Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1879-10-29
Religious influence Of the Family.

The character, the tone, the life of a
church, depend very greatly upon the char
acter, the tone aud the life of the families
that compose it. The harmony, the piety,
the activity OF congregation or church life is
but the aggregate expression of the harmony,
the piety and activity of the family life of
its members. Truly pious parents and chill
dren, faithful and active in the discharge of
home duties, make truly pious and active
church-members, Jealous for the common
veal and true prosperity of that one family,
of which our Lord himself is the head. There
is indeed reciprocity of advantage or profit
between congregation and family life, &C.
cording to the divine law, "he that watereth
shall be watered also himself" BY contrib
uting the results of true piety in the home
circle to the common stock of church life
the families of the church create fund, as
it were, in which they are all shareholders
and from which they receive in return large
dividends, which again go to increase and
maintain the home treasury of Christian
gifts and graces, aud to provide for all the
draughts that may be made upon it. To the
Christian life of the family the church is in
dispensable; and to the true life of the
church the Christian family is indispensable.
As the church is one household of faith in
which all true believers are children of the
one Father, in Christ their Elder Brother,
so the Christian family is church in mini
ature, in which there is room for the exercise
OF all those Christian graces, which find
their more extensive sphere in the collection
of families that forms congregation. Here
is the truest application of that familiar
proverb, "Cbarity begins at home" True
charity-that charity which is the essence
of true godliness, because it is true love,
Christian love-must be learned and ex-
ercised in the narrower circle of the family,
or of our daily associates, before it can
plume its flight for that higher sphere of
general application to which the voice of
divine inspiration invites it in the church of
Christ. The same principle is advanced by
the apostle James, when he says eff
man love not his brother, whom he hath
seen, how can he love God, whom he hath
not SEEM" In like manner, if we love not
those whom we know most intimately, and
with whom we are associated most nearly,
how can we love those with whom we
are connected, it is true, by bonds not less
sacred, but, in the nature of things, less in.
innate and exacting? A faithful discharge
OF Christian duty toward our fellow-belev-
ers in general does not absolve us from the
sacred duty of cherishing love, meekness,
forbearance and self-denial at home. True
the great Master of the One Household of
faith himself said. He that loveth father
or mother more than me, is not worthy of
me; and he that loveth son or daughter
more than me, is not worthy of me-" True,
he stretched forth his hand toward his dis
ciples, and said, "Behold my mother and
my brethren For whosoever shall do the
xxt Of Eath 81, l.. Al
same is my brother and sister and mother"
thus justly maintaining, in his own case,
the superiority of spiritual to natural ties.
And this is still just in the case of Chris
tian, when there Is any conflict between nat
ural and spiritual ties, because the former
have not been sanctifed by grace. But we
are speaking now of Christian families such
as Paul describes, Ephesians v: 22-2S; vi:
Ia. Where these precepts are obeyed,
there is and can be no conflict but only a
confirmation of those natural ties which are
raised to higher plane by being Christian
lied. And as he who was the best and
truest OF sons in the days of his flesh, bore
witness even amid the agonies of Golgotha,
when at the foot of his cross stood his faith
full, weeping mother, that he did not disal-
low her claim upon his flial love and duty,
by those few and tender words that gave
her to the care OF his beloved disciple John,
SO does he require of us, that even amid our
most exacting and most sacred duties to our
brethren and sisters in the church, we fail
not to venerate and to hallow those natural
bonds which he himself has instituted, and
which are the first and the closest of which
we become conscious. The first altar upon
which the sacrifice of praise and prayer was
ever laid, was family altar the first church
was church in the house; and as that altar
and that church were the beginning and
nursery of the church of God, so is the
family altar and the church in the house
still the beginning and nursery OF the church
in every generation.-The Mordvian.