The religion of the family

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I

THE

Religion of the Fami

I. The Origin Of The Family

I HANKS to the man who wrote the imperishable song, ^'Home, Sweet Home !" It is an offspring of modern times ; it could not have been conceived, or written, or sung in eloquent Greece, in warlike Rome, or in all the effeminate East. It is a Christian anthem, dedicated to the lares and penates of Christian households. It has trilled on a thousand tongues, and taught ten thousand hearts to feel and appreciate the significance of Home ! How deep a spell that little word contains ! It is the circle in which our purest, best affections move and concentrate themselves — "the hive in which, like the industrious bee, youth garners the sweets and memories of life, for age to meditate and feed upon !" It is childhood's temple, and manhood's shrine — the ark of the past and future.

The soldier dreams of it as he sinks to rest on the red field of slaughter, when the fierce fight is done. Let but the bugle of a light regiment play " Home, Sweet Home " far away on the battle plains of the Crimea, and a thousand hearts rise into the throats of brave warriors, and silence creeps into every chatting circle, and many a soldier's head turns aside from the watch-fire to listen to the air that carries the memories back to the far-off firesides they have left behind.

There are few passages in classical literature more beautiful or affecting than that where Xenophon, in his Anabasis, relates the effect produced on the remnant of the ten thousand Greeks, when, after passing through dangers without number, they at length ascended a sacred mountain, and from its peak and summit caught sight of the sea, whose waves, far in the distance, broke on the shores of their beloved

Ionia. ^'Dashing away their bucklers, with a hymn of joy they rushed tumultuously forward. Some wept with the fullness of their delicious pleasure, others laughed, and more fell on their knees and blessed that broad ocean. Across its blue waters, like floating sea-birds, the memorials of their homes came and fanned their weary souls. All the perils they had encountered, all the companions they had lost, all the miseries they had endured, wxre in an instant forgotten, and naught was with them but the gentle phantoms of past and future joys." O, Home ! magical spell, how strong must have been thy influence when thy faintest memory could cause those bronzed heroes of a thousand fights to weep like tearful women !

But what is home? It is that charmed circle consecrated by the presence of a husband, adorned and beautified by the taste and skill of a wife, hallowed by the virtues of a father, sanctified by the gentle ministrations of a mother, and filled with joy and sunshine by the love and prattle of children. In the quaint Scottish brogue of Burns, it is where a man's

Does a' his weary, carking cares beguile,

And makes him quite forget his labor and his toil."

Home is of divine origin — an idea in the mind of the Creator, and only reaches its true character and full significance when it conforms to the original appointment of God. Adam was alone ; all other creatures had their fellows, but as yet no companion was in existence capable of being the associate of this highest creature of the new creation. " It is not good," said the Lord God, "that the man should be alone ; I will make him a help meet for him," not of the dust of the earth, as I have made him and every beast of the field and fowl of the air, but in such a manner as that she shall be part of his own life, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, so that they shall cleave together in a holy union, deeper and dearer than that of any other relation.

There is something peculiarly impressive and instructive in the production of this companion for man. She was not created simultaneously with himself. He stood alone. All other creatures had their companions, appeared in the creation male and female together. But a lesson must here be taught the newly rising pair,

II and through them the future race — a lesson on the importance and significance of this sacred union; a lesson on the mutual dependence of these two beings, of the imperfection and incompleteness of the one without the other, on the intimate and endeared relationship which was ever after to be continued between them. Hence woman did not appear along with man ; not until he had seen and felt himself alone, incomplete and imperfect in the vast and beautiful creation about him ; not until he had himself, perhaps, sighed for fellowship and companionship in his own kind. Nor then was acompanion created for him out of the ground ; that would have been cold and meaningless. It answered well enough for the transient union and intercourse of the inferior creatures ; it would not have answered for the permanent, deep, and spiritual union which was to take place between these higher creatures. The companion of man appears under imposing and impressive circumstances. Adam sleeps, and a part of himself is taken and employed in this new creation. She appears before him as if she had risen from his own side, from near his own heart, a companion springing up from the depths of his own life. How he must have been impressed with this wonderful production of his future companion! He recognized and felt the lesson; and ''Adam said, this is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh ; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man." And, then, from the way in which our Savior puts it, it seems as if God himself broke in upon Adam's soliloquy and said, " Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh." The force of this language is much better felt through the Hebrew than in our English version — therefore shall she be called Isha^ a female man — and because of this wonderful manner of creation, and this tender and profound relationship to man, it shall be the tenderest and most sacred of human relations, and a man shall leave even father and mother and cleave to his wife. Evidently this creation of woman was not, in the estimation of either God or Adam, a mere beautiful sideplay, but was intended for a profound and significant les'son for all coming time.

Not only did this impressive production of the woman secure this foundation of a sacred and endeared union between man and woman, but it also secured another purpose of God which he declared when he said, "It is not good that the man should be alone, I will make a help meet for him." Not a helpfnate as we often hear it, but a help meet for him^ a companion worthy of him, an associate proper for him, his equal, his counterpart, his second self, one that he can love, and in whom he can find the complement of himself, and who finds her complement in him.

Much has been said and written with reference to the relative strength and capacity of man and woman in the attributes of human nature. By some, woman is made to be the duplicate of man, his equal in all respects, in intellectual and moral endowments his fellow; by others she is exalted far above him, at least in respect to the finer sensibilities of human nature ; and by others still she is made to occupy a position greatly inferior, at least in the scale of intellectual endowments.

We have no sympathy with these compari sons and contrasts. There is no real place for them ; they are two distinct beings ; sex is not a mere physical variation ; it is a radical, a constitutional difference. Woman is not another man, man is not a duplicate of woman. A duplication of the same being was not the design of the Creator, nor would it serve the purposes of the mysterious union he intended between them. Marriage is not a friendship ; it is vastly more. Friendship in itself is beautiful enough. Tender, indeed, was the friendship of Jonathan and David, of Damon and Pythias, and it is possible, however dangerous, that there may exist a ^'Platonic intimacy" and friendship between man and woman, but it is not love, and Platonic intimacy is not marriage ; it is 'vastly different both in kind and in degree from the profound life union of husband and wife.

Nor is woman man's inferior, a mere dependent upon his pleasure or his affection. She need not be either

"A weakling girl who would surrender will, And life, and reason, with her loving heart, To her possessor; no soft, clinging tiling Who would find breath alone within the arms Of a strong master, and obediently Wait on his whims in sla\dsh carefulness ; No fawTiing, cringing spaniel, to attend His royal pleasure, and account herself Rewarded b^'- his pats and pretty words ; But a round woman, who, with insight keen, Has wrought a scheme of life, and measured well

THE ORIGIN OF THE FA MIL V. 1 5

Her womanhood — her brain and heart meanwhile. Working in conscious harmony and rhythm With the great scheme of God's great universe, On toward her being's end."

She is his equal, his fellow, the companion mee^ for hijn made by God. They are equal^ but not identical; they are not intended for the same office and work in the needs of human life. It is his to think, to toil, to provide, to lead ; it is hers to feel, to reward, to endure, to follow. It is his to go out to battle with the world, to meet its contests, to carry forward its history, to wrest from it the means to provide for, to protect, and defend the sacred kingdom of home. It is hers to cheer and encourage, to aid and comfort, to meet with the smile of approbation and the reward of love the returning hero, the wayworn traveler, the weary laborer, the care-worn merchant, the exhausted student. It is his to produce ; it is hers to weave the results of his toil into blessings. It is his to make the world wiser, and richer, and better; it is hers to make the world purer, more happy, and more beautiful. Possibly he may have the more intellect, certainly he has a larger brain; what of it? She has the greater sensibihty, and is more richly endowed in those finer qualities that we call heart. He may have more strength, certainly has a larger frame, more compact bones, and powerful muscles. What of it? She is more beautiful, and her gentleness is her strength. He may have a broader comprehension, she has deeper insight ; he may have better reason, she has deeper sympathy; yet we can not say that one is superior to the other, any more than we can say painting is superior to sculpture, or poetry to music, or birds to flowers. The man is not without the woman, neither is the woman without the man." "He that made them in the beginning made them male and feinale^^'' made them in beautiful harmony and adaptation to each other.

In spite of the so-called progress of modern times, and of all we have seen written or heard spoken on the rights and wrongs, the demands and destinies of woman — and we have read and heard much — we have seen nothing to convert us from the old and sublime lessons floating down to us from the lips of the Creator, and from the morning of the creation. In spite of the sneers that have been heaped upon the word, we still believe the Creator had a lofty design in the manner of woman's creation, and

THE ORIGIN OF THE FA MIL Y. I 7 that he assigned to her, as well as to man, her own peculiar "sphere" and work, her own place in the economy of human hfe, and that there is no higher place or work on earth than the Creator has given to woman. What loftier, more potent, more sacred sphere is found in the world than home ? What hoHer names are found beneath the sky than wife and mother ? Home — the household — we still believe, is the sphere of woman, and woe be to both man and woman when the world repudiates it, or woman discards it. She was not made for the toils, the strifes, the excitements of the busy, outside world, and man and society are at fault when they thrust the necessity for it upon her. Gentleness is stamped upon her in all respects, and not only is a meek and quiet spirit her greatest adornment, but it is the most essential characteristic of her nature. In proportion as she departs from it, she so far loses in the grace, the beauty, and the power of her character. In the busy world she is lost — at home she shines as the sun and center. Let her be slow to exchange it for any thing else.

Nor should she be ashamed of this position. She should rejoice in it, as the sphere in which i8

THE RELIGION OF THE FAMILY.

she remains supreme. Nor should she be betrayed into underestimating its importance. What would life be for either man or woman, if it were not for this vast sphere of female usefulness and acti\dty? if it were not for homes, for domestic joys, for fireside virtues, for social relations.^ What is the mere bald picture in its naked outlines, uncolored, unadorned, unshaded? So what would human society be without the softening tints, the gentle shadings, the mild beauties thrown over it by the hand of woman ? What would the world be if it were not for singing birds, for blooming flowers, for sloping hills, for beautiful landscapes, and for star-lit skies ? So what would human life be if it were not for the beauty, the virtue, the bliss, which spring up, and bless, and adorn it in this sphere of action which God has assigned to woman ? If the great Creator himself thought it not unworthy of his labor to adorn the home of his human creature with beauty, and to throw over all his works a veil of harmony and peace, let not woman think it an undignified position when God has placed this department of life and of the world in her hand. Because the sun shines by day, shall the peerless moon blush to ride in her chariot of silver through her dominion of stars by night ?

Woman's ambition should be to shine at home, to shine in the social, beautiful, and peaceful scenes of life. In this very day society has no greater want than rest, homes of peace, where both men and women can find relief from the toil and excitement of the busy life we are living, and every woman who makes and preserves such a home is a benefactress of the race that needs not blush before the philanthropist, or the philosopher, or the statesman. So sings one of the brightest ornaments of the sex :

*'As some fair violet — loveliest of the glade, Sheds its mild fragrance on the lovely shade, Withdraws its modest head from public sight, Nor courts the sun, nor seeks the glare of light, Should some rude hand profanely dare intrude, And bear its beauties from its native wood. Exposed abroad its languid colors fly, Its form decays and all its odors die, So woman, born to dignify retreat. Unknown to flourish, and unseen be great ; To give domestic life its sweetest charm. With softness polish, and with virtue warm ; Fearful of fame, unwilling to be known, Should seek but heaven's applauses and her own."

We say nothing here of woman's rights. She has one right at least that all concede, which gives her power to rule the world, to do what she will with it, if she but cares to wield it. But the one spring of her power is the spring of the divine power, and of the power that hes in all nobleness and goodness, the power to love, to bless, and to save.

II. The Marriage Relation

HE creation of man and woman under the beautiful and impressive circumstances recorded in the Word of God, and reviewed in the previous chapter, is itself the Divine institution and the Divine definition of marriage. ^' He that made them in the beginning made them male and female," and said, " For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh." ^'Wherefore," says the Savior, "they are no more twain, but one flesh." These, it is to be remembered, are the words of God himself, as they are declared to be by Christ, and not, as they have often been supposed to be, the words of Adam. God made man male and female for this end, and in these words delivered his own ordinance to mankind, at once creating a more imperative union than that of parent and child, and permitting and directing a dissolution of the filial relation, that the parties might henceforth leave father and mother and cleave to each other. Not that parental affection should cease or perish, or the filial relation be abrogated, but that it is safer for society, and better for the race, that the union of man and wife should be more indissoluble than the relation of parent and^ child. Nor could this have been an ordinance for Adam alone. Adam had neither father nor mother, and he was married by God himself, so that he neither needed, nor was this sacred ordinance adapted to him.. It contemplated his posterity, and was the ordinance of marriage instituted in the beginning and applicable in all times and for the whole race. The law of intercourse between man and woman is marriage, and marriageonly — a union, too, designed from the very beginning to be the union of one man and one woman.

Thus introduced by God it is perpetuated and regulated through all the subsequent relations of his Word. In the New Testament, Christian marriage and the Christian family are recognized and blessed both by the Savior and his apostles. Our Lord himself recognizes and sanctions this holy estate, yields reverence and obedience to the parental relation, and adorns the marriage of Cana with his presence and first miracle. Indeed, he not only recognizes it, but his purity and wisdom, his gentleness and lovingness seemed necessary to a perception of its mysterious import and high significance. He it is who is capable of lifting it out of the corruptions and abuses of ages, and of exalting it to its true import and sanctity by his heavenly lessons with regard to it. Rising above the abuses of scribes and Pharisees, and even above the accommodations of Moses, he restores the significance and authority of the original institution. He rescues the wife from the degradation of a vassal or even an inferior, by wresting from the husband the power of capricious divorce, and by placing about this holy estate greater safeguards, by his more carefully defined and more stringent rules with regard to a dissolution of this union.

He himself and his apostles make use of marriage as a beautiful and expressive figure of the mystical union between Christ and his Church. '•'•Thy Maker is thy husband^^'' is one of the most endearing allusions and most pa-

24 TH^ RELIGION OF THE FAMILY,

thetic appeals of God to his people. " I will marry thee, yea, I will marry thy land," is one of the most tender and significant promises of the Bible. The highest revelations of the Divine character in its relations to men are taken from the family. '■^The Father^^ is the highest conception that even Christ can give us of the blessed God whom he makes known to men, and THE CHILDREN OF GoD is the highest prerogative he can confer on them that love and fear him. To express the tenderness of his love for his people Christ presents his Church as a bride adorned for her husband, and under the figure of his marriage with this bride presents the glorious consummation of his mediatorial reign. It is, indeed, the New Testament and the lessons of Christ, the latest and completest revelations from God, which have given true dignity, sanctity, and felicity to this holy estate, and determined the true relations of man and woman, husband and wife. In the light of these revelations let us study it more fully.

I. Marriage is a sacred instittUio7i. The Scriptures are clear on this subject. It is of Divine origin and appointment. We receive it from God, and it is subject to his laws alone^ and not to laws of men. It is older than human governments, and is among those things for which men are accountable to God, and for the use or abuse of which they must finally answer to him. Christian governments may and should recognize it, regulate and guard it, as they recognize and regulate the holy Sabbath. But it is not originated by them, nor is it their province to change its significance or modify its obligations. God made it, and his laws alone control it. The conditions of entering into it and of separation from it, are fixed in advance by him, and human legislation can neither legalize it nor grant divorces from it, except in accordance with its significance and God's appointment.

Marriage is not, then, as we too often hear, a civil compact, but a Divine ordinance, and "what God has joined together, let not man put asunder."

"God never made his work for man to mend."

We have many would-be reformers in the present day in almost all departments of social and moral hfe, and among them domestic reformers, socialists from abroad and sensualists at home, who are only able to conceive of liberty in the light of licentiousness, and who have grown weary of the just and wholesome restraints necessary for the very existence of society; men and women who would be v/ise above what is written, and who, looking upon the word and institutions of the Creator as antiquated and inapplicable to the times, would turn our domestic institutions and relations upside down. And, forsaking the wise institutions of God, what would they substitute ? Spiritual lovism, mesmeric attractions, unions of affinity, promiscuous marriage, popular divorces, parentless children, husbandless wives, motherless homes, and social anarchy !

2. Marriage is an honorable mstitntion. "What God has made pure let no man call common or unclean." God has pronounced it honorable in all, and when mistaken sanctity has set it aside, history has demonstrated that the consequences are but little less fatal than when licentiousness has ignored it. It was in the world before sin was, and is the only pure thing that has come down to us from before the Fall. God himself performed the first marriage

THE MARRIAGE RELATION.

ceremony amid the purity and sanctity of Eden, and the grandeur and beauty of the sinless Paradise, while the "God with us" made his first public appearance, and introduced his ministry on earth by his first miracle at the marriage in Cana of Galilee. We have always felt the fitness and beauty of the opening of this divine ministry in the family ; that Christ's first work should be in the home. Here he touches, recognizes, and sanctifies the very roots of society. All begins with the family ; here is infantile humanity, the germ that is to grow and become the man, the nation, the Church ; out of this first sanctuary are ever going forth the forces of society; in this charmed circle Religion is ever to find her first and most genial home. The anointed Messiah therefore begins his sacred ministry for the world at the very foundations of human life — he sanctions and blesses first of all a true marriage !

3. It is a 2iniversal institution. It is not simply a relic of Jewish antiquity. It began before Abraham, the father of the Jews, was born. It began before the Flood. It dates its origin at the beginning of the race. It was God's first institution for the benefit and welfare of mankind, appearing, probably, within \ the first holy week, when the new world and

the new race wxre just rising into life. It is radical, lying at the foundation of human things. It is not simply a law or institution of Christianity, it is the law of the race.

4. In itself considered, it is a solemn co7npact or covenant made between two parties, made in the fear of God, not in the light of a civil compact, but of obedience to a divine ordinance — an agreement of which God himself is a witness and on which is invoked his blessing. It is a compact made in view of the responsibilities of time and eternity, made solemnly and perpetually as the basis of a life union, founded on the purest affection and most upright designs of the parties.

5. It is not only a compact or covenant in wdiich two persons agree to live together, but it is a pi^ofound union of two hearts^ a union so intimate that it amounts to a mysterious identity. ^'They twain shall be one flesh." ''This is a great mystery," says the apostle. They are no longer two, but one, one in all duties, interests, hopes, and pursuits. Their lives are blended into one life. Those who enter into it should understand that ever after there is but one end to seek, one rule to acknowledge, one hope to animate, one cup of weal or woe to share. There can be no separate interests ; the first appearance of this is the entering wedge which separates their hearts, is the rising cloud which is to darken their future lives. The smile of Heaven must bless, or a frowning Providence depress, both alike. Hand in hand they must tread the same pathway, be it through darkness or in the clear sunlight, over flowers or on thorns. This mysterious and profound oneness is the emphatic significance which the Creator gave to the marriage relation, and is the foundation on which Christ rested his stringent law of divorce.

6. The only true basis of marriage is affection. Following in the light of the Great Book which utters the words of Eternal Life, we are not ashamed to say the first and essential bond of marriage, and the charm which casts the brightest radiance over it, is Love. Who has not felt its power, and who has not seen its beauty 1 Beautiful every- where ; in the gay and happy world of life about us ; beautiful when it paints rainbows in the face of the babe, whose sparkling eyes beam it out like jrising sunshine on the parent; beautiful in childhood, to whose joyous laugh it gives the sweetest ring ; beautiful in the family circle, as it sparkles in the eyes of the loving sister, and throbs in the heart of the manly brother, drawing them together^ the one to lean upon a brother's arm, and feel the safety of the love that is there, the other proud of the purity and innocence of the affection that throbs in a sister's heart ; beautiful in the wife, as she lays her head on the husband's breast, and there consecrates to him and to God her heart and life; beautiful in the husband, as in the pride of a manly devotion he throws his protecting arm around the dependent wife ; beautiful in the mother, as it looks out through her gentle eyes, beams in her loving face, trembles in her household song, mellows in her maternal voice ; beautiful in the father, as it nerves him for his toil and makes his heart strong as he goes forth to work for those he loves ; beautiful in the evening, when returning weary, and worn, and tired of the busy world, he takes off the incasings of his heart, and cools and blesses it in the atmosphere of home.

We repeat, the only true basis of marriage is affection. Upon no other condition does God sanction or bless it. Entered into upon any other consideration it ceases to be marriage, and is degraded into the insignificance of a mere civil compact. Not for the sake of alliances of interest or distinction, not for the sake of fortune or rank, not for ambition, avarice, convenience, or sensuality is this holy estate to be invaded. Love, an exclusive love, which sees in its object the being whom of all others it would draw to itself, is the golden chain which is to bind these hearts, is the sacred principle which is to sanctify this union. It is the pillar of cloud which is to throw. its shade over their dwelling by day, and the pillar of fire which is to illuminate their sanctuary by night. And this affection must never be suffered to cool ; it must ever burn and glow like the star that keeps watch in the midnight sky; or like the swan, whose whiteness gathers new luster with age, and which utters its sweetest note in death. This duty does not often fail on the part of the wife ; the danger is in the busy, moneyloving and money-getting husband. We do not like the man that does not love his wife and home. Such a man ''is fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils ; let no such man be trusted." Unprincipled, or thoughtless, or sadly deceived must be the man who can forget that she has left all to follow him ; that she has turned the tide of her affections, hopes, duties, and destiny away from all others to concentrate them all upon him, whom her confiding faith has believed to be worthy of her trust and affection. In that confiding faith she has come to place her heart, her life, in his hands. Such faith demands the ever-answering love of her husband.