400. Domestic Life

Domestic Life

Luk_8:39 : ’93Return to thine own house, and show how great things God hath done unto thee.’94

After a fierce and shipwrecking night, Christ and his disciples are climbing up the slaty shelving of the beach. How pleasant it is to stand on solid ground after having been tossed so long on the billows! While the disciples are congratulating each other on their marine escape, out from a dark, deep cavern of the Gadarene hills there is something swiftly and terribly advancing. Is it an apparition? Is it a man? Is it a wild beast? It is a maniac who has broken away from his keepers, perhaps a few rags on his person, and fragments of stout shackles which he has wrenched off in terrific paroxysm. With wild yell, and bleeding wounds of his own laceration, he flies down the hill.

Back to the boats, ye fishermen, and put out to sea, and escape assassination. But Christ stands his ground; so do the disciples; and as this flying fury, with gnashing teeth and uplifted fists, dashes at Christ, Christ says, ’93Hands off! Down at my feet, thou poor sufferer,’94 and the demoniac drops harmless, exhausted, worshipful. ’93Away, ye devils!’94 commanded Christ, and the two thousand fiends which had been tormenting the poor man are transferred to the two thousand swine which go to the sea with their accursed cargo.

The restored demoniac sits down at Christ’92s feet and wants to stay there. Christ says to him practically, ’93Do not stop; you have a mission to execute; wash off the filth and the wounds in the sea; smooth your disheveled locks; put on decent apparel and go straight to your desolated home, and tell your wife and children that you will no more affright them, and no more do them harm; that you are restored to reason, and that I, the Omnipotent Son of God, am entitled hereafter to the worship of your entire household. ’91Return to thine own house, and shew how great things God hath done unto thee.’92’93

Yes, the house, the home is the first place where our religious gratitude ought to be demonstrated. In the outside world we may seem to have religion when we have it not; but the home tests whether our religion is genuine or a sham. What makes a home happy? Well, one would say a house with great, wide halls and antlered deerheads, and parlors with sculpture and bric-a-brac, and dining-hall with easy chair and plenty of light and engravings of game on the wall, and sleeping apartments commodious and adorned. No. In such a place as that gigantic wretchedness has sometimes dwelt, while some of you look back to your father’92s house, where they read their Bible by the light of a tallow candle. There were no carpets on the floor save those made from the rags which your mother cut night by night, you helping wind them into a ball, and then sent to the weaver, who brought them to shape under his slow shuttle. Not a luxury in all the house. But you cannot think of it this morning without tearful and grateful emotion. You and I have found out that it is not rich tapestry or gorgeous architecture or rare art that makes a happy home.

The six wise men of Greece gave prescriptions for a happy home. Solon says a happy home is a place where a man’92s estate was gotten without injustice, kept without disquietude, and spent without repentance. Chilo says that a happy home is the place where a man rules as a monarch a kingdom. Bias says that a happy home is a place where a man does voluntarily what by law he is compelled to do abroad. But you and I, under a grander light, give a better prescription: a happy home is a place where the kindness of the Gospel of the Son of God has full swing.

While I speak there is a knocking at the front door of your house, if he be not already admitted, One whose locks are wet with the dews of the night, who would take your children into his arms, and would throw upon your nursery and your sleeping apartments and your drawing-room and your entire house a blessing that will make you rich while you live and be an inheritance to your children after you have done the last day’92s work for their support, and made for them the last prayer. It is the illustrious One who said to the man of my text, ’93Return to thine own house, and shew how great things God hath done unto thee.’94

Now, in the first place, we want religion in our domestic duties. Every housekeeper needs great grace. If Martha had had more religion she would not have rushed with such bad temper to scold Mary in the presence of Christ. It is no small thing to keep order and secure cleanliness and mend breakages and achieve economy and control all the affairs of the household advantageously. Expenses will run up, store bills will come in twice as large as you think they ought to be, furniture will wear out, carpets will unravel, and the martyrs of the fire are very few in comparison with the martyrs of housekeeping. Yet there are hundreds of people in this church this morning who in their homes are managing all these affairs with a composure, an adroitness, an ingenuity and a faithfulness which they never could have reached but for the grace of our practical Christianity. The exasperations which wear out others have been to you spiritual development and sanctification. Employments which seemed to relate only to an hour have on them all the grandeurs of eternal history.

You need the religion of Christ in the discipline of your children. The rod which in other homes may be the first means used, in yours will be the last. There will be no harsh epithets’97’94you knave, you villain, you scoundrel, I’92ll thresh the life out of you; you are the worst child I ever saw.’94 All that kind of chastisement makes thieves, pickpockets, murderers and the outlaws of society. That parent who in anger strikes his child across the head deserves the penitentiary. And yet this work of discipline must be attended to. God’92s grace can direct us. Alas! for those who come to the work with fierce passion and recklessness of consequences. Between severity and laxity there is no choice. Both ruinous and both destructive. But there is a healthful medium which the grace of God will show to us.

Then we need the religion of Christ to help us in setting a good example. Cowper said of the oak: ’93Time was when, settled on thy leaf, a fly could shake thee to the root. Time has been when tempest could not.’94 In other words, your children are very impressible just now. They are alert; they are gathering impressions you have no idea of. Have you not been surprised sometimes, months or years after some conversation which you supposed was too profound or intricate for them to understand’97some question of the child demonstrated the fact that he knew all about it?

Your children are apt to think that what you do is right. They have no ideal of truth or righteousness but yourself. Things which you do, knowing at the time to be wrong, they take to be right. They reason this way: ’93Father always does right. Father did this. Therefore this is right.’94 This is good logic but bad premises. No one ever gets over having had a bad example set him. Your conduct more than your teaching makes impression. Your laugh, your frown, your dress, your walk, your greetings, your good-byes, your comings, your goings, your habits at the table, the tones of your voice, are making an impression which will last a million years after you are dead, and the sun will be extinguished, and the mountains will crumble, and the world will die, and eternity will roll on in perpetual cycles, but there will be no diminution of the force of your conduct upon the young eyes that saw it or the young ears that heard it.

Now I would not have by this the idea given to you that you must be in cold reserve in the presence of your children. You are not emperor; you are companion with them. As far as you can, you must walk with them, skate with them, fly kite with them, play ball with them, show that you are interested in all that interests them. Spensippus, the nephew and successor of Plato in the academy, had pictures of joy and gladness hung all around the school-room. You must not give your children the impression that when they come to you they are playful ripples striking against a rock. You must have them understand that you were a boy once yourself, that you know a boy’92s hilarities, a boy’92s temptations, a boy’92s ambition’97yea, that you are a boy yet. You may deceive them and try to give them the idea that you are some distant supernatural effulgence, and you may shove them off by your rigorous behavior, but the time will come when they will find out the deception, and they will have for you utter contempt. Aristotle said that a boy should begin to study at seventeen years of age; before that his time should be given to recreation. I cannot adopt that theory. But this suggests a truth in the right direction. Childhood is too brief, and we have not enough sympathy with its sportfulness. We want divine grace to help us in the adjustment of all these matters.

Besides that, how are your children ever to become Christians if you yourself are not a Christian? I have noticed that however worldly and sinful parents may be, they want their children good. When young people have presented themselves for admission into our membership, I have said to them, ’93Are your father and mother willing you shall come?’94 and they have said, ’93Oh! yes; they are delighted to have us come; they have not been in church for ten or fifteen years, but they will be here next Sabbath to see me baptized.’94 I have noticed that parents, however worldly, want their children good.

So it was demonstrated in a police court in Canada, where a mother sat, her little child in her arms’97sat by a table on which her own handcuffs lay, and the little babe took up the handcuffs and played with them, and had great glee. She knew not the sorrow of the hour. And then, when the mother was sent to the prison, the mother cried out, ’93Oh! God, let not this babe go into the jail. Is there not some mother here who will take this child? It is good enough for heaven. It is pure. I am bad. I am wicked. Is there not some one who will take this child? I cannot have it tainted with the prison.’94 Then a brazen creature rushed up and said, ’93Yes, I’92ll take the child.’94 ’93No, no,’94 said the mother, ’93not you, not you. Is there not some good mother here who will take this child?’94 And when the officer of the law in mercy and pity took the child to carry it away to find a home for it the mother kissed it lovingly good-by, and said, ’93Good-by, my darling; it is better you should never see me again.’94

I do not care how worldly or sinful people are, they want their children good. How are you going to have them good? Buy them a few good books? Teach them a few excellent catechisms? Bring them to church? That is all very well, but of little final result unless you do it with the grace of God in your heart. Do you not realize that your children are started for eternity? Are they on the right road? After those little forms that are now so bright and beautiful have scattered in the dust there will be an immortal spirit living on in a mighty theatre of action, and your faithfulness or your neglect now is deciding that destiny. There is contention already among ministering spirits of salvation and fallen angels as to who shall have the mastery of that immortal spirit. Your children are soon going out in the world. The temptations of life will rush upon them. The most rigid resolution will bend in the blast of evil. What will be the result? It will require all the restraints of the Gospel, all the strength of a father’92s prayer, all the influence of a Christian mother’92s example, to keep them.

You say it is too early to bring them. Too early to bring them to God? Do you know how early children were taken to the ancient Passover? The rule was, just as soon as they could take hold of the father’92s hand and walk up Mount Moriah they should be taken to the Passover. Your children are not too young to come to God. While you sit here and think of them perhaps their forms, now so bright and beautiful, vanish from you, and their disembodied spirit rises, and you see it after the life of virtue or crime is past and the judgment is gone and eternity is here.

A Christian minister said that in the first year of his pastorate he tried to persuade a young mechanic of the importance of family worship. Some time passed, and the mechanic came to the pastor’92s study and said, ’93Do you remember that girl? That was my own child; she died this morning very suddenly; she has gone to God, I have no doubt, but if so, she has told him what I tell you now; that child never heard a prayer in her father’92s house’97never heard a prayer from her father’92s lips. Oh! if I only had her back again one day to do my duty!’94 It will be a tremendous thing at the last day if some one shall say of us, ’93I never heard my father pray; I never heard my mother pray.’94

Again I remark, we want religion in all our home sorrows. There are ten thousand questions that come up in the best regulated households that must be settled. Perhaps the father has one favorite in the family, the mother another favorite in the family, and there are many questions that need delicate treatment. Tyranny and arbitrary decision have no place in a household. If the parents love God there will be a spirit of self-sacrifice, and a spirit of forgiveness, and a kindness which will throw its charm over the entire household. Christ will come into that household, and will say, ’93Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them; wives, see that you reverence your husbands; children, obey your parents in the Lord; servants, be obedient to your masters,’94 and the family will be like a garden on a summer morning’97the grass-plot and the flowers and the vines and the arch of honeysuckle standing in the sunlight glittering with dew.

But then there will be sorrows that will come to the household. There are but few families that escape the stroke of financial misfortune. Financial misfortune comes to a house where there is no religion. They kick against divine allotments, they curse God for the incoming calamity, they withdraw from the world because they cannot hold as high a position in society as they once did, and they fret and they scowl and they sorrow and they die. During the past few years there have been tens of thousands of men destroyed by their financial distresses. But misfortune comes to the Christian household. If religion has full sway in that home they stoop gracefully. They say, ’93This is right.’94 The father says, ’93Perhaps money was getting to be my idol. Perhaps God is going to make me a better Christian by putting me through the furnace of tribulation. Besides that, why should I fret anyhow? He who owneth the cattle on a thousand hills, and out of whose hand all the fowls of heaven peck their food, is my Father. He clotheth the lilies of the field; he will clothe me. If he takes care of the raven and the hawk and the vulture, most certainly he will take care of me, his child.’94

Sorer troubles come’97sickness and death. Loved ones sleep the last sleep. A child is buried out of sight. You say, ’93Alas! for this bitter day. God has dealt very hardly with me. I can never look up. O God, I cannot bear it.’94 Christ comes in and he says, ’93Hush! O troubled soul; it is well with the child. I will strengthen thee in all thy troubles. My grace is sufficient. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee.’94

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,

The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;

For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless,

And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress,

There are hundreds of families where religion has been a great comfort. There are in your homes the pictures of your departed, and things that have no wonderful value of themselves; but you keep them preciously and carefully because hands now still once touched them. A father has gone out of this household, a mother has gone out of this, a daughter just after her graduation day, a son just as he was entering on the duties of life.

And to other homes troubles will come. I say it not that you may be foreboding, not that you may do the unwise thing of taking trouble by the forelock, but that you may be ready. We must go. There will be partings in all our households. We must say farewell. We must die. And yet there are triumphant strains that drown these tremulous accents, there are anthems that whelm the dirge. Heaven is full of the shout of delivered captives, and to the great wide field of human sorrow there come now the reaper angels with keen sickles to harvest the sheaves of heaven. God’92s own promise standeth sure.

Saints will to the end endure;

Safely will the Shepherd keep

Those he purchased for his sheep.

Go home this day and ask the blessing on your noonday meal. To-night set up the family altar. Do not wait until you become a Christian yourself. This day unite Christ to your household, for the Bible distinctly says that God will pour out his fury upon the families that call not upon his name. Open the Bible and read a chapter that will make you strong. Kneel down and offer the first prayer in your household. It may be a broken petition, it may be only ’93God be merciful to me, a sinner;’94 but God will stoop, and spirits will listen, and angels will chant, ’93Behold! he prays.’94

Do not retire from the house this morning until you have resolved upon this matter. You will be gone, I will be gone, many years will pass, and perhaps your younger children may forget almost everything about you; but forty years from now, in some Sabbath twilight, your daughter will be sitting with the family Bible on her lap reading to her children, when she will stop, and peculiar solemnity will come to her face and a tear will start, and the children will say, ’93Mother, what makes you cry?’94 and she will say, ’93Nothing, only I was thinking that this is the very Bible out of which my father and mother used to read at morning and evening prayer.’94 All other things about you they may forget; but train them up for God and heaven; they will not forget that.

When a queen died her three sons brought an offering to the grave. One son brought gold, another brought silver, but the third son came and stood over the grave and opened one of his veins and let the blood drop upon his mother’92s tomb, and all who saw it said it was the greatest demonstration of affection. What is the grandest gift we can bring to the sepulchres of a Christian ancestry? It is a life all consecrated to the God who made us and the Christ who redeemed us. I cannot but believe that there are hundreds of parents in this house who have resolved to do their whole duty, and that at this moment they are passing into a better life; and having seen the grace of the Gospel in this place today, you are now fully ready to return to your own house, and show what great things God hath done unto thee.

Though parents may in covenant be,

And have their heaven in view;

They are not happy till they see

Their children happy too.

May the Lord God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, be our God and the God of our children forever.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage