Did I say I’d have nothing “_best_?” Pardon me. Sunday should be the best day of all the seven--not ushered in with ascetic form, or lengthened face, or stiff and rigid manners. Sweetly upon the still Sabbath air should float the matin hymn of happy childhood; blending with early song of birds, and wafted upward, with flowers’ incense, to Him whose very name is LOVE. It should be no day for puzzling the half-developed brain of childhood with gloomy creeds, to shake the simple faith that prompts the innocent lips to say, “Our Father.” It should be no day to sit upright on stiff-backed chairs, till the golden sun should set. No; the birds should not be more welcome to warble, the flowers to drink in the air and sunlight, or the trees to toss their lithe limbs, free and fetterless. “I’m _so sorry_ that to-morrow is Sunday!” From whence does this sad lament issue? From under _your_ roof, oh mistaken but well-meaning Christian parents--from the lips of _your_ child, whom you compel to listen to two or three unintelligible sermons, sandwiched between Sunday schools, and finished off at nightfall by tedious repetitions of creeds and catechisms, till sleep releases your weary victim! No wonder your child _shudders_, when the minister tells him that “Heaven is one eternal Sabbath.” Oh, mistaken parent! relax the over-strained bow--_prevent the fearful rebound_, and make the Sabbath what God designed it, not a weariness, but the “_best_” and happiest day of all the seven. THE VESTRY MEETING. The clock had just struck seven. The sharp-nosed old sexton of the Steeple-Street Church had arranged the lights to his mind, determined the proper latitude and longitude of Bibles and hymn-books, peeped curiously into the little black stove in the corner, and was now admonishing every person who passed in, of the propriety of depositing the “free soil” on his boots upon the entry door-mat. In they crept, one after another--pale-faced seamstresses, glad of a reprieve; servant girls, who had turned their backs upon unwashed dishes; mothers, whose “crying babies” were astounding the neighbors; old maids, who had nowhere to spend their long evenings; widowers, who felt an especial solicitude lest any of the sisters should be left to return home unprotected; girls and boys, who came because they were bid, and who had no very clear idea of the performances; and last, though not least, Ma’am Spy, who thought it her duty to see that none of the church-members were missing, and to inquire every Tuesday night, of her friend Miss Prim, if she didn’t consider Mrs. Violet a proper subject for church discipline, because she always had money enough to pay her board bills, although her husband had deserted her. Then there were the four Misses Nipper, who crawled in as if the vestry floor were paved with live kittens, and who had never been known, for four years, to vary one minute in their attendance, or to keep awake from the first prayer to the doxology.