“Why, no,” I says, “not unless you can interest and occupy them. Which no sermons do for little children.”
“Where would the mothers that are in church send their children to?” says he.
“We ought to have the rooms downstairs open,” I says, “and have somebody in charge, and have quiet exercises and story-telling and pictures for them.”
“My dear Miss Marsh,” he says, “that would be a revolution.”
“True,” says I, serene. “Ain’t life odd?” I adds. “One minute we’re saying, shocked: ‘But that would be a revolution.’ And the next minute we’re harping away on keeping alive the revolutionary spirit. I wonder which of the two we really mean?”
“Well, then, what else?” says he, pacific.
“Then,” I says, “I wish we could have five minutes of silent prayer. And then right off, the sermon—and no hymn after that at all, but let the sermon end with the benediction—a real cry to God to be with us and to live in us. That’s all.”
I had to go out in the kitchen then to empty a bowl of my pitted fruit, and when I come back the minister stood there, smiling.
“Ah, Miss Marsh,” he said, “you’ve forgotten a very important thing. You’ve forgotten the collection.”
“No,” says I. “No, I haven’t. Except on the days when it’s a real offering for some work for God. I’d take a collection then. The rest of the time I’d have the minister’s salary and the fuel and the kerosene paid for by checks, private.”