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     THERE is a dangerous tendency in the popular mind at present which depreciates the exalted idea which God gives us of both the Church and the home. I speak of this tendency as dangerous because of its source--it emanates directly from the wicked one. But the divine idea of the Church has been elucidated by the Apostle Paul. Speaking of believers--the constituency of the Church--he says (Rom. xii. 5): "So we being many are one body in Christ, and every one members in particular." And again (1 Cor. xii. 12-27): "For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members  *  *  *  *  are one body: so also is Christ. For by one spirit are we all baptized into one body. *  *  *  *  Now, ye are the body of Christ." And in Col. i. 18 "And he is the head of the body the Church." Ah! sacred, divine (!) conception of the Church! What a thought for Christians! The Church--the body of Christ with you

and me, aye, and all the redeemed members of it --And God's only Son the head! Christ, the Son of God its brain and soul--its living head--and we its members! Aye, verily, "your lives are hid with Christ in God." What a family the Church of God is! No wonder that our Lord would assure us: "And the gates of hell shall not prevail against his Church." Ah, no!

     Inspired with this thought, Timothy Dwight, nearly a century ago (A. D. 1800) gave utterance to his emotions in the following grand old hymn:

     Such are the sources of inspiration and aspiration which move the society of people known as "the Christian Church." It was of such John (Rev. xxi. 3.) "heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God." O blessed, exalted, divine idea of the Church! How can we depreciate and secularize it! But rather with reverential awe let us remember as we enter His sanctuary that "The

Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before him." Hab. ii. 20.

     Let us not forget then that the Church, like the home is a divine institution. And that their mission alike is the amelioration and salvation of the world. Hence her divine Head gave commission to his disciples "go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations." The true, the divine idea therefore of the church is a society of individuals among and in whom God dwells, and whose head and body is Christ--in short, it is a concentration of sanctified ingenuity and strength for the purpose of making men more like Christ, earth more like heaven, and of converting "the kingdoms of this world into the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ."

     Just as in other matters so in this, the divine conception of the Church is higher and more comprehensive than the human. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways saith the Lord" (Isa. lv. 8, ). And with this idea of the Christian Church before us let us especially note three things:

     i. That as an institution the Church is divine. Our Lord said: "It is my Church." In the first epistle general of Peter (ii. 5) it is written: "Ye
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also, as lively stones, are built., up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifice, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." The institution with its operations is divine, and its true constituency desire to think, and speak, and act, only with the divine mind (Phil. ii. 5), and in accord with the divine will.

     2. That in its constitution the Church is composed of all believers and their baptized children. "For the promise is unto you and your children." (Acts ii. 39.) Christ is "the head," "the chief corner--stone in Zion," "the body;" but we are "the members in particular." Christ is the "vine," and the whole family of Go are "the branches."

     3. That all our conceptions of God and his ways must emanate from God by his operation through and by the appointed means of grace in the Church. By the reading and preaching of the word new thoughts are conceived and old ones are quickened and purified; and by the operations of the Holy Ghost the appointed means of grace are refreshed and sanctified. And hence what the material home is to the natural man in his social and intellectual culture, the Church is to the spiritual man in his higher developments.

     But we have now before our minds two institutions--both sacred to memory, important factors in life's career and alike of divine origin. What relations do they sustain to each other? This is a vital question, and one which should claim the reader's prayerful attention. But in view of the peculiar province and prerogatives vested in the Christian home by our heavenly Father; and, in view of the conspicuous and important place given the Christian Church in the plan of redemption by the Great Head of the Church, the relation is vital, and there can be but one answer to the above question: the Christian home, by divine arrangement, is designed to be the stepping--stone to the Church. God has plainly designed the home to become the nursery in which the "lambs of his flock" are to be fed with the "sincere milk of the word." The parochial school, the catechetical class and the Sunday--school, all occupy important places in systematic church-work. But no one of them, nor all of them combined, can become any adequate substitute or the home. God has wisely given that, like the Church, a place peculiarly its own. It is sometimes said that "the Sunday-school is the nursery of the Church." This may be true only in a very limited sense; that is, only

in so far as it reaches a class of children in whose homes there is spiritual destitution -- were, it may be, there is no Bible, or where, at most, the Christ of the Bible has not been embraced by faith.

     The original design of the Sunday--school was to reach "the ragamuffins of the street." Robert Raikes once said, "Every home which has Christ in it has a Sunday-school in it also." (Would God this were so now!) He therefore instituted the public Sunday--school to reach those children who had none at home. But he had no thought of attempting a substitute for the duties and privileges of the Christian home. But it has been suggested that the reason why so many parents and children of professedly Christian homes are not in the public Sunday-school is that they are engaged in the private or home Sunday-school. Supremely, selfish as this might seem, how I wish that this were even so! But alas! it is not so. But I repeat, the primitive design of the Sunday--school was to reach the children of the streets with the word of God--to feed the spiritually destitute with the bread of life. But who would speak of the Christian home as a place of spiritual destitution! And why change from the original design of the

Sunday--school? Nay, why not now as then have the trained children (?) of the Christian homes become the messengers to go out into the highways and hedges to gather into the Sunday--school the poor and the wayward to hear the word of life. Surely this is God's plan. Why not execute it now? But instead of this--the lamentable fact stares us in the face that too much time must be spent with the children of so-called Christian homes to collect and hold them in the Sunday-school. And thus the time and effort originally contemplated for the ragamuffins is largely consumed with a class which, by proper training in the home, ought to have become the cheerful and efficient assistants in this work.

     But who is at fault in this matter? Where shall we lay the blame? Surely these are grave questions. With many of those who do come, it has become a habit that ere the sound of the "amen" in the closing prayer of the Sunday-school has time to die away, they are out and gone. They seldom are in the pew with their parents to hear the word preached, and still less frequently are found in the prayer, or young people's meetings. They grow up intoxicated with the pleasures and follies of the world. And by and by the parents begin to grieve, and wonder, why are not our children in the church?

And again we inquire into the cause. Let them again turn to the word and there read God's charge to Israel (Deut. vi. 6--12,) if they would learn the cause of all this. The careful and prayerful reader and observer will find the cause for these lamentable effects in the home, just as in the case of Eli and David. But instead of all this it was possible for those parents to have reared within their own homes the first and surest stepping stones into the sanctuary, and to the very altar in the house of God. For in a properly governed home --in the Christian home--it is natural for the children to revere and love that which is revered and loved by the parents. This is almost an intuitive law. Hence in such homes the children almost intuitively learn to love the word of God as it falls from the lips of the kind father and the caressing mother. And then what more natural than 'to revere and love the faithful pastor, his wise counsels and timely instructions, and with all to hear the public preaching of the word. On the other hand the unlearned and uncouth are as invariably "afraid and shy of that preacher." But we intuitively carry with us the instructions and impressions of our Christian home. It is natural to long to pass from the scenes, in-

spired hopes and real comforts of the home altar to the scenes of hope and pathos, and a realization of the unspeakable gifts of God at his altar in the sanctuary. It was upon this principle that the angel testified of Abraham, "For I know him, that he will command his children, and his household after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord." From the home Abraham's children with one accord went forth in the way of the Lord to "keep it"--Why? Because they had learned to revere and love that way in the home. That man of God had opened the way to the hearts of those children, so that God by the word and his grace might keep them unto everlasting life. Oh for more Abrahams, and we shall see more sons and daughters consecrated to the Lord from their youth, less empty pews in the sanctuary on the Lord's day, and in all the land we shall hear the common chorus:

     It is to be noted further that the Church is, in a measure, only "the advance step of the Christian home." Or, as one has said of the Christian home: "It is the Church in miniature." By another the Church has been fitly styled: "Our spiritual home." We would not in any way depreciate the function of the Church, but if possible impress upon the reader's mind that God has evidently designed the one to be preparatory--a stepping stone--to the other. While it is the province of the home to provide food and raiment for the body, and culture for the mind and heart, it is the province of the Church to dispense that which will give strength and lustre to the whole man. It is the province of the home to combine the temporal and the A, B, C of the spiritual, but that of the Church to deal wholly with the spiritual--from the alpha to the omega. Hence we dare not mistake--the home can not be exalted to a substitute for the Church, nor even to an equality with the Church. God has given to each a distinctive sphere, and yet the relation is intimate, unique and inseparable--the one the foot--stool, the other the altar; to the one God has committed the preparation; to the other "the holy of holies" of his kingdom on earth, including the dispensation of

his means of grace from baptism even to the broken body and shed blood of her crucified, risen and ascended Head. Each therefore, by divine arrangement, have committed to them separate and special functions, the former preparatory to the latter. 0 what a thought for the Christian world! The Bible with its Christ in the earthly home; the mind enlightened and the heart quickened through the word and saved through Christ in the Church, our spiritual home. But the perfect law of liberty, with its glorified Christ in heaven, our everlasting home above. For there we shall be like him and see him as he is. O what a passage!--from the altar in the home to the altar in the Church; and from the altar in the Church to the throne in heaven? Christ in the home, Christ in the Church, Christ in heaven! O how this thought should inspire parents with zeal to grasp the highest possibilities of the Christian home. How they labor and toil for comfortable homes, and for the treasures of earth for their children. But O! what of their spiritual home, the Church? And what of that home above! We talk of the pleasures and comforts of home, and, inspired with the thought, the universal response comes, "there is no place like home.''

     Some years ago; a congregation of some twenty thousand people gathered in the "old Castle Garden," New York, to hear the famous Jenny Lind sing as no songstress had ever sung the sublime compositions of Beethoven, Handel and others. At length the Swedish Nightingale thought of her home, paused a moment as if to fold her wings for a higher flight, then she began with deep emotion to pour forth "Home, Sweet Home." The audience could not stand it: an uproar of applause stopped the music: tears gushed from those thousands of eyes like rain. Beethoven and Handel were forgotten. A moment later the song came again, with a voice trembling with deep emotion, but full and clear as if it had been the voice of an angel from heaven,

     And that vast audience sat bound in fetters. And what was it that bound those twenty thousand souls? All! it was a secret (shall I say magic?) power in the word "home."

     But O! If there are such ecstatic charms about the earthly home; ay more, in the Church, our spiritual home! O what of that home above! No

wonder that the great Bickersteth, as if convulsed with the thought, broke out in

     O that home above! We would, but we can not describe that place--the home of our Father. O that family--all washed white in the blood of the Lamb! The august vision makes us tremble as we gaze; and the sublimest reach of human thought can only point--feebly point--to the deep foundations of that home; to its God--built stories, walled with adamant, paved with gold and adorned with sapphire, its duration rapt in the boundless roll of ages; its light the effulgent glory of God; its occu-

pants archangels, angels, cherubim and seraphim, with all the redeemed, and God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost in their midst. 0 the thought of that home! No sorrow, no weeping, no tears, no separation, no death! But home, sweet home! Beautiful home! Glorious home! Everlasting home! Home with each other; home with angels! Home with God! Blessed be God for that home! May our Heavenly Father give us deeper, higher and holier aspirations for the true home on earth, that we may lead the young from thence to the Church, their spiritual home, and thence from the foretaste to the full fruition in the home above. Amen!

© 2003 for the NEGenWeb Project by Pam Rietsch, Ted & Carole Miller.