Page:History of Charles Jones, the footman (2).pdf/3

 her duty, Friendship, civility to her neighbours, cleanliness in her own person, her house and her children, she had not her fellow. But the most remarkable thing in her (I am afraid a very uncommon thing) was her steady and uninterrupted practice of family prayer. It must have been a hard days work indeed, that hindered her from her prayers. At six in the morning and eight in the evening, as regularly as ever the hour came, she always knelt down with her children round her, four of us, and read with great solemnity and devotion a short form given her by the clergyman, which concluded with the Lord's prayer, in which we all joined. And she used to say after she had finished, 'Now I can go to bed or to work, in peace; for now we may hope God will protect us,' I am sorry to say my Father seldom joined with us. He used to pretend he was busy or tired; and yet it would not have detained him long neither, for we were never more than six minutes about it, and surely twelve minutes about it, and surely twelve minutes a day (six in the morning and six in the evening) is no great time to give to God. One thing has often struck me, that if any thing went wrong and ruffled my dear mother's temper, or made her uneasy, the prayer seemed to set it all to rights. When she had been to prayers, all her grief seemed to be fled away. And indeed I observed the same thing with respect to my father; if he ever did join with us, it always seemed somehow to compose and sweeten his mind, and make him a great deal kinder to my mother and us.