Piety at Home.
I. The home must be safe. It must be a sanctuary, where there is nothing to hurt or destroy. It is a great and lifelong benefit when life's outset is passed in an atmosphere of truth and openness, and nothing is more disastrous than that system of false threatening and coercion which makes its little victims both incredulous and superstitious, both cowardly and cunning. Be yourself fair, candid, evenly-minded, making it easy to others to tell the truth, listening to both sides of the story, and careful to judge righteous judgment. And keep out all that has the opposite tendency.
II. Make home attractive. The Australian bower-bird has its playing-place, a curious tunnel of twigs adorned with shells and pebbles and glittering potsherds, through which it has unwearied delight with its companions in whisking to and fro. And man himself is a bower-bird; merry movement, gay music, light objects; every child has the love of them every home should be full of them. He is the good God who gives the gaiety, and he would be a gloomy demon who would drive it away.
III. Make home instructive. Be yourself intelligent; to surrounding minds a kindly, high-toned presence gives something they can grasp and which keeps them from cleaving to the dust.
IV. Make the home a preparation for life, and also a preparation for heaven. The only commodity which we can count on carrying through life is character; and by character we mean all those elements which enter into our moral and spiritual composition faith in God, reverence, submission to His will, love to Christ, a sweet and gracious disposition, practical beneficence, a readiness for praise and thanksgiving. Keep the home near heaven. Let it face towards the Father's house.
J. Hamilton, Works,vol. vi., p. 503.
References: 1 Timothy 5:4. G. D. Macgregor, Christian World Pulpit,vol. viii., p. 198; E. W. Shalders, Ibid., vol.xiii., p. 157; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. xi., p. 277. 1 Timothy 5:6. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iii., p. 208; Forsyth and Hamilton, Pulpit Parables,p. 137. 1 Timothy 5:8. J. H. Thom, Laws of Life,2nd series, p. 210. 1 Timothy 5:10. J. T. Stannard, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xi., p. 154. 1 Timothy 5:17-25. Expositor,1st series, vol. iv., p. 47; Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxxii., p. 186. 1 Timothy 5:22. E. Cooper, Practical Sermons,vol. iii., p. 198.