No. 159. Infant Theology.—A visitor of large experience in sabbath-schools, asked the children at a crowded examination, "What was the sin of the Pharisees?" "Eatin' camels, ma'am," said one of the smartest, who had carried off many a prize. On further questioning, the child justified, by referring to the passage, where the Pharisees were said to strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
No. 160. Sabbath-school Exercise.—But an English gentlewoman once told me of something she herself had witnessed at a great London sabbath-school examination, where a celebrated questioner called out a little bright-eyed boy, by name, and asked him why Joseph refused to go to bed with Potiphar's wife, when she asked him. A dead silence followed, and then a look of amazement and consternation over all the house, like a cloud: "'Cause he wan't sleepy," said the boy. A dead silence followed; and then a most unseemly titter, on every side, so that the questioner's indiscretion seemed to be entirely lost sight of.
No. 161. Effectual Prayer.—A little boy in Jamaica went to the missionary, and told him that he had been very ill, and often wished for the minister to come and pray with him.
"But, Thomas," said the missionary, "I hope you prayed for yourself?"
"O yes, indeed!"
"Well—and how did you pray?"
"O, I jess begged."
Another child in a Sunday-school, only six at most, said, "When we kneel down here in the school-room to pray, it seems to me as if my heart was talking with God."
Another little girl, just turning four, on being questioned why she prayed to God, answered—
"Because I know He hears me, and so I love to pray to Him."