Religion At Home

Psalm 101:2

The ultimate basis of human society is the home. Out of this primal bond arise our highest virtues and our most sacred claims.

I. Thus it must needs be a primary instinct with a Christian to say, 'I will walk within my house with a perfect heart'. Unless we can please God in our own family and among our own kinsfolk, we may despair of succeeding among strangers or on public platforms.

II. Many young men and women are apt to dream that if they had a household of their own they could order it in the love and fear of God. But at present they are only members of a family where it is their duty not to give orders but to obey. Religion, if it be genuine, will make a good son and a good daughter all the more reverent and considerate and sympathetic and tender toward their father and mother.

III. The tie between brothers and sisters involves a relationship and a duty which are different though hardly less serious. The Bible is full of instances of its obligation, and of how fatally that obligation may be broken and denied.

IV. Often a modern household includes servants, and our domestic religion must embrace them also in its circle. We preach Christ to our servants when we treat them with the same fairness and gentleness and deference and courtesy and consideration which we ourselves should desire if we were in their places. People complain about bad servants; but in the long run they generally get the kind of service that they deserve to get.

—T. H. Darlow, The Upward Galling, p. 326.

References.—CI. 2.—J. J. Bourdillon, Plain Sermons for Family Reading (2nd Series), p. 202. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi. No. 1230. CI. 11.—J. Keble, Sermons from Easter to Ascension Day, p. 323. CI.—International Critical Commentary, vol. ii. p. 313. CII. 15.—G. S. Barrett, Old Testament Outlines, p. 132. CII. 17.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xix. No. 1411. CII. 18.—Archbishop Alexander, Bampton Lectures, 1876, p. 105.