From the same source comes a charming story of a small boy who had taken a dislike to a cousin of his own age called Malcolm. It so happened that each of them had a baby brother, and the little boy in question broke off in the middle of his prayers one evening to ejaculate, “Please God make me and my baby brother stronger and stronger, and Malcolm and his little brother weaker and weaker, so that when we fight we may conquer!”
Children’s Churchgoing.
Danger of Too Much.
The next point to be noticed in dealing with the religion of children is the vexed question as to the wisdom of enforcing attendance at public worship. There can be no doubt at all that, if overdone, compulsory churchgoing may lead to disastrous results. A man to whom frequent attendance at services has all his life been irksome, looks back to his childhood when he was expected to be present at Sunday services, week-day services, Sunday School, choir practices, missionary and other meetings, until he became weary of the very name of such things. Rather nervous of blame, he never ventured to express a wish to absent himself, and to those early days and their discipline he ascribes his present reluctance.
Danger of Too Little.
On the other hand, it is no doubt true that it is dangerous to use no compulsion, and to allow the formation of a habit of staying away from church on the smallest excuse. The real difficulty is to steer a course between making Sunday the dull, cold, miserable day that it too frequently became in the earlier part of the last century and allowing it to be as secular as it so often is at present.
A lady who has been specially successful in bringing up her children to love Sunday and its observances, says, “I make a point of extra nice clothes and nice food on Sundays (it sounds horribly material!) but I want to make everything connected with goodness and religion attractive, and, however much we may wish they were not so, our souls and bodies affect each other in an extraordinary way. My youngest child of five and a half, having begun Churchgoing regularly six months ago, begs to stay on through the whole service, only saying at the end, ‘What a lot of kneeling! But I like it; can I stay again?’ Of course, there were two reasons for his wish: his love of being near me, and the music which he also loves.”
A Service Held by Children.
Another instance may be quoted here, taken, as was the last, from the family of lay people. Here again everything was done to make Sundays bright and happy and to bring up the children to consider Churchgoing a treat. So fond did they become of the services that the two youngest—a girl of seven and a boy of five—were accustomed to hold a special service of their own when with their mother in the drawing-room after tea on Sundays. Their mother describes these functions as follows, and, though they may seem to some people to have a spice of “play acting,” yet the children were extremely in earnest in all they did. Here is her account: “They used to put on pinafores, the opening to come in front, and wore sashes for stoles. My duty was to sit at the piano as organist. I had to play a voluntary as they came in. They chose the hymns, and each chose a chapter in the Bible to read. They stood on a chair to read their chapters. One day I remember that the little boy, who could not yet read very fluently, chose the one in St. Luke with seventy-two verses and went straight on with it to the end! They took it in turns to preach, again standing on the chair. The elder child always wrote her sermon, but the little boy’s was extempore. After the sermon the missionary box was handed round and we each put something in. The service ended by their kneeling down side by side and singing ‘Jesu, tender Shepherd, hear me.’ One evening the younger child stood up on his chair to preach, and began to get redder and redder and looked very much worried, but I did not dare to move from my seat as organist. At last his sister whispered, ‘What’s the matter, darling?’ on which he said, ‘Every word of the sermon has gone out of my head.’ So she promptly stood on her chair and said, ‘The congregation will excuse the sermon this evening. Hymn No. 348.’ I have come across one of the little girl’s written sermons, and give it here:—
“‘Little Children Love one Another.’