unkenness, no
card-playing, but, oh! how little of true devotion is there! How few
families are there so conducted as to make it a matter of surprise that
any of the children of such households should turn out otherwise than
pious! How many that lead us greatly to wonder that any of the children
should turn out otherwise than irreligious! On the other hand, how
subduing and how melting are the fervent supplications of a godly and
consistent father, when his voice, tremulous with emotion, is giving
utterance to the desires of his heart to the God of heaven for the
children bending around him! Is there, out of heaven, a sight more
deeply interesting than a family, gathered at morning or evening prayer,
where the worship is what it ought to be?"

It is hardly to be supposed that any pious heads, or pious members, of
American households, are in doubt whether family worship be a duty. We
are rather to take it for granted, as a duty universally acknowledged
among Christians, nature itself serving to suggest and teach it, and the
word of God abundantly confirming and enforcing it, both by precept and
example. God himself being the author and constitutor of the family
relation, it is but a dictate of reason that He should be owned and
acknowledged as such, "who setteth the children of men in families like
a flock, who hath strengthened the bars of thy gates, and hath blessed
thy children within thee." Of whom it is said, "Lo, children are an
heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward."

It is this great Family-God, whose solemn charges, by his servant Moses,
are as binding upon Christian families now as of old upon the children
of Israel--Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with
all thy soul, and with all thy might: and these words which I command
thee this day shall be in thy heart: and thou shalt teach them
diligently unto thy children, and thou shalt talk of them when thou
sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou
liest down and when thou risest up.

This is God's command, and He will hold every parent responsible for the
religious instruction of his or her children. In such an education for
God, which is the duty of the parent and the right of the child, the
habit of family worship constitutes an essential part. Nothing can make
up for the want of this. Neither the best of preaching and instruction
in the sanctuary or Sabbath-school, nor the finest educ