“Sweet are the joys of home,
And pure as sweet; for they,
Like dews of morn and evening, come
To make and close the day.”
Much is said and written of religion in the home, and yet it may be that there is not always a clear conception of the meaning of the term. It is sometimes supposed that the requirement is fully met when family devotions are regularly maintained. This is of vital importance. Household religion certainly implies the daily family worship. I cannot think that any home realizes the true ideal or can have Heaven’s richest benedictions upon it in which this is omitted or neglected. God blesses and shelters the household in which he is honored. Prayer weaves a roof of love over the home and builds walls of protection about it.
Surely the goodness of a thoughtful Providence, received day after day in unbroken continuity, requires some grateful recognition of praise. Then is it not a perilous thing for the members of the household to disperse in the morning to their duties and responsibilities, into dangers and temptations, to meet possible trials, without the invoking of Heaven’s guidance, protection and help? There is reason to fear that in many homes family worship is neglected, and that in the intense whirl and excitement of these busy times the neglect is becoming more and more common. How can we expect God’s blessing upon our homes if we do not call upon his name? It is any wonder that there is sorrow over children’s wanderings in the households in which there is no family altar?
There is a wondrous educating influence in the daily assemblage of the family for prayer. Where through childhood and youth the custom has been regularly maintained, its influence over the life is such as can never be wholly obliterated. And it may be seriously questioned whether in any other way, by any other means, children can be so firmly “Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.” The memories of the old family altar, waked years and years after the home walls had crumbled and the home voices had become silent, have led many a wanderer back to God’s feet.
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