With the Children on Sundays / Through Eye-Gate and Ear-Gate into the City of Child-Soul

E-text prepared by Emmy, D Alexander, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)

Author of What a Young Boy Ought to Know, What a Young Man Ought to Know, etc., Methods of Church Work, Faces Toward the Light, etc., etc. ——————— This book is published and sold exclusively in the United States by THE UPLIFT PUBLISHING COMPANY PHILADELPHIA, PA.


SYLVANUS STALL, D.D.

DEDICATED TO PARENTS AND CHILDREN WHO DESIRE TO MAKE SUNDAY THE HAPPIEST AND MOST IMPRESSIVE DAY OF THE WEEK.


SUNDAY ought to be the most cheerful, sunniest, happiest and best day of the week in every home. In most homes it is the dullest and most dreary day of the week to the children, and the most taxing and the most wearying to the parents, especially to the mother. It not only ought to be, but it can be made, not only the brightest and happiest but also the most influential in the character-building and religious training of the children. In some households Sunday is looked forward to with anticipations of pleasure throughout the entire week. In these homes, the father does not come down stairs on Sunday morning and say: Now, children, gather up those flowers, throw them out of the window, pull down the blinds, get down the Bible and we will have an awful solemn time here to-day. Neither is the day given to frivolity or the home to demoralizing influences. From morning until night there are two great principles that govern; first, the sacredness of the day, and second, the sacredness of the God-given nature of childhood. The day is not spent in repressing the child nature by a succession of don't do that, now stop that, etc., that begin in the morning and continue throughout the day, and end only when the little ones lose consciousness in sleep on Sunday night. In these homes, the parents recognize the fact that the child nature is the same whether the day is secular or sacred. On Sunday the child nature is not repressed, but the childish impulses are directed into channels suited to the sacredness of the day. In such homes the children, instead of being sorry that it is Sunday, are glad; instead of regretting the return of the day with dislike and dread, they welcome it as the brightest, the cheeriest and the best of all the week.