Thus, therefore, we see that the Christian home demands a family religion. The private devotion of the individual can be no effectual substitute for it. "The parents pair their secret homage, And offer up to heaven the warm request, That He who stills the raven's clamorous nest, And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, For them and for their little ones provide." Family religion includes parental bible instruction, family prayer, and religious education, government, discipline and example. These involve the parent's position in his household as a prophet, priest, and king. "Thou shalt teach my words diligently unto thy children, and talk of them when thou sittest in thy house." "Daily let part of Holy Writ be read, Let as the body, so the soul have bread. For look! how many souls in thy house be, With just as many souls God trusteth thee!" Thus felt and acted our primitive fathers. By every winning art, they sought to fill their children with the knowledge of God's Word. The entire range of nursery instruction and amusement was comprised in scripture pictures and hieroglyphics. They intermingled religion with all their home pursuits, and entwined it with their earliest and purest associations of childhood. If Christian parents would follow their example now, in these days of parental delinquency, we would not behold so many of their children grow up in religious ignorance and indifference. The same may be said of the family altar and prayer. A prayerless family is an irreligious, godless family. Says Henry, "They who daily pray in their houses do well; they that not only pray, but read the scriptures, do better; but they do best of all, who not only pray and read the scriptures, but sing the praises of God." Besides, the religion of home implies that we "command our children and household to keep the way of the Lord,"--that we "bring them up in His nurture and admonition," and "train them up as He would have them go;" and that in things pertaining to their spiritual welfare we "go in and out" before them as their pattern and example, bidding them to "follow us even as we follow Christ," and living in their midst as "the living epistles of Christ, known and read" of them all.