A SELECTION OF PRAYERS FOR FAMILY USE With an Address BY EDWARD JAMES, M. A. Canon of Winchester, and Vicar of Alton. EDITED BY A. M. JAMES, AUTHOR OF "UPWARD PATH," "COVENANT OF LOVE,' "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in New Edition. LONDON: HATCHARDS, PICCADILLY. 1876. 138.6372 EDITOR'S PREFACE. THE collection of Family Prayers arranged by my father, which is now offered to the public, was first published many years ago, during his lifetime. It was printed, partly for private distribution, and partly to be sold for the benefit of the Alton National Schools, in hopes of removing a debt. These prayers were much valued; and, the edition having long since been exhausted, several friends wished to obtain fresh copies, either for themselves, or for others. It was therefore proposed to me to put forth a new edition, as there seemed little doubt that it would be welcomed by a considerable number of people. I trust that it may be found useful to many; and that my father's desire, of assisting to promote true earnestness in family worship, may thus continue to be realized. West Wickham, Beckenham, A. M. JAMES. July 23, 1872. TO THE INHABITANTS OF ALTON, WITH HOLYBOURNE, BINSTED, AND KINGSLEY. MY DEAR PARISHIONERS, I address this to each one of you, as my only means of reaching some, and as the best hope I have of reminding all who need to be reminded, amidst their daily employments, to think more seriously of the "one thing needful," which alone can bring any man peace at the last. With this view it has been one constant aim of my ministry among you for now near twenty years, to take every mode of recommending and promoting habits of family prayer; well knowing that they who are daily trained for God in domestic worship, will not be absent from the place where His honour dwelleth on the day which He sanctified for Himself from the beginning of the world. First, then, let me point out to you how we are invited to this duty by the blessing which Scripture records upon family worship from the earliest times. We see this blessing upon Noah when he had gathered his sons round the altar which he built on leaving the ark ;-then "God blessed Noah," and established His covenant with him. We see it upon Abraham, when God declared that He would hide from him nothing that He would do, "for I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord." Of Job sanctifying his sons and offering burnt offerings for them early in the morning, it was said, "there is none like him in the earth, an upright man, one that feareth God." Joshua was "magnified in the sight of Israel" of old, as he is throughout the world now, for his noble resolution " as for me and my house we will serve the Lord." We read of holy David, that "evening, and morning, and noonday, did he pray ;" and that, in all his triumph and thanksgiving on bringing up the ark to Jerusalem, he did not omit to "return to bless his household" (2 Sam. vi. 20). Nor can we fail to observe how many of the Psalms of David are models of prayer, adapted for lifting up the soul to God under all circumstances of private and domestic, as well as public worship. And delightful is the encouragement for such use of them which the Christian draws from reflecting that our great Example, the promised Son of David, Jesus Christ Himself, while He was on earth, not only repeatedly quoted them in application to Himself, but appears (as Bishop Horne has pointed out) to have made them the manual of His devotions, uttering His prayer from the 22nd Psalm as He hung on the cross. In the last dreadful extremities of His human agony also, He commended His Spirit to the Father in the words of the 31st Psalm, showing how truly those words were His own. Surely in such use of the Psalms-while "the word of Christ thus richly dwells in him," the Christian, whether in the hour of distress, or of joy and thanksgiving, may see blessed tokens of the Redeemer's Love, and of encouragement to prayer in His Name, whether in public or in private worship. And did He not teach us to pray? Was He not an example of prayer? |