Family Worship | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 23, 1873

Family Worship.

THERE ought to be no sweeter hour in the day than that in which comes the morning meal and family worship. Yet it is sorrowful to see what sometimes passes for the latter. A chapter of the Bible hurried through, a rambling, stereotyped prayer mumbled over; and the participants rush off to the work, which they have in the meanwhile been thinking about, and which they enjoy a great deal better. The exercise is wrapped in fog instead of being crowned with Heaven’s light.

It is a mistake to suppose that fluency or education are especially needed in conducting family worship. It wants a heart, most of all. Let there not be a single petition that is not born of real desire—even if the prayer be not two minutes long. Blessed be the home where the spirit of song dwells and adds its charm to the morning worship. The exercise need not be long, but it should not be crowded. Break up cold formality; carry all the soul-life you have into it, and its savor shall not go through the day alone, but among all the home memories none shall be stronger to hold the grown-up children to the faith of their fathers.—Christian at Work.

A THOROUGHLY good boy in a school is doing more good than he will ever know. We do not care to tell him, if we could, just how much good his behavior and words and sincere prayers and general example are effecting; but it is good to think of it. It makes us almost wish we might have a chance to have our boyhood over again, and try it with a clear start and straight through. A writer in a recent number of Blackwood’s Magazine says of the famous school of Dr. Arnold, at Rugby, England, that, after all, the religious element which showed itself there in those days was not so entirely due to his own influence as some have supposed. The best helper he had was in one of his boys—Spencer Thornton. That great teacher spoke of him afterward as “a blessing to the school.” “Your son,” he wrote to his parents, “has done good to the school to an extent that cannot be calculated.” Religious, straightforward, upright, pure, generous, resolute, gentle—he wore the face of honesty itself. Without either of them knowing how it was done, he was continually causing other lads to grow ashamed of vice, and a thirst for a good conscience and a right character.

A GENEROUS man will, in his treatment to an enemy, resemble the sun, which pours light all around it—even upon the clouds that try to dim its luster.