Influence of Family Worship In Affliction (2)

When evil tidings come to the heathen, they rend their garments, tear out their hair, cast dust and ashes on their heads, and fill the air with lamentation. Ungodly persons in Christian lands, in a like case, do not indeed give way to the same outward demonstrations, but are not the less affected within. It is the property of the true Christian to hear such messages with calmness and resignation. “He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord” (Ps. 112:7). And when the black seal is broken, and the faces of all who hover around gather paleness, it is true religion which lifts the eyes and says, “The will of the Lord be done.” Blessed is the privilege, in such an hour, of meeting as a smitten but unforsaken flock at the feet of the heavenly Shepherd, and of pouring out the soul in supplication.

Sometimes disease makes fearful inroads in the Christian house. There is then a special message to the throne of grace. Happy is the case in which we can go to Christ, saying, “He whom thou lovest is sick.” But we may bring all our afflicted ones to Him, as to the great Physician, pleading with Him by His name, JEHOVAH-ROPHI. The daily visits of the medical adviser are less indispensable than daily resorting to the Most High. It is not safe to lie ill in a prayerless house; but it is better to be a Lazarus in the midst of true prayers than to be full of health in a house which knows no worship. In a faithful household, the case of the languishing sufferer is never forgotten before God, and the prayer of faith does still often heal the sick. The very thought of this is a cordial to the fainting spirits, especially in those cases where the malady is lingering, and stretches its saddening influence through many years. The sons of gaiety may look with indifference on the daily exercise of devotion; not so the pining invalid whose life is a long disease, who seldom ventures across the threshold, and who counts the hours until the voice of prayer and praise is heard again. When disease takes a more threatening form, and life is in danger, we have observed an unusual solemnity steal over even the more careless members of the household as they obey the summons to evening prayer. The feeling is natural that, after all, this is the most rational instrumentality, for God only can help. The ordinary exercise is transformed into a special intercession for one who is on a bed of peril. Before the morrow, that soul may be in eternity. Can we think, with composure, of such dangers, or of the death struggle going on in houses where not one syllable of oral prayer is uttered, not one group of kneeling suppliants gathered about the death bed? We may surely be forgiven if we pray: “May I die the death of the righteous, and may my last end be among the prayers of the righteous.” Yet what numbers are even this moment dying, without one word of supplication, and without so much as a token of Christianity!

There is a sentiment in every true disciple’s breast, which makes him glory in the faith of the gospel preeminently in a moment of tribulation. Now, he feels, is the juncture in which to show that his confidence in God is unshaken. Hence the quiet and seemly attendance of a Christian household on divine offices, even amidst extreme trials, is strongly opposed to the heathenish confusion of a prayerless family.

Every house must, sooner or later, become a house of mourning. The blessedness of worshipping God in our family capacity is never more evinced than when death has struck its blow. Though we pray not for the dead, we feel within us an impulse to kneel and pray beside the dead. When the corpse is still in the house, family worship has a singular awe. A link has been broken. A voice is missed from the harmony. A shadowy form that as long as strength endured, lingered about these places of prayer, has at length ceased to appear. “One is not.” Amidst such unavoidable reflections, the common resort to the throne of grace becomes peculiarly tender and awful. The elevations of prayer and praise befit the soul which has felt a mighty grief, and which sickens at the presentation of minor and earthly considerations. We have seen the heart-broken widow led into the accustomed place of prayer, shrinking to hear a stranger’s voice in place of his—yet calmed and buoyed up by the fellowship of devotion. Oh, how many could rise and testify, that in seasons of deep affliction they have found unutterable solace, not only in prayer in general, but in the domestic prayer in particular! Wounded hearts need fellowship, even in their devotions, and feel their griefs assuaged, when others, whom they love, gather around them in the use of words which make their sorrows the sorrows of all. Such devotions soften and hallow grief and make the sorrows of a Christian house altogether different from those of the world. To enter such a circle is good. There we are taught, that “it is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting” (Eccl. 7:2). Tears will no doubt gush freely and interrupt the service where sudden bereavement has occurred, but the whole influence of the devotion, even on the chief sufferers, has been uniformly observed to be consolatory in no common degree. There are other afflictions, however, besides the loss of property, health, or friends; sometimes less tolerable, more poignant than these. When such tempests break over a house, whither can they resort but to God, in prayer? If they have already instituted this daily exercise, they need no new arrangements; their access is direct to the heart of a Father. Let them, as a family, bowing before Him, unbosom themselves of that burden which, perhaps, they have no freedom to tell to a fellowman. It is good to draw near to God with peculiar sorrows.

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

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