The Christian Home
by Rev. George R. Stuart, D. D.
"For I know him, that he will command his children and
his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do
justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which He
hath spoken of him" (Gen. 18:19).
©FOUNDATION MAGAZINE
Nov – Dec 2001
[Written by Dr. Stuart nearly a century ago,
this article is just as important and relevant to believers
today.]
T
HE LONGER I LIVE,
the more I see of the sorrows and cares, the successes and failures of
this life, the more I am impressed that the home problem is the greatest
problem of our civilization. The homes of our country are so many
streams pouring themselves into the great current of moral, social and
political life. If the home life is pure, all is pure. The home is the
center of everything.
From the
proper or improper settlement of the home question comes more of joy or
sorrow, more of weal or woe, than from all other questions combined.
Build your palaces, amass your great fortunes, pile up your luxuries all
about you, provide for the satisfaction of every desire; but as you sit
amid these luxuries and wait for the staggering steps of a drunken son
or contemplate the downward steps of a wayward daughter, happiness flies
out of your heart and your home. There is nothing that can render happy
the parents of Godless and wayward children. Around the home circle of
the cottage or the palace are greater possibilities of joy or sorrow
than in all the rest of the world. Not only does the happiness of the
world center in the home, but the moral, social and civil life of the
world emanates from the home. The downfall of every character can be
traced to some defect in the home life. The prettiest picture earth
furnishes is a whole family on the way to heaven; the most horrible
picture is a whole family on the way to hell.
I believe in
the truth of the proverb of this Book: "Train up a child in the way he
should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." A child
properly trained up to the proper point will not go astray. The normal
way to get rid of drunkards, liars, thieves and debauchees is to quit
raising them. Every man steps from the home door into the social, moral
and civil world. What he is upon the home step he will be in the field
of life.
When Mr.
Gladstone and Mr. Talmage were talking over the great international
questions, Mr. Gladstone flashed his intelligent eye upon the great
preacher and said: "There is but one question. Settle that right, and
you settle all others. That question is Christianity." I stand here to
say that if you settle Christianity right in the home, it settles all
questions everywhere. National life never rises above the home life and
never sinks below it.
Church life
cannot rise higher than home life. I have no faith in the woman who
talks of heaven at church and makes a hell of her home. If I were
investigating a woman's piety, I would rather take the evidence of the
cook than of the preacher. Some men talk in the church like angels and
talk to their families like demons. Church religion never goes above
home religion. As we live in the home world, so we live in all worlds,
whatever our profession is.
It is the
home that gives us our men and women. Brick and marble do not make a
country; men and women make a country. When God Himself would start a
nation He made the home life the deciding question, and selected Abraham
as the foundation on the ground set forth in my text: because God knew
him, that he would command his children and his household after him, and
that God would therefore be able "to bring upon Abraham that which He
had spoken of him."
God's ideal
nation starts with the home, with the father of the home "walking in the
way of the Lord to do justice and judgment" and his children and his
household following after him. The two central ideas of the home life
expressed in this text are the fundamental ideas of a successful home
and national life.
Home
authority and home example are expressed in the words, "He will command
his children and his household after him." During the ten years I spent
as a school teacher—where from the log schoolhouse in the mountains to
the boarding college of the towns I met every class and condition of
children—I learned the great truth of this text, that of the home
authority and home example settle the great question of life and
character. The years spent as a Methodist preacher, visiting from house
to house, and the years spent in traveling over this great country of
ours have only furnished illustrations on every hand in proof of the
fact that neither the law nor the Gospel can make a Christian nation
without the help of home authority and home example. Anarchy is not born
in the Haymarket of Chicago; outlawism is not born in street mobs. The
question of obedience to law is settled in childhood. The child who does
not obey his father and mother will obey neither social, civil nor
divine laws. When God said, "Children, obey your parents," He told the
world where obedience originates.
The most
dangerous sign of the times is the neglect of home life and the growing
disrespect of children for parents. A six-year-old boy can scream and
stamp and boss a household, change a program and bring father and mother
to his terms. I was in a home some time ago where a father asked a
little six year-old child to shut the door. She replied: "I won't do
it." He said: "Poor papa will have to shut it himself." She replied: "I
don't care; I won't." And I saw poor papa get up and shut the door.
Having been an old schoolteacher, I wanted to borrow that child for
about fifteen minutes; but upon mature reflection I decided that her
father was the fellow who needed mending. No man can bring a greater
curse upon law and order and a good civilization that to turn such
creatures out into the world. Uncontrolled at six, and outlaws at
twenty.
The learning
of the academy, the college, the university, may fade from the mind, but
the simple lessons of home defy years and live on. The words of a mother
make deeper impressions than any other words that touch our plastic
childhood. The mother of Walter Scott was well educated and a great
lover of poetry and painting. The mother of Byron was proud and
ill-tempered and violent. The mother of Napoleon Bonaparte was full of
ambition and energy. The mother of Lord Bacon was a woman of superior
mind and deep piety. The mother of Nero was a murderess. The mother of
Washington was a pure and good woman. The mother of Patrick Henry was
eloquent in speech. The mother of John and Charles Wesley was
intelligent and pious and full of executive ability. The mother of
Doddridge taught him Scripture history from the Dutch tiles on the
fireplace, on which there were pictures of subjects taken from the
Bible. When the devil robs a boy, the last thing he takes are the early
impressions made by his father and mother.
A lady who
had raised seven noble Christian sons, with not a black sheep in the
fold, was asked by an old friend of mine how she did it. She replied: "I
did it with prayer and hickory." Two better instruments were never used.
I do not mean to encourage the brutal punishment of children, but when
solid piety and wholesome authority go hand in hand, obedient and pious
children follow. Example and authority go together. God knew that
Abraham would command his children after him.
How many a
wayward boy all over this country might be saved by the proper
combination of wholesome authority and a Godly example! Our children are
turned out on the streets of the cities, and God only knows where they
go and what they do.
Mrs. Wesley,
who gave to the world such a noble family—the lives of whom will bless
the world for generations to come, heeded the command of God in the
rearing of her nineteen children. Her first step, she said, was to get
complete control of the child. How this is done I cannot tell you. I
wish I could give an unerring rule, but the rule differs with the
disposition of the child. One thing is true: authority is necessary.
Take the child and the problem to God, but as you love your child and
fear your God, secure its obedience to your authority.
But home
authority is worth little without home example. It is the nature of the
child to follow. Did you ever start across the room, mother, and hear a
thud on the floor and look around to find that little Mary had caught
your dress and attempted to follow you, and you had jerked her sprawling
on the floor? Father, did you never, on reaching the gate on your
departure from home, find little John at your heels, and as you closed
the gate before him he looked up piteously and cried: "Papa, me go wid
oo." The children go with us—they follow us. How beautiful the sight to
see father and mother walking in the ways of righteousness, followed by
the large household of God! How horrible the sight to see the wicked
father and mother start off to hell, and every little child following!
How horrible to see them led one at a time into that awful abyss, and
there each recognize the other, and the parents realize that they had
led them there! Stop, my brother! Stop, my sister! Do not go farther in
that direction with those precious little ones following you. They look
into your face and ask the way. They see your tracks and follow.
Some time
ago I heard a roar of laughter in the hall of my own home. I walked out
of my study and found the household laughing immoderately at my little
boy who was coming down the stairs dressed in a full suit of my
clothing. The vest reached to his knees, and long coat dragged the
floor, the big hat almost hid his head, and his feet were lost in my
number nine shoes. How comical, how funny it seemed to the family! But
as I looked upon it, I saw the serious side and said to my wife, "That
is not a laughable picture to me. It has in it a lesson as touching as
the great realities of life. That sight teaches me that the little boy
wants to be like his father—wants to wear his father's shoes and walk as
his father, dress in his father's clothes and be as his father. God help
me go right!" Every parent who hears my voice tonight should not forget
that there are scenes in your homes that talk to you every day and cry
out to you as piteously as life and death; "Look out, papa; look out,
mamma; I'm coming after you." Don't go wrong; don't lead little feet
astray.
A Baptist
minister told me of a little boy whom he had found in his rounds of
pastoral visiting with his hair clipped close from the top of his head,
presenting a most comical picture, which called for the following
explanation by his mother: "This little fellow got hold of my scissors
yesterday, and the first thing I knew he had clipped the hair off the
top of his head, and when I asked him why he did it he replied with an
air of victory: 'Make my head like papa's head."' His father was a
bald-headed man. How often we find a boy's head like his father's head!
Lookout, skeptic!
In one of
Tennessee's cities a special friend of mine walked down to the Tennessee
river with two bright, promising boys. He said: "Boys, we will try a
swim together." And with his boys at his side they swam together out
toward the current of the river. Away out in the current the father
called a halt and advised a return, but as they turned to go back to the
shore the waters proved too swift, the distance too great, and the two
boys sank by his side. He swam to the shore, piteously crying: "My boys
are gone." He said: "The mistake I made was, I swam out too far with the
boys."
I am talking
to men who are swimming out into the current of social life and
amusements and dissipation with their bright boys at their side. Some of
these days they will call a halt and start back to the shores of
sobriety and piety; but the boys will be carried off with the current,
and they will walk the shores of life sad and lonely, breathing from
their broken hearts the saddest of all sentences: "My boys are gone! My
boys are gone!" Stop, my brother; stop. Come back to God tonight. Bring
those bright boys with you. Don't go farther into the current of
worldliness.
An old local
preacher in our Conference lived a life of simple piety and
unquestionable honesty before a family of boys and girls. His sons have
been honorable. One of them, who has been to the United States Congress,
gave this little incident to my presiding elder. He said: "I have never
doubted my father's piety. He has lived without reproach, a Christian
life in his own home. But in spite of all teachings and example with
which I have been so wonderfully blessed, little doubts would still
enter my mind. When my father came to his deathbed I said to myself:
'Now is the time for me to settle some questions.' I walked up to the
bedside of my dying father and said: 'Father, I know two things. You can
tell me another. And these things will settle the problems of life for
me.' My father said: 'What are they, my son?' I replied: 'I know that
you have been an honest man-you never told a lie in your life. Secondly,
I know you have practiced the teachings of the Christian religion as
perfectly as man has ever followed his Christ. Now the question you can
tell me is this: Is this religion all you hoped it would be in the hour
of death? Has it in life and death proved a reality to you?' My father
looked up, a smile played over his face, a tear of triumph filled his
eye, and he replied: 'My son, I know whom I have believed, and I am
persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him
against that day. Thank God, Christianity was all that I could ask for
in life, and more than I hoped it could be in the hour of death. I have
lived a happy life, and I die a triumphant death. Thank God there is a
reality in the religion of Christ."' The son said: "I walked away from
the bedside of my dying father, and, so help me God, from that day to
this not a shadow of doubt has ever found place in my mind. When I went
to the United States Congress, among the first packages of my mail was a
package containing the works of Colonel Ingersoll, [comment
by webmaster: Ingersoll was a secular humanist, critical of faith and
religion] with his compliments to me. I opened the package. The
very sight of those books brought up the smiling face and triumphant
words of my dying father. I carried the books and dropped them into the
grate and saw them burn to ashes. I washed my hands with soap and dried
them on the towel, and that is as near as I have come to going back on
the faith and life of my precious father." This bit of history teaches
us the power of Godly example. Thank God for Christian parents whose
lives are great beacon lights along the shore to guide us from the
dangerous rocks into a haven of rest!
Fathers and
mothers, hear me tonight. Little children are looking up into your
faces, asking which way to go. They are following your footsteps. Do not
lead them in the wrong way. The Lord help you, stop tonight. Gather your
little ones into your arms, and turn your back on sin and set your face
toward God.
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