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create around them an atmosphere of purity and kindness . For the intellects of such there is no fear ; though they may know less in words , they have the fairest chance of being well versed in things . Let the authoress of " Cousin Elizabeth" write on , and write for ever for such as these . No . 3 , " Stories for Young Children , " is a very pretty and also unobjectionable book . It will be , we hope , a favourite with mothers ; for we are certain it will be so with children .
No . 4 , " The Rushbearing , " is one of the most beautiful and touching tales , in proportion to its range , we ever read . Young and old ought to be acquainted with it . It seems to us to have only one fault . The triumph of innocence would have been more full and striking had it been left unalloyed by the mention of any temporal reward . The idea of a present to the suffering and triumphant children was unnecessary , and , we think , unwise .
Nos . 5 and 6 , Mr . Gannet ' s Sermon for Children and Mr . Wood ' s Sunday-School Addresses , may very well be classed together . They contain much that is excellent in spirit , and occasionally in manner ; but , on the whole , we are compelled to say that , in common with every other attempt at set sermons for children which we have yet heard or seen , they are failures . Looking at the good they are likely to effect , we cannot compliment the writers . We wish we could go so far as to predict that they will not add to the mistakes which Sunday-School teachers are apt enough of
themselves to fall into - but when we see how great is the danger of these excellent and indefatigable instructors of the poor , who meet their children only once in the week , removed from their daily interests , occupations , and temptations , and exhibiting consequently but little of character—the danger , we say , of their treating religion as an abstract , isolated thing , of estimating a pupil ' s merit by his capability of attention and progress in mere headknowledge—we like not the aspect of books which tend to keep up this artificial view of their relative position . The intercourse of a
Sunday-School teacher and a child is one of exceeding great difficulty . If the latter is to be improved in religious character , it becomes necessary that a very deep view of the case should be taken by the former . It is not the little disci ple with book in hand , ready to learn and listen , that he must regard ; it is the child itself , as it has been formed beforehand , as it is constantly forming , in its daily and hourly occupations . Does he wish to ally himself
with the spirit of good in that child , to co-operate with it in its Christian progress ? Reflection shews that his task is one requiring not only a large degree of love and faith , but a power of getting rid of the abstract idea of reli gion as a thing to be put into a child by a book ; a power of looking beyond the state of mind in which that child comes on the Sabbath hours to learn its lesson ; a clear conception , as Mr . Gannet has well observed , that " religion means its whole conduct and character , " a view of Christianity in all its universality .
Untitled Article
Books for Children . 681
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1831, page 681, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2602/page/29/
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