THE PASSING OF FAMILY PRAYERS.
THERE are probably few of our readers of mature years who were not accustomed in their youth to the observance of family prayers in their homes, and, altho as children they may sometimes have found the custom irksome and have failed to derive much good from it, yet in later years they have recognized its great significance and the fitness of the act in which the head of the household commended himself and his family to the divine protection each day, with grateful acknowledgment of the mercies already received. The recollection of those devotions is often one of the sweetest memories of our youth and of the home that no longer exists. Since so many persons feel this and are fully convinced of the propriety of having family prayers, it may well be asked how it is that the custom is so rapidly falling into disuse. And one of the true reasons, if people would but confess it, is found in the fact that the children object to it, and that parents have grown so weak and have so little authority in their homes that they yield to these objections against their better impulses and convictions.—Charleston (S. C.) News and Courier.