Thou that dost my life prolong The night shall hear me raise my song Thou, Lord, through every changing scene To praise the ever bounteous Lord That once lov'd form now cold and dead The grave is now a favour'd spot The time is short! Sinners beware W 260 279 279 284 288 292 298 Thee we adore, eternal Name There is a land of pure delight We lift our hearts to thee Welcome sweet day of rest Welcome delightful morn When on the third auspicious day Preliminary Essay on Family Prayer. TO PARENTS: I WISH, in this Preliminary Essay, to make a candid appeal to parents on the duty of family prayer. In doing this, I shall assume but one thing as a conceded point-a thing which may commonly, at least, be assumed without danger of error. It is, that you feel a deep interest in the welfare of your children; and are willing to make use of any proper means to promote their happiness. This point I assume, because the God of nature has so constituted us, that as a great universal rule parents will love their children; and because no small part of their exertions are called forth with express, and almost sole reference to their present and future bliss. You who are parents, will instantly run over in your minds, many most tender and affecting scenes of watchfulness, care, anxiety, sleeplessness, and toil, to provide for their wants, alleviate their pains, defend them from danger, and train them for future respectability and happiness. The tenderest emotions in your bosoms now, relate to them. Your deepest interest is to see them virtuous, amiable, happy. You would run to their relief in danger, and deny yourself of ease to alleviate their pains in sickness. Your brightest visions of future bliss in this world are connected with their welfare. The loveliest view in the future, is when they stand forth, pure and happy, in bold relief,-single, or B in lovely groups. The chief solace in the prospect of your future trials; in the anticipated days of feebleness and pain, and in the imbecility and weariness of advancing age; is that a son will live to bless you by his toil, or to cheer your last days by his virtues; or that a daughter, lovely and tender, shall come around your bed, and mingle her tears with yours, and catch your last breath, and with a gentle hand close your eyes as you sink into the long sleep of death. I wish to show you that family prayer will be one of the most important helps in meeting your wishes in regard to your children. And in doing this, I invite your attention, in the 1st place, to the design of the family organization. God might have fitted up a world of independent individuals, bound by no common sympathies; cheered by no common joys; impelled by no common wants. All that is tender in parental and filial affection; all that is mild, bland, peaceful in love; and all that is sympathetic in sorrow, and in joy; might have been denied us. Solitary beings, we might have wept alone, rejoiced alone, thought alone, died alone. The sun might have shed his beams around our lonely rambles, and not a mortal have felt an interest in our bliss or wo. Man might have lived unbenefited by the experience of his ancestors; and with none to shed a tear around the bed of moss on which he would recline in disease, and where unwept he would die. But this is not the way which he has chosen. He has made the race one great brotherhood-and we feel some interest at least, in the obscurest man that seeks a shelter beneath a rock, or that finds a home in a tent, or in a cave. am a man, and I regard nothing pertaining to man as unimportant to me"-was the language of an ancient dramatist, and a heathen theatre rang with plaudits at the noble sentiment. This great brotherhood God has broken up into communities of nations, and clans, and tribes, and families, and neighbourhoods; each with its own set of sympathies; with peculiar interests; with peculiar resources. One design is, to divide our sorrows by sympathetic emotions. Another, to double our joys by imparting them to others who sympathize with us. Sorrow hath not half its pangs when you can mingle your tears with those of a friend; and joy has not diffused half its blessings until your joy has lighted up the countenance of a father, or touched the sympathies of a brother or a sister. This organization will be seen at once to be eminently adapted to religion. On no subject have we so many sympathies as in the great business pertaining to our eternal welfare. I look on a family circle. What tender feelings! what mutual love! what common joys! what united sorrows! The blow that strikes one member, reaches all. The joy that lights up one countenance, diffuses its blessings over all. Together they bend over a sick member; together they rejoice at his recovery; or together they bow their heads and weep, and go sad to his grave. They are plunged into the same apostacy. They are together under the fearful visitations of that malady which has travelled down from Paradise lost. They are going to a common tomb; and over the circle shines the same sunbeams of hope; and the same balm of Gilead, and the same great Physician may diffuse health, peace and salvation there. Cheered with the hopes of the same immortality, they may travel to the tomb; and the joy in religion that beams from a father's eye, may be reflected from the happy faces of beloved sons and daughters. The whole organization |