As a stewardship, God has entrusted the Christian home with important interests.  He has committed to her trust, body and soul, talents and means of grace.  He has entrusted to the parents the training of their children both for time and for eternity.  These children are the heritage of the Lord; they are not at the absolute disposal of their parents; but merely entrusted to their care to be educated and dealt with according to the will of God.

There is one great peculiarity in this stewardship of the Christian family,—­the absolute identity of interest between the Master and the steward.  The interest of the former is that also of the latter; and the latter, in promoting the interest of his Lord, is but advancing his own welfare.  Such is the economy of the gospel, and it is this which makes the servitude of the Christian so delightful.  Faithfulness to God is faithfulness to our own souls.  Parents who are thus faithful to God must be faithful to themselves and to their children.  Thus, then, the interest of God in our families is the welfare of all the members.  When we act towards our children as God directs, we are but promoting their greatest welfare.  This is one prominent feature of God’s mercy towards us in all His dealings with us.  He identifies His interest with the interest of His people.  This is a powerful incentive to parental integrity, and is beautifully exemplified in the mother of Moses.  When the daughter of Pharaoh said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will pay thee thy wages,” was not the interest of the queen and the nurse the same?  In nursing him for the queen, that devoted mother nursed him also for herself; and in doing this, she was also promoting the welfare of her son, and executing the will of God concerning him.  This illustrates the principle of stewardship in the Christian home.  Of every child, God says to its parent,—­

  “Go nurse it for the King of heaven,
  And He will pay thee hire.”

Here is the important trust; here, too, is the duty of the steward.  It is a trust from God, and the nursing is for God.  The child is a tender plant, an invaluable treasure, more priceless than gold, or pearls, or diamonds.  Your duty as a steward, is to nurse it, to cultivate it, to polish the lovely gem, to take care of it.  And in doing this for God, are you not also doing it for the child,—­yea, if you are Christian parents,—­for yourselves?  Will not even natural affection, as well as the discerning eye of faith, like that of the mother of Moses, detect in this stewardship an identity between the interest of the Master and that of the steward?  It was not the simple compensation which stimulated the mother of Moses to accede to the proposition of Pharaoh’s daughter.  What cared she for the “hire,” if she could but save her son!  This was her great reward.

Thus the interest of the child should be the reward of the parent.  God will, it is true, reward the faithful steward of the family; but He specially rewards and blesses parental faithfulness in making His purposes concerning home, identical with the parent’s and the children’s welfare.  In this domestic stewardship,