Library of Che <t heologiccd £$min<xry 
 
 PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 E. A. Richards 
 
 HQ 728 .H3 1883 
 
 Hall, John, 1829-1898. 
 
 A Christian home 
 
 I 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/christianhomehowOOhall 
 
PHOTOGRAPH, ROCKWOOD, N. 
 
 HOT07YPE, F. GUTEKUNST, PHILAD'A. 
 
 Rev. John Hall, D. D. 
 
A CHRISTIAN HOME 
 
 HOW TO MAKE 
 AND HOW TO MAINTAIN IT. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN "HALL, D.D., 
 New York. 
 
 philadelphia : 
 The American Sunday-School Union, 
 
 1122 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 NEW YORK: 10 BIBLE HOUSE. 
 
" First God's love, 
 And next," he smiled, " the love of wedded souls, 
 Which still presents that mystery's counterpart. 
 Sweet shadow-rose, upon the water of life. 
 Of such a mystic substance, Sharon gave 
 A name to ! human, vital fructuous rose, 
 Whose calyx holds the multitude of leaves. 
 Loves filial, loves fraternal, neighbor-loves, 
 And civic, all fair petals, all good scents, 
 All reddened, sweetened, from one Central Heart." 
 
 Copyright, 1883, 
 By thk Amkrican Sunday-School Union. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introductory Note, vii 
 
 John C. Green Fund Books, ix 
 
 Chap. I. — The Family — Its Early History. 
 The family and the community — Houses not homes — 
 The right spirit — The family precedes society — Man 
 and woman — Marriage divine — Why a religious rite — 
 Yet not a sacrament — Its civil side — Polygamy — Pa- 
 triarchal experiences — Mixed marriages — Social bar- 
 riers against — Solomon's folly — Jezebel's influence — 
 Ezra's difficulties — Principles running on into the 
 New Testament — Marrying "in the Lord" . .11 
 
 Chap. II. — New Testament Light in the Home. 
 Jewish errors corrected — Genesis endorsed — Tempters 
 rebuked — The law in Paradise — Romish views — The 
 wedding in Cana — Significance of the Saviour's course 
 — Still to be invited — Parental feeling known to him 
 — Child-obedience also — Misread words — His high 
 example — Bethany — Christ and the children — His 
 '' Father's house " — New Testament homes — Ephe- 
 sians instructed — Oberlin — Children's lesson — King 
 Lear — Parents' monuments — A picture — God-like 
 love — The " help" — Deputy-mothers — Undermining 
 communism — Philemon ...... 25 
 
 Chap. III. — The Ethics of the Home. 
 
 " Dogma " loosely discarded — Religion involves ethics — 
 Men a race — Not like angels — Visionary economists — 
 "Well born" — Abraham and Rebekah on heredity — 
 Variety among human beings — Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence misread — Men and women unlike, but equal 
 — Property — The State interested — Purity — The 
 Church interested — Religious ceremony — Converted 
 polygamists — Our dangers from Mormonism — From 
 divorce laws — Asceticism' — "Fasting" ruled out — 
 Justifiable celibacy — Barrack life — The family life 
 and training — Schiller — Bacon 49 
 
CONTENT*. 
 
 Chap. IV. — Wise Choice. 
 
 No need to choose — Necessary burdens — Standard adopt- 
 ed — Reflex influence — Choice of husband or wife — 
 Mutual adaptation — Mutual knowledge — " Mixed 
 marriages" — About the wedding — The home — Not 
 the hotel— About the bills— The "help"— The self- 
 helpers — Teachers for the children — The elements 
 required — In loco parentis — Public schools — Their 
 teaching to be supplemented — Fitness for place in 
 the family — The state — The church — " Who is suffi- 
 cient?" — The "strength to the needy" — Light in the 
 dwelling 65 
 
 Chap. V. — Mutual Help and Care. 
 
 Two better than one — Captain Kane and the Esqui- 
 maux chief — Human capacities provided for — " Sol- 
 itary in families" — Spiritual communiou — Book of 
 remembrance — Reflex influences — The desert blos- 
 soming — Marriage ties consecrated — James Sherman's 
 parents — Joseph and Aseuath — Husbands won — 
 Words of warning — Married coquettes — "Which 
 family?" — Human wrecks — Children ruined — Pure 
 men's duty — The inclined plane 87 
 
 Chap. VI. — The Lights and Shadows of Home-life. 
 
 Topic ever fresh — Home touched at every point by in- 
 spiration — Pure atmosphere — Wedding-day — A per- 
 petual doxology — Setting out wisely — Bright skies 
 clouded — " Clear shining after rain " — Esaus and Ab- 
 saloms — The spirit of Samuel — Heroic self-denial — ' 
 " Reverse of fortune " — The tentmaker — The carpen- 
 ter's son — The want of six cents — A family tryst — 
 Thorn-crowned kings — Thanksgiving at home — " Eb- 
 enezer " raised in the parsonage 105 
 
 Chap. VII. — Development of the Family Life. 
 
 One's birth-place — T. Carlyle — " Peaceable habitations" 
 — Mutual fidelity — Spirit of marriage vows — Head but 
 not despot — Wife, not woman of fashion — Bishop 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Johns and Dr. Charles Hodge — Training by proxy- 
 Duff's boyhood — James Hamilton's father — " Honor" 
 — Dutifulness — Practical good sense — Wisdom that is 
 deviiish — Loyalty to the family — Confidence inspired 
 — Nettleton — Home-life poisoned — " Refractory ego- 
 tism" — Marthas with too much to do — "Heaven's 
 fallen sister" — How to lift her up — The power of love 
 — Confidence — Mother and friend . . . .128 
 
 Chap. VIII. — Home Government and Training. 
 
 " Father Abraham " — First " household " — A single 
 dwelling — Building up a family — " What is Abraham 
 to us?" — Communities live — Scattered coals — The pa- 
 triarch taught — So are we — Sodom's influence — Par- 
 ents, not deputies — Early impressions — John H. New- 
 man — "Parisian" — Unpaid assistants not principals 
 — Penalties of neglected duty — Parental austerity — 
 Precocious individualism — Its genesis — Hotel life — 
 Imported amusements — The bridge over to ruin — 
 Rich and wretched — Objections — Latent forces — Un- 
 equal I'esistance — Nothing to me — Need for forewarn- 
 ing — The "fortunate" — "One more unfortunate" — 
 Appeal . 141 
 
 Chap. IX. — The Worship op the Home. 
 
 Natural religion — The Lares and Penates — " Opened 
 with prayer " — What is urged — Regular hours — Grace 
 before meat — What is family worship — Regular at 
 meals — Scripture-reading — Music, or not — Fitting se- 
 lections — Touching life — Aids to devotion — An exam- 
 ple — The parting benediction — The reflex side only — 
 The higher aspect — Unblessed prosperity — Sorrow 
 added with it — " But two of us" — "Only in rooms" 
 — " So little time '* — " Strangers with us " — " No gift 
 of prayer" — An elder's preparation — "Family take 
 no interest" — Difficulties to be conquered — Prayer 
 put aside by society — Second generation sinning — Pun- 
 ished by the third — Illustration — Family unity — The 
 priest in the home — A soldier's lasting fame — A 
 prophecy of heaven 171 
 
v i CONTENTS. 
 
 PACtK 
 
 Chap. X. — Secondary Elements in True Home-life. 
 
 Divine government uses means — " Within our means '' — 
 Results of imprudence — The alternative — A wise her- 
 oine — A broad battle-ground — Beginning honestly — 
 The poets — How to do it — The power of gentleness — 
 "A real lady'' — One's connections — Hospitality — 
 "Dear five hundred friends" — Cicero on friendship — 
 The communion of saints — The ideal of a friend — 
 "Faithfully, yours ever" — The true humanity — Sul- 
 len obedience not obedience — Grown-up children — 
 Giving confidences — Parents not lodging-house keep- 
 ers — "What is the matter with father?" — Mother a 
 confidante — Hungry hearts 1 93 
 
 Chap. XI. — Enemies of the Home. 
 
 Infected walls — Poisoned atmosphere — Ruined life — 
 "Dangerous" — "Poison" — Disorder — Some one to 
 reflect upon — Recrimination — Home regulation — Pa- 
 tience with the learners — The easy descent — Children 
 ruined — Extravagance — A bad brotherhood — Intem- 
 perance — Injury to the innocent — "Those brothers of 
 hers" — Bonds of hospitality, chains of tyranny — The 
 apostle's ground — Ill-temper — "A hell upon earth " — 
 Piety at home — Not religion — Starving parents — Wide 
 religious divergences — How to guard against them — 
 A four-fold duty 213 
 
 Chap. XII. — Our Father's House, the Heavenly Home. 
 
 Secularism — Christians the true friends of the age — The 
 real liberals — "Free thought" — Believers have evi- 
 dence — Appropriate — Adequate — Free living — Reve- 
 lation made the home — The natural craving — The 
 adequate supply — Fountain forsaken — Broken cisterns 
 set up — Their defect — The great mutual benefit soci- 
 ety — Terms of admission — "Come" — Education in 
 what? — Unity of this life and the next — "Plots of 
 heaven" — Two forms of connection — Gloom below — 
 Light above — "Light affliction" — Weight of glory — 
 Preparation for enjoyment of heaven — Recognition in 
 heaven .......... 229 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 The story of this little book is easily told. 
 The editor of the publications of the American 
 Sunday-School Union asked me to suggest a 
 writer who could furnish such a work as would 
 serve the end contemplated in the generous 
 provision made under the Fund created in ac- 
 cordance with the bequest of the late John C. 
 Green. 
 
 I indicated the minister whom I deemed — 
 from his knowledge, experience and style of 
 religious life — best fitted for the work. After 
 careful deliberation he concluded that his duties 
 made it impossible for him to assume the re- 
 sponsibility. 
 
 The Union then, over-estimating my fitness 
 for the work, invited me to undertake it, kindly 
 allowing ample time. It was not, however, 
 
 (vii) 
 
viii INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 until the last summer, when I was detained by 
 other duties in the city, and when the absence 
 of most of the people cut off the pleasant 
 work of pastoral visitation, that it was possible 
 to give it proper attention. The effort has been 
 to produce a truthful and useful rather than a 
 learned or brilliant book. The divine word, 
 such acquaintance with human nature as a 
 minister gains, and deep sympathy with one's 
 kind — these have been drawn upon, and the 
 result is sent forth with the hope that God who 
 " setteth the solitary in families " will use it to 
 enforce the importance of founding and main- 
 taining family life upon the principles declared 
 in his word and by his providential govern- 
 ment. Then it will have accomplished the 
 purpose of the writer, of the national society 
 that seeks the highest good of the young, and 
 of the generous donor whose own life was emi- 
 nently consistent and elevated. 
 
 J. Hall. 
 
 New Youiv, November, 1883. 
 
THE JOHN C. GREEN FUND BOOKS. 
 
 The preparation of this volume has been secured under 
 the provisions of the John C. Green Fund, founded in 1877. 
 
 By the deeds of gift and of trust on behalf of the residu- 
 ary legatees of the estate of John C. Green to the American 
 Sunday-School Union, among other things, it is provided that 
 one-sixth of the net interest and income of this Fund, shall 
 be set aside and applied by the Board of Officers and Man- 
 agers of the American Sunday-School Union, for the purpose 
 of aiding them in securing a Sunday-school literature of the 
 highest order of merit, either by procuring works upon a 
 given subject germane to the objects of the society, to be 
 written or compiled by authors of established reputation and 
 known ability, or by offering premiums for manuscripts 
 suitable for publication by the Union, in accordance with the 
 objects of its institution, in such form and manner as the 
 Board may determine. 
 
 The premium plan is to be followed at least once out of 
 every three times. 
 
 It is further provided that the manuscripts thus procured 
 become the exclusive property of the society, with no charge 
 to purchasers for copyright, and with the intent to reduce 
 the selling price of any book issued under the provisions of 
 the Fund. 
 
Being thus modestly and soberly trained, and rather made 
 subject by thee to her parents than by her parents to thee, 
 when she had arrived at a marriageable age she was given 
 to her husband, whom she served as her lord. And she 
 busied herself to gain him to thee, preaching thee unto him 
 by her behavior : by which thou madest her fair and rever- 
 ently amiable, and admirable unto her husband. — Crams- 
 >F Augustine, book is., ch. ix. (concerning his motherl. 
 
A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE FAMILY ITS EARLY HISTORY. 
 
 The family and the community — Houses not homes — The 
 right spirit — The family precedes society — Man and woman 
 — Marriage divine — Why a religious rite — Yet not a sacra- 
 ment — Its civil side — Polygamy — Patriarchal experiences 
 — Mixed marriages — Social barriers against — Solomon's 
 folly — Jezebel's influence — Ezra's difficulties — Principles 
 running on into the New Testament — Marrying " in the 
 Lord." 
 
 In some points of view the community is 
 made up of the individuals whom it includes. 
 The population of a city is the number of sep- 
 arate persons the city contains. But, on the 
 side of its moral character, the community is 
 made up of the families within it, and what 
 they are as to purity, order and religion the 
 community will be. In most great cities 
 there are districts in which the families are 
 few in comparison with the number of individ- 
 uals. Such districts are commonlv the haunts 
 
12 ^ CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 of criminals, and even the value of the prop- 
 erty is usually lowered as the result. In such 
 places there are houses but not homes, dwell- 
 ings but not families. 
 
 As is the moral influence in families, prop- 
 erly so called, such, in time, will the commun- 
 ity become. The right condition of the family 
 constitution and relations is, therefore, vital to 
 the welfare of society ; and in a, nation like 
 ours — constantly receiving from other lands 
 accessions to its numbers, with their separate 
 formative influences — it is all-important that 
 the institution which preceded civil society 
 and underlies its arrangements should be kept 
 in its place and practically dealt with, accord- 
 ing to the divine will. 
 
 Christian people, while they should strive to 
 have the civil law under which they live in 
 harmony with the divine, cannot always realize 
 their aim ; but in the regulation of their own 
 lives they are never voluntarily to disregard 
 the divine requirements. Our question is not to 
 be, What can I do without incurring penalties 
 from the state? but. What will the Lord have 
 me to do ? A man may be a drunkard in his 
 
THE FAMILY— ITS EARLY HISTORY. 13 
 
 own dwelling, a gambler in the town, a bad 
 husband or father or son, and yet escape civil 
 penalties ; but a Christian counts the divine 
 disapproval reason enough for turning his back 
 upon anything, however grateful to the natural 
 appetites or sanctioned by society. 
 
 In view, therefore, of the family as influ- 
 encing the character of society, and of the 
 divine word as the rule of practice, we can 
 hardly ask too often or too earnestly what is 
 the will of our Creator in this matter. If there 
 be in us the spirit of his children — the true, 
 indescribable sympathy with " the whole fam- 
 ily in heaven and earth " named after Jesus — 
 we shall be at no loss to catch the meaning of 
 his words and deeds, just as a true son or 
 daughter, as by an instinct, apprehends the 
 desires of a trusted parent. 
 
 " Whate'er my God ordains is right ; 
 My light, my life is he, 
 Who cannot will me aught but good ; 
 I trust him utterly. 
 
 For well I know, 
 In joy or woe, 
 We once shall see, as sunlight clear, 
 How faithful was our Guardian here."* 
 
 * Rodigast, translated by Catharine Winkworth. 
 
14 A CH&ISTIAN HOME. 
 
 Society had not yet begun to be when the 
 Creator instituted the family, laying its founda- 
 tions in the first generation. Master as Adam 
 was, under God, of the new and perfect world. 
 his nature, as his Creator framed it, and 
 the perpetuation of the race, required more. 
 The earth might have been peopled with 
 human, as heaven with angelic, beings, "who 
 neither marry nor are given in marriage ;" but 
 it pleased God to create one man and then one 
 woman, the mode of it being doubtless intended 
 to be remembered and understood by men as 
 the exhibition of the closeness and sacredness 
 of the marriage bond. The words of the first 
 Adam in his innocence, " This is now bone of 
 my bones,and flesh of my flesh" (Gen. 2 : 23), 
 are interpreted and expanded by the Second 
 Adam in reply to the Pharisees : " Have ye 
 not read, that he which made them at the be- 
 ginning made them male and female, and said, 
 For this cause shall a man leave father and 
 mother, and shall cleave to his wife : and they 
 twain shall be one flesh? "Wherefore they are 
 no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore 
 God hath joined together, let nut man put 
 
THE FAM.IL Y—ITS EARL Y HISTOR Y. 1 5 
 
 asunder" (Matt. 19:4-6). To count this a 
 mere civil contract is to confuse the elements 
 of things. There was then no society in exist- 
 ence. No state had been constituted ; no law 
 had been made by men. It was a distinct, 
 divine arrangement. According to its very 
 nature, there were relations and duties to each 
 other, but there was also obligation to God, 
 who determined the character of the union and 
 assigned the duties springing out of it. When 
 civil society came into existence, its duty was to 
 recognize a principle already established from 
 above, and to adapt itself thereto. So " marriage 
 vows" now are from both parties to God no less 
 than from each to the other. Hence, where the 
 inspired history of the race is believed, marriage 
 is in the divine name ; and hence the ceremony 
 is attended with religious exercises, and with 
 the service of a minister of religion. 
 
 It seems of some importance to have clear 
 ideas on this subject at the present time. In 
 one section of Christendom marriage is made a 
 sacrament like the Lord's Supper.* This has 
 
 * In the Vulgate translation of Eph. 5 : 32 the words are 
 sucramentum hoc magnum est, the word sacramentum being 
 
16 A CHRISTIAN HUME. 
 
 been rejected by all Protestants. But the 
 alternative is not the theory of a mere civil 
 contract. The civil law will regulate certain 
 matters between parent and child, for example ; 
 but the civil law does not make the relation. 
 So it regulates certain matters between hus- 
 band and wife, but the relation itself is founded 
 in '''nature" to those who do not enjoy revela- 
 tion, and in the divine appointment to us who 
 do. ' ; That was not first which is spiritual. 
 but that which is natural." For its own pur- 
 poses society takes notice and keeps the records 
 of marriages, and the Christian, who is to be 
 a good citizen, is to aid in this precaution ; but 
 he marries "in the Lord."* 
 
 commonly employed in the Latin for the Greek word ren- 
 dered "mystery,'' which in the New Testament means a 
 thing not discoverahle hy reason, hut known hy revelation. 
 So the gospel (Eph. 3 : 3-9), the ultimate conversion of the 
 Jews (Rom. 11 : 25), the incarnation (1 Tim. 3 : 16), and the 
 meaning of the golden candlesticks (Rev. 1 : 20), are all 
 called " mysteries ;" hut they are not sacraments. And 
 indeed when the apostle says, in connection with marriage. 
 "This is a great mystery," he is not speaking of marriage 
 as such, hut of the spiritual use he is there making of it; 
 for he adds, " I speak concerning Christ and the church." 
 
 * It follows, of course, that polygamy, concubinage and 
 all such Iranian arrangements are opposed to the divine will. 
 
THE FAMILY— ITS EARLY HISTORY. 17 
 
 We may form some idea of God's estimate 
 of marriage as an element in forming character 
 from an examination of the way in which he 
 has dealt with his servants! 
 
 Abraham was married when called, but there 
 is evidence that both he and his wife required 
 training and discipline before the promised 
 seed was given to them. It is not hard to 
 imagine the depression, the heart-burnings, 
 the domestic trials, involved in the history of 
 
 He made one man and one woman, and constituted the two 
 one pair, one flesh. The often misused passage in Mai. 
 2 : 15 is to this point : " And did not he make one ? Yet had 
 he the residue of the Spirit. And wherefore one ? That he 
 might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your 
 spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his 
 youth." The "spirit" here is not the Holy Ghost, which 
 we are enjoined to ask, but the creative energy of him who, 
 had he meant man to be polygamous, could have made for 
 Adam two or twenty wives. But he made one man and one 
 woman, and made them one pair or flesh. And wherefore? 
 "That he might seek a godly seed" — perpetuate, that is, a 
 godly race. This is the best-sustained view of the text. It 
 is true polygamy was tolerated in some parts of the Jewish 
 history ; but any one who examines the lives of Abraham, 
 Jacob and David, who may be quoted in favor of it, will see 
 — what is not commonly noticed — that divine providences 
 discouraged the relationship in the life and home of each of 
 these men of God. Hagar, Rachel, and David's wives were 
 in various ways parted from their lords. 
 2 
 
18 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 Hagar. Lot was Abraham's companion. How 
 far his wife was the means of drawing him and 
 his family into the city, the society and the 
 ways of Sodom we cannot say. bat such a 
 judgment as fell on her is not usually inflicted 
 but as a mark and punishment of signal and 
 continuous sin. It was not the natural im- 
 pulse to look back, but probably the habit of 
 linking all enjoyment with the place, that God 
 :d and marked as displeasing to him.* 
 Abraham felt the importance of a godly seed 
 when Isaac was to be married. What fore- 
 thought, anxiety and precaution against his 
 union with a daughter of the land we have re- 
 ported to as, ending in the mission of the 
 prayerful Eleazar and the bringing of Rebekah ! 
 There is a glimpse of Oriental adventure in the 
 twenty-fourth chapter of Genesis ; but there 
 
 * There is nothing in the Scripture narrative, of course, to 
 justify the notion — taken up in a later time — that she was 
 changed into, or made to stand up encrusted with, salt. 
 This is one of the conceptions we get from the Apocrypha, 
 probably. All that is said is that she lost her life, and when 
 at some later time the body was found, it was " a pillar of 
 salt.*' The traditions and supposed ''pillars" only show 
 how widely the event was known and how deep an impres- 
 sion it made. 
 
THE FAMILY— ITS EARLY HISTORY. J 9 
 
 is also a deep and practical truth which the, 
 young would do well to study. Prayer to God 
 for guidance is the expression of our own sense 
 of need of direction : the absence of it and the 
 making of the choice without regard to the 
 Almighty is practically to say, " I am able to 
 arrange this matter of myself." If the results 
 are unsatisfactory, the responsibility is not on 
 the Lord ; and even with a believer he cannot 
 be expected to interpose and avert the natural 
 results of such a disregard of his claims. 
 
 In the family of Isaac the wayward and self- 
 asserting Esau disregarded the family tradition 
 and married the daughters of Heth, to his 
 mother's great grief, and to the stimulating of 
 her zeal in behalf of Jacob, and a marriage by 
 him among their own kindred. It is foreign 
 to our purpose to linger on details ; but it 
 would not be difficult to show that in these 
 suggestive memoirs every departure from the 
 path of obedience to God is followed by some 
 expression of divine displeasure, even when 
 the wrong-doer is an acknowledged servant of 
 God. Though he forgives the sin, he marks 
 his displeasure with " their inventions " (Ps. 
 
20 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 99:8). The notices of the lives of Jacob, 
 David, Judah, and even Moses, contain ample 
 illustration of this statement. Domestic strifes, 
 envyings and violence are among the recorded 
 results.* Just as the fall of Sodom foreshad- 
 owed the overthrow of the Canaanites, who 
 should have taken it as a warning, so these 
 sorrows in the patriarchal families, following 
 upon sins, should have been warnings against 
 judgments which the like lawlessness afterwards 
 brought upon kings and people. 
 
 It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if the 
 God of Israel warned the people against mak- 
 ing marriages with the daughters of the land. 
 (See Deut. 7 : 3.) The prohibition uttered 
 through Moses is solemnly renewed by Joshua 
 in his dying counsels (Josh. 23 : 12, 13). Not 
 a few of the peculiarities enforced upon the 
 Hebrews, as to religious rites, social usages, 
 perhaps even dress, and in all likelihood also 
 the slow and difficult way in which Gentiles 
 could be taken into the Hebrew fellowship, 
 were meant to keep up this separation. His- 
 
 * See in proof of this G : 25 : 38 : 7 ; Ex. 4 : 
 
 24-26. 
 
THE FAMILY— ITS EARLY HISTORY. 21 
 
 tory to-day shows the efficacy of these pre- 
 cautionary measures. The formal and weighty 
 reason given for the interdict is (Deut. 7 : 4) 
 the danger of apostasy, through such unions, 
 from the service of the Almighty. Subsequent 
 Hebrew history justifies the restriction. The 
 wisdom of Solomon has its glory stained by his 
 apostasy in consequence of the forbidden mar- 
 riages. Is there a sadder history anywhere, 
 even of a king, than that of Solomon's closing 
 years ? When so lofty a man could be quoted 
 as a precedent, it was not strange if later kings 
 followed the example. With an expression of 
 wonder at the audacity of his course, the sacred 
 historian tells us how Ahab took to wife Jeze- 
 bel (1 Kings 16 : 31), the princess of the Zidon- 
 ians, so inaugurating a series of tragedies, and 
 linking with Israel a name which stands for a 
 mission of evil and the attendant wrath of God 
 to the end of time. The dark device which 
 Balaam taught the Moabites to use against 
 Israel (see Rev. 2 : 14 compared with Num. 
 24) was thus brought into operation under 
 royal sanction, and the attractions of heathen 
 women were used to give to sin swift currency, 
 
22 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 and to bring down threatened judgments. 
 When Ezra sets about the work of reform, 
 these unlawful intermarriages (Ezra 9, 10) 
 form one of the greatest hindrances in his way, 
 for not the common people, but the princes 
 and chiefs, and even members of the priesthood, 
 had been leaders in the lamentable course. 
 
 With these principles urged in the earlier 
 Scriptures, with the consequences of disregard- 
 ing them illustrated in the gloomy memoirs of 
 Israelitish kings and people and enforced in 
 the prophets, it is no wonder that the New 
 Testament should assume that God's servants 
 of the later Israel would marry only in the 
 Lord (1 Cor. 7 : 39 ; 2 Cor. 6 : 14-18). Here 
 the directions relate to Gentile believers who 
 come to Christ after they have been married, 
 and whose wives hesitate about continuing the 
 relationship. The lines were so drawn in the 
 apostolic time between the persecuted Chris- 
 tians and their fellow citizens, and the distress 
 apprehended by them was so great (Paul mak- 
 ing it a sufficient reason for foregoing marriage 
 at that time, 1 Cor. 7) , that the temptations to 
 such unions would not be so many or so strong 
 
THE FAMILY— ITS EARLY HISTORY. 23 
 
 as in a later time. The "unbeliever" would 
 of course be a pronounced and decided foe of 
 the new faith, and of course fellowship, com- 
 mon sympathy, co-operation in worship and 
 service, and the general godly regulation of 
 life would be out of the question. 
 
 So much it is proper for us to recall concern- 
 ing marriage in the Old Testament. Like 
 some other institutions, it has within it, as 
 seen in history, a certain element of evolution. 
 We understand it better in the present from 
 having before the mind, in some degree, what 
 it has been in the past. 
 
What kind of yoke is that of two believers, partakers of 
 one hope, one desire, one discipline, one and the same serv- 
 ice? Both are brethren, both fellow servants, no difference 
 of spirit or of flesh ; nay, they are truly two in one flesh. 
 Where the flesh is one the spirit is one too. Together they 
 pray, together prostrate themselves, together perform their 
 fasts ; mutually teaching, mutually exhorting, mutually sus- 
 taining. — Teetulliax to his wife, vol. i., p. 303. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT LIGHT IN THE HOME. 
 
 Jewish errors corrected — Genesis endorsed — Tempters re- 
 buked — The law in Paradise — Romish views — The wed- 
 ding in Cana — Significance of the Saviour's course — Still 
 to be invited — Parental feeling known to him — Child- 
 obedience also — Misread words — His high example — Beth- 
 any — Christ and the children — His "Father's house" — 
 New Testament homes — Ephesians instructed — Oberlin — 
 Children's lesson — King Lear — Parents' monuments — A 
 picture — God-like love — The "help" — Deputy-mothers — 
 Undermining communism — Philemon. 
 
 It would be strange indeed if that New 
 Testament which revolutionized the world, and 
 which is a perfect guide to all times and all 
 lands in all things that affect faith and life, did 
 not touch, at many points, the life of the family. 
 Our Lord, who cleared the Mosaic law of the 
 misreadings and misconceptions of the Hebrews 
 in the " sermon on the mount," set his hearers 
 right also regarding marriage. Matthew (19 : 
 3-9) tells us how the Pharisees tempted him 
 with a casuistical question as to divorce. Pos- 
 sibly they hoped to draw out views like the 
 
 (25) 
 
26 ^ CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 Baptist's, and in Herod's dominion* draw on 
 him the same hostility. He replies by referring 
 them to the record of creation. He thus puts 
 his seal of approbation on the earliest chapters 
 of Genesis ; and no Pharisee or Sadducee ever 
 met his points by the denial of this historic 
 character. " He who made them at the begin- 
 ning, made them male and female." He did 
 not make merely two persons. He made two 
 persons adapted to each other, each needing 
 the other. Man, then innocent, and of one 
 mind with God, and not yet deprived by sin of 
 that part of the divine image which consists in 
 knowledge (Col. 3 : 10), draws a conclusion ac- 
 
 * Great interest attaches to this reference in our own time, 
 arising from the attacks on the historical character of Gene- 
 sis. Our Lord quotes Genesis as a historic book, and he 
 quotes from the first and second chapters as a continuous 
 narrative, as Alford has pointed out. He does this in refer- 
 ence to a scholastic point of great interest at the time, and 
 dividing the schools of Hillel and Shammai, much as the 
 schoolmen of Christendom were divided regarding the divorce 
 case of Henry the Eighth, at the Reformation. Our Lord 
 would not have rested his case on anything merely tradi- 
 tional or ideal, or other than historicaL He knew well all 
 the bearings of the discussion on the case of Herod and his 
 reckless wife, to whose hostility, it may be, the Pharisees 
 hoped to expose Jesus. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT LIGHT IN THE HOME. 27 
 
 cording to God's mind, so that it is here put as 
 his (Gen. 2 : 24) ; or v. 24 may be the direct 
 divine teaching. " For this cause shall a man 
 leave father and mother, and shall cleave 
 to his wife ; and they twain shall be one 
 flesh." Then come words which all Christian 
 churches have adopted, and the force of which, 
 let us hope, society, for its own sake, will never 
 ignore in legislation or in sentiment : " What 
 therefore God hath joined together, let not man 
 put asunder." The tempters take refuge, with 
 an ingenuity that anticipates the Jesuits, in a 
 perversion of Moses. " Why did Moses then 
 command to give a writing of divorcement, 
 and to put her away ?" Our Lord's reply 
 touches their perversion. He did not " com- 
 mand ;" he " suffered." He did not make the 
 principle general ; he suffered you, for special 
 reasons, — " the hardness of your hearts." The 
 sin was being committed : he regulated, limited 
 it, required form and order, and the utmost 
 protection to the woman so unhappily placed, 
 and thus reduced the evil. " From the begin- 
 ning," in Paradise, " it was not so ;" and our 
 Lord proceeds to indicate the only exception 
 
28 ^ CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 pertinent to the case in hand, and presents it 
 in such a way as not to confine the question to 
 the case of the ■woman only.* Human legisla- 
 tion must always work mischief when it ignores 
 the principle of this statement in any direction. 
 Rome has made marriage a sacrament, and 
 bases its indissolubility, not on Christ's ground, 
 but on the church rite. But Romish popula- 
 tions, where most imbued with this idea — in 
 Europe and in South America — are most loose 
 in the matter of personal purity. Divorces in 
 form are not chargeable on the community in- 
 deed, but the community is not the purer on 
 that account. Elsewhere facilities for divorce 
 have been unduly multiplied, and the sanctity 
 of the marriage tie is sacrificed. Marriages are 
 hastily and thoughtlessly contracted, because a 
 show of '•' incompatibility " will suffice to break 
 them. Thoughtful men are awaking to the 
 mischiefs which this policy is producing. 
 
 It was by no mere accident that our Lord 
 and his disciples appeared at the marriage in 
 Cana. His kingdom is peace and joy. It 
 
 *For further reference to this matter, see the chapter on 
 the Ethics of the Borne. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT LIGHT IN THE HOME. 29 
 
 banishes sin, and so banishes misery. It is 
 light and holy gladness. John's preparatory 
 work had an inevitable look of austerity. It was 
 overthrowing in part. Christ's is building up. 
 It is gladdening. It transforms, elevates, puri- 
 fies. It provides for present and for future 
 wants. All this is illustrated by "the begin- 
 ning of miracles." The water of earth he can 
 turn into the wine of heavenly gladness, and 
 by a word. And this typical and suggestive 
 display of power, and of the character of his 
 dispensation, is at a family feast. It puts 
 honor on the relationship of husband and wife, 
 as the system fully developed banishes polyg- 
 amy, lifts up woman, founds the family, and 
 lays the basis for a pure society. It is the 
 identification too of the miracle-worker with 
 the Ruler of all. He who transforms the rains 
 of the sky and the moisture of earth into the 
 grape and the gladdening wine, here condenses 
 the long and complex process into a moment 
 before men's eyes. He is Lord of all ; and he 
 will not have his lordship forgotten now that 
 he is entering on his distinctive work. Even 
 the natural tie which bound him to his mother 
 
30 ^ CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 is to be disregarded now that he enters on the 
 work his Father in heaven has given him to 
 do. Happy they who, counting him Lord and 
 Master, invite him to their marriage feasts, and 
 wise are they who keep away from them all 
 that he would not approve. His presence is 
 no check on gladness ; it lifts it up, and makes 
 it holy joy. 
 
 Nor is he indifferent to the nature of pa- 
 rental feeling, as God implants it. " If ye, 
 being evil, know how to give good gifts unto 
 your children," he says, and in the spirit of 
 his words he responds to the appeals of parents 
 for their offspring. He who drew the inim- 
 itable lines of the picture of the prodigal son 
 knew the heart of a parent and of a child. The 
 three persons whom he raised from the dead 
 were an only son, an only daughter, and an 
 only brother (Luke 7:11,12-15, 8:41-56; 
 John 11 : 1-45). He knew the aggravation 
 of bereavements in such cases. 
 
 In his own early life he illustrated the duti- 
 ful subordination proper in the child to the 
 parent. Notwithstanding the urgency of his 
 Father's business, which he cannot but antici- 
 
NEW TESTAMENT LIGHT IN THE HOME. 31 
 
 pate even in boyhood, he went back from the 
 temple and the admiring doctors with Joseph 
 and Mary, and came to Nazareth and was sub- 
 ject unto them (Luke 2: 51). There was no 
 irreverence in his question, " Wist ye not that 
 I must be about my Father's business ?" any 
 more than in the words of John 2:4, when 
 rightly understood* So Luke is careful to tell 
 
 * Young readers have been puzzled over this language as 
 abrupt, disrespectful in form and in spirit. This impression 
 is taken, first, from the style of address, and secondly, from 
 the question, " What have I to do with thee?" 
 
 But the first is not in any degree contemptuous, in the 
 language of many nations. See, for example, the same word 
 used in John 20: 1 5, " Woman, why weepest thou?" Still 
 more conclusive is the case of John 19 : 26, where the dying 
 Son says from the cross, " Woman, behold thy son !" Dion 
 Cassius, who wrote the history of Rome in Greek, makes 
 Augustus say to Cleopatra, when he meant nothing but what 
 was deferential, " woman, take courage, and keep a good 
 heart." It is interesting to notice that in Scotland the most 
 earnest style of address to an individual is in this form. A 
 popular writer of the day makes an educated man say to hi^ 
 friend, "Why, man, how could there be any such thing?" 
 (Black's Yolande.) It is common enough to emphasize it col- 
 loquially by saying, " Man alive I" 
 
 As to the question, " What have I to do with thee " — liter- 
 ally, " what is that to thee and me?" it is not disrespectful 
 like the English " mind your own business." It is often 
 used in connections implying courtesy, as Judges 11: 12; 2 
 
32 ^ CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 us of the subjection. " The blossom of his 
 inner life, which had opened and spread abroad 
 its first fragrance in the temple, was to continue 
 expanding it in the obscurity of Nazareth ; and 
 Mary was to wait eighteen years, keeping 
 all those sayings in her heart, before anything 
 else unprecedented should occur." * But the 
 ineffably grave character of his work did not 
 bury out of his sight the relationship ordained 
 of his Father. Hanging on the cross, bearing 
 a load the like of which never lay on any other, 
 his eye found out the guardian of his early 
 human life, and his wise foresight provided for 
 her : " Woman, behold thy son !" To the disciple : 
 •• Behold thy mother !" And John, who had a 
 good social position, " from that hour . . . took 
 her unto his own homey sons of self-sacri- 
 ficing mothers ! now, perhaps, lonely, feeble. 
 
 Sam. 16 : 10, and especially Matt. 27: 19, where Pilate's wife 
 meant only respect for Jesus. Our Lord meant to convey 
 the idea that now he was entering on his Father's work, and 
 that his obedience to him took precedence of regard to her. 
 It is the same idea involved in his language, Luke 2 : 43, 49. 
 "Thy father and I," said Mary, referring to Joseph. " My 
 Father's," said Jesus, referring to his Father in heaven. 
 * Van Oosterzee, in loc. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT LIGHT IN THE HOME. 33 
 
 and hungry for sympathy and affection, I do not 
 say to you be manly, be grateful, be loyal, be 
 tender, be chivalrous. All this one might well 
 say. I say to you, be Christ-like, and before 
 you provide for yourself, and before you set up 
 your own home, see that there be shelter, love 
 and care for her whom you learned, when you 
 had learned little else, to call mother. 
 
 Before passing to other portions of the New 
 Testament teaching regarding the home, we 
 cannot but note the side-lights on its features, 
 which are constantly flashing out from the in- 
 spired pages. Brothers and sisters may well 
 linger over the brief memories of Bethany. 
 What mother who has read her Bible has not 
 a mental picture of the Saviour with the little 
 child in his arms or set in the midst ? Who 
 that has watched over a sick child and relig- 
 iously kept the room quiet forgets the scene 
 where he put all out but the parents and 
 the three favored disciples, and then said, 
 Maiden, arise ! He had noted the children 
 playing in the market-place, and their ways — 
 so truly human is this great divine Saviour. 
 
 And when he would cheer his disciples with 
 3 
 
34 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 the most hope-inspiring truth, it is of his 
 Father's house in which there are many abid- 
 ing places, even as the inspiration of his life is 
 to do his Father's will, and the comfort of his 
 spirit : " Thou lovedst me before the founda- 
 tion of the world." 
 
 We have not time to visit the abode of 
 Zacharias and Elisabeth, or of Cornelius and 
 his household, nor to follow Lydia and her 
 household, active in business, but regular at 
 worship, and hospitable in the home, nor to 
 study Aquila and Priscilla welcoming and teach- 
 ing Apollos, nor to linger by the door of Mary, 
 the sister of Barnabas and mother of John 
 Mark, where the Jerusalem Christians held 
 their night prayer-meeting, and where the maid 
 who opened the door was so glad to see Peter 
 that she could not stay to let him in, but must 
 run to tell the rest ; nor can we delay by that 
 house in Cesarea where Philip, the evangelist, 
 lived with four daughters, all teachers of Chris- 
 tian truth — types of the godly women now 
 laboring in Sunday-schools, missionary societies, 
 and on mission fields. We must hasten on to 
 contemplate that high ideal of holy marriage 
 
NEW TESTAMENT LIGHT IN THE HOME. 35 
 
 set up before the Ephesians, where had reigned , 
 Oriental lust, where wives are taught to submit 
 themselves unto their husbands as unto the 
 Lord, their headship being, like his, not one of 
 arbitrary authority or of despotic power, but 
 of unselfish love in a stronger nature ; and in 
 which husbands are bidden to love their wives 
 with a love in kind like that with which Christ 
 loved the church, a love unselfish, patient, 
 generous, self-denying, and even unto death ; for 
 he gave himself for his church. Such abiding 
 affection in a pure, strong man will make it 
 easy for the wife to " reverence the husband.'" 
 Nor do we need to ask the meaning of the 
 same apostle's warning to husbands regarding 
 their wives : " Be not bitter against them " — 
 a most suggestive censure of that cold or su- 
 percilious or sharp way in which men often 
 deal with their wives, in contrast with their 
 gentleness to them in former times, or to others. 
 Well do I remember a simple peasant woman, 
 widowed in her early married life, telling me 
 with indescribable feeling of the happiness she 
 had lost. " Why," said she, " when we had to 
 go to fairs and markets together, people used 
 
36 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 to think we were brother and sister." He was 
 not " bitter against her." When Oberlin was 
 eighty years old and feeble, he was met as he 
 leaned on the arm of his son-in-law, while his 
 wife, less infirm, was walking behind alone. 
 The old man — gentle and noble — felt bound 
 to pause and explain how it was that she was 
 not leaning upon him. In how many dwellings 
 would a new atmosphere be breathed if this 
 canon of genuine refinement were observed ! 
 What poor, mean criticisms, petty fault-findings, 
 contemptuous glances and tones, would it ex- 
 clude ! 
 
 Nor is it needful to explain the directions to 
 children to " obey your parents in all things " 
 (Col. 3 : 20), as the way of being "well-pleas- 
 ing unto the Lord." He sees the whole reach of 
 influences and the whole growth of character 
 — that if the child learn, in the sweet and safe 
 school of a happy home, to obey constituted 
 authority in a dear father and a tender mother, 
 the habit of mind will run on, making an 
 obedient pupil in school, a careful employe in 
 business, a reverent member in the church, and 
 a good citizen in the state. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT LIGHT IN THE HOME. 37 
 
 " Children, obey your parents in the Lord," 
 says Hie same inspiring Spirit (Eph. 6 : 1). 
 He put them over you. They represent him. 
 He speaks to you now as he cares and provides 
 for you, through them. " This is right ;" it is, 
 in the nature of things, right. It is right now 
 and ever has been. God wrote it at first on 
 the human soul, and when sin blotted it out 
 he wrote it, with the promise annexed, on 
 tables of stone. And obedience to it has ever 
 been a blessing. " Two forms of sin," said an 
 aged clergyman, " I have commonly seen visited 
 with sharp punishment here on earth ; the one, 
 men's sins against woman, the other, neglect of 
 parents by their children." I recall a scene of 
 sharpest sorrow — an aged man, bent down with 
 disease and broken-hearted because a son was 
 habitually trampling upon his feelings and in- 
 terests. " Ah ! I see it well," he said. " I can 
 say nothing. I was a bad boy to my father. 
 I am punished in the way of my sin." 
 
 Children, honor father and mother in that 
 sense in which the teaching and ruling elder is 
 to have " double honor." In France, where the 
 partition of lands is carried very far, and the 
 
38 ^ CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 care of aged parents is assigned to the children 
 among whom the parental farm is divided, the 
 utmost care is needed to keep the aged ones 
 from being thrown a burden on the state. It 
 is the misery of King Lear reproduced in hum- 
 ble life : 
 
 " Sharper than a serpent's tooth it is 
 To have a thankless child." 
 
 Cherish the feelings, maintain the forms, keep 
 the language, and, no matter what it costs you. 
 do the deeds of affectionate reverence. 
 
 Nor is the allwise Spirit unmindful of duty 
 on the other side. " Ye fathers, provoke not 
 your children to wrath," by unreasonable des- 
 potism, by unwise tyranny, by disheartening 
 exaction. They are to be noticed when they act 
 well, appreciated in their honest efforts to do 
 their duty, and cheered to fresh effort if they seem 
 to fail. " I never hear a word but an order or 
 a complaint." So said one whose mother was 
 querulous, fretful and discontented, and with 
 the least possible reason. On the other hand, 
 when the high ideal of right to be loved and 
 done at all costs is kept before the mind in all 
 fitting ways, and where the consistent life and 
 
NEW TESTAMENT LIGHT IN THE HOME. 39 
 
 the affectionate geniality commend and illus- 
 trate this ideal, a power is being set to work 
 in the child's mind which works silently and 
 yet effectively. " I find myself often," said a 
 refined and accomplished woman mainly occu- 
 pied now with her own grandchildren, " when 
 I have to consider a matter, reflecting what 
 mother would have me do, and if I settle into 
 the feeling that she would approve my course, 
 I feel more sure of its being right." What a 
 monument a parent may thus erect ! 
 
 As a preventive of the " bitterness," a par- 
 ent docs wisely, at some season when " off' 
 duty," to converse freely and as an equal with 
 the child, to explain things, and to make it 
 understood that it is not self-assertion, nor love 
 of having one's own way, nor wounded self- 
 love or passion, that prompts the use of " the 
 rod," in whatever form it may be employed, 
 but a sense of obligation to God and of re- 
 sponsibility for the child. One of our philoso- 
 phers — not always to be implicitly followed — 
 has given society a little book on education, 
 containing, among other cautions, a useful warn- 
 ing on this subject. A child is warned against 
 
40 -A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 a rash movement on the stairs. One day he 
 makes it, tumbles, and is hurt. He is seized 
 in a rough and punitive way, shaken perhaps 
 a little, to the aggravation of his pain from the 
 fall, and comforted thus : " Didn't I tell you 
 not to go that way ? I'll teach you to obey 
 me." The better plan would be, truly says our 
 philosopher, to appeal to the child's reason, and 
 to do it with sympathy and kindness. " I am 
 sorry you are hurt ; but I warned you because 
 I feared your being hurt." That this latter 
 method is the better of the two there can be 
 no reasonable doubt ; whether a religious ele- 
 ment could not be wisely imported into the 
 matter is an open question. Certain it is that 
 moral maxims in such circumstances, empha- 
 sized by a rough shake of an aching limb, are 
 presented, as human nature is, at a great 
 disadvantage. They are not " the truth in 
 love."* 
 
 Here is a picture which will endure after 
 
 * The poor Lascar on the P. & 0. steamer, whom the officer 
 lectured after severe discipline, uttered in his own way a 
 natural and common feeling when he said, " Floggee, flog- 
 gee, preachee, preachee ; but no floggee and preachee both !" 
 
NEW TESTAMENT LIGHT JN THE HOME. 41 
 
 Rembrandt's and Turner's have perished, for 
 it is painted on indestructible canvas. It is a 
 Sunday afternoon in autumn, in a far-away land. 
 Father and family had been to God's house in 
 the forenoon, and had the family meal together. 
 The cornfields lay around the house, the grain 
 becoming golden, and the mild sunshine bright- 
 ening all the scene. A tall, strong man is 
 pacing slowly and with a happy, tranquil mien 
 along the " head of the field," where a space is 
 left uncultivated. His boy, held by the hand, 
 is by his side. As the father talks to him the 
 boy's mind is busy thus : " Why, father is often 
 thinking about me ; about what I am to be ; 
 father thinks I can grow up to something ; 
 father thinks I know many things, and that I 
 can judge as he does ; father has been long 
 planning how I can be helped to be good and 
 happy; father thinks I can fear God and be 
 good, and that I will. I had no notion of ail 
 this ; with God's help I'll try to be what father 
 wishes me." That father has been with the 
 blest for over thirty years. Almost all things 
 have since then changed save the sweet sun- 
 shine ; but that walk and talk, and the impres- 
 
A CHBISTIAX HOME. 
 
 sion of tha: and hand, are as f. - 
 
 they were on that plea- bath afternoon. 
 
 par en: your children as God I 
 
 He never winks at our sins. He never fa:! 
 recall his will. He ne: - us sin without 
 
 his prot: _st it. <ur childrei- 
 
 he I I there i -ing 
 
 fond of them. Love them as he d 
 
 re will be authority side with 
 
 no bi I children ! 
 
 father's and that mother's love — a faint echo 
 
 Vs infinite tendernes — 
 there will be dutifulness on your 
 
 nout pain to gentle, just au- 
 thority on the other. Then home, called 
 •• heaven's fallen i ." will have to you ever 
 
 - roach to the perfection of which 
 sin robbed it. 
 
 We cannc from this subject without 
 
 ■ing another class which the New T 
 ment recognizes in the home, even to describe 
 who* tibers, in delicate 
 
 and dif -k. The institution of shr 
 
 made the word " servant " — as applied to free 
 labor — offensive. But " help " is a odef- 
 
NEW TESTAMENT LIGHT IN THE HOME. 43 
 
 inite word.* It was when slavery prevailed 
 that the New Testament enjoined relative 
 duties : " Servants, be obedient to them that 
 are your masters according to the flesh " (Eph. 
 6 : 5-8) . " Masters, give unto your servants 
 that which is just and equal" (Col. 4:1). 
 How much Christianity mitigated evils which 
 it at length abates has been shown under the 
 sway of slavery as an institution; and how 
 much it has sweetened intercourse between the 
 
 *The writer has enjoyed for many years the aid of a 
 Christian lady in the church, who conducts a female Bible 
 class on the Sabbath afternoon — the time most free in the 
 city — for the Deborahs and " little Hebrew maids " of whom, 
 thank God, there are many in the church. How to announce 
 it was a puzzle. " Help " is neither male nor female. " Fe- 
 male servants" contains the offensive element. It took form 
 at length in some way as a class conducted by a lady " for 
 those of her own sex who minister to our comfort in our 
 dwellings." That some periphrasis is often needed was 
 proved by a less felicitous experience. In view of many 
 men around the place, such as coachmen, stable-helpers, and 
 others, a mei-chant undertook a Sabbath evening Bible class 
 for them. A neat circular explaining its purpose was freely 
 distributed among them, inviting them to the "men's Bible 
 class." Only two came. "Yes," said a very shrewd gentle- 
 man, " I saw the paper. I knew it would not do. It should 
 have been gentlemen's class. There are no 'men' here- 
 abouts." 
 
44: A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 employer and the man and woman paid for 
 service in the home, one does not need to prove. 
 I hare known cases of Christian servants so 
 faithful and beloved that it was stipulated and 
 arranged that they should lie in the same grave- 
 plot with the family in which a lifetime had 
 been spent. Let Christian men take an interest 
 in those to whom they pay wages, " knowing 
 that they also have a Master in heaven," in- 
 quire as to their facilities for public worship, 
 encourage them in this regard, do the like with 
 their children, and themselves exercise some of 
 that influence to bring which to bear they con- 
 tribute to missionary objects, and they will as 
 often see fruit as, person for person, does the 
 minister from his preaching. Christian women! 
 these housemaids and seamstresses are some- 
 body's daughters, and they are away from their 
 mothers. They are girls, young women, with 
 the same nature your daughters possess. Be 
 deputy mothers to them. Gain and keep their 
 confidence. Make them feel that they have 
 Christian friends in you. Pray with them in 
 their troubles. Give them sympathy as well 
 as orders. You will reap the results in their 
 
NEW TESTAMENT LIGHT IN THE HOME. 45 
 
 gratitude and love, in their good, in the glory 
 of Jesus Christ. "Your Master also is in 
 heaven ; neither is there respect of persons with 
 him" (Eph. 6:9). Let an opposite course 
 be followed ; let life down stairs be as it were 
 a thousand miles away from life above stairs ; 
 let the only contact be in giving and receiving 
 orders on affairs of the house in which the 
 gentle rule — "forbearing threatening" — is some- 
 times, alas ! forgotten, and is it to be wondered 
 at if evil habits are contracted, if bad marriages 
 follow the unrecognized area courtships, and if 
 between class and class, money and labor, there 
 grow up in time those feelings of which Com- 
 munism, Nihilism and the like, with a good 
 deal of justification, and still more that is 
 reprehensible, should disturb the quiet-minded 
 and alarm the nations ? 
 
 In putting down these hints and suggestions, 
 the writer has in mind in a good degree the 
 condition of things growing up in our great 
 cities. He has no little satisfaction in remem- 
 bering that there are hundreds of thousands of 
 families in which the women who "stand and 
 wait " are in truth and reality a part of the 
 
46 -4 CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 household, treated as members of the family, 
 looked for around the family altar, and counted 
 upon with their Christian sympathy and help 
 in any time of family trouble. May God bless 
 these gentle Marys and the Rhodas who know 
 their nature and rejoice in their joy (Acts 12 : 
 12-14), and increase their number from year 
 to year. May he raise up more and more men 
 of the type that Paul desired Philemon — in a 
 letter which, inspired as it is, is at the same 
 time a matchless compound of chivalrous gen- 
 tlemanliness and Christian grace — to exemplify, 
 and there is many an Onesimus who will — not 
 by running away and falling into a minister's 
 hands, but by remaining at home — become 
 " above a servant, a brother beloved " (Phil, 
 v. 16). And to such men interests may be 
 intrusted with confidence ; to such men the 
 advocates of assassination as a reforming 
 agency commonly appeal in vain. 
 
A disciple of the New Testament, whose views are sub- 
 limed by its doctrines and its hopes, has gotten a superiority 
 over the passions ; a certain nobility of soul ; a reach ot 
 perspective to distant consequences, whether on this or the 
 other side of the grave ; an ascendency of sentiment over 
 sense ; and withal a refinement and elevation of taste which, 
 though caught at first from converse with spiritual and eter- 
 nal things, still adheres to him, even when busied with the 
 interests and concerns of the present life. — Thomas Chal- 
 mers, D.D.. Political Economy, p. 424. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE ETHICS OF THE HOME. 
 
 " Dogma" loosely discarded — Religion involves ethics — Men 
 a race — Not like angels — Visionary economists — " Well- 
 born " — Abraham and Rebekah on heredity — Variety 
 among human beings — Declaration of Independence mis- 
 read — Men and women unlike, but equal — Property — The 
 State interested — Purity — The Church interested — Religi- 
 ous ceremony — Converted polygamists — Our dangers from 
 Mormonism — From divorce laws — Asceticism — " Fasting" 
 ruled out — Justifiable celibacy — Barrack life — The family 
 life and training — Schiller — Bacon. 
 
 It is a common, loose statement that religi- 
 ous teachers concern themselves too much with 
 views, or, as it is popular to say, " dogmas," 
 and too little with ethics. Had we the oppor- 
 tunity to question these critics, and ask for an 
 exact definition of ethics, we should find end- 
 less variety of indefinite thinking. Take the 
 very attractively simple definition : In physics 
 we discuss what is, in ethics what ought to be. 
 But is not religion, with its just thinking and 
 its divine teaching as to right and wrong, aim- 
 ing directly at well-being, i. e., at what ought 
 
 4 (49) 
 
50 -A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 to be ? And do not facts show that human 
 well-being is best promoted by true religious 
 teaching ? Where are the criminals reformed, 
 the families elevated, the drunkards and the 
 impure restored, hy unbelief? Probably the 
 objectors have an idea that there are certain 
 principles operating in the nature of things, 
 and apart from religious obligation (which 
 they, mistakenly, count an arbitrary burden 
 laid on men),* and which they represent to 
 themselves as ethics. Without admitting for 
 a moment the truth of this view, it may serve 
 some good end to look at the constitution of 
 the home apart from direct Scripture injunc- 
 tion. 
 
 It has to be borne in mind that we are part 
 of a race. The angels are not affected by 
 birth, training, family tradition, or any similar 
 influence. There is no question of "heredity" 
 
 * We say "mistakenly," for God's commands contemplate 
 the nature of man, which he, the Maker, knows better than 
 man can do. They are the decrees of a sovereign God, but 
 they are not arbitrary, in the sense of having no basis in the 
 nature of things. Take any commandment of the Decalogue, 
 even the fourth, and it is easy to show that it is prudent for 
 man to keep it. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE HOME. 51 
 
 affecting them. There are fine ethical theories 
 of society constructed for man, as though each 
 individual stood alone, complete in himself and 
 independent, ready to look around and make 
 the best bargains he can with the other inde- 
 pendent units of the world. But this is a 
 visionary, an unreal view. Every human 
 being is linked with other beings — father, 
 mother, kindred — and is affected by what they 
 are physically, intellectually and morally. He 
 is formed in a degree by his surroundings, 
 companionships, circumstances. There is, in 
 spite of all suggested to the contrary, such a 
 thing as being " well-born," "well-bred." Now, 
 where in the inspired word is there any ignor- 
 ing of that fact ? The sacred writers are true 
 to the facts of life, where the philosophers are 
 not. It was a true instinct that led Abraham 
 to exact an oath from his eldest servant not to 
 take a wife for Isaac from the daughters of the 
 Canaanites; that made Rebekah so weary of her 
 life, because of the daughters of Heth married 
 by Esau, and so anxious that Jacob should do 
 otherwise. The family, and not the individual, 
 is the starting-point of human society in the 
 
52 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 nature of the case, as truly as in the history of 
 Scripture. 
 
 Once more : the human race is not like a 
 regiment of soldiers, all alike endowed, armed, 
 uniformed and prepared for the same service. 
 There are inherent inequalities, essential dif- 
 ferences. One sex is physically weaker, as a 
 rule, than the other. The mental constitution 
 of one sex is different from that of the other, 
 stronger in some regards, weaker in others. 
 Any theory of education, government and life 
 that ignores this fact must break down at 
 length. That all men and women are " free 
 and equal" by the nature of things does not 
 mean that all men and women are essentially 
 alike, nor that relations of authority and sub- 
 ordination may not exist. The Declaration, of 
 Independence never was meant to destroy the 
 relations between employer and employed, 
 master and pupil or apprentice, parent and 
 child, husband and wife ; though from the argu- 
 ments made, one would sometimes suppose this 
 to be its proper intent. We are "free and 
 equal," not the serfs of human despotism or 
 the slaves of human proprietors. He therefore 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE HOME. 53 
 
 who would blot out the obligation of the child 
 to obey the parent, of the servant to do the 
 bidding of the master, even of the younger 
 children to respect the views and example of 
 the elder, of the wife to reverence her husband 
 and to count herself the weaker vessel, would 
 engage in a Quixotic war against fixtures in 
 the nature of things. He might almost as 
 reasonably insist that women should be uni- 
 formly as tall and weighty as men ; that chil- 
 dren should spring into being full-grown ; and 
 that each from the moment of birth should be 
 self-supporting. Marriage, it follows, is a rela- 
 tion of inter-dependence between two persons. 
 Each surrenders something needful to complete 
 the being of the other, and each receives in 
 return. Two married persons, husband and 
 wife, are not like two soldiers in a company, 
 each the counterpart of the other. They are 
 the complement of each other ; and as right 
 feeling harmonizes officers and men, infantry 
 and cavalry, making an effective army, so the 
 inequalities of nature are regulated to the 
 founding of the family on a basis of mutual 
 help, trust and affection. 
 
54 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 But there can be no family life without the 
 question of property being raised. But prop- 
 erty implies labor, and also the presence of 
 others around us. The very word implies this. 
 How can a thing be one's own but on the 
 assumption that there are others around from 
 whose possessions his are distinct ? It follows, 
 therefore, that society, i. e., the state by its 
 laws, must have something to do with the 
 home. It is not by an arbitrary assumption 
 of authority, but by a necessity of the case, 
 that civil law takes cognizance of marriage. 
 If one can conceive of a civilization not in the 
 least affected by a divine revelation, even in 
 such a civilization, in the nature of the case, 
 the magistrate and the legislator must have 
 something to do with marriage, for they must 
 recognize property rights of wives and children. 
 Society could not help itself; it must say in 
 one form or other to the husband " Provide for 
 thine own ;" it must respect, and if need be 
 enforce, the rights "his own" have upon him. 
 It must in the last resort even say to the man, 
 practically, " In the sweat of thy face thou 
 shalt eat bread :" and it must see that the 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE HOME. 55 
 
 bread, in whatever form it is gotten — money, 
 real estate, or whatever else — reaches the 
 children — the heirs : but this implies its cog- 
 nizance of all that which establishes legitimacy 
 and makes heirs.* 
 
 For reasons different, but just as strong, the 
 Church must, in the nature of things, take 
 cognizance of marriage. It is no scheme of 
 priestcraft — which is bad enough in itself, and 
 has enough just charges proved against it — 
 that makes this connection. All men would 
 hold the Church bound to care for the morals 
 of its members. But how can it do this with- 
 out cognizance of relations ? " Are these your 
 children ? Is this woman your wife ?" How 
 could a man be received into membership in 
 any community approaching the nature of a 
 church without questions like these being 
 settled ? How far a religious, a church rite is 
 to solemnize marriage is a matter to be settled 
 
 * "Without the law of inheritance," says Dr. II. Marten- 
 sen, of whose chapter on this subject some use is here made, 
 "a sufficient motive to labor for the stability and future well- 
 being of the family would be wanting, and work would be 
 undertaken merely to provide for the moment — from hand 
 to mouth." This is simply the condition of savages. 
 
56 -A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 by Christian wisdom, taste, and regard for the 
 divine honor ; but a church, by its nature, and 
 according to the very demands men would 
 make of it, must take cognizance of marriage 
 in the interest of morality, and in order to 
 fidelity to husbands, wives and children.* 
 
 In like manner, from the nature of the case, 
 polygamy must be set aside. Of course this 
 has been done by Christianity. But where 
 woman's true nature is unrecognized, as under 
 the sway of a luxurious and corrupt heathen- 
 ism, under Mohammedanism, and in some forms 
 of existing: savasism, there the union of one 
 man and one woman is exchanged for that of 
 one man and several women, or, in exceptional 
 
 * The truth of this statement is obvious to any one con- 
 versant with the work of missionaries among the heathen. 
 One of the most difficult practical problems they have to face 
 is the adjustment of the relations of a convert with more 
 than one wife. Shall he be received and be at once a church 
 member and a bigamist? Or if the second wife has to be 
 put away, how shall they provide for her and her children? 
 How justify the infliction of such a blow on her who entered 
 into the union without any reproach from conscience or from 
 society ? In the judgment of many, and those well-informed 
 Christian people, recognition of such unions, with proper 
 safeguards against misinterpretation, will in some cases be 
 the duty of Christian churches. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE HOME. 57 
 
 cases, of one woman and several men. The 
 true ideas of union of intellect and heart, of 
 paramount affection, of fidelity, of each finding 
 in the other what is wanting in self, imply 
 monogamy, as a right hand or a right eye im- 
 plies one left hand or eye, and not several. 
 This point is of interest in American life at 
 this moment. We are far enough from the 
 romantic devotion of man to woman, who was 
 all but deified in the exaggerated devotion of 
 the middle ages. We have the Mormon prob- 
 lem to face on the one side, with its claim of 
 many wives for one man at the same time, and 
 the divorce problem on the other, with its 
 practical permission for many successive unions 
 of one party during the life of the other. We 
 need to study the invariably close connection 
 between the right idea of the family and the 
 welfare of society, the moral health and 
 strength of a nation. The question is not at 
 all a church question merely, as it is sometimes 
 attempted to be made out, precisely as Sabbath- 
 violators would fain make the matter in dispute 
 with them to be. With almost as much reason 
 might the imprisoned thief deplore the ignor- 
 
58 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 ant prejudice lingering among Christians, in 
 blind obedience to which they stand by the 
 old rule, " Thou shalt not steal." 
 
 And here it may be proper to touch another 
 question closely affecting marriage, namely, 
 that of celibacy. In human history the con- 
 sciousness of guilt has played an important 
 part. How to take it away has been the 
 problem. Self-inflicted pain, as in the fakir of 
 India, or denial of things lawful, as in the fast- 
 ing of Mohammedanism and Romanism,* have 
 been among the answers given. It was no 
 wonder that with the growth of ascetic feeling- 
 east and west — and it is as well established in 
 Oriental religions as in corrupt Christianity — 
 celibacy should be lifted to a high place. 
 There is a form of it which, like marriage itself, 
 is founded in nature. It is not necessary in a 
 
 * A confused idea lingers in many minds that the Hebrew 
 law made much of compulsory abstinence from food. This 
 is a mistake. An examination of the Pentateuch will show 
 that only one day in the year was a compulsory fast. Super- 
 stition, indeed, added to the number in later times, as we 
 may see by the prophetical rebukes. It is also noteworthy 
 thut the revision of the New Testament takes " fasting " 
 away in three passages where it had no right to stand : Matt. 
 17:121; Mark 9: 29; 1 Cor. 7 : 5. 
 
TEE ETHICS OF THE HOME. 59 
 
 book like this to enter into details of statement. 
 A man may not be in a position to provide for 
 others than himself. A woman may not be 
 sought in marriage, and it were to become un- 
 womanly for her to seek a union. There are 
 cases of inherent personal reasons for abstin- 
 ence from this form of life, physical and moral ; 
 and, finally, social conditions may be such — as 
 in a time of war, of famine, of insecurity of life 
 and property — that a man feels that his highest 
 duty requires him to forego joys and pleasures. 
 Soldiers, sailors, pioneers, explorers, like men 
 in Paul's days, without yielding their abstract 
 right, may remain single. They have high 
 things to do, which render it necessary to 
 deny themselves the joys of married life, as 
 they do home, society and repose. 
 
 But this is a very different thing indeed 
 from any theory which implies that celibacy is 
 morally a purer, holier state than the estate of 
 holy marriage — a view which has never been 
 accepted on any large scale without injury to 
 society. In fact it is almost a rule that in 
 proportion as celibacy — not the result of such 
 exceptional circumstances as we have men- 
 
60 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 tioned, but an artificial, systematized violence 
 to nature under the guise and with the prestige 
 of higher spirituality — is thriving, in that de- 
 gree the family, society and the state are 
 suffering.* 
 
 Only one other point do we deem it import- 
 ant to notice in the ethical aspects of the home. 
 It is for the good of mankind that families 
 should be constituted and maintained. Bar- 
 rack life is bad, whether it be for the economi- 
 cal and convenient accommodation of troops, 
 or whether it be from the artificial raisins; of 
 the standard of home comfort which now limits 
 marriage, and even limits the married in the 
 possession of separate homes. Hotel and 
 boarding-house life is not the best for the 
 education and training of children. In fact 
 their existence is often a hindrance to admis- 
 sion to even this second-rate form of accom- 
 modation. All that arbitrarily interferes with 
 
 * From the language of Paul in 1 Cor. 7 : 1 it has been 
 argued that ho counted celibacy, in itself, a specially exalted 
 state. This is to read the words in direct opposition to other 
 divine words, as Heb. 13:4, which plainly is wrong, when 
 his obscure language admits of another rendering, implying 
 no contradiction. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE HOME. 61 
 
 " nature," as we commonly understand it, ex- 
 cept from " duty and conviction," based on 
 " individual peculiarities or special circum- 
 stances," is to be deplored and discouraged. 
 It is bad for society that any number of its 
 members should, to avoid responsibility or to 
 maintain freedom from care, decline the duties 
 of married life. Even in the exceptional cases 
 where a high and commendable sense of obli- 
 gation, or a necessity not courted, determines 
 to a single life, there is commonly a defect of 
 development in character. How could it be 
 otherwise? The incompleteness of the indi- 
 vidual remains. The discipline implied in 
 home burdens has not been enjoyed. The 
 daily habit of concession, considerateness of 
 others, repression of self, and of looking at 
 things from other angles of observation than 
 one's own, is not formed. 
 
 For — and this applies to the whole subject 
 of home and of life generally — the words 
 "love," "confidence," "obedience," "fidelity," 
 used in relation to an unseen being, are inter- 
 preted to the dawning intellect by the experi- 
 ences that come to us through the relations of 
 
62 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 parent and child, and the observation of the 
 bonds binding husband and wife, brother and 
 sister, together. Speak to us of the eternal 
 Father, the elder Brother, the divine love, 
 care and pity, and our obligation to honor, 
 obey, trustj and be faithful unto death, and 
 what meaning have the words but as we have 
 learned it at home ? If we know not what 
 they represent as to those whom we have 
 seen, how can we even guess at their signifi- 
 cance towards him whom we have not seen ? 
 Schiller had in partial view a widely-working 
 law when he wrote, 
 
 " Love, only love, can guide the creature 
 Up to the Father-fount of Nature : 
 What were the soul did love forsake her? 
 Love guides the mortal to the Maker." 
 
 " Certainly," says Bacon, " wife and children 
 are a kind of discipline to humanity ; and single 
 men, though they be many times more chari- 
 table, because their means are less exhausted, 
 yet on the other side they are more cruel and 
 hard-hearted (good to make inquisitors), be- 
 cause their tenderness is not so oft called 
 upon." 
 
It is becoming a hard thing for our young men of fashion 
 to afford the luxury of marriage ; and our young women 
 learn that the aim of life is a rich husband, -who can supply 
 the gold for the wardrobe and the glitter of an establish- 
 ment. We have imported from abroad within these few 
 vears many of the loose ideas of modern epicurism. — E. A. 
 Washburn, D.D., late rector of Calvary Church, New York. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WISE CHOICE. 
 
 No need to choose — Necessary burdens — Standard adopted — 
 Reflex influence — Choice of husband or wife — Mutual 
 adaptation — Mutual knowledge — " Mixed marriages " — 
 About the wedding — The home — Not the hotel — About 
 the bills — The "help" — The self-helpers — Teachers for 
 the children — The elements required — In loco parentis — 
 Public schools — Their teaching to be supplemented — Fit- 
 ness for place in the family — The state — The church — 
 "Who is sufficient?" — The "strength to the needy" — 
 Light in the dwelling. 
 
 " The strongest principle of growth," says a 
 popular writer, "lies in human choice." Up to 
 a certain period in life, the average member of 
 a family is relieved from the responsibility of 
 individual decision. A parent or a guardian 
 has authority, and, in a right state of things, 
 has the desire to decide wisely for the boy or 
 girl. In the selection of books, teachers, places 
 of sojourn and the like, the wisdom and experi- 
 ence of older persons can be counted upon. 
 But there comes a time, which a wise person 
 will not seek to hasten, when this help is with- 
 5 (65) 
 
66 -A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 drawn like the temporary supports under an 
 arch, and the young life must begin to bear its 
 own burdens. Then character is developed. 
 Then it begins to be seen what manner of man 
 or woman one is to be, whether a blessing or a 
 bane to society. It is a crisis in the history of 
 a life when free choice is first to be made. 
 
 For, far more is commonly involved than the 
 actual object. The rule of life that is taken is 
 of the utmost moment. Are we to ask, " What 
 is done by the rest of my class ?" Or are we 
 to say, 
 
 " I will not choose what many men desire, 
 Because I will not jump with common spirits, 
 And rank me with the barbarous multitudes." 
 
 Or, avoiding these extremes, are We to ask, 
 " What is wise for me according, as far as I can 
 learn it, to the will of my Father in heaven ?" 
 The reflex influence of a choice is too great 
 to be overlooked. When it has been announced 
 self-love prompts one to stand by it, to defend 
 it, and to defend the principles on which it has 
 been made. Lingering honesty inspires the 
 desire to believe what prudence, self-love or 
 consistency compels one to assert. Let a man 
 
WISE CHOICE. 67 
 
 invest his means in a theatre, and it would be 
 natural, that is, according to common tenden- 
 cies, for him to dwell upon the gains to man- 
 kind, and to ignore the evils, of ordinary- 
 dramatic representation. Our views of things 
 determine our choice, but our choice also, and 
 often for long, determines our views. Thus it 
 is that a believer in Jesus sees Christian evi- 
 dences in a favorable light, while a deliberate 
 unbeliever feels a certain satisfaction in any- 
 opposing views that seem to justify his atti- 
 tude. So it is that " whosoever hath, to him 
 shall be given ; and whosoever hath not, from 
 him shall be taken even that which he seem- 
 eth to have" (Luke 8 : 18). As with many- 
 other issues ascribed to arbitrary decree, this 
 is the inevitable working out of inherent prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 All these truths apply emphatically to the 
 choice of husband or of wife, which commonly 
 affects not only the happiness of life, but the 
 formation of character. It is peculiarly infe- 
 licitous that young people rarely hear this 
 topic talked of except in the way of pleasantry. 
 Serious discussion of it might prevent mistakes, 
 
63 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 and especially that levity in which the decision 
 is often marie. To decide because it seemed 
 strange to remain single, to take up the nearest 
 available person in proud resentment of rejec- 
 tion by another, to marry because the thing- 
 seemed romantic and picturesque, is so obvi- 
 ously foolish that one does not need to prove 
 the case. A wise person will consider com- 
 parative identity of position, habits and ideas 
 of life as to comforts, necessaries, and the like. 
 The total absence of this adaptation is com- 
 monly reason enough for putting aside any 
 thought of a choice. Comparative harmony of 
 ideas as to the objects of life is no less neces- 
 sary. For a plodding, honest, hardworking- 
 young man — to whom a thousand a year seems 
 a good income, and who is now prudently 
 saving two out of the seven hundred he is 
 earning — to marry a woman in whose idea of 
 life three nights a week at expensive entertain- 
 ments is a necessity, would be to mar the 
 happiness probably of both. To rush into a 
 union without adequate acquaintance and mu- 
 tual knowledge, not only of themselves but of 
 their surroundings, is imprudent in a high 
 
WISE CHOICE. 69 
 
 degree. " I did not marry your whole family," 
 a man or woman may be compelled in certain 
 circumstances to say ; but the necessity is pain- 
 ful, and the situation should be understood 
 beforehand. And finally, harmony of view on 
 moral and religious matters is essential to 
 happiness. We say moral — for the girl who 
 thinks a flirtation by a married woman proper 
 enough, or the man who ignores the obvious 
 obligation " forsaking all others," brings into 
 the union an element of destruction. When 
 the dynamite will explode, arid how extensive 
 the damage will be, is only a question of time 
 and circumstances. The man or woman who 
 is " loose about money matters " can ruin a 
 home on another line. " My wife — my hus- 
 band — is constantly running into debt, and 
 never thinks of paying" — such is sometimes 
 the concise history of a domestic shipwreck. 
 
 And as to " mixed marriages," where, for 
 example, it is made a condition on behalf of 
 one party that the other should renounce the 
 religious life hitherto pursued, by rebaptism or 
 similar rite, or make special promises touching 
 the children, or where, by tacit agreement, each 
 
70 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 is to go his or her own way, no cautionary 
 words could be made too strong. Few of such 
 unions are truly happy. The birth of the first 
 child is an element of discord. What is to be 
 done with it ? Where to be trained ? The less 
 enlightened and tolerant the church of either 
 party the worse it fares with the other. " What 
 about your children ?" says a Christian friend, 
 to the father of a family. " Well, my wife, you 
 know, is a firm Catholic, and I let her manage 
 things with them." " And you — what do you 
 do ?" And commonly he does nothing ; because 
 any decided action of his would be an element 
 of discord. On the other hand the parent who 
 concedes — say becomes a Protestant — has no 
 capacity for giving the right training. " He 
 was a Protestant, she a Roman Catholic, and 
 the children are nothing " — such is too common 
 a report. In these cases from the side on which 
 is sacerdotalism, where the end is thought to 
 justify the means, and where the inside life of a 
 family is seen through the confessional, aggressive 
 trouble will be raised, where people of Chris- 
 tian gentleness and self-respect will be inactive. 
 To hold and to state these things — best known 
 
WISE CHOICE. 71 
 
 to those who have lived where Romanism has 
 had its way — is deemed by some unwise, un- 
 American, illiberal ; but there is need for their 
 declaration. Rome, indeed, sometimes owns 
 and deplores her losses through mixed mar- 
 riages, but they are all too often the gains, 
 not of Protestantism, but of carelessness. On 
 the other hand she may be sometimes found 
 boasting of accessions which she has arranged 
 to secure in this way.* 
 
 When the preference of the heart is sustained 
 by the verdict of the judgment upon outward 
 fitness and personal harmony, there is confi- 
 dence in putting the case before parents — as 
 dutiful children who have learnt to honor their 
 parents will do — and positive comfort in carry- 
 ing along their sympathy and co-operation. 
 Martensen quotes as an old proverb, " Der 
 
 * It is understood that a Roman Catholic priest is forbidden 
 to marry one of his flock to a Protestant until a promise 
 securing the children to the church is given. The writer has 
 known of this demand being resisted by a bride as insulting 
 to the man of her choice. Some go even farther in their 
 requirements. A member of a Protestant church -who re- 
 nounces all the past at the bidding of a Romanist or a 
 Romanizcr, in order to be married, sacrifices self-respect at 
 the outset, and starts in life on an insecure basis. 
 
72 ^ CHRISTIAN HOUR. 
 
 Eltern Segen bauet den Kindern Hauser" — the 
 parents' blessing builds homes for their children. 
 A parent's decided opposition is commonly good 
 cause for delay, to say the least ; and happy 
 are they who can feel that both fathers and 
 mothers approve the choice. 
 
 Nowhere, perhaps, in life is there more need 
 for delicate perception of the fitness of things 
 than after this choice has been made. To show 
 the right feeling without silly parade, to ar- 
 range with self-respecting prudence for a 
 marriage ceremony, in which ostentatious dis- 
 play of "connections," apparel and wedding 
 gifts shall be " conspicuous by its absence," and 
 to bear themselves as persons whom paramount 
 affection and intelligent judgment have brought 
 together, and who desire to set out in life 
 with the blessing of a beloved and trusted 
 Father in heaven, — this is the first burden of 
 duty laid on young people, and as they bear it 
 will be in some degree the estimate formed of 
 them and the type of their inner life. 
 
 Next comes, in most cases, the choice of a 
 home and all that is therein involved. It is 
 good for the newly married as a rule to begin 
 
WISE CHOICE. 73 
 
 by themselves, together, without the officious 
 direction of others however well meaning, and 
 it is good, if possible, to be in a home, not a 
 boarding-house nor a hotel. It may be " love 
 in a cottage," and the cottage may be humble ; 
 but it is commonly better adapted to the growth 
 of a true, pure, simple life than " rooms " in 
 one of those non-military barracks which the 
 needs of our great cities are supposed to de- 
 mand. A " mess-table " is doubtless proper for 
 the officers of a regiment, or a group of monks. 
 The passengers of a train or an ocean steamer 
 of course can properly dine together; but for 
 young married people, it is best that they 
 should live together ; their door closing out the 
 world ; that they should be all in all, under 
 God, to each other ; that the young wife should 
 not be pursued by calculations as to how she 
 looks to a hundred spectators ; that he and she 
 should plan together, wisety adapt their modes 
 and habits of life to means and prospects, 
 always remembering that it is comparatively 
 easy to go up, but exceedingly difficult to de- 
 scend gracefully. We do not overrate the 
 poetry of the "lowly cottage;" we are dis- 
 
74 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 tinctly sensible of the difficulty of reading the 
 ''register" or the "stove" into the versification 
 of " the fireside," or of the heroic watchword 
 pro arts et focis, for altars and hearths. We 
 have read, of course, of 
 
 " Home-made pop that will not foam, 
 And home-made dishes that drive one from home," 
 
 but we adhere to the conviction that a modest, 
 self-contained dwelling is morally more healthy, 
 more conducive to permanent happiness, more 
 likely to have its "grace before meat," its 
 family altar, and its practical prudence in 
 management, than the " nicest apartments " in 
 the most attractive hotel. How hard it has 
 been, in many cases, to make the transition 
 from the dishes of a French cook, at a salary of 
 five thousand a year, to the more modest table 
 of a wife's own arranging ! Better to begin at 
 the beginning, and to conquer the prosaic dif- 
 ficulties of life while the poetry of early love 
 is still real, and while the later cares and anx- 
 ieties of life are not yet pressing, than to be 
 forced to the task when other and inevitable 
 burdens have to be carried. 
 
WISE CHOICE. 75 
 
 No mean assistance is secured by the young 
 housekeeping couple who find a " domestic " 
 who can be interested in the fortunes of the 
 family, who can be made an honest friend as 
 well as servant, and who will feel some re- 
 sponsibility for what many a faithful negro used 
 to call " our family." It is a mistake to start 
 with showy, pretentious persons, who feel called 
 to train and direct their employers ; and it is 
 of the highest importance to find those who, 
 fearing God, can be trusted to give something- 
 better than eye service.* 
 
 Of course we contemplate in these hints the 
 dwellers in cities and the possessors of means, 
 who, in point of fact, have, to say the least, as 
 many dangers and temptations as attend the 
 poorer. We do not forget the large class — the 
 strength of the country, the hope of it, the 
 source of supply to the cities — which has no 
 questions to raise as to servants and the like, 
 where wife and husband in love serve one 
 
 * In how many cases would employers gain and give 
 benefit by taking an interest in the religious life of those 
 whom they employ, calling to them the attention of minis- 
 ters, and giving them facilities for availing themselves of 
 Christian ministrations. (See on this Chapter II.) 
 
76 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 another. May blessings rest on the thousands 
 of dwellings where, 
 
 " At night returning, every labor sped, 
 He sits hiin down the monarch of a shed ; 
 Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys 
 His children's looks that brighten at the blaze ; 
 While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard, 
 Displays her cleanly platter on the board." 
 
 In pleading for a home as against the im- 
 ported substitutes for it, no allusion has been 
 made to children, for this, among other reasons, 
 that they are at a discount in such establish- 
 ments ; their possession is sometimes a disqual- 
 ification for admission. So much the better is 
 it commonly for the children, for when a family 
 expands by this blessing being given, a new set 
 of duties calls for attention, and a new set of 
 burdens must be borne, and these are best car- 
 ried in the old-fashioned home. Patience, endur- 
 ance, self-denial, consideration, prudence, even 
 frugality, become necessary virtues, to say noth- 
 ing of the gentleness, combined with firmness, 
 essential to the forming of the young lives long 
 before teacher or lesson-book is in requisition.* 
 
 * The picture of the virtuous woman in Pro v. 31: 10-31 
 may well be studied by young mothers. There is not room 
 
WISE CHOICE. 77 
 
 When, however, the children have reached 
 that stage a new decision has to be made, 
 namely, regarding teachers for them. Parents 
 will do wisely, wherever it is possible, to carry 
 on the work of elementary instruction at home. 
 The basis of mutual interest and confidence is 
 thus laid ; the child learns to defer to the 
 parent ; the parent gets some knowledge of the 
 bent of the child's intellect ; and the simplicity 
 of child-life is preserved. Sooner or later, 
 however, the average child has to be put under 
 other instruction. If the parents have in the 
 right spirit chosen a pastor for themselves, 
 they sought a man capable of teaching spiritual 
 truth, a man in earnest in the doing of it, and 
 of such a character that his moral influence is 
 elevating. In many respects the same elements 
 are to be kept in view in the choice of teachers, 
 and the institutions under the influence of 
 
 here to point out its features. The author takes leave to 
 refer to a volume, Papers for Home Reading, of which it 
 forms one, and in which "temper" and other elements of 
 home-life are discussed and illustrated by narrative. Written 
 twenty years ago, and in another land, they do not contain 
 one sentence of which the author's wider observation of life 
 would require the change. 
 
TS A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 which the young life is to come. The child 
 has to be trained in all things to serve God. 
 The spheres of service include the family, the 
 state and the church. No one is permitted, no 
 one is quite able, to ignore these fields of 
 activity, and wise parents will bear this in 
 mind while aiming at the choice of instructors 
 for their children. 
 
 xh is being written and spoken in our day 
 regarding the " higher education " of men and 
 women. There is still room for discussion of 
 the topic which Mr. Charles Kingsley broached 
 — their lower education. Such matters as the 
 laws of health, the uses of money, the truth 
 of things as distinguished from conventional 
 lies, the forms of self-help which may be need- 
 ful to the most favorably situated and are 
 needful to the majority, — these and other like 
 departments of human training must, to a great 
 degree, devolve on parents — perhaps especially 
 on mothers. 
 
 So the subject of " co-education " has lately 
 awakened attention — a subject on which Mar- 
 tensen, quoted and commended already, has 
 written wisely. It is worth considering whether 
 
WISE CHOICE. 79 
 
 the education of the boys and girls together in 
 the home, in the elementary departments in 
 which both are trained, would not be beneficial 
 in fostering mutual, intelligent sympathy, in 
 giving boys gentleness, and girls more practical 
 views of things ; for surely it is not uncommon 
 to have boys grow up with the idea that " girls 
 cannot know much," while girls often fail to do 
 justice to boys in other respects. They are 
 the more likely to estimate members of the 
 other sex justly from such contact with well- 
 trained brothers. 
 
 In the great majority of cases the children 
 of our country must avail themselves of the 
 common schools of the country, in which the 
 formal teaching of the religious element must 
 necessarily be limited. The Sunday-school, in 
 a degree, supplements the day-school. Both 
 must be supplemented by the personal teaching 
 and influence of the parents. But in the cases 
 where nursery-governesses, tutors and others 
 are called in, or where the children are sent 
 away from home, the teachers stand in the 
 room of parents, and it well becomes them to 
 select their substitutes in full view of the 
 
80 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 interests involved. Habits may be contracted 
 in these early years that bring ruin on the life. 
 Associations may be formed that will in time 
 corrupt and destroy. An ideal of what life is 
 to be may be imparted so false and dangerous 
 as to nullify all future efforts. Methods of 
 deceit, of cunning, of selfishness, may be illus- 
 trated to the child, and in the end commended 
 to it, that will long resist the wisest and the 
 most effective teaching. The brain may be 
 educated, while the heart is hardened. Self- 
 indulgence, conceit and fancied superiority to 
 parents may be instilled into the mind when 
 the education of the judgment, will and affec- 
 tions ought to have been preparing the child 
 for a place in the family, the community, and 
 the church of God — places that can never be 
 rightly filled without this early training. 
 
 " If there be all this burden of responsi- 
 bility," some one may say, " who then would 
 have children ?" We reply that nothing is gained 
 by closing our eyes to the actual facts of life, 
 and he or she who says in lowly self-distrust, 
 "Who is sufficient for these things?" is the 
 most likely to look up and say, " Help me, 
 
WISE CHOICE. 81 
 
 my Father, who hast put the parental love in 
 my heart, and hast given these children into 
 my hands that I may be to them, in love, wis- 
 dom and guidance, in some poor remote way, 
 what thou, my all-wise God, hast been to me, 
 thy weak and wayward child." 
 
 A glance at a historic picture of the Old 
 Testament will best enforce the points we have 
 been trying to establish. Plague after plague 
 had come on Pharaoh and his people. The 
 king's heart was hardened — by himself in pride 
 and obstinacy, by God in just judgment. He 
 did not wish to have knowledge of God (Ex. 
 5 : 2), and God gave him over to a reprobate 
 mind (Rom. 1 : 28). Pharaoh is at the head of 
 a long succession of transgressors. Blow after 
 blow fell on the people, and on their gods — in 
 vain. At length came darkness; darkness on 
 Egyptians alone ; darkness that might be felt. 
 Light had been spurned. The punishment is 
 in the way of the sin. But there is light in 
 Goshen. The sun, the creature of the God of 
 Israel, and not a deity to bo worshipped, sheds 
 his beams over Jehovah's people. Egyptians 
 only sit in dreary helplessness. Better then 
 
88 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 to be in a. Hebrew hnt than in an Egyptian 
 palace, to be a Hebrew slave than an Egyptian 
 master. 
 
 One excellence of a book or a picture is its 
 suggestiveness, and in this regard the Bible is 
 matchless. But we must study the book or 
 the picture if it is to suggest to us. Would 
 that our readers could be induced to dwell on 
 this, as the Psalmist does, and as John did, if 
 we may judge from their most impressive allu- 
 sions (Vs. 78 : 49 ; Rev. 16 : 10). Then would 
 it be seen that God's people, in their loyalty to 
 him, escape many calamities which befall the 
 evil doers through their own evil-doing. Call 
 that " misfortune " which leaves a dwelling 
 squalid, filthy and miserable, where strong drink 
 is allowed to rule and ruin ! Call that " mis- 
 fortune," and reflect, in view of it, on God's 
 government, when lunacy is in the ascendant, 
 where human heartlessness and cruel wrongs 
 have struck blow after blow till reason reeled ! 
 Many a family is miserable because of violence 
 of temper in some of its members. The rest 
 live as over a volcano which at any time may 
 send out its smoke and fire, or they breathe 
 
WISE CHOICE. 83 
 
 with pain an atmosphere poisoned by peevish- 
 ness and fretfulness. Godliness puts a bridle 
 on the tongue and a curb on the temper. It 
 throws, like the prophet at Jericho, healing salt 
 into the bitter waters, and they lose their bit- 
 terness. Jealousy does not consume, nor 
 violence waste, in the homes where God is 
 honored. 
 
 They who fear God have light within them. 
 Even when they suffer, as they often do, from 
 the sins of those whose lives are as a part of 
 their own, they have no pang of remorse. No 
 accusing conscience torments them. Faith and 
 hope can make music in the soul when there is 
 gloom around. The motives to exertion and 
 effort remain with them when others are par- 
 alyzed with terror or impotent in their despair. 
 As the pines on the hill-sides with little seem- 
 ing foothold, and beaten by many a blast, yet 
 hold their ground and grow up in tall and 
 stately dignity, giving grace to scenes that 
 would otherwise be bleak and bare, so God- 
 fearing men and women, who have learned to 
 be content, to sing praises in prisons, hold their 
 ground, " eat and are satisfied," and give glory 
 
84 A- CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 to Christ, and good cheer to the fainting around 
 them, when but for them all would be dreary 
 and discouraging. Would you, readers, have 
 light in your dwellings ? Be of God's Israel. 
 Believe the love that God has toward you in 
 Jesus Christ, in whom it is declared. Love 
 him in return. This love will prompt to the 
 keeping of his commandments, and they are 
 not grievous. It is the breach of them that is 
 grievous. Have regard to the divine will in 
 every act of choice, in every decision for your- 
 selves and for those linked to you. So, though 
 you be not yet in Canaan but in Egypt, though 
 evil be around you, and you are compelled to 
 see it, perhaps in some degree to feel it. there 
 will be peace in your coasciences, light in your 
 dwellings. 
 
The voice that breathed o'er Eden 
 
 That earliest wedding-day, 
 The primal marriage blessing, 
 
 It hath not passed away. 
 
 Still in the pure espousal 
 Of Christian man and maid, 
 
 The Holy Three are with us, 
 The threefold grace is said. 
 
 For dower of blessed children, 
 For love of faith's sweet sake, 
 
 For high mysterious union 
 
 Which naught on earth can break. 
 
 Keble, 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 MUTUAL HELP AND CARE. 
 
 Two better than one — Captain Kane and the Esquimaux 
 chief — Human capacities provided for — " Solitary in fami- 
 lies" — Spiritual communion — Book of remembrance — 
 Reflex influences — The desert blossoming — Marriage ties 
 consecrated — James Sherman's parents — Joseph and As- 
 enath — Husbands won — Words of warning — Married 
 coquettes — "Which family?" — Human wrecks — Children 
 ruined — Pure men's duty — The inclined plane. 
 
 A strophe in the book of Ecclesiastes well 
 represents the gain of companionship and the 
 weakness of isolation. The writer fixes his eye 
 on a solitary being — " one alone, and . . . not a 
 second" with him; he is childless and brother- 
 less. There is none to share the fruit of his 
 toil. " Two are better than one." Their joint 
 work is more than the double of what each can 
 do alone. The weakness of one, moreover, is 
 supplemented by the helpful strength of the 
 other. So the Master sent out the disciples 
 to their difficult task " two and two." Woe to 
 him that sinks down alone ; there is none to 
 keep him up. Captain Kane tells in the jour- 
 
 (87) 
 
88 ^ CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 nal of his Arctic Voyage how gladly he slept 
 as close as possible to the Esquimaux chief 
 Kalatunah, when the intense cold made even 
 a savage a welcome companion. So in a milder 
 degree the poorer Orientals, with no clothing 
 but what they carried on them, must have 
 often realized the same fact on their journeys 
 through the wilderness in the chill of their 
 nights. "If two lie together, then they have 
 heat : but how can one be warm alone f" One 
 may be worsted by a single foe, against whom 
 two would be adequate protection ; and if there 
 be three on a side, so much the better : " a 
 threefold cord is not quickly broken." 
 
 There is no need to seek out a deep, mysti- 
 cal meaning in this proverbial saying founded 
 on the art which draws out the hemp into 
 separate strands mutually bracing, instead of 
 twisting it in one ever-loosening mass. There 
 is no reason to discover in this the evangelical 
 combination of faith, hope and love, still less 
 the mystery of the Trinity. It is a simple 
 statement of strength in association. Better 
 than in the German proverb quoted by Lockler, 
 " Strong alone, but stronger with others," is 
 
MUTUAL HELP AND CARE. 89 
 
 the idea expressed in the Talmud, " A man 
 without companions is like the left hand with- 
 out the right." This element of power through 
 association, illustrated in the state, consecrated 
 in the church — the communion of saints — has 
 its best manifestation in the divine arrangement 
 by which the solitary are set in families, or, as 
 Dr. J. A. Alexander renders it, " God makes 
 the lonely dwell in houses."* 
 
 Solitary confinement is the terrible aggrava- 
 tion of the prisoner's sentence — misery piled 
 upon misery. Man was made for fellowship. 
 He has the power to catch meaning from ges- 
 ture, eye and tongue in others, and to utter in 
 response his own thoughts and feelings. He 
 has inner affections that crave expression : 
 
 " How sweet, how pleasing sweet is solitude ! 
 But grant me still a friend in my retreat 
 Whom I can whisper, Solitude is sweet." 
 
 Plato thought that he who delights in absolute 
 solitude is either a beast or a god. The Creator 
 alone has all resources in himself; the creature 
 is dependent. The Infinite " is his own circle, 
 
 * Psalm 68 : 6. 
 
90 ^ CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 and can subsist by himself ;" men are miserable 
 until understood, loved, and at liberty to speak 
 and cultivate fellowship. The proofs of this 
 are many and varied. Cowper did not over- 
 state, probably, when he puts into the lips of 
 the Scottish sailor, Alexander Selkirk, alone 
 on the isle of Juan Fernandez, the words : 
 
 " O solitude ! where are the charms 
 That sages have seen in thy face? 
 Better dwell in the midst of alarms 
 Than reign in this horrible place." 
 
 For mans aptitudes he who made him has 
 fittingly provided in the home, in social life, 
 and in the communion of saints. Any strug- 
 gles after enjoyment on other lines than these 
 must be fitful, hurtful, and in the end unsuc- 
 cessful. In all the relations in which God 
 puts us, we are not merely to be simple, truth- 
 ful and pure in the interchange of thought and 
 feeling, but we are required to breathe a 
 heavenly spirit into our intercourse, to conse- 
 crate social feeling, and to make of natural 
 emotions spiritual links, binding us to one an- 
 other and to the eternal King and his heavenly 
 kingdom. Co-heirs of that inheritance, con- 
 
MUTUAL HELP AND CARE. 91 
 
 scious of their standing, and dwelling together, 
 cannot be silent about it. " They that feared 
 the Lord spake often one to another : and the 
 Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of 
 remembrance was written before him for them 
 that feared the Lord, and that thought upon 
 his name." The " stout" words of the ungodly 
 called out the pity of the God-fearing. " It is 
 vain to serve God," said the scoffers.* The 
 louder their words the more the godly said 
 among themselves for God. So it will be till 
 the day of divine vindication and complete 
 severance between those who fear and those 
 who disregard the Almighty. Meantime he 
 whom some treated as an idle onlooker, speak- 
 ing after human fashion, was bending the ear, 
 and as the kings of the Orient had their chron- 
 icles, with the names and deeds of their faith- 
 ful servants (Esther 6 : 1), as Moses was bidden 
 to write "a memorial in a book" (Ex. 17 : 14), 
 so he who uniformly speaks in human language 
 and uses human imagery that he may be under- 
 
 * See the whole connection in Mai. 3 : 13-18, on which 
 Pusey, in his Minor Prophets, has some admirable remarks, 
 of which we have made some use. 
 
92 -A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 stood by human beings, who " remembers," 
 though all time is present to his view, speaks 
 by Daniel of the judgment being set and the 
 books opened (Dan. 7 : 10). So John, usually 
 adopting figures from foregoing Scripture, and 
 so marking the unity of the whole, and giving 
 fitness to the closing book of Revelation, speaks 
 of the " books opened," and of the book of life 
 — a book already referred to by Moses (Ex. 
 32 : 32) and David (Ps. 69 : 28), and even by 
 our Lord, when he says, "Rejoice because 
 your names are written in heaven." Husband, 
 wife, how much is there to your credit in that 
 book of remembrance ? How often, when light 
 and scornful words have chilled the heart of 
 lowly saints, have you revived the drooping 
 faith, and restored courage and confidence ? 
 When unbelief, without self-respect and care- 
 less of consequences, has scattered its fires, 
 have you quenched them with water from the 
 fountains of eternal truth ? How often, when 
 fears chilled the heart bound to yours, have 
 you uttered words of holy cheer ? How often 
 has the faith of one shamed the doubts of the 
 other ? For such is a privilege you may have, 
 
MUTUAL HELP AND CARE. 93 
 
 and there will be place for it in God's book of 
 remembrance. 
 
 But not for his sake only, nor in dutiful care 
 for wife or husband, nor for the sake of cheer- 
 ing the dispirited, are we to speak true, brave, 
 kind, sympathetic words, but for our own sake 
 also, as a check on the tendency of the world 
 to preoccupy and engage us. " Exhort one 
 another daily." Ministers are to preach to 
 their people, but the people are to preach 
 to one another. Ministers conduct Sabbath 
 services. This ministration is to be " daily." 
 Reflex influences are to be thought of. The 
 confessor is strengthened in the act of confess- 
 ing. There is daily danger. As certainly as 
 the ink dries in the air, as the clay hardens in 
 the brick, as the soil in the time of drought 
 becomes parched and unproductive, the corn in 
 it dying, so certainly the deceitfulness of sin 
 hardens and deadens the heart, and forbids 
 any spiritual fruitfulness. Against all this, 
 Christian fidelity is to be the barrier. The 
 plains through which the traveller is carried 
 westward toward the Rocky Mountains seem 
 barren and useless. The sage-bush monopolizes 
 
94 -A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 the wastes. But one comes to a place where 
 industry has brought the water from the hill- 
 side, inclosed the garden, set out the fruit- 
 trees, and planted the grain, and a literal, a 
 most definite oasis rises up in the desert. Such 
 spiritual irrigation we must use in the home 
 for the good of one another. " Exhort one 
 another daily, . . . lest any of you be hard- 
 ened th rough the deceitfulness of sin." Why 
 should right feelings be lost? Why should 
 old and true convictions be given up in new 
 relations ? Why should a high ideal of life, 
 cherished in the days of hopeful and poetic 
 youth, be exchanged for the creed of the fool- 
 ish, "Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow 
 we die "? Why should the fellow creature at 
 our side, once perhaps reverent, tender and 
 conscientious, become cold, hard and reckless, 
 if any word of love, fidelity and pleading on 
 our part can arrest the decay ? " He who does 
 not speak truth freely is a betrayer of the 
 truth." 
 
 For, consider and closely apply these prin- 
 ciples to life in the home. Two persons have 
 become one in affection, interest and aims. 
 
MUTUAL HELP AND CARE. 95 
 
 They are nearer to one another than either can 
 be to any other human being. They have 
 common joys, cares, hopes and burdens. There 
 is natural fellowship between them.* But is 
 this all? Should there not also be spirit- 
 ual communion? Take the case — thank God 
 that there are so many ! — of husband and wife 
 both knowing and confessing Christ. How 
 truly they may speak often one to another ! 
 The deepest interests they have are religious. 
 Happy as they are in one another and in their 
 home, this felicity is but a foreshadowing 
 
 * It is very common in the homilies addressed to women 
 as wives to urge the importance of their being cheerful, and 
 of their maintaining an atmosphere of " sweetness and light" 
 in the dwelling ; nor can too much importance be attached 
 to the attractions to be thus given to home. But it would 
 be most unfair to put on the wife the exclusive responsibility 
 in this regard. Her duties are monotonous, prosaic, and 
 often irksome. She has little of the variety and of the stimu- 
 lus which a healthy business or professional man enjoys in 
 constant contact with his fellows. He should bring fresh- 
 ness, interest and animation into the home. His words 
 should lift her for the time out of the petty rut of domestic 
 management and diplomacy about " service " and kitchen- 
 supplies. In one word, the husband and the wife are 
 equally bound each to cheer and brighten the life of the 
 other, and both that of their household. 
 
96 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 to them of higher bliss in a home eternal. 
 Their profoundest experiences — those which 
 make life and character — are religious. How 
 intimate and strengthening their converse may 
 well be ! Even before union, gracious influ- 
 ences are often carried from one heart to 
 another on the wings of kindly and gentle 
 words. Here is the simple account which 
 the Rev. James Sherman, long a faithful pas- 
 tor in London, gives of his parents' religious 
 life: 
 
 " My father was brought to decision for God 
 under the ministry of the Rev. John Newton, 
 of St. Mary Woolnoth, though the seeds of 
 piety were sown in his heart by my mother 
 during the period of their courtship. By her 
 he was entreated to hear the gospel fully 
 preached on the Sabbath. ' The gospel ?' he 
 replied ; ' why, are not the gospel and epistle 
 read in the church every Sunday ?' However, 
 at last she prevailed upon him to hear Mr. 
 Newton, whose preaching was so different from 
 anything that he had previously heard, and 
 the way of a sinner's salvation was so clearly 
 pointed out, that he became alarmed for his 
 
MUTUAL HELP AND CARE. 97 
 
 safety, and no longer required urging to at- 
 tend."* 
 
 Where one of the two does not know or 
 obey the truth, it is needless to show that the 
 obligation on the other is clear and explicit. 
 We cannot fancy Joseph silent to his Egyptian 
 wife regarding the God of Israel, nor Moses 
 holding his peace regarding the God of his 
 fathers to the mother of his sons. In the 
 membership of the churches there are com- 
 monly more women than men. Was it so in 
 the days of the apostles ? We do not read of 
 godless wives won by the lives of their hus- 
 bands to the faith of Christ, but the wives are 
 encouraged to hope that where their husbands 
 obey not the word, they may be won by the 
 pure, gentle life of those who own subjec- 
 tion to them, and yet serve God in the " beau- 
 ties of holiness." The desire to please, to 
 attract, to win esteem and regard, is, within 
 certain limits, right in man and woman; but 
 oh, how holy is the ambition in a godly woman, 
 not by airs of conscious sanctity, or the dicta- 
 Memoir of the Rev. James Sherman, by Henry Allon, 
 p. 17. 
 7 
 
98 -A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 tion of religious superiority, but by reverent 
 fidelity to all marriage vows and all gentle 
 service of Christ, to win the sharer of her life 
 to the obedience of Christ ! 
 
 It would not be right to quit this subject of 
 mutual care without some words of warning. 
 Many who never meant to sink have yet gone 
 down in married life. " Want of thought" 
 works evil no less than settled purpose. Mar- 
 ried life cannot in the nature of things retain 
 the proportion of high poetic sentiment that 
 obtained, and rightly obtained, in the period 
 preceding it. The business of the world ne- 
 cessitates much prose. And the near, unre- 
 served intercourse of the home, while it many 
 times discloses unlooked-for virtues, often 
 brings to light unexpected peculiarities, whims, 
 idiosyncrasies, which perhaps held themselves 
 out of sight before, or which perhaps the fond, 
 admiring eye did not notice. Here it is that 
 high tone and true nobleness are to show 
 themselves. Every individual has his or her 
 own way, and, within the limits of right, that 
 way is not to be interfered with. Impatience, 
 petulant criticism, petty fault-finding, invidious 
 
MUTUAL HELP AND CARE. 99 
 
 comparisons with others, are as foolish in 
 themselves as they are heartless to the party 
 rebuked. The man who can tell his wife that 
 she should carry herself like some one of their 
 mutual acquaintance wounds her deeply, 
 whether she shows it or not by the reply, 
 " Why did not you propose for her ? Maybe 
 you did, and she would not have you." The 
 woman who holds up to her husband some 
 other man whose ways she prefers to his not 
 merely humiliates him through his self-love, 
 but sets him to inquire how many complicated 
 aims may have led to her acceptance of him. 
 So coldness, chilling alienation, embarrassing 
 restraint, are introduced where all ought to be 
 warm, gentle and genial as the sunshine of the 
 spring. 
 
 Of the weakness which, from vanity, love 
 of admiration, or prurient curiosity, leads hus- 
 band or wife to seek and to take satisfaction 
 in the society of persons of the other sex, to 
 the disregard, even for a moment, of the chosen 
 object of avowedly paramount affection, nothing 
 need here be said. Christian homes are con- 
 templated. 
 
100 -A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 But that there is danger in society, and that 
 it becomes fatal to many a union, no one can 
 live in the world and not know. Women, 
 while the "breadwinners" — the house-bands, as 
 the old Anglo-Saxon made the word* — are 
 busy with necessary toil, will welcome the 
 corrupt compliments of the idle and showy, 
 whose very attentions are proofs of inferior 
 principle and base mental constitution. The 
 thing is so far felt by them to be questionable 
 that it is wholly or partially concealed from the 
 husbands, and when it readies them for the 
 first time through others — who speak with 
 more or less regard for their welfare — impaired 
 respect, loss of confidence and peace of mind 
 will be the inevitable results. Jealousy and 
 rage are often enough the sad product. Dis- 
 couragement in a man's business is the near 
 consequence. "Why toil, deny myself and plan 
 for a woman who finds her joys elsewhere?" 
 Revenge in kind is sometimes taken. Aliena- 
 tion is certain to follow. Life is poisoned and 
 
 * " The name of the husband, what is it to say? 
 
 Of wife and of household the band and the stay." 
 
 Tcsser. 
 
MUTUAL HELP AND CARE. 101 
 
 homo is turned, in marked cases, into a portico 
 of hell. Of the tragic issues in scandals and 
 divorce-court pleas one needs to say nothing. 
 They speak for themselves. In part the re- 
 sults of our growing stupid and contemptible 
 copying of European ways, deemed to belong 
 to " high life ;" in part the outcome of hotel- 
 life as distinguished from home-life ; in part 
 the product of loose, irreligious and unhealthy 
 tastes, provided for and .strengthened by the 
 panderers to the pleasures of society, and in part 
 the indirect attendants of great wealth and little 
 religion — these social incidents arc becoming our 
 national disgrace. As citizens we should not 
 only blush for the evil, bat resist the beginning 
 of it; as Christians we should use all preventive 
 measures within our reach. All honest men 
 should create and maintain right sentiment on 
 the subject. All pure women should be ready 
 to say, as a woman has said : 
 
 " A worthless woman ! mere cold clay, 
 As all false things are ; but so fair 
 She takes the breath of men away 
 Who gaze upon h'>r unaware; 
 f would not play her larcenous tricks 
 To have her looks." 
 
102 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 But it is not women alone who err here. 
 Men rich and poor (and probably the propor- 
 tion of transgressors to each class is about the 
 same) sin before marriage, so as to imperil the 
 peace of their union, if it even be justifiable. 
 "He is troubled about his family," said one, 
 in sympathy with a broken-down merchant. 
 " Which family ?" was the reply. He who made 
 that cynical rejoinder knew how the broken- 
 down man, his brother-in-law, had blighted the 
 life of his sister, the mother of his legitimate 
 children. In the showy walks of a hollow and 
 conventional " fashionable life," covering up 
 heart-woe under Parisian attire and studied 
 manners, in the gloomy privacy of loveless 
 chambers, in houses of shame, in early graves, 
 and in the living tomb of the lunatic asylum, 
 may be found the victims of man's infidelity. 
 " A woman's lot is made for her," in a good 
 degree, " by the love she accepts." When it is 
 the love of a dissolute liar, the more she is of 
 a true woman, the heavier the blow when the 
 discovery is forced upon her, and every hollow 
 compliment from him ever after awakens 
 "thoughts like willful tormentors." When 
 
MUTUAL HELP AND CARE. 103 
 
 children know the facts — as all too often they 
 come to know them — what can be the result 
 but loss of respect, sympathy, perhaps, with 
 one parent and scorn of the other, or the un- 
 doing of every inculcated lesson of purity, and 
 the ruinous tread in the father's footsteps ? 
 
 These pages will not fall under the eye of 
 such men as we have imperfectly described, 
 for they do not " believe in pious books ;" but 
 they may reach some not yet on the tempting 
 inclined plane, who will, through them, under- 
 stand better the tendencies of things, and be 
 led to turn their backs on everything, in word 
 or look, in act or on the printed page, which 
 corrupts man or woman, and carries the fever 
 germs of lawless lust into the sanctity of 
 home. 
 
happy house ! where thou art not forgot, 
 
 Where joy is flowing full and free ; 
 happy house I where every woUnd is brought, 
 
 Physician, Comforter, to thee, 
 Until at last, earth's day's work ended, 
 
 All meet thee in that home above 
 From whence thou earnest, where thou hast ascended, 
 
 'i'hy heaven of glory and of love. 
 
 Karl I. P. Spitta. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF HOME-LIFE. 
 
 Topic ever fresh — Home touched at every point by inspira- 
 tion — Pure atmosphere — Wedding-day — A perpetual dos- 
 ology — Setting out wisely — Bright skies clouded — " Clear 
 shining after rain" — Esaus and Absaloms — The spirit of 
 Samuel — Heroic self-denial — " Keverse of fortune " — The 
 tentmaker — The carpenter's son — The want of six cents — 
 A family tryst — Thorn-crowned kings — Thanksgiving at 
 home — " Ebenezer " raised in the parsonage. 
 
 The subject of home is ever fresh and al- 
 ways timely. Spring is not uninteresting to 
 us because we have seen it many times. Nor 
 are pictures of home dull or common because 
 we have often looked on the like. " Home is 
 home, however homely," and the best part of 
 our memories and of our earthly hopes is com- 
 monly linked with it. We c;m find many an 
 excuse for the frailties of those who never had 
 a home. Our earliest conscious life was lived 
 at home, and our first duties, next to those we 
 owe to God, are to our homes. No wonder that 
 Christ said, " Go home to thy friends, and tell 
 
 (105) 
 
106 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 them how great things the Lord hath done for 
 thee." 
 
 The Bible, as we have seen, is full and ex- 
 plicit on the subject of home. It lays the 
 foundation of it in holy marriage. It fixes the 
 relations between husband and wife, parent and 
 child. Two at least of the commandments are 
 safeguards of the home. The newly-married 
 man, under the Mosaic arrangements, was 
 exempt from war and any duty that would take 
 him away, -" hut he shall be free at home one 
 year, and shall cheer up his wife which he hath 
 taken." She had quitted for him the house of 
 her father ; he is to make the transition as 
 easy as possible. The high resolve of the 
 Psalmist is " I will walk within my house with 
 a perfect heart" (Ps. 101: 2). The descrip- 
 tion of a thoroughly-depraved transgressor 
 against God is, in the stern speech of the Old 
 Testament prophet, "Yea also, because he 
 transgresseth by wine, he is a proud man, 
 neither keepeth at home " (Hab. 2:5). On 
 the contrary a prominent feature in the char- 
 acter to be impressed on the younger women, 
 according to the practical teaching of the New 
 
THE LIGHTS AND SHADO WS OF HOME-LIFE. 107 
 
 Testament, is that they be " keepers at home." 
 It is no extravagant assertion that home-life is 
 sweet and pure in the degree in which the 
 divine counsels purify its atmosphere, and the 
 divine will is regarded in its arrangements. 
 High honor is put upon the elements of home 
 when the Creator is " our Father," when we are 
 comforted by him, "as one whom his mother 
 comforteth," when Christ is our "Elder Brother," 
 when we belong to " the whole family in 
 heaven and earth . . . named " after him, and 
 when our hope is, wheu absent from the body, 
 to be "at home with the Lord." Selecting a 
 few of the incidents and features of home-life, 
 let us see how the light of revelation shines on 
 them, and how in that light we, who receive the 
 revelation as a perfect rule of faith and practice, 
 ought to regard them. 
 
 That event, with its attendant manifestations 
 of joy and sympathy and hopefulness, which 
 our Lord graced with his presence at Cana 
 cannot be without interest in any circle. A 
 marriage influences strongly, for good or for 
 ill, the condition of at least two persons. It 
 has moral and spiritual, as well as social and 
 
108 A CHRISTIAN HUME. 
 
 material, aspects. Not one word is to be said 
 against displays of gladness and outward and 
 sensible signs of goodwill to those immediately 
 concerned, so long as they are within the lines 
 of prudence, and are sincere and unostentatious. 
 Nothing is to be said against the publicity, the 
 joyous emphasis, given to all connected with it. 
 Life has none too much of innocent enjoyment. 
 But care is to be taken that the " children of 
 the bride-chamber " do not put out of sight the 
 greater elements of the matter, the depend- 
 ence on the Almighty, the recognition of him 
 in the heart, and the serious and earnest 
 committing of the lives immediately affected 
 to his guidance. As is pointed out elsewhere, 
 the state has a definite and necessary relation 
 to marriage. Although no Scripture command 
 connects the church with it, in the nature of 
 things, in the development of Christian life, 
 solemn religious service ratines the union of 
 Christians. Even heathen sense of propriety 
 led to a like course in the times before Christ. 
 The principles embodied and expressed in this 
 usage must not be forgotten. 
 
 The excitement, preoccupation and novelty 
 
THE LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF HOME-LIFE. 109 
 
 of experiences may be unwisely allowed to shut 
 out the very recollection and convictions under 
 which the steps of life ought to be taken, if it 
 is to be deep, true, pure and sincere. A period 
 of artificial and stimulating excitement is a 
 bad preparation for the prudent arrangements 
 and careful and well-considered plans of life. 
 No union is so complete as not to require 
 mutual concessions; and we are but poorly 
 prepared for making them by the accompani- 
 ments which custom links with a marriage. 
 These, while they are innocent and the true 
 expressions of honest feeling, are not to be 
 deplored; but wise and reverent believers will 
 try to keep God and his will before the mind ; 
 will seek to hold the deeper things of life in 
 view; will rate the demonstrations at their 
 true worth, and try to feel habitually that the 
 outcome is to be as each is to the other in the 
 union, and as both are to the Father in heaven. 
 To realize the eager good wishes of their friends 
 for ''long life and happiness," the bride and 
 groom do best when they, with becoming earn- 
 estness, dedicate their joint life to the glory of 
 the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. 
 
110 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 " Gay mirth shall deepen into joy, 
 Earth's hopes shall grow divine, 
 When Jesus visits us, to turn 
 Life's water into wine." 
 
 There are certain gifts and graces commonly 
 needed in the life of the newly married, and 
 then called for for the first time. Parents and 
 friends have, until now, made arrangements and 
 determined the character of the home. New 
 decisions have now to be made by themselves. 
 A prudent, safe arrangement, marked by mod- 
 eration and good sense, is of the utmost moment 
 at the outset. But this demands the " discre- 
 tion " or judgment with which good men guide 
 their affairs (Ps. 112 : 5), which is all through 
 the book of Proverbs the equivalent of taste, 
 sense or thoughtfulness. (See Prov. 1:4; 2 : 
 11 ; 3 : 21 ; 5:2; 11 : 22.) Many a time the 
 eye has been turned to the estimate of acquaint- 
 ances, the supposed demands of society, and 
 the ambitious and unreasonable reproduction 
 of the comforts and appearances of the home 
 that has been left (which is itself the late result 
 of a life of industry and prudence), and the 
 issue has been embarrassing and humiliating 
 
THE LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF HOME-LIFE. \\\ 
 
 because of the enforced retrenchment ; all which 
 had been avoided if the prayer had gone up for 
 the wisdom that cometh from above, and the 
 mind had been cleared and elevated in its aims 
 by " communion with the skies." It is easy to 
 go up gradually. It is hard in every sense of 
 the word to descend gracefully. 
 
 How soon, in many cases, is the joyousness 
 we associate with a new home interrupted by 
 sickness or suffering! The sky was bright; 
 now it is clouded. The orange blossoms were 
 sweet ; now they wither. What is the teach- 
 ing of the divine word regarding such experi- 
 ences ? Sooner or later pain and illness come to 
 all, because we are members of a fallen race ; we 
 require discipline ; we are under the providence 
 of him who chastises whom he loves, and warns 
 by his providence those who forget him ; we 
 are inclined to live for the visible, and to ex- 
 pect satisfaction out of it, and we need to be 
 disenchanted. The recollection of all this will 
 prevent the young home-builders from being 
 paralyzed with surprise or fear ; will reconcile 
 them to the training of which suffering is a 
 part ; will lead them to refer the issue to the 
 
112 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 Lord ; and even aid them in giving those un- 
 selfish ministrations of care, sympathy and 
 effort which are often in different ways a 
 durable and a lasting blessing to the giver and 
 to the receiver. Many a man has said, " I never 
 knew how true and good a wife I had till I was 
 ill." Many a wife has said, " I never under- 
 stood of how much thought and tenderness my 
 husband was capable until I needed his care." 
 How often has the sickness of an infant drawn 
 closer and closer the hearts of parents, and 
 brought them under higher influences than 
 those of mere natural feeling ! Jeroboam is 
 not the only man who has wished for counsel 
 in the time of sore sickness of a child. " Get 
 thee to Shiloh : behold, there is Ahijah the 
 prophet" (1 Kings 14 : 2). The sorrow may 
 come through parent, or brother, or sister. 
 Such experiences often follow fast after times 
 of joy. To have a call from God in this form, 
 and not to heed it, is the sure way to harden 
 the heart and prepare for visitations that are 
 not mercies, but judgments. At such a time 
 it is wise to ask God for self-control, quietness 
 and confidence : to obtain the best medical aid 
 
THE LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF HOME-LIFE. H3 
 
 available ; to call for the sympathy and prayers 
 of godly friends ; and while, like Mary regard- 
 ing her mysterious child, pondering and laying 
 up many things in the heart, to do in each hour 
 that which seems best to be done in the way 
 of giving the cup of cold water; and all this 
 with a faith that sees him who is invisible, 
 bringing the sufferers to Christ, as men did to 
 him when he walked the streets of their town 
 as the visible incarnation of compassion and of 
 healing power.* 
 
 But other exceptional elements can enter 
 into the life of a home in which faith and 
 patience are sorely tried. A member of it is 
 the occasion of grief, anxiety and shame on 
 account of questionable or absolutely bad con- 
 
 *In some instances of severe sickness, for prudential and 
 medical reasons, there is no opportunity given to ministers 
 to bring eternal things to the mind of the sufferer. No 
 general rule of action can be laid down in a case of this kind ; 
 but it is generally true that the fitting words and the brief 
 prayer of a minister are helpful rather than otherwise to 
 quiet, hope and improvement. At the same time long expe- 
 rience will satisfy most ministers that too much importance 
 is not to be attached to the expressions of feeling on a sick- 
 bed. The decisions are the most satisfactory that men reach 
 in the days of health and mental vigor. 
 
114 -4 CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 duct. Many an Esau vexes his mo'.her; many 
 an Absalom humiliates his father. What course 
 does the divine word countenance ? To begin 
 with, no unnecessary proclamation of the fact 
 is demanded. There are times when the heart 
 knows its own bitterness, and properly bears 
 its sorrows alone as far as man is concerned. 
 But silence to all that are without, unless 
 proper occasion makes disclosure a duty, is to 
 be coupled with the use of the best means with 
 him or her who is the cause of the solicitude. 
 Not anger but grief, not resentment but com- 
 passion, must inspire the tone. The utmost 
 self-restraint is needed. The wrong-doer must 
 see that it is not merely because you are com- 
 promised and made uncomfortable, but because 
 wrong is done, that you are burdened. 
 
 There are times when a parent is sorely ex- 
 ercised regarding a child. It is a son perhaps, 
 unfavorably placed and in apparent imminent 
 danger. For herself she knows the truth, 
 learned it long ago, and by God's grace will 
 hold it fast to the end. But the child — alas, 
 there is no such advantage for him. Who 
 forgets the picture in the book of Genesis in 
 
THE LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF HOME-LIFE. 115 
 
 which Hagar is the central figure ? Ishmael is 
 like to die of thirst. She has laid him under 
 a shrub : she cannot bear to look on his agony. 
 Hark ! an angel speaks to the wailing mother 
 in her helplessness. " Arise, lift up the lad, 
 and hold him in thine hand." No doubt she 
 obeyed. She could not find water, but she 
 could do that. " And God opened her eyes, and 
 she saw a well of water," went and obtained 
 the needed supply, and his life was saved. So, 
 desponding mother ! you can do. Keep your 
 child to your heart, in your hand. What you 
 can do, fail not and faint not in doing. He 
 can open springs in the desert. He can pour 
 water on him that is thirsty, and floods upon 
 the dry ground. He can pour his Spirit upon 
 thy seed and his blessing on thine offspring 
 (Isa. 44:3). 
 
 Faithful words of warning and entreaty are 
 to be uttered, and in the spirit of Samuel, who, 
 when told of the rejection of Saul and of the 
 announcement he had to make to him, " cried 
 unto the Lord all night" (1 Sam. 15 : 11). The 
 remonstrance uttered in the morning after such 
 a night is likely to be tender and impressive. 
 
116 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 " I can bear anything but their tears," many a 
 wrong-doer has said, as he thought of the 
 pleadings of those who loved hirn. In order 
 to make such remonstrances of moral weight, 
 we who utter them need to be blameless. The 
 human heart easily satisfies itself if it can say. 
 "He censures me for my course in one direc- 
 tion because it happens to offend or mortify 
 him. He goes just as far in other wrong 
 directions." Self-denial may be made necessary 
 in the effort to reclaim. It may be fitting to 
 say, " I do not for myself feel any danger from 
 it — the game, the play, the society, the 
 ; club,' the party, the entertainment — but it is 
 perilous for you; and for your sake I keep 
 away from it." We must not allow any one to 
 say, He led me up to a certain point, and 
 where his dull and phlegmatic nature could stop 
 at the prudential line, he stopped ; but he de- 
 nounces me because I have not such a nature ! 
 Some heroes, and many a heroine, have de- 
 veloped nobleness in God's sight, on this line 
 of duty, when friends misunderstood and even 
 censured their methods. 
 
 Sometimes reverses come, and the means 
 
THE LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF HOME-LIFE. 117 
 
 once enjoyed are no longer available. Sacrifices 
 have to be made ; valuables have to be parted 
 with ; innocent enjoyments have to be given 
 up. The utmost economy has to be exercised 
 in order to preserve self-respect and independ- 
 ence. Such are among the hardest trials of 
 home. Now work has to be done that was 
 never before needful, never before contem- 
 plated. And when there is this darkness in 
 the providence of God, nowhere is there such 
 light as in the word. "Now I must toil for 
 myself." Well, but there is dignity in labor, 
 when God makes it necessary. Paul was a 
 tentmaker, and not ashamed of it. Fishermen 
 furnished the Master with friends and apostles, 
 and he was the carpenter's son. It is among 
 the improbable things that he grew up in 
 an industrious community doing nothing, till 
 thirty. God's providence uses such necessities 
 for making strong character. How many 
 men of wealth and power in this land, and 
 indeed in all civilized lands, were poor in their 
 youth ! Emerson was not ashamed to tell that 
 he once did without the second volume of a 
 book because he was shown that his mother 
 
118 A. CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 could not afford the six cents it would cost at 
 the circulating library. When such a strain 
 is put on the faith and courage of a family, the 
 divine word is the best of all comforters and 
 guides. It teaches submission to the divine 
 will. It asserts its wisdom and goodness. It 
 guides and stimulates to honest effort. It cor- 
 rects the estimates we form of things. It 
 inspires a healthy self-respect, and makes us 
 strong. Let any earnest person, tempted to 
 discontent, read the close of Paul's first letter 
 to Timothy, with its solemn warnings against 
 the reckless pursuit of wealth, and learn how 
 "godliness with contentment is great gain." 
 Wilson, in his " Lights and Shadows of Scottish 
 Life," draws a charming picture of a family 
 living in comfort on their farm, but suddenly 
 ruined. The announcement is made by the 
 father, but to his surprise his sons and daugh- 
 ters make light of it, show how they can make 
 their way, and fix a " family tryst " for that 
 time twelvemonth, when they meet, with their 
 earnings and their joyous tales of effort and 
 success. It must be a well-told tale that holds 
 its place in the memory for thirty or forty 
 
THE LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF HOME-LIFE. H9 
 
 years ; but it is only a tale. It is not, how- 
 ever, fancy, but the faithful Father of all, who 
 through life's vicissitudes teaches us to lay up in 
 store for ourselves a good foundation against 
 the time to come, that we may lay hold on 
 eternal life. In the final gathering we shall 
 rejoice together, as we see how the very trials 
 of earth fitted us for the inheritance that fadeth 
 not away. 
 
 " Our dearest hopes in pangs are born ; 
 The kingliest kings are crowned with thorn." 
 
 But there are bright and sunny as well as 
 dark days in the course of life. Unexpected 
 means sometimes come and a freedom from care 
 is furnished, that were never expected. Members 
 of a family develop with unexpected and en- 
 couraging hopefulness. Success is achieved in 
 the face of difficulties. A conversion takes 
 place in the family, and godly parents, half 
 surprised, see some of the seed sown come up 
 and grow. Is there anything that a family 
 should learn from the Bible to do in such cir- 
 cumstances ? Why, the Lord, who told the 
 healed man to go home and tell his friends how 
 
120 ^ CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 great things God had done for him, gives us 
 the suggestion. Death conies and it drapes 
 the family in the garments of mourning. When 
 life comes — even the new young life of the 
 infant born into the world ; when spiritual life 
 comes ; or when some signal benefit reaches 
 a family from God's hands — why should there 
 not be joyful thanksgiving ? 
 
 We have our annual autumn festival when 
 the harvest is gathered and the country is glad. 
 Would not .a family thanksgiving, when bless- 
 ings have been received, with a religious service, 
 simple, natural and true to the facts of life, be 
 a fitting acknowledgment ? One of the holiest 
 ministers I ever knew had experienced some 
 providential goodness in his family — perhaps 
 the recovery of a sick member. A friend of his, 
 who told me the circumstance, called to make a 
 friendly visit. The thing was talked of. " We 
 shall call the family," said the father ; " our 
 friend will lead us in worship." It was mid- 
 day ; but, as my friend described it, children 
 and servants came quickly and quietly, as if it 
 were no rare occurrence, Bible in hand, and 
 the family lifted up together its glad Ebenezer. 
 
THE LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF HOME-LIFE. 12] 
 
 A Christian woman lately entered into her 
 rest after a long period of painful suffering. 
 Hardly ever have I conducted a more tender 
 service than by her couch a few months ago. 
 when she had specially gathered together the 
 members of a large family, that unitedly they 
 might seek for her the needed grace and pa- 
 tience. It is good for families thus to call on 
 the Lord's name. 
 
When I compare professor with professor, what a differ- 
 ence between those who were taught early and those that 
 were not 1 I am much touched at reading in Socrates' Ec- 
 clesiastical History the old story, remembered from my child- 
 hood, of Origen's father, who used to uncover the bosom of 
 his sleeping boy, and kissing it say, " It is a temple of the 
 Holy Ghost." — James W. Alexander, D.D., Familiar Letters, 
 vol. ii, p. 25. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILY LIFE. 
 
 One's birth-place — T. Carlyle — "Peaceable habitations" — 
 Mutual fidelity — Spirit of marriage vows — Head but not 
 despot — Wife, not woman of fashion — Bishop Johns and 
 Dr. Charles Hodge — Training by proxy — Duff's boyhood — 
 James Hamilton's father — "Honor" — Dutifulness — Prac- 
 tical good sense — Wisdom that is devilish — Loyalty to the 
 family — Confidence inspired — Nettleton — Home-life pois- 
 oned — "Refractory egotism" — Marthas with too much to 
 do — "Heaven's fallen sister" — How to lift her up — The 
 power of love — Confidence — Mother and friend. 
 
 When Froude would give a just idea of the 
 formative influences that told on the life and 
 work of Thomas Carlyle, he presents his read- 
 ers with ample information regarding the quiet 
 village of Ecclefechan, in which he was brought 
 up, and lets us see the modest dwelling in 
 which the mother watched and prayed, and foi 
 the welfare of whose inmates the stonemason 
 toiled and planned. In this he but follows 
 the steps of multitudinous biographers who 
 realize the connection between the early homes 
 
 (123) 
 
124 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 and the lives they would depict. The birth- 
 place of the subject of a memoir has more than 
 once been placed, by careful art, before the eye 
 of the reader. When we study the features of 
 character of such men as Tennyson, Longfellow, 
 Emerson, Darwin, and others in whose mental 
 and moral development we are interested, we 
 cannot but inquire where and how were they 
 brought up. So the estimate we form of men 
 and of their ways is affected in no slight degree 
 by the knowledge we have of their homes. We 
 extenuate, and in fact excuse, some things in 
 those who are without the helps and encourage- 
 ments to well-doing which a home provides; 
 and we blame others, on the other hand, as in- 
 excusable, seeing they have all the advantages 
 of a tranquil home. When the evangelical 
 prophet, whose inspired language so reflects the 
 tone of his communications, would represent 
 to us the solid happiness of Messiah's subjects 
 — a true Israel over all the earth, even when 
 desolateness covers Palestine — he gives this as 
 one of the features.* " My people shall dwell 
 in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, 
 
 * Isaiah 32 : 18. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILY LIFE. 125 
 
 and in quiet resting places." Praise God, with 
 glad hearts, all ye who have happy homes ! 
 
 There are certain moral elements essential 
 to the maintenance of a true home, and which 
 are to be sought, cultivated and conserved. 
 The presence of these gracious forces will 
 secure happiness in the lowliest, and the lack 
 of them will destroy it in the most luxurious, 
 dwelling. Foremost among these we place 
 mutual fidelity. A long way on this side of 
 lollies and crimes on the part of husbands and 
 wives — crimes of which law-courts take notice, 
 and of which society talks — there may be fail- 
 ure to keep the spirit of marriage vows. The 
 power of a " head " over the wife may be used 
 in a despotic and arbitrary, or in a cold and 
 inconsiderate, way. The delicate regard that 
 is due to the feelings of the other may be 
 wanting on either side. The aid of sympathy, 
 counsel and co-operation may be withheld. 
 One may practically say to the other, " That is 
 your duty, not mine ; do it, or take the conse- 
 quences." So life may become hard, mechan- 
 ical and insipid, and a spot that ought to be 
 a foreshadow of heaven may become a heart- 
 
126 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 less business resort, without the restraints of 
 enforced mutual civility. 
 
 Let the husband go back in thought to the 
 marriage vows, and to the interpretation that 
 glowing affection gave them on the wedding-day. 
 Have they been kept? Has that high ideal 
 been realized that was then a joy in the pros- 
 pect of it ? Have you shielded from all needless 
 pain and trouble the wife of your choice ? Have 
 you considered her nature as a woman, and 
 tried to help, strengthen and elevate her ? Have 
 you studied her happiness and aimed at her 
 advancement, in the unselfish, tender spirit of 
 the parents from whom you received her? 
 Have you thought of her as the sharer of a 
 joint happiness, or only as a possession for the 
 furtherance of your well-being? Has the con- 
 siderate deference of earlier years been retained, 
 or has it given place to a hard, cold and au- 
 thoritative bearing ? * So, too, a wife may well 
 
 * In the following quotations a plea is made for woman, 
 and a charge is brought against a man, in both of which there 
 is truth enough to merit reproduction : 
 
 " I know that, women are too frivolously brought up in 
 France ; that their education is superficial and exclusively 
 worldly ; that it but ill prepares them for the serious duties 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILY LIFE. 127 
 
 examine herself. You remember the trustful 
 gladness with which you accepted the duties of 
 
 of wifehood : all this I grant you ; but despite all this, I dare 
 to affirm, as a general principle, that there is not one of them 
 who is not morally superior to the man she marries, and far 
 more capable than he of all the domestic virtues ; and I will 
 tell you why : it is because all women have, in a higher de- 
 gree than you think, the main virtue of marriage, which is 
 the spirit of sacrifice ; but it is difficult for them to renounce 
 all when their husbands renounce nothing ; and that is never- 
 theless what they are asked to do. 
 
 " You have, perhaps, fancied yourself, sir, a model husband, 
 and in many respects you have been one ; I give you that 
 praise ; but you have, notwithstanding, a point of resemblance 
 to the mass of husbands, which is, that you make yourself 
 a very clear idea of the duties which marriage imposes upon 
 the woman, and a very vague one of those which it demands 
 of the man. Marriage is not a monologue ; it is a piece for 
 two persons. Now, you have studied only one character, 
 and it was not your own. You are too sincere, sir, not to 
 admit that your personal conception of marriage was simply 
 this : to add to the habitual comforts of your life an agree- 
 able accessory in the person of a good and pleasing woman, 
 who should ornament your house, who should perpetuate 
 your name, and who, in short, should bring you, without 
 troubling you too much, a supplement of comfort and re- 
 spectability. You have busied yourself greatly, like all of 
 your sex, in endeavoring to find that marvellous woman who 
 would make every sacrifice and exact none. You have not 
 found her, and no one will find her, because that rare bird 
 of which you all dream — the domestic woman — necessitates 
 the existence of a bird still rarer — the domestic man." 
 
128 -A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 your place. Have you " submitted " yourself 
 in this spirit, or has your husband had to say, 
 " It is against my judgment, but I must do it 
 or there will be no peace at home "? Have you 
 been intent on managing, controlling, using 
 your husband, or have you been faithfully 
 helping him ? " Forsaking all other," not seek- 
 ing, not appreciating, not responding even by 
 look or tone to their admiration, have you lost 
 yourself in that joint life on which you entered 
 when the pastor said, "What therefore God hath 
 joined together, let not man put asunder "? Has 
 " society," fashion or show engaged time, 
 thought and effort that should have gone 
 wholly to the joy, comfort and usefulness of 
 your husband ? Reflect, husbands and wives : 
 have you sought to advance the highest life of 
 each other ? Have you done all you ought to 
 have done as in God's sight each to make the 
 other purer, better, more spiritual, more Christ- 
 like ? The late Bishop Johns wrote to his 
 life-long friend, Dr. Charles Hodge, " To have 
 a daughter wed to a faithful minister of the 
 gospel, who will be her guide to heaven, as 
 well as her affectionate companion by the way, 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILY LIFE. 129 
 
 is a privilege with which the heart of a Chris- 
 tian parent may well be contented." And when 
 Dr. Hodge was left to mourn the loss of the 
 mother of his children, this was the record he 
 placed on her tomb, "An humble worshipper of 
 Christ. She lived in love and died in faith. 
 Truthful woman, delightful companion, ardent 
 friend, devoted wife, self-sacrificing mother, we 
 lay you gently here, our best beloved, to gather 
 strength and beauty for the coming of the 
 Lord."* The highest thinking and the soundest 
 theology do not kill, but elevate and purify, 
 human sensibilities. 
 
 But there is a fidelity to children on the part 
 of parents, at a later time, and of children to 
 their parents, without which the home is other 
 than it should be. What is it to train up a child 
 in the way he should go ? Can it commonly be 
 done by relegating the whole work to strangers, 
 from the nursery to the time of graduation ? 
 Surely not. It is the penalty that the rich 
 pay for their wealth that supposed social and 
 other demands upon their time separate them, 
 
 *Life of Charles Hodge, D.D., LL.D., liy his son, A. A. 
 Hodge, pp. 368, 370. 
 
130 A CHRIST I AX HOME. 
 
 as truly as poverty does the poor, from their 
 children, and seem to justify the delegation of 
 most paren. and in how 
 
 many instances with the worst results ! Deep 
 tenO onventional re- 
 
 gard. . .ther becomes " governor," and the 
 
 mother is but little recognized as guide and 
 counsellor. The supposed higher training and 
 often '"broader thinking'' of the school or col- 
 lege, which the wealth of the parents — ahead 
 perhaps of their own education — has provided, 
 
 -o often put the parents' opinion on a * 
 low level indeed. " Sense of inherent 
 
 right, propriety, in this or that, and — often 
 enough — religious observances, as urged by the 
 parents, are set down to their early narrow 
 circumstances and their strict up- 1 : and 
 
 superciliously set aside. Groups of friends are 
 cultivated of whom the parents know li 
 But this ought not to be, and won be if 
 
 parents appreciated their relations and obliga- 
 tion- en to loftier heig 
 
 than Alexander Duff's, and few names to 
 higher fame than his. Here is his testimony 
 to the Scottish farmer — his father : "If ever 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILY LIFE. 131 
 
 son had reason to thank God for the prayers, 
 the instructions, the counsels and the consistent 
 example of a devoutly pious father, I am that 
 son."* " The fear of offending a man who in- 
 spired me in earliest boyhood "with sentiments 
 of profoundest reverence and love toward him- 
 self, as a man of God, was for many years the 
 overmastering principle which restrained my 
 erring footsteps and saved me from many of 
 the overt follies and sins of youth." Here are 
 the vows recorded by the father of the late Dr. 
 James Hamilton of London, who lived as he 
 wrote — a " Life in Earnest " — on the day of his 
 child's birth : " to devote the remainder of my 
 life to his service and glory ; to promote the 
 temporal comforts and spiritual improvement 
 of my wife ; to guard against levity and folly; 
 to suppress peevishness and irritability; to 
 cultivate a meek and quiet spirit. Lord, I 
 am thine; thy vows are upon me."f The 
 genial and gifted son grew up under the inspi- 
 ration and influence of such a father and of a 
 mother like minded. 
 
 *The Life of Alexander Duff, D.D., LL.D., p. 607. 
 t Life of James Hamilton, D.D., p. 10. 
 
132 WUSTLLB HOME. 
 
 R adolph had his peculiarities as 
 man and as a power in his state. Perhaps " 
 were due in braining h Lad in 
 
 /.lite op} One, and that 
 
 bad as it was powerful, v. ';isni 
 
 and French infidelity ; the other was from his 
 her ; and the latter, there is good reason to 
 hope, triumphed in his li: in the end. 
 
 ••When I can just remember." he says, "I 
 
 ':h my widowed mother. 
 h night before she put me to bed. I repeated 
 on my knees before her th and 
 
 sties 9 Creed ; each morning, kneeling 
 in the bed. I put up my little hands in prayer 
 the same form. These lessons. I am now 
 conscious, are of more value to me than all I 
 have ever learned from my preceptors and com- 
 peers." Oh. fathers and mothers ! hful 
 :>ur children in effort, example and prayer. 
 The first led pray 
 
 a father for his son: "O bmael might 
 
 before .17:1- 
 
 A certain practical g< I to 
 
 secure the blessings of horn ; ? of do 
 
 spicnona by its presence 01 uce, ac- 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILY LIFE. 133 
 
 cording to the prominence of those who possess 
 or lack it. A prudent father influences the 
 outward family arrangements; an imprudent one 
 deranges many things. A mother of the kind 
 described in Prov. xxxi. is felt in all the house 
 and in the life of each of the family ; while a 
 weak, vain and unreflecting wife produces con- 
 stant embarrassment. A " careless daughter " 
 or a " foolish son " can be an irritating, morti- 
 fying, weakening element in a family, which is 
 strengthened on the other hand by the trust- 
 worthy wisdom even of a child. 
 
 Such good sense is a check on extravagance 
 and improvidence. It is not content with idle- 
 ness. It anticipates and prepares for the future. 
 It appreciates the fitness of things. It knows 
 the value of a good name and the influence of 
 associations. It keeps aloof from compromising 
 alliances. It discriminates among relaxations, 
 amusements and pleasures. It develops strength 
 by self-denial in fitting circumstances. It is 
 the safety, under God, of a Garfield in the 
 struggles of early youth ; it is no mean feature 
 in the life of Washington, in public and in 
 private life, on his firm, or on the field in the 
 
134 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 war for a nation's independence. It may be 
 said, indeed, that such wisdom is a gift, and the 
 want of it a misfortune. There are minds, un- 
 happily, without balance, and natures without 
 the power of clear perception. But the suf- 
 ferers from natural defects are few in compar- 
 ison with the crowds who yield themselves 
 early to a kind of wisdom which infallible au- 
 thority describes as " earthly, sensual, devilish." 
 There is a wisdom that comes " from above," 
 which is pure, " peaceable, gentle, and easy 
 to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, 
 without partiality, and without hypocrisy." It 
 is not learnt in school or college, though it can 
 be cultivated in both. It is secured in another 
 way : " If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask 
 of God."* The possession of this is the guaran- 
 tee for stability and for sincerity. It keeps 
 parents from provoking children to wrath, and 
 children from ignoring their parents. It in- 
 spires confidence in those who notice us from 
 without, and it preserves the right relations 
 with those who share our lives. It keeps the 
 family in its proper place in the mind of each 
 
 * James 1 : 5. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILY LIFE. 135 
 
 member, so that it is not overborne by "society," 
 pleasure or acquaintances. Few men have done 
 more for God's glory than Nettleton. Born in 
 humble life, with a hard struggle to get an 
 education, and in his peculiar Christian work 
 eminently requiring that discretion for the 
 lack of which so many evangelists have failed 
 in the end, he was from his youth marked by 
 good sense. His room-mate at college records 
 the association as a blessing. " Ever kind, 
 courteous, conscientious and exemplary, unas- 
 suming and unostentatious, his words and 
 actions bore the most powerful testimony to 
 my conscience to the genuineness of his re- 
 ligious principles." 
 
 The joy of home is always endangered by 
 selfishness, and promoted by the opposite vir- 
 tue. Let there be constant dwelling by the 
 individual on his or her rights and claims, and 
 a morbid brooding on supposed wrongs, and the 
 seeds of misery are being sown. Questions of 
 precedency, of degrees of attention and con- 
 sideration, of proportion of means and of ex- 
 penses, will be raised, and with their discussion 
 will come, all too often, coolness, suspicion, 
 
136 ^ CHRISTIAN IIO ML. 
 
 hard language, and alienation of heart. Jealousy 
 makes mountains out of molehills ; it is 
 
 '• Agony unmixed, incessant gall. 
 Corroding every thought, and blasting all 
 Love's parad: 
 
 The suspicious nature creates evidences for its 
 own theories. The perverted spirit sends a kind 
 of blood-poison through the whole nature. Noth- 
 ing is right to such an one who has a home griev- 
 ance, and death itself does not always remove 
 the occasion of bitterness. To have the home 
 happy its inmates must each esteem other better 
 than himself; must give credit for honesty of 
 motive and aim to others, and must think more 
 of doing the duties than standing up for the 
 rights of life. There is a ''refractory egotism'" 
 which — alike in the community, the church, 
 the congregation and the committee — breeds 
 trouble. Of course the narrower and the 
 more secluded the circle, the more the disturb- 
 ing force is felt. Fair appearances can be 
 maintained before the world when the life in 
 the family circle is one of suspicion, irritating 
 recrimination and intolerable misery. In the 
 divine word, the families of Isaac, of Jacob, of 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILY LIFE. 137 
 
 David, illustrate the point. Even the meek 
 Moses does not escape the vexation. In the 
 Christ-honored home of Bethany the beginning 
 of the evil crops out in Martha's sense of " too 
 much to do," and the Master's seeming favor 
 to Mary. So many a sister, many a brother, 
 has been harassed with grievances mostly im- 
 aginary or accidental. Let us avoid all these 
 things. Love is of God. In the church we 
 are by grace, in the family we are by nature, 
 "members one of another." Let mutual un- 
 selfish love be as the carpet deadening the 
 sound of every step, as the lamp silently 
 giving its light and diffusing cheerfulness, 
 as the curtain shutting out sun and wind 
 in their season, as the pillow on which the 
 weary head rests and is at peace. Home 
 has been called " heaven's fallen sister." Let 
 us lift it up by fitting it with the love which 
 goes so far to make heaven. Let us banish 
 the embittered selfishness, which is to the life 
 as rust to metal, as the moth to the garment, 
 as the malaria to the body, as " rottenness to 
 the bones." Love will disarm the imitators of 
 Cain, and give to the life of each of us some- 
 
138 A CHMSTIAX HOME. 
 
 thing of the charm one sees in Jonathan, in 
 John the Baptist, in Peter (2 Pet. 3 : 15) ere 
 he died, in the angels 'who " minister for them 
 who shall he heirs of salvation." 
 
 Mutual confidences will be a fruit of mutual 
 love. It is wise for parents to take their chil- 
 dren, as their intelligence develops, into their 
 counsels, and to encourage the like course on 
 the part of the children to them and to one 
 another. How often the girl has a confidante 
 who knows much more of her real life than 
 does the mother that bore her ! But the girl- 
 companion has only a girl's knowledge, while 
 possibly there are matters to be considered and 
 decided of which a mother's experience and 
 greater knowledge of life would make her a 
 better judge than the dearest bosom friend of 
 her own years. In how many instances are 
 persons compelled in later years to own to 
 themselves and to others, " If I had consulted 
 my father — my mother — before taking the step 
 it would have saved me from many a pang." 
 This confession is made regarding investments 
 of time, of effort, of affection, even of money. 
 To avoid such calamities it is for the parent 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILY LIFE. 139 
 
 to draw out and invite the confidence of chil- 
 dren. 
 
 " We have careful thought for the stranger, 
 
 And smiles for the sometime guest, 
 But oft for our own the bitter tone, 
 
 Though we love our own the best. 
 Ah, lip with the curve impatient, 
 
 Ah, brow with the shade of scorn, 
 'Twere a cruel fate were the night too late 
 
 To undo the work of morn." 
 
It is through our parents and teachers that we are first 
 brought to the knowledge of Christ. Moreover, we do not 
 hang singly, but in clusters. Thus every family should be 
 a cluster of grapes, hanging and drawing its life from the 
 heavenly vine. Every parish should be a cluster of clusters 
 — a cluster like that which the spies brought back out of the 
 land of Canaan. — Hare. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HOME GOVERNMENT AND TRAINING. 
 
 " Father Abraham ' " — First " household " — A single dwelling 
 — Building up a family — "What is Abraham to us?" — 
 Communities live — Scattered coals — The patriarch taught 
 — So are we — Sodom's influence — Parents, not deputies — 
 Early impressions — John H. Newman — "Parisian" — 
 Unpaid assistants not principals — Penalties of neglected 
 duty — Parental austerity — Precocious individualism — Its 
 genesis — Hotel life — Imported amusements — The bridge 
 over to ruin — B-ich and wretched — Objections — Latent 
 forces — Unequal resistance — Nothing to me — Need for 
 forewarning — The " fortunate'" — " One more unfortunate" 
 — Appeal. 
 
 The very first use of the word "household" 
 in our English Bible is in connection with the 
 " father of the faithful." « I know him," said 
 the Lord, concerning Abraham, " that he will 
 command his children and his household after 
 him, and they shall keep the wny of the Lord" 
 (Gen. 18 : 19). " Household" corresponds sub- 
 stantially with our word " family," and in- 
 cludes servants, of whom Abraham hnd many, 
 for we read of three hundred and eighteen 
 
 (141) 
 
142 -4 CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 men born in his house. We say " substantially," 
 for in the condition of society in which the 
 patriarch lived he was as absolute in authority 
 over the slaves and their children, and as truly 
 responsible for them, as the ordinary parent 
 is for his sons and daughters. If to command 
 so many where the difficulties must have been 
 so great was a laudable virtue, winning even 
 divine commendation, much more may such 
 virtue be looked for in the Christian heads of 
 a household, where only the inmates of a single 
 dwelling are included. 
 
 It will be readily conceded that this is as 
 high a testimonial as could well be given to 
 any man. It is from the Lord, who never 
 utters empty compliments, who knows men's 
 hearts and ways, and who judges justly. That 
 must be a quality of a high order which the 
 divine Judge singles out with such marked 
 approbation. For the Lord connects this 
 fidelity to his trust with the greatness in re- 
 serve for Abraham. " Shall I hide from 
 Abraham that thing which I do; seeing 
 that Abraham shall surely become a great and 
 mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth 
 
HOME GOVERNMENT AND TRAINING. 143 
 
 shall be blessed in him ? For I know him," 
 etc. How many families have come to nothing 
 — literally become extinct — because they had 
 nothing of that careful and authoritative train- 
 ing Abraham aimed at giving. Talk of found- 
 ing a family! He who would do it must try 
 to train its members to "keep the way of the 
 Lord." It may be readily said, indeed, that 
 Abraham is little or nothing to us. An ancient 
 sheikh, at the head of a nomadic tribe nearly 
 four thousand years ago, what can there be in 
 common between him and us to make him for 
 us an exemplar ? We, it may be added, are of 
 the Christian race and dispensation, and more- 
 over enjoy the advanced culture of this pro- 
 gressive nineteenth century. In point of fact 
 some do blunt the edge of many a rebuke and 
 miss the help of many a good example under 
 the influence of just such views. They are, 
 however, founded on a mistake — a part of that 
 wider error that belittles the Old Testament 
 as antiquated and obsolete. If we read aright 
 the argument of Paul (Rom. 4:11, 12, 13, 16), 
 we are the descendants, religiously and spirit- 
 ually, of Abraham as truly as are Lutherans 
 
■" HOME. 
 
 of Loth iers of the pilgrim 
 
 The union is not so close between 
 nemann and the homoeop: 
 the _ington 
 
 '. 
 He rejoiced to ved 
 
 ' :td. He rece 
 1 the r: was 
 
 f them, while still uncircumc: 
 
 not be shot ont fr 
 :h him, or the hope of a lil 
 ion. And our air. — aim of 
 
 a and of n church — 
 
 onght to be not only to induce individual 
 believe and obtain life, but to found soc: 
 of I -II be true and faithful and 
 
 infl. -n families, in companies, in c 
 
 of life, in trad - >cial and in 
 
 political affairs. Communities live and per- 
 petuate th .en the inc. ies; 
 and few be: for doing the d 
 
 I. .. 
 out of the fire and leave i 
 soon a black and half-* . ler. Keep the 
 
 coals raked togeth jr have pow 
 
HOME GOVERNMENT AND TRAINING. 145 
 
 inflame such fuel as is added to them. No 
 language too strong, therefore, can be employed 
 on the importance of household government 
 and religion. 
 
 We repeat, then, that to all parents in their 
 place the principles of those words apply, as 
 they did to Abraham. He had authority : 
 " he will command." So have they. He was 
 to use it for religious ends : " and they shall 
 keep the way of the Lord." So are they. 
 The result would not be merely intellectual 
 or sentimental, but practical — " to do justice 
 and judgment." So it is to be with parents 
 to-day. And this fidelity on the patriarch's 
 part was to constitute a link in the chain of 
 God's favorable providences, leading to the 
 greatness and the blessedness of Abraham and 
 his offspring. The same is emphatically true 
 in the case of all parents who train up their 
 children in the way which the eternal Father 
 enjoins. 
 
 In bringing this suggestive word to parents 
 there arc other circumstances to which their 
 attention may be properly invited. The occa- 
 sion of the utterance of the word, for example, 
 10 
 
146 ■* CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 namely, the coming ruin of Sodom, is adapted 
 to awaken thought. The righteous Jehovah 
 is telling Abraham what is to be done to Sodom. 
 He is to learn the blessings of grace. To do 
 this aright, he must know the severity of 
 judgment. God is without variableness. The 
 ages change. He does not. He has always 
 had a left hand and a right hand. Sodom and 
 Abraham's household stand over against one 
 another. In the case of the one we have for- 
 bearance, patience, warning, testing, punishing 
 — the steps then, as now, of God's righteous 
 providence. Abraham is to know all this. 
 No man understands redemption until he under- 
 stands sin. Grace is only known when we 
 know guilt. Hence men to whom sin is a light 
 thing think lightly of the atonement. It is 
 heroic, exemplary, inspiring, winning, in their 
 estimate. In the Bible it is all this, but it is 
 more : it is satisfying law, and he who does 
 that endures the wrath and curse of God (Gal. 
 3 : 13). Hence deniers of the true and proper 
 atonement are commonly Universalists or 
 Restorationists in the second generation, in 
 some vague form or other contriving to dis- 
 
HOME GOVERNMENT AND TRAINING. 147 
 
 pose of the effects of divine wrath so that the 
 wages of sin shall not be death. 
 
 One other point is worthy of our attention 
 in this matter. It might appear to a hasty- 
 reader that Abraham's fidelity was the ground 
 of God's choice of him. But the " I know" of 
 Genesis has all the force of the "chosen" of 
 Paul (Eph. 1:4). Hence we have in the 
 latter writer (Rom. 8 : 29), "whom he did 
 foreknow," i. e., know and love, as it is said, 
 " the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous " 
 (Ps. 1:6). So the God of Israel says to the 
 Hebrew people (Amos 3:2), " You only have 
 I known of all the families of the earth." Can 
 that mean the mere apprehension of omnis- 
 cience? Can it mean anything else than, "You 
 only have I chosen, taken, blessed, brought 
 from idolatry beyond the flood"? 
 
 Does any parent, eager to escape obligation, 
 say, " This takes the pressure from me ; I am 
 not bound. God may not know me in this 
 sense. He has not put me under these re- 
 sponsibilities"? Nay, you cannot truly reason 
 thus. God has done for you as for Abraham. 
 He has put you in a Christian land, in his 
 
148 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 church perhaps ; he has given you knowledge, 
 privilege, covenant advantages, not desired by 
 you, not deserved by you, but enjoyed for no 
 other reason than that it has pleased him that 
 you should enjoy them. You are blessed as 
 was Abraham, and your obligation is like 
 his. 
 
 At the risk of seeming to linger unduly on 
 this divine word, we invite the attention of 
 parents to another instructive aspect of these 
 facts. How early in human history did family 
 relations, instructions and discipline come into 
 operation in God's kingdom ! Family religion 
 he employs to maintain his church, and many 
 a time when the organic body, as such, is cold 
 and dead, spiritual life has been perpetuated 
 by a true family religion. This point is empha- 
 sized in the antithesis between Abraham and 
 Sodom. Over against the doomed city, where 
 even Lot's children laugh to scorn his warnings, 
 where family government is ignored and evil 
 passions have free play, where, in consequence, 
 divine fires are being prepared for its destruc- 
 tion, the opposite line is emphasized, " I know 
 him, that he will command his children and his 
 
HOME GOVERNMENT AND TRAINING. 149 
 
 household after him, and they shall keep the 
 way of the Lord.' 1 
 
 On parents then, and in some respects em- 
 phatically on fathers, the Creator has placed 
 responsibility for the government and training 
 of the household. Servants indeed do not 
 now stand to their masters as in patriarchal 
 days ; but, as we shall see, they are not to be 
 overlooked by conscientious heads of families. 
 The day-school teachers are parents' assistants 
 in the work of teaching, but they never can 
 be their substitutes ; and no little care should 
 be taken by parents not only in selecting 
 teachers, but in watching the growth and de- 
 velopment of character of the young who spend 
 so much of their time beyond the reach of 
 their observation and influence. On this point 
 of selecting schools and watching the results, 
 even where the testimony is the most assuring, 
 it is fitting to give words of caution. Even 
 the most effective teachers can only know in 
 part the life of their pupils. Responsibility is 
 often, too often, divided up, in great educational 
 establishments. Boys and girls are now found 
 in as great numbers in schools as more advanced 
 
150 ^ CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 students in colleges, and the larger the number 
 the greater the chance of injurious companion- 
 ship. A certain proportion suffer even in the 
 most carefully-ordered institutions. Especially 
 is there need of care that early lessons of 
 reverence and rectitude be not supplanted. 
 How readily the human heart, naturally in- 
 clined to the wrong, receives impressions in 
 early years, it is not needful to prove, hardly 
 to illustrate. One conspicuous case may be 
 noted, where the facts do not rest on hearsay. 
 One of Rome's most notable gains from the 
 English church has been J. H. Newman. His 
 Apologia pro vita sua is meant to give the idea 
 that abstract overwhelming conviction, without 
 any biasing influence, determined his action. 
 The writer declares of himself that he was 
 without religious convictions till he was fifteen, 
 and disavows emphatically anything by which 
 his mind could have been unconsciously in- 
 fluenced. But he incidentally mentions that 
 he used to " cross himself" in the dark — why 
 or how he learned it he does not know ; that 
 his French master was a Roman Catholic priest; 
 that he found in his earliest verse-book a draw- 
 
HOME GOVERNMENT AND TRAINING. 151 
 
 ing by himself of a cross when he was not ten 
 years old ; that he remembered his father 
 taking him to a Roman Catholic church, where 
 he wanted to hear a piece of music. Other 
 circumstances are mentioned, but with a con- 
 stant disclaimer of their having had any influ- 
 ence, or their offering any explanation of his 
 passing over, after many years in the Protest- 
 ant ministry, to the Church of Rome. Any 
 one who has studied human character knows in 
 how many instances a bent is early given to 
 the young mind, to which it, after many years 
 perhaps, yields. This is, indeed, one element 
 in the hope of every parent when trying to in- 
 fluence the young, that early impressions will 
 some day be felt afresh, even though for the time 
 obliterated. Why should the principle work in 
 the direction of good and not also of evil ? 
 
 After the Revolution, lady refugees from 
 France opened schools in Great Britain, and 
 found sympathy and support. "Manner" and 
 superficial accomplishments were their specialty. 
 The " Parisian " in education was studied and 
 affected as in dress at a later time. Any one 
 who has watched English society knows that 
 
152 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 in a certain proportion of cases indifference to 
 Protestantism, or positive Romanism, has been 
 the result. The same thing is true in another 
 form in parts of the United States. The time 
 was when no safety could be hoped for Cali- 
 fornia girls but in nunnery schools ; and brief 
 as was the period, it had its effects. We give 
 these as examples, because the influences are 
 so well defined in their results. But the same 
 forces are just as effective on other lines, and 
 the boy may acquire the idea that to be a 
 " man upon town" is the road to happiness, and 
 the girl may go out into life with the convic- 
 tion — not formulated, perhaps, but none the 
 less solid — that the graces that make success 
 and happiness are quite other than those of her 
 catechism, or even her mother's character. 
 " How hardly shall they that have riches enter 
 into the kingdom" was a true and unpreju- 
 diced reflection in our Lord's time. Has it 
 become obsolete ? * 
 
 * Martensen (Ethics, vol. 2, p. 6), looking at modern life 
 from the comparative remoteness of a Danish island, speaks 
 as truly to us as if he lived in London, Paris or New York: 
 "Now the church brings us the gospel, which leads us back 
 from all idolatrous practices, all adulterations of the divine, 
 
HOME GOVERNMENT AND TRAINING. 15H 
 
 There is some danger of even Christian 
 parents relieving their minds of a sense of duty 
 as to their children's religious training, in view 
 of our efficient Sabbath-schools. Parents, these 
 teachers are your unpaid assistants, and you 
 have some responsibility of choice there also. 
 But they cannot be your substitutes. One 
 hour in the week is all too little in which to 
 conquer natural ignorance, distaste for spiritual 
 things, and in many cases positive unfavorable 
 influences. A minister tried to make the ac- 
 quaintance of the children of a family. He 
 led the chat to the Sunday-school, and their 
 enthusiasm delighted him. But further re- 
 marks from them on the subject puzzled him ; 
 they alluded to features with which he was 
 not familiar ; he found that they were all the 
 time talking of the dancing-school ! lie left 
 
 to the primitive, the genuinely divine, to the only true God, 
 and him whom he has sent; to our heavenly Father's house, 
 which avc have forsaken, and walked instead in our own 
 ways, in our own thoughts of God and of things divine, in 
 our own foolish wisdom, our false and supposed policy, our 
 vain deification of art, our ascription of saving power to 
 culture.''' The lines we have italicised are worth the pon- 
 dering. 
 
154 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 with the feeling that both the Sunday-school 
 teacher and he were working at a great disad- 
 vantage. 
 
 Remember that in all cases of neglected dn 
 sorrow will come sooner or later ; and when it 
 comes early, how keen it is ! " A child left to 
 
 elf bringeth his mother to shame" (Prov. 
 29 : 15). We say early, for we have seen 
 aged parents, alas ! sadly reconciled to the ruin 
 of their children. "Very sorry to see it, but 
 no hope !" A mother hears the revels of her 
 son in the next room to her own, and dare not 
 show displeasure for fear of insult. A daugh- 
 ter's life is wrecked, her prospects blighted, 
 and her habits fixed irremovably — except by 
 divine grace — under the very eye of parents, 
 who looked on at the steps of the process. The 
 girl needed to be " kept up," and the doctor 
 ordered a little stimulant, and she could not 
 avoid being fatigued after long nights with 
 "society." and now they and the doctor are 
 equally helpless. It is sad to see a family 
 broken down by the removal of parents ; but 
 
 ore melancholy spectacle is it by tar when 
 the young have gone to ruin, and the old stand 
 
HOME GOVERNMENT AND TRAINING. 155 
 
 alone, enfeebled, humiliated, mourning over the 
 wreck which their indolence or their errors 
 made possible. The harvest is as the seed. 
 TIow much joy there is, on the other hand, 
 from lives trained with care, pains and prayer, 
 and standing up in their hopeful strength and 
 beauty ! 
 
 We confess that we present these immediate 
 elements of the harvest to parents because 
 many will appreciate them who are blind and in- 
 sensible to the remoter results in the region that 
 is unseen and the duration that is eternal. Be- 
 lievers who are living " under the power of the 
 world to come" do not need to be reminded of the 
 awful and everlasting sanctions of God's law. 
 
 It is all the more important to deepen, if 
 possible, the sense of parental obligation, be- 
 cause the drift of the time is somewhat against 
 it. "Commanding" is not popular. We do 
 not forget the danger of ascribing features to 
 our own time which have existed equally in 
 all other times, and would be equally apparent 
 to us did we know them as well as our own. 
 Without yielding to this common tendency we 
 can define, and in part account for, a disposi- 
 
156 A CHRISTIAN HO 
 
 tion to precocious individualism and early self- 
 assertion characteristic of our generation, our 
 critics would perhaps say even of our land. 
 A popular female English writer has indicated 
 this feature of the times in a pleasant chapter 
 upon children bringing up their parents in the 
 way they should go. There is reaction, say 
 some, against rigor. Every one can tell you 
 of some melancholy wreck, where an austere 
 father is supposed to have driven his son into 
 dissipation after disgusting him with religion. 
 Society does not always hear the father's side 
 of the case. He is less likely to tell it than 
 the loose-tongued son, who is put on his de- 
 fence. And society does not hear, or if it does, 
 it does not heed, the far more numerous and 
 better-attested cases — for one cannot always 
 measure the other evil forces that were at 
 work besides the father's strictness — where 
 weak, indulgent, easy-going parents let their 
 children rush down the steep place into the 
 sea of vice and be drowned. There is none 
 too much of Abraham-like "commanding;."* 
 
 * The -writer has looked into many of the alleged cases of 
 lives wrecked by the over-much piety of parents, and often 
 
HOME GOVERNMENT AND TRAINING. 157 
 
 As evidence that our time has early self- 
 assertion as one of its peculiar perils, we not 
 only appeal to facts ; we can assign the reason 
 and give the history. Over and above the 
 freedom of speech and thought, the diffusion 
 of education, the consequent early period at 
 which in general life young people make their 
 decisions and undertake independent work — 
 over and above what may be called the " way" 
 of our land and the genius of our institutions — 
 we have received and accepted outside teach- 
 ing on this subject — teaching, too, which is 
 one-sided, and so far misleading and mischiev- 
 ous. Kant, Fiehte, Rousseau and others of 
 kindred schools have theorized touching the 
 constitution of society on the plan of making 
 the individual the one thing to be considered, 
 and the world the sum of the individuals. But 
 men and women are long under formative and 
 determining influences before they become 
 
 enough they take their place alongside of the " Blue Lawn 
 of Connecticut," which even educated people frequently 
 quote in ignorance of the fact that they were the malignant 
 caricature of an Englishman who fled from American inde- 
 pendence, and probably felt the need of vindicating his 
 course. 
 
158 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 such individuals as these philosophers contem- 
 plate. Any view therefore of the sum of the 
 individuals will be defective which overlooks 
 all these formative forces. But the formative 
 forces are, or ought to he, primarily in the 
 family. In the degree in which this philos- 
 ophy rules the family, the subordination of its 
 members to the head will go down. Are we 
 not reaping the harvest of which this school 
 of thinkers scattered the seeds ?* 
 
 Another consideration deserving thought in 
 this connection is the growing separation be- 
 tween parents and children produced by the 
 habits of our lives. Business men do not live 
 over their offices or stores, as they used to do, 
 
 * Who can wonder that with the spread of the above views 
 vague and infelicitous conceptions of woman's rights should 
 obtain ? There are real woman's rights, in the wise assertion 
 of which every man must rejoice. But how natural for a 
 woman, not used to broad thinking, to draw her own con- 
 clusions from the strong and one-sided magnifying of the 
 individual : " Good ! it is all certain and clear as daylight. 
 And here are we women, as numerous as the men, as attract- 
 ive, as gifted, as much individuals as they are, and we are 
 neither bankers nor brokers, legislators nor voters, neither 
 forward in the law nor honored in the gospel. Let us strike 
 for our rights." There is a history here also. 
 
HOME GOVERNMENT AND TRAINING. 159 
 
 readily passing up to their families. The rep- 
 resentatives of the extinct class that once did 
 this rarely see their children at any length, 
 except on Sabbaths and in holiday time. A 
 larger proportion of the young live away from 
 home for educational purposes than formerly. 
 In fact, as many a parent deplores, glimpses of 
 the children are all that are enjoyed, by fathers 
 at least, and it is all too easy for them to grow 
 away from one another. And as far as domes- 
 tics are concerned, how many of them come 
 and go in many " establishments" without ever 
 exchanging word or thought with the " gentle- 
 man of the house," whom the growing sons 
 possibly designate, in petty imitation of others, 
 "the guv'ner." All this conscientious Chris- 
 tian parents and heads of houses must take 
 into account.* 
 
 Nor are we allowed to forget that the urgency 
 and pressure of life's cares, as society advances 
 in wealth, make the work we are inculcating 
 
 * A good woman, known to me in other years, often put in 
 her word, when in her presence her husband, a saintly clergy- 
 man, was making evening engagements for the future, " Oh, 
 please do not undertake it ; stay at home one evening and let 
 me introduce the children to you." 
 
who fe-_ I even r: 
 
 it ma y - 
 
 I 
 the:: with their comr pro- 
 
 The hi :aothers 
 
 are often 
 
 then: ir child: 
 
 :»f compensation r.. 
 
 :shionable 
 y a limit to their n: 
 in Paris, have often as mr. 
 
 it com 
 ■ ' ' and left 1 
 
 at ran- 
 dom, .ions or 
 none 
 
 school 
 
 hear the 
 
 has con 
 : where he — : she — 
 
 n sure U :r were seen in 
 
 I 
 
HOME GOVERNMENT AND TRAINING. 161 
 
 in the increasing number of cases where hotel 
 life is a choice or a necessity, and the inevitable 
 mingling of all in the lengthening holidays, 
 and popular " resorts" becoming more and more 
 "crowded." It is difficult to "pull up" a boy 
 for an unseemly word or deed, or to lecture a 
 girl, " on the piazza," before the company. 
 
 Perhaps also some consideration is due to 
 the character of the amusements affected by a 
 people rapidly growing in means. Imported 
 from the Continent, some of them ; foreign to 
 the early national life, many of them ; urged on 
 us like any other object of profitable sale, and 
 sometimes accepted in a way which justifies 
 the caterers in smiling at our ways, — they have 
 modified home life to a considerable degree. 
 Amusements have their place ; they are neces- 
 sary ; they are worth studying by those who 
 bring up the young ; but they are bad when 
 they bridge over the space between a youth's 
 hereditary or habitual religion and the world's 
 vices and sins. The inmate of a quiet, pure 
 and orderly home till youth has been reached, 
 he comes into one of our great cities. Take 
 
 him to one of its reputable and fashionable 
 ll 
 
102 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 " places of amusement." It is new, pleasant, 
 fascinating to him. Beside and around him 
 are the cultured, the reputable. He wonders 
 why at home this kind of thing was never 
 applauded. Already pity for his parents' want 
 of culture is finding a place in his mind. Pity 
 is hardening into blame, or something like 
 contempt. There is no vice here. Beside 
 him are nice people. He stands with them. 
 But, ah ! he is near, he is being influenced by, 
 subtle sensuality, base though showy intrigue. 
 He is becoming ready fuel for the passion fires, 
 the sparks of which flash around the very door 
 of the place, in the saloon, the gambling-house, 
 and the like. Father and mother had tried to 
 keep him from scenes where the plague is slay- 
 ing its victims. Pity it is, surely, that he 
 .should be helped over the bridge between their 
 safe life and this glittering surface covering 
 "the region and shadow of death." 
 
 Just because there are these difficulties, the 
 more need is there for you, parents, to take 
 pains, to feel burdens, to comprehend the 
 situation, to accept your duties and to address 
 yourselves to them. What will it profit you, 
 
HOME GOVERNMENT AND TRAINING. 163 
 
 fathers, to have made fortunes for sons if 
 they be spent by the worthless ? What good 
 will it do you, mothers, to have brought 
 up and brought out daughters with marked so- 
 cial success, if their dwellings, however splen- 
 did, lack the purity, the fidelity, the love that 
 make a true home, and without which splendid 
 environments are but a vexatious mockery ? 
 
 Without dealing formally with objections 
 which may be easily raised, and referring our 
 reader to a previous chapter (on the Ethics of 
 the Home), we note some difficulties that may 
 be easily raised. " We often see the children 
 of good parents," it is said, " turn out the very 
 reverse of good." Well, it is true that many 
 things occur in life, even in church life, which 
 prove that the new man is born, not of blood, 
 nor of the will of the flesh, nor of man, but of 
 God (John 1 : 13). Yet one must be slow to 
 think that God disappoints faith and fidelity 
 in order to prove his own sovereignty. Some 
 modifying circumstances have probably to be 
 taken into account in forming a fair and com- 
 plete idea of such cases. This circumstance, 
 for example, is notable, that good men and 
 
164 -A- CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 women have often grave defects, are often led 
 into serious sins. We do not speak of Jacob's, 
 Judah's, Eli's, David's — all too like the habits 
 of other Oriental chiefs in many things. The 
 outcome of these defects is often seen in the 
 family. What is bad in the parent is worse in 
 the child, especially if his theatre of action be 
 more conspicuous, his means of indulgence 
 greater than his parents'. Just so it is that 
 the character of the first generation of errorists 
 is often good. The outcome of their error, un- 
 hindered by restraints that told on their pred- 
 ecessors, is seen in the second. A good man 
 takes wine at his table — never to excess. So 
 does his son. A good man indulges in a 
 game — never gambles. So does his son. 
 But that which never bent the strong tree 
 bends the twig, and at one-and-twenty the 
 son is a ruin* Or, in the estimate formed 
 
 * How many times I have longed to caution fathers who 
 made their own rugged natures — braced and confirmed in 
 country air, and conserved till manhood in unexciting coun- 
 try life — the standard by which to judge their own sons, city 
 born and bred, with an organization of a different kind, and 
 a nervous system such as city life all too often develops. 
 What is safe for the father may be fatal to the son. 
 
HOME GOVERNMENT AXD TRAINING. 105 
 
 from the worthless children of good parents, 
 we must allow for the facts already men- 
 tioned — the many cases in which children 
 grow up away from the influence of their 
 parents, at schools, and this in their most im- 
 pressible years. They who have traced back 
 the cases of marked departure have often 
 enough been able to give the particulars, and 
 say how the temptation and the fall came; 
 how the family moved into Sodom, and Lot's 
 advice and example went for little ; or how 
 Dinah made friends among the aliens, and dis- 
 grace and bloodshed were the sad conse- 
 quences. 
 
 Some reader of these pages may feel that 
 for him they mean nothing. They speak to 
 parents who have their children around them. 
 But let it be borne in mind that a burning 
 candle does not give light to the right or to 
 the left only, but all around. The principle 
 that binds a Christian parent's conscience in- 
 fluences every believer in his place. " Ye are 
 the light of the world." There should be care 
 in constituting the household. Men should be 
 wise in selecting, women in accepting. The 
 
166 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 question should be put to the conscience, Shall 
 I have help or hindrance in building a true 
 home, from him, or her, as a partner ? There 
 is need to speak, even from pulpits, and still 
 more from parents' lips, to maidens, the honest 
 words of warning against mere mercenary and 
 ambitious marriages. There is need for kindly 
 warning to girls against acquiring, partly in 
 schools, more commonly outside them, tastes 
 and aims incompatible with lowly and unpre- 
 tentious work, and according to which life is 
 only worth living when a figure is made ; when, 
 even at the sacrifice of all that is true and 
 gentle, dress, luxuries, shows and flatteries 
 are habitually enjoyed. Oh, the misery, keen 
 and humiliating, of a woman, young, fair, sensi- 
 tive, affectionate, joining her lot, whatever the 
 force of the sacred bond, to a man in whom the 
 animal is much and the conscience is little, on 
 whose whims, caprices, irregular affections, and 
 selfish, perhaps lawless, disposition her happi- 
 ness must depend ! No wonder if lost hope, lost 
 self-respect, lost belief in goodness, should keep 
 her, in the doubtful periods of her power over 
 him, on the verge of despair. Nothing then but 
 
HOME GOVERNMENT AND TRAINING. 167 
 
 belief in God can comfort and assuage. Better 
 than this a thousand times is it to toil to old 
 age in a garret, " with fingers weary and worn, 
 with eyelids heavy and red," unknown and un- 
 noticed save by the Lord who dwells with the 
 pure in heart, and who crowns with compen- 
 sating glory those who follow the Lamb and 
 keep their garments clean even through great 
 tribulation. And as for those who, without 
 recognized marriage union and sacred ties, put 
 their lives in hands black enough to snatch at 
 the spoil, what can be said ? No wonder that 
 for such the alternative should lie between the 
 plunge of the suicide and the conversion of the 
 fallen into the demoniacal tempters of others. 
 Parents, heads of families, the duty we have 
 been urging is difficult and delicate, calling for 
 constant thought and prayer; but great is 
 the reward. If God bless your toil, what a 
 joy it will be when the home of earth is ex- 
 changed for the heavenly ; when petty cares 
 are all ended, vexations all clean gone for- 
 ever ; when no more " a watch is to be kept 
 in a world of ill ;" when you and yours are to- 
 gether in mutual confidence, love, joy, perfect 
 
108 4 CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 felicity — together forever, and forever with the 
 whole family that is named after Jesus — for- 
 ever with the Lord ! 
 
 It may not be amiss to indicate classes of 
 persons exposed to special danger, and de- 
 manding, in consequence, peculiar and watch- 
 ful care on the part of parents. There is, for 
 mple, the son of a very wealthy man. He 
 has no absolute need to work ; he is supposed 
 to he required by his station and his prospects 
 to learn "accomplishments," which imply as- 
 sociations and occupation of time not favorable 
 to the development of solid character. He is 
 meanwhile liable to the interested and base 
 approaches of the corrupt. He has ample 
 means. He needs emphatically a firm, true 
 and wise friend in his home. 
 
 An only child, even in more moderate cir- 
 cumstances, is also exposed. Restraint is as 
 little imposed as possible. It is felt to be 
 hard to thwart ''the only young person in 
 the fami The consciousness of freedom, 
 
 and, by and by, of power, is soon real- 
 ized. Too early independence is enjoyed, and 
 often enough the too-indulgent parents are 
 
HOME GOVERNMENT AND TRAINL 169 
 
 made to suffer keenly for their weakness and 
 neglect. 
 
 The sons of widows, again, are in trying 
 positions, whether they be rich or poor. They 
 excuse petty faults in the boys " because they 
 have no father's authority over them," and 
 forget that the bereavement makes greater 
 strictness and vigilance necessary. God help 
 the mothers who have alone to guard and 
 guide young and vigorous lives ! 
 
'• The sun and the moon and the eleven stars (Gen. 37 : 9). 
 What a beautiful picture — in a dream — of what a family 
 should be ! The father as the sun. fall of beautiful light, 
 and lighting all about him : the mother as the moon, shining 
 out in her husband's absence, veiling to him when he is in 
 his place : the children as stars of light, or rather as a heaven 
 full of stars." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE WORSHIP OF THE HOME. 
 
 Natural religion — The Lares and Penates — " Opened with 
 prayer" — What is urged — Regular hours — Grace before 
 meat — What is family worship — Regular at meals — Scrip- 
 ture-reading — Music, or not — Fitting selections — Touching 
 life — Aids to devotion — An example — The parting bene- 
 diction — The reflex side only — The higher aspect — Un- 
 blessed prosperity — Sorrow added with it — " But two of 
 us" — "Only in rooms" — "So little time" — "Strangers 
 with us" — " No gift of prayer" — An elder's preparation 
 — " Family take no interest" — Difficulties to be conquered 
 — Prayer put aside by society — Second-generation sin- 
 ning punished by the third — Illustration — Family unity — 
 The priest in the home — A soldier's lasting fame — A 
 prophecy of heaven. 
 
 The teaching of nature is not to be despised. 
 " The heavens declare the glory of God." The 
 instincts of human nature are not to be disre- 
 garded. There is a law written on the heart. 
 The best class of Pagans, therefore, felt bound 
 to honor the gods in their homes. The} r had 
 their tutelary deities of the dwelling. It is 
 likely enough that the ornamental objects which 
 it has everywhere been customary to crowd 
 
 (171) 
 
172 - l CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 upon the chimney-piece are the representatives 
 of the images of the household gods — the Lares 
 and Penates. According to Plato the hest 
 Grecian town houses had an image of a deity 
 in the hall, and in the country places a statue 
 of a deity in the open space before the door. 
 Daily worship in the household was a Roman 
 custom in the hest times of the nation. 
 
 Christian life does not less own the divine 
 claims than did Judaism in its morning and 
 evening sacrifice, or less than heathenism in its 
 best estate. Assemblies of Christians for high 
 purposes are commonly opened with prayer. 
 The legislatures of Protestant lands thus own 
 dependence on divine wisdom. Christian mon- 
 archs take their crowns with solemn religious 
 rites. It would be strange indeed if Christian 
 households, as such, did not acknowledge God. 
 The heathen of Greece and Rome might well 
 rise up in judgment against those who enjoy 
 a divine revelation, and in whose homes God is 
 not honored with praise and approached with 
 prayer. 
 
 Before making an argument for family wor- 
 ship let it be clearly stated what we recom- 
 
THE WORSHIP OF THE HOME. 173 
 
 mend. The formidable aspect the service may 
 wear to some will thus probably disappear. 
 
 There is in any family that has even an ap- 
 proach to orderly life a fixed hour for meals, 
 and usually the meal collects the members. 
 Even where spiritual religion is not professed, 
 in many circles thanks are offered to God, and 
 his blessing is sought upon the bounties he 
 gives on the table. On the same principle, 
 and with no more trouble, the members of a 
 family can be brought together, perhaps before 
 a meal, perhaps after it, and led to join together 
 in an act of worship. The head of the family 
 takes the Bible — in many a home it is found 
 on the breakfast-table — and reads a portion. 
 It is sometimes not unfit for him or her to 
 choose or indicate the portion and ask one of 
 the family to read it. An elder son may thus 
 be habituated, without fear of his own voice, 
 to do the like in his own home at some future 
 da}'. If there be ready means — without em- 
 barrassment — for singing praises in language 
 familiar to all, so much the better. * Children 
 
 * The binding up of the metrical psalms, paraphrases and 
 hymns with the Bible gave great facility for this in the old 
 
174 A GHBISTIAN HOME. 
 
 come to be interested in this part of the exer- 
 cise. Where a musical instrument is in the 
 room a woman's tact and the " touch of a deli- 
 cate hand " may aid in the sacrifice of praise. 
 Better, however, to omit this, to leave music 
 out, than to risk anything out of harmony with 
 the simple, reverent, informal, natural act of 
 homage to the King of kings, the source of all 
 the family's blessings. The Scripture reading 
 ought not to be tedious, whether preceded or 
 followed by, or even without, praise. A wise 
 person will proceed on some plan. In many 
 cases to read through the word is good — omit- 
 ting of course such passages as serve other 
 ends than the growth of spiritual life, such as 
 genealogical tables — portions of Scripture which 
 have their uses in other directions — as a part 
 for example of the mass of Scripture " evi- 
 dences." The presence of children would, to 
 a wise parent, be a determining element in the 
 selection. The narrative portions will be freely 
 
 world. So Bibles and prayer-books had Tate and Brady's 
 Psalter bound up with them. The dispensing with these 
 arrangements, through the use of voluminous books of 
 praise, is not an unmixed gain. 
 
THE WORSHIP OF THE HOME. 175 
 
 used. The parables of the Lord might be read 
 consecutively. The same course might be fol- 
 lowed with the miracles, or with the more 
 formal discourses, or with the life of Paul, or 
 with the life and works of John. At times a 
 prophetic portion may be read and connected 
 in a single word with its fulfillment in the New 
 Testament. An Old Testament biography may 
 be followed out with a reference to any New 
 Testament allusions to it. Any events of inter- 
 est in the family, a birth, a death, a marriage, 
 may dictate the portion. How fittingly 2 Cor. 
 5 : 1-10; 1 Thess. 4 : 13-18; Rev. 21 : 1-7; 
 22 : 1-7 may be used when the shadow of 
 death is over the dwelling ! Perhaps some one 
 is suffering. Heb. 12 : 1-1.3 gets a new signifi- 
 cation at such a time. Some one is going on a 
 journey, or has safely returned. Then the 
 "Traveller's Psalm," as thel21sthas beencalled, 
 may well be used. It is a wedding day. The 
 second of John may carry the group to that in 
 Cana when Christ was a guest. It may be fit 
 in some instances — as where there are domes- 
 tics with perhaps few opportunities of learning 
 truth — to add a word of explanation or appli- 
 
176 & CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 cation. This should always be brief, simple, 
 informal. The great thing to be kept in mind 
 is the bringing of divine truth to the mind, as 
 the words of God to it; the making of the 
 impression that the word is adapted to all 
 men's conditions ; and that it is not a mere code 
 of laws, but in sympathy with all human expe- 
 riences and adapted to all our vicissitudes. In 
 some cases it interests to have the reading verse 
 by verse in turn, each having his or her own 
 Bible* The w T ord being thus read — and there 
 need be no monotony — prayer is to be offered. 
 There are cases in which timidity or other kin- 
 dred causes will prevent what is known as free 
 prayer, and where suitable "family prayers" are 
 
 * Occasionally this plan is employed with advantage where 
 there are children, and where any others — domestics for ex- 
 ample — can take their turn without embarrassment. The 
 writer, however, has often seen it in use where it failed of its 
 end. An infelicitous pronunciation by one upsets the grav- 
 ity of the rest ; conscious bad reading produces embarrass- 
 ment. But worst of all, instead of taking in the meaning 
 of each verse, some are looking out for theirs and getting 
 ready for the enunciation. This, in my judgment, is a grave 
 objection to responsive reading everywhere. There are many 
 who have thus read the Psalter month after month, for years, 
 with no corresponding knowledge of its meaning. 
 
THE WORSHIP OF THE HOME. 177 
 
 provided. The selection of the book in this 
 case should be wisely made, and the particular 
 part to be used at any time should be known 
 beforehand.* But ordinarily there will be no 
 difficulty to a devout person, accustomed to the 
 right use of the Bible, in uttering before God 
 the thanksgiving and the petitions proper to 
 the condition of the family. It is not long, 
 eloquent or " beautiful " prayers that the divine 
 Father desires. It is the offering up of the 
 desires of the heart to him. A little effort will 
 overcome difficulties ; and the object is worth 
 
 * If any reader is at a loss to know such a book, his minis- 
 ter can usually aid in the selection. Most publishers of 
 religious books can recommend a volume. Kyle, now bishop 
 of Liverpool, has framed his comments on the gospel for 
 family reading. " Family Prayers," by the Rev. Ashton 
 Oxenden and the Rev. C. H. Ramsden, will suit many. 
 "Prayers for the Closet and the Family," by the Rev. G. B. 
 Burns, D.D., a Scottish clergyman, will be found useful. 
 The Rev. W. Gregg, D.D., Toronto, has edited an excellent 
 •' Book of Prayers for Family Worship." Many years ago 
 the present writer, with the view of aiding the timid ju.-t 
 beginning family life, issued " Prayers for a Month, for Work- 
 ing People." The book has been reissued in this country 
 with some changes. On few things does the writer look with 
 more gratitude than the usefulness it has had among those 
 first contemplated in its issue. 
 12 
 
178 A C HE 1ST I AN HOME. 
 
 the effort. God is to be praised ; fitting, con- 
 cise mention is to be made of his ordinary 
 goodness — his care through the day or the night; 
 and of special benefits, as the recovery of a 
 member from sickness. Prayer is offered for 
 continued goodness — for help in all duties — for 
 grace for each, parents, children — and if there 
 be domestics, for them, with special reference 
 to anything unusual in the home or circle. 
 Here is an illustration from life. After break- 
 fast the family moved into an adjoining room in 
 which stood a musical instrument. A few verses 
 were sung, all the household joining, and even 
 the baby, used to the exercise, sat with quiet 
 attention on the nurse's knee. A brief read- 
 ing of Scripture followed. The mother of the 
 chambermaid, it was known to the family, was 
 seriously ill. As she sat down the head of the 
 house said, " How is your mother to-day, 
 Sarah ?" A quiet answer was given. She was 
 remembered in the prayer. " If it please thee, 
 Lord, restore the health of her of whom we 
 have been speaking, and comfort her and all 
 connected with her." It made the service real. 
 It expressed the oneness between the family 
 
THE WORSHIP OF THE HOME. 179 
 
 and the humble girl who worked there for her 
 bread. It represented true Christian sympathy. 
 This man was a rich merchant and a strong 
 man of affairs ; but he could feel for and with 
 the anxious daughter. How many lectures on 
 the evidences of Christianity, how many homi- 
 lies on fidelity to employers, would produce 
 as deep an impression as this petition ? And 
 this is to look at it only on its reflex side. 
 
 Take another case. It is a plain farm-house, 
 and a Sabbath evening. The family is gathered 
 together. The catechism is recited, the younger 
 ones dropping out one by one where mother 
 says "that is as far as she has got." The 
 family meal is taken, and — the family being 
 all at home together — it is a little more luxu- 
 rious than usual, but of easy cookery. Then 
 comes worship, in which there is nothing un- 
 usual until the father alludes to "him who 
 is to go from home to-morrow." A boy was 
 leaving before daylight the next day for his 
 first college year. The strong man's voice 
 broke down, and his utterance became choked. 
 There was a moment's silence and a sympa- 
 thetic sigh from the mother. "Keep him 
 
180 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 in thy fear, and prepare him for thy service." 
 Can you suppose that boy soon forgetting the 
 tone and the words? Could the memory of 
 them be other than a check on him if tempta- 
 tion invited to folly or sin ? * 
 
 * Our readers will thank us for reporting a fragment from 
 the Life of Dr. Lawson, a good minister of the old and cere- 
 monious time, by Dr. McFarlane. The scene is a Scottish 
 house ; the time the death of a dearly -loved son of the min- 
 ister ; " the family in great distress — weeping and lamenting 
 over the dead ; Dr. Lawson sitting in the midst of them, 
 calm but overwhelmed. After a short pause he arose and 
 said, ' Oh, Mrs. Lawson, will you consider what you are 
 about? Remember who has done this. Be composed; be 
 resigned ; and arise and accompany me down stairs, that we 
 may all join in worshipping our God.' And so they all 
 went down with him to the parlor. He then read out for 
 praise those solemn verses of the 29th paraphrase : 
 
 ' Amidst the mighty, where is he 
 
 Who saith, and it is done ? 
 Each varying scene of changeful life 
 Is from the Lord alone. 
 
 ' Why should a living man complain 
 Beneath the chastening rod? 
 Our sins afflict us, and the cross 
 Must bring us back to God.' 
 
 " Before he raised the tune, he paused for a moment, looking 
 round upon the weeping circle, and then, with faltering 
 cents, said, ' We have lost our singer this morning ; but I 
 
THE WORSHIP OF THE HOME. Jgl 
 
 But this is to look at but one, and that the 
 lower, side of this matter. God hears prayer. 
 We wish to show how the prayer of the family 
 is to be — not form or decent ceremony, but — 
 real, humble, trustful service, in which, guided 
 by the word and spirit of God, the family 
 brings the details of actual life with becoming 
 fervor before the divine and all-ruling Father 
 with gratitude, submission, hope, confidence, 
 and in which the weak human souls take hold 
 together of infinite strength. He honors them 
 that honor him. He dwells with them who 
 invite his presence. That presence lightens 
 the gloom of life, and brightens all its joys. 
 His blessing gives that safe prosperity with 
 which no sorrow is linked, as it is sure to be 
 where he is ignored in unblessed prosperity. 
 Oh, men and brethren whom God has placed 
 at the head of families, where he gives you 
 homes, be sure that you set up altars ! 
 
 We can conceive objections readily started. 
 
 know that he has begun a song which shall never end ;' and 
 then proceeded with the worship, completing a scene as holy, 
 and sublime as can well be imagined." 
 
 Yes, the memory of such scenes has helped to make strong 
 many a " son of the manse."' 
 
182 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 " Why," says one, " we are but two of us — 
 my wife and I; we can hardly be called a 
 family." Even so. What saith the Scripture ? 
 " Where two or three." " We are not in our 
 own house, only in rooms." Very well. Wor- 
 ship has been conducted in mines, and in barns, 
 and on the decks of fishing-boats. You have a 
 room. Consecrate it by united prayer ; it will 
 render it home-like. And if God add to your 
 responsibilities, you will be all the better fitted 
 for them. " We have so little time." It will 
 save time, temper and strength to begin and 
 end the day with God. The writer was once 
 the guest of a plain man, whose house he had 
 to quit in the early Monday morning. Coming- 
 down at the appointed hour, the breakfast was 
 on the table. I had not counted on such care 
 at such a time, and said so. " Ah," said he, 
 " you know Philip Henry used to say, ' Prayer 
 and provender hinder no man's journey,' " and 
 a brief, simple family worship followed that was 
 " true to the truth of things." I had preached 
 to him the Sabbath before. Religion had made 
 that country farmer a refined gentleman, and 
 he then unconsciously preached to me. Says 
 
THE WORSHIP OF THE HOME. 183 
 
 one, "We often have strangers with us." So 
 much the more reason for your confessing 
 Christ before them. How much good it may 
 do them ! And it will show them what manner 
 of persons even politeness will require them to 
 be in your house. " I have no gift of prayer," 
 says one. Have you desires, thankfulness, 
 hopes ? Can you express such to men ? Do 
 likewise to God. He sees the heart ; he will 
 aid the tongue ; and the effort to honor him 
 will not be in vain. It is worth making. No 
 service to God is worth much that costs noth- 
 ing. A godly man was chosen to the eldership. 
 He was expected then to pray in public, and he 
 was unused to it outside of his family. He 
 was at the head of the largest business of its 
 kind in a great capital, and had many a care. 
 But he accepted the duty, performed it well, 
 and never mentioned his difficulty but to his 
 pastor. When his useful life closed there 
 were found among his papers the careful prepa- 
 rations he had made with his Bible and his pen, 
 for the discharge of his duty. This plea is 
 sometimes urged by men who could remove it 
 with one-tenth of the effort they make about 
 

 184 ^ CHRISTIAX HOME. 
 
 minor matters, trifles, social accomplishments. 
 I have heard it urged by one who spent hours 
 daily in the effort to play the flute — to the sore 
 affliction of the family. " My family take no 
 interest in it." This is, undoubtedly, one of the 
 most discouraging things to be encountered. 
 To have little difficulties put in the way ; to 
 find sons and daughters habitually presenting 
 themselves after worship, or finding trifling 
 reasons for leaving before it ; to see them un- 
 gracefully submit to it, and declare by their 
 manner how tiresome it is. — this is indeed de- 
 pressing, and will sometimes make the very 
 exercise hard to you, and raise the question, Is 
 it best on the whole to persevere ? Yes. "What 
 other duty do you abandon because it is difficult, 
 or because you have defective sympathy in it ? 
 The more their indifference, the greater their 
 need. Guard carefully against any real cause 
 for complaint, and persevere. The Lord hears 
 and sees, even though your own flesh and 
 blood, for whom you toil and pray, be indif- 
 ferent. The honest effort may be remembered 
 when you are beyond the reach of human dis- 
 couragement. " Oh ! if we had father back 
 
THE WOK SHIP OF THE HOME. 185 
 
 again ! We should never vex him again. He 
 should never he left to family worship with 
 only the servant." That was the pitiful cry 
 of a daughter in her desolateness, when her 
 father's prayers had been exchanged for praises 
 which no obvious lack of sympathy shall ever 
 chill. 
 
 No, no. The objections and difficulties are 
 nothing compared with the privilege and the 
 duty, and the blessing that fidelity to the duty 
 brings. In many a home there is prosperity 
 mainly through the efforts of God-fearing and 
 faithful parents. They die and leave their in- 
 heritance to their children. Prosperity brings 
 society and social demands. " The voice of 
 rejoicing and salvation " was " in the tabernacles 
 of the righteous," through whom the prosperity 
 came. But it is not here. The children grow 
 up without godly influences at home. They 
 are under every force — that of fashion, that of 
 " culture," that of self-indulgence, that of tempt- 
 ation, that of the carnal mind — every force but 
 that of religion. In the dance, the song, the dra- 
 matical recital, they have acquired skill at the 
 cost of money and time. Their parents are 
 
186 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 proud of them, but not indeed without some 
 secret misgivings and self-reproach when they 
 remember their own up-bringing. But " times 
 have altered," and they must do as others of 
 their class do. And so the drift of things re- 
 ceives no check, until it is found that one of the 
 sons unhappily "drinks;" another is reckless 
 about money, fmd "society" — hollow and de- 
 ceptive and mean — which caresses him to his 
 face whispers behind his back that it is not 
 wise to be too much acquainted with him — that 
 he borrows and forgets to pay; and so the 
 second generation unlearns the lessons taught 
 by the first, and is often punished by the dis- 
 grace, humiliation and dependent poverty of 
 /the third. A prayerless family will soon be a 
 J { godless family, and a godless family will soon 
 \find the way of transgressors to be hard. 
 " Yes, I am rich enough," growled a successful 
 man, " but where's the use of it ? To make 
 money with hard work for a scamp who is 
 longing to get it, and for his connections, that 
 lie to me when we meet and lie about me when 
 we part !" Yes ! poor man and millionaire ! He 
 had done everything for that " scamp " but to 
 
THE WORSHIP OF THE HOME. 187 
 
 train him up in the fear of the Lord. There 
 had been effort made by others for the heir of 
 this insipid fortune. There was a time when 
 he seemed not far from the kingdom of heaven. 
 But he went back. His father did not want 
 him " to go to extremes." He saw that to 
 go forward on that line was to break with a 
 hundred things natural and fit " for a person in 
 his position." He went back, and of course 
 was henceforward farther from the kingdom 
 and more set against it than ever before. He 
 became intensely occupied with pure frivolity. 
 He was the busiest man of his set about pleas- 
 ures. His prospects brought him showy and 
 fashionable minions of both sexes. Company 
 on week-day and Sunday absorbed his time. 
 Where money flowed freely, channels for it 
 were readily opened — around the gaming-table 
 and on the race-course. A marriage was made 
 in the line of this life. Even the gayest types 
 of this sort of enjoyment become insipid and 
 tire one, and stimulants become necessary. At 
 first they are servants, then tyrants. All this 
 the millionaire knew ; hence the prospects of 
 his heir gave him no pleasure. And hence the 
 
1S8 -1 CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 limitations in his will, in view of which* his 
 memory is occasionally cursed by those who 
 are spending his hard-won and disappointing 
 acquisitions. 
 
 Parents and heads of families ! even if the 
 household be only like Naomi and Ruth, main- 
 tain God's worship in your dwellings. God has 
 in innumerable cases blessed it in restraining, 
 in guiding, in encouraging. Even the memory 
 / has been many a time a means of grace through 
 which spiritual life has come. 
 
 After Sennacherib of Assyria had met with 
 such a check in his attempt upon the kingdom 
 of Hezekiah, the king of Babylon, then under 
 Assyria, and hoping for independence, thought 
 an alliance with Judah a politic step. So he 
 sent letters of congratulation on his recovery 
 from sickness, and some presents, to Hezekiah, 
 with a view to such a league. He did not 
 care for Judah, but as Judah might be used 
 for his own ends. Hezekiah was man, 
 
 but even good men make mistakes. He had 
 no business as king of Juclah to consider any 
 overtures from a heathen ruler; but he ••heark- 
 ened" to the ambassadors, and showed them 
 
THE WORSHIP OF THE HOME. 189 
 
 all his treasures and all his military stores, as 
 though he said, "We have had a war, to he 
 sure, but, you see, we have still resources 
 enough." Isaiah was sent to him with, among 
 others, this suggestive question:* "What have 
 thev seen in thine house ?" 
 
 How often the Babylonians make such vis- 
 its ! For the religion of godly families they 
 care nothing, but their influence, names, means, 
 standing, count for something. Christians ! 
 what do they see in your houses ? — empty 
 show, display, extravagance, art products that 
 are hardly modest, heartlessness and easy and 
 perilous self-indulgence ? or do they see unity, 
 purity, simplicity, godliness, running through 
 every arrangement, softening and sweetening 
 every part of the life, and elevating even com- 
 mon tasks to the dignity of deliberate and holy 
 service ? Are you saying practically, and 
 teaching all under your influence to say, with 
 the psalmist, " I will walk within my house 
 with a perfect heart " ? 
 
 Do you wish to have family unity preserved 
 
 * 2 Kings 20 : 15. The whole passage is worth careful 
 study. 
 
 
Jf)0 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 and dignified and consecrated ? Bring all around 
 the throne of the heavenly grace together. 
 Do yon wish to repose in your home, to live 
 quiet and peaceable lives ? This will tranquil- 
 lize the spirit, sustain the activities, strengthen 
 resolutions, and, like oil to machinery, nullify 
 friction, sweeten temper, and make all move- 
 ment easy and pleasant. Would you banish dis- 
 union, jarring, mutual coldness and suspicion? 
 Let the hearts all blend under your loving 
 direction around the divine Father's throne. 
 Would you live in the grateful recollections of 
 Christian children ? Then be the faithful priest 
 in your home, the devout minister at its altar. 
 Would you, on the other hand, alienate the 
 divine favor and take your place among God's 
 enemies ? You can easily do it. " Lord, . . . 
 pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know 
 thee not, and upon the families that call not on 
 thy name." 
 
 But we hope better things of you. We would 
 fain have you on the same line with "the friend 
 of God," acting as becomes the seed of faithful 
 Abraham. " Ye have heard of the patience of 
 Job." Perhaps you too have defective sym- 
 
THE WORSHIP OF THE HOME. 191 
 
 pathy at home from wife or children. Well, 
 imitate him in his efforts (Job 1:5). You 
 may have many cares, personal or public, like 
 David. Do not fail to bless your household '</' 
 (1 Chron. 16 : 43), and guard against the incon- 
 sistencies which marred his good intents. Cor- 
 nelius was honored and prosperous. He had 
 pious servants about him. He was a Roman 
 officer. His " set " did not help him to godli- 
 ness. But God blessed him. He was devout, 
 feared God, and inculcated that fear on all his 
 family, and prayed to God always (Acts 10 : 2, 
 30). And how much blessing came to him! 
 What immortality has any other Roman officer 
 in history like his ? Make the God of Bethel 
 yours, and let your household go out in life 
 under the influence of truth, linked with every 
 dear memory and every sweet association of 
 home, making it to them a type and prophecy 
 of heaven. 
 
What then is holiness? It is not a single habit; it is not 
 a complement of habits ; it is a nature, and by nature we 
 are to understand, not the collection of properties -which dis- 
 tinguish one being from another, but a generic disposition 
 which determines, modifies and regulates all its activities 
 and states — the law of the mode of its existence. — James 
 Henry Thornwell, D.D. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 SECONDARY ELEMENTS IN TRUE HOME-LIFE. 
 
 Divine government uses means — " Within our means" — Re- 
 sults of imprudence — The alternative — A wise heroine — 
 A broad battle-ground — Beginning honestly — The poets — 
 How to do it — The power of gentleness — " A real lady " — 
 One's connections — Hospitality — " Dear five hundred 
 friends" — Cicero on friendship — The communion of saints 
 — The ideal of a friend — "Faithfully, yours ever" — The 
 true humanity — Sullen obedience not obedience — Grown- 
 up children — Giving confidences — Parents not lodging- 
 house keepers — "What is the matter with father?" — 
 Mother a confidante — Hungry hearts. 
 
 In every form of human life the first thing 
 is the fear of the Lord and the right relation 
 to him. "Wisdom is the principal thing."* 
 " Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his 
 righteousness."f But a man cannot count on 
 success in business, in a profession, even in the 
 ministry, simply because he fears the Lord. 
 The Lord's government of the world implies 
 the adaptation of means to ends, and no 
 amount of religious feeling will take the place 
 
 * Prov. 4:7. f Matt. 6 : 33. 
 
 13 (193) 
 
194 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 of adequate training and the common qualities 
 called into play in any form of human effort. 
 " He is a most excellent man," said one to me 
 of a mutual friend, " but he knows nothing of 
 business. I pity him." On precisely the 
 same principles it is worth while to devote a 
 chapter to certain secondary elements in the 
 happy life of a family. 
 
 " Where shall we live ?" is one of the earliest 
 questions the married have to ask. The bride 
 cannot imagine herself comfortable in any 
 place inferior to that she has quitted. Why, 
 her very wedding-gifts would be out of har- 
 mony with any very moderate accommodation ! 
 And what would her friends say, or think, 
 when they called on her? So, regardless of 
 the income to be counted on, arrangements are 
 made on the scale of the rather showy wedding- 
 gifts. But one year's expenses have not been 
 met until care and embarrassment begin. The 
 husband is humiliated by reminders — more or 
 less intended or articulate — that he cannot 
 keep his wife in her former station, that she 
 has had to go down with him. He begins to 
 have a group of cares not shared with his wife. 
 
SECOND A It Y ELEMENTS IN TR UE HOME-LIFE. 1 95 
 
 There is a territory between them which 
 neither touches, and it grows larger and larger. 
 There will always be "friends," thoughtless 
 or spiteful, to suggest, meddle and direct. 
 Unlooked-for demands for money arise. Things 
 are more expensive than they supposed. She 
 begins to see that every fresh call on him in a 
 measure disturbs him. He is painfully con- 
 scious of it also, and a certain artificial and 
 dramatic manner is assumed to cover the con- 
 fusion. One of two results comes sooner or 
 later. The worse of the two is holding on, 
 running into debt, mortgaging the future, per- 
 haps throwing themselves on relatives ; or pos- 
 sibly a secret and silent misapplication of 
 means, by him, of which the outcome is ruin 
 with disgrace. The other and the better is a 
 resolute and joint facing of the situation. 
 " Come, George, we married for better for 
 worse ; we have not means — it is no fault of 
 yours — to live at this rate. We must be self- 
 respecting and independent, and we must keep 
 something against a rainy day. Let us get on 
 a different scale, and at once. About the 
 nice furniture and my wedding-gifts, you say. 
 
196 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 What about them ? We are not bound to live 
 by a gilt French clock. You are my great 
 wedding-gift, George. The others we can 
 store away. I'm going to look for a place 
 within our means, to-morrow ; and I'll do with 
 one girl." " God bless you, Anna ! You have 
 lifted a load off my mind. I'll work with a 
 new life, and we shall have a place yet for the 
 French clock that we can afford." 
 
 The prudence needed in this department 
 extends to a hundred details — to dress, to 
 society, to the receiving of friends, to hospi- 
 tality, to holiday arrangements, and notably to 
 the management of children. The courage to 
 accept the situation, by which a few decisive 
 victories are gained at the outset, is a blessing 
 to the life. " But what will our friends say, 
 Anna?" "Never mind them, George. We 
 do not live on them. Let them mind their 
 own business. You and I have to do our duty 
 in the place where Providence has put us, and 
 any who do not understand us and approve it 
 are not worth thinking of as friends." " God 
 bless you, Anna! you are right; you are a 
 heroine." And George goes to his work " with 
 
SEGOXDAR Y ELEMENTS IX TRUE HOME-LIFE. 197 
 
 a will," perhaps calculating mentally what per- 
 sonal expenses he can well drop for the sake 
 of so noble a wife. True Christian prudence 
 lives within assured means, and aims at a margin 
 for contingencies after setting aside a portion 
 for the highest uses. " I cannot afford a seat 
 in church," said one who drove an equipage 
 never affected by the pastor. This is bad, 
 even as a matter of ordinary wisdom. Let 
 God be honored with a fitting proportion of 
 one's means or earnings, as the case may be, 
 and his blessing will attend the employment 
 of the rest. " I do not know how it is ; I 
 cannot tell where the money goes," said a 
 showy member of " society." " Well, at any 
 rate," said her matter-of-fact kinswoman, "it 
 does not go to the church or the missions; 
 better perhaps if it did." " Honor the Lord 
 with thy substance, and with the firstfruits 
 of all thine increase : so shall thy barns be 
 filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst 
 out with new wine."* One of the most gen- 
 erous givers I ever knew, one who led the way 
 in some degree in Christian liberality, who 
 
 * Prov. 3 : 9, 10 
 
198 ^ CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 seemed to a friend to go even beyond the limits 
 of prudence, was asked by him, " Does your 
 fortune increase at this rate?" Raising his 
 foot, and pressing it down as if to keep some- 
 thing from rising, he said, " I cannot keep it 
 down." It was like a fountain springing up, 
 whether he would or not. Why have not 
 others a like experience ? 
 
 Does any one ask how such prudence is to 
 be gained ? We may get a hint from Cowper : 
 
 "Wisdom and goodness are twin-born ; one heart 
 Must hold both sisters, never seen apart." 
 
 We may get another from Goethe : " Wisdom 
 is only in truth." All else is cunning, often 
 shallow, and never elevating. Wordsworth is 
 right when he says : 
 
 " Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop 
 Than when we soar." 
 
 But Bayard Taylor carries us farthest : 
 
 " The stream from wisdom's well 
 Which God supplies is inexhaustible." 
 
 The last word, then, may well be from the 
 apostle James (1:5): "If any of you lack 
 wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all 
 
SECOND AB Y ELEMENTS IN Tit UE HOME-LIFE. 1 99 
 
 men liberally, and upbraideth not ; and it shall 
 be given him." 
 
 We place gentleness near prudence in the 
 list of the secondary virtues of the home. It 
 gives the right tone to one's voice. It checks 
 sharpness without an effort. It tranquillizes 
 other minds when disturbed over small vexa- 
 tions. It keeps away gossiping criticism and 
 cynical sharpness. The virtue that is mainly 
 displayed in the censure of others' vices feels 
 that no response can be drawn from true 
 gentleness. It tells on all within the home. 
 A self-asserting maid with an exaggerated 
 estimate of her place, and a higher idea of her 
 rights than of her duties, is surprised, and, if 
 there is any good in her, delighted, to find that 
 a gentle employer takes her into the family, 
 feels interest in her as a fellow creature and 
 a woman. So it serves, as Martensen puts it, 
 " to draw domestic servants into closer connec- 
 tion with the family, to make them members 
 of the household, and to restore, in place of 
 the merely legal relation now existing, a moral 
 relation of mutual fidelity and trustful devo- 
 tion." " She's a raal lady, she is, and I 
 
200 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 wouldn't vex her for the worrald," was the 
 way one who had never read the Christian 
 Ethics expressed and illustrated its influence. 
 
 This gentleness tells widely in a circle of 
 friends. A married person conies into a new 
 relation to the kindred of the other, with every 
 variety of tone, feeling and character. It is 
 not in human nature to take them all, in a mass 
 and alike, to the heart. But gentleness is civil 
 to all ; it responds to the good in all ; it does 
 not avow scorn and hatred where it feels no 
 love; it can even "wink hard" and not see 
 dead flies that spoil the ointment. It over- 
 comes evil with good. It actually softens 
 those with whom it comes into contact ; and in 
 its atmosphere those plagues and pests of life, 
 family quarrels, lose their malignant power to 
 blight and curse. It dictates a true hospitality, 
 not that which gives an entertainment where 
 ostentation and the enormous expense are the 
 leading features, but that which brings together 
 and sets at ease the stranger, the people who 
 are the better for knowing one another, and the 
 friendless. Such is the hospitality of the 
 Scriptures. It is possible to receive one's 
 
SECONDARY ELEMENTS IN TRUE HOME-L TFE. _ | 
 
 " dear five hundred friends " without one grain 
 of hospitality in the act, or one element of true 
 friendship. Gentleness lays the basis of true 
 friendly association in its sincerity, its reticence 
 where "silence is golden," its repression of 
 self in its hearty appreciation of others. Alas ! 
 alas ! as the years advance, and cares multiply, 
 and death desolates, the range of one's heart- 
 associations becomes more and more limited ; 
 but true gentleness clings to the long-known 
 and well-tried with " fidelity which owns their 
 frailties, but also appreciates their excellences." 
 It was natural for Cicero, Aristotle and others 
 — great and noble in many things — to write 
 much of friendship. They did not know the com- 
 munion of saints, the brotherhood of believers. 
 The Scriptures assume this and give us no 
 treatise on friendship. But they give us 
 Jonathan and David, Paul and Barnabas, with 
 their long co-operation and their one sharp con- 
 tention, for they were human. They give us, 
 above all, the Redeemer and the disciple whom 
 he loved, and they put the crown of a true 
 glory on their fellowship when the Master, 
 divine and yet human, says, " I call you not 
 
A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 servants ; for the servant knoweth not what his 
 lord doeth : but I have called you friends." So 
 the true gentleness is not all aglow with 
 emotion to-day and cold as an iceberg to- 
 morrow. It is not an Arctic winter to old 
 friends and a heat that is oppressive to the 
 new. It is the genuine, unconscious, spon- 
 taneous response of a true nature to the coun- 
 sel of Scripture, " Thine own friend, and thy 
 father's friend, forsake not."* 
 
 So far we have noticed the duties incum- 
 bent on the heads of families, who naturally 
 fix in a good degree, at least in the first in- 
 stance, the society and the kind of friends who 
 will influence themselves in a variety of ways, 
 and who still more influence their children. 
 But there are qualities in the members of a 
 family — towards their head and towards one 
 another — on the cultivation of which much of 
 
 * On this practical matter in most lives it is well to study 
 such passages as Prov. 17 : 17 ; 19, 6 ; 27 : 6, 9, 14, 17, and 
 such portions as Rom. 16 : 1-16. What a glimpse of a great 
 man's tenderness, " Salute Rufus chosen in the Lord, and 
 his mother and mine." How little they know the Bible who 
 iind in it no pure " sentiment," no tender friendships, no 
 " humanity." It is full of the true humanity. 
 
SECONDAR Y ELEMENTS IN TR UE HOME-LIFE. 203 
 
 the sweetness and light of a home will depend. 
 On the one side there is authority; on the 
 other there is to be subordination. On the one 
 side the authority is to be employed with 
 gentleness and unselfish wisdom. " I require 
 you to obey, not to gratify my self-love, but 
 because it is God's will, and it is for your 
 good," is the tone of a wise father.* The 
 obedience is to be cheerful, to be rendered not 
 by constraint, but willingly. Friction is out 
 of the question. Sullen obedience is not 
 obedience at all ; and to render it with the air 
 
 * A mistake is sometimes made by sincere and conscien- 
 tious parents in dealing with their children. They "harp" 
 upon trifles in bearing, demeanor, speech, in the presence of 
 the family and of others. They mean to be faithful, but 
 they defeat their own ends. A word spoken to a spirited 
 boy by himself, implying respect for his feelings, will be 
 more effective than fifty such repetitions of a rebuke like 
 " Charlie, why will you put your elbow on the table ?" On 
 the latter plan Charlie will be apt to resent secretly the 
 admonition, and to please himself with the hope of a coming 
 time when he can do as he likes, or even " speak back." 
 "A word fitly spoken" to Charlie alone will only need a 
 kindly glance of the eye to supplement it if he forgets him- 
 self, and to keep him right, and it will be les3 vexatious to 
 guests and others at the table. It will be "like apples of 
 gold in pictures of silver." 
 
204 A CHRISTIAN HOVE. 
 
 of a martyr, a victim to tyranny, is among tlie 
 greatest wrongs possible to sensitive and affec- 
 tionate parents. 
 
 There comes a time in the advancing years 
 of children when they are still under their 
 parents' roofs, dependent, more or less, upon 
 them, but being " of age," they are not ordered 
 and directed as in the time of pupilage. It is 
 a trying time to many a parent. "Are my 
 children not only to grow up, but to grow away 
 from me ? Am I to become to them no more 
 than any other acquaintances they have ? — less 
 perhaps than some they have ?" So many a 
 fond heart has asked, and — with a sad disen- 
 chantment — has heard the answer in the af- 
 firmative. Then comes such pensiveness as 
 only experience of life brings, and which divine 
 grace consecrates into a desire to depart and be 
 with Christ, which is far better. 
 
 " I came at morn — 'twas spring. I smiled; 
 
 The fields with green were clad. 
 I walked abroad at noon, and lo 1 
 
 'Twas summer. I was glad. 
 I sat me down — 'twas autumn eve — 
 
 And I with sadness wept. 
 I laid me down at night, and then 
 
 'Twas winter, and I slept.'' 
 
SECONDAR Y ELEMENTS IN TRUE HOME-LIFE. 205 
 
 So many realize the autumn when their chil- 
 dren — like Herbert's flowers in his hand, to 
 which "time did beckon, and by noon their 
 fragrance stole away " — seem to give out their 
 confidences to others, no longer to them. 
 When daughters make their plans ; when sons 
 come and go with no volunteered statement of 
 intention or of results; when parents wait till the 
 midnight hour for their children, and hear from 
 them nothing of where they have been or what 
 they have been doing, any more than if they 
 were the lodging-house keepers ; when ques- 
 tions reluctantly put drag out abrupt and 
 meaningless answers. — then, though they do 
 not mean it, they are killing the true home- 
 life, and laying cruel burdens on lives less 
 elastic than they once were, from the very 
 cares and struggles of which these children 
 now reap the advantage. " What is the matter 
 with father ?" He seemed silent and depressed. 
 "Is he not well?" Yes, he was well enough, 
 but the son who put the question had been off 
 for several days, and did not think it worth 
 while to say where or why. Oh, ye sons and 
 daughters, who will never know until the years 
 
206 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 teach you the cares and solicitudes through 
 which you have become what you are, study to 
 be as gentle, as considerate, as confiding to your 
 parents in their places as you are to acquaint- 
 ances and friends in theirs. Girls, you will 
 never have so disinterested friends as your 
 parents. Others will flatter you; they will 
 tell you the truth in love. Let them be your 
 nearest, most trusted friends — your mothers 
 your closest confidantes until you owe alle- 
 giance in another home. Young men, there 
 are things, doubtless, which you know better 
 than your fathers, for of course this generation 
 is enormously in advance of its poor prede- 
 cessor ; but there are things known to them by 
 experience that are not taught in school or col- 
 lege, nor weighed among your friends ; and — 
 apart from the duty you owe them, apart from 
 the obligation which a true chivalry suggests to 
 give loving confidence for loving confidence — 
 it is wise for you to avail yourself of their un- 
 selfish, perhaps dearly-bought, wisdom. " He 
 was my son, and I leaned on him ; he was my 
 friend, too, and he trusted me." So said an 
 aged father when he heard the news of the 
 
SECOND A R Y EL EM EN TS IN TR UE HOME-LIFE. 207 
 
 death of one of the bravest and purest of young 
 men. From the want of this many a spirit has 
 been hungry, and life has been clouded in its 
 later time, for 
 
 " The day drags through, though storms keep out the sun ; 
 And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on." 
 
 Wisdom, in things secular and prosaic, toward 
 self, toward them that are without, toward the 
 present and the coming ; gentleness toward one 
 another and all around ; and confidence, mutual, 
 unreserved, and to the end, — these are speci- 
 mens of the secondary virtues which realize 
 this pleasant picture. 
 
 " By the fireside still the light is shining, 
 The children's arms round the parents twining ; 
 From love so sweet, oh, who would roam ? 
 Be it ever so homely, home is home." 
 
 It would be easy, of course, to add to the 
 catalogue of secondary virtues needed, and to 
 be cultivated, in the home. We might urge 
 the value of sincerity as opposed to mannerism, 
 — conventional profession closely akin to lying. 
 The place of industry and activity might be de- 
 fined, and the value of these qualities, with 
 the allied virtues of economy, thrift and fore- 
 
208 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 thought, might be strongly stated. " I am of 
 opinion," says Tholuck, "that they are right 
 who affirm that divine wisdom has ordained the 
 trades and professions of this earth for three 
 wise purposes. In the first place, that crafts- 
 men and artists may devise ever more and 
 more beautiful and perfect forms with which to 
 invest matter to the glory of God, who has 
 endowed the spirit of man with all such skill 
 and knowledge; secondly, to exercise our 
 brotherly love in making life more pleasing 
 and delightful, inasmuch as in such matters we 
 must be beholden to each other ; and finally, 
 for the furtherance and accomplishment, as far 
 as practicable, of wise and pious designs both 
 in civil life and in the church, whether tending 
 to the welfare of the body or to that of the 
 soul."* Good habits, useful employments, do- 
 mestic and social virtues, are not themselves 
 religion, just as health, vigor and activity are 
 not life ; but they are capacities which it is 
 wise and right for the living to guard and to 
 cultivate. 
 
 On one field for the exercise of the virtues 
 
 * " Hours of Christian Devotion," p. 376. 
 
SECOND AR Y ELEMENTS IN TR UE HOME-LIFE. 209 
 
 indicated we have not dwelt, though it is spec- 
 ially inviting, namely, the gentle, elevating, 
 helpful influence older children can exercise 
 over the younger. To see a young girl recog- 
 nized as a " second mother " by the boys and 
 girls whom she aids and enourages in all good- 
 ness, to see an older son so carry himself that 
 a younger boy says, " I will not do " a mean 
 thing " because my brother George does not 
 think it nice " — these are attractive spectacles. 
 Fathers and mothers are helped by such power 
 over their children, and the furnishing of it 
 blesses both giver and receiver. 
 
" Among the vices there exists a mutual connection, and one 
 easily leads to another. The three chief attractions of sin 
 are closely related, and have a power of attraction for each 
 other. They mutually entwine into each other like twigs of 
 the same tree (of egoism), and grow out of each other." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ENEMIES OF THE HOME. 
 
 Infected walls — Poisoned atmosphere — Ruined life — " Dan- 
 gerous" — " Poison'' — Disorder — Some one to reflect upon 
 — Recrimination — Home regulation — Patience with the 
 learners — The easy descent — Children ruined — Extrava- 
 gance — A bad brotherhood — Intemperance — Injury to the 
 innocent — " Those brothers of hers'" — Bonds of hospitality, 
 chains of tyranny — The apostle's ground — Ill-temper — "A 
 hell upon earth" — Piety at home — Not religion — Starving 
 parents — Wide religious divergences — How to guard 
 against them — A four-fold duty. 
 
 One of the most valuable institutions for the 
 poor of a great city had to be closed. Its funds 
 were ample; its officers were capable; its 
 friends were many. Those who needed it were 
 clamorous with the question, When will its 
 doors be open again ? The reason was that the 
 germs of a dangerous disease had gained pos- 
 session of the very plaster of the Avails. They 
 had to be stripped, scraped and replastered 
 before the beneficiaries could be admitted with- 
 out the risk of catching the fever. 
 
 A family whose members had long enjoyed 
 
 (211) " 
 
.1 CHE IS Tl AN HOME. 
 
 health, and whose habits were promo- 
 tive of its preservation, began to show signs of 
 suffering and debility. Unaccountable languor, 
 feverishnesa and debility came on one after 
 another. An examination of the dwelling dis- 
 closed the fact that stagnant water under the 
 foundations of the house, and which should 
 have been earned away, poisoned the atmos- 
 phere they breathed night and day. Subtle, 
 intangible and constant in its influence, it was 
 doing its mischievous work, till now unnoticed 
 and unknown. In a popular book of one of 
 our masters in works of imagination, the peace 
 and comfort of an able, successful and useful 
 public man are destroyed by a calamity which 
 he labors long and painfully to conceal from 
 his only child. Her mother, his wife, beginning 
 with a doctor's prescription, has become the 
 slave of narcotics and the creature of an un- 
 principled pair who use her for the extortion of 
 money for their own ends. These are illustra- 
 tions of the forms in which the moral health 
 of a family ma}' be ruined, and misery may 
 come to fill a home that ought to be radiant 
 with light and fragrant with sweetness. It 
 
ENEMIES OF THE HOME. 213 
 
 may serve some good end to devote this chap- 
 ter to the mention of a few of the elements of 
 evil against which the wise will be on their 
 watch. In our cities the word "dangerous" 
 is sometimes displayed where unsafe buildings 
 stand, or where preparations for building are in 
 progress. The druggist is required to guard 
 from accident by poisonous drugs by care in 
 giving and in marking them. Gladly would 
 we make our readers quick to discern, and 
 prompt to throw off, those dangerous elements 
 which poison the life-blood of the family and 
 destroy the happiness of its members. 
 
 Beginning with the less perilous, disorder 
 may be specified. Quiet and harmony are the 
 product of forethought, arrangement and co- 
 operation. If the first and second be wanting 
 in the heads of the family, or if the third be 
 denied by the members of it, there will be a 
 constant loss of home enjoyment. No one can 
 tell where a much-needed article is to be had, 
 and each is ready to blame the other. The 
 meals are "movable feasts," and it is difficult 
 to time them and at the same time keep fixed 
 engagements. So they become not feasts at all, 
 
214 ^ CHRIST I AX HOME. 
 
 but scrambles where it is difficult to at once 
 satisfy hunger and maintain good humor. 
 There is no want, possibly ; there is constant 
 waste, perhaps ; but there is no comfort. It is 
 somebody's fault ; so insinuation, reflection and 
 recrimination destroy the flavor of the best 
 victuals and make the family reunion a season 
 of discord. The weak and unhappy always 
 need some one to reflect upon, and are not 
 always just in discrimination. If there be 
 servants they witness, and indeed sometimes 
 suffer from, the ill-temper. Mothers complain 
 that they do their best, but no one is satisfied. 
 Sons and daughters going to other family-tables 
 where perhaps every oue is on his good be- 
 havior, and where due preparation has been 
 made for the occasion, notice and perhaps 
 report the contrast. "Why cannot we have 
 
 things as Mrs. has them ?" " Because we 
 
 have not Mrs. 's family to do as they are 
 
 desired, and to be a little thoughtful about 
 others," is the retort; and so the firing and 
 cross-firing proceed where all should be peace 
 and love. 
 
 " Order is heaven s first law," says Pope, in 
 
ENEMIES OF THE HOME. 215 
 
 another connection, and if it be disregarded in 
 the home, it will work evil no less than in the 
 church or in the state. Education is becoming 
 more practical ; but much is yet to be done in 
 this direction, and no small benefit would be 
 rendered to society by any one who would 
 introduce into female schools elementary les- 
 sons on such practical matters as the manage- 
 ment and regulation of the home. The married 
 man — accustomed to have his wishes attended 
 to by paid labor, weary in his work, perhaps, 
 with little notion of the multiplicity of small 
 and vexatious details to which a wife at the 
 head of a house must attend — comes to his 
 home and finds something other than he 
 desired. His wife is his equal ; he cannot 
 assert his rights as he did elsewhere, but he 
 notes and perhaps describes the contrast. " He 
 is sorry he married me," is the instinctive 
 thought in the weary woman's mind, and per- 
 haps finds its way to her lips ; and so where 
 love and confidence were hoped for the blight of 
 bitterness begins already. Men and women take 
 a little time to learn the " way of managing ;" 
 a little patience with them is to be exercised 
 
216 -A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 while they are mastering the lesson ; but it is 
 as much a duty to study and maintain order 
 in the house as to maintain cleanliness or 
 decorum. 
 
 The disorder is sometimes due to another 
 bad element, for which it is difficult to find 
 a fitting name. When the Old Testament 
 prophet would describe a dangerous character, 
 these are among the lineaments : " Yea also, be- 
 cause he transgresseth by wine, he is a proud 
 man, neither keepeth at home" (Hab. 2:5). 
 And when the apostle describes what the 
 young women should be, these are among the 
 features : " discreet, chaste, keepers at home " 
 (Tit. 2:5). But when the heads of houses, 
 male or female, are "hardly ever at home," 
 when arrangements are left to make themselves, 
 when the slender discretion of children or 
 servants is trusted to settle things, it is not 
 strange if family peace and quiet should suffer. 
 Here it is that " society " needs to be wisely 
 dealt with. It is conscienceless in its demands. 
 A Christian parent sacrifices the gravest inter- 
 ests where " society " is permitted to occupy 
 the time, attention and energy needed by the 
 
ENEMIES OF THE HOME. 217 
 
 family. And here it is that women need to 
 have resources of their own in books and in 
 womanly employments, so that it shall not be 
 needful to rush around and draw upon the out- 
 side world for enjoyment. Many a household 
 would be saved to truth and purity if this in- 
 capacity had not led to the search for outside en- 
 joyments. Thus infected and unhealthy regions 
 are visited ; contagious moral diseases are con- 
 tracted and carried into the dwelling. The 
 mother cannot be "always moping at home" 
 while such forms of enjoyment invite her out- 
 side. She states and defends her course. Her 
 sons and her daughters have her principles, in 
 this regard, illustrated and enforced by her 
 example. They "better the instruction," and 
 they are not limited by considerations of pru- 
 dence and by some duties that demand her 
 attention. What is in her a taste is in them a 
 passion. They go further than she ever con- 
 templated, and to her remonstrances they may 
 reply — and in point of fact they sometimes do 
 — " Why, we are only following where you led 
 us. We go further than you do, you say. Oh 
 yes ! we are young, and you — well, you are 
 
21S A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 older." Many a family has had one or more 
 of its members ruined through their steady 
 descent on the inclined plane on which their 
 parents, in the first instance, placed them. 
 
 It is easy to see how extravagance can ruin a 
 home. Most persons living in legitimate ways 
 (we do not include gamblers) can form a defi- 
 nite idea of the means which they can with 
 prudence and propriety spend. It is commonly 
 well to leave a margin against contingencies. 
 Extravagance in most cases is chargeable when 
 this estimate is exceeded. Hopeful calculations 
 are made regarding increased means. Some- 
 thing is expected to turn up; the outlay of 
 money, which is really borrowed in one form or 
 other, is supposed to be an investment that 
 will " pay " in other forms ; and thus families 
 are led into style and expenditure beyond their 
 means. One or other of the joint heads of the 
 house may have qualms about it, and even 
 remonstrate, perhaps blaming the other, and 
 then an element of discord is introduced. The 
 temptation to cut off all benevolent work is 
 irresistible, unless, indeed, a display of easy 
 means is thought needful to cover up the actual 
 
ENEMIES OF THE HOME. 219 
 
 facts of the case. The rich possession of self- 
 respect is meantime lost. The temptation to 
 remedy the evil is sometimes too strong for a 
 man, as we see by the melancholy defalcations 
 reported in the newspapers, and the money of 
 others is taken to meet urgent demands, or 
 possibly to be used for rapid gains in some 
 tempting form of speculative gambling. In a 
 certain proportion of cases the conclusion is 
 reached at length, "It is only a question of 
 time when we shall break clown. We may as 
 well go on. It matters little whether the 
 debts be nine thousand, or nineteen, or ninety 
 — in fact the bigger the failure the less dis- 
 graceful it is, commonly." And where a crisis 
 is avoided, and no exposure ever takes place, 
 the evil is transmitted in many cases to the 
 next generation. There is inability to live 
 within the means enjoyed ; and to both men 
 and women, and the latter especially, this very 
 incapacity is not only the way to ruin, but 
 even the justification of it. " I could not live 
 on the little I had, as I was brought up — what 
 could I do ?" No man has been a quarter of 
 a century in any of the professions without 
 
220 -1 CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 having seen tragedies too sad to be detailed, the 
 indirect results of the bad example of parents 
 and defective training, in this department, of 
 their children. 
 
 The father and mother who have courage to 
 face the facts of their life, in this regard, de- 
 serve encouragement, for 
 
 • the world no bugbear is so great 
 As want of figure and a small estate."' 
 
 Let them be able to say wisely and firmly. 
 " We cannot afford it; so it would not be right," 
 and they save themselves trouble ; they culti- 
 vate a lawful self-respect that strengthens 
 character; and they inspire children with a 
 feeling that checks the beginning of many an 
 evil. The man or woman, for example, who 
 cannot afford to marry but for money, and who 
 " makes a good match," has robbed life of half 
 its richness at the very outset."' 1 
 
 * Many a life has been injured by the impression early 
 made upon it that the opinion of a certain set is the guide to 
 human conduct. Many another has been made strong and 
 dignified by learning that "none is judge but God." The 
 protestation of Job is worth studying by those to whom 
 society is as deity, and " bad form " is worse than a breach 
 of the decalogue : " Did I fear a great multitude, or did the 
 
ENEMIES OF THE HOME. 221 
 
 " He also that is slothful in his work is broth- 
 er to him that is a great waster " (Prov. IS : 9). 
 It follows that they who would keep themselves 
 and their children out of this bad brotherhood 
 — of the indolent and the wasteful — will try to 
 possess and inculcate the opposite and the posi- 
 tive qualities of energy, activity, industry and 
 prudence.* 
 
 Of intemperance as the quick destroyer of 
 home happiness little need be said in the 
 way of argument or illustration. Disgrace, 
 divorces, infamy for women, suicide — these are 
 
 contempt of families terrify me, that I kept silence, and 
 went not out of the door?" 
 
 * One who has lived on both sides of the Atlantic, and has 
 had his eyes open to the influences that tell on families and 
 communities, can see and can speak of things which others 
 do not notice or hesitate to characterize. There is growing 
 up, especially in our cities and where " wealth accumulates 
 and men decay," a tendency to an unreasoning, silly and 
 mischievous imitation of the ways of "fashionable life" in 
 the mother-countries. Horse-racing, games implying betting, 
 foi'ins of amusement and entertainment, public and private, 
 which the best people of the old world deplore as corrupting 
 and weakening, are being accepted without much question. 
 Less than a generation will show the moral and social effects 
 of this course — the reverse of nearly all that has contributed 
 to American greatness. 
 
222 -A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 among the salient products of this vice. In 
 many instances the parents do not go to excess. 
 They put no hindrance in the way of their 
 children ; and perhaps while under their eyes 
 and roofs, no evil comes to sons or daughters. 
 But the habit grows ; dependence on stimulants 
 is cultivated. There is perhaps a peculiarly 
 social nature. Possibly there is, or is supposed 
 to be, an organization that requires something 
 invigorating. Perhaps a doctor orders it. And 
 so before middle life has been reached the serv- 
 ant has become the master, and the tyranny 
 of strong drink is seen in feebleness of mind, 
 extravagances, waywardness and fickleness of 
 moods, disease and death. One member of a 
 family thus enslaved can be the skeleton in the 
 closet to all the household. Mothers try to hide 
 the evil. Sisters blush, fear and pity. At a later 
 time they despise, and with good reason dislike, 
 the brothers who, in ruining themselves, have 
 injured them also. More than one family of 
 amiable and capable girls has the writer known 
 whose prospects in life were, as far as one 
 could judge, blighted by such miserable crim- 
 inals. " I like her very much ; she is every- 
 
ENEMIES OF THE HOME. 223 
 
 thing one could wish ; but I don't want to be 
 brought so near those brothers of hers." 
 
 This is not the place in which to discuss the 
 temperance question. It is proper enough for 
 citizens to consider " prohibition ;" it is a fair 
 question for the medical men, whether on the 
 whole stimulants do physical good; but we 
 are not here required to defend any other 
 ground than the apostle Paul lays down. If 
 meat be a stumbling-block to a brother, then 
 will he forego it (1 Cor. 8 : 13). "It is good 
 neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor 
 any tiling whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is 
 offended, or is made weak" (Rom. 14 : 21). 
 Granted that the application of all this was 
 originally to questions of seeming endorsement 
 of idolatry, the principle is no less strong 
 when it is not " a brother " but a child ; and it 
 is not the raising of an uncomfortable religious 
 scruple that is in question, but the forming of 
 a habit in which the bonds of hospitality and 
 good fellowship harden into the chains of a 
 remorseless and life-destroying tyranny. 
 
 Ill-temper is one of the incidental attendants 
 on drinking habits, but it sometimes exists by 
 
224 -^ CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 itself; and it has the power to becloud the sky 
 of families otherwise most happily situated. 
 The father is sometimes sharp, or savage, or 
 sullen. The mother is peevish, fault-finding, 
 and inclined to relieve her own vexed spirit by- 
 feeble despotism among children or servants. 
 A son has " a temper of his own." A daughter 
 is not easily quieted if once aroused. Her 
 tongue is keen and unrestrained. Let us pity 
 gentle spirits bound to such tormentors. " My 
 soul is among lions : and I lie even among them 
 that are set on fire, even the sons of men, 
 whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their 
 tongue a sharp sword." This is the Psalmist's 
 language. If any one deems it querulous ex- 
 aggeration, he does not know human nature. 
 
 DC ' 
 
 To the present writer an educated woman, un- 
 married, in middle life and in good society, 
 living with her father, sister and stepmother, 
 having to make some statements lost control 
 of her conventional self, and when some con- 
 solatory reference was made to her home — 
 " Home !" she exclaimed with flashing eye ; 
 " my home is just a hell upon earth." 
 
 Allied in some degree to this sad defect is 
 
ENEMIES OF THE HOME. 225 
 
 the want of "piety at home" (1 Tim. 5:4). 
 Our readers do not need to be reminded that it 
 is not religion, as such, that is here urged, but 
 the practical gratitude that cares for aged or 
 infirm or needy parents, as the connection 
 shows. " If any widow hath children or grand- 
 children, let them learn first to show piety 
 towards their own family, and to requite their 
 parents."* Allusion has been made already to 
 this duty, and we do not here dwell on it ex- 
 cept to say that it is never discharged by mere 
 gifts in money or supply of material comforts, 
 good as these are in their place. " I have 
 rendered to every one his due," says one who 
 never had a bill protested, never was in a law- 
 court, and never wronged a man in money. 
 Ah ! have you given to father and mother the 
 gentle confidences, the tender love, they used 
 to give to you ? or, asserting early that strong 
 individualism of yours, have you gone on your 
 way, even while under their roof, as though 
 they were to you only business connections ? 
 If you have done this, my dear sir, you have 
 robbed those who had the fii 'st and the strongest 
 
 * Revised Version. 
 15 
 
HR 1ST I AX HOME. 
 
 claim upon you of those treasure apathy. 
 
 fellowship and responsive affection of which 
 
 no bank takes account, and which no mo 
 
 can purchase. They have been all along kind 
 
 and considerate to yon, for and 
 
 they wanted to do their whole " en when 
 
 they were craving with an insatiable hunger 
 
 for tenderness and trustful feeling — the true 
 
 nutriment of human hearts. Of children who 
 
 enjoy ease and leave parents in want, it is not 
 
 "ful here to speak. Their case needs no 
 
 osure. 
 
 One other source of disquieti: aetimes 
 
 opened up in a home through wide religious 
 
 divergence on the part of a member of the 
 
 Take — not standing alone by 
 
 means — in the observation of the writer. 
 
 A youth has among his acquaintance - 
 
 zealous and very attractive family of Roman 
 
 Catholics. He inquires ; is shown their views 
 
 of religious life ; is bi rcourse 
 
 with a leader of well-used powers in polemics ; 
 
 and goes into the matter in that state of mind. 
 
 so common in our American life, that knows no 
 
 particular reason for being Protestant, and that 
 
ENEMIES OF THE HOME. 227 
 
 counts it narrow to think badly of any religion. 
 Step by step he advances until he formally 
 accepts the new faith, renounces, in secret in- 
 deed, his family's, and holds his peace on the 
 matter till an accident discloses the facts. 
 Thenceforward a chasm lies between him and 
 his family. The subject is never mentioned. 
 He goes his way; the rest go theirs. The most 
 that can be said is that there is a truce on the 
 matter. There is none of the unity in which 
 it is good and pleasant for brethren to dwell. 
 
 If one asks what can be done to guard against 
 such an alienation, the direction in reply must 
 include four things. Give your children com- 
 petent instruction in the faith you hold ; teach 
 them why they are to hold it ; illustrate and 
 commend it by your own consistent life ; and 
 finally, keep a wise and watchful oversight of 
 the associations and companionships of those 
 for whose training you are answerable before 
 conscience, before the world and before the 
 God of the families of all the earth. 
 
u It matters little what hour o' the day 
 The righteous falls asleep -. death cannot come 
 To him untimely who is fit to die ; 
 The less of the cold earth, the more of heaven : 
 The briefer life, the longer immortality." 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OUR FATHER'S . HOUSE, THE HEAVENLY HOME. 
 
 Secularism — Christians the true friends of the age — The real 
 liberals — " Free thought'" — Believers have evidence — Ap- 
 propriate — Adequate — Free living — Revelation made the 
 home — The natural craving — The adequate supply — Fount- 
 ain forsaken — Broken cisterns set up — Their defect — The 
 great mutual benefit society — Terms of admission — 
 " Come " — Education in what? — Unity of this life and the 
 next — "Plots of heaven" — Two forms of connection — 
 Gloom below — Light above — " Light affliction " — "Weight 
 of glory — Preparation for enjoyment of heaven — Recogni- 
 tion in heaven. 
 
 The reader who has kindly accompanied the 
 writer thus far in an humble effort to promote 
 domestic goodness and purity will be disap- 
 pointed if a touching and eloquent exhibition 
 of heavenly life is expected in this final chap- 
 ter. There is no such object before the writer's 
 mind. We confine ourselves to the theme in 
 hand, and point reverently toward heaven as 
 the great theme comes into the discussion of 
 our subject. It has been dealt with by other 
 and more competent authorities. Its essential 
 glories, its contrasts with the limitations of the 
 
 (229) 
 
230 A CHRISTIAX HOME. 
 
 present, its high employments, its holy enjoy- 
 ments — these have employed the minds and 
 cheered the hearts of multitudes. We think 
 now of heaven as it rises before the view of 
 one occupied with the right regulation of the 
 home on earth, and we would fain remove the 
 mischievous impression that religion is largely 
 sentimental and speculative, that Christian hope 
 is dreamy, and that something more directly 
 practical and more closely bearing on every- 
 day life is needed than New Testament piety 
 furnishes. Let us look at some of the forms 
 in which this unfair view has been suggested. 
 
 (1) An Englishman still living and possess- 
 ing much influence with the working classes, 
 from his life-long efforts in their behalf, may 
 be credited with the introduction of the word 
 "secularism." Denying that we have any 
 ground for positive belief in the unseen, he 
 aimed at the formation of a code of life, apart 
 from theology, influenced by which men would 
 do their duty. Duty, and not the pursuit of 
 happiness, he makes the end of life, and utility 
 the test of right. He hoped to give men a rule 
 of conduct founded on science and experience, 
 
UR FA THER'S HO USE, THE HE A VENL Y HOME. 231 
 
 through observance of which a state of things 
 would be reached in which it would be impos- 
 sible for man to be poor or depraved, and in 
 which men should act so well as to deserve 
 another life, if there be one. The aim is to 
 lift up the world by forces entirely within the 
 world itself, and so to benefit the age.* 
 
 Apart from the impossibility of doing this 
 in the nature of things, it is not too much to 
 say that Christianity furnishes the true secular- 
 ism. It inspires to the doing of duty. It 
 furnishes the perfect rule. It teaches its ad- 
 herents to serve their generation (Acts 13 : 
 36). It produces the pure family, and so finds 
 the material for good citizens. It elevates from 
 poverty, and cheers it where it is inevitable. 
 It reaches the seat of human depravity with 
 its offer of the new heart and the right spirit. 
 It finds for the moral world what the great 
 geometrician desired in order that he might 
 
 * There is, along with truth, an approach to wit in the 
 statement of Canon Liddon: "That man should raise him- 
 self was, in the moral order, just as impossible as it is, 
 physically, beyond the power of the most accomplished 
 athlete to lift himself from the earth by the waistband." — 
 University Sermons, Second Series, p. 187. 
 
232 - 1 CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 move the material, and what secularism lacks 
 — both fulcrum and lever sufficient for its ele- 
 vation. The intelligent and faithful Christian 
 is the true secularist. He aids and purifies 
 this world by bringing it " under the power of 
 the world to come." 
 
 (2) It has become common for a class of self- 
 complacent teachers to compliment themselves 
 as liberal, and to commend their views by this 
 adjective. They would insinuate that Chris- 
 tians are enslaved by revelation, of which they 
 are fond of speaking as " dogma." Well, 
 " dogma " is a word brought into bad odor by 
 being applied to the decisions of mediaeval 
 councils ; but it had an earlier classic meaning. 
 It stood for a philosophic tenet. It is found, 
 without the change of a letter, in the Greek 
 Testament, to describe a prince's decree (Acts 
 17 : 7), the apostolic resolutions (Acts 16 : 4), 
 the Mosaic laws (Eph. 2 : 15) ; and in the apos- 
 tolic fathers it stands for " the doctrines of the 
 Lord and the apostles."* Is there any more 
 
 * Ignatius to the Magnesians, chap. siii. The controversy 
 regarding the genuineness of the Epistles does not affect the 
 value of our quotation, as showing the early use of the word. 
 
VR FA THER'S HO USE, THE HE A VENL Y HOME. 233 
 
 bondage in being under these doctrines than 
 being under the law of gravitation? Is the 
 mind any more fettered by accepting revealed 
 truth in moral or spiritual things than by 
 accepting the fixed elementary principles of 
 mathematics ? On the contrary it is the mind 
 that divine truth enlightens that is liberal ; that 
 is brought into sympathy with the Father of 
 lights ; that realizes its place in humanity and 
 in the universe ; and that feels itself bound in 
 all proper ways to do good to all as it has 
 opportunity. It is lifted out of and above self. 
 It is brought into the family of God. It catches 
 the spirit of a true catholicity. It rises in love, 
 pity and effort to do good above the lines of 
 color, race, class ; and it anticipates a common 
 home with the redeemed out of every kindred 
 and tongue and nation and people. In every 
 just sense of the word the intelligent Christian 
 is the true liberal. 
 
 (3) We do not, therefore, hold in any spe- 
 cial respect the idea involved in " free thought" 
 — a phrase employed to describe disregard of 
 the restraints of the Bible. In what distinct- 
 ive sense is such thought free ? Is it meant 
 
234 ^ CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 that it disregards evidence ? Surely not. It 
 claims to stand up rigidly for evidence. But 
 so do Christians. They are bidden to " prove 
 all things" (1 Thess. 5 : 21). They are ap- 
 pealed to by evidence. God has supplied 
 " many infallible proofs " (Acts 1:3) of a de- 
 e fact in the Christian system. Christians 
 believe on evidence ; on appropriate evidence ; 
 on evidence kindred to the point to be proved. 
 Moral questions are dealt with by moral con- 
 siderations, physical by physical, and spiritual 
 by spiritual. Christianity in its nature, and of 
 necessity, liberates the human mind. It has 
 done so in point of fact. If " the truth " (John 
 8 : 32), or, which is the same thing, "if the 
 Son shall make you free, ye shall be free in- 
 deed " (John 8 : 36). 
 
 We have dwelt on these pretentious phrases 
 at a length that would be needless if they did 
 not bear in some degree on the great aim of 
 this little book, the building up of godly, happy 
 homes. As a man " thinketh in his heart, so is 
 he." " Free thought " is not far removed from 
 free living, " free love " and other radical foes 
 of home life. Nature, experience, science, 
 
Uli FA THEWS HO USE. THE HE A VENL Y HOME. 235 
 
 philosophy, all failed to produce the true family 
 life. It is the fruit of revelation. Destroy 
 the power of revelation over men's minds and 
 you throw back society into the conditions of 
 Greece and Rome in pre-Christian times, — not 
 to speak of lower depths. 
 
 One other point, kindred to this, deserves 
 notice. The Creator gave us social instincts. 
 He implants the yearning for social affection, 
 for a sharer of our joys, a helper, as we bear 
 the burden of inevitable sorrows. As there 
 are dwarfs, giants and albinos, so there are ex- 
 ceptional natures that, Diogenes-like, prefer to 
 be left alone ; but the rest can truly say, 
 
 " We pine for kindred natures 
 To mingle with our own." 
 
 God's institutions — the family, the church, the 
 state — meet and utilize these elements in our 
 nature. But there are many who, for various 
 reasons, stand in a measure outside the first 
 and the second of these. Are they superior 
 to the common demands ? By no means. Look 
 at our cities with their " clubs," " unions," 
 " societies," " circles " and the like, more or 
 less rational, pure, and expensive. Many of 
 
236 A CHUISTIAN HOME. 
 
 them are more costly and less elevating to their 
 members than a church. All of them consti- 
 tute the unconscious confession that if human 
 nature does not take God's provisions for it, it 
 must find something in their stead; and the 
 weakness of its clumsy make-shifts is that the 
 fellowship they cultivate has no direct, no spe- 
 cific reach beyond the present. But in the 
 Christian home and the church of our Lord we 
 enter into and cultivate a communion that en- 
 dures with our immortal being, a fellowship that 
 will be unbroken and eternal in the Father's 
 house. Where is the word of welcome uttered 
 to the newly initiated that can compare for 
 a moment with this ? — " Ye are come unto 
 Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living 
 God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumer- 
 able hosts of angels, to the general assembly 
 and church of the first-born who are enrolled 
 in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to 
 the spirits of just men made perfect, and to 
 Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to 
 the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better 
 than that of Abel " (Heb. 12 : 22-24, Revision). 
 By whom are they led thither ? The Spirit of 
 
Uli FA THER'S HO USE, THE HE A VENL Y HOME. 237 
 
 the living God (Rom. 8 : 14) . In what capacity 
 do they come ? As sons of the living God. By 
 whom are they introduced ? Their Saviour and 
 Elder Brother. Is there any entrance fee ? No : 
 '■without money and without price." Have 
 they any privileges ? Yes : " all things are 
 yours." Do they receive sympathy ? " Little 
 children, love one another." Is any mutual 
 improvement contemplated? " Edify one an- 
 other" (1 Thess. 5 : 11). Is there any mutual 
 benefit ? Yes ; each is bound to do good to 
 all, especially unto them of the household of 
 faith (Gal. 6 : 10). Is the management liberal 
 and peaceable ? "In Christ Jesus neither cir- 
 cumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcis- 
 ion, but a new creature. And as many as walk 
 according to this rule, peace be on them, and 
 mercy, and upon the Israel of God." Is there 
 any provision for the members ? Oh, reader, if 
 you have not become joined to the Lord " in 
 a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgot- 
 ten" (Jer. 50 : 5) — if you have taken up this 
 book from curiosity and not from interest in its 
 theme — let its pages be a call to you to come to 
 Christ and so into his church, to trust him for 
 
2?S -4 CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 what he is, for what you need, and to be his 
 in heart, profession and life. Then you will 
 have a future, and an adequate provision for 
 your whole nature, for your sympathies, your 
 soul, your glorified body. For hear the Re- 
 deemer's words — covering all the ease, all this 
 life's troubles and the wants of the next : " Let 
 not your heart be troubled : ye believe in God, 
 believe also in me. In my Father's house are 
 many mansions : if it were not so I would have 
 told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And 
 if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come 
 again and receive you unto myself; that where 
 I am, there ye may be also" (John 14 : 1-3). 
 
 There is a natural connection between edu- 
 cation in youth and the work of life. Wise 
 persons aim at exercising the mind in what 
 will most employ it through life. One some- 
 times hears a person — employed in some de- 
 partment of effort he never contemplated — say, 
 " I threw away my school-time. What I learnt 
 has nothing to do with my occupation now." 
 When this life is the school-time and the end- 
 less future is the real life, surely it is wise to 
 regulate the one by the other. To serve God; 
 
UJi FA THER'S HO USE, THE HE A VENL Y HOME. 239 
 
 to grow up in his family ; to catch the spirit of 
 it ; to be at peace with him and at ease with 
 his children ; to feel " at home " in his service 
 and with his people ; to have feelings and af- 
 fections stamped with the heavenly-mindedness 
 which is the family likeness — this links together 
 earth and heaven ; gives unity to the life here 
 and the life to come ; and lends dignity to a 
 being which to the eye of sense is fleeting as 
 the shadow, and withers like the grass. For — 
 on this plan — " whether we live, we live unto 
 the Lord ; and whether we die, we die unto 
 the Lord : whether we live therefore, or die, 
 we are the Lord's" (Rom. 14:8). "Oh! 
 strive then," says the Rev. George Everard in 
 quaint language that savors of Herbert, or of 
 Puritan pages, "to make your home a little 
 plot of heaven, a nursery for the great home 
 above. Let your walls be built of salvation, 
 your floors carpeted with meekness and hu- 
 mility ; let your light be the lamp of God's 
 word ; let the fire burning on your hearth be 
 love to God and love to one another, shed 
 abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit; let 
 your furniture be made of the fragrant wood 
 
240 i CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 of genuine sincerity and holy living ; let your 
 gates and doors be fervent prayers to shut out 
 all that is evil, and to guard and cherish all 
 that is pure and good; let the -windows be 
 minds enlightened by divine grace to learn the 
 secrets of heavenly wisdom ; let the motto en- 
 graven on your house be something of this 
 kind : ' Except the Lord build the house, they 
 labor in vain that build it.' " 
 
 There are two forms in which we should, in 
 our minds, connect the home on earth and the 
 home above. There are in the happiest homes 
 unavoidable breaks in the stream of enjoyment, 
 difficulties in finding the means of life ; or if 
 not these, occasional disappointments — in the 
 field, or the fold, or the store, or the bank — are 
 experienced. How many households are there 
 to which the death of one of the cattle is a 
 serious loss ! Sickness comes, on a child per- 
 haps, and a parent toils all day and watches all 
 night; on a parent perhaps, and for the time 
 the future of the family is in peril. Death 
 comes ; an infant, a growing boy, a little sister, 
 a mother, dies. But there is the abiding con- 
 viction : " We are being made meet for a home 
 
UR FA THER'S HO USE, THE HE A VENL Y HOME. 241 
 
 without any trials. We need these here ; whom 
 the Lord loveth he chasteneth. The very 
 remembrance of his wisdom, grace and power 
 will give fervor to our song above, and the 
 contrast between that and this will enhance 
 the joy and the glory. And as for our beloved 
 ones, they are before us. We shall join them 
 by and by." These convictions quiet, comfort, 
 strengthen. Along with them despondencj^. 
 bitter complaint and vexation with providences 
 cannot live. 
 
 Take an example. On a bright summer day 
 it was my duty to visit, in their affliction, a 
 Protestant family living in comparative isola- 
 tion and poverty among a population of a dif- 
 ferent faith. The mother lay on the bed sick of 
 a fever. The father took it while nursing her ; 
 held out till he could stand no longer; and then 
 the children, none of them full-grown, made a 
 cot for him on the floor beside her. Which of 
 the two would go first it was impossible to 
 guess. Want awaited the family ; in fact it was 
 there. But they had Christian faith and hope. 
 The father could not rise from the cot, but he 
 could quote Bible texts. He could speak of 
 
 1G 
 
242 A CHRISTIAN HOME. 
 
 going home, and of their being joined together 
 again. After such words as it was fit to speak, 
 and such brief prayer as they could follow, I 
 left to find some needed attendance and com- 
 forts. The home was poor, dark and com- 
 fortless. The place — with a few scattered 
 dwellings about it — was dreary in the ex- 
 treme ; but looking up, a clear sky, a bright 
 sun, a balmy atmosphere recalled to me 
 
 " How strikingly the course of nature tells, 
 By its light heed of human suffering, 
 That it was fashioned for a happier world.'" 
 
 But there came a second thought; over that 
 darkened dwelling grace had revealed a fairer 
 heaven with a serener atmosphere, all the more 
 glorious to faith from contrast with the gloom 
 below, and, breathing which forever none shall 
 say, " I am sick." 
 
 Oh, reader, it is hard to see loved ones suffer 
 and die ; it is hard to lie on one's bed and feel 
 that this familiar world is vanishing ; it is hard 
 to nature to part with those whose life has been 
 part of our life. This experience will inevi- 
 tably be yours in some form or other. Can 
 you calmly think of endless parting ? of dying 
 
UR FA THEM'S HO USE, THE HE A VEXL Y HOME. 243 
 
 and going out into an unknown world hopeless 
 and homeless ? Or do you put the idea away 
 from your mind ? That poor shift will not 
 alter the facts. Rather consider, believe, and 
 then learn to " endure as seeing him who is 
 invisible." It is while we look not at the things 
 seen but the things unseen that the light and 
 momentary affliction works out the far more 
 exceeding and eternal weight of glory (2 Cor. 
 4 : 17, 18). 
 
 Nor are we to overlook another truth : the 
 exercise of the graces that sweeten and bright- 
 en the home is a preparation for the life 
 above. Do you obey the father whom you 
 see because he is your father ? You are form- 
 ing the habit of obedience to your divine 
 Father. Do you love those who are one with 
 you with a patient, gentle, appreciative affec- 
 tion ? You are acquiring the temper and feeling 
 that will make heaven happy to you. Are you 
 gladdened by the joy of your kindred, even as 
 your sympathies draw you towards them when 
 they weep? Then how happy you will be 
 when among the great multitude that no man 
 can number, in perfected bliss, and when you 
 
A CHRISTIAN H<: 
 
 :' the family of God! Do 
 rejoice in the gifts and graces of those 
 . whom you mingle daily ? How rich the 
 h which you will look on the 
 powers of angels who have kept their first 
 te ! Have you ever had unexpected joy 
 ming close to those of your own flesh and 
 blood whom you had hardly know:. V V" 
 varied and delight you are preparing 
 
 yourself to enjoy when "father Abraham 
 met ; when prophets and apostles are g 
 when saints whose names you knew as the 
 world's benefactors ur path; whenfore- 
 
 lera whose e .influence and prayers 
 
 told on you, though you never saw them in the 
 body, come within ver-widenin_ 
 
 The genuine home-life is a force that steadily 
 counteracts selfishness, widens the nature, puri- 
 fies and elevates the best of our sympathies 
 
 nd so prepares us for enjo; 
 the y of the family of God in heaven. 
 
 It will be noticed that we assume recognition 
 in heaven. It does not need to be argued. It 
 is implied in the nature of the case. To doubt 
 it is to deny the individuality Go 1 gives to 
 
UR FA THER'S HO USE, THE HE A VENL Y HOME. 245 
 
 men ; to suppose diminution, not increase, of 
 our knowledge, and to rob of their force such 
 words as "ye shall sit down with Abraham, 
 and Isaac, and Jacob," and " all the prophets." 
 It is to reverse arrangements God made on the 
 earth, and to sunder ties which first his prov- 
 idence, and then his grace, created. But this 
 he does not. Many a joyous recognition in 
 glory will yield a thousand-fold compensation 
 for trials, labors and sacrifices on earth. 
 
 " Oh, when the mother meets on high 
 The babe she lost in infancy, 
 Hath she not then for all her fears. 
 The day of care, the anxious night — 
 For all her sorrows, all her tears — 
 An over-payment of delight?" 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Abraham, fidelity of, . . . 141 
 lessons from to us, 147 
 marriage of, . . . 17 
 
 Adam as master, 14 
 
 the second, reply to the 
 Pharisees, .... 14 
 Alexander, J. A., .... 89 
 James W., on pro- 
 fessors, . . .122 
 
 Amusements, 161 
 
 evil, imported, . 221 
 Augustine, Confessions of, 
 
 quoted, 10 
 
 Austerity, parental, .... 155 
 
 Bacon on the family, ... 62 
 Bethany, home at, .... 33 
 Birthplace, influence of, . . 124 
 
 Cana, wedding in, . . . 28, 29 
 Carlyle, Thomas, birthplace 
 
 of, 123 
 
 Celibacy injurious, .... 59 
 justifiable, .... 58 
 Chalmers, Thomas, on relig- 
 ious culture, 48 
 
 Child, an only, special danger 
 
 of, 168 
 
 Children, confidences of, . . 205 
 grown-up, . . . 204 
 influence of older 
 
 on younger, . . 209 
 lessons for, ... 37 
 of good parents,why 
 
 some are bad, . 163 
 responsibility for, . 80 
 
 ruined, 102 
 
 Christ, his answer to Mary, . 31 
 his care for Mary, . . 32 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Christianity the true secular- 
 ism, . . . .231 
 true free thought, 233 
 Christians not enslaved by 
 
 revelation, 232 
 
 Church, its concern with mar- 
 riage, 55 
 
 Clubs, social, 235 
 
 Communities live, .... 144 
 
 Community, how made up, . 11 
 
 Companion, choice of, . . 65, 66 
 
 guide in choice of, 68 
 
 reflex influence of, 66 
 
 Confinement, solitary, ... 89 
 
 Connecticut, Blue Laws of, . 157 
 
 Coquettes, married, .... 100 
 
 Cowper on solitude, .... 90 
 
 wisdom, .... 198 
 
 Disciples sent two and two, . 87 
 Discipline in the family and 
 
 church, 148 
 
 Dogma, classic meaning of, . 232 
 Domestic, a trusty one needed, 75 
 Duff, Alex., testimony to his 
 
 father, 130 
 
 Ecclesiastes, a figure from, . 87 
 Economy in a home, . . . 220 
 Education and work of life, . 238 
 Parisian,. . . .151 
 Emerson and his mother, . .117 
 Englishman, the, and secular- 
 ism, 230 
 
 Esau, marriage of, .... 19 
 Everard, Rev. George, on the 
 
 home, 239 
 
 Evil, beginnings of to be 
 avoided, 103 
 
 (247) 
 
248 
 
 JXBEX. 
 
 TKr,Z 
 
 Extravagance in the home, . 133 
 
 ruins a home, . 2 IS 
 
 Ezra, marriage reform by, . 22 
 
 Family, beautiful picture of, . 170 
 building up one, . .142 
 life, development of. . 
 prayers, books on, . 177 
 the, and the commun- 
 ity 11 
 
 the, its early history, 11 
 the, precedes society, 14 
 unity, how to preserve, 
 Farmer, prayers in his home, 179 
 Father and boy, story of, . . 41 
 Fathers to train the house- 
 hold, 149 
 
 Fever in the walls of a house, 211 
 Fidelity, Christian, .... 93 
 mutual, in the home, 125 
 Free thou eh t, error of, . . . 234 
 Friend, ideal of, . . . . .202 
 Friendship, Cicero on, . . . 201 
 Froude, J. A., on Carlyle, . 123 
 
 Garfield, struggles of, . . . 133 
 
 Genesis approved, .... 26 
 
 Gentleness in the home, . . 199 
 
 Godliness in the home, ... 83 
 
 Goethe on wisdom, .... 198 
 Government, divine, uses 
 
 means, 193 
 
 Green Fund, books under, . 9 
 
 Hamilton, Dr. James, father 
 
 of, 131 
 
 Hare on individuals and so- 
 ciety, 140 
 
 Heaven, enjoyment of, . . 
 
 recognition in, . . 244 
 Hezekiah and Sennacherib, . 188 
 Hodge, Dr. Charles, life of 
 
 quoted, 129 
 
 Home, annual festival in, . . 120 
 Christian, object of 
 
 book on, .... 7 
 clouds over, . . . .111 
 disorder in, .... 213 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Home, economy in, . . . . 220 
 enemies of, ... . 211 
 
 ethics of, 49 
 
 extravagance in, . . 218 
 financial prudence in, . 196 
 government and train- 
 ing, 141 
 
 heaven's fallen sister, . 137 
 how wisely begun, . . 109 
 ill-temper in, . . . . 224 
 intemperance in, . . 223 
 joyful beginning of, . 107 
 lack of piety in, . . 225 
 life, lights and shad- 
 ows of, 105 
 
 life, secondary elements 
 
 in, 193 
 
 mutual care and help 
 
 in, S7 
 
 Kew Testament light 
 
 in, 25 
 
 not a hotel, .... 73 
 pure atmosphere of, .107 
 religious differences in, 226 
 reverses in, ... . 116 
 sickness in, ... . 113 
 sunlight in, after the 
 
 rain, . . . .112, 119 
 the heavenly, . . .229 
 treated in the Bible, . 106 
 worship of, . . . .171 
 Homes, cares and blessings in, 191 
 Christian, what is 
 
 seen in them, . . 189 
 godly, in early times, 34 
 Hope, the Christian's, not 
 
 dreamy, 230 
 
 Hospitality, true, among kin- 
 dred, 200 
 
 Hotel and boarding-house 
 
 life bad, 60 
 
 House, our Father's, . . . 229 
 
 Household, care in forming of, 1 65 
 
 reference to in 
 
 Bible,. . . .141 
 
 Houses not homes, .... 12 
 
 Husband, choice of, . . . . 67 
 
 not a despot, . . . 126 
 
J XL EX. 
 
 249 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Husbands won, 99 
 
 Ignatius, Epistle of, . . . 232 
 Independence, Declaration of, 
 
 misunderstood, .... 52 
 
 [nstincts, social 235 
 
 Intemperance destroys home 
 
 happiness, 221 
 
 Isaac, marriage of, .... 18 
 
 Jealousy in the home, . . . 136 
 Jezebel, her influence, ... 21 
 Johns, Bishop, letter to Dr. 
 
 Hodge, 128 
 
 Joseph and his wife, ... 97 
 
 Kane, Captain, and the Es- 
 quimaux chief, .... 88 
 Keble, poetry by, .... 86 
 Kingsley, Charles, on educa- 
 tion, 78 
 
 Lawson, Dr., life of, . . . 180 
 Lear the king, misery of, . . 38 
 Liddon, Canon, on man, . . 231 
 Life here and hereafter, unity 
 
 of, 240 
 
 Living imprudently, . . . 195 
 Love, power of, 138 
 
 Marriage a religious rite, . . 15 
 between Protestant 
 and Catholic un- 
 wise, .... 70 
 
 divine, 14 
 
 inter- dependence of 
 
 two persons, . . 53 
 New Testament rule 
 
 of, 22 
 
 not a civil contract 
 
 merely, .... 16 
 
 not a sacrament, . 16 
 
 Romish views of, . 28 
 
 vows, spirit of, . . 126 
 
 .Marriages, mixed, .... 69 
 
 Married, the newly, prudent 
 
 arrangements by, 110 
 
 where to live, . 72, 194 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Married, to have a home of 
 
 their own, ... 7-1 
 
 to live within their 
 
 means, . . . .194 
 
 Martensen on co-education, . 7S 
 
 on right living, . 152 
 
 quoted, .... 71 
 
 Meals, grace before, . . .173 
 
 Men, a race, 50 
 
 not like angels, ... 50 
 not like a regiment of 
 
 soldiers, 52 
 
 Merchant, prayers in his 
 
 home, 179 
 
 Millionaire, poor, and his son, 186 
 Mormonism, corruption of, . 57 
 
 Mother a friend, 138 
 
 as a confidante, . . 206 
 
 sick, anecdote of, . . 24 i 
 
 Music in the home, .... 174 
 
 Naomi and Ruth, . . . . 18S 
 Nettleton, character of, . . 135 
 Newman, J. H., early train- 
 ing of, 150 
 
 Obedience, sullen, . . . .203 
 Oberlin, gentleness of, . . . 36 
 Order in the home, . . . . 2K! 
 
 Paradise, marriage law of, . 27 
 Parental duty, neglect of 
 
 brings sorrow, . . . „ . 15-1 
 Parents and children, separa- 
 ted by business, . 158 
 reproving, . . . .115 
 to command, . . . 145 
 training children by 
 
 proxy, .... 129 
 trials of, by children, 114 
 wise methods of, . 39, 40 
 Peasant woman, story of, . . 35 
 Penates and Lares, . . . . 1 72 
 Pharaoh, a lesson from, . . 81 
 Pharisees, questions by, on di- 
 vorce, .... 25 
 reproved, ... 27 
 Philemon, 46 
 
250 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Piety, effect of on the home, . 225 
 
 Plato on household worship, . 172 
 
 on solitude, .... 89 
 
 Poison in the atmosphere, . 212 
 
 Polygamy, 17 
 
 set aside, ... 56 
 
 Prayer a blessing, .... 185 
 
 lack of gift in, . . .183 
 
 needed, 167 
 
 .no interest in by the 
 
 family, 184 
 
 Property and family life, . . 54 
 Prudence and providence, . 133 
 Pusey, E. B., on minor proph- 
 ets, 91 
 
 Race, the human, variety 
 in, 51, 52 
 
 Randolph, John, religious 
 
 training of, 132 
 
 Religion, divergence in, at 
 
 home, .... 226 
 
 includes ethics, . 49, 50 
 
 natural, . . . .171 
 
 Rich and wretched, .... 160 
 
 Righteous, the death of, . . 228 
 
 Rodigast, poetry by, . . . 13 
 
 Sabbath-schools, efficiency of, 153 
 
 Schiller on love, 62 
 
 School, selection of for chil- 
 dren, 77 
 
 the Sunday, .... 79 
 Schools, common, .... 79 
 foreign, bad influence 
 
 of, 152 
 
 Scriptures, how to read, . . 175 
 Selfishness in the home, . .135 
 Servants, faithful Christian, 44, 45 
 training of, . . 42, 43 
 Sherman, Rev. James, and 
 
 his parents, 96 
 
 Society, outside demands of, . 216 
 
 relation to the home, 54 
 
 Sodom, influence of, . . . 148 
 
 Solomon, his folly, .... 21 
 
 Spitta, Karl I. P., quoted, . 105 
 Suffering, a hard experience, 242 
 
 Taylor, Bayard, on wisdom, . 198 
 Teachers for the young, . . 77 
 religious, and dog- 
 mas, 49 
 
 Temper, bad, in the home, . 223 
 violence of, ... 82 
 Tertullian, words of, to his 
 
 wife, 24 
 
 Tholuck on trades and profes- 
 sions, 208 
 
 Thornwell, J. H., on holiness, 192 
 
 Vices, mutual connections of, 210 
 Virtues, secondary, in the 
 home, 207 
 
 Washburn, E. A., on mar- 
 riage, 64 
 
 Wealthy, the sons of in dan- 
 ger, 168 
 
 Wedding gifts, inconsiderate 
 
 sometimes, 194 
 
 Weddings, how to conduct, . 72 
 Widows, sons of in trying 
 
 positions, 169 
 
 Wife, a wise heroine, . . . 195 
 
 choice of, 67 
 
 not a flirt, ...... 128 
 
 Wilson, John, lights and 
 shadows of life, .... 118 
 
 Woman, a Christian, dying, . 121 
 
 Woman's rights, 158 
 
 Women, homilies to, . . . 95 
 how educated in 
 France, .... 126 
 Wordsworth on wisdom, . . 19S 
 
 Worship, family, 173 
 
 family, forms of con- 
 ducting, .... 173 
 objections to, an- 
 swered, .... 182 
 Wrecks, human, 101 
 
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