The Central Presbyterian

Sunday Occupations for Boys and Girls.

In a large primary class the teacher asked one Sunday, "How many of you have been told of things you must not do on Sunday?" Every hand was raised, and inquiry showed that they had been forbidden to play, to buy candy, to run, to climb—in fact, most of the things that children find so fascinating on other days were not to be thought of on Sunday. The next question was, "How many of you have been told of things that you may do on Sunday?" Two hands were raised, and their owners had been permitted to read the Bible and go to Sunday school.

Of course, children must be taught to keep the Sabbath, but to compel them to pass it in idleness is to make it certain that they will do wrong if they are not constantly watched, and will make them dislike the day and dread its coming. A child brought up under the stern "Thou shalt not" regime was dismayed to hear the minister read a hymn one Sunday which described heaven as a place

"Where congregations ne'er break up,
And Sabbath has no end."

"These things ought not so to be," and parents who are wise will provide something that is what some children are led to think nothing can be, both attractive and right.

One mother has a large box having a pretty cover and cushioned lid. This box contains dissected maps of Palestine and other suitable toys for younger children, books of travel in Bible lands, and lives of great preachers and missionaries for older ones, and blocks for building churches for the youngest, with slates and colored crayons on which they copy the blackboard work seen at Sunday school. In that house Sunday is a day eagerly longed for by the children, though kept most strictly—not in the severity, but in the "beauty of holiness."

But the mother who prepared this box (which by the way, is never opened on week days, though the children often desire it) found it very difficult to get any suitable Sunday toys for the young children, and was surprised that more were not made. She desires constantly to add to the stock and to give some of the toys a rest when the children have grown tired of them, putting new ones in their places; but she says an inquiry for "Sunday toys" in any stores causes a stare of surprise quite as pronounced as it could be if she had inquired for a life-sized toy elephant or any other utterly incongruous thing.

But other mothers are beginning to realize the need, and one of them, who is blessed with invention, has prepared a set of toys which, though they both interest and please, should hardly be called toys, since they are so full of instruction for even many children of larger growth. They consist of a Bible time ladder, puzzle cross, star, and pillars of the patriarchs. All are made of heavy cardboard, the laces are strong silk cord, and the whole durable enough to last till the information they contain has been mastered—which is saying a great deal. The ladder leads up to Christ through the four thousand years of Old Testament history, and shows how the Saviour was promised again and again, and how the promises were received. It is a wonder that so much could have been put in so small a space; but it has been done, and all parents should welcome these pleasant ways of instructing the children, which keep hands as well as minds busy. Undoubtedly, too, they would find their own ideas of Bible events and chronology becoming clarified as they helped the children to build the ladder, set up the pillars, and form star and cross.—Exchange.