Connecticut western news., 1893-03-23
TALMAGE IN CHICAGO
RE PREPARES A SERMON ON RELIGION
 THE FAMILY.

RE PREPARES A sERMONON RELIGION
 IN THE FAMILY.
 An Other Early Inluences-The Prayers
 of . Pious Grandmother Anected All Her
 Curious Circumstance.
 CHICAGO, March 19.--Rev. Dr. Tal- mage, who is now in this city on a brief vist, did not preach today. He prepared for the press. however, the following discourse on Religion at Home," the text selected being Joshua xxiv, l5. "As for me and my house. we will serve the Lord"
 Absurd, Joshuai You will have no time for family religion; you are a mill tary character, and your time will be taken up with affairs connected with the army; you are statesman, and your time will be taken up with public affairs; you are the Washington, the Yelling ton, the McMahon of the Israelitish 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 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. If religion is goingt to put my piano out of tune, and clog the feet of the children racing through the hall, and sour the bread, and put crape on the doorbell. do not want it in my house. once gave $8 to hear Jenny Lind warble. I have never given cent to hear any one groan. Will this religion spoken of in my text do anything for tho dining hall. for the nursery, for the par Tor, for the sleeping apartment?
 It is 8 great deal easier to invite dis agreeable guest than to get rid of him. H you do not want religion, you had bet ter not ask it to come, for after coming t may stay great while. Isaac Watts went to visit St. Thomas and Lady Alb ney ct their place in Theobald and was to stay . week and staid 85 years, and if religion once gets into your household tho probability is 1t will stay there for ever.
 Now, the question want to discuss is, What will religion do for the household? t Question the first: What did it do for your fathers house if you were brought ID in Christian homer
 THE FATHERS PRAYER.
 That whole scene has vanished, but it comes back today. The hour for morn ing prayers came. You were invited in. Somewhat fdgety, you sat and listened. Your father made no pretention to rhe- toGical reading, and he just went through tho chapter in plain, straightforward way. Then you all knelt. It was about . ths 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 be grateful day after day and year after year.
 Tho prayer was longer than you would kks to have had it, for the game at ball was waiting. or the skates were lying under the shed, or the schoolbooks need ; cd one or two more looking at the les sons. Your parents, somewhat rheumat- 10 and stiffened with age, found it difA- cult to rise from their kneeling. The chair It which they knelt is gone, the Bi- ble out of which they read has perhaps fallen to pieces, the parents are gone, the children scattered north, east, south and west. but that whole scene flashes upon your memory today.
 Was that morning and evening exer- cise in your fathers house debasing or elevatingl Is 1t not among the most sa- cred "reminiscences? You were not as de- ~p<<3ov~a1 o<,n,no op tho <1Iox ,,,ox,, 1>o,.o of your fathers house who were kneel- ing with you at the time, and you did not bow your head as closely as they did, and yon looked around and you saw just the posture your father and mother as- stunned while they were kneeling on the floor. The whole scene is 30 photo graphed on your memory that if you were m artist you could draw it now just a they knelt.
 For how much would you have that scene obliterated from your memory? It Ill comes back today. and you are in the homestead again. Father is there, moth CT is there, all of you children are there. It is the same old prayer, opening with tho same petition, closing with the same thanksgiving. The family prayers of
 
 though they were uttered yesterday. The tear that starts from your eye melts Ill that scene. Gone, isi it? Why, many time it has held you steady in the strug- gles of hfe You once started for place, and that memory jerked you back. and you could not enter.
 The broken prayer of your father has had more effect on you than all you ever read in Shakespeare and Milton and Ten nyson and Dante. You have gone over mountains and across seas. You never for . moment got out of sight of that domsstic altar. Oh, my friends, is it your opinion this morning that the 10 or 15 V minutes subtracted from each day for family devotion was an economy or a waste of time in your fathers house hold7 think some of us are coming to the conclusion that the religion which was in our fathers house would be very appropriate religion for our homes. If family prayers did not damage that household, there is no probability that they will damage our household.
 DO NOT LET MOTHERS RELIGION GO.
 "Is God deadY' said 8 child to her ia ther. s..No." he replied. "Why do you ,ask thaty Well" she said, when mother was living, we used to have prayers, but since her death we haven't had family prayers, and l didn't know but that God was dead too" A family that is launched in the morning with family prayers is well launched. Break fast over, the family scatter, some to school, some to household duties, some to business. During the day there will be 8 thousand perils abroad-perils of the street car, of the scaffolding, of the un- governed horse, of the misstep. of the aroused temper, of multitudinous temp tations to do wrong.
 Somewhere between o'clock in the morning and 10 o'clock at night there may be 8 moment when you will be in urgent need of God. Besides that, family