But even this, in many cases, is wholly omitted, and scarcely
anything remains to indicate that God has found a dwelling in that
house. There may be no actual dissipation, no drunkenness, no
card-playing, but, oh! how little of true devotion is there! How few
families are there so conducted as to make it a matter of surprise that
any of the children of such households should turn out otherwise than
pious! How many that lead us greatly to wonder that any of the children
should turn out otherwise than irreligious! On the other hand, how
subduing and how melting are the fervent supplications of a godly and
consistent father, when his voice, tremulous with emotion, is giving
utterance to the desires of his heart to the God of heaven for the
children bending around him! Is there, out of heaven, a sight more
deeply interesting than a family, gathered at morning or evening prayer,
where the worship is what it ought to be?"
It is hardly to be supposed that any pious heads, or pious members, of
American households, are in doubt whether family worship be a duty. We
are rather to take it for granted, as a duty universally acknowledged
among Christians, nature itself serving to suggest and teach it, and the
word of God abundantly confirming and enforcing it, both by precept and
example. God himself being the author and constitutor of the family
relation, it is but a dictate of reason that He should be owned and
acknowledged as such, "who setteth the children of men in families like
a flock, who hath strengthened the bars of thy gates, and hath blessed
thy children within thee.
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