that it could be predicated with mathematical certainty that exactly ten
thousand people were present, because the offertory footed up
exactly one hundred dollars. What an encouragement to these faithful
infant-class teachers that have labored unremittingly, instant in season
and out of season, saying over and over again with infinite patience,
"Always bring a penny," to know that their labor has not been in vain,
and that as a people we have made it the rule of our lives always to
bring a penny--and no more.

I have often tried to think what a Sabbath-school must be like in
California, where they have no pennies. It seems hardly possible that
the institution can exist under such a patent disability, and yet it
does. Do they work it on the same principle as the post-office in
that far-off land where you 'cannot buy one postal card because the
postmaster cannot make change, but must buy five postal cards or
two two-cent stamps and a postal? In other words, does a nickel, the
smallest extant coin, serve for five persons for one Sunday or one
person for five Sundays? I have often wondered about this.

Subsidiary instruction in the preparatory course consists of sitting
right still and being nice, keeping your fingers out of Johnny Pym's
eye, because it hurts him and makes him cry, not grabbing in the basket
when it goes by, even though it does have pennies in it, coaching in a
repertory of songs like: "Beautiful, Beautiful Little Hands," "You in
Your Little Corner and I in Mine," "The Consecrated Cross-Eyed Bear,"
"Pass Around the Wash-Rag"--the grown folks call that "Pass Along the
Watchword" and stories about David and Goliath, Samson and the three
hundred foxes with fire tied to their tails, Moses in the bulrushes, the
infant Samuel, Hagar in the wilderness, and so forth. The clergy have
often objected that these stories, being told at the same period of life
with those about Santa Claus, "One time there was a little boy and he
had a dog named Rover," the little girl that had hair as black as ebony,
skin as white as snow, and cheeks as red as blood, because her Ma,
who was a queen by occupation, happened to cut her finger with a
black-handled knife along about New Year's--the clergy, I say, have
often objected that all these matters, being brought to a child's
attention at the same period in its life, are likely to be regarded in
after years as of equal evidential value. I am not much of a hand to
argue, myself, but