In the same sense and for the same reason, the Christian home is the nursery of the young,—­of human nature in its normal state.  And as home is the nursery of the state as well as of the church on earth and in heaven, we must see that it is a physical, intellectual and religious nursery.  We shall briefly consider it in these aspects.  Indeed the Christian home cannot be considered in a more interesting and responsible light.  The little child, dedicated to God in holy baptism, is entirely helpless and dependent upon the ministrations of the nursery.  There is the department of its first impressions, of its first directions, of its first intellectual and moral formation, of the first evolution of physical and moral life.  There the child exists as but the germ of what is to be.  It grows up under the fostering care and plastic power of the parents.  God’s commission to them in the nursery is, to bring up these germs of life, in His nurture admonition.

  “Take the germ, and make it
    A bud of moral beauty.  Let the dews
  Of knowledge, and the light of virtue, wake it
    In richest fragrance and in purest hues.”

The nursery is the department of home in which the mother fulfils her peculiar mission.  This is her special sphere.  None can effectually take her place there.  She is the center of attraction, the guardian of the infant’s destiny; and none like she, can overrule the unfolding life and character of the child.  God has fitted her for the work of the nursery.  Here she reigns supreme, the arbitress of the everlasting weal or woe of untutored infancy.  On her the fairest hopes of educated man depend, and in the exercise of her power there, she sways a nation’s destiny, gives to the infant body and soul their beauty, their bias and their direction.  She there possesses the immense force of first impressions.  The soul of her child lies unveiled before her, and she makes the stamp of her own spirit and personality upon its pliable nature.  She there engrafts it, as it were, into her own being, and from the combined elements of her own character, builds up and establishes the character of her offspring.  Hers will, therefore, be the glory or the shame.

  “Then take the heart thy charms have won,
  And nurse it for the skies.”

The nursery is that department of home in which the formation of our character is begun.  Infancy demands the nursery.  It is not full-formed and equipped for the battle of life.  It lies in the cradle in a state of mere involution, and in the hands of its parents is altogether passive, and susceptible of impressions as wax before the sun.  The germ of the man is there; but it has yet to be developed.  Its indwelling life must be nurtured with tender and assiduous care.  It demands an influence suited to the expansion of its nature into bloom and maturity.  It demands physical development, mental evolution, moral training, and spiritual elevation.  In order to these it must live amidst the sweet and plastic socialities of maternal relationship.  It must come under the fostering influence of a mother’s heart, and be reared up by the tender touches of a mother’s hand.  This idea is embodied in home as a nursery.  This is fourfold in its conception and relation to the child.