Do not let Sunday be turned into a day of dread to the children. It is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. For years I lived in terror of the Sunday, and I feel for children who, being brought more into the presence of their elders on that day, are consequently more exposed to reproof for their natural animal spirits, which are trying to jaded and irritable persons. An only child, I was taken twice a day to a church built in the dismal style of the reign of George III., and put into a high pew, "shut up in a cupboard," as I have heard a little child express it, where I could only see a frightful ornament like a row of teeth in painted woodwork that ran round the upper part of the church. I sat contemplating this through the long low church service and sermon, of which I was too young to understand a word. The remainder of the day was filled up with collect, epistle, and catechism, Bible questions to write and answer, the text to remember, hymns to repeat to visitors, and a prolonged dessert, with half a glass of sherry, which was like a dose of physic to me. The "Life of Joseph" was my only recreation. Too often is Sunday given up to the display of toilet vanities out of doors and listlessness at home. Those who have been really working during the week know well what a blessing the Sunday rest is. Those who have been idle cannot expect to feel this, and they experience such a flatness in the quietly kept Sunday that they regard it as a weekly penance which interrupts their pleasures. But they ought not to have allowed themselves to get into this condition of feeling. There is work for all in the world; none but the dead have a right to be idle. As Kingsley justly asks: "If vanity, profligacy, pride, and idleness be not moral vices, what are?" What is more common than to find pride and vanity leading our women to idleness, and that extravagance and craving after gaiety which are the feminine form of profligacy? And Kingsley goes on to show that beneath these vices, and perhaps the cause of them all, lies another and deeper vice--godlessness, atheism. "I do not," continues he, "mean merely the want of religion, doctrinal unbelief. I mean want of belief in duty, in responsibility. Want of belief that there is a living God governing the universe, who has set us our work, and will judge us according to our work." Why are our noble gifts given to us; such gifts as these-- "The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill." Is it that we may become "tolerably harmless dolls?" How shall we answer for having used our endurance only so much as may make us wait with common patience for next month's number of _Belgravia_; our foresight in choosing a pattern for a mantle which shall be fashionable enough to be worn next autumn; our skill in crochet-work, and our strength in skating on the outside edge.