Are you not, Christian parents, responsible to God for the exercise of such sovereign power over the character and well-being of your dear children?  And will not the day soon come when you must “give an account of your stewardship?” Oh! what if it be exerted for the ruin of your loved ones, and they “curse the day you begat them?” What if, in the day of final reckoning, you find your hands drenched in the blood of your offspring, and hear the voice of that blood cry out from the hallowed ground of home against you, saying, “How long, oh Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on earth?” Oh see, then, that your influence be wielded for good.

  “For round the heart thy power hast spun
    A thousand dear mysterious ties;
  Then take the heart thy charms have won,
    And nurse it for the skies!”

CHAPTER VI.

Home as A stewardship.

     “Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy
     wages.”—­Exodus II., 9.

  “For look, how many souls in thy house be,
  With just as many souls God trusteth thee!”

The Christian home is a stewardship.  The parents are stewards of God.  A steward is a servant of a particular kind, to whom the master commits a certain portion of his interest to be prosecuted in his name and by his authority, and according to his laws and regulations.  The steward must act according to the will of his master, in his dealing with what is committed to his care.  Such was Eliezer in the house of Abraham; and such was Joseph in the house of Potiphar.  One of the specific duties of a steward was to dispense portions of food to the different members of the household, to give servants their portion in due season, and to superintend the general interests of the master’s household.

In a religious sense, a steward is a minister of Christ, whose duty is to dispense the provisions of the gospel, to preach its doctrines and to administer its ordinances.  It is required of such that they be found faithful.—­1 Cor., chap. iv.

In its application to the Christian home, it expresses its relation of subordination to God, and the kind of services which the former must render to the latter.  The stewardship of home is that official character with which God has invested the family.  In this sense the proprietorship of parents is from God.  They are invested only with delegated authority.  Their home is held by them only in trust.  It belongs to them in the same sense in which a household belongs to a steward.  It is not at their absolute disposal.  It is the “household of the Lord,” and they are to live and rule therein as the Lord directs.  They are to appropriate it and dispose of its interests according to the known law and will of their divine Master, and in this sense, yield, with their whole household, a voluntary subordination to His authority.