068. The Old Homestead

The Old Homestead

Jos_24:15 : ’93As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’94

Absurd Joshua! You have no time for family religion. You are a military man and your entire time will be taken with affairs connected with the army. You are a statesman and your time will be taken up with public affairs. You are the Washington, the Wellington, the MacMahon of the Israelitish army, and you will have no time for religion. But Joshua in the same voice with which he commanded the sun and the moon to halt and stack arms of light on the parade ground of the Heavens, cried out: ’93As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’94

Before we make the same resolution it is best for us to see whether it is a wise and sensible resolution. If religion is going to put my piano out of tune, and clog the feet of my children racing through the hall, and sour the bread, and put crape on the door bell, I do not want it to come into my house. I paid six dollars to hear Jenny Lind warble. I never paid a cent to hear anybody groan. I want to know what religion is going to do if it gets into my house; what it is going to do in the dining hall, in the nursery, in the parlor, in the sleeping apartment, in every room from cellar to attic.

It is a great deal easier to invite a disagreeable guest than to get rid of him. If you do not want religion, you had better not ask it to come, for after coming, it may stay a great while. Isaac Watts went to visit Sir Thomas and Lady Abney at their place in Theobald, and was to stay a week, and stayed thirty-five years, and if religion once gets into your household, the probability is it will stay there forever.

Now, the question I want to discuss is, what will religion do for the household? Question the first, What did it do for your father’92s house if you were brought up in a Christian home? This morning the scene all flashes back upon you. It is time for morning prayers in the old homestead. You are called in. You sit down. You are somewhat fidgety while you listen to the reading. Your father makes no pretense to rhetorical reading of the Scripture, but just goes right on and reads in a plain way. Then you kneel. You remember it now just as well as though it were yesterday. If you were an artist you could photograph the scene. You were not as devotional perhaps as your older brother or sisters, and while they had their heads bowed solemnly down, you were thoughtless and looking around, and you know just the posture of your father and mother, and brothers and sisters.

The prayer was longer than you would like to have had it. It was about the same prayer morning by morning and night by night, for your father had the same sins to deplore and the same blessings to thank God for. You were somewhat impatient to have the prayers over. Perhaps the game of ball was waiting, or the skates were lying under the shed, or you wanted to look two or three times over your lesson before you started for school, and you were somewhat impatient. After a while, the prayers were over. Your parents did not rise from the floor as easily as you, for their limbs were rheumatic and stiffened with age.

You recall it all this morning. A tear trickles down your cheek and it seems to melt all that scene, but it comes back again. There is father, there is mother, there are your brothers and your sisters. Was that morning exercise in your father’92s house degrading or elevating? As you look back now thirty, forty, fifty years, you hear the same prayers’97the prayers of 1830, 1840, 1850, just as familiar to your mind now as though you had heard them from lips long ago turned to dust. But all that scene comes back. Was it elevating or degrading?

Do you not realize that there has been many a battle in life when that scene upheld you? Do you not remember, O man, when once you proposed to go to some place where you ought not to go, and that prayer jerked you back? Do you know, my brother, my sister, reviewing that scene, bringing it to your mind’97do you really think it was good economy or a waste of time that your father and mother spent those moments in prayer for themselves and prayer for their families?

Ah! my friends, we begin to think of it this morning, and we come almost to the conclusion that if those scenes were improving to our father’92s household, they would be improving to our own household. They did no damage there; they do no damage now. ’93Is God dead?’94 said a little child to her father. ’93Is God dead?’94 ’93O, no,’94 he said, ’93my child; what do you ask that question for?’94 ’93Oh,’94 she said, ’93when mother was living we used to have prayers, but since mother has been dead we have not had prayers. I thought perhaps God was dead too.’94 A family well launched in the morning with prayers goes with a blessing all day. The breakfast hour over, the family scatter’97some to household cares, some to school, some to business life in the city. Before night comes there will be many temptations, many perils, perils of misstep, perils of street car, perils of the ferryboat, perils of quick temper; many temptations threatening to do you harm. Somewhere between seven o’92clock a. m. and ten o’92clock p. m. there may be a moment when you will want God. Oh, you had better launch the day right! It will not hinder you, my brother, in business life. It will be a secular advantage.

A man went off to the war and fought for his country, and the children stayed and cultivated the farm, and the mother prayed. One young man was telling the story afterward and some one hearing the story said: ’93Well, well, your father fighting, children digging on the farm, and mother praying at home; it seems to me all these agencies ought to bring us out of our national troubles.’94

My friends, what is your memory of those early scenes? Do you think we had better have God in our own household? ’93But,’94 says some one, ’93I can’92t formulate a prayer; I never prayed in my life.’94 Well then, my brother, there are Philip Henry’92s prayers, and McDuff’92s prayers, and Doddridge’92s prayers, and Episcopal Church prayers and a score of good books with supplications appropriate to your family. If you do not feel yourself competent to formulate a prayer, just take one of those prayer books, put it down on the bottom of the chair, kneel by it and then commend to a merciful God your own soul and the souls of your family. ’93But!’94 says a father, ’93I couldn’92t do that at all; I am naturally so retiring and reticent it is impossible.’94 Well, I think sometimes it is the mother’92s duty to lead in the prayer. I say, sometimes. She knows more of God, she knows more about the family wants, she can read the Scriptures with more tender enunciation. To put it in plain words, she prays better. I remember my father’92s praying morning by morning and night by night, but when he was absent from home and my mother prayed it was very different. Though sometimes when father prayed we were listless or indifferent, we were none of us listless or indifferent when mother prayed, for we remember just how she looked as she said: ’93I ask not for my children riches or honor, or fame, but I ask that they all may become subjects of thy converting grace.’94 ’93Why,’94 you say, ’93I never could forget that;’94 neither could you. These mothers seem to decide everything. Nero’92s mother was a murderess. Lord Byron’92s mother was haughty and impious. So you might have judged from their children. Walter Scott’92s mother was fond of poetry. Washington’92s mother was patriotic. St. Bernard’92s mother was a noble-minded woman. So you might have judged from their children. Good men have good mothers. There are exceptions to the rule, but they are only exceptions. The father and the mother loving God, their children are almost certain to love God. The son may make a wide curve from the straight path, but he will almost be sure to curve back again after a while. God remembers the prayers and brings the son back on the right road, sometimes after the parents are gone. How often we hear it said: ’93Oh, he was a wild young man until his father’92s death; since that he has been very different; he has been very steady since his father’92s death; he has become a Christian.’94 The fact is that the lid of the father’92s casket is often the altar of repentance for a wandering boy. The marble pillar of the tomb is the point at which many a young man has been revolutioned. O young man! how long is it since you were out to your father’92s grave? Perhaps you had better go this week. Perhaps the storms of last winter may have bent the headstone toward the earth, and it may need straightening. Perhaps the letters may be somewhat defaced by the elements. Perhaps the gate of the lot may be open. Perhaps you might find a sermon in the faded grass. Better go out and look. O prodigal! do you remember your father’92s house? Do you think that religion which did well for the old people would do well for you?

It seems to me we are all resolved to have religion in our homes, but let it come in at the front door and not at the back door. In other words do not let us try to smuggle religion into the household. Do not let us be like those families that feel very much mortified when they are caught at family prayers. They do not dare to sing at family prayers lest the neighbors should hear them, and they never have prayers when they have company. If we are going to have religion in our house let it come in at the front door.

Some of our beautiful homes have not the courage of the western trapper. A traveller passing along far away from home was overtaken by night and by a storm, and he put in at a cabin. He saw firearms there. It was a rough-looking place, but he did not dare to go into the darkness and storm. He had a large amount of money with him and he felt very much excited and disturbed. After a while the trapper came home. He had a gun on his shoulder. He put the gun roughly down in the cabin, and then the traveller was more disturbed. He was sure he was not safe in that place. After a while he heard the family talking together, and he said, ’93Now, they are plotting for my ruin; I wish I was out in the night and storm instead of being here; I would be safer there.’94 After a while the old trapper came up to the traveller and said: ’93Stranger, we are a rough people; we get our living by hunting, and when we come in at night we are quite tired and we go to bed early, but before we go to bed, we are in the habit of reading a few verses from the Scriptures and say a short prayer; if you don’92t believe in such things, if you would just please to step outside the door for a little while, I’92ll be obliged to you.’94 There was the courage to do one’92s whole duty under all circumstances, and a house that has prayers in it is a safe house, it is a holy house, it is a divinely guarded house. So the traveller found out as he tarried in the cabin of that western trapper. But there are families that want religion a good way off, yet within calling distance for a funeral; but to have religion dominant in the household from the first day of January, seven o’92clock a. m., to the thirty-first day of December, ten o’92clock p. m., they do not want it.

I had in my ancestral line an incident I must tell about for the encouragement of all Christian parents. My grandfather and grandmother went from Somerville to Baskenridge to attend revival meetings under the ministry of Dr. Finney. They were so impressed with the meetings that when they came back to Somerville, they were seized upon by a great desire for the salvation of their children. That evening the children were going off to a gay party, and my grandmother said to the children, ’93When you get all ready for the entertainment come into my room; I have something very important to tell you.’94 After they were all ready for the gay entertainment, they came into my grandmother’92s room and she said to them, ’93Go and have a good time; but while you are gone I want you to know I am praying for you and will do nothing but pray for you until you get back.’94 They went off to the gay entertainment. They did not enjoy it much because they thought all the time of the fact that mother was praying for them. The evening passed. The children returned. The next day my grandparents heard sobbing and crying in the daughter’92s room, and they went in and found her praying for the salvation of God, and her daughter Phebe said: ’93I wish you would go to the barn and to the wagon house, for Jehiel and David (the brothers) are under powerful conviction of sin.’94 My grandparent went to the barn, and Jehiel, who afterward became a useful minister of the Gospel, was imploring the mercy of Christ, and then having first knelt with him and commended his soul to Christ, they went to the wagon house, and there was David crying for the salvation of his soul’97David, who afterward became my father. The whole family was swept into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. David could not keep the story to himself, and he crossed the fields to a farmhouse and told one to whom he had been affianced the story of his own salvation, and she yielded her heart to God. It was David and Catherine, and they stood up in the village church together a few weeks after’97for the story of the converted household went all through the neighborhood’97in a few weeks two hundred souls stood up in the plain meeting house at Somerville to profess faith in Christ, among them David and Catherine, afterward my parents.

My mother, impressed with that, in after life, when she had a large family of children gathered around her, made a covenant with three neighbors, three mothers. They would meet once a week to pray for the salvation of their children until all their children were converted’97this incident not known until after my mother’92s death, the covenant then revealed by one of the survivors. We used to say: ’93Mother, where are you going?’94 and she would say, ’93I am just going out a little while; going over to the neighbors.’94 They kept on in that covenant until all their families were brought into the kingdom of God, myself the last, and I trace that line of results back to that evening when my grandmother commended our family to Christ, the tide of influence going on until this hour, and it will never cease.

I tell this for the encouragement of fathers and mothers who are praying for their children. Take courage. God will answer prayer. He will keep his bargain. He will remember his covenant. O! my friends, take your family Bible and read out of it this afternoon. Some of you have such a Bible in the household. I have one in my home. It is a perfect fascination to me. If you looked at it, you would not find a page that was not discolored either with time or tears. My parents read out of it as long as I can remember; morning and evening they read out of it.

When my brother Van Nest died in a foreign land, and the news came to our country home, that night they read the eternal consolations out of the old book. When my brother David died in this city, then that book comforted the old people in their trouble. My father in mid-life, fifteen years an invalid, out of that book read of the ravens that fed Elijah all through the hard struggle for bread. When my mother died that book illumined the dark valley. In the years that followed of loneliness, it comforted my father with the thought of reunion which took place afterward in Heaven. Dor’e9 never illustrated a Bible as that Bible is illustrated to me, or your family Bible is illustrated to you. Only three or four pictures in it, but we look right through and we see the marriages and the burials, the joys and the sorrows, the Thanksgiving days and the Christmas festivals, the cradles and the deathbeds. Old, old book. The hand that leafed you has gone to ashes; the eyes that perused you are closed. Old, old book! What a pillow thou wouldst make for a dying head!

I believe this morning that, under the power of the Holy Ghost, there are hundreds of people here who are going to invite religion into their household. Let religion come into the dining-room to break the bread, into the parlor to purify the socialities, into the library to select their reading, into the bedroom to hallow the slumber, into the hallway to watch us when we go out and when we come in. There are hundreds of people here this morning, I believe, who are ready to say from their heart with the old soldier of the text, ’93As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’94

My subject has two arms. One arm of this subject puts its hand on the head of parents and says: ’93Do not interfere with your children’92s happiness, do not intercept their eternal welfare, do not put out your foot and trip any of them into a ruin. Start them under the shelter and benediction of the Christian religion. Catechisms will not save them, though catechisms are good; the rod will not save them, though the rod may be necessary; lessons of virtue will not save them, though such lessons are very important. Your becoming a Christian through and through, up and down, out and out, will make your children Christians.’94 The other arm of this subject puts its hand on all those who had good bringing up, but as yet have not yielded to the anticipations in regard to them. I said that the path of the son or the daughter might widely diverge, and yet it is almost certain that the wandering one would come around again on the straight path. There are exceptions, and you, my brother, might be the exception. You have curved out long enough; it is time to curve in. Would it not be awful after all the prayers offered for your salvation, if you missed Heaven? If your parents prayed for you twenty years and they offered two prayers a day for twenty years, that would make twenty-nine thousand two hundred prayers for you. Those twenty-nine thousand two hundred prayers are either the mountain over which you will climb into Heaven, or they will be an avalanche coming down upon your soul.

By the cradle that rocked your childhood with the foot that long ceased to move; by the crib in which your children sleep night by night under God’92s protecting care; by the two graves in which the two old hearts are resting, the two hearts that beat with love toward you since before you were born; by the two graves in which you, the now living father and mother, will soon repose, I urge you to faithfulness.

O! thou glorified Christian ancestry. Bend from the skies today and give new emphasis to what you told us once with tears and many anxieties. Keep a place for us by your blissful side, for today in the presence of earth and Heaven and hell, and by the help of the cross, and amid these overwhelming and gracious memories we all resolve, each one for himself and for his loved ones: ’93As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’94 May the Lord God of Joshua have mercy on us!

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage