ily, common life of the right family; the hour of
worship is one out of many definite forms of its concrete expression. It
is the form which gathers up the totality of feeling and aspiration into
an act of worship and praise toward God, the Father of all families. It
is evident there cannot be true worship in the family that is
irreligious in its essential qualities, in its character, in its ideals
and atmosphere.

Sec. 3. ADVANTAGES

The period of worship is a necessity in interpreting to all the spirit
and meaning of a religious family. It objectifies the inner life. It
makes definite, tangible, and easily remembered the general impressions
of religion. It precipitates the atmosphere of religion into
definiteness. In the chemical laboratory of a university there is
usually a decided atmosphere of chemistry, but no one expects to become
a chemical engineer by absorbing that atmosphere, nor even to attain a
simple working knowledge by merely general impressions. Definiteness
aids in gathering up our knowledge, our impressions.

The reading of the Bible in the home will give, when the passages are
wisely chosen, forms of language into which the often chaotic but
nevertheless valuable and potential emotions of youth fall as into a
beautiful mold; they become remembered forms of beauty thereafter.

Family worship furnishes opportunity for direct religious instruction.
When the home life has its regular institution, as regular as meals and
play, the formality, the apparent abnormality of conversation about
religion, is absent. Children expect and look forward to the period when
the family will lay other things aside to think on the eternal values.
Their questions in the breathing-space that always ought to follow
worship become perfectly natural and sincere.

Family worship lifts the whole level of family life. Ideally conceived,
it simply means the family unity consciously coming into its highest
place. Children may not understand all the reading nor enter into the
motives for all parts of the petition, but they do feel that this moment
is the one in which the family enters a holy place. They feel that God
is real and that their family life is a part of his whole care and of
his life. One short period of natural reverence sends light and calm
all through the day. Where the home is the place where true prayer is
offered, the family is the group which meets in an act of worship; here
and into this group there cannot e