University of Virginia Library

THE SABBATH.
SKETCHES FROM A NOTE-BOOK OF AN ELDERLY
GENTLEMAN.

The Puritan Sabbath—is there such a thing
existing now, or has it gone with the things
that were, to be looked at as a curiosity in the
museum of the past? Can any one, in memory,
take himself back to the unbroken stillness
of that day, and recall the sense of religious
awe which seemed to brood in the very atmosphere,
checking the merry laugh of childhood,
and chaining in unwonted stillness the tongue
of volatile youth, and imparting even to the
sunshine of heaven, and the unconscious notes
of animals, a tone of its own gravity and repose?
If you cannot remember these things,
go back with me to the verge of early boyhood,
and live with me one of the Sabbaths
that I have spent beneath the roof of my uncle,
Phineas Fletcher.

Imagine the long sunny hours of a Saturday
afternoon insensibly slipping away, as we
youngsters are exploring the length and breadth

of a trout-stream, or chasing gray squirrels, or
building mud milldams in the brook. The sun
sinks lower and lower, but we still think it
does not want half an hour to sundown. At
last, he so evidently is really going down, that
there is no room for skepticism or latitude of
opinion on the subject; and with many a lingering
regret, we began to put away our fish-hooks,
and hang our hoops over our arm, preparatory
to trudging homeward.

“Oh, Henry, don't you wish that Saturday
afternoons lasted longer?” said little John to
me.

“I do,” says Cousin Bill, who was never the
boy to mince matters in giving his sentiments;
“and I wouldn't care if Sunday didn't come
but once a year.”

“Oh, Bill, that's wicked, I'm afraid,” says
little conscientious Susan, who, with her doll
in hand, was coming home from a Saturday afternoon
visit.

“Can't help it,” says Bill, catching Susan's
bag, and tossing it in the air; “I never did like
to sit still, and that's why I hate Sundays.”

“Hate Sundays! oh, Bill! Why, Aunt Kezzy
says Heaven is an eternal Sabbath—only think
of that!”

“Well, I know I must be pretty different

from what I am now before I could sit still forever,”
said Bill, in a lower and somewhat disconcerted
tone, as if admitting the force of the
consideration.

The rest of us began to look very grave, and
to think that we must get to liking Sunday
some time or other, or it would be a very bad
thing for us. As we drew near the dwelling,
the compact and business like form of Aunt
Kezzy was seen emerging from the house to
hasten our approach.

“How often have I told you, young ones,
not to stay out after sundown on Saturday
night? Don't you know it's the same as Sunday,
you wicked children, you? Come right
into the house, every one of you, and never
let me hear of such a thing again.”

This was Aunt Kezzy's regular exordium every
Saturday night, for we children, being blinded,
as she supposed, by natural depravity, always
made strange mistakes in reckoning time
on Saturday afternoons. After being duly suppered
and scrubbed, we were enjoined to go to
bed, and remember that to-morrow was Sunday,
and that we must not laugh and play in the
morning. With many a sorrowful look did Susan
deposite her doll in the chest, and give one
lingering look at the patchwork she was piecing

for dolly's bed, while William, John, and
myself emptied our pockets of all superfluous
fish-hooks, bits of twine, pop-guns, slices of potato,
marbles, and all the various items of boy
property, which, to keep us from temptation,
were taken into Aunt Kezzy's safe keeping
over Sunday.

My Uncle Phineas was a man of great exactness,
and Sunday was the centre of his
whole worldly and religious system. Everything
with regard to his worldly business was
so arranged that by Saturday noon it seemed
to come to a close of itself. All his accounts
were looked over, his workmen paid, all borrowed
things returned, and lent things sent after,
and every tool and article belonging to the
farm was returned to its own place at exactly
such an hour every Saturday afternoon, and an
hour before sundown every item of preparation,
even to the blacking of his Sunday shoes
and the brushing of his Sunday coat, was entirely
concluded; and at the going down of the
sun, the stillness of the Sabbath seemed to settle
down over the whole dwelling.

And now it is Sunday morning; and though
all without is fragrance, and motion, and beauty,
the dewdrops are twinkling, butterflies fluttering,
and merry birds carolling and racketing as

if they never could sing loud or fast enough, yet
within there is such a stillness that the tick of
the tall mahogany clock is audible through the
whole house, and the buzz of the blue flies, as
they whiz along up and down the window panes,
is a distinct item of hearing. Look into the
best front room, and you may see the upright
form of my Uncle Phineas, in his immaculate
Sunday clothes, with his Bible spread open on
the little stand before him, and even a deeper
than usual gravity settling down over his toil-worn
features. Alongside, in well-brushed
Sunday clothes, with clean faces and smooth
hair, sat the whole of us younger people, each
drawn up in a chair, with hat and handkerchief
ready for the first stroke of the bell, while
Aunt Kezzy, all trimmed, and primmed, and
made ready for meeting, sat reading her psalm
book, only looking up occasionally to give an
additional jerk to some shirt-collar, or the fifteenth
pull to Susan's frock, or to repress any
straggling looks that might be wandering about
“beholding vanity!”

A stranger, in glancing at Uncle Phineas as
he sat intent on his Sunday reading, might have
seen that the Sabbath was in his heart—there
was no mistake about it. It was plain that he
had put by all worldly thoughts when he shut

up his account-book, and that his mind was as
free from every earthly association as his Sunday
coat was from dust. The slave of worldliness,
who is driven, by perplexing business or
adventurous speculation, through the hours of
a half-kept Sabbath to the fatigues of another
week, might envy the unbroken quiet, the sunny
tranquillity which hallowed the weekly rest
of my uncle.

The Sabbath of the Puritan Christian was the
golden day, and all its associations, and all its
thoughts, words, and deeds, were so entirely
distinct from the ordinary material of life, that
it was to him a sort of weekly translation—a
quitting of this world to sojourn a day in a better;
and year after year, as each Sabbath set its
seal on the completed labours of a week, the pilgrim
felt that one more stage of his earthly journey
was completed, and that he was one week
nearer to his eternal rest. And as years, with
their changes, came on, and the strong man grew
old, and missed, one after another, familiar forms
that had risen around his earlier years, the face
of the Sabbath became like that of an old and
tried friend, carrying him back to the scenes of
his youth, and connecting him with scenes long
gone by, restoring to him the dew and freshness
of brighter and more buoyant days.

Viewed simply as an institution for a Christian
and mature mind, nothing could be more
perfect than the Puritan Sabbath: if it had any
failing, it was in the want of adaptation to children,
and to those not interested in its peculiar
duties. If you had been in the dwelling of my
uncle of a Sabbath morning, you must have
found the unbroken stillness delightful; the
calm and quiet must have soothed and disposed
you for contemplation, and the evident appearance
of single-hearted devotion to the duties of
the day in the elder part of the family must
have been a striking addition to the picture.
But, then, if your eye had watched attentively
the motions of us juveniles, you might have
seen that what was so very invigorating to the
disciplined Christian was a weariness to young
flesh and bones. Then there was not, as now,
the intellectual relaxation afforded by the Sunday-school,
with its various forms of religious
exercise, its thousand modes of interesting and
useful information. Our whole stock in this
line was the Bible and primer, and these were
our main dependance for whiling away the tedious
hours between our early breakfast and
the signal for meeting. How often was our invention
stretched to find wherewithal to keep
up our stock of excitement in a line with the

duties of the day. For the first half hour, perhaps,
a story in the Bible answered our purpose
very well; but, having despatched the history
of Joseph, or the story of the ten plagues, we
then took to the primer: and then there was,
first, the looking over the system of theological
and ethical truth, commencing, “In Adam's fall
we sinned all,” and extending through three or
four pages of pictorial and poetic embellishment.
Next was the death of John Rogers,
who was burned at Smithfield; and for a while
we could entertain ourselves with counting all
his “nine children and one at the breast,” as in
the picture they stand in a regular row, like a
pair of stairs. These being done, came miscellaneous
exercises of our own invention, such as
counting all the psalms in the psalm-book backward
and forward, to and from the Doxology,
or numbering the books in the Bible, or some
other such device as we deemed within the pale
of religious employments. When all these
failed, and it still wanted an hour of meeting-time,
we looked up at the ceiling, and down at
the floor, and all around into every corner, to
see what we could do next; and happy was he
who could spy a pin gleaming in some distant
crack, and forthwith muster an occasion for getting
down to pick it up. Then there was the
infallible recollection that we wanted a drink of
water, as an excuse to get out to the well; or
else we heard some strange noise among the
chickens, and insisted that it was essential that
we should see what was the matter; or else
pussy would jump on to the table, when all of
us would spring to drive her down; while there
was a most assiduous watching of the clock to
see when the first bell would ring. Happy was
it for us, in the interim, if we did not begin to
look at each other and make up faces, or slyly
slip off and on our shoes, or some other incipient
attempts at roguery, which would gradually
so undermine our gravity that there would be
some sudden explosion of merriment, whereat
Uncle Phineas would look up and say “tut,
tut,” and Aunt Kezzy would make a speech
about wicked children breaking the Sabbath
day. I remember once how my cousin Bill got
into deep disgrace one Sunday by a roguish
trick. He was just about to close his Bible with
all sobriety, when snap came a grasshopper
through an open window, and alighted in the
middle of the page. Bill instantly kidnapped
the intruder, for so important an auxiliary in the
way of employment was not to be despised.
Presently we children looked towards Bill, and
there he sat, very demurely reading his Bible,
with the grasshopper hanging by one leg from
the corner of his mouth, kicking and sprawling,
without in the least disturbing Master William's
gravity. We all burst into an uproarious laugh.
But it came to be rather a serious affair for Bill,
as his good father was in the practice of enforcing
truth and duty by certain modes of moral
suasion much recommended by Solomon,
though fallen into disrepute at the present day.

This morning picture may give a good specimen
of the whole livelong Sunday, which presented
only an alternation of similar scenes
until sunset, when a universal unchaining of
tongues and a general scamper proclaimed
that the “sun was down.”

But, it may be asked, what was the result of
all this strictness? Did it not disgust you with
the Sabbath and with religion? No, it did
not. It did not, because it was the result of no
unkindly feeling, but of consistent principle; and
consistency of principle is what even children
learn to appreciate and revere. The law of
obedience and of reverence for the Sabbath
was constraining so equally on the young and
the old, that its claims came to be regarded
like those immutable laws of nature, which no
one thinks of being out of patience with, though
they sometimes bear hard on personal convenience.

The effect of the system was to ingrain
into our character a veneration for the
Sabbath which no friction of after life would
ever efface. I have lived to wander in many
climates and foreign lands, where the Sabbath
is an unknown name, or where it is only recognised
by noisy mirth; but never has the day
returned without bringing with it a breathing of
religious awe, and even a yearning for the unbroken
stillness, the placid repose, and the simple
devotion of the Puritan Sabbath

ANOTHER SCENE.

“How late we are this morning,” said Mrs.
Roberts to her husband, glancing hurriedly at
the clock, as they were sitting down to breakfast
on a Sabbath morning. “Really, it is a
shame to us to be so late Sundays. I wonder
John and Henry are not up yet: Hannah, did
you speak to them?”

“Yes, ma'am, but I could not make them
mind; they said it was Sunday, and that we always
have breakfast later Sundays.”

“Well, it is a shame to us, I must say,” said
Mrs. Roberts, sitting down to the table. “I
never lie late myself unless something in particular
happens. Last night I was out very late,
and Sabbath before last I had a bad headache.”

“Well, well, my dear,” said Mr. Roberts, “it
is not worth while to worry yourself about it;
Sunday is a day of rest; everybody indulges a
little of a Sunday morning—it is so very natural,
you know; one's work done up, one feels like taking
a little rest.”

“Well, I must say, it was not the way my
mother brought me up,” said Mrs. Roberts,
“and I really can't feel it to be right.”

This last part of the discourse had been listened
to by two sleepy-looking boys, who had,
meanwhile, taken their seat at table with that
listless air which is the result of late sleeping.

“Oh, by-the-by, my dear, what did you give
for those hams, Saturday?” said Mr. Roberts.

“Eleven cents a pound, I believe,” replied
Mrs. Roberts; “but Stephens & Philips have
some much nicer, canvass and all, for ten cents.
I think we had better get our things at Stephens
& Philips's in future, my dear.”

“Why, are they much cheaper?”

“Oh, a great deal; but I forget—it is Sunday.
We ought to be thinking of other things. Boys,
have you looked over your Sunday-school lesson?”

“No, ma'am.”

“Now, how strange! and here it wants only
half an hour of the time, and you are not dressed

either. Now see the bad effects of not being
up in time.”

The boys looked sullen, and said “they were
up as soon as any one else in the house.”

“Well, your father and I had some excuse,
because we were out late last night: you ought
to have been up full three hours ago, and to have
been all ready, with your lessons learned. Now
what do you suppose you shall do?”

“Oh, mother, do let us stay at home this one
morning; we don't know the lesson, and it won't
do any good for us to go.”

“No, indeed, I shall not. You must go, and
get along as well as you can. It is all your own
fault. Now go up stairs and hurry. We shall
not find time for prayers this morning.”

The boys took themselves up stairs to “hurry,”
as directed, and soon one of them called
from the top of the stairs, “Mother! mother!
the buttons are off this vest, so I can't wear it;”
and “mother! here is a long rip in my best
coat,” said another.

“Why did you not tell me of it before?” said
Mrs. Roberts, coming up stairs.

“I forgot it,” said the boy.

“Well, well, stand still; I must catch it together
somehow, if it is Sunday. There! there
is the bell! Stand still a minute!” and Mrs.

Roberts plied needle and thread and scissors;
“there, that will do for to-day. Dear me, how
confused everything is to-day!”

“It is always just so, Sundays,” said John,
flinging up his book and catching it again as he
ran down stairs.

“It is always just so, Sundays.” The words
struck rather unpleasantly on Mrs. Roberts's
conscience, for something told her that, whatever
the reason might be, it was just so. On
Sunday everything was later and more irregular
than any other day in the week.

“Hannah, you must boil that piece of beef
for dinner to-day.”

“I thought you told me you did not have
cooking done on Sunday.”

“No, I do not, generally. I am very sorry
Mr. Roberts would get that piece of meat yesterday;
we did not need it; but here it is on
our hands; the weather is too hot to keep it.
It won't do to let it spoil; so I must have it
boiled, for aught I see.”

Hannah had lived four Sabbaths with Mrs.
Roberts, and on two of them she had been required
to cook from similar reasoning. “For
once” is apt, in such cases, to become a word
of very extensive signification.

“It really worries me to have things go on

so as they do on Sundays,” said Mrs. Roberts
to her husband; “I never do feel as if we kept
Sunday as we ought.”

“My dear, you have been saying so ever
since we were married, and I do not see what
you are going to do about it. For my part, I
do not see why we do not do as well as people
in general. We do not visit, nor receive company,
nor read improper books. We go to
church, and send the children to Sunday-school,
and so the greater part of the day is spent in a
religious way. Then out of church we have
the children's Sunday-school books, and one or
two religious newspapers: I think that is quite
enough.”

“But, somehow, when I was a child, my
mother—” said Mrs. Roberts, hesitating.

“Oh, my dear, your mother must not be considered
an exact pattern for these days. People
were too strict in your mother's time; they
carried the thing too far altogether; everybody
allows it now.”

Mrs. Roberts was silenced, but not satisfied
A strict religious education had left just conscience
enough on this subject to make her uneasy.

These worthy people had a sort of general
idea that Sunday ought to be kept, and they

intended to keep it, but they had never taken
the trouble to investigate or inquire as to the
most proper way, nor was it so much an object
of interest that their weekly arrangements were
planned with any reference to it. Mr. Roberts
would often engage in business at the close of
the week, which he knew would so fatigue him
that he would be weary and listless on Sunday;
and Mrs. Roberts would allow her family cares
to accumulate in the same way, so that she was
either wearied with efforts to accomplish it before
the Sabbath, or perplexed and worried by
finding everything at loose ends on that day.
They had the idea that Sunday was to be kept
when it was perfectly convenient, and did not
demand any sacrifice of time or money. But
if stopping to keep the Sabbath in a journey
would risk passage-money or a seat in the
stage; or, in housekeeping, if it would involve
any considerable inconvenience or expense, it
was deemed a providential intimation that it
was “a work of necessity and mercy” to attend
to secular matters. To their minds the
fourth command read thus: “Remember the
Sabbath day, to keep it holy when it comes
convenient, and costs neither time nor money.”

As to the effects of this on the children, there
was neither enough of strictness to make them

respect the Sabbath, nor of religious interest to
make them love it; of course, the little restraint
there was proved just enough to lead
them to dislike and despise it. Children soon
perceive the course of their parents' feelings,
and it was evident enough to the children of
this family that their father and mother generally
found themselves hurried into the Sabbath
with hearts and minds full of this world, and
their conversation and thoughts were so constantly
turning to worldly things, and so awkwardly
drawn back by a sense of religious obligation,
that the Sabbath appeared more obviously
a clog and a fetter, than it did under the
strictest régime of Puritan days.

SKETCH SECOND.

The little quiet village of Camden stands under
the brow of a rugged hill, in one of the
most picturesque parts of New-England, and
its regular, honest, and industrious villagers
were not a little surprised and pleased that
Mr. James, a rich man, and pleasant spoken
withal, had concluded to take up his residence
among them. He brought with him a pretty,
genteel wife, and a group of rosy, romping,
but amiable children; and there was so much
of good-nature and kindness about the manners

of every member of the family, that the whole
neighbourhood were prepossessed in their favour.
Mr. James was a man of somewhat visionary
and theoretical turn of mind, and very
much in the habit of following out his own
ideas of right and wrong, without troubling
himself particularly as to the appearance his
course might make in the eyes of others. He
was a supporter of the ordinances of religion,
and always ready to give both time and money
to promote any benevolent object; and though
he had never made any public profession of religion,
nor connected himself with any particular
set of Christians, still he seemed to possess
great reverence for God, and to worship him in
spirit and in truth, and he professed to make
the Bible the guide of his life. Mr. James had
been brought up under a system of injudicious
religious restraint. He had determined, in educating
his children, to adopt an exactly opposite
course, and to make religion and all its
institutions sources of enjoyment. His aim,
doubtless, was an appropriate one, but his method
of carrying it out, to say the least, was one
which was not a safe model for general imitation.
In regard to the Sabbath, for example,
he considered that, although the plan of going
to church twice a day, and keeping all the family
quiet within doors the rest of the time, was
good, other methods would be much better.
Accordingly, after the morning service, which
he and his whole family regularly attended, he
would spend the rest of the day with his children.
In bad weather he would instruct them
in natural history, show them pictures, and
read them various accounts of the works of
God, combining all with such religious instruction
and influence as a devotional mind might
furnish. When the weather permitted, he would
range with them through the fields, collecting
minerals and plants, or sail with them on the
lake, meanwhile directing the thoughts of his
young listeners upward to God, by the many
beautiful traces of his presence and agency,
which superior knowledge and observation enabled
him to discover and point out. These
Sunday strolls were seasons of most delightful
enjoyment to the children. Though it was with
some difficulty that their father could restrain
them from loud and noisy demonstrations of
delight, he saw, with some regret, that the
mere animal excitement of the stroll seemed to
draw the attention too much from religious
considerations, and, in particular, to make the
exercises of the morning seem like a preparatory
penance to the enjoyments of the afternoon.
Nevertheless, when Mr. James looked
back to his own boyhood, and remembered the
frigid restraint, the entire want of any kind of
mental or bodily excitement, which had made
the Sabbath so much a weariness to him, he
could not but congratulate himself when he
perceived his children looking forward to Sunday
as a day of delight, and found himself on
that day continually surrounded by a circle of
smiling and cheerful faces. His talent of imparting
religious instruction in a simple and
interesting form was remarkably happy, and it
is probable that there was among his children
an uncommon degree of real thought and feeling
on religious subjects as the result.

The good people of Camden, however, knew
not what to think of a course that appeared to
them an entire violation of all the requirements
of the Sabbath. The first impulse of human
nature is to condemn at once all who vary from
what has been commonly regarded as the right
way; and, accordingly, Mr. James was unsparingly
denounced, by many good people, as a
Sabbath-breaker, an infidel, and an opposer to
religion.

Such was the character heard of him by Mr.
Richards, a young clergyman, who, shortly after
Mr. James fixed his residence in Camden,

accepted the pastoral charge of the village. It
happened that Mr. Richards had known Mr.
James in college, and, remembering him as a
remarkably serious, amiable, and conscientious
man, he resolved to ascertain from himself the
views which had led him to the course of conduct
so offensive to the good people of the
neighbourhood.

“This is all very well, my good friend,” said
he, after he had listened to Mr. James's eloquent
account of his own system of religious instruction,
and its effects upon his family; “I do
not doubt that this system does very well for
yourself and family; but there are other things
to be taken into consideration besides personal
and family improvement. Do you not know,
Mr. James, that the most worthless and careless
part of my congregation quote your example
as a respectable precedent for allowing their
families to violate the order of the Sabbath?
You and your children sail about on the lake,
with minds and hearts, I doubt not, elevated
and tranquillized by its quiet repose; but Ben
Dakes, and his idle, profane army of children,
consider themselves as doing very much the
same thing when they lie lolling about, sunning
themselves on its shore, or skipping stones
over its surface the whole of a Sunday afternoon.”

“Let every one answer to his own conscience,”
replied Mr. James. “It I keep the
Sabbath conscientiously, I am approved of God;
if another transgresses his conscience, `to his
own master he standeth or falleth.' I am not
responsible for all the abuses that idle or evil-disposed
persons may fall into, in consequence
of my doing what is right.”

“Let me quote an answer from the same
chapter,” said Mr. Richards. “`Let no man
put a stumbling-block, or an occasion to fall, in
his brother's way: let not your good be evil
spoken of. It is good neither to eat flesh nor
drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth,
or is offended, or made weak.' Now, my
good friend, you happen to be endowed with a
certain tone of mind which enables you to carry
through your mode of keeping the Sabbath
with little comparative evil, and much good, so
far as your family is concerned; but how many
persons in this neighbourhood, do you suppose,
would succeed equally well if they were to attempt
it? If it were the common custom for
families to absent themselves from public worship
in the afternoon, and to stroll about the
fields, or ride, or sail, how many parents, do you
suppose, would have the dexterity and talent to
check all that was inconsistent with the duties

of the day? Is it not your ready command of
language, your uncommon tact in simplifying
and illustrating, your knowledge of natural history
and of biblical literature, that enables you
to accomplish the results that you do? And is
there one parent in a hundred that could do
the same? Now, just imagine our neighbour,
Squire Hart, with his ten boys and girls, turned
out into the fields on a Sunday afternoon, to
profit withal: you know he can never finish a
sentence without stopping to begin it again half
a dozen times. What progress would he make
in instructing them? And so of a dozen others
I could name along this very street here. Now
you men of cultivated minds must give your
countenance to courses which would be best
for society at large, or, as the sentiment was expressed
by St. Paul, `We that are strong ought
to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to
please ourselves, for even Christ pleased not himself.'
Think, my dear sir, if our Saviour had
gone only on the principle of avoiding what
might be injurious to his own improvement,
how unsafe his example might have proved to
less elevated minds. Doubtless he might have
made a Sabbath-day fishing excursion an occasion
of much elevated and impressive instruction;
but, although he declared himself `Lore
of the Sabbath-day,' and at liberty to suspend its
obligation at his own discretion, yet he never
violated the received method of observing it,
except in cases where superstitious tradition
trenched directly on those interests which the
Sabbath was given to promote. He asserted
the right to relieve pressing bodily wants, and
to administer to the necessities of others on
the Sabbath, but beyond that he allowed himself
in no deviation from established custom.”

Mr. James looked thoughtful. “I have not
reflected on the subject in this view,” he replied.
“But, my dear sir, considering how little
of the public services of the Sabbath is on
a level with the capacity of younger children,
it seems to me almost a pity to take them to
church the whole of the day.”

“I have thought of that myself,” replied Mr.
Richards, “and have sometimes thought that,
could persons be found to conduct such a thing,
it would be desirable to conduct a separate service
for children, in which the exercises should
be particularly adapted to them.”

“I should like to be minister to a congregation
of children,” said Mr. James, warmly.

“Well,” replied Mr. Richards, “give our
good people time to get acquainted with you,
and do away the prejudices which your extraordinary

mode of proceeding has induced, and
I think I could easily assemble such a company
for you every Sabbath.”

After this, much to the surprise of the village,
Mr. James and his family were regular
attendants at both the services of the Sabbath.
Mr. Richards explained to the good people of
his congregation the motives which had led
their neighbour to the adoption of what, to
them, seemed so unchristian a course; and,
upon reflection, they came to the perception of
the truth, that a man may depart very widely
from the received standard of right for other
reasons than being an infidel or an opposer of
religion. A ready return of cordial feeling was
the result; and as Mr. James found himself
treated with respect and confidence, he began
to feel, notwithstanding his fastidiousness, that
there were strong points of congeniality between
all real and warm-hearted Christians,
however different might be their intellectual
culture, and in all simplicity united himself
with the little church of Camden. A year from
the time of his first residence there, every Sabbath
afternoon saw him surrounded by a congregation
of young children, for whose benefit
he had, at his own expense, provided a room,
fitted up with maps, scriptural pictures, and every

convenience for the illustration of biblical
knowledge; and the parents or guardians who
from time to time attended their children during
these exercises, often confessed themselves
as much interested and benefited as any
of their youthful companions.

SKETCH THIRD.

It was near the close of a pleasant Saturday
afternoon that I drew up my weary horse in
front of a neat little dwelling in the village of
N—. This, as near as I could gather from
description, was the house of my cousin, William
Fletcher, the identical rogue of a Bill
Fletcher of whom we have aforetime spoken.
Bill had always been a thriving, push-ahead sort
of a character, and during the course of my
rambling life I had improved every occasional
opportunity of keeping up our early acquaintance.
The last time that I returned to my native
country, after some years of absence, I
heard of him as married and settled in the village
of N—, where he was conducting a very
prosperous course of business, and shortly after
received a pressing invitation to visit him
at his own home. Now, as I had gathered
from experience the fact that it is of very little
use to rap one's knuckles off on the front door

of a country house without any knocker, I
therefore made the best of my way along a little
path, bordered with marigolds and balsams,
that led to the back part of the dwelling. The
sound of a number of childish voices made me
stop, and, looking through the bushes, I saw
the very image of my cousin Bill Fletcher, as
he used to be twenty years ago; the same
bold forehead, the same dark eyes, the same
smart, saucy mouth, and the same “who-cares-for-that”
toss to his head. “There, now,” exclaimed
the boy, setting down a pair of shoes
that he had been blacking, and arranging them
at the head of a long row of all sizes and sorts,
from those which might have fitted a two year
old foot upward, “there, I've blacked every
single one of them, and made them shine too,
and done it all in twenty minutes; if anybody
thinks they can do it quicker than that, I'd just
like to have them try, that's all.”

“I know they couldn't, though,” said a fair-haired
little girl, who stood admiring the sight,
evidently impressed with the utmost reverence
for her brother's ability; “and, Bill, I've been
putting up all the playthings in the big chest,
and I want you to come and turn the lock—the
key hurts my fingers.”

“Poh! I can turn it easier than that,” said

the boy, snapping his fingers; “have you got
them all in?”

“Yes, all; only I left out the soft bales, and
the string of red beads, and the great rag baby
for Fanny to play with—you know mother says
babies must have their playthings Sunday.”

“Oh, to be sure,” said the brother, very considerately;
“babies can't read, you know, as we
can, nor hear Bible stories, nor look at pictures.”
At this moment I stepped forward, for
the spell of former times was so powerfully on
me, that I was on the very point of springing
forward with a “halloo, there, Bill!” as I used
to meet the father in old times; but the look of
surprise that greeted my appearance brought
me to myself.

“Is your father at home?” said I.

“Father and mother are both gone out, but
I guess, sir, they will be home in a few moments:
won't you walk in?”

I accepted the invitation, and the little girl
showed me into a small and very prettily furuished
parlour. There was a piano with music
books on one side of the room, some fine pictures
hung about the walls, and a little, neat
centre-table was plentifully strewn with books.
Besides this, the two recesses on each side of

the fireplace contained each a bookcase with a
glass locked door.

The little girl offered me a chair, and then
lingered a moment, as if she felt some disposition
to entertain me if she could only think of
something to say, and at last, looking up in my
face, she said, in a confidential tone, “Mother
says she left Willie and me to keep house this
afternoon while she was gone, and we are putting
up all the things for Sunday, so as to get
everything done before she comes home. Willie
has gone to put away the playthings, and
I'm going to put up the books.” So saying,
she opened the doors of one of the bookcases,
and began busily carrying the books from the
centre-table to deposite them on the shelves,
in which employment she was soon assisted by
Willie, who took the matter in hand in a very
masterly manner, showing his sister what were
and what were not “Sunday books” with the
air of a person entirely at home in the business.
Robinson Crusoe and the many-volumed Peter
Parley were put by without hesitation; there
was, however, a short demurring over a North
American Review, because Willie said he was
sure his father read something one Sunday out
of one of them, while Susan averred that he did
not commonly read in it, and only read in it

then because the piece was something about
the Bible; but as nothing could be settled definitively
on the point, the review was “laid on
the table,” like knotty questions in Congress.
Then followed a long discussion over an extract
book, which, as usual, contained all sorts,
both sacred, serious, comic, and profane, and
at last Willie, with much gravity, decided to
lock it up, on the principle that it was best to
be on the safe side, in support of which he appealed
to me. I was saved from deciding the
question by the entrance of the father and
mother. My old friend knew me at once, and
presented his pretty wife to me with the same
look of exultation with which he used to hold
up a string of trout, or an uncommonly fine
perch of his own catching for my admiration,
and then looking round on his fine family of
children, two more of which he had brought
home with him, seemed to say to me, “There!
what do you think of that, now?”

And, in truth, a very pretty sight it was—
enough to make any one's old bachelor coat
sit very uneasily on him. Indeed, there is nothing
that gives one such a startling idea of the
tricks that old Father Time has been playing
on us, as to meet some boyish or girlish companions
with half a dozen or so of thriving children

about them. My old friend, I found, was
in essence just what the boy had been. There
was the same upright bearing, the same confident,
cheerful tone to his voice, and the same
fire in his eye; only that the hand of manhood
had slightly touched some of the lines of his
face, giving them a staidness of expression becoming
the man and the father.

“Very well, my children,” said Mrs. Fletcher,
as, after tea, William and Susan finished recounting
to her the various matters that they
had set in order that afternoon; “I believe now
we can say that our week's work is finished,
and that we have nothing to do but rest and
enjoy ourselves.”

“Oh, and papa will show us the pictures in
those great books that he brought home for us
last Monday, will he not?” said little Robert.

“And, mother, you will tell us some more
about Solomon's Temple and his palaces, won't
you?” said Susan.

“And I should like to know if father has
found out the answer to that hard question I
gave him last Sunday?” said Willie.

“All will come in good time,” said Mrs.
Fletcher. “But tell me, my dear children, are
you sure that you are quite ready for the Sabbath?
You say you have put away the books

and the playthings; have you put away, too,
all wrong and unkind feelings? Do you feel
kindly and pleasantly towards everybody?”

“Yes, mother,” said Willie, who appeared
to have taken a great part of this speech to
himself; “I went over to Tom Walters this
very morning to ask him about that chicken of
mine, and he said that he did not mean to hit
it, and did not know he had till I told him of
it; and so we made all up again, and I am glad
I went.”

“I am inclined to think, Willie,” said his
father, “that if everybody would make it a rule
to settle up all their differences before Sunday,
that there would be very few long quarrels and
lawsuits. In about half the cases, a quarrel is
founded on some misunderstanding that would
be got over in five minutes if one would go directly
to the person for explanation.”

“I suppose I need not ask you,” said Mrs.
Fletcher, “whether you have fully learned your
Sunday-school lessons?”

“Oh, to be sure,” said William. “You know,
mother, that Susan and I were busy about them
through Monday and Tuesday, and then this
afternoon we looked them over again, and wrote
down some questions.”

“And I heard Robert say his all through, and

showed him all the places on the Bible Atlas,”
said Susan.

“Well, then,” said my friend, “if everything
is done, let us begin Sunday with some music.”

Thanks to the recent improvements in the
musical instruction of the young, every family
can now form a domestic concert, with words
and tunes adapted to the capacity and the voices
of children; and while these little ones, full
of animation, pressed round their mother as she
sat at the piano, and accompanied her music with
the words of some beautiful hymns, I thought
that, though I might have heard finer music, I
had never listened to any that answered the
purpose of music so well.

It was a custom at my friend's to retire at an
early hour on Saturday evening, in order that
there might be abundant time for rest, and no
excuse for late rising on the Sabbath; and, accordingly,
when the children had done singing,
after a short season of family devotion, we all
betook ourselves to our chambers, and I, for
one, fell asleep with the impression of having
finished the week most agreeably, and with anticipations
of very great pleasure on the morrow.

Early in the morning I was roused from my
sleep by the sound of little voices singing with

great animation in the room next to mine, and,
listening, I caught the following words:

The last words were repeated, and prolonged
most vehemently by a voice that I knew for
Master William's.

“Now, Willie, I like the other one best,” said
the soft voice of little Susan; and immediately
she began,

Master William helped along with great spirit
in the singing of this tune, thought I heard
him observing, at the end of the first verse, that
he liked the other one better, because “it seemed
to step off so kind o'lively;” and his accommodating
sister followed him as he began singing
it again with redoubled animation.

It was a beautiful summer morning, and the

voices of the children within accorded well
with the notes of birds and bleating flocks without—a
cheerful, yet Sabbath-like and quieting
sound.

“Blessed be children's music!” said I to
myself; “how much better this is than the
solitary tic-tic of old Uncle Fletcher's tall mahogany
clock!”

The family bell summoned us to the breakfast-room
just as the children had finished their
hymn. The little breakfast-parlour had been
swept and garnished expressly for the day, and
a vase of beautiful flowers, which the children
had the day before collected from their gardens,
adorned the centre-table. The door of one of
the bookcases by the fireplace was thrown
open, presenting to view a collection of prettily
bound books, over the top of which appeared
in gilt letters the inscription, “Sabbath Library.”
The windows were thrown open to let
in the invigorating breath of the early morning,
and the birds that flitted among the rosebushes
without seemed scarcely lighter and
more buoyant than did the children as they entered
the room. It was legibly written on every
face in the house, that the happiest day in
the week had arrived, and each one seemed to
enter into its duties with a whole soul. It was

still early when the breakfast and the season
of family devotion was over, and the children
eagerly gathered round the table to get a sight
of the pictures in the new books which their
father had purchased in New-York the week
before, and which had been reserved as a Sunday's
treat. They were a beautiful edition of
Calmet's Dictionary, in several large volumes,
with very superior engravings.

“It seems to me that this work must be very
expensive,” I remarked to my friend, as we
were turning the leaves.

“Indeed, it is so,” he replied; “but here is
one place where I am less withheld by considerations
of expense than in any other. In all that
concerns making a show in the world, I am perfectly
ready to economize. I can do very well
without expensive clothing or fashionable furniture,
and am willing that we should be looked on
as very plain sort of people in all such matters;
but in all that relates to the cultivation of the
mind, and the improvement of the hearts of my
children, I am willing to go to the extent of my
ability. Whatever will give my children a
better knowledge of, or deeper interest, in the
Bible, or enable them to spend a Sabbath profitably
and without weariness, stands first on my
list among things to be purchased. I have

spent in this way one third as much as the furnishing
of my house costs me.” On looking
over the shelves of the Sabbath library, I perceived
that my friend had been at no small
pains in the selection. It comprised all the
popular standard works for the illustration of
the Bible, together with the best of the modern
religious publications adapted to the capacity
of young children. Two large drawers below
were filled with maps and scriptural engravings,
some of them of a very superior character.

“We have been collecting these things gradually
ever since we have been at housekeeping,”
said my friend; “the children take an
interest in this library, as something more particularly
belonging to them, and some of the
books are donations from their little earnings.”

“Yes,” said Willie, “I bought Helon's Pilgrimage
with my egg-money, and Susan bought
the Life of David, and little Robert is going to
buy one, too, next Newyear.”

“But,” said I, “would not the Sunday-school library
answer all the purpose of this?”

“The Sabbath-school library is an admirable
thing,” said my friend; “but this does more fully
and perfectly what that was intended to do. It
makes a sort of central attraction at home on the

Sabbath, and makes the acquisition of religious
knowledge and the proper observance of the Sabbath
a sort of family enterprise. You know,” he
added, smiling, “that people always feel interested
for an object in which they have invested
money.”

The sound of the first Sabbath-school bell put an
end to this conversation. The children promptly
made themselves ready, and, as their father was the
superintendent of the school, and their mother one
of the teachers, it was quite a family party.

One part of every Sabbath at my friend's was
spent by one or both parents, with the children, in
a sort of review of the week. The attention of the
little ones was directed to their own characters, the
various defects or improvements of the past week
were pointed out, and they were stimulated to be on
their guard in the time to come, and the whole
was closed by earnest prayer for such heavenly aid
as the temptations and faults of each particular one
might need. After church in the evening, while
the children were thus withdrawn to their mother's
apartment, I could not forbear reminding my friend
of old times, and of the rather anti-Sabbatical turn
of his mind in our boyish days.

“Now, William,” said I, “do you know that you
were the last boy of whom such an enterprise in
Sabbath-keeping as this was to have been expected?

I suppose you remember Sunday at `the old
place?”'

“Nay, now, I think I was the very one,” said he,
smiling, “for I had sense enough to see, as I grew
up that the day must be kept thoroughly or not at
all, and I had enough blood and motion in my composition
to see that something must be done to enliven
and make it interesting; so I set myself about
it. It was one of the first of our housekeeping
resolutions, that the Sabbath should be made a
pleasant day, and yet be as inviolably kept as in the
strictest times of our good father; and we have
brought things to run in that channel so long, that
it seems to be the natural order.”

“I have always supposed,” said I, “that it required
a peculiar talent, and more than common
information in a parent, to accomplish this to any
extent.”

“It requires nothing,” replied my friend, “but
common sense, and a strong determination to do it.
Parents who make a definite object of the religious
instruction of their children, if they have common
sense, can very soon see what is necessary in order
to interest them; and, if they find themselves wanting
in the requisite information, they can, in these
days, very readily acquire it. The sources of religious
knowledge are so numerous, and so popular
in their form, that all can avail themselves of them.

The only difficulty, after all, is, that the keeping of
the Sabbath and the imparting of religious instruction
is not made enough of a home object. Parents
pass off the responsibility on to the Sunday-school
teacher, and suppose, of course, if they send their
children to Sunday-school, they do the best they
can for them. Now I am satisfied, from my experience
as a Sabbath-school teacher, that the best
religious instruction imparted abroad still stands in
need of the co-operation of a systematic plan of religious
discipline and instruction at home; for, after
all, God gives a power to the efforts of a parent
that can never be transferred to other hands.”

“But do you suppose,” said I, “that the common
class of minds, with ordinary advantages, can do
what you have done?”

“I think, in most cases, they could, if they begin
right. But when both parents and children have
formed habits, it is more difficult to change than to
begin right at first. However, I think all might
accomplish a great deal if they would give time,
money, and effort towards it. It is because the object
is regarded of so little value, compared with
other things of a worldly nature, that so little is
done.”

My friend was here interrupted by the entrance
of Mrs. Fletcher with the children. Mrs. Fletcher
sat down to the piano, and the Sabbath was closed

with the happy songs of the little ones; nor could I
notice a single anxious eye turning to the window
to see if the sun was not almost down. The tender
and softened expression of each countenance
bore witness to the subduing power of those instructions
which had hallowed the last hour, and their
sweet, bird-like voices harmonized well with the
beautiful words,