checks the selfish endeavour to satisfy them. At the same time the school offers new interests which may brighten home. Out of the home, too, must spring the spirit of purity. For home has its own proper warnings when the occasion comes. The knowledge of the elder may guard the innocent from falling ; and the young have no better earthly safeguard than to carry with them the thought of mother or sister as the witness of all they do or say or think.
^ In September I saw a tree bearing roses, whilst others of the same kind, round about it, were barren ; demanding the cause of the gardener, why that tree was an exception from the rule of the rest, this reason was rendered: because that alone being clipped close in May, was then hindered to spring and sprout, and therefore took this advantage by itself to bud in autumn. Lord, if I were curbed and snipped in my younger years by fear of my parents, from those vicious excrescences to which that age was subject, give me to have a godly jealousy over my heart, suspecting an autumn-spring, lest corrupt nature (which without Thy restraining grace will have a vent) break forth in my reduced years into youthful vanities.^
Ah ! not to be happy alone, Are men sent, or to be glad. Oft-times the sweetest music is made By the voices of the sad. The thinker oft is bent By a too-great load of thought ; The discoverer's soul grows sick With the secret vainly sought: Lonely may be the home, ■ No breath of fame may come, Yet through their lives doth shine A purple light Divine, And a nobler pain they prove Than the bloom of lower pleasures, or the fleeting spell of love.2
(3) The family becomes also a sanctuary. — The splendour of palaces does not secure innocence and holiness within their walls, but a sense of the presence of God does. Where God is welcomed as a guest there an atmosphere of sanctity is diffused around. A
^ Thomas Fuller, Oood Thoughts in Worse Times.
" Sir Lewis Mon-is, " Songs of Two Worlds " ( Works, 68).
EPHESIANS III. 14, 15 109
witness whose experience is unsurpassed writes : " I know numbers of the prettiest, happiest little homes which consist of a single room." We ask then that His hallowing Presence should be habitually sought. "We ask that "daily bread" should be received with some simple words of blessing ; that work and rest should be consecrated by some simple words of prayer and praise. In these observances there is nothing forced or unnatural; nothing which is not possible under the commonest outward circumstances ; nothing which does not answer to the promptings of the human heart. And for the fulfilment of this desire we claim woman's help. There is a message even for the present age in the fact emphatically recorded by St. John, that a woman was divinely charged to be the first herald of the Eesurrection, the herald of the new life.
^The need of England, the need of every land, is "good mothers." If they fail, it is not for lack of womanly endowments in those who are called to fulfil the duty. Poor and desolate outcasts, whom we are tempted to place lowest, are capable of every sacrifice to shield their children from bodily suffering or loss. Let them only feel, and let mothers of every class feel, that there are sicknesses of the soul which require the ministries of wise and tender affection, spiritual perils which need to be guarded against by watchful forethought, desires of the heart which crave the fullness of more than human love, and we shall be brought near to the consummation of our daily prayer in the advent of the Kingdom of God.^
^ " Father Endeavour Clark," as the founder of the Christian Endeavour movement is sometimes called, tells the story of a mother, whose family is as remarkable in its influence as that of the Crossleys of Halifax. This is the Murray family of Graaf Keinet, in South Africa. The father of the family, Andrew Murray the first, was a young Scotch missionary. He wooed and won a Dutch girl of Huguenot extraction, and carried her off, a bride of sixteen years, to his parsonage at Graaf Eeinet. She became the mother of seventeen children, twelve of whom lived to grow up to bless the world. Erom them three hundred and four descendants have sprung (including those who have married into the family). The total number of ministers in the family, either directly or by marriage, is forty-two. Three are now studying for the ministry, six are missionaries in Central Africa, ^ B. F. Westcott, The IruMnmtion and Common Life, 168.
no THE FATHER AND THE FAMILIES
four others are in Mashonaland and the Transvaal, and three in Nyassaland. Three grandsons are in the South African Parlia- ment. Of the original family, five sons were ministers, and the daughters wives of pastors and heads of educational establishments ; the most well known, outside of South Africa, by his writings, being the beloved Andrew Murray, his father's namesake. The influence of the whole family in South Africa is incalculable. Never, says Dr. Clark, were children more fortunate in their mother. Hers was one of those sweet, persuasive natures which mould and guide and bless, without seeming to know it themselves, certainly without conscious effort. When asked, " How did you bring up such a wonderful family ? " she replied, " Oh, I do not know ; I didn't do anything." But every one else knew if she did not. She just lived herself the life she wanted her boys and girls to live. Her life was hid with Christ in God; and they, through her, saw the beauty of holiness. " Her chief characteristic," said one of her children, " was a happy contentment with her lot. She was always exactly where she wished to be, because she was where her Father in heaven had placed her." She outlived her husband by many years. It was felt that her serenity and gentle- ness and loveliness of character came not a little from the hours of long communion when she looked into the Face of the Invisible, and thus learned to endure as seeing Him.^