The evening prayer which has thus been implanted in the heart of the child because of the privilege and the intense love granted to the mother-heart, and which is to be protected by that same love throughout the years to come, will prove to be a real protection to the child during its earliest youth, which is just the very time when it stands most in need of protection because the tempting voices of wickedness resound with the greatest power in its own breast. For that reason the time of youth is that period of our life when we stand most in need of the evening prayer.
Loving parents often are somewhat worried when they discuss the day that the children must go out into the world. Now and then a tear drops from the mother's eye when she thinks that her half-grown boy or girl soon must leave home. It is not because of worry for their future, economically speaking, nor always because of the thought of separation—but it is the fear; How will they come out? Will they listen to the voices of wickedness, find evil associates, forget both God and their parents so that they rather seek the saloon and the dance hall than the home of their childhood? Of course, you may say: It won't be as bad as that! And, praised be God—these things do not happen in a great many instances. But the danger is there, and the temptations are ever present—and many a young man and woman who during childhood were the very joy and pride of their parents, succumb to the temptations and suffer during their youth such defeat that recovery is possible only much later in life or—never:
You suffer for that through many years which only was briefest delight——
But to comfort such parents let me say: Let the evening prayer find a fixed and permanent place in the life of the child from the very days of the cradle—then you have built a fortification about it which will guard and protect it at all times because it has become an essential part of itself. The evening prayer of its mother is the last thing the child ever forgets—that which it is most difficult to part with. It does not yield to a little push or two, but will powerfully assert its right to occupy the seat of honor in the heart, and it will insist that the quiet hours of eventide belong to it by right. And even though the child throw its mother's evening prayer overboard in order better to heed the tempting voices of wickedness, he or she will be conscious of restlessness and uneasiness in the depths of the heart, until that demand is met which the evening prayer makes. Yes, even though the child may time and again scoff haughtily at the evening prayer and thus apparently get far enough to push it away with all the silly "nerve" of the age of adolescence and to conquer it—that time will come, is sure to come, when the memory of it and the memory of mother awakens in the child's heart and revives in loving remembrance so that the evening prayer resumes its permanent place in the life of the child. The memory of mother will be a treasure to the child who only then realizes that the evening prayer proved a protection against the plentifulness of temptations. She will receive the gratitude shown her with child-like reverence, because she implanted the evening prayer in the heart of the child. That was one of the mother's deeds of love that became the greatest blessing throughout the storm-tossed time of youth. When everything else sinks into forgetfulness, it will still be remembered "what mother taught me"!
4. The Morning Prayer: A Gain
It is a little more difficult to give the morning prayer a fixed place in our life than the evening prayer, because in the morning we feel strengthened by sleep and are in a hurry to get to our work. But if we thus seem to think that we cannot find time to say a morning prayer, let us remember the old proverb: "In prayer is no delay," and if there are other reasons—petty things that have hindered us—then let us summon our will and say to ourselves: I want to! The morning prayer is henceforth to have a fixed place in my everyday life and in my home, and I think everything will go well: In prayer is no delay.
Just as the evening prayer because of the significance of time is particularly adapted as a protection against temptation, so the morning prayer for a corresponding reason is especially fit to prove a gain to us.
When we arise in the morning, the day is facing us, and it is of importance that we approach our work with willingness and high hopes—whether the work be that of the intellectual or the manual laborer. But, how often is it not the case that we approach our work slovenly and sourly—with the consequence that we feel it a burden and a difficulty. We do not discover that rest and that joy in the work which God bestowed upon it. The work becomes nothing but unwillingly done toil, and the day seems long and weary.
By way of suggesting a preventive I know of nothing better than to start the day with a morning prayer. It stimulates the willingness to work, to begin the day by thanking God for the night that has vanished, and to pray for blessing upon the work of the coming day. It imparts joy of living. It makes it easier to discover the rest and the delight in work, no matter how exerting that may be.