Delightful as is the syllable Home, it is made tenfold more so by prayer. The ancient lares, or gods of the house, were cherished, and their altar was the domestic hearth. They were vanity and a lie: “but our God is in the heavens.”(Psalm 115:3) The house of our childhood is always lovely, but the presence of the Almighty Protector makes it a sanctuary, and his altar causes home to be doubly home. However long we live, or however far we wander, it will ever abide in memory as the place of prayer, the cradle of our childlike devotions, the circle which enclosed father, and mother, and sister, and brother, in its sacred limit. Now that which adds to the charm and the influence of home, affords a mighty incentive to good, and a mighty check to evil. To make a child love his home, is to secure him against a thousand temptations. Families who live without God forego all such advantages and recollections. The domestic fireside no doubt has its charms, but it is shorn of its religious associations; it is less revered; we believe it is less loved.
In families where there is daily praise of God, in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, there is an additional influence on the young. At no age are we more impressed by music, and no music is so impressive as that which is the vehicle of devotion. The little imitative creatures begin to catch the melodies long before they can understand the words. Without any exception they are delighted with this part of the service, and their proficiency is easy in proportion. No choir can be compared with that of a goodly household, where old and young, day after day, and year after year, lift up the voice in harmony. Such strains give a jocund opening to the day, and cheer the harassed mind after labor is done. Sacred song tranquillizes and softens the mind, makes an opening for higher influences, and prepares voice and heart for the public praise of God. The practice is the more important, as it is well known that in order to attain its perfection, the voice should be cultivated from an early age. Nor should we omit to mention the store of psalms and hymns which are thus treasured in the memory. By this it is, even more than by public worship that the Scottish peasantries to so great an extent have the old version of the Psalms by rote, in great part or in whole. But this is a topic which we reserve for another place.
In the rearing of youth, nothing can be thought insignificant which goes to train the thoughts, or give strength and direction to the habits. It is by a repetition of perpetual, patient touches, small in themselves, that the straggling branches of the vine are led by the gardener to grow and spread aright. It is by ten thousand inappreciable dots and scratches that the plate of the engraver is made to represent the portrait or the landscape. So it is by an ever-renewed application of right principles, that parental care, in the hand of sovereign grace, gives Christian habit to the infant mind. In so precious a work nothing is unimportant: we must give heed to the minutest influences, as we save the filings of gold, and the dust of diamonds. For this reason we ascribe to domestic worship a large share in creating useful habits in the young. We scruple not to say that a child receives advantage by being led to do anything, provided it be innocent, at stated times, with frequent repetition, and with proper care.
The daily assembling of a household, at regular periods, for a religious purpose, directly tends to promote good habits. It is a useful lesson for the speechless babe, to acquire the patient stillness of the hour of prayer. It is good for a family to have a religious motive to early rising-, and timely attention to personal neatness. It is something to have punctuality in the observance of two hours each day, enforced from the very dawn of life. Those who may be tempted to put this aside with a smile, should first institute a comparison in regard to these particulars, between any two families, of which one worships, and the other worships not. We are willing to abide by the result of the examination, for we are sure that in the latter will be found a great looseness of domestic arrangement, tardy rising, a slovenly toilet, a long, irregular, time wasting breakfast, more conformable to the modern fashion than to Christian usage; evenings without an affectionate rally of the house; and late hours of retiring, or no fixed hours at all.
Parents who may read this book are respectfully invited to consider whether they do not owe it to their children to give them the daily worship of God. Especially are the sons and daughters of the church, whose own youth was hallowed by this constant observance, charged to recall their impressions of the past, and to reckon up the advantages which they are denying to their off spring.
Christian children must give account at the last day, for the privilege of family-prayer. It becomes them to be asking whether they are making use of the instrumentality. Customary means of this kind, we know, are apt to become formalities. When the family is gathered, the careless or drowsy child may hear as though he heard not, and kneel as though he knelt not; may attend to no syllable of God’s word, and join in no single petition. But let him remember that every instance of Family-Worship affords a means of direct approach to the Most High, and thus a means of saving his soul.
Blessed are those children, who, early in their youthful days, remember the God of their fathers, and begin life by choosing him as the guide of their youth! To such, every act of worship is a solemnity and a delight, gradually ripening the soul for faithful service on earth, and for the praises of heaven. Most earnestly is it .to be desired, that those who have been baptized, who have been catechized, who have been, during all their youth, embraced in the circle of domestic prayer, should now, when themselves placed at the head of families, carry forward the blessed institutions in which they have been reared, and convey the words of life to coming generations. ” We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.(Psalm 78:4)
By James W. Alexander, “THOUGHTS ON FAMILY WORSHIP”