Religion in the Home

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Feb 18, 1904

Religion in the Home

JEHOVAH'S instruction to his ancient people was very full and explicit concerning the public worship in the sanctuary, but it was also explicit concerning the teaching of God's fear, God's truth, and God's providence in the home: “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. . . . And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.” Deut. 6:6-9; see also verses 20-25. The solemn meaning of the feast of the passover was to be carefully explained in the home circle (Ex. 12:25-27; 13:8, 14, 15), as was also the significance of the twelve stones which were brought up from Jordan to Gilgal on the day that witnessed the wonderful passage of the nation through the angry waters into the land of promise.

No man can measure the influence of the devout acknowledgment of God in the home. Those who go out from godly homes may for long years seem to forget the early instruction, but how often, perhaps under some peculiar circumstance, the recollection and the influence of the childhood home come over the soul with overwhelming power, and the good seed so long buried yields its blessed fruitage. The following incident well illustrates this truth:—

“Some years ago an English gentleman visited America, and spent some days with a pious friend. He was a man of talent and accomplishments, but an infidel. Four years afterward he returned to the same house, a Christian. They wondered at the change, but little suspected when and where it had originated. He told them that, when he was present at their family worship, on the first evening of his former visit, and when, after the chapter was read, they all knelt down to pray, his recollection of such scenes rushed on his memory, so that he did not hear a single word. But the occurrence made him think, and his thoughtfulness ended in his leaving the barren wilderness of infidelity, and finding a quiet rest in the salvation wrought out by Jesus Christ.”—Selected.