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As chairman of the Executive Committee of Publication of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS), James Power Smith wrote the preface to a valuable work on family worship titled The Family Altar (1915). This has recently been added to Log College Press.
The Family Altar contains Scripture readings, hymn selections and suggested prayers for each day of the week, over a period of four weeks, as well as special occasional prayers from men such as Edward Reynolds of the Westminster Assembly, Henry Van Dyke, Jr., James Isaac Vance, Russell Cecil, Richard Clark Reed, William Marcellus McPheeters, and James Russell Miller.
Smith writes:
The daily worship of the household is of early origin. The Hebrew patriarchs builded their altars where they pitched their tents, and there called on the name of the Lord. The disciples of Jesus in earliest Christian times had "the church in the home." It has a natural foundation and reason, in the unity of the family, the close and tender relations of the household, and the sanctity and love of the Christian home; suggesting and inviting the family acknowledgment of mercies and petitions for Divine presence and blessing. Upon the family altar, continued through the ages, has rested the blessing of God.
It honors God, the giver of all our good, the source of all our happiness. It makes the home a sanctuary for God's dwelling. It binds the household together in a more hallowed love. It pleads the grace of Covenant promise. It instructs and unites all hearts in the truth and grace of Christ. It builds a wall of defense against the error and evil of the world around us. It bears witness for God, our Saviour, to the stranger within our gates. It devotes the day to the highest service and sweetens all the hours. It plants in every heart sacred memories to be profitable and happy in all the following years. It brings down from Heaven that blessing of God which maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it.
Be encouraged to take up the duty and privilege of family worship by this valuable aid published over a century ago. Daily family mercies received should lead to daily family prayers and thanksgivings. To God be the glory!
