^ John G. Paton, iii. 52.
"^ Cardinal Newman, in Life of David Brown, 239.
io6 THE FATHER AND THE FAMILIES
Divine Head. Now he shows how through the experience of tlie Church on earth the manifold wisdom of God is made known to the heavenly hierarchy. Now he declares that marriage, in which the distinctive gifts and graces of divided humanity are brought together in harmonious fellowship, is a sign, a sacrament, in his own language, of that perfect union in which the Incarnate Word takes to Himself His Bride, the first-fruits of creation. And so in the paragraph where the text occurs he touches with thankful exultation on the universality of the Gospel, by which the many races of men, Jews and Gentiles — the people and the nations — are reunited, and the purpose of God in the education of the world is at last made clear.
Not in one line but in many ; not through a calm, uninter- rupted growth but in sorrow and tribulation men were trained in the past — this is his thought — to receive the crowning truth, and justified their training by their faith. By the help of that most signal example we can see how every ordered commonwealth, every bond of kinsmanship, owes its strength to a Divine presence. From the one Father, every fatherhood, every family through which the grace of fatherhood is embodied, derives its essential virtue.^
3. Family relationship is therefore a very sacred thing, its root being not in the creation, but in God. And though we shall not find on earth any development worthy of its holy root, never- theless the flower which fills the world with choicest fragrance is family affection. It is capable of becoming most heavenly, since the Eternal Father is Himself the spring of parental as His Eternal Son is of filial love. Therefore, also, family affections are capable of ceaseless cultivation. There is nothing to hinder family love from becoming evermore deeper, stronger, and lovelier. If it is so strong and so precious among fallen creatures, what must it be among the perfect ? If family life on the earth gives rise, as it often does, to a very paradise of courtesies and tender sanctities, what must family life be in the immediate Presence, and under the direct influence, of the Infinite Father and His only begotten Son ? Christian parents and their children should know, therefore, that in their families they have not a little world, but a little heaven, to cultivate. Their families derive their distinctions and peculiarities from relations in the Godhead. Their families have names not only in time, but in eternity. ^ B. F. Westcott, The Incarnation and Common Life, 161.
EPHESIANS III. 14, 15 107
Every family in Christ is named according to its distinction, as a manifestation of a corresponding variety in the Divine Nature.
(1) The family is a kingdom. — It is not of our design. It is not of our making. It is not of our choosing. It is not dependent on our pleasure for its continuance. When complete it includes each typical relation of society, the relation of command, of obedience, of fellowship. The members of a family in simple intercourse learn, hov^rever imperfectly, the duty of service. The feeling of the family conquers self. It is enough to appeal to the experience of home to refute the cynical assertion that personal interest is man's single or strongest motive. In the family the tenderest affection, the most watchful care, the largest forethought, are lavished, not on the strongest or the most helpful, but rather on the most helpless and weak, who can make no measureable return to their comforters. In the family, need is taken as the measure of help, and a principle is spontaneously acknowledged which in its widest application would be adequate to deal with the sorrows of the world.
^ On no subject has human thought more centred than upon the family. There is nothing more important in our entire social life. For a nation will not be better than its homes. Christianity did not invent the family or marriage, but it has been probably the greatest agency in giving ideals to the home. This is all the more remarkable when one recalls that Jesus was not married, and that so much of the New Testament literature was written by Paul who, like his Master, had no home. But how incomplete would the gospel be without the figures drawn from fatherhood, sonship, marriage, and childhood ! The more one reads the New Testament the more does one feel how sacred the family is, because it so often serves as a symbol of the relations of the Church with Christ. When the New Testament writers wish to express the very closest and holiest union of believers with their Lord it is to the family that they turn for symbols.^
(2) The family is also a school, a school of character. The outer school cannot mould the whole of man's nature. Character is shaped by action and not by words. What has been learnt by memory must be tested and embodied by experience. Under one aspect the outer school stimulates new and importunate wants, while the home is fitted to bring that social discipline which
* Sbailer Mathews, TTie Social Gos^iel, 35.
io8 THE FATHER AND THE FAMILIES