Influence of Family-Worship on Individual Piety
From the moment when we first repeat the Lord’s Prayer, saying ‘’ Our Father,” we are taught that our religion is social. It not only influences others, but is exercised and enjoyed in common with others. What a monstrous thing it would be, for a man to spend a life-time in the midst of fellow-beings, without ever feeling or acting towards them in a religious capacity! We can scarcely conceive of true light as so hidden under a bushel. Solitary experience like this, would be worse than monkery, for that is social; worse than the seclusion of the anchoret, for that is removed from witnesses. Where the Spirit of God really operates on a soul, He brings it into fellowship with other renewed souls, and renders it a centre of radiance to all around.
If this is true of the great body of men, it is more eminently true of the family-group. In religion ‘* it is not good for man to be alone.” The experience of the heart is the grand thing, and this is best promoted in the secrecy of the closet: yet it must not, and cannot, abide in the closet or the heart; but will be like ‘’ the ointment of the right-hand, which bewray eth itself;” like the alabaster-box of fragrance, that filleth all. the house. Love, which is the great manifestation of grace, is too communicative in its nature to be always pent up. The electric current will pervade all whose hands are joined in the domestic circle. They will feel together, read God’s word together, sing together, and pray together: and it is indispensable, that there should be some established mode of cherishing and evincing this fellowship of experience.
While we should all beware of that species of religion which has no privacy, and which lives only on the excitements and sympathies of social ordinances, we should not, therefore, overlook the legitimate influence of united prayer and praise. Single coals die out; when drawn together, they break into a flame. If the closet-worship is more solemn and lowly, the family-worship may be more elevated and affectionate. Especially where the head of the family is one wdio grows in grace and Christian knowledge, he will by his very presence lift up the hearts of his household. The child, and the servant, and the guest, will be carried up to higher advances of devout feeling, by one who has so far outstripped them in the flight.
Summon a family to the worship of God, at stated hours, and you summon each one to a seriousness of reflection, of which he might have been wholly robbed, by the hurry of the day’s business. He who perhaps neglects all private perusal of the Scriptures, is constrained to hear a portion read by one whom he reveres. He who prays but formally, or prays not at all, in his chamber, finds himself in this sacred hour kneeling among a reverent company, and is prompted by the ardent words of supplication to lift up his heart unto the Lord.
There is no member of a household whose individual piety is of such importance to all the rest, as the father or head; and there is no one whose soul is so directly influenced by the exercise of domestic worship. Where the head of a family is lukewarm or worldly, he will send the chill through the whole house; and if any happy exception occur, and one and another surpass him in faithfulness, it will be in spite of his evil example. He who ought, by his instructions and life, to afford a perpetual incitement to his inferiors and his juniors, is made to feel, in case of such delinquency, that they must look elsewhere for guidance, even if they do not weep in secret places over his neglects. Where the head of the family is a man of faith, of aifection, and of zeal, consecrating all his works and life to Christ, it is very rare to find all his household otherwiseminded. Now one of the chief means of promoting such individual graces in the 4 head, is this his daily exercise of devotion with the members. It is more to him, than to others. It is he who presides and directs in it; who selects and delivers the precious word; and who leads the common supplication, confession, and praise. To him, it is equal to an additional act of personal devotion, in the day; but it is more. It is an act of devotion, in which his affection and duty to his house are particularly brought before his mind; and in which he stands in the place, and pleads the cause, of all that he holds dearest upon earth. No one need wonder, then, that we place family-prayer among the most important means of reviving and maintaining the piety of him who conducts it. We shall revert to this topic, in its more special reference to the parent and the master.
Observation shows that families which have no household worship, are at a low ebb in spiritual things; that families where it is performed in a cold, sluggish, negligent, or hurried way, are little affected by it, and little affected by any means of grace; and that families where God is worshipped, every morning and evening, by all the inmates of the house in a solemn and affectionate service, are blessed with increase of piety and happiness. Every individual is blessed. Each one receives a portion of the heavenly food.
Half the defects and transgressions of our days arise from want of consideration. Hence the unspeakable value of an exercise, which twice every day calls each member of the household at least to think of God. Even the most careless or impious son, or servant, must now and then be forced to talk a little wdth conscience, and meditate a little on judgment,’when the grey-haired father, bowled before God, with trembling voice pours out strong supplication and prayer. How much more mighty must be the influence on that larger number, who in ten thousand Christian families in the land, are more or less impressed with the importance of divine things! And how peculiar and tender and forming must the same influence be, on those of the domestic group, who worship God in the spirit, and who often wipe the gushing tear, as they rise from their knees, and look around on husband, father, mother, brother, sister, child — all remembered in the same devotion, all clouded with the same incense of inter-Perhaps among our readers, more than one can sptj: ‘’Times without number have I felt the influence of domestic worship on my own soul. When yet a child, no one means of grace, public or private, so awakened my attention, as when the children were prayed for day by day. In wayward youth, I was never so stung by conviction of my sin, as when my honoured father earnestly besought God for our salvation. When at lengrth in infinite mercy I first began to open the ear to instruction, no prayer so reached my heart, or so expressed my deep affections, as those which were uttered by my honoured father.’*
The Gospel has this great precedence of all other systems, that it is preached to the poor. If mankind in general find good in religion, the poor and wretched find in it peculiar good. This is true of all means and ordinances; and it is eminently true of family-worship. We have often had occasion to observe this in the case of those who earn their bread by labour. The working-man often has little disposal of his own time, and little privacy for religious acts. He rises, it may be, long before day, and in a wintry morning hastily prepares himself to join others in labour. He is therefore under a very strong inducement to abridge, if not to omit, the .Scriptures and prayer. It is of immense value for one in such circumstances, to be bound by the sweet yet constraining tie of a family-covenant, to redeem time and call his household together for God’s praise. Such acts of domestic worship are among the sweetest enjoyments of the poor man’s life. He thus has ensured to him a stock of truth for the reflections of the whole day. The son and daughter who go forth to shop or factory labour, carry wdth them some remembrance of God. And when, after a day of honourable toil, they re-assemble in the evening, with the expectation of a similar service, it is to enjoy a means of grace which furnishes each individual with a new impulse towards the goal.
Thoe who unite every day in solemn acts of worship, are thus brought to a comparison of themselves with a certain standard. They are made to recognise themselves, and to recognise one another, as servants of God. It is not unnatural, therefore, that each one should sometimes be led at such a moment to say to himself, What is this? In what character am I appearing? I am professing to honour God; but how does this comport with what I have been doing, saying, thinking, or omitting, this day? Such an aid to self-culture is not to be despised. True, the same holds good in regard to public worship and ordinances; but this is a daily ordinance, an oft-repeated influence; and it is by the manna which falls every day at the door of the tent, that our souls are kept alive.
“We all know that there is such a thing as sacramental, sabbath, or periodical religion; a habit of mind to be put on and off, like the habit of the body. Family- worship has a direct and manifest tendency to make religion a matter of every-day interest. He who appears before God twice a day, with his nearest friends and familiars, cannot easily fail to acknowledge his need of ‘’ a real business-change in the heart, and in the principles of acting.”* Suppose him, during the day, to have slidden into the ways of a most slippery world, to have spoken unadvisedly with his lips, to have broken into wrath, or to have strained a point of integrity in buying or selling: when he comes home to his
* Chalmers.
evening-devotion, he must be a seared worldling, or a double-masked hypocrite, if he does not admit some compunction, and resolve on some amendment.
Family-worship furnishes a means of making increased graces in the head of the household available to the benefit of the members. It is not every sincere servant of Christ, who has the gift of free and acceptable and impressive discourse on divine subjects; though ‘the attainment should be sought by all. The hinderances are various: lack of education; consciousness of small attainment; slowness of speech; natural diffidence; inexcusable pride or false shame; and a sense of inconsistency in the life. These causes may operate to keep the father of a family in a state of inactive insulation. Nothing tends so directly to break a channel for right influences, in this respect, as the regular and faithful observance of domestic worship. A word fitly spoken, at such a time, is an apple of gold. A psalm, rightly chosen, and sung with the spirit and understanding, may bear up all hearts to God. A prayer, “in the Holy Ghost,” though issuing from one who has not the lips of the eloquent, may go more deeply into the soul of the prodigal son, or the careless neighbour, than all the sermons of the year. These are influences which are undervalued, because they are not singly powerful, yet when constant, they are mighty; they drop as the rain, and distil as the dew, “as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass.” In the day of judgment and revelation, it will perhaps appear, in the case of many, that they have owed more in regard of individual piety to the operation of family-religion, than to any single class of causes.
In reckoning the influence of domestic worship, we must reflect, that aside from any thing peculiar, it is just so much added to all the other institutions of religion. It comes day after day, and for a life-time. I have before my mind’s eye “an old disciple,” the son of an old disciple. This ancient servant of God, now eighty-four years of age, has enjoyed this means of instruction and elevation, since he was competent to receive any impression, more than fifty thousand times. Let no one smile at the arithmetic of the statement: it will come home to all the children of the church, in the day when ‘’after a long time, the Lord of those servants Cometh and reckoneth with them.”*
But we have conceded too much. Family-worship has striking peculiarities of influence. Its lessons and devotions begin at the earliest period, when the infant soul is yielding as wax. Here the father, or the grandfather, or perhaps the Eunice and the Lois,t reach forth the moulding influence which is to last for life. These means are used in circumstances peculiarly tender, when the heart is above all susceptible; at the home and fireside; among objects of reverence; in the circle of love. Here, if any where, the individual soul will feel the word to be “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, “t Here, if any where, the heart will respond to the call of devotion, and be prompted to burst forth in prayer. Here the fainting experience will plume its wings for the attempts of a higher flight; and the joys of a hidden devotion will mingle with the flames of a common altar. Can our Christian life readily sacrifice or forego the aids and comforts of such an institution? Or can
* Matthew xxv. 19.
j 2 Timothy i. 5. 2 Timothy iii. 16.
He, who has received so great a blessing from the home of his boyhood, willingly deny it to his own offspring?
The truth must not be concealed, that in order to realize these advantaores from the worship of God in the household, we must see to it, that it is conducted in a due manner. It must not be a stated formality, however punctual or decorous. It must not be the empty expression of a life which does not exist. It must be approached as if we were going to the very feet of Christ. Those who have it in charge, wdiether fathers, or mothers, or the elder son, or the Levite “under the roof, must be in a state of preparation, and must eye the true import and design of the ordinance. Where these cautions are observed, it will never fail to be a powerful instrument in awakening, edifying, and comforting the individual soul.