He
thundered over my head, and she sweetly instructed me down in my heart.
The promise that she would read Joseph's history to me on Sunday was
enough to draw a silver thread of obedience through the entire week; and
if I was tempted to break my promise, I said, 'No; Aunt Esther is going
to read on Sunday;' and I would do, or I would not do, all through the
week, for the sake of getting that sweet instruction on Sunday.
"And to parents I say, Truth is graded. Some parts of God's truth are
for childhood, some parts are for the nascent intellectual period, and
some parts are for later spiritual developments. Do not take the last
things first. Do not take the latest processes of philosophy and bring
them prematurely to the understanding. In teaching truth to your
children, you are to avoid tiring them."
"The greatest trial of those days," says Mrs. Stowe, "was the Catechism.
Sunday lessons were considered by the mother-in-law as inflexible duty,
and the Catechism as the _sine qua non_. The other children memorized
readily, and were brilliant reciters, but Henry, blushing, stammering,
confused, and hopelessly miserable, stuck fast on some sand-bank of what
is required or forbidden by this or that commandment, his mouth choking
up with the long words which he hopelessly miscalled, was sure to be
accused of idleness or inattention, and to be solemnly talked to, which
made him look more stolid and miserable than ever, but appeared to have
no effect in quickening his dormant faculties.
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