| Home Making |
Chapter 8 |
Page 17 |
The prayer in the household worship should be brief, particularly where the children are young. It should be fresh, free from all stereotyped phrases, couched in simple language that all can understand. It should be a prayer for the family at whose altar it is offered, not altogether omitting outside interests, but certainly including the interests of the household itself. It should be tender and personal, frequently taking up the members by name and carrying to the Lord the particular needs of each remembering any who are sick, or in trouble, or exposed to danger or temptation. Some part in the prayer may also be given to the children. If the children are young they may repeat the entire prayer after the father, phrase by phrase. The Lord’s Prayer may be used at the close, all uniting in it. In these ways the whole family will be interested in the worship, and it will become a delightful exercise, full of profit and instruction and rich with influences for good.**
But family worship is not enough. There are homes where prayer is never omitted, yet in which there is not the spirit of Christ; and only the spirit of Christ in a household make a truly Christian home. If the altar is in the midst the whole life of the home should be filled with the incense that burns upon it. There are some fields of grass from which in summer days rises a sweet fragrance, although not a flower is anywhere to be seen. But when you part the tall grass and look down among its roots, there, close on the ground hidden under the showy, waving grass, you see multitudes of small flowers, modest and lowly, yet pouring forth a delicate and delicious aroma, filling all the air. There are homes in which there is nothing remarkable in the way of grandeur or elegance, yet the very atmosphere as you enter it filled with sweetness, like “the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed.” It is the aroma of love, the love of Christ shed abroad in human hearts. Religion is lived there. The daily prayers bring down the spirit of Heaven. Christ dwells there, and his blessed influence fills with divine tenderness all the home life.
**Home Worship, by Rev. J.P. Thompson, D.D., contains Scripture selections, with remarks and a prayer, for each day in the year(price $3.50); Family Devotion, by Rev. Alexander Fletcher,D.D., contains Scripture, hymn and prayer for every day (price $5.50). Both are of great aid in conducting family worship.
Page 17
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