Family Worship Promoting Domestic Harmony and Love (1)

Family peace is a blessing which cannot be overrated. We desire to show that it is directly promoted by family worship.

The stated and punctual assembly of a whole household for the service of God has this tendency, if considered merely as a means of bringing the several members together. There are striking differences among families in regard to the simple quality of cohesion. While some are a bare collection of so many particles, without mutual attraction, others are Consolidated into a unity of love. Many scattering influences are at work. Some of these may be referred to want of system and regularity; some to late hours; some to peculiarities of business; some to fashion; and some to the dissipations of vice.

From one or several of these influences we see domestic harmony impaired. Parents and children meet only at their meals, and not even at all of these. The tardy inmates of the house descend in the moming at any hour, and at long intervals, and the evening is often despoiled of the charm of home. In such circumstances we are persuaded the links of affection are tarnished, if not worn away. In proportion as the subjects of mutual obligation live apart, they will cease to care for one another. No customs of society are laudable or safe which tend, in any con-siderable degree, to separate parents from children, and brothers from sisters. It is good to bring together the coals on the domestic hearth. Hence we have always looked with unqualified satisfaction on the New England custom of gathering all the members of a family, however remote, under the paternal roof on the day of annual thanksgiving. There is a sacred virtue in even beholding the face of an aged father and a gentle beloved mother. On this very principle, the president of one of our colleges, justly celebrated for his influence on young men, was accustomed, when he saw the first tokens of aberration in a boy, to call him to his study, and kindly propose to him a simple visit to his parents. We do not wonder that the effect was often magical.

Family worship assembles the household twice every day, and that in a deliberate and solemn manner. No individual is missing. This is the law of the house from childhood to old age. The observance is as stated as the daily meals. Other employments and engage-ments are made to bow to this, until it becomes the irreversible rule of the little commonwealth. They look upon one another’s faces. They exchange the salutations of affection. Now, if ever, kind words and gentle wishes will be breathed; plans for mutual benefit or entertainment will be laid; and the glow will be not the less because they are met to offer the sacrifice of praise. Taken singly, such influences are not to be despised, but they rise to inestimable magnitude, when diffused through all the days of long years, that is, over the entire progress of family life. By those who have enjoyed them they can never be forgotten. Such households stand in open contrast to those where parents and children, in haste and disorder, and with many interruptions, snatch their daily bread, without so much as a word of thanks or prayer.

Some good results, in respect of harmony, ensue, when a household statedly assembles for the common pursuit of any lawful object whatever. Union, and the sentiment of union, are promoted by joint participation, and the effect is appreciable where the gathering is frequent and stated. Though it were only for exercise or recreation, for the practice of music, for an evening perusal of useful books, still there would be a contribution to mutual acquaintance and regard. But how much stronger is the operation of this principle when the avowed object of thus meeting is to seek the face of God, and to invoke His blessing!

There is no way in which we can more surely increase mutual love than by praying for one another. If you would retain warmth of affection for an absent friend, pray for him. If you would live in the regards of another, beseech him to pray for you. If you would conquer enmity in your own soul towards one who has wronged you, pray for him. Dissension or coldness cannot abide between those who bear each other to God’s throne in supplication. It is what we meet to do at family worship. Often has the tenderness of a half-dying attachment been renewed and made young again, when the parties have found themselves kneeling before the mercy-seat. Everything connected with such utterance of mutual goodwill in the domestic worship tends to foster it, and thus the daily prayers are as the dews of Hermon.

The devotions of the household are commonly conducted by the parent, and parental affection often needs such an outlet. The son or the daughter might otherwise remain ignorant of the anxieties of the father. There are yearnings which the parent cannot express to man, not even to a child, but which must be poured forth to God, and which have their appropriate channel in the daily prayer. The hearing of such petitions, gushing warm from the heart, and the participation of such emotions, cannot but sometimes reach the hither-to obdurate mind, and tend to a strong and reigning affection. Both parent and child, if they are ever touched with genuine love, must experience it when they come together before their God.

That revelation of divine truth which is perpetually expressed or implied in family worship, in Scripture, in psalms, and in prayers, enjoins this very peace and affection. The New Testament presents it in every page. The Word of God and prayer are, from day to day, bringing the duty constantly before the conscience.

Dr. James W. Alexander (1804–1859), was the eldest son of the renowned Archibald Alexander.

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