The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1882-04-06
BRAVE IN RELIGION.
Tenderness and Sublimity in
Family Worship.
Sermon Preached in Brooklyn Tabernacle
on Sunday, March 26, 1882, by
Rev. 7. Dewitt Talmage.
srBJEcr:-"rHE OLD HOMESTEAD"

military character, ana your Time Will
be taken up with affairs connected with
the army. You are a statesman, and
YOUR time will be taken up with public
affairs You are the Washington, the
Wellington, the MacMahOn of the lsrae-
litish host. You will have great many
questions to settle. You will have no
time for religion. But Joshua, with the
same voice with which he commanded
the sun and moon tu halt and stack arms
of light on the parade ground OF the
heavens, saws: "As for me and my house,
we Will serve the Lord" Before we
adopt the resolution of this old soldier
we want to be certain it is a wise resO-
luton. If religion is going to put my
piano out of tune, and clog the feet of
the children racing through the hall,
and sour the bread and put Grape on the
dOOr-bell | do not want 1t In my mouse.
once gave Sc to hear jenny Lind war
BILE. | have never given cent to hear
anyone grOan viii this religion spoken
of i'm my text do anything for the dining
hall. the nursery, for the parlOr, for the
sleeping apartment? 1t is a great deal
easier to invite a disagreeable guest
than to get rid of him. IL you do not
want religion YOU had better not ask it
to come, for after coming it may stay
great while, Isaac Watts went to visit
Sir Thomas and Lady Abney at their
week, and stayed thiTty-fve years; and
if religion once gets into your house
hold the probability is it will stay there
forever. Now, the question | want this
morning to discuss is, What Will religion
do for the household?
Question the first: What did it do for
YOUR fathers house if you were brought
up in q Christian home? That whole
scene has vanished. but it comes back
to-day. The hour for morning prayers
came You were invited in. Some what
fdgetv, YOU sat and listened. Your
father made no pTetensiOns to rhetorical
reading. and he just went through the
chapter in q plain, straightforward way
Then Won all knelt ii was about the
same PRAYER morning by morning and
night by night. for he had the same sins
to ask pardon for, and he had the same
blessings for which To bc grateful day
after dav and year after year. The
PRAYER was longer than you would like
to have had it, for the game Of ball was
wat y. or the skates WeTa lying under
the shed. or the school books needed one
or two more looking at the lessons.
YOUr parents. somewhat rheumatic and
stitfeued with age. found 1T difficult To
rise from their kneeling. The chair al
which they kuelt Is gone; the Bible out
of which they read has perhaps fallen iU
scattered north, east, south and west, but
that whole scene flashes upon your
memory to-day. Was that morning and
evening exercise in your fathers house
debasing or elpyating? Is it not among
the most sacred "reminiscences You
were not as devotional as some Of the
older members of your fathers house
who were knepiing with you at the time,
and vOu did not bow your head as closely
-..H y a ~ u
you saw Just the posture your father
and mother assumed while they were
kneeling on the floor. The whole scene
is so photographed on your memory that
if you were an artist you could draw il
now just as they knelt.
For how much would you have that
scene Obliterated from your memOryY
1t all comes back to-day, and you are in
the homestead again. Father is there,
mother is there, all Of your children are
there. 1t is the same old prayer, OPEN
ing with the same petition, closing with
the same Thanksgiving. The family
prayers of 1880, 1910 and 1850 are as
fresh in your memory as though they
were uttered yesterday, The tear that
starts from your eye melts all that
scene. Gone! is it? Why, many time
it has held you steady in the struggles
of life. You once started for a place,
you could not enter. The broken prayer
of your father has had more effect upon
you than all you ever read in Shakspere
and Milton, and TennysOn, and Dante.
You have gone over mountains, and
across seas. You never for moment
got out of sight of that domestic altar.
o, my friends, is it your opinion this
morning that the ten or fifteen minutes
subtTacted from each day for family de-
70 NHrad n q Of n
time in your fathers household? l
think some of US are coming to the con-
clusiOn that the religion which was in
our fathers house would be a very ap
prOpriate religion for our homes. If
family prayers did not damage that
household there is no probability that
they will damage our household. "IS
God dead?" said child to her father. |
"NO," he replied, why do you ask that?"
Well" she said, "when mother was liv- |
ing we used to have prayers, but since |
her death we haven't had family prayers, |
and didn't know but that God was dead !
too"
family that is launched in the morn |
ing with family prayers is well launched. |
Breakfast over, the family scatter, some
TO school, some to household duties, some
to business. During the day there will
be a thousand perils abrOad-perils of
the street-car, of the scaffOlding, of the
ungOverned horse, of the misstep, of the
aroused temper, of multitudinOus temp
tatiOns to do wrong. Somewhere be-
tween seven o'clock in the morning and
ten o'clock at night there may be mo-
ment when you will be in urgent need
of God. Beside that, family prayers will
be a secular advantage. father went
into the war to serve his country. His
children stayed and cultivated his farm |
His wife prayed. One Of the sons said
afterwaTd: "Father is fighting, and we
are digging, and mother is praying"
"Ahp said some one, praying and dig |
ging and fighting will bring us out of
our national troubles" We may pray
in the morning, GIVE me this day my
daily bread" and sit down in idIeness
and starve to death; but prayer and hard
work will give a livelihood to any fami-
ly. Family religion pays for both
worlds. Let usA have an altar in each
one Of our households. You may not he
able to formulate a prayer. Then there
are Philip Henry's prayers, and there
are Macduf's prayers, and there are
Philip DOdTidge's prayers, and there are
the Episcopal Church prayers and there |
are scores of books with suppIications |
Just suited to the domestic circle.