ences. From morning until night there are two great
principles that govern; first, the sacredness of the day, and second,
the sacredness of the God-given nature of childhood. The day is not
spent in repressing the child nature by a succession of "don't do that,"
"now stop that," etc., that begin in the morning and continue throughout
the day, and end only when the little ones lose consciousness in sleep
on Sunday night. In these homes, the parents recognize the fact that the
child nature is the same whether the day is secular or sacred. On Sunday
the child nature is not repressed, but the childish impulses are
directed into channels suited to the sacredness of the day. In such
homes the children, instead of being sorry that it is Sunday, are glad;
instead of regretting the return of the day with dislike and dread,
they welcome it as the brightest, the cheeriest and the best of all the
week.

The purpose of the author in the preparation of this book in its present
illustrated and slightly changed form, is to afford all parents a
valuable aid in making Sunday not only the brightest, happiest and best
day of the entire week for both parents and children, but also to aid
the parents to make Sunday pre-eminently the day around which shall
cluster throughout the entire life of each child the sweetest, tenderest
and most sacred recollections of childhood, of father and mother and of
brother and sister, and especially of their knowledge of the Bible and
of everything sacred.

Did it ever occur to you, as a parent, that between the birth and the
age of twenty-one years there are three solid years of Sundays--an
amount of time almost equal to the number of years given to an entire
course of college training? The Creator has not laid upon parents the
responsibilities of parenthood without giving them ample time and
opportunity to discharge these obligations to Him, to themselves, and to
their children.

The idea which has been successfully demonstrated in hundreds of homes,
where the impulses and natural inclinations of childhood have been
turned into sacred channels on Sundays so as to enable the parents to
teach spiritual truths in the most effective manner, is the method which
is suggested by the author to the parents in the use, on Sunday
afternoons, of the fifty-two little sermons given in this volume.

The parent who fails to use wisely the opportunities of Sunday
afternoons for impressing the children with spiritual tru