The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1881-12-01

tongues to use their eyes to advantage
oh, those motley gatherings on the
meeting house steps to watch the differ
ent leans drive up and discharge
their lovely and often blushing freight.
Those iarks behind the meeting house
and in the gallery and back by the
stove, and on the way home with the
girlsl Those flirtations in the choir be-
hind the red curtains! There is no JOY
in the Sabbath of these days. At home
the children learned texts of Scriptures
and the calechism, and quietlj waited
for the lightning of Gods electihg grace1o
tsrike them if il was so decreed, taking
the failure of such lightning stroke un-
concernedly, as il must be all right
either way.
When the Sunday school and prayer
meeting began to be instituted here and
there. opposition was made by many OF
the most deVout and godly church men,
beers to all such innovations. It Is q Gu
nous fact that the early church of New
England would not tolerate the s'plaiR"
reading of Holy Scripture-ihat is, the
reading of it without comment They,
curiously enough, called it "dumb'.
reading-ihose sticklers for the word of
God. It is not twenty years since, in
one of the prominent Congregational
churches of Hartford, the reading OF
Scripture was confined 10 the forenoon
service. The "long prayer" was terror
to the young. 1t must have been suffer
ed by adults as q convenient kind OF
penance. What a WEAKNESS, too, its in-
terminable nasal monotonei Then came,
at long intervals, the communion season,
after the second service, when most Of
the men and some of the women and all
the children would go sadly out, leaving
the elect TO their solemn feast. Tender
scenes we have Witnessed at such times
in the rude old sanctuaries; scenes new
er To be forgotten while memory lasts.
The pastors fearful cheeks and falter-
ing accents, the solemn silence in which
the holy emblems were received, the
weird, quaint music of the old minor
tunes sung without instrumental accom-
paniment and by thin and Quiverlng
voices! With mute wonder and often
uncomfortable emotion, the boy at his
mothers side would watch the cere-
mOny, discerning it only as a great and
holy and tender sacrament of diYine
love that could make his mother weep
for Joy and even melt the awful clergy
man down into a lovable human being.
Far from the men and women of those
days was the modern notion that laymen
are especially competent to impart bib
lical instruction, and the modern usage
which relieves the clergy from almost all
responsibility for the working of the
machinery for the religious education of
children No ruder shock can well be
conceived than that which would be ex-
perienced by sundry of the good fore
fathers, could they suddenly revisit the
regions they once inhabited and especi-
ally the sanctuaries wherein they FORM
erly worshiped. What with "slips" for
the old pews, preaching rails and desks
for inaccessible pulpits overhung with
sounding boards; stained glass, steam
heat, carpets, organs, chants and other
popish ceremonies, heads bowed in
prayer, and no chance to "swap horses"
between services, they would be miser-
able indeed, and aghast with horror at
our improvements.
How much are we advanced, after ali ?
Men talk of greater decOrum, reverence
and so on. but we cannot forget that the
Sabbath day of our boyhood had SIM
plicity and sacredness that atoned for its
occasional seventies, and certain posi-
bilities of stealthy, honest fun for bright
boys and girls such as the gradual de-
santification of the day and the decorum
of modern worship utterly forbid.