thetic beauty there is in the sweet fresh voices of
the children, and how earnestly they sing! I took a little
girl of six to church with me one day: they had told me she
could hardly read at all--but she made me find all the
places for her! And afterwards I said to her elder sister
"What made you say Barbara couldn't read? Why, I heard her
joining in, all through the hymn!" And the little sister
gravely replied, "She knows the _tunes_, but not the
_words_." Well, to return to my subject--children in
church. The lessons, and the prayers, are not wholly beyond
them: often they can catch little bits that come within the
range of their small minds. But the sermons! It goes to
one's heart to see, as I so often do, little darlings of
five or six years old, forced to sit still through a weary
half-hour, with nothing to do, and not one word of the
sermon that they can understand. Most heartily can I
sympathise with the little charity-girl who is said to have
written to some friend, "I think, when I grows up, I'll
never go to church no more. I think I'se getting sermons
enough to last me all my life!" But need it be so? Would it
be so _very_ irreverent to let your child have a
story-book to read during the sermon, to while away that
tedious half-hour, and to make church-going a bright and
happy memory, instead of rousing the thought, "I'll never go
to church no more"? I think not. For my part, I should love
to see the experiment tried. I am quite sure it would be a
success. My advice would be to _keep_ some books
for that special purpose. I would call such books
"Sunday-treats"--and your little boy or girl would soon
learn to look forward with eager hope to that half-hour,
once so tedious. If I were the preacher, dealing with some
subject too hard for the little ones, I should love to see
them all enjoying their picture-books. And if _this_
little book should ever come to be used as a "Sunday-treat"
for some sweet baby reader, I don't think it could serve a
better purpose.

Lewis Carroll.

Miss M.E. Manners was another writer for children whose books pleased
him. She gives an amusing account of two visits which he paid to her
house in 1889:--

_An Unexpected Guest._

"Mr. Dobson wants to see you, miss."

I was in the kitchen looking after the dinner, and did not