by A.W. Tozer
The oldest institution in the world is the home. It had its beginning in the garden which the Lord God planted eastward in Eden, where also He placed the man and the woman whom He created.
Under such ideal conditions began the home, that sacred unit of human society which through the long centuries has gathered round its head like a coronet such riches of beautiful associations and undying memories.
Consider the home. From time immemorial it has been the focal point around which our kindest thoughts gather, a refuge for the troubled, a harbor for the storm-tossed, a resting place to which we may return when weary and oppressed by a world that has been too much for us. However humble its furnishings, however modest its size, there is always room there for the heart, its richest and its most beautiful appointment.
So perverse is human nature, so wayward the soul, that we may come to accept our childhood home as a matter of course and forget for a time what a treasure it was. But though we have strayed far from its hallowed precincts the time is sure to come when we remember it again with tender yearnings and regrets.
Let illness visit us or some heavy blow fall upon us to shake our confidence and stagger our minds: then in a flash we will remember. The heart will return home again like a dove to her window. Then will the loved faces smile once more and the voices that have been so long silent will be heard as plain as in the days of yore. In a moment the years roll back and the members of the little family group from which we have been separated so long by the miles and the years laugh together again. We recognize each friendly face, to us still young and still beautiful; we hear our nickname that we had all but forgotten and it is sweet and strange to hear it in our inner ear after the passing of the years. We know then, and confess in a rush of feeling, how precious was the time spent at home with our own people in peace before the grown-up lust for treasure or fame had lured us out into the wide world.
Impressions gained in childhood have greater power to shape our lives than anything we may learn in later years. Sometimes we are permitted to see how deeply men are affected by that first preschool education gained as it were by accident in their childhood home. That elderly man who came to our shores while still a child and who has spoken the English language for the better part of his lifetime lies down for his last sleep. Before his voice is lost in death he whispers a final prayer to his God and Father-not in the language of his adult years but in that of his motherland, first heard in the old home across the sea in the country of his birth. Life's beginnings return at its ending.
It is vitally important that our homes be preserved. A nation is only as strong as its homes. No government can substitute for the ministrations of the family. Federal agencies cannot love and cuddle the baby, not kiss his bruised knee or hear his prayer at the close of the day. Fathers and mothers make homes; nothing else can. And whether our American homes produce delinquents or upright citizens will depend altogether upon what kind of fathers and mothers preside in those homes.
If the home is the oldest institution on earth the Church is the loftiest, and historically there has always been a close relationship between the two. The family that stays close to the church is the one most likely to hold together. Churchgoing parents make churchgoing children, and while there may be an occasional exception, boys and girls brought up in Christian homes tend strongly to be good and law-abiding adults. The armies of crime do not draw their recruits from the church or Sunday school.
Police and juvenile authorities agree that the best guarantee against moral delinquency among young people is a good religious training. The example of serious-minded God-fearing persons is a tremendous power for good. Young people who have the blessing of association with earnest Christians in church and in the home have a powerful advantage over those who are reared away from the church.
The church cannot save the soul; but it can and does serve as an effective school of good living. In addition to the saving gospel which sounds forth from the pulpits of our true Christian churches, there is heard also instruction in righteousness, the value of honesty, purity and truthfulness and the superiority of the homely virtues. These things are treasures above rubies. No child should be deprived of the advantage they bring.
Parents who desire the best for their children should not overlook their spiritual nurture. To such parents we offer the following suggestions: Start taking your children to a good church regularly. Help them to get acquainted with others of their own ages within the fellowship of the church. Get them into the Sunday school, and then back up these efforts with family Bible reading. Above all, put your trust in Jesus Christ and set a good example in the home. You'll never regret that you did.
( Article taken from The Price of Neglect, Chapter 32 )
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