ted to their own characters, the
various defects or improvements of the past week were pointed out, and
they were stimulated to be on their guard in the time to come, and the
whole was closed by earnest prayer for such heavenly aid as the
temptations and faults of each particular one might need. After church
in the evening, while the children were thus withdrawn to their mother's
apartment, I could not forbear reminding my friend of old times, and of
the rather anti-sabbatical turn of his mind in our boyish days.

"Now, William," said I, "do you know that you were the last boy of whom
such an enterprise in Sabbath keeping as this was to have been expected?
I suppose you remember Sunday at 'the old place'?"

"Nay, now, I think I was the very one," said he, smiling, "for I had
sense enough to see, as I grew up, that the day must be kept
_thoroughly_ or not at all, and I had enough blood and motion in my
composition to see that something must be done to enliven and make it
interesting; so I set myself about it. It was one of the first of our
housekeeping resolutions, that the Sabbath should be made a pleasant
day, and yet be as inviolably kept as in the strictest times of our good
father; and we have brought things to run in that channel so long, that
it seems to be the natural order."

"I have always supposed," said I, "that it required a peculiar talent,
and more than common information in a parent, to accomplish this to any
extent."

"It requires nothing," replied my friend, "but common sense, and a
strong _determination to do it_. Parents who make a definite object of
the religious instruction of their children, if they have common sense,
can very soon see what is necessary in order to interest them; and, if
they find themselves wanting in the requisite information, they can, in
these days, very readily acquire it. The sources of religious knowledge
are so numerous, and so popular in their form, that all can avail
themselves of them. The only difficulty, after all, is, that the keeping
of the Sabbath and the imparting of religious instruction are not made
enough of a _home_ object. Parents pass off the responsibility on to the
Sunday school teacher, and suppose, of course, if they send their
children to Sunday school, they do the best they can for them. Now, I am
satisfied, from my experience as a Sabbath school teacher, that the best
religious instruction imparted abroad still stands in need of the
cooeperation of