Beecher on Family Prayers.
By Beecher
I REMEMBER how I used to like to dodge prayers. If the horse slipped his halter and got into the garden, somebody must get him out. I, being a boy, would be the first to run. By the time I got the horse out, they would be through prayers. I’d get clear. I counted that clear gain. My father never could read the gospel without being much affected; but then he would pray for the church, the kingdom of Christ, and the final conversion of the world. He did not pray much for me; not much for that part of me that I was concerned about. His prayers were short; they always should be where there are children. Now and then, Dr. Taylor of New Haven would come, or Nettleton, from the midst of his revivals, or Mr. Harr, from Plymouth. My father would read the Bible; they would stop him and say, “I’d like to ask what you think of such a verse.” Each one would speak about it. Mother would put in a word. I liked that. We children would listen. After it was over, with a snap of my finger, I’d say to Charles, “Haven’t we had a good time?” If you have family prayers before breakfast, you are apt to be Pharisees. An empty-bellied saint under twenty-one years of age, is a pretty poor one. It is not good to smell the coffee-pot at prayer time. The odors of sanctity and breakfast together are not good; neither is it good to have prayers in a hurry, or to prolong them beyond a proper time; they should be mellow and free. The children need not sit in a long line against the wall. Let the child coil his legs upon the floor. Let him sit on his mother’s lap. If the children want to make themselves into a bouquet around their mother, let them. Let the family sit in a little group, a social group. Let the father read, and they be silent, or read round in course, as they like. Make selections from the Bible, or read it through in course. The father is the priest in his own household. Don’t hasten to get through, because the work has got to be done. Take ten minutes, fifteen minutes, a half hour, and if the children are interested, don’t say the servants must get things in order, they must take care of the table. The most important thing is to make religion interesting, to make the children want to come. I know a house where at 5 o’clock, Sunday afternoon, they have family prayers. All the cousins and near relations love to come in, from grandfather to father. For thirty or forty years they have kept it up; not one of the children would miss it; they would go without a meal first. They sing, they pray, they talk; it is the most charming hour of the whole week. Bring the children in; call on them to talk; have free conversation; don’t whip them if they laugh; it does not hurt a prayer to laugh. If you read the Psalms, or the Old Testament, you will find when the Jews went up to their feasts, they were solemn and then full of mirth. The joy was sanctified; it was the handmaid and the expression of religion. It was not the higher joy of a remarkable development, but it was a part of the daily religious life. We ought to make the day that is apt to be the least profitable of all, bright, sweet and pleasant to old or young, learned or unlettered. I need not tell of our social meetings, or how much the joyful element is diffused among us. Our religion if radiant and hopeful, brings joy to the soul. But how is it in our household? Have we given up the bondage spirit? Are we loving, forbearing? If we start in that way, and start our children in that way, they will get hold of religion far earlier than otherwise, and when they are older they will not depart from it.