Habits In Church

Perhaps I can fill a gap, if I say something to young people about their habits in church-going, and in spending the hour of the church service.

When I was a boy, we went to school on weekdays for four hours in the morning and three in the afternoon. We went to church on Sunday at about half past ten, and church "let out" at twelve. We went again in the afternoon, and the service was a little shorter. I knew and know precisely how much shorter, for I sat in sight of the clock, and bestowed a great deal too much attention on it. But I do not propose to tell you that.

Till I was taught some of the things which I now propose to teach you, this hour and a half in church seemed to me to correspond precisely to the four hours in school,--I mean it seemed just as long. The hour and twenty minutes of the afternoon seemed to me to correspond precisely with the three hours of afternoon school. After I learned some of these things, church-going seemed to me very natural and simple, and the time I spent there was very short and very pleasant to me.

I should say, then, that there are a great many reasonably good boys and girls, reasonably thoughtful, also, who find the confinement of a pew oppressive, merely because they do not know the best way to get the advantage of a service, which is really of profit to children as it is to grown-up people,--and which never has its full value as it does when children and grown people join together in it.

Now to any young people who are reading this paper, and are thinking about their own habits in church, I should say very much what I should about swimming, or drawing, or gardening; that, if the thing to be done is worth doing at all, you want to do it with your very best power. You want to give yourself up to it, and get the very utmost from it.

You go to church, I will suppose, twice a day on Sunday. Is it not clearly best, then, to carry out to the very best the purpose with which you are there? You are there to worship God. Steadily and simply determine that you will worship him, and you will not let such trifles distract you as often do distract people from this purpose.

What if the door does creak? what if a dog does bark near by? what if the horses outside do neigh or stamp? You do not mean to confess that you, a child of God, are going to submit to dogs, or horses, or creaking doors!

If you will give yourself to the service with all your heart and soul,--with all your might, as a boy does to his batting or his catching at base-ball; if, when the congregation is at prayer, you determine that you will not be hindered in your prayer; or, when the time comes for singing, that you will not be hindered from joining in the singing with voice or with heart,--why, you can do so. I never heard of a good fielder in base-ball missing a fly because a dog barked, or a horse neighed, on the outside of the ball-ground.

If I kept a