"What could a mother's prayer,
In all the wildest ecstacy of hope,
Ask for her darling like the bliss of heaven?"

Many seek by the most frivolous excuses, to justify their neglect of family
prayer. Some will urge the press of other duties, alleging that other
engagements prevent it. This is false. God lays upon you no engagement that
is designed to supersede the necessity of prayer. Besides, you will find
that you really waste more time than it would require for family devotion.
And further, can you spend your time to better purpose than in family
prayer? I think not. It is the best husbandry of time. Says Philip Henry to
his children, "Prayer and provender hinder no man's journey." But another
pleads incapacity. He has not the gift of speech, and cannot make an
eloquent prayer. This is no excuse. Prayer is the gift of the Holy Spirit;
and if you have the spirit of prayer, you will find words for its
utterance. Besides, eloquence does not condition the efficacy of prayer.
Where there is a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath,
and not according to that he hath not.

"When we of helps or hopes are quite bereaven,
Our humble prayers have entrance into heaven."

We have the capacity to ask for what we earnestly desire and feel the need
of. The anger of God will kindle against you for this excuse, as it kindled
against Moses for a similar one. When He called him to be his messenger to
Israel, Moses said, as you do, "O my Lord, I am not eloquent,--I am slow of
speech, and of a slow tongue. And the Lord said unto him, who hath made
man's mouth? or, who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind?
Have not I the Lord? The anger of the Lord was kindled against him."

Let me, therefore, urge upon you, Christian parents, to make prayer a
prominent element of your home. You should be a priest unto your family,--a
leader in home-communion with God. Your children have a right to expect
this from you. If you are a church member, how strange and startling must
be the enunciation in heaven, that you are a prayerless Christian, and your
home destitute of the altar! And do you think that, continuing thus, you
will be admitted into that heavenly home where there is one unbroken voice
of prayer and praise to God? Do you not tremble at the prospect of those
tremendous denunciations which the Lord has uttered against those who
neglect and abuse the privilege of prayer? "Pour out thy fury upon th