MR. TRAFTON kept a livery establishment which was extensively patronized by gay and fashionable people—people to whom the Sabbath was a day of pleasuring—and it was through this Sabbath-breaking that Henry Trafton's trial of faith was to come. It so happened that about the time of the summer school vacation they were short of help at the stables, and as Henry understood the management of horses remarkably well for a boy of fourteen, he was drafted into service. He was fond of horses and rather liked the employment, until one Sabbath morning a party wished to be driven to the lake, fifteen miles away.
"But, father," said Henry, "I can't go to-day."
"I'd like to know why?"
"Why, it's Sunday, and I must go to Sunday-school."
"Must, eh? Who says you must?" asked his father, half angrily.
"'Well, I always do. I—I never thought of driving out Sundays," said the boy, in a troubled tone.
"Well, suppose you never did think of it? The time has come now to do it. Don't let's have any nonsense about it," was the impatient reply.
Henry went to his mother with his trouble, who reasoned that it was necessary work, that it was their business, that it was a proper and useful business. He was not responsible for the way in which the party spent the day. He need not join in their frolics. And while they had their sail on the lake, he could rest in the grove and study the Bible lesson. It was very different from going for his own pleasure. If they kept horses to let, they must let them out on the Sabbath. If they let them to young Reeves to go to his mission school at the Ridge, could they refuse to drive young Golden and his friends to the lake? Should they dictate to their customers the direction and object of their drives?
This reasoning did not satisfy the boy. It was all a muddle. He could not tell exactly what would be the right way to conduct the business, and, besides, obedience to his parents was one of his strong points. If his father would not yield, he must. These were miserable Sabbaths. Sometimes he ventured to remonstrate, then his father grew angry, declaring that he should not go to Sunday-school any more even when he was at liberty.
"A pretty piece of business! Teaching a boy to set himself up for authority!"