ldren feel they are prayed for. Have a hymn
if any of you can sing. Let the season be spirited, appropriate and gladly
solemn.

Family prayer also fails when the whole day is not in harmony with it. A
family prayer, to be worth anything, ought to be twenty-four hours long. It
ought to give the pitch to all the day's work and behavior. The day when we
get thoroughly mad upsets the morning devotion. The life must be in the
same key with the devotion.

Family prayer is infinitely important. If you are a parent, and are not a
professor of religion, and do not feel able to compose a prayer, get some
one of the many books that have been written, put it down before you, and
read prayers for the household. God has said that He will "pour out His
fury upon the family that call not upon His name."

Prayer for our children will be answered. My grandmother was a praying
woman. My father's name was David. One day, he and other members of the
family started for a gay party. Grandmother said: "Go, David, and enjoy
yourself; but all the time you and your brothers and sisters are there, I
will be praying for you." They went, but did not have a very good time,
knowing that their mother was praying for them.

The next morning, grandmother heard loud weeping in the room below. She
went down and found her daughter crying violently. What was the matter? She
was in anxiety about her soul--an anxiety that found no relief short of the
cross. Word came that David was at the barn in great agony. Grandmother
went and found him on the barn floor, praying for the life of his soul.

The news spread to the neighboring houses, and other parents became anxious
about their children, and the influence spread to the village of
Somerville, and there was a great turning unto God; and over two hundred
souls, in one day, stood up in the village church to profess faith in
Christ. And it all started from my grandmother's prayer for her sons and
daughters. May God turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the
hearts of the children to their fathers, lest He come and smite the earth
with a curse!

CHAPTER LXII.

CALL TO SAILORS.

One of the children asked us at the tea-table if we had ever preached at
sea. We answered, No! but we talked one Sabbath, mid-Atlantic, to the
officers, crew and passengers of the steamship "China." By the way, I have
it as it was taken down at the time and afterward appeared in a newspaper,
and here is the extr