Home Religion by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 21, 1869

Home Religion.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

THIS is a most excellent kind of religion. It is the hardest to obtain, and it costs the greatest effort to keep it of any kind. To possess and to exercise at home at all times the sweet, gentle, loving, forbearing, Spirit of Jesus—this is a pearl of great price, which, alas! is wanting in many Christian (?) families. Here we are most off our guard; here we feel the freest to act out our natural inclinations; and here we feel free to demand of other members of the family what we would not think of asking elsewhere. Here, also, come up little trials and little annoyances, that do not occur elsewhere.

This is the place that shows who is the true Christian. Fear, respect, custom, and other influences, often prompt men, before the public, to do right, to perform apparently noble deeds, make sacrifices, bear abuse, &c., with a good spirit. But at home in the family, most of these influences are not brought to bear upon us. There, love is needed, with the fear of God, to enable us to do by all, and bear with all, as we should. The good religion of Jesus Christ will do all this. D. M. CANRIGHT.