THE VALUE OF HOME RELIGION.
By Isaiah Reed
KEEP the home fires aglow. These are the engines that keep in motion life's machinery. When your place of prayer falls into disuse, when the Bible is not consulted daily, when the home life is below the church life, things are on a decline. I am satisfied the failures are first in the home life of the soul. It is true, then, that the private means of grace are of prime importance. In a certain sense, each soul must solve the problem for himself, in the chamber of his own secret living. We live at home before we live in public. The great bulk of moral life is private not public. We cannot long keep the public profession and walk on a higher level than the home living. Let the home altar of prayer be kept up. We who have had the benefit of the family altar from infancy can never measure its value. My mind was called to this only a few mornings since by a sister at the altar, just beginning Christian life, and feeling called to erect the family altar, who asked me plainly what to do at the family altar—how and what was to be done. I had hardly thought till then how the idea appeared to one who had never known the privilege of living in a family where this was the custom. I tried to tell her what a family altar was, and she seemed satisfied and helped, and glad that she could begin at once. Two or three essential things are always in place,—prayer, reading the word, and a song of praise, if there are those that can sing. There is no set rule. Vary the custom as to length and manner, to suit those present and the circumstances of the day. Above all, keep the service from becoming a dry, dull routine. Do not be too easily discouraged. It is true the children may not understand the reading. I remember when I did not; but I cannot remember the time when I did not feel the influence, even though the understanding had not come to age. Family worship, where the spirit of worship is, is a true character builder for the children. But it is no less so for ourselves. The same may be said of private prayer and the personal reading of the word of God. Our personal home worship, in its uniform modes, methods, and tides, gauges what we are out of home. The real spiritual outward endowment is always so proportioned. The measure God reaches with us alone is the measure of our reach for others. If we are only affected in the head, we shall only affect them in the head. If our heart is reached, then God can use us to reach other hearts. If we have reached the kingdom of love, we can be used of God to help others into the kingdom. While it is true that public meetings have great central elements of power, it is also true that the exponent of power is correctly represented by the measure of home religion the children of God possess. Build, then, the family altar. Make a business of having more merchantable home religion. If it will win in the home life, it will win in the outside life.—Isaiah Reed.