nected 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, and 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
instruc