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THE POWER OF HOME.

ruin, and take his place among the pure again. It is melancholy, however, to be forced to add that, though knowledge be power, it is often only power for evil. In itself it possesses no charm against guilt-nay, it is often found in closest league with the despotism which oppresses—the crime which embrutes—the habits which render degenerate man more degenerate still.

Refine, civilise, cultivate, and you will elevate, is the prescription of another; but here also the sad testimony of facts has long made it plain that to civilise man may only be to refine or gild his vices, not to extirpate them—to cultivate his powers may often prove but a prelude to their more ingenious abuse. Precious as culture is, and to be prosecuted with the heart and the soul, it contains, in itself, no antidote to man's native tendency to sin and death. It will end in sorrow at the verge of the eternal world.

Now when human devices are thus found to be inefficient, we appeal with the greater earnestness to the divine remedy. It is not knowledge, it is goodness; it is not refinement, it is holiness; it is not high culture, it is Godlikeness that is the heavenly antidote to misery. These will produce the effect, or rather these are the effects produced; and short of these, nothing can preserve society from corruption, or restore it after it has become corrupt. No seminary, however famous, no scholarship, however varied or profound, no supervision, however kindly or sleepless, can supply the place of God's appointed means. These means must be employed, in the first instance, in our Homes; and this brings us to consider the constitution of home, in some of its leading aspects.

And, first of all, contemplate that combination of powers which find their confluence and centre there. There is the

MORAL INFLUENCES.

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There is

respect which is due to experience and to years. authority. There is power. There is example. Above all, there is love, tender, pre-eminent, and unequalled. By God's appointment, all these exert a moulding influence upon us at the time when we are most easily moulded, and some power of malignant influence is at work when all these are resisted, or when the young hasten to drink up iniquity in spite of such counteractives.

Moreover, we may here give prominence to the length of time during which the young are dependent upon parental protection. In a few weeks or months at most, the dam and her young, in other cases, are estranged for ever; they wander over the world alike unknowing and unknown to each other. With man, however, the case is far otherwise. For years of infancy, for other years of boyhood or girlhood, and often for still other years of opening maturity, the young are seldom from under the parental eye. From the first wail at birth, often till the time when a separate home is set up by themselves, do the young thus continue dependent, and during all that time wholesome influences continue to mould and regulate, if the home be Christian, or if God's will be there supreme. Affection plies its sleepless task. Authority wields its firm yet kindly sceptre. Ingenuity invents employments blended with amusement, and amusements which train and inform. Vice is no sooner seen than it is repressed. The good and the true are no sooner beheld than they are encouraged and promoted, and thus, by line upon line, here a little and there a little, the Divine Institution becomes the first of all seminaries, where children learn

"To tread with happy steps the path of duty,
Beloved and loving."

Its impressions are the deepest and most lasting, because they are the first and the tenderest; and unless the mind could be decomposed and cast to the winds like the body, the effects of home-influence, home-affection, and homeeducation can never be effaced. They may be trampled on or set at nought; but they have lodged a protest in the conscience which will continue to clamour for attention till the set time for hearing it has come. Penelope's web, woven with costly care, could be reduced to threads again, but the impressions of home are eternal. Parents, ponder that! Your words may seem unheeded now, your prayers disregarded. But they will be heard at last louder than the roar of the tempest, and when conscience awakes, you will be honoured and thanked.

Such is the wise ordination of heaven: it is thus that all the lessons of home are deepened and rendered perpetual. Just when the mind is most plastic is it most impressed. The twig is not merely bent, it is set; it is kept bent so long in a certain direction, that ever after that process it retains its tendency; its predilection is life-lasting, except where some mighty counter-influence interposes-and even that interposition is rarely for ever.

But another peculiarity in the domestic constitution is, that its influence is the influence of love-the most deep and powerful of all the feelings which control the life of man— something which confers a power as nearly creative as aught human can be.

Not mere authority: that might foster slaves and serfs; it could not train either a tender conscience, a loving heart, or a holy soul.

Not mere mechanical drilling by a scrupulous martinet:

THE SOLE REGULATOR.

37

that could form soldiers, who move without any will but one-a collection of arms and limbs, not men,

Not terror: that speaks only of bondage, and evermore causes a reaction.

Not these, then, but love should preside in our homes. That power, as it operates in a household, has been likened to the first snow-drop of spring, at once attracting and gladdening us—and as love is the first, so it is the mightiest and most lasting of all constraining powers. Revenge may convulse. Avarice may grasp the whole man, and make him, body and soul, its victim or its slave-emphatically a miser, that is a wretch. These and other strong passions may subdue and sway us for ill—but among all the influences which mould us for good, love is the unchallenged queen. Emanating from the bosom of Him who is love itself, it controls and softens all, unless they be clean gone in guilt. Affection elicits affection, and no need for very formal lessons, if there be a living example on the part of the parents. Home is then invested with a crowd of attractions. The rod which sways will be so light as to be unfelt; nay, the absence of it would lead to grief. The whole constitution of home would be outraged; the divine antidote to the ills of life would be bereft of its power, were the element of love to disappear. Founded upon divine authority, and presided over by affection, the family constitution will thus achieve what no earthly power need attempt it can both sweeten bitter waters, and bring streams from the rock. It cannot make new creatures, but it can convince the thoughtless that they should be so.

Yet, we must add, none of these effects need be expected unless the truth of God be the regulator, at once of love

38

THE BIBLE PARAMOUNT.

and of all besides. The Bible must temper authority or it will become despotism, and direct affection or it will degenerate into doating fondness. The Divine rule is here admirably minute. "These words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. When parents are guided by such rules, affection will be swayed by wisdom, and will end in blessedness. The body in its place, and the soul in its—time and eternity in their due proportions, will be cared for. It will be seen, in short, that, strong as the language is, it is not too strong-the family may even reflect the attributes of the Great Father of all. It manifests His goodness in the copious happiness which it imparts; His mercy in the ample provision for remedying evil; His wisdom in the exquisite relations which are there created; His holiness in the purity which Home should foster, by a care which is sleepless, and a persistency which yields to no obstruction. In brief, deprive home of the Bible, and it becomes a centre of mere worldliness, or mere varnished ungodliness at the best-while, with the Word of God ascendant, and its Author honoured, loved, and feared, Home becomes radiant with the light of heaven; it is the abode of peace, for it is the abode of purity. He was wise who said "Would you insure your houses by the best policy of insurance? Then turn them into churches, and they shall be taken under the special protection of Him who keeps Israel," and that is done where the Bible is paramount.+

* Deut. vi. 6, 7.

See M. Henry "On Family Religion."