The Bible and Life

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s and mothers. So much do we realize the importance of the home that where it is impossible to maintain one, owing to the death, or inability, or worthlessness of parents, we still make provision for an institution that shall provide as many domestic features as can be won for the orphaned. This we call an Orphans' Home. It is significant that the sociological tendency of the

he bases of supplies on which they can draw, nor the alluring hearthstones to which they can return. The workman turns no more his eager feet toward the lights of his cottage. The prince finds his palace removed and all its splendor ceases to invite him. Little children are herded into impersonal surroundings and become public rather than domestic

bility. Soon after its birth the wee animal runs and leaps, while the wee bird does not wait long ere it flies from limb to limb; but the human babe in the ancient forest lies helpless in its log cradle for many months. Both Drummond and Fiske agree that by this program the God of nature was introducing patienc

eir substitute for the hearthstone. This insistence has received nothing more than hazy and vague replies. The prophet stammers out some dark saying about "something better" or about the home as having fulfilled its mission in "the evolution of society"; and by the very helplessness of his speech he really becomes an advocate of closer domestic relations! It is interesting to note how these reformers seek to find a good path back from their social desert! They soon declare that the new regime must keep the home intact, and that only sporadic and irresponsible voices from their

ldren, he is immediately related to one of the fundamental institutions of society. If the Bible be, as we have claimed, preeminently the Book of Life, it must relate itself vitally to the home. Our inqui

mate communion with God that found him in the garden in the cool of the day, bigamy and polygamy are not represented as being at home. Even the Fall is not described as quickly dropping man low enough to reach the dre

til the desolate Hagar stands in her loneliness and repeats the comforting ritual of the seeing God. The son of bigamy goes off into his wild life, with his hand against every man and every man's hand against him. The admirable thing about the second patriarch is his devotion to one woman. Neutral and characterless as Isaac seems to be, he still won a mention in the marriage service of the ages by his faithfulness to Rebecca alone. Upon the third

ose position enabled them to flaunt the public sentiment of their day. The history of Old Testament polygamy is so sorrowful that the Hebrew people have reacted from it into a stanch defense for the monogamic home. The seduction of Tamar, the murder of Amnon, the unfilial licentiousness of Absalom, the sordid road of impurity trod by the later monarchs of Israel, and the despair of the Babylonish captivity, make a piercing case against polygamy. On the other hand, the unwavering faithfulness of the

carry out these principles in the spirit of loving discipleship. Thus he declined to give detailed rules for the observance of the Sabbath, explicit instructions for the division of estates, definite laws for prayer and worship and almsgiving. Yet when he discussed marriage he gave both general principles and specific rules. I

akened. Mere trifles were made excuses for the breaking up of home. Doubtless the influence of the Romans was making itself felt among the Hebrews. Professor Sheldon quotes Dorner as showing the reckless ease of divorce among leading Romans. One man divorced his wife because she went unveiled on the street; another because she spoke familiarly to a freedwoman; another because she went to a play without his knowledge. Even Cice

men registering as public prostitutes in order that they might thus avoid the penalties of the laws! Easy divorce seemed to be accompanied by easy virtue, as if, indeed, both evils grew naturally out of the sa

was not willing to subordinate a social law to the superficial joy of his own life, would be willing to modify the Saviour's teaching. Certainly that teaching has long been the firm bulwark of the married life. Had Jesus spoken with doubt, or had he given sanction to easy divorce, what would the results have been? Our homes would have been builded upon the sands of freakish impulses and of hasty tempers. But Jesus's word puts rock into the domestic foundation. When it

is not the brother still a brother, and do not father and mother remain father and mother in defiance of all unfilial pronouncements of divorce? In Jesus's view the second family relationship was as indissoluble as the first. If one were to argue from a certain standpoint it might be easy to claim that it must be even more indissoluble. A man does not choose his first home. It represents a necessity against which he may not strive. But he does choose his seco

ilege of remarriage, without discovering that these arguments affirm either that personal purity is impossible or that personal convenience and pleasure are the primary demands of life. Jesus did not so teach. Dr. Peabody, in his matchless discussion of Jesus's teaching about the family, well says: "The family is, to Jesus, not a temporary arrangement at the mercy of uncontrolled temper or shifting desire; it is ordained for that very discipline in forbearance and restraint which are precisely what many people

al sin against the married life stands for something instinctive in human nature. Notwithstanding all statements that desertion and abuse and drunkenness may be so aggravated as to constitute offenses worse than fornication, normal men and women continue to assign a lonely infamy to the sin of carnal unfaithfulness. If Jesus did use the exceptional clause there is not wanting evidence that his word is confirmed by an all but universal feeling. Many races have been disposed to decree

nd of slender strength. Truly the situation is bad enough as it is. Often the causes for divorce are trivial; sometimes they are deliberately arranged by the separating parties! and occasionally the much-married comedian is hailed on the stage with a

e the very center and heart of a properly organized society, as well as the very ordination of the Lord God Almighty, will not cease to be grateful that Christ spoke so unmistakably concerning its solemn sanction. He fixed forever the difference between the civil marriage and the Christian marriage. He filled the marriage service with religious terms. "The sight of God," "instituted of God," "mystical union," "holy estate," "Cana of Galilee," "reverently, discreetly, and in the fear of God,"

the usual laws. Shelley married the daughter of a retired innkeeper. In two years he separated from his wife and two children. Three years later the wife drowned herself, meeting voluntarily a fate which Shelley was to meet involuntarily. An apologist for Shelley says, "The refinements of intellectual sympathy which poets desiderate in their spouses Shelley failed to find in his wife, but for a time he lived with her not unhappily; nor to the last had he any fault to allege against her, except such negative ones as might be implied in his meeting a woman he liked better." The more we study this language the more does its superficiality impress us. Let it be said that Shelley was young and heedless when he first married; let it be said, also, that he was in general strangely lovable and warmly philanthropic; and let it be said, even, that he was

ndations are fashioned of yielding sand. The marriage ceremony might well be modified in some minor regards; but the word of Christ will insist that the ceremony s

med in answer to a family plea. He heard the cry of a mother when he healed the daughter of the Syroph?nician woman, and again when he raised up the son of the widow of Nain. He heard the cry of a father when he cast out the evil spirit and restored a stricken son, clothed and in his right mind. He heard the cry of sisters when he stood weeping

ery man to his own house." It is not difficult for us to reproduce the scene, even with its Oriental touches. The discussion of the day is over. The hearers did what men and women have been doing ever since-they turned to the twinkling lights of their homes. Soon the crowds had disappeared and the various persons had joined themselves to their family groups. The homeless One was left alone. The first verse of the eighth chapter of John says, "Jesus went unto the mount of Olives." It was just an instance of his tragedy, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." The homelessness of Jesus was vicarious. Sometimes still he calls his own into the same vicariousness. He separates sons and daughters from t

he is spoken of as the father of individual men. Only once in the sweep of the ancient Scriptures is there found a prayer addressed to God as Father. God was the King of kings, and the Lord of hosts; he was Creator and Lawgiver. But in the knowledge of the people he was not yet Father. The world waited long ere men found an Elder Brother who could break the spell of the

gies that have superseded it in their secondary place. Jesus was the final Teacher of theology, and we must give him the primacy. Under his teaching every true home is a symbol of the divine household; every true parent is a limited representative of God; every true son is an example of the filial spirit tha

side of the many mansions. A Carpenter he was. He has builded many sanctuaries, some for worship, and some for the mercy that we show to the sick, and aged, and destitute. But the Carpenter of Nazareth is the builder of the true home. His word lays its foundations, raises its walls, places its capstone, and furnishes its atmosphere of peace and love. The home that is placed on any other word cannot stand the shock of the tempest. It is based on sand; and when the winds and rains and storms

n that the apostolic treatment of the domestic relations, touching the relative duties of husbands and wives, parents and children, and masters and servants, shows a marked balance. When each party keeps his portion of the precepts, and is strictly minded to fulfill precisely his part of the apostolic contract, debates about primacy and authority find their gracious solution in mutual love. Unless we should wish to make undue account of Saint Paul's doctrine of the husband's primacy, we cannot say that his attitude toward womankind was marked by anything other than utmost respect. Just what his own domestic experiences were is a question of age-long doubt. If we

ad and obey the Book, and love and follow the Lord of the Book, their feet will turn reverently homeward as to the place of God's