The Family Bible

"What household thoughts around thee, as their shrine, 

Cling reverently!--Of anxious looks beguiled,

My mother's eyes upon thy page divine,

Each day were bent; her accents, gravely mild, 

Breathed out thy love; whilst I, a dreamy child,

Wandered on breeze-like fancies oft away, 

 

.....Yet would the solemn Word,

At times, with kindlings of young wonder heard

Fall on my wakened spirit, there to be

A seed not lost; for which in darker years,

O, book of heaven!  I pour with grateful tears,

Heart-blessings on the holy dead, and thee!"

"Though they are with the silent dead,

Heere are they living still!" 

My father read this holy book

To brothers, sisters dear ;

How calm was my poor mother's look,

Who loved God's word to hear.  

Her angel-face--I see it yet!

What thronging memories come?

Again that little group is met

Within the halls of home!" 

How joyfully they gathered around the cheerful hearth to read this book divine.  How often their hearts drew consolation from its living springs!  Wat a balm it has poured into bleeding and disconsolate hearts.  It has irradiated with the glories of eternal day, the darkest chamber of their home.  what brilliant hopes and promises it has hung around the parental heart!  And here too are the names of our parents,--long since gathered with their fathers.  Here too are our names, and birth, and baptism, written by that parental hand, long since cold in death!

~The Christian Home~

Rev. S. Phillips