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. Tell me then, can you be faithful to these vows and obligations without family prayer? Can you fulfil your covenant engagements, hope to receive your reward, and see your children grow up in the nurture of the Lord’s vineyard, without rearing up a family altar?
The promised blessings of family prayer show that every faithful Christian home must have its family altar. These are unspeakable. It is a sure defence against sin; it sanctifies the members, and throws a hallowed atmosphere around our household. The child will come under its restraining and saving influence. A mother’s prayer will haunt the child, and draw it as if by magic power towards herself in heaven:
"He might forget her melting prayer,
While pleasure’s pulses madly fly,
But in the still, unbroken air,
Her gentle tones come stealing by,—
And years of sin and manhood flee,
And leave him at his mother’s knee!"