THERE are professors of religion who find frequent excuses for omitting family worship. I had a neighbor of that sort who had worship in his house only on Sunday. He has two sons; one is a drunkard and the other a loafer. Some people omit evening worship because they have company to tea. I lived in a little seaport on the coast of Maine in a house where a generous hospitality was dispensed. Some of our neighbors were shipmasters, and when one of them was on the point of departing on a long voyage, he and his wife and a few other neighbors were invited to tea. At the usual hour we had evening worship, and God's care, protection, and help in peril were especially asked for the captain about to sail. The ship of one of these captains foundered in mid-ocean, many days' sail from the nearest land. The ship's company took to the boats, and reached land after many days. The captain, who was not a religious man, said to me, "I thought of your father's prayer; it helped me, gave me courage, and made me feel sure we would get safe to land."
In my childhood it was common for a family, the head of which was going to sea, to ask for the prayers of the church that God would bring back the husband and father in safety; and on his return public prayer of thanksgiving was offered the next Sunday. Do they do so now? and if not, why not?
The influence of family worship is fairly illustrated in three families that came to Maine from Massachusetts many years ago. Of the three brothers two were merchants and one a physician. All these were professors of religion. In the families of the merchants family worship was observed as regularly as the rising and setting of the sun. In the family of the medical man it was not so. There were times when for months morning worship was observed, but for the most part an extensive practice was an excuse for omitting it altogether. The older sons were skeptics, and the eldest daughter is one today, though she has been a member of a church. So much for the family of the medical man. Each of the merchants' families produced a minister of the gospel, men who have been useful in their calling, and whose names are recorded in Dr. Cathcart's Baptist Encyclopedia.
I do not know that the difference between these three families can be referred to the observance of family worship in two of them, but it has always seemed so to me, and I do not know what else to refer it to. The wives in these three families were excellent Christian women.—Christian Mirror.