4644 Japanese Boy Misses Breakfast
At a school in Japan a teacher asked the children if there were any who had not had breakfast that morning, thinking thereby to discover some needy family. A boy of nine years put up his hand. Knowing that he came from a comparatively well-to-do family, the teacher asked why he had not had his breakfast. The boy replied: “In our home we do not eat till we have partaken of spiritual food. As I was late in getting up this morning I had to leave immediately after the spiritual food, so I have not had any breakfast.
—Christian Victory
4645 Spurgeon On Mother’s Prayers
“I cannot tell you how much I owe to the custom on Sunday evenings while we were yet children for Mother to stay at home with us, and then we sat around the table and read verse after verse and she explained the Scriptures to us. After that was done there came a time of pleading, and the question was asked how long it would be before we would think about our state; how long before we would seek the Lord.
“Then came a mother’s prayer; and some of the words of our mother’s prayer we shall never forget even when our hair is gray.”
—Charles Haddon Spurgeon
4646 John Ruskin’s Testimony
John Ruskin said: “All that I have ever taught of art, everything that I have written, whatever greatness there has been in any thought of mine, whatever I have done in my life, has simply been due to the fact that, when I was a child, my mother daily read with me a part of the Bible, and daily made me learn a part of it by heart.”
4647 He Saw Nation’s Home
When Henry Grady, the great southern Christian statesman, made his first trip to Washington, D.C., he had a strange experience. He had looked forward to seeing the Nation’s Capitol Building.
Standing in a position where the imposing structure stood out in bold relief before his view, he experienced a great stirring of his emotions. Tears rolling down his face, he said: “So this is the home of the nation!”
Some time later, after returning to his home in Georgia, he had occasion to spend a night in a humble planter’s cottage on a plantation. Before retiring, the father called his family together and in the flickering light of a tallow candle, read the Scripture and knelt in prayer. It was a typical, old family altar.
Stirred again, Henry Grady said: “I was mistaken about the home of the nation being in Washington. That pile of marble, magnificent as it is, is not the home of the Nation. Yea, the home of the Nation is found in the dugout, the planter’s home, the cabin, the cottage and everywhere where they teach the children to honor the Word of God and serve the Christ it reveals.”
—Christian Victory
4648 Look Up For Preservation
Bishop Coxe tells of visiting an old feudal castle in England, so old that one of its towers dated back to the days of King John. When the Bishop went down to breakfast, he found the young owner of the castle, his family and servants, assembled for morning prayer conducted by the head of the family.
As the Bishop lifted his eyes, he noticed high overhead a massive beam that spanned the grand, old hall and bore in old English the following inscription:
That house shall be preserved and never shall decay,
Where the Almighty God is worshipped day by day.
A.D. 1558
Thus for hundreds of years the people of that old castle had turned their faces toward God at the beginning of each day.
—Walter B. Knight
4649 Paton’s Father’s Prayers
John G. Paton, missionary to the New Hebrides, used to crouch outside his father’s bedroom door to hear him pray. He wrote: “If everything else in religion were by some accident blotted out, my soul would go back to those days of reality. For sixty years my father kept up the practice of family prayer. No day passed without it, no hurry for business, no arrival of friends, no trouble or sorrow, no joy or excitement ever prevented us from kneeling round the family altar while our high priest offered himself and his children to God.” Paton’s father was a farm laborer. We fathers and mothers are very busy these days.
—J. A. Clark
4650 “The Angelus”
You have all seen the famous painting called “The Angelus” by Millet. It shows a farmer and his wife pausing to pray with heads bowed out in the field. In the distance one sees the spire of a church. So true to life is every detail that one can almost hear the Angelus ringing. And that is exactly what the artist wanted. Here is the story behind that picture.
Millet was born of poor parents in Normandy, France. Something urged him to draw sketches of scenes he saw in the family Bible. An artist, seeing them, insisted that young Jean be trained. The community raised funds to send him to Paris, but there the pious Jean was disgusted with what he called their wicked art.
Home he went, to work in the fields by day, and paint by night. In twenty-seven years he painted eighty to ninety beautiful subjects. One day he expressed the wish:
“I want to paint a picture in which one can hear the sound.”
He set to work. When the picture was done he showed it to a friend with this request: “Name it.”
“It is the Angelus,” answered the friend, “I can hear the bells.”
Millet was happy. He had added new dignity to labor. He had given new charm and attractiveness to the beautiful devotion of simple people.
—Selected
4651 Father In Prayer Picture
A great artist was once employed to paint the picture of a very beautiful child. It was a family of wealth. The father of the child was an infidel, the mother a Christian. After much study and research, it was decided that the picture should show the child asleep in prayer. The artist, of course, must catch the scene from an actual service in which the child should fall asleep during an earnest, faithful prayer.
Evening after evening he visited the mother and child in their family worship, the father also being present. At length the opportunity came, and when the mother’s sweet petition to God was closed the child was fast asleep, kneeling by her mother’s side. In this position they remained for some time, until released by the artist.
The next evening the artist visited the family again, but this time his countenance wore a troubled look. Said he: “I cannot make the picture complete unless the immediate surroundings are shown, and especially the mother must be painted.”
“The picture shall be complete,” said the father, “and you would as well also put the mother in the scene.”
Time wore on, and the painting was being developed. But meantime a strange feeling of loneliness crept into the heart of the father. Something, too, of the attitude of worship, and the listening to those sweet petitions from his wife’s lips, had been used of the Holy Spirit to illuminate his conscience, and it seemed to him that it would break his heart to be shut out from that little group. Feeling thus, he visited the studio of the artist, and expressed the desire that he might also be painted in the picture in the attitude of prayer, kneeling with his wife and child.
“No,” said the artist, “it is too late. You would either add to or take from, and that must not be.”
“Add to or take from,” the man repeated to himself that evening as he heard his wife’s prayer.
“Asleep in Prayer” hung long on the walls of the rich man’s palace, and again the artist was called, but this time to a Christian home. That evening the father prayed, and even to this day hang upon the walls of the ancient palace two paintings—”Asleep in Prayer,” the mother and the child, and “Awake in Christ,” a group of father and mother and a young lady, while under the picture is this inscription: “You would either add to or take from.”
—Current Anecdotes
4652 Matthew Henry’s Leadership
Philip Henry was most exemplary in his practice of family devotions. Besides the regular plan of reading and expounding the Scriptures morning and evening, he used strongly to recommend singing; saying that it was a way of exhibiting godliness, like Rahab’s scarlet thread, to such as pass by our windows. His children and servants used to take notes of his expositions; and the foundation of Matthew Henry’s Commentary was laid from these notes.
Besides this, on Thursday evening, instead of reading, he used to catechise his children and servants upon the Assembly’s Catechism, with the proofs, or sometimes in a smaller catechism; or else they read, and he examined them in some other useful book, as Mr. Poole’s Dialogues against the Papists; and on Saturday evening they gave him an account of what they could remember of the many chapters they had read through during the week, each a several part in order. Besides this, he had also days of humiliation with his family.
—Bowes
4653 Happy The Home
Happy the home when God is there,
And love fills every breast:
When one their wish, one their prayer,
And one their heavenly rest.
Happy the home where Jesus’ name
Is sweet to every ear;
Where children early lisp His fame
And parents hold Him dear.
Happy the home where prayer is heard,
And praise is wont to rise;
Where parents love the sacred Word,
And live but for the skies.
Lord, let us in our homes agree,
This blessed home to gain;
Unite our hearts in love to thee,
And love to all will reign.
—Selected
4654 Thieves Creeping Upstairs …
The Rev. Thomas Bardbury was remarkable for punctuality in the time he devoted to family worship. One evening when the bell had rung the servants went up to prayer, and forgot to shut the area door near the street. Some men observed the door open, and one of them entered the house to rob it.
Creeping upstairs, he heard the old gentleman praying that God would preserve his house from thieves. The man was thunderstruck, and unable to persist in his design. He returned and told the circumstance to his companions, who abused him on account of his timidity; but he was so affected that, some time after, he related the circumstance to Mr. Bradbury, and became an attendant on his ministry.
—Walter Baxendale
4655 Mark Twain’s Home
“Mark Twain” was the pen name of Samuel Clemens. As a young man he fell in love with a beautiful Christian girl named Livy and married her. Being devoted to her Lord, she wanted a family altar and prayer at meals after she and Sam were married. This was done for a time and then one day Sam said, “Livy, you can go on with this by yourself if you want to but leave me out. I don’t believe in your God and you’re only making a hypocrite out of me.”
Fame and afluence came. There were court appearances in Europe. Sam and Livy were riding high and Livy got farther and farther away from her early devotion to her Lord. The eventual fall came. In an hour of bitter need Sam Clemens said, “Livy, if your Christian faith can help you now, turn to it.” Livy replied, “I can’t, Sam; I haven’t any; it was destroyed a long time ago.”
—Christian Digest
4656 Mother Prayed For Boy’s Education
Early in the last century the Presbyterian minister at Darlington, Pennsylvania, out on his pastoral round, was riding his horse down a country lane. As he drew up before a humble cottage he heard the sound of a woman’s voice lifted in earnest prayer. As he listened he heard this widowed mother, with her boys kneeling at her side, earnestly entreating God that he would open a door for the education of these boys, so that they might become good and useful men.
The pastor dismounted and went in to speak with the widow who had prayed so earnestly, and yet with a note of sorrow in her voice. Struck with the alertness of one of these boys and touched by the woman’s petitions, he took the boy with him to the old Stone Academy at Darlington, and there gave him the instruction for which his mother had prayed.
That boy, so handicapped in his birth, and for whom there seemed to be no opportunity, influenced more young minds in America in the last century than any other man. He was William McGuffey, the author of the famous Eclectic Readers, which had the extraordinary circulation of a hundred million copies.
—C. E. Macartney
4657 No Devotions, No Sleep
“None of God’s children are born dumb.”
Rowland Hill, the famous preacher, was once driven by a storm of rain into a village inn, and compelled to spend the night there. When it grew late, the landlord said: “Sir, I wish you would go to bed. I must see all the lights out: I am so afraid of fire.” “So am I,” was the reply, “but I have been expecting to be called for family prayer.” “All very good, sir; but it cannot be done at an inn.” “Indeed! then, pray, get me my horse. I cannot go to sleep in a house where there is no family prayer.”
The host preferred to dismiss his prejudice rather than his guest, and said, “I have no objection to have prayer, but I don’t know how.” “Well, then call in the family servants, and let us see what can be done.” The landlord obeyed and in a few minutes the astonished domestics were on their knees, and the landlord called upon to pray. “Sir, I never prayed in my life. I don’t know how.” “Ask God to teach you,” was the gentle reply. The landlord, folding his hands, said, “God teach us how to pray.” “That is prayer, my friend,” cried Mr. Hill, joyfully, “go on.” “I am sure I don’t know what to say now, sir.” “Yes, you do; God has taught you how to pray; now thank Him for it.” “Thank you, God Almighty, for letting us pray to you.” “Amen! Amen!” exclaimed Rowland Hill, and then offered prayer himself.
Two years afterward, Mr. Hill found in that same village a chapel and a school, as a result of the first effort of family prayer at the “Black Lion.”
—Selected
4658 Baby’s Earliest Memories
A caller found a young mother with her babe in her lap and her Bible in her hand. “Are you reading to your baby?” was the humorous query. “Yes,” the young mother replied. “But, do you think he understands?” “I am sure he does not understand now, but I want his earliest memories to be that of hearing God’s Word.” “God’s word is the “sword of the Spirit”. Only by His Word are we purified and strengthened to do His will. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of reading the Word all through life.
—King’s Business
4659 Not A Single Useful Institution
Roger Babson, world-known statistician, recently declared, “I have not been able to find a single useful institution which has not been founded by either an intensely religious man or by the son of a praying father or a praying mother. I have made this statement before the chamber of commerce of all larger cities of the country and ask—for a single exception. Thus far I haven’t heard of a single one.”
—The Evangel
MEALTIME PRAYERS
4660 Lesson From A Beggar
There was once a good king in Spain called Alfonso XII. Now it came to the ears of this king that the pages at his court forgot to ask God’s blessing on their daily meals, and he determined to rebuke them. He invited them to a banquet which they all attended. The table was spread with every kind of good thing, and the boys ate with evident relish; but none of them remembered to ask God’s blessing on the food.
During the feast a beggar entered, dirty and ill-clad. He seated himself at the royal table and ate and drank to his heart’s content. At first the pages were amazed, and they expected that the king would order him away. But Alfonso said never a word. When the beggar had finished he rose and left without a word of thanks. Then the boys could keep silence no longer. “What a despicably mean fellow!” they cried.
But the king silenced them, and in clear, calm tones he said, “Boys, bolder and more audacious than this beggar have you all been. Every day you sit down to a table supplied by the bounty of your Heavenly Father, yet you ask not His blessing nor express to Him your gratitude.”
—James Hastings
4661 “Just Like My Dog”
A little lad of six was invited out to lunch in a neighbor’s home. When all were seated at the table the food was served. The little boy was puzzled, and with the forthright frankness of a child, asked the host: “Don’t you say any prayer before you eat?”
The host was highly embarrassed over the boy’s blunt inquiry, and mumbled, “No, we don’t take time for that.”
The lad was silent for a time, then said, “You’re just like my dog. You start right in.”
—Al Bryant
4662 To Pay Like A Sinner
A minister was riding through a section of the state of South Carolina, where custom forbade innkeepers to take pay from the clergy who stayed with them. The minister in question took supper without prayer, and ate breakfast without prayer or grace, and was about to take his departure when the host presented his bill. “Ah, sir,” responded the landlord, “but you came here, smoked like a sinner, ate and drank like a sinner, and slept like a sinner, and now, sir, you shall pay like a sinner.”
—Current Anecdotes
4663 Abraham’s Lack of Patience
“There is an ancient legend that Abraham invited into his tent a man, who at mealtime gave no thanks to God for His mercy. Whereupon the patriarch drove him forth into the desert unfed and unsheltered. But in the night God touched Abraham and awoke him, saying to him, “Where is the stranger?” Abraham said, “When he did not fear you, nor thank you, I drove him forth.” God rebuked him, saying, “Who made you his judge: I have borne with him all these years. Could you not bear with him one night? Have you learned nothing from my mercy to you?” It would be a miracle indeed if the love of God for a lost world begat no love in the hearts of those whom His love bound with Himself.”
—Minister’s Research Service
4664 For Food And Raymond
Little Raymond returned home from Sunday school in a joyous mood. “Oh, Mother,” he exclaimed as he entered the house, “The superintendent said something awfully nice about me in his prayer today.”
“Isn’t that wonderful!” said the mother. “What did he say?”
“He said, “Oh Lord, we thank Thee for food and Raymond,”” replied the lad.
—Speaker’s Sourcebook
4665 The Boy Was Frank
During a blistering hot day, a family was entertaining guests for dinner. When all were seated, the man of the house turned to his six-year-old son and asked him to say the blessing.
“But daddy, I don’t know what to say,” he protested.
“Oh, just say what you’ve heard me say,” the mother chimed in.
Obediently, he bowed his little head and said, “Oh, Lord, why did I invite these people here on a hot day like this!”