form?"

An old-fashioned clergyman--a visitor to a city church which I chanced
to attend last winter--prefaced his sermon, "as was his custom at
home," he said, by "a five-minute talk to the lambs of the fold." In
the congregation of at least 800 souls there were exactly three
"lambs" under fifteen years of age. It was impossible for the most
reverent of his hearers to help thinking of the solitary parishioner
who composed his pastor's congregation upon a stormy day, and objected
to the sermon dutifully delivered by the minister "as good, but too
personal."

It is as impossible for the thoughtful student of the signs of the
times to avoid the conclusion that the growing disposition of the
young to deny the authority of the church and to supersede her stated
ordinances by organizations established and run by themselves may be
the legitimate fruit of the prominence given by their parents to what
should be the nursery of the church over the church itself. It would
be strange if, after witnessing for fourteen or fifteen years such
open and systematic disrespect of the gates of Zion, they were to
develop veneration for her worship and devout appreciation of the
mystic truth that this is the place where God's honor dwells.

If--and the "if" is broad and deep and long--the little ones are
faithfully trained by the parents in the nurture and admonition of the
Lord (dear, quaint old phraseology, fine, subtle and pervasive as
lavender scent!), if sacred songs and Bible stories and tender talk of
the Saviour's love and the beautiful life of which this may be made a
type and a foretaste, keep in the minds of the little ones at home the
sanctity and sweetness of the day of days, there is a shadow of excuse
for the failure to make room for them in the family pew. Even then the
tree will grow as the twig is inclined.

The mother whose knee is the baby's first altar, who gathers about her
for confession, for counsel and for prayer sons and daughters who
will, in older and sterner years, call her blessed for the holy
teachings of their childhood, will teach them to find, with her, the
tabernacles of the Lord of Hosts "amiable," _i.e._, worthy of all love
and fidelity. The chrism of motherhood consecrates a woman as a
priestess. Neither convenience nor custom can release her from the
office. Let not another take her crown.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

A PARTING WORD FOR BOY.

Upon the satin seat of a chair in the corner of the drawi