The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1877-12-06
The Church at Home.

IT isa grave mistake in our home
training that we set about the religious
education of our children as if it were
something distinct from all other train
ing, and not rather the object of all
culture and development that they may
grow into sound, healthy, sweet
spirited, well-balanced Christianity;
that the body is to be the temple of
God, consecrated from the outer court
to the very holy of holes; that every
power of the mind, every capability Of
the nature is to find its part in making
up that perfect manhood, "the meas
ure of the stature of the fullness of
Christ"
The religion of babes is something so
sweet and simple that we seldom STUN
BILE over difficulties for the first two or
three years. They are full of reverence e
and love; they kneel beside us with
their tender prayers, and their faith is
as strong in ready forgiveness for the
naughty as it is in protecting angels
about the good. But as they grow
Older, we neglect to lead them on from
grace to grace, and when the fight be-
tie help. s
Can we not bring this matter of the
Christian training of our children up
to the level of good common sense, and
make their religion thing of convic-
ton and rational understanding, rather
than of sentiment?
The child who prays with unquestion-
ing faith for whatever he wants, clean
heart, or a velocipede, or baby broth
er, needs, as he grows older, to be so
instructed that he may not set aside
belief in prayer as one of the weak
nesses of babyhood which a big boy
should be rather ashamed Of We talk
great deal about the beautiful faith of
childhood; but there is no reason why
the boys faith should not be stronger
than the child's faith, and the man s
more confident than the boys.
The little child may vaguely know of
Gods benevolent love, as something
that has placed him in pleasant world.
with pleasant things about him; but he
needs to be SO taught that, by and by,
when there begins to come to him a
sense of sin and weakness, a knowledge
of two natures warning against each
other, he shall at once take refuge in
that which is infinitely greater, God S
forgiving love, without Beginning and
without end. There is nothing radical
in Christianity, nothing vital in Chris
tian living, which may not be made so
clear and simple thing that child
can comprehend it and live it.
The home need not teach sectarian-
ism, but it should teach the deliberate
convictions of the father and mother
upon what is best and soundest and
wisest in church polity land if you can
not give to your child clear and suf-
ficient reason for your election in the
matter of church home, it is time you
looked into the subject, to make sure
you are in the right place.
All the great benevolences and mis-
sionary enterprises of the Church should
be matters of thorough instruction at
home. 1t is a shame to our Christian
ity that our children grow up in igno-
rance of the needs and the claims of
these enterprises, and with the feeling
that the aid they extend to them is
purely gratuity to be regulated by i'm
pulse. and not a matter of simple OBJ
legation which no honest man would
think of repudiating. We must in
some way get back for the home part
of the Sunday, the afternoon or even
ing, when old and young may take
council together over the Word; when
the teachings of the Church service and
the Sunday School may be explained,
enforced, illuminated and made to fit
into the family life with real hopeful
ness; when the land and the book may
be linked together, and the places
where sacred feet once trod grow
familiar in all their surroundings.
We must bring Christianity into our
everyday life, and teach our children
to lay hold of it as help not simply
against sin in the abstract, but their
own sins in particular, their special
temptations to ill-temper, and fretful-
ness, and carelessness and disobedi-
ence; and that the "hour of prayer is
the hour when the temptation comes
sharpest and the silent cry for help
goes straight from the heart to God and
brings it.
We must teach them that Gods serv-
ice Includes honest, vigorous play,
faithful, conscientious study, and, first
and last, the helping hand for Others
Do give us one generation of Christians
who are not chiefly concerned for the
of their own souls, but, hav-
ing accepted Gods redemption through
Christ, can trust Him to keep what they
have committed to Him, while they 60
about His work, and who are more anx-
ious to know what they can do than
how they happen to feel.
We must restore the father and
mother to that sacred priesthood to
which they were first ordained, and
through which they may enter into the
spiritual life of their children, setting
apart some hour of social communion
when the week that is past may be re-
its blessings numbered and its
mistakes remedied, and that which is
to come anticipated by prayer and
watchfulness; when parents are not
afraid to say to their children, "we
too are subject to temptation and weak
ness; we make mistakes and have great
need of help and forgiveness, and to-
gether we will go to the Father who has
pity on us all and whose love never has
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