But to comfort such parents let me say: Let the evening prayer find a fixed and permanent place in the life of the child from the very days of the cradle--then you have built a fortification about it which will guard and protect it at all times because it has become an essential part of itself. The evening prayer of its mother is the last thing the child ever forgets--that which it is most difficult to part with. It does not yield to a little push or two, but will powerfully assert its right to occupy the seat of honor in the heart, and it will insist that the quiet hours of eventide belong to it by right. And even though the child throw its mother's evening prayer overboard in order better to heed the tempting voices of wickedness, he or she will be conscious of restlessness and uneasiness in the depths of the heart, until that demand is met which the evening prayer makes. Yes, even though the child may time and again scoff haughtily at the evening prayer and thus apparently get far enough to push it away with all the silly "nerve" of the age of adolescence and to conquer it--that time will come, is sure to come, when the memory of it and the memory of mother awakens in the child's heart and revives in loving remembrance so that the evening prayer resumes its permanent place in the life of the child. The memory of mother will be a treasure to the child who only then realizes that the evening prayer proved a protection against the plentifulness of temptations. She will receive the gratitude shown her with child-like reverence, because she implanted the evening prayer in the heart of the child. That was one of the mother's deeds of love that became the greatest blessing throughout the storm-tossed time of youth. When everything else sinks into forgetfulness, it will still be remembered "what mother taught me"!
It is a little more difficult to give the morning prayer a fixed place in our life than the evening prayer, because in the morning we feel strengthened by sleep and are in a hurry to get to our work. But if we thus seem to think that we cannot find time to say a morning prayer, let us remember the old proverb: "In prayer is no delay," and if there are other reasons--petty things that have hindered us--then let us summon our will and say to ourselves: _I want to!_ The morning prayer is henceforth to have a fixed place in my everyday life and in my home, and I think everything will go well: In prayer is no delay.