The Christian Home: As it is in the Sphere of Nature and the Church; Showing the Mission, Duties, Influences, Habits, and Responsibilities of Home, its Education, Government, and Discipline; with Hints on "Match Making," and the Relation of Parents to the Marriage Choice of their Children; together with a consideration of the Tests in the Selection of a Companion, Etc.Philips, Samuel
Religion
The Christian Home: As it is in the Sphere of Nature and the Church; Showing the Mission, Duties, Influences, Habits, and Responsibilities of Home, its Education, Government, and Discipline; with Hints on "Match Making," and the Relation of Parents to the Marriage Choice of their Children; together with a consideration of the Tests in the Selection of a Companion, Etc.
Philips, Samuel
Family; Home; Marriage; Parent and child
Let those parents who are ever lamenting the wickedness of their children,
but do nothing to make them better, ponder well this sentiment, and see it
in the grin, of their own hypocrisy, and the desolation of their injured
home and children. Let the other members, as well as the parents, take the
timely warning. Let the pious wife here see the character of her sympathy
for her impenitent husband. And let each see that their pious sympathy
"always issue forth in actions." Let that sympathy give not only eloquence
to the tongue, tears to your eye, and sighs to your heart, but also
faithfulness to your life and holy calling. As the cry of hunger from your
children, and their shivering cold in winter, prompt you to provide for
their natural wants, so let their moral wants impel you to fidelity to
their souls. All will be vain without this. The stern demands of a father's
authority, and the formal teachings of a mother's lip, will fall like the
frost of a winter's morning, upon their tender hearts,--only to sear and to
harden and to freeze up the heart against God. For
"He will not let love's work impart
Full solace, lest it steal the heart."
But when pure and holy sympathy goes out, in its softening influence after
the young;--
"Then, feeling is diffused in every part,
Thrills in each nerve, and lives in all the heart."
Such sympathy has a saving influence upon both the parent and the child.
It softens and refines the former, while it forms and allures the latter.
The child fondly leans upon the parents, looks up to them for support and
enjoyment, and is led by them in whatever path they choose. By its
influence the feeling of natural and spiritual helplessness becomes
developed in the child; the sense of dependence on a superior is awakened;
and with these, all those feelings of confidence and veneration, which lay
the foundation of religious affections, are unfolded. The parent's
influence, both as to kind and degree, depends, therefore, upon the
character of home-sympathy. If it is but natural, the parental influence
will not extend beyond the worldly gain and temporal welfare of the child.
The parent will exert no power over the soul. But if it be spiritual, and
extend beyond the mere instincts of natural affection, it will expand the
mind, and develop all the melting charities of our nature. It will pass
with a new transferring and transforming power, from husband to wife, from
parent to child, from kindred to kindred. Wherever it finds its way;
whatever fiber of the heart it may touch, it begets a new and holy
affection, unites the energies, lightens the toils, soothes the sorrows,
and exalts the hopes, of all the members. It reflects a softening luster
from eye to eye, goes with electric flash from heart to heart, glows in its
warmth throughout all its moral courses, accumulates the home-endearments,
stimulates each member to religious exertions for all the rest, and lays
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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