FAMILY PRAYER by Christian Work

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 16, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 33.

FAMILY PRAYER.

By Christian Work

FAMILY prayer exerts a silently subduing and refining power over the house. It calms the mind. It stops the currents of secularity. It brings into the mind great and holy thoughts. It connects daily life with heaven. It sends out over the day a restraining influence. Kitchen and school work will move a little more smoothly. Sin will seem more sinful. There will be a firmer safeguard against temptation. The family that does not open the day with prayer must lose power.

Family prayer supplies parental opportunity. By it the foundations of doctrine may be laid, reproofs administered, divine authority recognized, dangers apprehended and avoided. It is much easier to govern a family of children where parents and children habitually invoke God's blessing.

Family prayer, especially where there are very young children, or worldly-minded young people, need not be objectionably protracted. A minute is, after all, quite a long time. How much Scripture one can read in one minute! How many things one can ask for in a prayer one minute long!

Let us have the fixed order. Never omit it. Before breakfast or after breakfast; fix the time, and daily mark it. Sit down deliberately. Avoid all signs of haste. Read carefully a few verses—five, ten, or more. Kneel for prayer. Then pray. Pray for something definite. Pray briefly, but in a calm, reverent and leisurely manner. Open the home, and the hearts that are in it, to the heavens. Do this daily. Let nothing prevent. The reward will come.—Christian Work.