We need him to keep us in God and with one another. Let the atmosphere of
the home have the fragrance of his heavenly spirit. It was one of the
trials of the early Christians, that they could not live in pagan
households without being constantly pained by symbols and usages hostile
to their faith. The Greek or Roman wife, if converted to the Gospel, was
scandalized by the idols on the hearth-stone, and often brought to death
for refusing to join in the idolatry; whilst in the camp and court,
paganism was constantly thrusting its pageants upon the follower of the
cross. Our modern life is not much troubled with many such tests of faith,
and most of our more showy households are utterly innocent of any signs
either of Christian or Pagan import in their furniture. From what is seen
in some parlors, whether in books or periodicals, or in pictures or
statues, we might infer the fondness of the dwellers, now for the battle
or the chase; now for the shows of fashion, or the haunts of dissipation;
now for the wonders of science and art; now for the shipping interest and
the stock market. But too rarely does the household have a true and
expressive representation of the ideas most precious to a Christian mind.
An ostentatious vulgarity is too much the rule in constructing and
adorning the dwelling, and a Christian taste is the exception. How many of
our showy dwellings, instead of impressing a cultivated foreigner with a
sense of the owner's refinement or spirituality, would only make it clear
that the owner had money in plenty to spend, and knew not how to spend it
wisely. Let these things be looked to. Let the economy of the household be
of itself a confession of faith. Let there he something to show that they
who dwell here are God's children, and live within his kingdom. Let not
gold be lavished upon unmeaning articles that show rather the capacity of
expense than the capacity of meditation, or which, like the mirrors that
are the chief ornament of so many houses, favor no reflection beyond that
of the vanity which they multiply. If we care for art, let Christian art
be not slighted, and with the landscape that portrays the beauty or
grandeur of creation, let there be some expressive token that the Father
has watched over men by his Providence, and blessed their homes by his
Word. We are changing people, almost a nomad race. One of the oldest
inhabitants of this metropolis lately remarked, that within his knowledge,
not one man now keeps house in the dwelling occupied by his father. Of
this fact I know nothing, yet sure it is, that we need in the frequent
change of abodes, to build more deeply and securely the spiritual home,
and live more among the memorials of things eternal. In the absence of
ancestral homesteads with their hallowed scenes and memorials, we should
seek to transmit some lasting tokens of our mind, and not make our
households as evanescent in their array as the fickle breath of this
world's fashions. In some way surely our best thoughts and labor should
live for those who come after us, and with goods few or many, as may be,
there should go some witness of truth eternal. Alike from our common
nature and our peculiar vicissitudes, we need to be deeply grounded in the
love of Him who came to open heavenly mansions into our earthly
habitations, and to make Him our abiding guest.
Looking into the ancient books of devotion, I find this date associated
with a household name, and sacred to the memory of a Christian woman,
Monica, the mother of Augustine. Such thoughts of home and its best
influences are well, coming to us, as they do, so fragrant with the
friendly and pious affections of ages. Monica lived long enough to see her
wayward boy a firm disciple at last, and after all his wanderings of
thought, devoted to Christ with all the enthusiasm of his nature. How
touching is that passage of his confessions in which he speaks of laying
her body in the grave, and returning to his lonely home to bless her for
her faithful care, and lament his blindness to her gentle pleadings. How
comforting the hymn of Ambrose that rose to his mind, as if by some
angel's whisper, and lifted his thoughts to the realm whither mother and
son had trusted to meet in a companionship beyond parting and beyond
tears. Bless this and all like remembrances in former times, or in our own
experience. Praise God for all the peace and power, the loveliness and
wisdom, that have entered the homes where Christ has been welcomed. Let
praise continue in prayer, and live in watching and good works.
_First of May._
The Orphan.
THE ORPHAN.
The genial air of May comes to us all laden with the sweet breath of
opening blossoms, and has a balm for the spirits as well as for the
health. It stirs within us a sentiment deeper than we know how to define,
revives our chilled or buried ideals, and makes every heart young again.
It cannot but give something of its own tone to our thought, and we find
that in all nations this month has been a continued festival in the
calendar, and associated with the loveliest imagery of earth and heaven.
The heathen nations, who gave the month its present name, called it so
after the fairest of their goddesses, and Christians following a similar
sentiment, and desirous also of enlisting every natural feeling in the
service of a purer faith, transferred the honors of Maia to Mary, and in
every land white flowers deck the shrines of the Madonna, and the "Hail
Mary" is the burden of the matin and vesper hymn. Some of the hymns and
aspirations connected with the season convey thoughts with which an
earnest Protestant may sympathize, and grateful for the maternal love that
has made our lives so blessed, we cannot ridicule, although we cannot
imitate the Italian devotee, who salutes the Holy Mother as the
representative of God's tender mercy to man through her sex, in words of
such fervor:--
"Joy of my heart! O let me pay
To thee thine own sweet month of May.
Mother! be love of thee a ray
From Heaven to show the heavenward way.
Sweet Day-Star! let thy beauty be
A light to draw my soul to thee."
May we not once more speak the name of Mary, the Blessed Mother, not to
adore her as a divinity, but to win from her an illustration of our common
humanity in one of its great sorrows and consolations? Cheerfully as under
the returning smile of heaven, solemnly as in presence of much grief, our
meditation now turns upon orphanage of the affections, as one of the facts
of our homes, and upon the secondary relations which may be its solace.
* * * * *
Consider, first of all, the fact as one of the events of every life,
sooner or later. Mary at the Cross is a representation of our common
humanity in its bereavements. Every mother and every parent in some way
enters into her anguish, as she saw the life of her Divine Son ebbing from
those cruel wounds. She was indeed doubly bereaved,--at once childless and
fatherless for the victim upon the Cross had been at once the son of her
travail and the father of her faith, born of her into the world that she
might be born of Him into the spiritual kingdom. His own pains did not
make Him insensible to her anguish, nor indifferent to the fact common to
our nature, which feels itself always so void and desolate, when the being
of all most loved is suddenly taken away. Tenderly He provided for her the
consolation that she needed, by commending her to the disciple, whose ever
present kindness would be so great a solace in itself, and so powerful a
remembrance of the departed by its associations. The disciple took to his
house from that hour the mother of Him upon whose bosom he had leaned.
Life is full of cases that illustrate the same principles, although not
connected with facts so peculiar. It may be said indeed, that some kind of
orphanage is the lot of every person, whose years are not early cut off,
and whose heart is not utterly hardened against home affections. The order
of nature is that children should survive their parents, and very many of
us in tender childhood have learned the worth of kind and judicious
parents, by being called to face the trials and cares of life without
their counsel and comfort. When the case is reversed, and the parent is
mourner for the child, the desolation of the heart is quite as great, and
the affections, deprived of their wonted object, are, perhaps, more deeply
wounded than the child's can be, even when losing the only protector in
losing the parent; so strongly do the affections press downward, and so
mightily does the love that sacrifices so much for offspring grow by its
own exercise. Every day this bereavement strikes somewhere, and since my
last word to you, it has stricken parents whose oldest child was last
Sunday present at church, and to-day is in his grave;--on Sunday I spoke
to that bright boy pleasantly at our school, and on Friday said the
funeral service over his coffin. Never can such a bereavement come without
leaving a feeling of double orphanage, for parents in losing their
offspring lose at once an instructor as well as a pupil; and surely the
eldest born of a family, however young, is spiritually father or mother of
much that is best in the parent's heart. Survey life in its whole compass,
enlarge our own experience by observation, and we need no argument to
interpret Mary's desolation at the Cross, or to learn that some form of
orphanage is the common lot; nay, that before life ceases, some portion of
our life is severed, when those in whose companionship we had lived are
taken away. The world is full of such desolation, and there are many to
whom existence is a burden, because its light has thus gone out.
* * * * *
But God has always some providential alleviations in store for such
bereavement, and let us turn from the fact to its solace. In some form the
mercy of that voice from the Cross may always be heard, "Woman, behold thy
son! Disciple, behold thy mother!" The Christian church itself never
practically unmerciful to its people, even in its sternest days, has
always rejoiced to comfort orphanage by the solace of secondary relations;
providing new proteges for the childless, new guardians for the
fatherless, and new homes for the homeless. There are few families of
large experience and just feeling, where something of this same office has
not been performed; and where, although other gifts may not be needed, the
solace of sympathy is never withheld.
It becomes an important practical question with many, how those secondary
relations shall be formed, which may in some measure take the place of the
ties severed by death. Here may be children without father, or mother, or
both. Here are homes that are childless either through death or by the
absence of the blessing, whose absence is of itself to our nature as a
bereavement. It is not well to leave the heart void, and God himself,
whose Spirit moved our Saviour to commend his mother to his disciple, has
provided alleviations. They who need them for themselves or seek them for
others must use their best judgment and principle in the choice. There may
be gross wrong or frivolous error in the selection, for there are some so
desperate as to drown grief in dissipation, and others so light-minded as
to lavish upon a parrot, or a dog, or a horse, the affections that belong
to immortal creatures.
There are three most obvious modes of selection. The orphan finds a
protector by some natural relationship, or by attracting some guardian
friend, or by being placed under the care of one, who occupies by marriage
the position of the parent taken away. Each of these secondary relations
has been full of blessing, as also of danger and trial. Many are the cases
in which a desolate child has been abused by a relative, swindled by a
friend, and oppressed by a stepfather or stepmother. But not judging
through plays and romances, but through life as we see it from a perhaps
favored position, we have cause of much satisfaction in view of the
secondary relations spoken of. How many a lonely child finds counsellors
and helpers among kindred and friends, who keep alive in his heart the
parent's memory by their kindness, and deepen the first relation by the
second! How many desolate parents comfort themselves by comforting others;
and how much grief is soothed, like Mary's, by distilling healing balm for
others from its own wounds! Among the ministers of mercy, that cheer this
too benighted world, none is more powerful than that which carries comfort
to the suffering in the name of some departed child; and who shall number
the countenances that contemplate the little ones, whose angels behold the
face of our Father in Heaven, to copy their tenderness, and throw their
light upon the path of the disconsolate?
Of one class of secondary relations, I cannot but say a word in justice to
the subject, and in a different tone from that which usually prevails. The
word stepmother has become a proverb in the language, and persons who
should know better, sometimes idly speak, so as to add to its odious
significance. But may not this relation be assumed in so true and devoted
a spirit, and its offices be so performed, as to be great mercy to the
orphan? No wonder indeed, that wretchedness comes from the misalliances
that sometimes introduce a giddy trifler without ideas, or a selfish
worldling without conscience, into the place that has been made sacred by
a true Christian mother now no more in the world,--when, in fact, some
greedy hawk creeps into the nest of the dove, or the wanton butterfly
invades the cell of the ant, or the provoking wasp steals the sweets of
the honey-bee's hive. No wonder that trouble comes, when natural rivalries
and jealousies are embittered by one, who is mother in name but not in
feeling, one whose first joy is personal vanity, and whose least wish is
to sacrifice any whim for the welfare of those now entrusted to her care.
Well may the curse of Heaven rest upon such connections. Let not a shallow
fancy or reckless impulse, never excusable, but least excusable in mature
years, dictate a choice so sacred as that which replaces the natural
parent by another. Let the choice be guided by words as sacred as those
which came from the Cross, and let him, who commends his children to
another's care, use his best thought and principle, as if called in this
way to say, "Woman, behold thy son! Son, behold thy mother!"
Whatever may be the form of the secondary relation, whether the virtual
adoption be from natural relationship, from friendliness or by marriage,
two obvious principles should preside over the choice, as in the example
of the Cross. The secondary relation should be such as not to shame the
first; and such also as to be a mutual blessing, a blessing to the
orphaned and the protector. When Jesus commended his mother to his most
loved disciple's care, he carried out the spirit of his own entire life,
and placed her in the charge of one whose companionship would be a
constant remembrance of himself. The lessons of the former years were
deepened by those that followed--the disciple was ever nearer his Master
by the mother's presence and the mother was nearer to her Son by the
disciple's ministry. Happy are they whose existence, however saddened by
bereavement, is not broken into incongruous or antagonistic
fragments,--happy are the orphan hearts who, like that adopted mother and
son, cherish throughout life the same high allegiance, and mature their
first vows in their secondary obligations.
This cannot well be, unless the second principle named be observed, and
due congeniality be found between the orphaned and the protector. Some
choice may generally be used, and the choice should turn on the fitness of
the one to guide and the other to be guided. No statement is given of the
process in our Saviour's mind, that led him to make the bequest of the
Cross, that legacy of love. But He knew what was in man, and knew well how
much the mother and disciple were fitted for that filial companionship;
the one by his deep intuitive mind fitted to enlighten her faith, and the
other by her boundless affection fitted to inflame his piety and charity,
to kindle his meditative wisdom into seraphic love. Let not the example be
lost upon those who shrink from claiming equal sanctity. Are any of us to
choose for an orphan or a half-orphan a protector, whether a guardian or
an adopted parent, remember the legacy of the Cross, and in Christ's name
minister to the desolate.
* * * * *
We have illustrated first, the fact of orphanage, and secondly, the
secondary relations that may be its alleviation. May we not add, that
where the principles recommended are adopted, great blessing results to
both parties concerned, the protector, and the protected. If, as the poet
says,
"An orphan's curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high!"
an orphan's blessing can lift to the mercy-seat of God a frail spirit of
the earth. Many a time has this blessing been granted, and they who have
befriended the lonely, have found a friend in God's own Providence. Is it
not remarkably the case, that orphan children when judiciously and kindly
counselled and cautioned, well repay all solicitude, and well appreciate,
as a gratuitous offering from their protector, the care which, if from a
parent, they might regard as a matter of course, hardly claiming any
grateful recognition? A relation of peculiar beauty sometimes springs up,
at once filial and friendly, blending in itself the affections both of
companion and child. The remark applies to step-children as well as to
those who are wards by adoption or guardianship. "Hence," says that gifted
and fervent writer, Henry Zchokke, "not rare instances in which
step-children manifest more cordial sympathy, more touching attachment
towards their foster parents, than their own children. For what the latter
are apt to take as matter of obligation, the former look upon as token of
disinterested love and genuine goodness; and a grateful mind brings before
them all the kindness and fidelity which they received from step-parents
in the years of minority. As children, they may not understand what you
have given, although they may see how you gave it. But when grown up, they
understand what you have done for them."
* * * * *
When under this form of adoption or the others specified, there is surely
enough to interpret such secondary relations cheerfully, and history is
full of passages, that illustrate the blessing of the legacy of the Cross.
In our own experience we must in some way interpret that legacy, and find
its joy or its rebuke. Do not leave the subject without touching its
practical point. If such and so general is the fact of orphanage, such are
the secondary relations which are providentially offered, and such is
their solace when properly employed, there is a lesson from the subject,
which no person can escape, a lesson as to our duty to our own children
and to others. First of all, bear in mind the lonely, and strive to be
comforter, and to find comforters for them. Think tenderly of the
orphaned, who are in any way near your own sphere, whether from
relationship, friendship, or any other association. It may not be, it is
not generally money, that is most needed, but kindness, counsel,
encouragement. Many an orphan boy is saved by a judicious word and timely
hand from a friend of his lost father or mother, and many a lonely girl
finds the path of peace and usefulness smoothed for her by those who
remember the parent's image in the daughter's face. The story of Moses,
the foundling of the Nile, and of Joseph, the exile from Jacob's house,
is often repeated in the lives of youths, like them in loneliness, and not
wholly unlike them in subsequent energy and honor. Think of this in your
homes, and make them pleasant and instructive and elevating to some guests
sought by you, because you can make them happy, and who will repay your
blessing better than guests of idleness or vanity, sometimes too eagerly
sought, who may besot and befool your children by folly and excess. Think
of it in your places of business, and seek openings of usefulness for the
unprotected. Then you may hear, nay, have you not heard other voices than
those of hard traffic there? then you may see, have you not seen, springs
of living water gushing from the dusty pavements which you tread? Think of
the orphan. For his own sake, do it, and for our own and our children's
sake. The probability is, that what others ask of us we shall need for
ourselves. We must expect that our children will be in want of the very
sympathy which we are to show; for who can be sure of leaving his
offspring mature enough in years and wisdom to demand no guardian care in
place of the parental? It becomes, therefore, an imperious duty to educate
our children in such a manner, as to secure them trusty friends; to give
them habits of self-reliance, that shall save them from annoying others by
burdensome dependence; to train them to conciliating manners, attractive
conversation, elevated ideas, that shall win for them the companionship
and protection of the wise and good, keep them in right paths, and mature
in their new homes all the worthy seeds of old scenes and affections.
Then when the hour of our parting comes, we can think not wholly with
sorrow of the legacy of the Cross; believing that they who have trusted in
us, may trust in each other, or in friends divinely given, and that future
years will deepen the former communion.
The great security, that this shall be so, is found where Christ placed
it, in the Father. "I will not leave you comfortless,"--or orphaned, as
the word is literally to be translated,--"I will come to you. Ye shall
know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." They that learn
to live in the Father's love, are saved from the worst bereavement, and
the orphanage of the earth opens to them the parentage of heaven. The
first and secondary relationships of earth are both commended and
consecrated by the relation prior to them both and primal of all, however
late it may be understood; for in spiritual as well as earthly ties, it
requires time and thought to know our truest friend; and the playmates of
an hour win the child of mortality's ear more readily than the far-seeing
parent, or than the Ancient of Days, the Father of all. Remember that
whatever paternal wisdom or maternal tenderness we have ever known here,
has its source and archetype on high. There dwells the Godhead that spoke
and wrought through the victim of the Cross; there shines the wisdom that
opened that disciple's vision; there burns the love that glowed in the
mother's faithful heart. From the unseen, comes all the glory that is
seen; and if any of us have an orphaned heart, as in some respects we all
may have, let us find its solace in God, and whatever is God's. Let the
sweet breath of May, that whispers to devotees of Mary's holy maternity,
fill our hearts with more than vernal promise, ideals of more than human
loveliness,--call us away from all wintry chills to the light and love of
the Parent above all parents--to the home that unites all homes in one.
_May._
The Young Prodigal.
THE YOUNG PRODIGAL.
How marked and how various has been the response of men to the Parable of
the Prodigal Son since it first came from the lips of Him whose life so
exemplified its mercy. Through all those changing centuries, the home has
kept its place in the affections of mankind, and that pathetic domestic
picture has never failed to waken regrets and compassion. The happiest
household is not without some errors that cry for forgiveness, and not
many are the families whose peace is not troubled by some prodigal. The
parable presents at once an example of earthly experience and a lesson of
heavenly mercy. Not forgetting the heavenly lesson, we dwell now more upon
the earthly example, as we speak of the prodigal in the family, especially
of his fall and his recovery.
* * * * *
The prodigal in the family! Far more frequently than the world knows,
might this epithet in truth be spoken, for it is not by any means from
notorious spendthrifts and open profligates, that wicked waste scatters
the goods of a household. If a certain man who had two sons, found in one
of them a prodigal under the simple manners of a rustic age, what may the
father of a large family anticipate in a state of society which makes
extravagance almost a necessity, and in a great city which brings the
vices and follies of every far country on earth to his very door. Never
perhaps since Jesus spoke, have His words found more ample illustration
than in this great city, that calls thousands and tens of thousands of
young men from rural homes to the fierce scramble for gold, and the
feverish chase for pleasure, and which in so many ways offers to drown in
dissipation the anguish of remorse.
It is not by any means always the worst boy of the family who takes the
road to ruin. It may be base passion or reckless selfishness that leads
him astray, but it is quite as likely to be too cordial impulses, exposing
him to enticing companions, or too sanguine hopes, entailing upon him
disappointment and despair. Of the many prodigals whom we have known in
our own lifetime, not a few surely have been generous natures, whom it was
impossible not to pity, and not hard to love. Sometimes the very
temperament that makes a youth amiable, and that should make him noble,
wins to him the most alluring of tempters, and he falls before some Satan
who comes to him as an angel of light.
The very tenderness shown to him at home may add to his besetting
weakness, by encouraging habits of self-indulgence. In fact, the parable
itself allows room for the surmise, that the younger son, from having
less care put upon him than the elder, was less schooled in self-reliance,
and because every thing was done for him as the pet of the family, he was
in danger of doing too little for himself. Certainly indulgence may be as
dangerous an extreme as sternness, and as many youths are spoiled by over
fondness as are made desperate by unkindness. Sometimes both extremes
unite in the same fitful temper, and children, now petted and now cursed,
learn indolence and rebellion in the same perverse domestic school. Rare
is the wisdom that can adjust the discipline to each temperament, and
encourage without over-indulgence, and correct without harshness. Not
always, however, is the fault of the child to be traced to error in the
parent, for every child has powers and responsibilities of his own, and
besides his own perverse will, there is a third party that frequently
comes in to make mischief.