| The Life of Dr. J.R. Miller |
Chapter 1 |
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James Miller married Polly Russell. Their son, James Alexander Miller, married Eleanor Creswell. Ten children blessed their home – three sons and seven daughters. One son and two daughters died in infancy. Both of the surviving sons became ministers of the gospel. James Russell Miller was the second child, though his older sister died before he was born, on March 20, 1840.
In 1840 the family home was near Frankfort Springs, Pennsylvania, on the banks of the Big Traverse, a merry little mill stream, which drains one of the most beautiful valleys in the southern part of Beaver County. The old homestead and the mill, where the father spent his days labouring for the support of the family, are still standing.
The home on the Big Traverse was a house of prayer. When it was founded the family altar was set up, and it was never suffered to be broken down. As the children came into the home they soon learned that whatever else of the household routine was omitted, family worship was never forgotten, and never slighted. Neither pressure of business nor the presence of guests was ever offered as excuse for the omission of morning and evening prayer. The family worship took time: the hurried repetition of a verse of Scripture and a sentence prayer was never considered enough; but there was invariably the reverent and devout singing of a Psalm, the reading of a chapter from the Bible, in regular course, and a prayer in which the members of the family were committed to God’s keeping, and the interest of the kingdom of God, at home and abroad, were remembered. It is recalled by one who often participated in these sacred services that a petition seldom omitted pleaded that the love of God might be shed abroad in the hearts of the kneeling suppliants, – “that love which words by faith, which purifies the heart, which overcomes the world.” For a long time the one who tells of the petition wondered where in the Bible it could be found, until diligent search showed him that it is a mosaic from the worlds of Paul and Peter and John. The priest at that family altar was a Bible student.
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