p. 62 | An Irreligious Home

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 14, 1868

An Irreligious Home.

If there be one curse more bitter than another to man, it is the offspring of an irreligious home; of a home where the voice of praise and prayer ascends not to God, and where the ties of human affections are not purified and elevated by the refining influence of religious feeling; of a home to which, if the cares or the sorrows of life shall bring religion to the heart in after days, that heart cannot turn without bitterness of feeling, without anguish or vexation of spirit.

If there be a curse to any country where the truths of religion are known, the deepest and bitterest curse which can be inflicted on it is a multitude of homes like that which I have supposed. Such homes send forth their sons unchecked in evil thoughts, unhallowed in their habits, and untaught in love to God; and they send them forth to prey upon the land, and to become its curse and its destruction.

But on the other hand, there is a blessing to the religious home which no tongue can speak, no language can describe! The home, where in early years the heart is trained to love of God, and to take pleasure in his worship and service, interweaves with the existence of man holy affections which die not with the circumstances which gave them birth, which last long, though they may for a season be forgotten or neglected, and which exercise at least some check upon the evil of the human heart, and often, nay commonly, recall it to hear again the voice of God, and to turn to the paths of holiness and peace. How great, how unspeakable is the happiness of a land where homes like this are common!