THE HOME CIRCLE | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Oct 31, 1878

THE HOME CIRCLE.

A Well-Ordered Household.

Now, to gain a practical result, let me say, to mold a family into this corrected and happy state, there must be, besides a great many other things, these four: First, there must be an atmosphere of love for the family to live in. There must be wedded love; and then begotten of this, there must be parental love, filial love, brotherly love, sisterly love. Let the wedded love die, and it will be a miracle if all the varieties of domestic love do not die with it. I would sooner expect the crocus to bloom in a frosty dungeon, than to find a warm and mutual love among the children, without the wedded love of the parents before them, as a pattern for them to imitate. On the other hand, let wedded love wax warmer, and purer, and holier, as the year counts up its months, and the life its years, and if the other forms of domestic love are not nursed into being by it, that too will be a miracle. In family relationship, and family intercourse, love makes all difficult things easy. Wherever it goes it creates sensations of pleasure. And it must go to every point in the family group. It must traverse every path of family intercommunication through the day, spinning in golden threads as it goes along, at evening weaving them into a domestic tapestry, which will adorn that paradise place—home, as all the wealth of the Indies could never do.

Secondly, there must be authority. Not tyranny with its iron rule, but authority, originating in relationship and in divine appointment, sanctioned by the knowledge, wisdom, and experience of the parent, and bearing sway with the force of love. Without this authority the family interest is at hazard as a vessel at sea without any officer in command. The doctrine in some quarters is that love is enough. But that is one of the dreamings of empirics. The Bible doctrine is older and wiser and higher. Abraham is conspicuous in history as "the friend of God." And one of the things that gives him his distinction is his domestic rule. "For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him." I know, and I rejoice to know that love is a mighty element for good. But it is not enough. Alone, it is only a yearning battery of emotion at Valencia, and another at Trinity bay, with a broken cable between them. An affectionate father without authority, loving his children without governing them, would be, not exactly a well without water, but rather a well of living water, and nothing to draw with ; a candle in the night, but not lighted.

Thirdly, as there must be authority, so there must be obedience. This, too, some of the unfledged birds of the age, yet in their nests, insist is to be superseded by something better. The empiricism that would dispense with authority would dispense also with obedience. But this is a wisdom that grows in the shade. It is a potato sprout in the cellar, spreading itself along its dark way toward a chink in the wall, that just glimmers, but it is too far off ever to be reached. It is a mooted wisdom that looks for good without the legitimate agencies to produce it. The millennium of agriculture will consist not in harvests without seed and culture, but in the sure and abundant success of the culture. The millennium of the church will be found not in every man's doing what is right in his own eyes, but in the cheerful and spontaneous subjection of all to the rules and discipline of Christianity. And the millennium of the family will arise, not from putting an end to the reciprocal relations of parent and child, not in dispensing with authority and obedience, and changing domestic peace and order into the jargon of out-of-doors life; but in so sanctifying these relations, and vitalizing these duties, that love and authority on one hand, and love and obedience on the other, shall play together like the machinery of a watch, shall be like the pulsations of the heart and the heaving of the lungs. An affectionate child is a gem anywhere. But an affectionate child without obedience would be a gem in a most unseemly setting —a sunlit carbuncle, in a shapeless stone; a diamond in a fetid bone.

Fourthly, there must be prayer, and the piety which prayer enkindles. A man at the head of a family is under too heavy a responsibility to live without prayer. The family is an institution from God. Not only has he appointed it, but he has given the rules for conducting it, and the object to be arrived at. No man has a right, therefore, to set up a family, without carrying the question to God. He might as well build his house on his neighbor's lot. The whole domestic platform is God's—and we come upon it legitimately and warrantably, only when we have his consent and approval. Nowhere else does a man put his hand to anything so high, so sacred, so responsible. And when he proceeds to inaugurate a family, and conduct its high interest, all deathless as eternity, without prayer, the extravagance might well shock us. I hesitate whether it should be called recklessness or lunacy, or both. I know not where, if not here, we may repeat that wonderful prayer, "Father, forgive him, for he knows not what he does."

Be it remembered, then, and never forgotten. The family is a heaven-appointed thing. The elements to be used in perfecting it, are love, authority, obedience, and prayer. Be these duly employed, and you reach the intended end—you produce pure and happy families. And that is the way, and the only way, to produce a pure and happy world. The family is the door of entrance to the world, where alone we are trained for the responsibilities of life. And no man has a right to come into the world at any other door, or under any other training; if he does, he comes in at the hand of thieves and robbers. A pure and happy world, the grand and ultimate fruit of pure and happy families! Rob the world of the family, and its doom is written. The carotid artery of its welfare is opened. Darkness, shame, and death close the scene. Let us, then, as we pass from one year to the next, from the end of one quarter of a century to the beginning of another, gird ourselves anew for our high and holy home work. In this great manufactory, where alone the world's welfare can be elaborated, let each occupy his own post of duty; let each head of a family look well to the plot of ground under his hand; let each child look well to the little floweret that meets him in the beautiful snowball. See that its petals are all open, and white, and sweet. "The conclusion of the whole matter" is this: Let love diffuse her heavenly atmosphere over the whole household; let authority maintain its sweet and steady sway; let obedience yield its ready and smiling concurrence; let piety keep the sunshine of heaven's smile steadily upon the budding scene, and you have "paradise regained."—Sel.