones that are growing up "like
olive plants around your table," so that in the day of judgment, you may
say with joy, in the full assurance of reward, "Here are we, Lord, and the
children whom thou hast given us!" And your reward shall be, "Well done,
thou good and faithful servant! Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!"
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FAMILY BIBLE.
"What household thoughts around thee, as their shrine,
Cling reverently!--Of anxious looks beguiled,
My mother's eyes upon thy page divine,
Each day were bent; her accents, gravely mild,
Breathed out thy love; whilst I, a dreamy child,
Wandered on breeze-like fancies oft away,
... Yet would the solemn Word,
At times, with kindlings of young wonder heard
Fall on my wakened spirit, there to be
A seed not lost; for which in darker years,
O, book of heaven! I pour with grateful tears,
Heart-blessings on the holy dead, and thee!"
The family bible! What sweet and hallowed memories cling like tendrils
around that book of books! How familiar its sacred pages! How often in the
sunny days of childhood, we were fed from its manna by the maternal hand!
It was our guide to the opening path of life, and a lamp to the feeble,
faltering steps of youth. Who can forget the family bible? It was the
household oracle of our grandfathers and grandmothers,--of our dear
parents. It bears the record of their venerated names; their birth, their
baptism, their confirmation, their marriage, are here; and
"Though they are with the silent dead,
Here are they living still!"
How joyfully they gathered around the cheerful hearth to read this book
divine. How often their hearts drew consolation from its living springs!
What a balm it has poured into bleeding and disconsolate hearts. It has
irradiated with the glories of eternal day, the darkest chamber of their
home. What brilliant hopes and promises it has hung around the parental
heart! And here too are the names of our parents,--long since gathered with
their fathers. Here too are our names, and birth, and baptism, written by
that parental hand, long since cold in death!
"My father read this holy book
To brothers, sisters dear;
How calm was my poor mother's look,
Who loved God's word to hear.
Her angel-face--I see it yet!
What thronging memories come?
Again that little group is met
Within the halls of home!"
That old family bible! Do we not love it? Our names and our children's
names are drawn from it. It is the message of our Father in heaven. It is
the link which connects our earthly with our heavenly home; and when we
open its sacred page, we gaze upon words which our loved ones in heaven
have whispered, and which dwell even now upon their sainted lips; and which
when we utter them, there is joy in heaven! We would, therefore, say to the
infidel, of this "family tree," as the returning child said to the
woodsman, of the old tree which sheltered the slumbers and frolics of his
childhood, "I'll protect it now."
The old family bible! What an inheritance from a Christian home! Clasp it,
child, to thy heart; it was the gift of a mother's love! It bears the
impress of her hand; it is the memento of her devotedness to thee; and when
just before her spirit took its flight to a better land, she gave it as a
guide for her child to the same happy home:
"My mother's hand this bible clasped;
She, dying, gave it me!"
And the spirit of that sainted mother shall still whisper to me through
these sacred pages. In the light of this lamp I follow her to a better
home. With this blessed chart I shall meet her in heaven.
"With faltering lip and throbbing brow,
I press it to my heart."
Every Christian home has a family bible. It is found in the hut as well as
in the palace. It is an indispensable appendage to home. Without it the
Christian home would be in darkness; with it, she is a "light which shineth
in darkness." It is the chart and compass of the parent and the child in
their pilgrimage to a better home.
"Therein thy dim eyes
Will meet a cheering light; and silent words
Of mercy breathed from heaven, will be exhaled
From the blest page into thy withered heart."
Like an ethereal principle of light and life, its blessed truths extend
with electric force through all the avenues and elements of the
home-existence, "giving music to language, elevation to thought, vitality
to feeling, intensity to power, beauty and happiness."