Another ideal seeks for the cultivation of love between husband and wife, and all the members of the family. Care and forbearance are urged and commended in speech and action. There are set forth a mutual kindness, a careful consideration of the feelings and a helpfulness in bearing burdens, which exalt the soul and make life worth living. According as this ideal is striven for, and attained, will the true home be realized.
Many a man has wrecked his business, betrayed his friends and gone down to a dishonoured grave in the struggle to surround his family with luxuries which he could not afford, but no man ever sincerely tried to cultivate the graces of love and kindness in himself and in his family, who did not succeed, in a large measure, in realizing the great purpose of the home.
The True Home may be found, and is found, in great houses and in small houses, where there is large wealth and where there is dire poverty. It is not dependent upon circumstances but independent.
The great essential is love for those things which make a beautiful and strong character. Low standards of truth and morality in the family tend to reproduce themselves in exaggerated forms in the social life of the community. Individuals, coming out of families where there is no love for the good and no regard for righteousness, often become a serious threat to peace and good order. No educational system can do very much for children with an evil family environment. On the other hand the world is full of examples of men, trained up in righteousness by their parents, who have strictly kept to the path in which their feet were started.
THE IDEAL CHRISTIAN HOME
Jesus honoured the home. His birthplace was mean (Luke 2:7) so far as external things go. The house and the city, where His parents lived, showed plainly the poor estate of the family which, while it was of noble lineage, was greatly reduced in circumstances. Jesus Himself learned and practiced the trade of a carpenter. In living in this home at Nazareth for thirty years of His life Jesus showed that it was possible under hard outward conditions to live a noble life and to cultivate and practice those virtues and qualities which were afterwards so greatly to bless the whole world.
Duties of Husbands and Wives.—The beginning of every Christian home is in a supreme affection between two, a man and a woman. "For this cause," Christ said, "shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh, so that they are no more twain but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder" (Mark 10:7-9). He honoured and sanctioned the marriage relation by His presence at the marriage in Cana (John 2:1-11). In the first century divorce was very common; Hillel, the Jewish teacher, held "that the bond was so loose and flexible that if a wife burnt her husband's food while cooking it, he was justified in procuring a writ of divorcement from her." Jesus denounces this practice and declares (Matthew 5:31,32; Mark 10:2-12) that there is only one cause that justifies divorce.
1. Love to one another. In the various vicissitudes of married life, and in the bringing up of children the bond which needs to be strengthened, and the duty which needs to be urged, is that of love. Love can alone carry husband and wife over the more difficult places of life. Paul says, "Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for it" (Ephesians 5:25-33; Colossians 3:18,19). "Let every one of you so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband" (Ephesians 5:33). No stronger language can be employed than Paul uses in urging husband and wife to love each other with a whole heart, yet he provides for cases where one or the other party in the married relation is not a Christian, and where a strong love may be absent (1 Corinthians 7:12-17). He further says, "Unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, let not the wife depart from her husband; but and if she depart let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife" (1 Corinthians 7: 10,11). But a supreme love settles all troubles (1 Corinthians, chapter 13).
2. Forbearance and kindness towards children. "Provoke not your children to wrath but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4; Colossians 3:21). When Christ was upon earth, "a father had the power of life and death over his offspring. A weak and sickly child might be abandoned to death; and this was approved by such eminent authorities as Plato and Aristotle." Jesus declared for the rights of the children. He not only opened His arms for them, but He gave them a new standing in the world (Mark 10: 14-16; Matthew 18:5). He said, "See that ye despise not one of these little ones; for in heaven their angels do always behold the face of My Father, which is in heaven." (Matthew 18:10).
3. Hospitality. True Christian love will extend itself beyond the bounds of the household, and seek to do those outside of it good by drawing them within its charmed circle. This hospitality should be given not only to those who can return it again, but also to those from whom no return can ever be expected (Matthew 5:46). "Use hospitality one to another without grudging" (1 Peter 4:9; 1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:8; Hebrews 13:2). "But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just" (Luke 14:13,14,11,12; compare Matthew 25:35,42). In the midst of our splendid charitable boards, which do such a needed work, individual charity and hospitality should not be forgotten and put out of its rightful place.