e of the day, perhaps participated in
by the older members only, the younger children having repeated their
prayers at bedside on retiring. A thousand happy and sacred associations
gather about the memories of these occasions: the sense of reverence,
the feeling that the home was a sacred place, the impression of noble
words and elevating thoughts, the reflex influence of the prayer that
committed all to the keeping and guidance of God.[24]

Sec. 2. WHY FAMILY WORSHIP?

Parents need to see the values in family worship. We have been insisting
on the primary importance of the religious interpretation of the family
as an institution, on the power of the religious motive, and the
atmosphere of religion. But wherever there is a truly religious motive
and a permanent religious atmosphere these will find definite expression
in acts easily recognized as religious. Love is the motive and
atmosphere of the true home, but love blossoms into words and bears
fruit in a thousand deeds. The life of love dies without reality in act.
Ideals are precipitated in expressive acts. So is it with religion in
the home; it must not only be real in its sincerity, it must be
realized, must pass over into conduct and action, as suggested above in
chaps. vii and viii. And it must do this in ways so sharply defined and
readily recognized as to leave no doubt as to their meaning. True, all
acts may be religious and thus full of worship--this is most important
of all--but worship expressly unites all such acts in a spirit of
loyalty and aspiration.

Worship is a necessity for the sake of the ideal unity of the family
life. Just as the individual must not only feel the religious emotion
but must also do the thing called for, so must this united personality
of the family give expression to its faith and aspiration, its motives
and emotions, in such a manner that, acting as a social unit, all can
together put the inner life into the outer form. The social value of
family worship is the strongest reason for its maintenance. It is the
united act of the family group, the one in which group consciousness is
expressly directed to the highest possible aims. Every period of worship
brings the family into unity at an ideal level.

The expression of religion in definite forms is necessary for children,
too, as furnishing a means by which they can manifest their feeling of
the higher meaning of family life. The reality of that feeling is
stimulated in the da