HOME ATMOSPHERE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 205, 29 August 1936, Page 2 (Supplement)

HOME ATMOSPHERE.

A WONDERFUL INFLUENCE.

The following was the closing passage in a sermon delivered in Dundee by the Rev. D. D. Smith, Ward Road Baptist Church, Dundee. It was delivered at tii* opening in the city of a young life week campaign. The Personal Life.—We must deepen our personal relation to God. We are widening our outlook theologically and socially, and it is good to enlarge the circle of our thought and interests; but soul depth must not be sacrificed to intellectual breadth. Depth without breadth may be a grave; but breadth without depth is like the stoney place that lacks rootage and is the homo of the <«rer ana y<?llow leaf. The most precious thing in religion is the relation of the soul to God. "Take time to be holy." To find God is our only hope.

The Home. —Nothing influences a young life like home atmosphere. In nine cases out of ten we are what our homes have made us. One of the devil's fallacies is that the Church should relieve the home of its responsibilities. Hardly a greater hurt could be done to the State than the obliteration of the Christian home from our midst. "And the ark of God remained with the family of Obcd-edom in his house three months. And the Lord blessed the house of Obededom." In the biography of Dr. Cairns we read of the two most potent influences in his young life. They were the hearing of his father at prayer,- and, in the early morning, the observance of his mother at work. Doubtless, there was instruction and to spare in that home; but it was the example that bit in lo the boy's mind. Edmund Burke affirmed that "example is everything. It is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other." It has not entered into the heart of mail to conceive what kind of noble men and women there might be in this land in the next generation if the thought of God only dominated home life. "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord," would be youth's chief preservative from "wandering fires and quagmires."

The Church. —We all know her faults, because we know our own, but she is God's chosen instrument of blessing. Priceless things have come down to us through her and we ought to bless God for her regal splendour and messages that have made us sure of God. And we can make our Church a place of blessing if we but deepen our loyalty and expect that through lier ordinary services God will give new pfoof of His sufficiency to forgive sin and bestow the life everlasting. "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse . . . and ... I will pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."

And you who have not thrown yourselves in the mercy of Christ, it may be now that God's dream of you may come true. The New Testament companion of my Old Testament text is: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with Me."