Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1893-03-23

nesR-1hG AstsoiNS VI coshui--No Onc
Too Busy Tor Prayers.
CHICAGO, March l9.-Rev Dr. Talmage,
who is now in this city on brief visit, did
not preach today. He prepared for the
preas, however, tho following discourse on
hRsliCion at Home" the text selected be-
in3 Joshua XXiv, Is, "As for me and my
house, we will 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 Il statesman, and your time will bctnken
up with public affairs. Nou are the Wash
ington, the Wellington, the Mcmahon Of
the lsraelitish 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 he 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. | once gave
s. to hear Jenny Lind MARBLE have never
given cent to hear any one groan. VIII
this religion spoken of in my text do any
thing for the dining hall, for the nursery,
FOR the parlor, for the sleeping apartment?
it is q great deal easier to invite dis
agreeable guest than to get rid Of him. If
You do not want religion you had better rot
ask it to come, for after coming it may stay
great while. Isaac Watts went to visit
i I A Id.
in Theobad and was to stay n week and
staid 20 years, and if religion once gets into
your household the probability is it will
Gtay there forever
THE FAMILY ALTAR.
Now, the question | want 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
Christian homer
That whole scene has vanished but it
comes back today The hour for morning
prayers came You were invited in. Some
what fdgety, you sat and listened Your
father made no pretentiOn of rhetorical
reading, and be Just went through the chap
ter in q plain, straightforward way. Then
you kuelt. 1t 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
ae 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 it difficult to rise from
their kneeling The chair at which they
knelt is gone, the Bible out of which they
read has perhaps fallen to picr' HE par
ents are gone, the children So north,
east, south and west. but thai lie scene
flashes upon your memory today.
Was that morning and evening exercise
In your fathers house debasing or elevat-
ingY Is it not among the most sacred rem
iniscences' IOu 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
md you saw just the posture your father
and mother assumed while they were
Eneeling on the floor. The whole scene is
so 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 obliterHtod from your memoryf 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 youreye melts all that scene Gone,
is it2 Why, many a time it has held you
in hn .ft rfyla ,,fl "a Va,
started for place, and that memory Jerk ed
you back, and you could not enter.
TAEREACHING 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. on have gone over mountains
and across seas You never for a moment
got ont of sight of that domestic altar. Oh,
my friends, il it your opinion this morning
that the 10 or - minutes subtracted from
each day for family devotion was an econo-
my ora waste of time in your fathers house
hold2 | think some of us are coming to
the conclusion that the religion which was
in our fathers house would be very APP
prupriate religion for our homes If family
prayers did not damage that household
there is no probability that they will dam
age our household.
"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 too"
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 will be a
thousand perilS abroud-perils of the street
car, Of the scalIoldinG of the ungoverned
horse, Of the misstep, of the aroused TEN
per, Of muititudinous temptations TO do
wrong.
Some time between O'Clock in the morn
ing and 10 O'Clock at night there may be n
moment when you will be in urgent need Of
"od' heside' that, family prayers will be II
secular advantage a father went into the
war to serve his country. His children
Mald and cultivated the farm. His wife
prayed. one Of the SONS said afterwards
Father is fighting, and we are digging
and mothers praying' " All p said some