Every thing depends on the way you begin your new life in your own new home. The household altar is a supreme necessity. No hesitation or timidity should be allowed to prevent family worship. If both of you are members of the Church, the holding of a brief family worship need not be a serious trial. The difficulty will be when only one is a Christian, and still greater will it be if neither is a Christian. What is to be done under such circumstances? Must the having family worship be postponed until the religious life be commenced? That is uncertain, and it may be years before a household altar is established. The only safe way is to begin at once by holding a short service. Simple it may be. It was the daily custom of President Hayes, during his presidential term of office, to convene his family for daily worship. The prayer consisted of only the Lord's Prayer. But it was enough. The minds of the household were directed toward spiritual things. The help of God was sought, to bear whatever burdens the day might bring. However great the embarrassment in the face of this great duty, let it not prevent the brief domestic worship. Begin--begin immediately. A short Scripture reading, followed by prayer, even only the Lord's Prayer, will be sufficient. There are good forms of prayer, some of which I have used to advantage. Fletcher's _Family Devotion_; Sturm's _Family Devotions_; Morison's _Family Prayers_; Cumming's _Daily Family Devotion_; _Family Worship_, by one hundred and eighty clergymen of the Church of Scotland; Cassell's _Family Devotion_; Dale's _Domestic Liturgy_; Thornton's _Family Prayers_; Thompson and Spurgeon's _Home Worship and the Use of the Bible in the Home_; and Jay's _Morning and Evening Exercises_, are good books for this purpose. The works of Fletcher, Thornton, and the _Home Worship_ of Thompson and Spurgeon are worthy of special commendation. Even when one is accustomed to extemporaneous prayer, the use of one of the above books will, nevertheless, be of great service in preventing stereotyped phrases and trains of thought. I have often found that my own needs, and I believe those of my family, have been better and more exactly described by others than by myself. It is best, however, to get into no fixed form. Let the extemporaneous prayer, or the printed form of prayer, be used judiciously, as circumstances require.