The Sabbath Dinner Table.
"Didn’t we have a good sermon?" inquired the eldest son, with all the zest of his satisfaction in his tone. "Good!" echoed the father scornfully, bristling up as usual when the word "sermon" was uttered. "He took ten minutes to prove something that we knew as well as he does, ten more—" A shade of distress flitted across Sophy’s eyes; the minister had made her feel that she was a sinner. Was not that worth ten minutes? "And as for the prayer," continued the head of the family, with a gesture of impatience, "it was the dryest prayer I ever listened to." "Perhaps he was not praying to you," suggested the privileged member of the family. "I think it was the loveliest prayer I ever heard," exclaimed the visitor, with rising color. The visitor, by the way, did not enjoy the prayers of the head of this family. In her own young opinion, addressing God in long, hard phrases, made him seem high up and away from her. "Such length! Such diffusiveness and minuteness! Such rambling! It was a talk, not a prayer. He brought in everybody under the sun." The impulsive young visitor kept her lips shut; but she could not keep the indignant flash out of her eyes. The prayer in church that morning had touched her as a prayer had rarely touched her before. At that instant she hotly wished that she might never have to hear the head of the family pray again. "Prayer is not a thing to be criticised," suggested the eldest son, gently. "I never felt so clearly as I did this morning, how Christ is our only hope. Our minister made it so strong and clear." "After rambling on ten minutes about nature!" commented the argumentative voice of the father. By this time conscientious Sophy had a finger-tip pressed into each ear. That sermon was one of the marked periods in her spiritual growth. "And then the idea of saying—" The sensitive boy of fourteen, whose mercury rises and falls with every change in the home atmosphere, dropped his eyes and looked troubled. All his delight in the plain, strong sermon had been marred, even while listening to it, by the dread that somebody at home would pick flaws in it at the dinner table. If he might have listened with an untroubled heart, into what ready soil the seed would have been dropped that day! Sometimes I think that Satan takes more delight in the Sabbath dinner-table than in any other home gathering during the week. He knows what little winds carry the good seed away. Somebody, anxious to interrupt the flow of unkind criticism, now made a hurried remark,— "Did you see that lady in front of us? Wasn’t her bonnet grotesque? Just the shape and colors to make her look hideous." A relieved laugh went around the table. Surely this was better than finding fault with the minister. But Sophy’s laugh had a touch of uneasiness in it. For several Sabbaths she had been trying to school herself not to look at bonnets at church; and this morning, under the impressive sermon, she had not even noticed157the offending bonnet almost within the range of her eyes. The boy of fourteen looked up brightly. "We have such a good lesson for Sabbath-school today." "I’m glad there’s one good one," grumbled his next older brother. "I had come to the conclusion that they had picked out the hardest and dryest parts of the Bible for the lessons. Your teacher is such a poke, with his melancholy voice and solemn face, I don’t see how you ever like the lessons." Public opinion again quenched the boy of fourteen. Coming home from church, he had resolved to hurry through dinner that he might give the extra minutes to the study of the lesson; but if it was the dryest part of the Bible, and his teacher a "poke," why should he care for the Sabbath-school? Perhaps he ought to be ashamed for staying after Sabbath-school last Sabbath to talk to the "poke" about something in the lesson. Of course the big boys knew! "He has no sense about asking questions," continued the big boy. "Your superintendent is a superior man," observed the head of the family. "I noticed in prayer-meeting this morning how uneasy he was under that long prayer. He could not keep his head down through three sentences." The visitor flushed again. By this time she had almost resolved to be busy elsewhere when the time for family worship should come that night. The listener, who was not a Christian, and who had spent her Sabbath morning in reading "George Elliot," pushed her napkin into her ring with considerable energy. "I didn’t go to church this morning, and I do not intend to go to Sabbath-school! A sermon that does no good, a prayer that irritates, dry parts of the Bible to study, and a poke to teach it, have no attractions for me." The others, who were Christians, looked blank. A blessing had been asked upon the dinner. What about a blessing upon the dinner-table talk?—Sel.