The family altar is heaven's threshold. And happy are those children who at
that altar, have been consecrated by a father's blessing, baptized by a
mother's tears, and borne up to heaven upon their joint petitions, as a
voluntary thank-offering to God. The home that has honored God with an
altar of devotion may well be called blessed.
"Child, amidst the flowers at play,
While the red light fades away;
Mother, with thine earnest eye
Ever following silently;
Father, by the breeze of eve
Called thy warmest work to leave;
Pray!--ere yet the dark hours be,
Lift the heart and bend the knee."
The duty thus to establish family prayer is imperative. It is a duty
because God commands it, and the mission of home cannot be fulfilled
without it. It is a duty because a privilege and a blessing, and the
condition of parental efficiency in all other duties;--because the moral
and spiritual growth of the child depends upon it. It is one of the most
effectual means of grace. All the instructions, all the discipline and
example, of the parent will be in vain without it. Hence both natural
affection and Christian faith should suggest its establishment. Parents are
bound to do so by their covenant vows, by the obligations of baptism, by
all the interests and hopes of their household. They have dedicated their
children to God, and pledged themselves to educate them for Him, and to
train them up in His ways.
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