In the sphere of the Christian church, home is brought fairly and
completely into view. Here it rises above the measure of natural affection,
and temporal interest. It enters the sphere of supernatural faith, and
becomes the adumbration of our home in heaven.
The Christian home is a true type of the church. "The husband is the head
of the wife, as Christ is of the church." The love of the family is
self-denying and holy, like that between Christ and His church. The
children are "the heritage of the Lord;" the parents are His stewards.
Like the church, the Christian home has its ministry. Yea, the church is in
the home, as the mother is in her child. We cannot separate them; they are
correlatives. The one demands the other. The Christian home can have
existence only in the sphere of the church. It is the vestibule of the
church, bound to her by the bonds of Christian marriage, of holy baptism,
and of the communion of saints, leading to her in the course of moral
development, and completing her life only in the church-consciousness.
Home is, therefore, a partnership of spiritual as well as of natural life.
The members thereof dwell "as being heirs together of the grace of life."
"Heavenly mindedness," "the hidden man of the heart," and a "hope full of
immortality," are the ornaments of the Christian home. Hers is "the
incorruptibility of a meek and quiet spirit;" her members are "joint heirs
of salvation;" they are "one," not only in nature, but "in Christ.
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