Hints on Child-training

by H. Clay Trumbull

The Sabbath closet, or Sabbath cabinet, or Sabbath drawer, ought to be a treasure-house of delights in every Christian home; not to be opened except on the Lord’s day, and sure to bring added enjoyment when it is opened in the children’s sight. In that treasure-house there may be bright colored pictures of Bible scenes; Sunday-school papers; books of stories which are suitable and attractive above others for Sabbath reading; dissected maps of Bible lands, or dissected pages of Bible texts, of the Lord’s Prayer, or of the Apostles’ Creed; models of the Tabernacle, or of Noah’s Ark and its inmates. Whatever is there, ought resolutely to be kept there at all other times than on the Lord’s day. However much the children may long for the contents of that treasure-house, between Sabbaths, they ought to find it impossible to have a view of them until that day of days has come round again. The use of these things should be associated inseparably, in the children’s minds, with the Lord’s day and its privileges, and so should help to make that day a delight, as a day of God’s choicest gifts to those whom God loves and who love him. By such means the very plays or recreations of the children may be made as truly a means of rest and of worship on the children’s part as are the labors of the parents, in the line of Bible study or of Sunday-school teaching, a means of Sabbath rest and of Sabbath worship to them on each recurring Lord’s day.

Even for the youngest children there may be a touch of Sabbath enjoyment in a piece of Sabbath confectionery, or of Sabbath cake, of a sort allowed them at no other time. There are little ones who are not permitted to have candy freely at their own homes, but who are privileged to have a choice bit of this at their grandmother’s, where they visit, after Sunday-school, on every Lord’s day. And there are grown-up children who remember pleasantly that when they were very little ones they were permitted to have a make-believe Sabbath visit together in their happy home, with a table spread with tiny dishes of an attractive appearance, which they never saw except on the Lord’s day. There are others who remember with what delight they were accustomed, while children, after a certain age, to sit up and have a place at the family table at tea-time, on Sundays; although on other days they must be in bed before that hour.

If, indeed, the Lord’s day is, in any such way, made a day of peculiar delight to children, with the understanding on their part—as they come to years of understanding—that this is because the day is peculiarly the Lord’s day, there is a gain to them, so far, in the Lord’s plan of the Sabbath for man’s welfare in the loving service of the loving God. But if, on the other hand, the first impressions in the children’s mind concerning this day of days are, that it is a day of harsh prohibitions and of dreariness and discomfort, there is so far a dishonoring in their minds of the day and of Him whose day it is; and for this result their unwise parents are, of course, responsible.

As children grow older, and are capable of comprehending more fully the spiritual meanings and privileges and possibilities of the Sabbath, they need more help from their parents,—not less help, but more,—in order to their wise use of the day, and to the gaining of its greatest advantages. The hour of family worship ought to have more in it on the Lord’s day than on any other day of the week. Its exercises should be ampler and more varied. Either at that hour, or at some other, the Sunday-school lesson for the week should be taken up and studied by parents and children together.

There are homes where the children have a Sunday-school of their own, at a convenient hour of the day, in the family room, led by father or mother, or by older brother or sister, with the help of maps and blackboard, or slates. There are other homes in which the father leads a children’s service of worship, in the early evening, and reads a little sermon from some one of the many published volumes of sermons for children. Wherever either of these plans is adopted, there should be a part for each of the children, not only in the singing and reading, but in asking and answering questions.

Apart from such formal exercises as these, one child can be showing and explaining a book of Bible pictures or of Scripture cards to younger children; or one group of children can be picking out Bible places or Bible persons from their recent lessons and arranging them alphabetically on slates or on slips of paper, while another group is studying out some of the many Bible puzzles or curious Bible questions which are published so freely for such a purpose. Variety in methods is desirable from week to week, and variety is practicable.

The singing of fitting and attractive songs of joy and praise will naturally have larger prominence, at the hours of family worship, and at other hours of the day and evening, on the Lord’s day, than on other days of the week. And parents ought to find time on the Lord’s day to read aloud to their children, or to tell them, stories suited to their needs, as well as to lead in familiar conversation with them. For this mode of training there can be no satisfactory substitute. Of course, it takes time, and it calls for courage, for high resolve, or self-denial, and for faith. But it is worth more than all it costs.

All this is apart from the question of the attendance and duties of the little ones at the Sunday-school or at the place of public worship. When a child is of suitable age to have an intelligent part in the exercises of the Sunday-school, he should be helped to find those exercises a means of sacred enjoyment. When, at a later day, he is old enough to be at the general service of worship without undue weariness, it is the duty of the parents to make that place a place of gladsomeness to him, as often as he is found there. Not wearisomeness, but rest, is appropriate to the holiest Sabbath services of the Lord’s day. Not deepened shadow, but clearer sunlight, is fitting to its sacred hours.

The spirit of the entire day’s observances ought to be a reverent spirit; but it should be understood by the parents that true reverence is better shown in gladness than in gloom. Where the Lord’s day is counted a dismal one by the children, it is obvious that the parents have failed to train their children to hallow that day, as the day which is peculiarly sacred to the love of their loving Father in heaven. Whether at home, or at Sunday-school or any other church service, the children should be helped to realize that the day is a day of brightness and of cheer; that while differing in its occupations and enjoyments from all other days, it is the best of them all. When a little boy, out of a home thus ordered, heard one of his companions express, on Sunday, a wish that it was already Monday, the little fellow said, with evident heartiness, “Why! don’t you like Sunday? I like it best of all the days.” And so it ought to be in the case of every boy and girl in a Christian home.