The Family Altar is Broken Down.
I have often heard this confession from returning backsliders. O how it has thrilled through my inmost soul! I want to say a few words to those who have suffered the family altar to fall. The family altar is broken down. And your unconverted children are going down to irremediable woe. The blessed influences of a father's and mother's prayers accompany them not, as they go out into the world, and mingle with its bustle and strife. Vice allures them; they yield to the voice of the charmer, and frequently are lost forever. Your prayers might have saved them, but they heard them not. The family altar is broken down. And that daughter of yours, young and intelligent and who, if converted, would be a bright and shining light, has been mourning in secret places for months. But she has kept back in consequence of your neglect. That son, too, has been saying in his heart, "O could I but hear father pray as he used to do, how easy it would be for me to bow and give myself to God." That son, if converted, would do immense good. Yet you are standing in the way. You do not go in yourself, but you do hinder him. Again, if you constantly bow before God at the family altar, it may be like seed sown on good ground, even when the grass grows green over the place of your rest. A godly, praying father and mother died, leaving unconverted children. Perhaps the children did not remember when the family altar was reared. Perhaps they had never known the parents to neglect it. Sadly, silently and tearfully they gathered around the hearth-stone, after having committed the remaining parent to the dust. The hour for family prayer arrived. The brothers and sisters looked upon each other. All were thinking of the same thing. At length one broke the silence—"Shall the family altar now be broken down?" "No, no!" They loved that family altar. As the fruits of it, they were led to rejoice in the wonderful salvation of God. The family altar is broken down. And you are having an exceeding deleterious influence upon the companion of your bosom. Do you love that tender wife? If she is a Christian, you are marring her peace. If she is not, I fear she never will be, with so poor an example of the life and power of religion constantly before her eyes. The family altar is broken down. And your own soul is in imminent danger. I dare not hope that you attend to any public or private Christian duties. I fear you are a stranger in your closet—that you do not often attend the prayer-meeting—that your voice is not heard telling of the pure, sweet—yes, ecstatic—joys to be found in Christ and nowhere else. I fear you have no religion. Think of the length of eternity. Think of the miseries of the damned. Think of the joys of the redeemed, and O man! for whom Christ died, for whom such a salvation was prepared at such a cost, repent before God, giving no sleep to your eyes or slumber to your eyelids till you have built up again that family altar, never to be broken down until you shall be called to join in the joyful hosannas of saints in a world of glory.—Sel.