The Republican., 1895-02-21

CHRIST IN THE HOUSE.

with the Spirit of God dwelling There 1t
Is Complete Though Ever So Humble.
A Christian home can not be built
alone of brick or wood or stone.
Tapestried walls and costly works of
art can not make it. And yet wind
rocked tent may inclose its atmos-
phere. A prairie cabin may contain
its sacred household treasures. Strange
it is, the effect of roofing in few feet
of ground to make it in time a focus of
love for generation!
Even a migratory dwelling may have
a home life which is wanting in a local
habitation. Abraham's moving tent
with its altar near, was far more
sacred than Lots house in Sodom,
which the angels hesitated to enter
An isolated, separate house is more
hospitable to Christian home elements
than the gathering of many families
under one roof. Take the twelve fam
lies who live in single tenement
block in New York, and place them in
twenty small separate cottages, and
you have by that single fact greatly
enhanced the opportunities for comfort
and morality. The tendency to hotel
lie, and the necessary aggregation of
hildren in a social commune, is to be
iscouraged by those who would afford
he family the highest protection.
We have profound social wants, but
we have just as deep hunger for healthy
isolation. Dryden says ''home.is the
sacred refuge of our lives" But it is
not possible to have just such associa-
lions given to any house in crowded
Jerusalem as belong to that breezy cot
tage over the hill at Bethany, where
Jesus went to lodge.
Maoauiey says that before Horatius
plunged into the Tiber, he saw on
Palatinus ''thc white porch of his
home" l do not think the vision of a
certain number of square feet of brick
wall, not isolated, could have so sus-
tanned his heart in it's last earthly mo-
ments.
And q Christian home must be fur
nished within. Its defenses are not in
the. plan of your architect. He will
not tell you that prayer and counsel
and love should have abiding-place
here. And yet these are its chief
adornments, its unwasting glory.
The recognition of God in the pa
ternal home will be a spiritual legacy
in the memory of every child who goes
out from it. The pause of a moment
before the household meal, the more
deliberate thanksgiving and petition
at morning and evening, seem very
simple acts. But they involve the fun
danental ideas upon wlrich the fami-
iy is organized. They are like the
blood on the lintels of Is
rael's houses, which separated them
from the houses of Egypt. Family
prayer should be brief and so con-
Quoted that children should have an
interest in it. Their wants and trials
should not be overlooked.
The remembrance of household
prayer the restraint which it eXer-
cises over us in hours of temptation,
are reasons why we should make our
children sharers in its efficacy. The
strain of life's battle will be severe
enough with this succor. 1t will be
greatly harder to bear without it.
For how much hinges upon the
right beginning of the young people
starting out to make new house
hold. All, think of the interior, spirit
ual furnishing of the house! VIII you
be able to say when sickness and trial
cast their shadows upon it, that the
God who has been honored there in
the bright days of sunshine, will not
fail You il the shadows?-G. NJ Stone,
d. d.