p. 139 | No Family Altar by Editor

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 18, 1858

No Family Altar.

By Editor

We saw the statement in a religious paper, that in many professedly pious families there is no family altar—that parents and children, brothers and sisters do not habitually kneel together, and seek God's blessing upon them as a household. This statement haunted us. We thought we saw a house in the wilderness, in mid-winter, with no smoke curling from its chimney, with no cheerful blaze upon its hearth-stone, with fierce blasts driving in through hundreds of crevices, and a family sitting together benumbed, and just ready to perish! They have ceased to realize the danger—in a dreaming, half-conscious state, they are gliding into the arms of death. What a picture! But sadder is the spiritual condition of a home where the fires of devotion are not kept burning; where the young are not taught, by parental example, their daily dependence on God, and their need of his pardoning grace.