The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1893-03-22
A FAMILY RELIGION.
WHAT CHRISTIANITY DOES FOR THE
HOME CIRCLE.

Or. Taimage at Chicago Prepares Sermon
For the Press-The Mothers of Great
ness-The Resolve of JOshua-NO One
Too Busy For Prayers.
CHICAGO, March 19.-Rev. DR.. Talmage,
who is now in this city on a brief visit, did
not preach today. He prepared for the
press, however, the following discourse on
Religion at Home" the text selected be
ing Joshua xiv, II, AS for me and my
house, we viii serve the Lord"
Absurd, Joshual You will have no time
for family religion. You are a military
character, and 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 Wash
ington, the Wellington. the Mcmahon OF
the Israelitish host; you will have a great
many questions TO settle: you will have no
time for religion. But Joshua, with the
same voice with which ne commanded the
sun and moon to halt and stack arms of
light on the parade ground of the heavens,
says, "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 wise
resolution. II 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 dOOrbell,
do not want it in my house l once gave
s. to hear Jenny Lind MARBLE have never
given cent 10 hear any one groan. Will
this religion spoken Of in my text do any
thing for the dining hall for the nursery
for the parlor for the sleeping apartment?
1t is a great deal easier TO invite a dis
agreeable guest than 10 get rid of him. II
you do not want religion you had better rot
ask il to come. for after coming it may stay
q great while Isaac Watts went to visit
Sir Thomas and Lady Abney at their place
in Theobald and was to stay week and
staid 81 years, and if religion once gets into
your household the probability is it will
stay there forever
THE FAMILY ALTAR.
Now, the question | want to discuss is:
What viii religion do for the households
Question the first: What did it do for your
fathers house if you were brought up in a
Christian homer
That whole scene has vanished, but it
comes back today. The hour for morning
prayers came. You were invited in. Some
what fidgety, you sat and listened Your
father made no pretention Of rhetorical
reading, and he Just went through the chap
LGE III a pldlIs ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS WAY. lutu
you knelt. II was about the same prayer
morning by morning and night by night,
for be had the same sins to ask pardon for,
and he had the same blessings for which to
be grateful day after day and year after
year
The prayer was longer than you would
like to have had it, for the game at ball
was waiting or the skates were lying under
the shed. or the schoolbOoks needed one or
two more looking at the lessons. Your
parents, somewhat rheumatic and stiffened
with age. found il difficult to rise from
their kneeling. The chair at which they
knelt is gone, the Bible out of which they
read has perhaps fallen 20 pieces, the par
ents are gone, the children scattered north,
east, south and west, but that whole scene
flashes upon yOur memory today.
Was that morning and evening exercise
in your fathers house debasing or elevat-
ingi Is it not among the most sacred rem
iniscences? You were not as devotional as
some of the older members of your fathers
house who were kneeling with you at the
time, and you did not bow your head as
closely as they did, and you looked around,
and you saw Just the posture your father
and mother assumed while they were
l<neeling on the floor. The whole scene is
20 photographed on your memory that if
you were an artist you could draw it now
Just as they knelt.
For how much would you have that
scene obliterated from your memory? 1t
all comes back today, and YOU are in the
homestead again. Father is there, mother
Is there, all OF you children are there. 1t is
the same old prayer, opening with the same
petition. closing with the same thanksgiv-
ing The family prayers of 1910, 1850 as
fresh in your memory as though they were
uttered yesterday. The tear that starts
from your eye melts all that scene. Gone,
IS itp Why, many a time it has held you
steady in the struggle of life. You once
started for place, and that memory jerked
you back, and you could not eyer.
FARREACHING PRAYERS.
The broken prayer of your father has had
more effect upon you than all you ever read
in Shakespeare and Milton and Tennyson
and Dante. You have gone over mountains
and across seas You never for a moment
got out of sight of that domestic altar. Oh,
my friends. Is it your opinion this morning
that the 10 or Is minutes subtracted from
each day for family devotion was an econo-
my or waste of time in your fathers house
hold? | think some Of us are coming TO
the conclusion that the religion which was
in our fathers house would be very APP
pIOpTldIc religion lot our MONIES. II family
prayers did not damage that household,
there is no probability that they will dam
age our household.
rs God deads" said a child TO her father.
NO" he replied, why do you ask that?''
well" she said, when mother was living
we used to have prayers, but since her
death we haven't had family prayers, and
didn't know but that God was dead toOP'
A family that is launched in the morning
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 viii be
thousand perils abrOad-perils of the street
car, of the scatfolding, of the ungoverned
horse. of the misstep, of the aroused tenn
per, of multitudinOus temptations TO do
wrong.
Some time between O'Clock In the morn
ing and 10 o'clock at night there may be a
moment when you will be in urgent need Of
God. Besides that, family prayers will be
secular advantage A father went into the
war to serve his country. His children
staid and cultivated the farm. His wife
prayed. One Of the SONS said afterward:
=" Father is fighting, and we are digging,
and mOtheris prayingl" "Ah = said some
one, praying and digging and fighting
viii bring us out of our national troubles"
We may pray in the morning, Give US
this day our daily bread" and sit down In
idleness and starve to death, but prayer and
hard work will give livelihood to any
family. Family religion pays for both
worlds Let US have an altar in each one Of