…..I cannot mention all the reasons in favour of family worship; but if you ponder them, the four following should suffice: 1. The godly householders mentioned in Scripture practised it. Would you desire to be like Abraham, the friend of God? Wherever he pitched his tent, he builded an altar, and called on the name of the Lord; and Jehovah declared concerning him, "I know Abraham, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they will keep the way of the Lord." * Would you like to resemble Job, "the perfect and upright man, one that feared God and eschewed evil?" He used to bring his children together, and rose early in the morning, and offered a sacrifice of as many victims as he had sons and daughters, teaching us how express and special our intercession for our families should be, and this he did "continually." † Would you resemble David, the man after God's own heart? At the close of a busy day, we find him going "home to bless his household." ‡ Do you envy Cornelius, whose prayers were heard, and to whom the Lord sent a special messenger to teach him the way of salvation? He was "a devout man, one who feared God with all his house, and prayed to God always;" and who was so anxious for the salvation of his family, that he got together his kinsmen and near friends, that they might be ready to hear the apostle when he arrived, and share with himself the benefit. § Do you admire Aquila and Priscilla, Paul's "helpers in Christ Jesus," and who were so skilful in the Scriptures, that they were able to teach a young minister the way of God more perfectly? You will find that one reason for their familiarity with Scripture was, that they had "a Church in their house." || In the Bible you find instances of family devotion in all ranks of life, from the king to the artisan, from David's palace to the tent of Aquila; to teach you that whatever be your situation in life, you should still have a Church in your house. I have sometimes seen family worship in great houses; but I have felt that God was quite as near when I knelt with a praying family on the earthen floor of their cottage. I have known of family worship among the reapers in a barn. It used to be common in the fishing - boats upon the friths and lakes of Scotland. I have heard of its being observed in the depths of a coal - pit. I scarcely know the situation in life in which a willing family might not contrive to pray together. If you live in a scoffing ungodly neighbourhood, so much the better. Abraham built his altar whilst heathen Canaanites looked on. He lifted up a testimony for God, and God honoured him - so that Abimelech, his neighbour, was constrained to say, "God is with thee in all that thou doest."
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3. It would make your home much happier if you had a Church in your house . It has been said witlı much truth, "Family prayer is the oil which removes friction, and causes all the complicated wheels of the family to move smoothly and noiselessly." It is one way, and the very best, for bringing all the members of a family together, and for promoting that harmony of feeling so essential to domestic enjoyment. Some families are held together by hardly any bond, except that they lodge under the same roof, and assemble round the same board. But when they meet, it is not to fulfil one another's joy. They are selfish and sullen; cross words, peevish answers, and angry recriminations make up all their intercourse. The customary meal is despatched in a gloomy silence, or embittered by fretful words. I have known families so little at home with one another, that it was quite a relief when any casual visitor dropped in to break the irksomeness of their own society. I have seen brothers and sisters so ill - assorted in the families in which God had planted them together, that they had no subject of common interest and no mutual love confidence. They could converse and be happy with strangers, but not with one another. And I have seen this in families where there was a form of family worship, - a pretence, a semblance of prayer - but never where there was the reality. If yours be such a family, before peace and affection visit it, you must say, "Come and let us seek the Lord." If you would see the dawn of blander days on that clouded and lowering circle, you must cry, "Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us, and so we shall be glad." If you could only persuade them to take into their hands the volume that speaks good will to man, and as they sit together to read by turns its messages of kindness; and then as they bowed before the mercy - seat, if in their common name, you said, Our Father, and confessed their common sins, returned thanks for any mercies which the day had brought, and asked such blessings as all need, this process could not be long persisted in, till you would see its softening and harmonizing influence. The dew of Hermon would begin to come down, and you would exclaim as you saw the difference, " Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity."" * But perhaps your family dwells in unity - but it is not a holy unity. It is not sanctified by the Word of God and by prayer. You are happy in one another. You are never at a loss for the materials of a cheerful intercourse. But amidst all the sprightliness, and cordiality, and kind feeling which encompass your fireside, one ingredient of gladness is wanting. God is forgotten. In the morning, you meet and give one another a joyous greeting, and the morning meal despatched rush away to the day's engagements without a word of acknowledgment to that God whose sleepless eye guarded your midnight pillow - without one word of prayer to bespeak his upholding and guidance in this day's untrodden path. And when the evening hour of intercourse is over, and you have discussed the pleasant or prosperous incidents of the day, you hie away, cheerful but unthankful, to a prayerless slumber, perhaps to awake in death's dark valley, and find that the Lord is not with you. Your family is united - but it is a short-lived union. Your family - love - God is not in it, and therefore heaven does not follow after it. How it would give tone and intensity to the affection of your smiling circle, if you could be brought to love one another in the Lord! With what new eyes you would learn to look upon yourselves, if you came to regard one another as brethren for eternity! And how it would heighten bliss, and take the sharpness out of sorrow, if "For ever with the Lord," were the thought which joy and grief most readily suggested! Were it manifest of all the members of a family that God is their Father, Christ their elder Brother, and the Holy Spirit their Comforter, such a family would possess a joy which the removal of no member could take away. That joy has often come into households through the channel of domestic devotion. For, 4. Family worship is an ordinance which God has often blessed to the saving of souls. In houses where it is conducted with life and feeling, it has often proved a converting ordinance. A few years ago, an English gentleman visited America, and spent some days with a pious friend. He was a man of talent and accomplishments, but an infidel. Four years afterwards, he returned to the same house, a Christian. They wondered at the change, but little suspected when and where it had originated. He told them that when he was present at their family worship, on the first evening of his former visit, and when after the chapter was read, they all knelt down to pray - the recollection of such scenes in his father's house long years ago, rushed in on his memory, so that he did not hear a single word. But the occurrence made him think, and his thoughtfulness ended in his leaving the howling wilderness of infidelity, and finding a quiet rest in the salvation wrought out by Jesus Christ. In his Fireside, Mr. Abbot tells us of a gay young lady who paid a visit of a week in the family of a minister, an eminently holy man. His fervent intercessions for his children and the other inmates of his dwelling, went to this thoughtless heart: they were the Spirit's arrow, and upon that family altar , his visitor was enabled to present herself a living sacrifice to God. It is with the Church in the house as with the church in the village. The wayfarer may get a word in passing, which he never can forget. The stranger that turns aside to tarry for a night may hear at your family worship the word that will save his soul. Some years ago, an Irish wanderer, his wife, and his sister, asked a night's shelter in the cabin of a pious schoolmaster. With the characteristic hospitality of his nation, the schoolmaster made them welcome. It was his hour for evening worship, and when the strangers were seated, he began by reading slowly and solemnly, the second chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians. The young man sat astonished. The expressions, "Dead in trespasses and sins," "Children of wrath," "Walking after the course of this world," were new to him. He sought an explanation. He was told that this is God's account of the state of man by nature. He felt that it was exactly his own state. "In this way I have walked from my childhood. In the service of the God of this world we have come to your house." He was on the way to a fair, where he intended to pass a quantity of counterfeit money. But God's Word had found him out. He produced his store of coin, and begged his host to cast it into the fire; and asked anxiously if he could not obtain the Word of God for himself. His request was complied with, and next morning, with the new treasure, the party, who had now no errand to the fair, returned to their own home. Perhaps, by this time, the pious school-master has met his guest within the gates of the city, outside of which are thieves, and whatsoever maketh a lie. But I cannot enumerate all the conversions which have occurred at the Church in the House. Many servants have been awakened there. Children have often heard there truths, which, when the Spirit brought them to remembrance in after days - perhaps, in days of profligacy, and when far from their father's house - have sent home the prodigal. It is not only of Zion's solemn assemblies, but of Jacob's humble dwellings - the little fireside sanctuaries - "that the Lord shall count, when he writeth up the people, This man was born there." In your house there have been, perhaps, several immortal spirits born into the world. Have there been any born again? ...