household affairs were arranged with reference to morning and evening
worship, which consisted of singing, reading the Bible, and prayer. No
matter how much work was to be done, the family must rise in time to
allow for the performance of this service. Children heard so much about
God, and heaven, and the life beyond death, that often a morbid and
unnatural frame of mind was induced. Parents and instructors often
forgot to make allowance for the fact that youth naturally and rightly
loves and enjoys this life, and rightly and naturally dreads death. So
much was said about the other world that it seemed almost a sin to think
about or plan much for this. God and heaven were imagined as close
above in the sky? the judgment day was ever held threateningly before
us; and pictures of a literal lake of fire and brimstone, into which
wicked people would be cast, were painted for the imagination of
children, till, as the experience of hundreds testifies, even the most
conscientious of them feared to close their eyes in sleep at night lest
they should awake in that terrible place of torment.

From this doubtless too severe and harsh religious regime, a reaction
has taken place which has thrown the customs of family life and the
religious education of the young people of to-day far into the opposite
extreme. The hurry and railroad rush of modern social and commercial
life have shortened or even cut off entirely the hours for family
worship. In the modern effort to emphasize the fact that God is love,
the other fact that sin deserves and receives punishment has been
thrown too far into the background, or is ignored altogether. Regular
reading of the Bible has become as rare as it formerly was universal.
Irreverence and skepticism in regard to its truths and teachings
permeate a large portion of society, and the general influence of the
social life of young people is opposed to the cultivation or expression
of the religious spirit or aspiration. All this involves the loss of a