Thus we meditate upon the church in the house, its necessity, its true character, its help to the church universal. The topic is itself its own personal application. The great point is this, that at home we are to live as members of a spiritual kingdom, and strive to infuse the spirit and carry the order of that kingdom into the feelings and habits of the household. Take this thought seriously to heart, cherish it in meditation and prayer, how can it remain idle? By paths seen and unseen, the heavenly grace earnestly sought, will enter into the economy of the family, and save its peace from the war of hostile tempers and the inroads of a domineering world. Wise, and kindly, and devout habits will be formed, which make religion at once a spirit and a law, free without being wilful, orderly without being mechanical, like the waters of Siloa that flowed sparkling in that regular channel so framed by God from rock, and made sweet will of their obedience to Him who holds the waters in the hollow of his hand.
Such a household will have influences and associations peculiar to itself. The sons will be manly and tender; the daughters will be gentle and strong: parents and children in their mutual affections shall bring out the finer harmonies of human life, that show God’s goodness even more deeply than the chants of the psalmist’s choirs. As changes come, and the years pass, treasured remembrances shall fill the home with images sacred as the tablets and pictures of ancient chapels, and hopes more living than monumental marble can record in solemn church-yards, shall proclaim the resurrection and the life over the dead; the absent ones of the family will in thought always, and, when they can, in person, make reverent pilgrimage to the old hearth-stone; and they who die of that family, wherever they close their eyes, will have in the cherished ministrations of that church in the house the mightiest of all proofs of the eternal home. The house made with hands opens into the eternal spheres, and its own life repeats Christ’s assurance of heavenly mansions. It will have a ministry seen and a ministry unseen, one seen in gentle charities, the other known by unseen influences.
“Uttered not, yet comprehended
Is the spirit’s voiceless prayer,
Soft rebukes, in blessings ended,
Breathing from those lips of air.”