Richard Baxter (1615–91) in his Christian Directory wrote at considerable length on how daily morning and evening prayer was to be conducted by the father of each family. Baxter insists that daily family prayer is one of the divinely ordained functions of the family. A family, Baxter tells us, is a little church. Family prayer should include the following things: the singing of one or more psalms, the reading of a chapter of Scripture, and a full and comprehensive prayer by the head of the house.
