Page:Records of the Life of the Rev. John Murray.djvu/24

14 was happy for us that my respectable grandmother still lived, whose extricating hand was an ever ready resource.

It was my father's constant practice, so long as his health would permit, to quit his bed, winter as well as summer, at four o'clock in the morning; a large portion of this time, thus redeemed from sleep, was devoted to private prayers, and meditations. At six o'clock the family were summoned, and I, as the eldest son, was ordered into my closet, for the purpose of private devotion. My father, however, did not go with me, and I did not always pray; I was not always in a praying frame; but the deceit, which I was thus reduced to the necessity of practising, was an additional torture to my labouring mind. After the family were collected, it was my part to read a chapter in the bible; then followed a long and fervent prayer by my father; breakfast succeeded, when the children being sent to school, the business of the day commenced. In the course of the day, my father, as I believe, never omitted his private devotions, and, in the evening, the whole family were again collected, the children examined, our faults recorded, and I, as an example to the rest, especially chastised. My father rarely passed by an offence, without marking it by such punishment as his sense of duty awarded; and when my tearful mother interceded for me, he would respond to her entreaties in the language of Solomon, "if thou beat him with a rod, he shall not die;" the bible was again introduced, and the day was closed by prayer. Sunday was a day much to be dreaded in our family; we were all awakened at early dawn, private devotions attended, breakfast hastily dismissed, shutters closed, no light but from the back part of the house, no noise could bring any part of the family to the window, not a syllable was uttered upon secular affairs; every one who could read, children and domestics, had their allotted chapters. Family prayer succeeded, after which, Baxter's Saint's Everlasting Rest was assigned to me, my mother all the time in terror lest the children should be an interruption. At last the bell summoned us to Church, whither in solemn order we proceeded: I close to my father, who admonished me to look strait forward, and not let my eyes wander after vanity. At Church, I was fixed at his elbow, compelled to kneel when he kneeled, stand when he stood, to find the Psalm, Epistle, Gospel, and collects for the day, and any instance of inattention was vigilantly marked, and unrelentingly punished. When I returned from Church, I was ordered to my closet; and when I came forth, the chapter, from which the preacher had taken his text, was