Page:Samantha on Children's Rights.djvu/211

 a great mistake; you try for half an hour each day to make your children the inmates of another world, surrounded by different beings and circumstances. Now, that hain't so, God is with Jack and Delight at this minute out there in the playground, jest as nigh as He is when they are kneelin' at your four feet, and in my opinion they ought to be learnt that is the case, and what is proper for them to think of God at one time is proper at another.

"Now, in my opinion, God would be glad to see them innocent little children step into Heaven off from that cloud, if they could, and my way would have been to told them that God would be glad to see 'em at any time, and that He did see 'em, that He wuz with 'em at prayer time and play time, in storm and shine, and wanted 'em to be good little children, and wuz grieved when they wuz naughty, and then I should have tried to explain to 'em why they couldn't step off from that cloud into Heaven. That would be my way," sez I, holdin' up Josiah's sock and tacklin' it in a new place, "howsumever," sez I mildly, seein' Tirzah Ann and Tamer looked wrathy, "howsumever, I will say agin it is easier to tell folks how to bring up children than do the bringin' up, or be satisfied after they're brung."

"This irreverence in talkin' about divine things is what I can't and won't stand."

"Then, Tirzah Ann," sez I, "you should bring Delight up in a different way. How is she to know the Being you encourage her in talkin' to one minute is not to be mentioned at another? Everything in the world is as new to her as it would be to us if we wuz sot down on the planet Jupiter to-day. How do you know we should have first class Jupiter ways? I don't spoze we