Why, are they much cheaper?'

'No, ma'am.'

'Now, how strange! and here it wants only half an hour of the time, and you are not dressed either. Now see the bad effects of not being up in time.'

The boys looked sullen, and said they were up as soon as any one else in the house.'

merriment, whereat Uncle Phineas would look up and say, 'tut, tut,' and Aunt Kezzy would make a speech about 'Oh, a great deal; but I forget-it is Sunday. We wicked children breaking the Sabbath-day. I remember ought to be thinking of other things. Boys, have you once how my Cousin Bill got into deep disgrace one Sun-looked over your Sunday-school lesson?' day by a roguish trick. He was just about to close his Bible with all sobriety, when snap came a grasshopper through an open window, and alighted in the middle of the page. Bill instantly kidnapped the intruder, for so important an auxiliary in the way of employment was not to be despised. Presently we children looked towards Bill, and there he sat, very demurely reading his Bible, with the grasshopper hanging by one leg from the corner of his mouth, kicking and sprawling, without in the least disturbing Master William's gravity. We all burst into an uproarious laugh. But it came to be rather a serious affair for Bill, as his good father was in the practice of enforcing truth and duty by certain modes of moral suasion much recommended by Solomon, though fallen into disrepute at the present day.

'Well, your father and I had some excuse, because we were out late last night: you ought to have been up full three hours ago, and to have been all ready, with your lessons learned. Now, what do you suppose you shall do?' 'Oh, mother, do let us stay at home this one morning; we don't know the lesson, and it wont do any good for us to go.' No, indeed, I shall not. You must go, and get along as well as you can. It is all your own fault. Now go up stairs and hurry. We shall not find time for prayers this morning.'

The boys took themselves up stairs to hurry,' as di rected, and soon one of them called from the top of the stairs, Mother! mother! the buttons are off this vest, so I can't wear it ;' and 'Mother! here is a long rip in my best coat,' said another.

Why did you not tell me of it before?' said Mrs Roberts, coming up stairs.

This morning picture may give a good specimen of the whole livelong Sunday, which presented only an alternation of similar scenes until sunset, when a universal unchaining of tongues and a general scamper proclaimed that the sun was down.' But, it may be asked, what was the result of all this strictness? Did it not disgust you with the Sabbath and with religion? No, it did not. It did not, because it was the result of no unkindly feeling, but of consistent principle; and consistency of principle is what even children learn to appreciate and revere. The law of obedience and of reverence for the Sabbath was constraining so equally on the young and the old, that its claims came to be regarded like those immutable laws of nature, which no one thinks of being out of patience with, though they sometimes bear hard on personal convenience. The effect of the system was to ingrain into our character a veneration for the Sabbath, which no friction of after-up life would efface. I have lived to wander in many climates and foreign lands, where the Sabbath is an unknown name, or where it is only recognised by noisy mirth; but never has the day returned without bringing with it a breathing of religious awe, and even a yearning for the unbroken stillness, the placid repose, and the simple devotion, of the Puritan Sabbath.

ANOTHER SCENE.

'How late we are this morning,' said Mrs Roberts to her husband, glancing hurriedly at the clock, as they were sitting down to breakfast on a Sabbath morning. Really, it is a shame to us to be so late on Sundays. I wonder John and Henry are not up yet: Hannah, did you speak to them ?'

Yes, ma'am, but I could not make them mind; they said it was Sunday, and that we always have breakfast later on Sundays.'

'Well, it is a shame to us, I must say,' said Mrs Roberts, sitting down to the table. I never lie late myself unless something in particular happens. Last night I was out very late, and Sabbath before last I had a bad headache.'

Well, well, my dear,' said Mr Roberts, 'it is not worth while to worry yourself about it; Sunday is a day of rest; everybody indulges a little of a Sunday morning-it is so very natural, you know; one's work done up, one feels like taking a little rest.'

Well, I must say, it was not the way my mother brought me up,' said Mrs Roberts, and I really can't feel it to be right.'

This last part of the discourse had been listened to by two sleepy-looking boys, who had, meanwhile, taken their seats at table with that listless air which is the result of late sleeping.

'I forgot it,' said the boy.

'Well, well, stand still; I must catch it together somehow, if it is Sunday. There! there is the bell! Stand still a minute!' and Mrs Roberts plied needle and thread and scissors; there, that will do for to-day. Dear me, how confused everything is to-day!'

It is always just so on Sundays,' said John, flinging his book and catching it again as he ran down stairs. 'It is always just so on Sundays.' The words struck rather unpleasantly on Mrs Roberts's conscience, for something told her that, whatever the reason might be, it was just so. On Sunday everything was later and more irregular than on any other day of the week.

'Hannah, you must boil that piece of beef for dinner to-day.'

'I thought you told me you didn't have cooking done on Sunday.'

No, I do not, generally. I am very sorry Mr Roberts would get that piece of meat yesterday; we did not need it; but here it is on our hands; the weather is too hot to keep it. It wont do to let it spoil; so I must have it boiled, for aught I see.'

Hannali had lived four Sabbaths with Mrs Roberts, and on two of them she had been required to cook from similar reasoning. For once' is apt, in such cases, to become a word of very extensive signification.

It really worries me to have things go on so as they do on Sundays,' said Mrs Roberts to her husband; 'I never do feel as if we kept Sunday as we ought.'

'My dear, you have been saying so ever since we were married, and I do not see what you are going to do about it. For my part, I do not see why we do not do as well as people in general. We do not visit, nor receive com pany, nor read improper books. We go to church, and send the children to Sunday school, and so the greater part of the day is spent in a religious way. Then out of church we have the children's Sunday-school books, and one or two religious newspapers: I think that is quite enough.'

But, somehow, when I was a child, my mother said Mrs Roberts, hesitating.

Oh, my dear, your mother must not be considered an exact pattern for these days. People were too strict in your mother's time; they carried the thing too far altogether; everybody allows it now."

Mrs Roberts was silenced, but not satisfied. A strict religious education had left just conscience enough on this subject to make her uneasy.

These worthy people had a sort of general idea that

Sunday ought to be kept, and they intended to keep it, tional mind might furnish. When the weather permitted, but they had never taken the trouble to investigate or in- he would range with them through the fields, collecting qu're as to the most proper way, nor was it so much an minerals and plants, or sail with them on the lake, meanobject of interest that their weekly arrangements were while directing the thoughts of his young listeners upward planned with any reference to it. Mr Roberts would often to God, by the many beautiful traces of his presence and engage in business at the close of the week, which he knew agency, which superior knowledge and observation enabled would so fatigue him that he would be weary and listless him to discover and point out. These Sunday strolls were on Sunday; and Mrs Roberts would allow her family cares seasons of most delightful enjoyment to the children. to accumulate in the same way, so that she was either Though it was with some difficulty that their father could wearied with efforts to accomplish it before the Sabbath, " restrain them from loud and noisy demonstrations of deor perplexed and worried by finding everything at loose light, he saw, with some regret, that the mere animal ends on that day. They had the idea that Sunday was to excitement of the stroll seemed to draw the attention too be kept when it was perfectly convenient, and did not de- much from religious considerations, and, in particular, to mand any sacrifice of time or money. But if stopping to make the exercises of the morning seem like a preparakeep the Sabbath in a journey would risk passage-money tory penance to the enjoyments of the afternoon. Neveror a seat in the stage; or, in housekeeping, if it would theless, when Mr James looked back to his own boyhood, involve any considerable inconvenience or expense, it was and remembered the frigid restraint, the entire want of deemed a providential intimation that it was a work of any kind of mental or bodily excitement, which had made necessity and mercy' to attend to secular matters. To the Sabbath so much a weariness to him, he could not but their minds the fourth commandment read thus: Re- congratulate himself when he perceived his children lookmember the Sabbath-day-to keep it holy when it comes ing forward to Sunday as a day of delight, and found himconvenient, and costs neither time nor money.' self on that day continually surrounded by a circle of smiling and cheerful faces. His talent of imparting religious instruction in a simple and interesting form was remarkably happy, and it is probable that there was among his children an uncommon degree of real thought and feeling on religious objects as the result.

As to the effects of this on the children, there was neither enough of strictness to make them respect the Sabbath, nor of religious interest to make them love it, of course, the little restraint there was proved just enough to lead them to dislike and despise it. Children soon perceive the course of their parent's feelings, and it was evident The good people of Camden, however, knew not what enough to the children of this family that their father and to think of a course that appeared to them an entire vio. mother generally found themselves hurried into the Sab-lation of all the requirements of the Sabbath. The first bath with hearts and minds full of this world, and their impulse of human nature is to condenin at once all who conversation and thoughts were so constantly turning to vary from what has been commonly regarded as the right worldly things, and so awkwardly drawn back by a sense way; aud, accordingly, Mr James was unsparingly deof religious obligation, that the Sabbath appeared more nounced, by many good people, as a Sabbath-breaker, an obviously a clog and a fetter than it did under the strictest infidel, and an opposer to religion. régime of Puritan days.

SKETCH SECOND.

Such was the character heard of him by Mr Richards, a young clergyman, who, shortly after Mr James fixed his residence in Camden, accepted the pastoral charge of the village. It happened that Mr Richards had known Mr James in college, and, remembering him as a remarkably serious, aniable, and conscientious man, he resolved to ascertain from himself the views which had led him to the course of conduct so offensive to the good people of the neighbourhood.

The little quiet village of Camden stands under the brow of a rugged hill, in one of the most picturesque parts of New England, and its regular, honest, and industrious | villagers were not a little surprised and pleased that Mr James, a rich man, and pleasant spoken withal, had concluded to take up his residence among them. He brought with him a pretty, genteel wife, and a group of rosy, This is all very well, my good friend,' said he, after romping, but amiable children; and there was so much he had listened to Mr James's eloquent account of his own of good-nature and kindness about the manners of every system of religious instruction, and its effects upon his member of the family, that the whole neighbourhood were family; I do not doubt this system does very well for prepossessed in their favour. Mr James was a man of yourself and family; but there are other things to be somewhat visionary and theoretical turn of mind, and very taken into consideration besides personal and family immuch in the habit of following out his own ideas of right provement. Do you not know, Mr James, that the most and wrong, without troubling himself particularly as to worthless and careless part of my congregation quote your the appearance his course might make in the eyes of others. example as a respectable precedent for allowing their He was a supporter of the ordinances of religion, and al-families to violate the order of the Sabbath? You and ways ready to give both time and money to promote any your children sail about on the lake, with minds and benevolent object; and though he had never made any hearts, I doubt not, elevated and tranquillised by its quiet public profession of religion, nor connected himself with repose; but Ben Dakes, and his idle, profane army of any particular sect of Christians, still he seemed to possess children, consider themselves as doing very much the great reverence for God, and to worship him in spirit and same thing when they lie lolling about, sunning themselves in truth, and he professed to make the Bible the guide of on its shore, or skipping stones over its surface the whole his life. Mr. James had been brought up under a system of a Sunday afternoon.' 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 thein various accounts of the works of God, combining all with such religious instruction and influence as a devo

'Let every one answer to his own conscience,' replied Mr James. If I keep the Sabbath conscientiously, I am approved of God; if another trangresses his conscience, 'to his own master he standeth or falleth.' I am not responsible for all the abuses that idle or evil-disposed persons may fall into, in consequence of my doing what is right.'

Let me quote an answer from the same chapter,' said Mr Richards. Let no man put a stumbling-block, or an occasion to fall, in his brother's way: let not your good be evil spoken of. It is good neither to eat flesh nor drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or iş offended, or made weak. Now, my good friend, you happen to be endowed with a certain tone of mind which enables you to carry through your mode of keeping the Sabbath with little comparative evil and much good, so far as your

the parents or guardians who from time to time attended their children during these exercises, often confessed themselves as much interested and benefited as any of their youthful companions.

SKETCH THIRD.

family is concerned; but how many persons in this neigh-❘ bourhood, do you suppose, would succeed equally well if they were to attempt it? If it were the common custom for families to absent themselves from public worship in the afternoon, and to stroll about the filds, or ride, or sail, how many parents, do you suppose, would have the dexterity and talent to check all that was inconsistent with It was near the close of a pleasant Saturday afternoon the duties of the day? Is it not your ready command of that I drew up my weary horse in front of a neat little language, your uncommon tact in simplifying and illus-dwelling in the village of N-. This, as near as I could trating, your kuowledge of natural history and of biblical gather from description, was the house of my cousin. Williterature, that enables you to accomplish the results that liam Fletcher, the identical rogue of a Bill Fletcher, of you do? And is there one parent in a hundred that could whom we have aforetime spoken. Bill had always been do the same? Now, just imagine our neighbour, Squire a thriving, push-ahead sort of a character, and during the Hart, with his ten boys and girls, turned out into the fields course of my rambling life I had improved every occasional on a Sunday afternoon, to profit withal: you know he can opportunity of keeping up our early acquaintance. The never finish a sentence without stopping to begin it again last time that I returned to my native country, after some half-a-dozen times. What progress would he make in years of absence, I heard of him as married and settled instructing them? And so of a dozen others I could name in the village of N-, where he was conducting a very along this very street here. Now, you men of cultivated prosperous course of business, and shortly after received a minds must give your countenance to courses which would pressing invitation to visit him at his own home. Now, be best for society at large, or, as the sentiment was ex- as I had gathered from experience the fact that it is of pressed by St Paul, We that are strong ought to bear very little use to rap one's knuckles off on the front door the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves, of a country house without any knocker, I therefore made for even Christ pleased not himself. Think, my dear sir, the best of my way along a little path, bordered with if our Saviour had gone only on the principle of avoiding marigolds and balsams, that led to the back part of the what might be injurious to his own improvement, how dwelling. The sound of a number of childish voices made unsafe his example might have proved to less elevated me stop, and, looking through the bushes, I saw the very minds. Doubtless he might have made a Sabbath-day image of my cousin Bill Fletcher, as he used to be twenty fishing excursion an occasion of much elevated and impres- years ago; the same bold forehead, the same dark eyes, sive instruction; but, although he declared himself Lord the same smart, saucy mouth, and the same who-caresof the Sabbath-day,' and at liberty to suspend its obligation for-that' toss to his head. at his own discretion, yet he never violated the received method of observing it, except in cases where superstitious tradition trenched directly on those interests which the Sabbath was given to promote. He asserted the right to relieve pressing bodily wants, and to administer to the necessities of others on the Sabbath, but beyond that he allowed himself in no deviation from established custom.' Mr James looked thoughtful. I have not reflected on the subject in this view,' he replied. But, my dear sir, considering how little of the public services of the Sabbath is on a level with the capacity of younger children, it seems to me almost a pity to take them to church the whole of the day.'

I have thought of that myself,' replied Mr Richards, and have sometimes thought that, could persons be found to conduct such a thing, it would be desirable to conduct a separate service for children, in which the exercises should be particularly adapted to them.'

'There now,' exclaimed the boy, setting down a pair of shoes that he had been blacking, and arranging them at the head of a long row of all sizes and sorts, from those which might have fitted a two-year-old foot upward — there, I've blacked every single one of them, and made them shine too, and done it all in twenty minutes. If anybody thinks they can do it quicker than that, I'd just like to have them try, that's all.'

'I know they couldn't, though,' said a fair-haired little girl, who stood admiring the sight, evidently impressed with the utmost reverence for her brother's ability; and, Bill, I've been putting up all the playthings in the big chest, and I want you to come and turn the lock-the key burts my fingers.'

Poh! I can turn it easier than that,' said the boɲ, snapping his fingers; have you got them all in?'

Yes, all; ouly I left out the soft bales, and the string of red beads, and the great rag baby for Fanny to play I should like to be minister to a congregation of chil-with-you know mother says babies must have their playdron,' said Mr James, warmly.

Well,' replied Mr Richards, give our good people time to get acquainted with you, and do away the prejudices which your extraordinary mode of proceeding has induced, and I think I could easily assemble such a company for you every Sabbath."

things on Sunday.'

'Oh, to be sure,' said the brother, very considerately; 'babies can't read, you know, as we can, nor hear Bible stories, nor look at pictures.'

At this moment I stepped forward, for the spell of for mer times was so powerfully on me that I was on the very point of springing forward with a Halloo, there, Bill!' as I used to meet the father in old times; but the look of surprise that greeted my appearance brought me to myself.

After this, much to the surprise of the village, Mr James and his family were regular attendants at both the services of the Sabbath. Mr Richards explained to the good people of his congregation the motives which had led their neigh-Is your father at home ?” said I. bour to the adoption of what, to them, seemed so unchristian a course; and, upon reflection, they came to the perception of the truth, that a man may depart very widely from the received standard of right for other reasons than being an infidel or an opposer of religion. A ready return of cordial feeling was the result; and as Mr James found himself treated with respect and confidence, he began to feel, notwithstanding his fastidiousness, that there were strong points of congeniality between all real and warmhearted Christians, however different might be their intellectual culture, and in all simplicity united himself with the little church of Camden. A year from the time of his first residence there, every Sabbath afternoon saw him surrounded by a congregation of young children, for whose benefit he had, at his own expense, provided a room, fitted up with maps, scriptural pictures, and every convenience for the illustration of biblical knowledge; and

Father and mother are both gone out, but I guess, sir, they will be home in a few moments: wont you walk in?' I accepted the invitation, and the little girl showed me into a small and very prettily-furnished parlour. There was a piano with music-books on one side of the room, some fine pictures hung about the walls, and a little, neat centre-table was plentifully strewn with books. Besides this, the two recesses on each side of the fireplace con tained each a bookcase with a glass locked door. The little girl offered me a chair, and then lingered a moment as if she felt some disposition to entertaiu me if she could only think of something to say, and at last, looking up in my face, she said, in a confidential tone, Mother says she left Willie and me to keep the house this afternoon while she was gone, and we are putting up all the things for Sunday, so as to get everything done before she comes home. Willie has gone to put away the play things, and