With the Children on Sunday Part 1

With the Children on Sunday.

by Sylva.n.u.s Stall.

PREFACE.

SUNDAY ought to be the most cheerful, sunniest, happiest and best day of the week in every home. In most homes it is the dullest and most dreary day of the week to the children, and the most taxing and the most wearying to the parents, especially to the mother. It not only ought to be, but it can be made, not only the brightest and happiest but also the most influential in the character-building and religious training of the children. In some households Sunday is looked forward to with antic.i.p.ations of pleasure throughout the entire week. In these homes, the father does not come down stairs on Sunday morning and say: "Now, children, gather up those flowers, throw them out of the window, pull down the blinds, get down the Bible and we will have an awful solemn time here to-day." Neither is the day given to frivolity or the home to demoralizing influences. From morning until night there are two great principles that govern; first, the sacredness of the day, and second, the sacredness of the G.o.d-given nature of childhood. The day is not spent in repressing the child nature by a succession of "don't do that,"

"now stop that," etc., that begin in the morning and continue throughout the day, and end only when the little ones lose consciousness in sleep on Sunday night. In these homes, the parents recognize the fact that the child nature is the same whether the day is secular or sacred. On Sunday the child nature is not repressed, but the childish impulses are directed into channels suited to the sacredness of the day. In such homes the children, instead of being sorry that it is Sunday, are glad; instead of regretting the return of the day with dislike and dread, they welcome it as the brightest, the cheeriest and the best of all the week.

The purpose of the author in the preparation of this book in its present ill.u.s.trated and slightly changed form, is to afford all parents a valuable aid in making Sunday not only the brightest, happiest and best day of the entire week for both parents and children, but also to aid the parents to make Sunday pre-eminently the day around which shall cl.u.s.ter throughout the entire life of each child the sweetest, tenderest and most sacred recollections of childhood, of father and mother and of brother and sister, and especially of their knowledge of the Bible and of everything sacred.

Did it ever occur to you, as a parent, that between the birth and the age of twenty-one years there are three solid years of Sundays--an amount of time almost equal to the number of years given to an entire course of college training? The Creator has not laid upon parents the responsibilities of parenthood without giving them ample time and opportunity to discharge these obligations to Him, to themselves, and to their children.

The idea which has been successfully demonstrated in hundreds of homes, where the impulses and natural inclinations of childhood have been turned into sacred channels on Sundays so as to enable the parents to teach spiritual truths in the most effective manner, is the method which is suggested by the author to the parents in the use, on Sunday afternoons, of the fifty-two little sermons given in this volume.

The parent who fails to use wisely the opportunities of Sunday afternoons for impressing the children with spiritual truths, loses the greatest opportunity that family life affords. Among the different instances known to the author, the following three may serve as ill.u.s.trations of what may be found in many communities:

I knew a mother who regularly on Sunday afternoons gathered her children about her and read them religious books and literature. In her considerable family, every child became eminently useful. One, who was a university professor, told me that those Sunday afternoons with his mother in the nursery embodied the most formative influences of his life.

I know another family, of some seven or eight children, where Sunday was always used for religious instruction with the children. With the reading and other things, they always "played church", and the experience of those early childhood days made the boys splendid public talkers, and the girls were also very capable in the same direction. No better school of oratory was ever organized.

I know another family of four children, where the entire family looked forward throughout the week to the special and larger pleasure which Sunday always brought. They grew up naturally into a religious life, and developed that ability for public address and service which could not so well be gained in any other way.

Sunday is about the only day in most of households where the father is home with his family. It adds greatly to the pleasure and impressiveness of the day and its services if the father, with the mother, enters heartily into the spirit of that which will be all the more enjoyed by the children. It will enable him also to stamp his personality deeper into the character of his children than possibly any other opportunity which may be afforded him in life.

These brief object talks grew out of the necessities found in the author's own parish. When called to the pastorate of the Second English Lutheran Church, of Baltimore, I found a depleted congregation, while at the same time the Sunday-school was one of the largest and most flourishing in the city. It was then for the first time that I introduced regularly the preaching of "Five-minute object sermons"

before the accustomed sermon on Sunday morning. In a very brief period, about one-fourth of the infant department and two-thirds of the main department of the school were in regular attendance upon the Sunday morning service, and, even after this particular form of address had been discontinued, the teachers and scholars continued regularly to come direct from the morning session of the school to the services of the church.

These sermons were preached without notes, were subsequently outlined and then spoken into the phonograph, put in ma.n.u.script by a phonographer, and, that the simplicity of style and diction might be preserved, were printed with only slight verbal changes.

The objects used in ill.u.s.trating these talks have been chosen from among the ordinary things of every-day life. Such objects have the advantage of being easily secured, and on account of their familiarity also prove more impressive, and being more often seen, more frequently recall to mind the truths taught.

To any thoughtful student who has marked the simple language and beautiful ill.u.s.trations used by that Great Preacher and Teacher who "spake as never man spake," it will be unnecessary to say a single word in justification of this method of presenting abstruse truths to the easy comprehension of the young. Upon all occasions Jesus found in the use of the ordinary, every-day things about Him, the easy means of teaching the people the great truths of divine import. The door, the water, the net, the vine, the flowers which sprang at His feet, the birds that flew over His head, the unfruitful tree that grew by the wayside, the wheat and the tares that grew together in the field, the leaven which a woman hid in three measures of meal, the husbandman pacing his field engaged in sowing his grain, the sheep and the goats which rested together on the slopes waiting to be separated each into their own fold, the old garment mended with a piece of new cloth, the mustard seed, the salt--anything that chanced to be about the Master was used as an ill.u.s.tration, that He might plainly and impressively teach the people the saving truths of redemption and salvation. May we not also reasonably suppose that if Jesus were upon the earth to-day He would still exercise this same distinguishing wisdom in the use of the common, every-day things by which He would now find Himself surrounded?

Let it be distinctly understood that this book is not a subst.i.tute for the regular services of G.o.d's House. I believe in "the Church in the house," but I also believe that the entire family, including the children, should also be in the Church on the Lord's day. The absence of the children from the services of the sanctuary is one of the alarming evils of our day. There are but few congregations where children can be found in any considerable numbers. No one will attempt to deny the sad consequences which must follow as the inevitable results of such a course. The children at eight years of age who have not already begun to form the habit of church attendance, and are not quite thoroughly established in it at sixteen, will stand a very fair chance of spending their entire life with little or no attachment for either the Church or religious things. The non-church going youth of this decade will be the Sabbath-breakers and irreligious people of the next.

Who are to blame for this state of affairs, and to whom are we to look for the correction of this existing evil?

Manifestly, first of all, to the _parents_. That parental authority which overcomes the indifference of the child and secures his devotion to the irksome duties of secular life, should also be exercised to establish and maintain a similar fidelity to religious duties and spiritual concerns. If left to their own inclinations, children will invariably go wrong in the affairs of both worlds. Attendance upon the church should be expected and required, the same as attendance upon the secular instruction of the schools; for the best interests of the child are not more dependent upon the discipline of the mind than upon the development of the heart. In the formation of the habit of church attendance, it would be well to remind parents that example will be as helpful as precept. They should not send, but take their children to church. They should make room for them in the family pew, provide them with a hymn-book and see that they have something for the collection.

Parents owe it to their children to teach them to be reverent in G.o.d's house, to bow their heads in prayer, to be attentive to the sermon; and while requiring these things of their children, they should also see well to it that after service, at the table, in the home, or elsewhere nothing disparaging of G.o.d's house, message or messenger should fall from their lips upon the ears of their children.

As these little talks were originally used before the main sermon on Sunday morning before a mixed audience of adults and a large number of children, it has seemed best, in order to carry out the idea of preaching, that the manner of speaking as though to an audience should be retained in this book. It is better suited than any other method for use also by the parent when reading these pages to the children in the home.

The earlier issues of these talks under the t.i.tle: "Five Minute Object Sermons to Children" and the second volume: "Talks to the King's Children" were accorded a place of usefulness in nearly every land, and the author now sends forth this volume in its present ill.u.s.trated and slightly revised form for a place in every home, trusting that it may be as influential in the lives of the children of to-day as it has proven in the lives of the children of yesterday.

SYLVa.n.u.s STALL.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DR. STALL WITH HIS DAUGHTER AND HIS GRANDCHILDREN DRIVING TO CHURCH]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LITTLE PREACHER AND HIS INTERESTED AUDIENCE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LITTLE BILLIE TAKING UP THE COLLECTION]

[Ill.u.s.tration: DR. STALL READING TO HIS GRANDCHILDREN]

SUGGESTIONS TO PARENTS.

HELPFUL METHODS FOR MAKING SUNDAY AFTERNOON WITH THE CHILDREN THE MOST PLEASANT AND PROFITABLE DAY OF THE WEEK.

The idea of "playing church" is by no means an innovation. What is shown in the pictures upon a preceding page has been actualized in many homes.

Let me quote from a single letter which lies before me:

"The writer was one of a large family of children and well remembers the Sunday afternoons spent in his village home. 'Playing church,' was one of its features. The chairs were placed in regular fashion, imitating the seating arrangements of a church, every one of us took his or her turn as preacher, hymns were sung, a real collection was taken and one of us, as preacher, took his text and preached the sermon. There wasn't a dull moment in those good, old Sunday afternoons in our home.

Occasionally, the preacher would provoke a smile by his original way of handling the text and of emphasizing some point in his discourse.

"We have all grown up since those happy days; some of us attained to a degree of efficiency as public speakers, and we attribute much of our efficiency and character in life to those profitable Sunday afternoon hours."

From the experiences of the children as narrated above, the suggestion occurs, why not use these object talks in like manner? "Play church"

Sunday afternoons, read an "object sermon," show the ill.u.s.trations, ask the questions at the end of each chapter and then follow it up with a discussion from the children, giving their ideas and experiences.

You will find that you will get as much benefit and entertainment from these Sunday afternoons "playing church" service as the children will.

You will be surprised at their interest and the originality that they will display in these discussions. You will be quickening their faculty of observation and stirring their imaginations, in a manner that will surely make observant, thoughtful and considerate men and women of the children, and consequently, affect their entire destinies in the years to come. Then, too, you yourself will be helped mentally and spiritually, because it is absolutely true that in the devotion that we exhibit and the time and attention that we give to our children in this companionship, we will ourselves be receiving large blessings in the development of our own character and the finer characteristics that make for good people.

PLAYING CHURCH.

The following suggestions will be helpful, to which original ideas may always be added.

1. Make the "Afternoon Church" a real, not frivolous, occasion. The time it requires to make careful, pains-taking preparation on the part of the parent, is always profitably employed.

2. The afternoon church should always be a regular, fixed engagement. It adds to its importance.

3. Do not postpone nor omit it for any trivial reason. Treat it as any other important engagement.

4. When visitors are in the home, invite them to be present and to partic.i.p.ate. It will help them as well as the juniors.

5. The fact that there is only one child in the family does not preclude the idea of playing church; for the dolls can be brought to church and even chairs can be converted into imaginary people.

6. Never permit the realness of the occasion to be questioned. Always avoid embarra.s.sing the child and _never_ ridicule. Refrain from laughing at any mistakes that may be made in speech, thought or conduct of the child, unless he first sees the mistake and invites you to join in his mirth.

7. Ask any additional questions pertinent to the subject besides those suggested at the end of each sermon. It will develop wider thought and increase the interest.

8. Encourage the child to ask questions, but always lead in directing the thought.