SUNDAY READING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 4667, 28 October 1876, Page 2

SUNDAY READING.

THE FAMILY ALTAR. BX DR. WM. H. LEWIS.

These is a comfort and blessing in family worship that well repays for its maintenance. It has no doubt been sometimes kept up in such a cold, formal, hypocritical, Puritancial way as to prove irksome, disgusting, and hurtful to attendants upon it, and offensive to God; but so have public worship and sacraments Bometimee failed of the blessing. But the Christian who has endeavoured truly to worship God in his household day by day, and year after year, for scores of years together, will say that ho has found a great blessing in it, and be very thankful that he has been enabled to sustain tho service. And there are times when it has special comfort. ' When affliction or death enters the household, and all are suffering under a common grief, or when one of the family is sick, or far from home, and exposed to perils of war or of the, ocean, it is a great relief to have one of our number kneel down with us, and spread oar common wants and desires before our Father in heaven. Let amiuister come into any prayerless house, hold and propose prayer on such occasions of deep grief or anxiety,, how eagerly will all seize upon the privilege, showing thereby that common prayer is what every home needs. And sometimes the lack of it has been most painfully felt, as when one was near death, and asked a father or relative to pray, but could find no one to do it, though the heart yearned to comply, because the lips were unused to prayer, and knew not how to utter '

it, * A great grief of a mother converted late ! in life was once expressed in these words to.. her pastor : " I have Bad seven children, and they have grown up »Sd dispersed and have Voice pfj*rayerl" v-j J/Asiij hejpf to/horns! praVeMis oEgreat value! itaio l ifenllaw%and'spec4il police, vrlgulOTjpnaa.asjtnu,ch ; ijf 3 HuooE * • city*""br s Stated" Aid leave otiC an essential requisite to the home institution who omit family devotions, for these not '■Only.draw.down-graceandproteotionrbatare-Daturally calculate to soften and restrain. An altar £d God is,better than a .whip-on the mantel-piece. The thought that we "have just prayed "together, 'or- have soonrto. kneel down together, checks evil tempers-and harsh words. To pray thative may dwell in love and peace, and do our duty to each other, makes it harder to rise up and -quarrel,' or grossly offend against duty to our kindred," and when these evils are so cut and girdled every day, or twice a day, they cannot grow apace. To find such outrageous contentions as are seen in some houses would be a monBtrous anomaly in a praying home. -We hear good preaching against a mere Sunday religion, and to have daily worship in the family tends to make religion, an every-day concern. And where worship is regularly and rightly kept up, it tends to deepen the affection of home relationships. A child in after life will remember long and tenderly a father kneeling down and commending him to God, and brothers aud sisters when separated will recollect with softened -emotion those hallowed seasons when, side by side, they prayed and sang praises, or read in turn a verse of God Word around the altar of their home. Indeed, a farnily'that comes together merely to eat and sleep, with no recognition of God, seems to live like brutes, and does often part with as much indifference as they.