se to escape my lips which can serve the no other
earthly purpose, seemingly, than to render emphatic my otherwise mildly
expressed ideas. I make this confession parenthetically, and in a
whisper, my friends, trusting you will not allow it to go further.)

Now, I tell you, if you don't want to go to church, go to the woods and
take your wife and children and a lunch with you, and sit down upon the
old log and let the children gather flowers, and hear the leaves
whispering poems like memories of long ago! and when the sun is about
going down, kissing the summits of the distant hills, go home with your
hearts filled with throbs of joy and gladness, and the cheeks of your
little ones covered with the rose-blushes of health! There is more
recreation and solid enjoyment in that than putting on your Sunday
clothes and going to a canal-boat with a steeple on top of it and
listening to a man tell you that your chances are about ninety-nine
thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine to one for being eternally damned!

Oh, strike with a hand of fire, weird musician, thy harp, strung with
Apollo's golden hair! Fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies
sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ's keys! Blow, bugler, blow,
until thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves, and charm
the lovers wandering mid the vine-clad hills!--but know your sweetest
strains are but discord compared with childhood's happy laugh--the
laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy! O,
rippling river of laughter; thou art the blessed boundary line between
beasts and men, and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some fretful
fiend of care. O, Laughter, rose-lipped daughter of joy, there are
dimples enough in thy cheek to catch and hold and glorify all the tears
of grief!

Do not make slaves of your children on Sunday. Don't place them in
long, straight rows, like fence-posts, and "Sh! children, it's Sunday!"
when by chance you hear a sound or rustle. Let winsome Johnny have
light and air, and let him grow beautiful; let him laugh until his
little sides ache, if he feels like it; let him pinch the cat's tail
until the house is in an uproar with his yells--let him do anything
that will make him happy. When I was a little boy, children went to
bed when they were not sleepy, and always got up when they were? I
would like to see that changed--we may see it some day. It is really
easier to wake a child with a kiss than a b