SABBATH-KEEPING FOR THE LITTLE ONES
I WISH to ask the middle-aged fathers and mothers among the REVIEW readers to give, for my benefit, a chapter from their experience. What I want is the actual working out of tried plans, not theory. How shall the little ones keep the Sabbath? What shall we do to teach them its sanctity, without making it irksome to them? I have two children,—one five, the other two and a half, years old; and I must confess that I am at my wits’ end to curb their jubilant spirits at all times on the Sabbath. I have Sabbath books, toys, and pictures for them, and these are brought out at the beginning, and put away at the close, of the Sabbath. As the Sabbath draws on, the children are tidied up, and dressed in their favorite dresses. The Sabbath is always ushered in with songs and prayer, which are continued until bedtime. I easily entertain them with Bible stories, songs, and heart talks. I usually read or sing them to sleep. Have read four chapters from one of the Gospels before they slept. What can bring purer thoughts, sweeter repose, or so easily drive away the influence of the evil angels, as for the little minds to gradually pass from consciousness, listening to God’s own words? Sabbath morning, with breakfast and worship over, the trial proper begins. Their father, a busy physician, must have a little time for quietness and study, so to me falls the lot of helping the children keep the Sabbath holy. By and by stories, books, and toys all lose their charm, and the little ones wish to play. They make their daily visits to me (with the couch as a buggy and chairs as horses), but to-day, instead, they attend Sabbath-school and meeting or visit the sick. I am an aged sick woman, for them to visit and help. Then one of them is sick, and I do Christian Help work with him. But this can not last always, and next a bona fide romp is in order, unless I can direct the overflow of energy. Now noisy play and the Sabbath are incongruous ideas to me, and the query in my mind is, What shall I do to work off their natural, frolicsome spirits? Of course in summer we walk to the fields, gathering flowers, watching the birds, bugs, and animals. Last summer a colony of ants interested us for several Sabbaths. But now we are confined almost entirely indoors. What can we do? What has been successfully done to provide the necessary exercise for small children, that will, at the same time, preserve the Sabbath peace and quiet? Every day’s actions, simple as they may seem, are forming the characters of our children. Hence, how carefully and wisely we should move in the matter of training them for God. Will some who have brought children up in the truth, and in the love of it, please teach us younger ones the way?