A Guide to Family Worship by Harold M. Robinson

August 3, 2021

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God is to be worshipped every where in spirit and in truth; as in private families daily, and in secret each one by himself (WCF 21.6; Mal. 1.11; Tim. 2.8, John 4.23-24; Matt. 6.11; Jer. 10.25; Deut. 6.6-7; Job 1.5; 2 Sam. 6.18, 20; 1 Pet. 3.7; Acts 10.2).

In 1923, Harold McAfee Robinson (1881-1939) published a helpful guide to family worship. It summarizes and give practical counsel regarding the three main features of worship in the family circle: the reading and study of the Holy Scriptures, prayer and song.

After providing reasons for the gathering of the family unit specifically to praise God, as well as summarizing leading principles that guide Biblical family worship — including such matters as focusing on the needs of the youngest children as well as older persons present, and what time of day to hold family worship — Robinson, in How to Conduct Family Worship, distinguishes the proper acts that constitute such a service.

The Cotter’s Saturday Night by William Kidd — *The Cotter’s Saturday Night* by William Kidd

What are the acts of family worship?
The acts of worship most appropriate to the family are the use of Scripture, prayer, and song. There are other acts of social worship, such as the sacraments and the bringing of offerings, which are not appropriate to the family. There are also other acts of worship which may be appropriate to the family, but these three acts are the most common and the most appropriate.

Regarding these three elements of family worship, Robinson devotes a chapter to each, which contains useful material to consider.

In the chapter on song, he encourages music in family worship, meaning hymns (he does not recommend the singing of psalms). Suggested material includes Louis F. Benson’s The Best Church Hymns.

Citing Robert M. M’Cheyne, who said, “You read your Bible regularly, of course; but do try to understand it, and still more to feel it. . . . Turn the Bible into prayer,” Robinson encourages families to read the Bible together in portions suitable to the abilities of the hearers, and to take what is read as seeds for prayer.

Finally, prayer is encouraged on the basis that the Word of God spoken to us should lead to a return of words spoken, sincerely, briefly and according to the needs and capacities of the family, back unto God. The matter of Scripture reading, the particular occasions which might call for particular prayers, and the general tenor of all family prayers are addressed.

There are several generally recognized elements in complete and orderly prayer. These are: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, petition, intercession, and submission.

There is much that is good in this handy little volume on family worship. Consider this manual as you and your family gather to praise God daily as we are commanded to do.

Sabbath Evenings with the Matthews Family

April 18, 2021

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W.D. Ralston spent time in his younger days teaching at country schools and one winter during the 1850s resided with a family which was then associated with the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (Ralston was then connected to the Associate Presbyterian Church). Both of these groups, which merged to form the United Presbyterian Church of North America in 1858, held to the practice of exclusive psalmody.

Ralston used this time with the Matthews Family to produce a manuscript describing their Sabbath evening discussions on the topic of psalmody which was published “over twenty years” later as Talks on Psalmody in the Matthews Family (1877). Many topics related to the issue of psalmody are covered in this fascinating volume, such as Christ in the Psalms, whether exclusive psalmody is warranted from Scripture, and the place of hymns. Presented in conversational style, the discussions that are recorded are a very close representation of those which actually occurred on Sabbath evenings in the Matthews Family.

However, this post is not so much about psalmody as it is about how Sabbath evenings were spent in general by a godly Christian family.

Ralston wrote of how their Sabbath evenings were spent, and how these conversations came about. In so doing, he highlighted an important aspect of Sabbath-keeping, which is the aim to keep the whole day holy (Ex. 20:8; WCF 21:8), including the evening hours after church services were over.

While a student, I taught several terms of public school in country districts. On the last day of October, 18—, I left my father’s house to take charge of a school some twenty miles distant. The family with whom I was to board were entire strangers. My parents were members of the Associate Presbyterian church, or the Seceder Churcher, as it was mostly called, while the family with whom I was to board belonged to the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. In the year 1858, these two bodies were united, and formed the United Presbyterian Church.
The winter I spent with that family was a pleasant and profitable one; and as I shall write of the persons composing the family, I will here describe them. The father, and mother, John, and Mary Matthews, were Americans by birth, and had received a good common education. The wife, before marriage, had taught school for several years. John Matthews had a remarkable memory. He seemed to remember all he read. He was not a great talker, but preferred to read, or listen to others; still when led into conversation, it was a pleasure to listen to him. He had a happy way of illustrating what he said, which was pleasing to the young. He would tell many stories and anecdotes to illustrate, and enforce what he said.
They had three children, — John thirteen, Mary twelve, and Willie nine. For their age, the children were well-informed, both in regard to religious truths, and general knowledge. When I saw how perseveringly the parents labored for their improvement, I felt they could not be otherwise.
They seldom had preaching on Sabbath-night in their church, and therefore they devoted the entire evening to the study of the Scriptures at home. Their evening work was attended to early, and as soon as the candles were lighted, their study of the Scriptures commenced. The teacher was the mother, not because she excelled her husband in knowledge, but because her teaching school had better prepared her for imparting instruction.
The first exercise was the Catechism, which all knew; but still, half of it was asked each Sabbath-evening, to keep it fresh in their memories. After that, they took up some subject previously selected. The first Sabbath-evening I was there, the subject was Zaccheus the publican; on the second, it was the destruction of Jerico. Mr. Matthews sat listening, occasionally adding a word or two, and at the close related one or more interesting stories bearing upon the object for the evening, and then the exercises were closed with the usual evening worship.

Ralston writes that one evening Mr. Matthews was led to engage in a discussion of Psalmody with a neighbor who thought hymns were to be preferred over Psalms in worship. This debate occasioned a series of family discussions related to various aspects of Psalmody which were held over many Sabbath evenings. It was while these conversations were ongoing that Ralston himself took out a notebook and jotted down notes about what was discussed. Later, at Mr. Matthews’ request, and with the childrens’ assistance, entire conversations were written down nearly verbatim, with the intent that their discussions, and Mr. Matthews’ illustrations, which were so profitable to the family, could be shared with others. It was Mr. Matthews’ wish that the manuscript which resulted from those notes be published to aid families and children in better understanding why they believed as they did with respect to Psalmody, which he viewed as a legacy bequeathed to the church at the end of his life.

Many families are weary at the end of the day, even (or especially) a Sabbath day. But there can be great fruit in the time well-spent that makes up a Sabbath evening. There is perhaps no better time to impart Biblical truth to the children, or to encourage one another, then when sweet “market day of the soul” is nearing the end, and the family is together for the purpose of worship and mutual edification. The Matthews Family experience, as recorded by Ralston, is a fascinating testimony to this precious truth.

The Almond Tree in Blossom: A Tribute to the Godly Father of T. De Witt Talmage

February 22, 2021

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Thomas De Witt Talmage — “the American Spurgeon,” one of the most famous preachers in American history — was the youngest son of David T. and Catherine “Catey” Van Nest Talmage. Born in New Jersey, where his father would serve in the state legislature, the son was raised in the Reformed Church (David served as a deacon in the First Church of Raritan), and that is where Thomas began his ministry before being called to serve in the Presbyterian Church.

Engraving of the 1833 Leonid Meteor Shower by Adolf Vollmy (1889), based on the painting by Karl Jauslin.

Thomas once gave an account of his father’s experience traveling between work and home of an event that astronomers still talk about today. The horse that David Talmage was riding was named “Star.”

My father was on the turnpike road between Trenton and Bound Brook, coming through the night from Trenton, where he was serving the State, to his home, where there was sickness. I have often heard him tell about it. It was the night of the 12th and the morning of the 13th of November, 1833. The sky was cloudless and the air clear. Suddenly the heavens became a scene never to be forgotten. From the constellation Leo meteors began to shoot out in all directions. For the two hours between four and six in the morning it was estimated that a thousand meteors a minute flashed and expired. It grew lighter than noon-day. Through the upper air shot arrows of fire! Balls of fire! Trails of fire! Showers of fire! Some the appearances were larger than the full moon. All around the heavens explosion followed explosion. Sounds as well as sights! The air filled with an uproar. All the luminaries of the sky seemed to have received marching orders. The ether was ribbed and interlaced and garlanded with meteoric display. From horizon to horizon everything was in combustion and conflagration. The spectacle ceased not until the rising sun of the November morning eclipsed it, and the whole American nation sat down exhausted with the agitations of a night to be memorable until the earth itself shall become a falling star. The Bible closes with such a scene of falling lights — not only fidgety meteors, but grave old stars. St. John saw it in prospect and wrote: ‘The stars of heaven fell unto the earth even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind.’ What a time there will be when worlds drop! Rain of planets! Gravitation letting loose her grip on worlds! Constellations falling apart and galaxies dissolved!

David Talmage also served as sheriff, and worked to promote education in New Jersey. He lived a long and fruitful life (1783-1865). When he died, Thomas delivered a commemorative sermon titled “The Beauty of Old Age,” based on Ecclesiastes 12:5: “The almond tree shall flourish.”

Thomas spoke of how his father shined so brightly even in old age. Even as the almond tree blossoming is a picture of the same.

Finally, I notice that in my father’s old age was to be seen the beauty of Christian activity.
He had not retired from the field. He had been busy so long, you could not expect him idle now. The faith I have described was not an idle expectation that sits with its hands in its pocket idly waiting, but a feeling which gather up all the resources of the soul, and hurls them upon one grand design. He was among the first who toiled in Sabbath-schools and never failed to speak praise of these institutions. No storm or darkness ever kept him away from prayer-meeting. In the neighbourhood where he lived, for years he held a devotional meeting. Oftentimes the only praying-man present before a handful of attendants, he would give out the hymn, read the lines, conduct the music, and pray. Then read the Scriptures and pray again. Then lead forth in the Doxology with an enthusiasm as if there were a thousand people present, and all the Church members had been doing their duty. He went forth visiting the sick, burying the dead, collecting alms for the poor, inviting the ministers of religion to his household, in which there was, as in the house of Shunem, a little room over the wall, with bed and candlestick for any passing Elisha. He never shuddered at the sight of a subscription-paper, and not a single great cause of benevolence has arisen within the last half-century which he did not bless with his beneficence. Oh! this was not a barren almond-tree that blossomed. His charity was not like the bursting of the bud of a famous tree in the South, that fills the whole forest with its racket, nor was it a clumsy thing, like the fruit in some tropical clime, that crashes down, almost knocking the life out of those who gather it, for in his case the right hand knew not what the left hand did. The churches of God, in whose service he toiled, have arisen as one man to declare his faithfulness and to mourn their loss. He stood in the front of the holy war, and the courage which never trembled or winced in the presence of temporal danger induced him to dare all things for God. In church matters he was not afraid to be shot at. Ordained, not by the laying on of human hands, but by the imposition of a Saviour’s love, he preached by his life, in official position, and legislative hall, and commercial circles, a practical Christianity. He showed that there was a such a thing as honesty in politics. He slandered no party, stuffed no ballot-box, forged no naturalization papers, intoxicated no voters, told no lies, surrendered no principle, countenanced no demagogueism. He called things by their rightful names; and what others styled prevarication, exaggeration, misstatement, or hyperbole, he called a lie. Though he was far from being undecided in his views, and never professed neutrality, or had any consort with those miserable men who boast how well they can walk on both sides of a dividing-line and be on neither, yet even in the excitements of election canvass, when his name was hotly discussed in public journals, I do not think his integrity was ever assaulted. Started every morning with a chapter of the Bible, and his whole family around him on their knees, he forgot not, in the excitement of the world, that he had a God to serve and a heaven to win. The morning prayer came up on one side of the day, and the evening prayer on the other side, and joined each other in an arch above his head, under the shadow of which he walked all the day. The Sabbath worship extended into Monday’s conversation, and Tuesday’s bargain, and Wednesday’s mirthfulness, and Thursday’s controversy, and Friday’s sociality, and Saturday’s calculation.
Through how many thrilling scenes he had passed! He stood, at Morristown, in the choir that chanted when George Washington was buried; talked with young men whose grandfathers he had held on his knee; watched the progress of John Adam’s administration; denounced, at the time, Aaron Burr’s infamy; heard the guns that celebrated the New Orlean’s victory; voted against Jackson, but lived long enough to wish we had one just like him; remembered when the first steamer struck the North River with its wheel buckets; flushed with excitement in the time of National Banks and Sub-Treasury; was startled at the birth of telegraphy; saw the United States grow from a speck on the world’s map, till all nations dip their flag at our passing merchantmen, and our “national airs” have been heard on the steeps of the Himalayas; was born while the revolutionary cannon were coming home from Yorktown, and lived to hear the tramp of troops returning from the war of the great Rebellion; lived to speak the names of eighty children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Nearly all his contemporaries gone! Aged Wilberforce said that sailors drink to “friends astern” until half way over sea, and then drink to “friends ahead.” With him it had for a long time been “friends ahead.” So also with my father. Long and varied pilgrimage! Nothing but sovereign grace could have kept him true, earnest, useful and Christian through so many exciting scenes.
He worked unweariedly from the sunrise of youth to the sunset of old age, and then in the sweet nightfall of death, lighted by the starry promises, went home, taking his sheaves with him. Mounting from earthly to heavenly service, I doubt not there were a great multitude that thronged heaven’s gate to hail him into the skies — those whose sorrows he has appeased, whose burdens he had lifted, whose guilty souls he had pointed to a pardoning God, whose dying moments he had cheered, whose ascending spirits he had helped up on the wings of sacred music. I should like to have heard that long, loud, triumphant shout, of heaven’s welcome. I think that the harps throbbed with another thrill, and the hills quaked with a mightier hallelujah. Hall, ransomed soul! thy race run — thy toil ended. Hail to the coronation!

Like an almond tree in blossom — which does so in winter, as Thomas notes (see “The Almond-Tree in Blossom” in his 1872 Sermons) — David Talmage served God well in old age, and the tribute that his son left for him is an encouragement to others, young and old, that one can hold on the starry promises, and shine all the brighter, not only in the noon-day of life, but also towards the end our days, even in the darkest of nights.

A tearful missionary's farewell: J.B. Adger

January 3, 2021

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At one point in the movie Mary Poppins (1964), Bert asks Michael and Jane,

Look at it this way. You've got your mother to look after you. And Mary Poppins, and Constable Jones and me. Who looks after your father? Tell me that. When something terrible happens, what does he do? Fends for himself, he does. Who does he tell about it? No one! Don't blab his troubles at home. He just pushes on at his job, uncomplaining and alone and silent.

When John Bailey Adger prepared to depart on his missionary journey to from South Carolina to Smyrna (now known as Izmir, Turkey) in 1834, he wrote a farewell letter to his brethren at home. The scene of his departure was especially touching, as recounted in Adger’s autobiography, My Life and Times, because of his concern for his father.

The time drew nigh for my ordination, and in the Second Presbyterian church I was solemnly set apart by the Charleston Union Presbytery to the work of foreign missions. An immense audience gathered to witness the laying on of the Presbytery's hands. Before setting out I wrote and published a farewell letter to my friends throughout the State, giving them my reasons for the step I was taking. It was a day of weeping when my wife and I parted from her relatives and mine. My father accompanied us to New York and Boston. So did my brother James. The little brig that was to carry us to Smyrna was not quite ready to sail. We had also some purchases for our outfit to make in Boston. Having no occupation whilst we were making our purchases, the time hung heavy on my father's hands. I saw that he was much distressed at the prospect of separation, and at last I begged him to leave us. He started home early the next morning by stage. I went down with him and saw him in the stage, and my brother James subsequently informed me that, as they started off, my father laid his hands on the back of the seat before him, and bowed his head upon his hands and wept audibly and profusely. As for me, that was the bitterest hour of my life — up to that period. I had left my mother with my father to take care of her; but the thought that oppressed me was, who was I leaving behind me to take care of my father?

When we pray for missionaries, let us not only remember their families on the mission field, but also their families at home. There is a chain of relationships that are all connected, and all have their parts, and all merit our prayers — for the sake of the gospel. Pray for missionaries, and for their families at home and abroad. A father’s heart for his missionary son (and the son’s for the father) ought to spur to pray for the whole family as well as the whole work of missions.

A Father's Wish: Samuel Brown in The Captives of Abb's Valley

November 18, 2020

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There is a beautiful testimony by a son, who recorded the words of his father, found near the end of The Captives of Abb’s Valley (1854). The Rev. James Moore Brown overheard his father, Rev. Samuel Brown, once say to another:

I have no wish that my children should be wealthy, or rise to places of worldly distinction; but it is the ever anxious desire of my heart that they shall be pious, and consecrate themselves to God’s service, and I daily feel that I can trust him to provide for them.

These are the words of a godly father, and godliness was indeed a characteristic of the whole family, including the mother as well, Mrs. Mary Moore Brown, who plays a major role in this classic book. It is a book has been republished recently with annotations by Rev. Dennis E. Bills, which is available at our Secondary Sources page.

May these 19th century words by a Presbyterian minister echo today in new generations of Christian families.

Out of the closet grows the temple: William Aikman on family religion

May 23, 2020

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In 1870, the Rev. William Aikman published a volume titled Life at Home: or, The Family and Its Members — with the aim “to bring, if possible, the blessed light of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ into the family circle” — which includes a chapter on “The Altar in the House,” from which today’s post is drawn.

Here Aikman speaks of the trajectory of spiritual life from the inward soul to its outward expression in the social sphere of the family home.

Religion is a matter of the heart and belongs to a man’s unseen existence; it is also a matter of the outward life and belongs to his public walks. If man were simply a spiritual essence, all that relates to God and his own thoughts and feelings might be confined to that realm in which solitary and alone he lives — his own soul. But he has a corporeal being, he lives in a world of seen things, and is in immediate and perpetual contact with persons and things as substantial as himself. His religion, then, like himself and because it belongs to his whole nature, reaches out and touches all around him. It cannot, it must not be confined to the secresy of his own bosom.
Every one who takes a broad or accurate view of man, must acknowledge that there ought to be some public recognition of God by any one who professes to believe in Him. This needs to be stated only, not argued. He who never in any form makes an acknowledgement of God, who does not at times before men take the posture of devotion, or show, by some seen act, that he recognizes the fact of God's existence and his own relations to the Infinite One, can make no claim to the title of a believer.
Since religion is more than a matter of the heart, it demands an outward manifestation. How long, think you, were every form of public religious service to be withdrawn, would it be before all religion would be gone from the earth? Were every church to be not only closed but removed, so that not even crumbling walls or deserted precincts should speak of Him who was once worshipped there; were there to be no assemblings for prayer and praise, no voice heard calling on God; were religion, all over the earth, to be shut up in each man's bosom, a generation would scarcely have gone by before the very idea of God had vanished from the apprehension of men.
The instincts of man, however, make such an inward limitation of religion impossible. The heart within, confined and imprisoned, breaks forth at the door of the lips in prayer and adoration; the man in his complex personality cries out, I must show forth what is within; my soul unseen worships the Unseen God; but this eye looks out upon His works, this body lives among the visible things of His hands ; there are other men who with me live and have their being in Him; before them and with them I must worship God. No command is needed; public worship of God goes hand in hand with the recognition of God.
In this way it comes to pass that all thinking persons acknowledge the importance of outward religion — of public divine worship. To a Christian man it becomes a necessity. He must have his closet, a secret place, in whose retirement he may tell the story of his wants and his cares in the ear of a compassionate and sympathizing Father; but he must also have the goodly assemblings of his brethren, in whose company he may sing the songs of Zion, and with whom he may call upon the name of Zion's King. He has a God whom he acknowledges, and whose favor he seeks when alone; that God he must honor and worship in the presence of other men. He has a private religion; he has also a public religion. He cannot be satisfied to worship Jehovah only where no eye can see him; his heart craves in all humility and sincerity that, abroad and with his fellow-men, he may bring his tribute, lowly though it be, of gratitude and love. So out of the closet grows the temple. The one is as necessary as the other. The one is the place where a lone soul holds intercourse with an unseen God; the other where the man with men looks upward to the Creator, Preserver and Lord of them.
Between these two there is a sphere of thought and of influence, more important, perhaps, than either —The Family. It stands midway between the secret and the public life of a man, and vitally affects them both. Here a man spends a large part of his life; from it he derives the chiefest good of earth; here are his highest joys; here are his profoundest sorrows; here are his hopes and fears; here the fountain whence flow streams which make pleasant or weary his way; here are his loved ones; here those in whom and for whom he lives; here those whom he is set to guard and guide, whose destiny he shapes for the eternal years.

In this way, Aikman helps the reader to understand that in the trajectory of spiritual life, the family stands between the individual soul and the public, social and corporate expression of religion. Between the private and the public is the home, where spiritual life is cultivated, as in a nursery, building roots, before it comes into open view. “So out of the closet grows the temple.” And thus God is to be glorified in all spheres — private, family and public.

On the Birth of a Son to Samuel Davies

January 23, 2020

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This writer was blessed yesterday by the birth of a son. Mother and baby are doing very well, by the grace of God. The happy occasion brought to mind an extract from a poem by Samuel Davies, which is found in the third volume of his sermons. To God be the glory for blessing families with sweet covenant children!

ON THE BIRTH OF JOHN ROGERS DAVIES,*
The Author’s Third Son

THOU little wond'rous miniature of man,
Form'd by unerring Wisdom's perfect plan;
Thou little stranger, from eternal night
Emerging into life's immortal light;
Thou heir of worlds unknown, thou candidate
For an important everlasting state,
Where this young embryo shall its pow'rs expand,
Enlarging, rip'ning still, and never stand.
This glimm'ring spark of being, just now struck
From nothing by the all-creating Rock,
To immortality shall flame and burn,
When suns and stars to native darkness turn;
Thou shalt the ruins of the worlds survive,
And through the rounds of endless ages live.
Now thou art born into an anxious state
Of dubious trial for thy future fate:
Now thou art listed in the war of life,
The prize immense, and O! severe the strife.
Another birth awaits thee, when the hour
Arrives that lands thee on th' eternal shore;
(And O! 'tis near, with winged haste 'twill come,
Thy cradle rocks toward the neighb'ring tomb);
Then shall immortals fay, "A son is born,"
While thee as dead mistaken mortals mourn;
From glory then to glory thou shalt rise,
…
…
A being now begun, but ne'er to end,
What boding fears a Father's heart torment,
Trembling and anxious for the grand event,
Lest thy young soul so late by Heav'n bestovr'd,
Forget her Father, and forget her God!

From Psalm 139:

14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!

* John Rogers Davies was born in 1752 and was named for Davies’ close friend, John Rodgers.

Boyd McCullough's Cheerful Cottage

January 21, 2020

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Boyd McCullough (1825-1899) was an Irish-American minister who served in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA) and the United Presbyterian Church of North America (UPCNA). He traveled extensively, serving pastorates in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin; and he spent time with the Covenanters in England, Ireland and Scotland. He was a poet as well, publishing in 1882, The Shamrock; or, Erin Set Free: A Poem on the Conversion of the Irish From Paganism (not yet available on Log College Press). Appended to this remarkable epic poem are other prose and poetic compositions. They speak of not only his native Ireland, but also experiences from places such as Kansas and Canada, as well as on the sea.

The following poem is selected for today’s consideration because it represents the appreciation he had, as one who traveled extensively, for the virtues of family, home, hospitality and hearth. One can imagine Rev. McCullough traveling through the prairie on his horse and stopping at a home for some hospitality along the way.

The Cheerful Cottage

While wandering through the lonely West,
Till man and beast were weary,
I found a soothing spot of rest,
Which female hands made cheery.
A fasting ride of twenty miles
Made every dish a dainty;
And then where cordial welcome smiles
A crust can serve for plenty.
Her table-cloth might snow surpass,
The bread was almost whiter,
The butter smelled of fragrant grass,
No gold was ever brighter.
Her notes in softest accents fell,
The ear with rapture filling,
As ancient songs, with skillful swell,
Upon her tongue were trilling.
The rustic bed allured to sleep,
Dispersing care and cumber,
Till dreams of friends beyond the deep
Made paradise of slumber.
Next morn when passing o’er the plain,
Or threading through the valley,
Or watching geese, a noisy train,
From out the marshes sally,
I mused upon that pleasant spot
That graced the western prairies,
And many a tale to mind it brought
Of cave-adorning fairies.
Let magic halls the fancy stir
With all the fire of Byron;
A simple housewife I prefer
To mermaid, fay or siren.

The Sitting-Room by J.W. Alexander

August 8, 2019

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In most eloquent fashion, James Waddel Alexander reminds us why families need a place to come together, as well as a routine where the heart of family life is nourished. This piece was originally published in The Presbyterian Magazine (Jan. 1851) under the pseudonym “C.Q.” (for “Charles Quill,” a favorite nom de plume of Alexander), and later republished posthumously with the author’s true name. Though he wrote in the 19th century, the need expressed here is no less greater, perhaps much more so, in the 21st.

The Sitting-Room

There is, or there ought to be, in every house, a room where all the household come together every day; a dear, well-remembered chamber, hung round by memory with the portraits of father, mother, brothers, sisters, servants, kinsfolk, friends, neighbours, guests, strangers, and Christ's poor. O, my reader, do you not remember such a room? In your wanderings, in your voyages, in the group of your own family, and among your own children, does not your thought go back to the days when you gathered around that ruddy, crackling fire, and when the heads, which are now laid low, were as a crown of glory to their offspring?
In some houses, this common-room, or “living-room,” as our Puritan neighbours call it, is the only room in the house; it is parlour, bed-room, kitchen, all in one. Blessed compensation of Providence to the poor man and his offspring; they can be always together. Wealth multiplies apartments and separates families. Go to the western clearing, and before you reach the cabin, you descry through the chinks the glow of a fire, which would serve a city mechanic for a week; entering, you behold the illumination of a whole circle sitting around the blaze, perhaps singing their evening hymn. Are they less happy than the dwellers in ceiled houses? Change the scene to the uptown seats of wealth, where the merchant prince abides in greater conveniences than Nebuchadnezzar or Charlemagne; for he has baths, hot and cold water on every floor, furnace-heat, and gas-lights. You can scarcely number the apartments. You think it a paradise. Hold! reconsider the social, the domestic part. It is three o'clock. What a solitude: The father is slaving at his counting-house. The mother is dropping cards at fifty doors, or stiffly receiving fifty visits. The boys are sparring or walking Broadway or Chestnut-street. The girls are with masters in Italian, dancing, and philosophy. The babies are airing with French nurses. Do these ever come together? Not in the true family sense. Some Christian merchants have few home joys, and are content to pray with their families once a day. The very name of a sitting-room, living-room, or common-room sounds plebeian, and savours of “the country.” Yet I know men, rich believers, who make conscience of gathering their family, all their family; and to effect this requires a place. God's blessing is on the room, whether covered with Axminster carpets or unplaned plank, whether hung with damask or with hunting-shirts and bear-skins, where that little kingdom, a Christian household, daily meets for prayer, for praise, for kind words, for joint labours, for loving looks, for rational entertainment, for reading aloud, for music, for neighbourly exchanges, for entertaining angels unawares. Thanks be to God for our Presbyterian sitting-rooms!

"A nation is but a congeries of families" - Moses D. Hoge

May 8, 2019

(If the author links in this post are broken, please visit our Free PDF Library and click on the author’s page directly.)

It was at the Sixth General Council of the Pan-Presbyterian Alliance, meeting in Glasgow, Scotland in 1896, that the Rev. Moses Drury Hoge delivered an address on “The Educative Influence of Presbyterianism on National Life.” He spoke of the importance of the family in relation to the health of the commonwealth, and took note especially of the role of mothers for the good that they do on behalf of their families which in turn is a service to the nation at large.

A nation is but a congeries of families, and what the family is, the nation will be….Under the great dome of the sky I do not believe there are any surpassing our Presbyterian mothers in the faithful training of their children to walk in the right ways of the Lord, nor do I believe that there are any who have influences transcending those of Presbyterian households in preparing children to become good citizens of the country and of the kingdom of Christ.
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The death of our old Calvinistic mother has been frequently announced, and her funeral oration pronounced. Well, the death of a mother is a great event in the lives of her children. A minister in my own country says, “When we came to lay our mother in the grave, one of us said to a friend at his side, ‘We will remember the works that will follow her.’ ‘What works?’ asked the friend to whom he spoke. He replied, ‘She bore ten sons and trained them all for Christ. We are all standing around her grave to bless God that she ever lived.’”
Mr. President, fathers and brethren, we, too, bless God for our dear old Presbyterian mother, who has borne ten thousand times ten thousand children and trained them all for Christ; but we are not standing around her grave! We rejoice that she is still a living mother — her eye not dim, nor her spiritual force abated, and when our descendants are as near the close of the twentieth century as we are to the end of the nineteenth, another council will meet to celebrate her virtues and her works in strains of adoring gratitude compared with which our utterances tonight are cold and poor. — Source: Peyton Harrison Hoge, Moses Drury Hoge: Life and Letters, pp. 370-371

T.V. Moore on "God's University"

February 4, 2019

In 1853, the Board of Managers for the House of Refuge in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania organized a contest to draw attention to the problem of juvenile delinquency. Prize money was offered and, ultimately, three prize essays were published in 1855, which dealt with the problem in dramatically different ways, as evidenced by at least the first two titles: (1) “The State's Care of Its Children: Considered as a Check on Juvenile Delinquency;” (2) “God’s University; or, The Family Considered as a Government, a School, and a Church, the Divinely Appointed Institute for Training the Young, for the Life that Now is, and for that which is to Come”; and (3) “An Essay on Juvenile Delinquency.” The author of the second essay, which is highlighted here, is Thomas Verner Moore.

Whereas the first essay emphasizes the role of the state in restraining juvenile delinquency, and the third essay emphasizes education as the chief remedy for the problem, Moore takes the Biblical position that we should look to the Scriptures to understand both the problem and the remedy. And in doing so, he focuses our attention squarely on the role of the family, God’s institution, designed especially for the good of society and the seminary of the church. (In the words of the English Puritan William Gouge, “The family is a seminary of the church and commonwealth”)

To the extent that the youth of Moore’s day were involved in the common vices of the era, he began exploring the problem by looking at the failure of the family to train its young people in the ways of piety and obedience in the Lord. And although he speaks with conviction about the necessity for parents to inculcate obedience in their children at an early age, he also emphasizes above all love as the guiding principle of family well-being.

The grand agent in executing family laws, is love. This should manifest itself in words, looks, and tones, to be properly effective. The parent whose cold and repulsive manner represses all confiding familiarity in the child, is building a wall of ice between himself and his offspring, which even the warmth of love cannot penetrate. The child should be early taught to confide his feelings freely to his parent, by the open and loving manner of the parent, or he will seek companions and confidants elsewhere.
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But family religion involves more than family worship. As all religion is included in love, so all family religion is contained in family love; and where there is this genuine love to God and one another, the family is not only a church, but an earthly type of heaven.

As the family is the nursery of society and the church, he tells us that education is happening whether intended or not, and that the memory of childhood lessons is of such importance and its influence of such longevity that:

There is a species of parchment manuscripts called palimpsest, which contain some recent monkish work of devotion, written over a copy of some ancient classic, but which, by a little care in removing the later writing, will give back the original copy in clear and legible distinctness. Every human soul is such a palimpsest, in which, beneath its superficial con tents, there lies an earlier and more indelible tracing of what was written on the heart, in the fresh, unblotted susceptibility of childhood and youth.

Moore concludes his essay with a summary of his points that we shall list here because in a few words of Biblical wisdom addressed to parents that are timeless he points us to Scriptural principles that will help any family.

We therefore sum up a few hints in conclusion, that embody the principles of the foregoing essay, attention to which will tend to make a happy home and a virtuous family.

Learn to govern yourselves, and to be gentle and patient.
Guard your tempers, especially in seasons of ill-health, irritation, and trouble, and soften them by prayer, penitence, and a sense of your own short comings and errors.
Never speak or act in anger, until you have prayed over your words or acts, and concluded that Christ would have done so, in your place.
Remember that valuable as is the gift of speech, the gift of silence is often much more so.
Do not expect too much from others, but re member that all have an evil nature, whose developments we must expect, and which we should forbear and forgive, as we often desire forbearance and forgiveness ourselves.
Never retort a sharp or angry word. It is the second word that makes the quarrel.
Beware of the first disagreement.
Learn to speak in a gentle tone of voice.
Learn to say kind and pleasant things whenever an opportunity offers.
Study the character of each one, and sympathize with them in their troubles, however small.
Do not neglect little things, if they can affect the comfort of others in the smallest degree.
Avoid moods and pets, and fits of sulkiness.
Learn to deny yourself, and to prefer others.
Beware of meddlers and tale-bearers.
Never charge a bad motive, if a good one is conceivable.
Be gentle but firm with children.
Do not allow your children to be away from home at night, without knowing where they are.
Do not allow them to go where they please on the Sabbath.
Do not furnish them much spending money.
Remember the grave, the judgment seat, and the scenes of eternity, and so order your home on earth, that you shall have a home in heaven.

Take time to read Moore’s prize essay on the family, and with application, you and your family will be greatly blessed.

Do you see your family as a religious institution, and heaven as its model? If not, read Erastus Hopkins.

October 23, 2018

Erastus Hopkins (1810-1872) was a Princeton Seminary graduate, and a Presbyterian pastor in South Carolina, New York, and Connecticut. His book The Family A Religious Institution: or Heaven the Model of the Christian Family is much needed reading for Christian families today, for in it he reminds us that the family is as truly a religious institution as is the church. After establishing this fact from the Scriptures, and showing how heaven is the model of the family, he examines the family from several different aspects: childhood piety, the habits of childhood, parental duties, the season of parental effort, the culture of childhood obedience, on guiding the affections to God, and the covenantal sign and seal of baptism. How we need to be reminded of these things today - and sometimes hearing it from a voice of a different century is just what we need to be awakened to our duties anew.

Note: This post was originally published on September 12, 2017, and has been very slightly edited.

A Sabbath Afternoon Read for the Family from James R. Boyd

October 14, 2018

Are you seeking something edifying to read this Sabbath afternoon with your family? Consider The Child’s Book on the Westminster Shorter Catechism by James Robert Boyd. He designed it as a supplemental catechism for students 12 and under with the aim of reviewing the great divine truths found in the Westminster Shorter Catechism. He suggests that a half an hour on Sabbath afternoons be given to the study of this little book as a method of stirring up consideration religious conversation and promoting the spiritual interests of the family.

This is a good exercise for the family consistent with the aim of the Sabbath (see Boyd on the Fourth Commandment). And this is a means of involving the whole family in discussion of those matters which all should know about the basic divine truths of Christianity. Not meant to replace, but to supplement, the study of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, this little volume is a means of reinforcing the knowledge that every member of the family should know and can be used to stimulate further discussion. Here is one matter that may prompt a healthy family discussion:

Q. What is the best day of the week?
A. The Sabbath-day.

Q. Why is it the best?
A. Because it is to be kept holy, or spent in a religious manner.

If you are looking for a tool to help the family keep the Sabbath during the afternoon, this book will serve you well. For more in-depth study, be sure to check out Boyd’s other exposition: The Westminster Shorter Catechism: With Analysis, Scriptural Proofs, Explanatory and Practical Inferences, and Illustrative Anecdotes.

Samuel Miller on the High Calling of Parenting

August 8, 2018

Samuel Miller, in his discourses on the guilt, folly, and sources of suicide (a booklet we hope to reprint soon, Lord willing), has a marvelous paragraph about parenting. May the Lord enable every Christian parent to take these words to heart and live them out to some degree:

Parents! You see the numerous dangers to which the traveler through this vale of tears is exposed. How should your solicitude be excited, your zeal be roused, and all the tender anxieties of parental affection be called into exercise, in behalf of your Offspring, who are entering on the journey of life, and about to encounter all its perils! You are the guardians of their health and lives, you form their morals, you direct their pursuits, you are the depositories of their happiness in this world, and, in a degree, in that which is to come. With what unceasing care, then, should you imbue their minds with correct principles! With what sacred fidelity should you put them on their guard against the licentious opinions of the age, against the contagion of evil company, and against the destructive habits of intemperance and sloth! With what devout tenderness should you exhort them, warn them, pray over them, and endeavor to win them, both by precept and example, to the love and fear, as well as to the knowledge of God! O Parents! were these things duly considered, what a revolution should we witness in your mode of treating your children! We should see you more attentive to domestic instruction and discipline, than to the frivolities of a fashionable education. We should see you embracing every opportunity to inculcate on their minds, that virtue is superior to wealth; that holiness is a distinction infinitely more valuable than the magnificence and honors of this world. We should see you, in a word, making their moral and religious culture your chief concern, and studying daily to impress upon their hearts the conviction that, to fear God, and keep his commandments, is the whole duty and happiness of man.

Have you lost a loved one? Few books address the topic of bereavement as beautifully as The Broken Home by B. M. Palmer

September 16, 2017

Benjamin Morgan Palmer's book The Broken Home: Lessons in Sorrow is a poignant, powerful journey through the deaths of Palmer's children, wife, and mother. He writes to bind up the broken-hearted by sharing the depth of his own feeling as he watched the Lord take his loved ones home to heaven. If you are grieving the loss of a family member, especially a child, this book will be a healing balm to the soul.

Does the 19th Century Have Anything to Teach Parents?

July 13, 2017

Thomas Dwight Witherspoon, a 19th century Presbyterian pastor who ministered in Oxford, MS, and Memphis, TN, among other places, had much to say to Christian parents in his book Children of the Covenant. The following paragraphs come from a section in which he is unpacking several difficulties that he believes lie at the root of why we do not see more conversions among our covenant children:

But a third difficulty, and one far more subversive of the great end of the family relation, is found in the failure of Christian parents to cultivate perfect freedom of communication, and intimacy of relationship, with their children. Many parents never seem to win the confidence of their children at all. They never come into confidential relations with them. The most intimate thoughts of the child's mind, the most sacredly cherished emotions of its heart, are never communicated to the parent. Between father, or mother, and child, there is an unnatural barrier of reserve—a wall of mutual separation. The few communications as to its inner life, which the natural yearnings of the child lead it to make, are treated with indifference, or, perhaps, made the occasion of severe rebuke.

At all events, they do not meet with the proper encourageinent, and its timid nature recoils upon itself. Henceforth, these deep experiences are concealed from parental view. As the nature unfolds, and the confiding spirit of early childhood begins to give place to the reserve and coyness of youth, there comes a studied habit of concealment. The parent sees only the outer life of the child. Its inner nature is a hidden mystery. And there are now long constituted and strengthened barriers to intimate and confidential intercourse, which can never be overcome, however much the parent may strive to secure the end.

And yet, how miserably has that parent failed to secure the true end of the family relationship, whose child respects him, fears him, obeys him, and, it may be, loves him, with a kind of distant, reverential affection; but whose bosom has never become the repository of the joys and sorrows of his child; whose heart never beats in conscious accord with the deep and yearning sympathies of its nature; to whom the most tender and sacred experiences of its young life are all a sealed book! How can such a parent exert over his child the influence which God designed him to exert? How can such a house, (for home it does not deserve to be called,) witness anything else than the growth into manhood and womanhood, of children who are virtually orphans in the world, and who, like waifs of the sea, are liable to be "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine"—the easy sport of circumstances, the strong anchorage in the family circle being totally wanting?

How easy it is in early childhood to gain this intimacy and confidence to which I have referred. The little child naturally seeks to confide everything to its parent. Let but the slightest encouragement be given; let the little one only feel that there is a loving heart ready to sympathize with it; to rejoice with it; to solve patiently its difficulties; to bear forgiveingly with its wrongs, and to lead it kindly by the hand through all the perplexities of its path; and how naturally, how unreservedly does it cast itself upon the bosom that seeks its confidence, and pour out there the very deepest and most sacred thoughts and feelings of its heart.

And who shall say what advantage such a parent will have, in the training of his child! He is like the physician who has had the full diagnosis of the disease he is to treat. He Is like the lawyer to whom the client has fully unburdened his case. He knows how to direct the mind and mould the character of his child; and at the same time, as the result of this loving intimacy, he acquires an influence over it — the influence of mind over mind, and of heart over heart — the blessed results of which it is impossible to estimate.

-- Thomas Dwight Witherspoon, Children of the Covenant, 198ff.

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