"Forget not the source whence all blessings come."
While stating that the prayers said by girls after their early meal are
short, I ought to have added that the same rule is followed with regard
to children of both sexes.
We even vary our forms of worship and services to suit different ages.
Before my reign adults and children went to the same places of worship,
repeated the same prayers, and listened to the same discourses, most of
which being perfectly unintelligible to those of tender years, the evils
and inconveniences resulting from the practice were very great. The
children, finding the routine irksome, the constrained decorum required
of them during a time which seemed to them never ending (for the
services were then very long) was painful in the extreme, though they
were sometimes relieved by turning their thoughts in other directions,
perhaps to subjects irrelevant if not opposed to the ostensible object
of the meeting.
Thus pain and weariness became then and in after life naturally
associated with the most sacred of duties, and generally those, who at
an early age had been obliged to attend most regularly to an
unintelligible and irksome routine, were in after life those who
absented themselves most frequently from the place of worship. I have
known some, and this will scarcely be credited, who from an early age
had in obedience to their parents' commands attended church with what
was to them painful and monotonous regularity, and who, as soon as they
were old enough to leave the parental jurisdiction, never entered a
place of worship again until the day of their death, so great had been
their stifled repugnance, created by the unnatural surfeit which had
been inflicted upon them.
This was not all: the repugnance thus engendered often extended even to
the faith itself which the prayers and discourses had been intended to
inculcate, and led the way in after life to doubt and disbelief.
There was another though a secondary evil, attendant upon these old
formalities. In our climate, where children are very susceptible, it
happened that when on rare occasions any striking observation attracted
their attention, they would put questions very difficult for their
parents or preceptors to answer.
The forms of worship and service are now adapted to three several ages
and classes of intelligence. The first series is for children of from
seven to ten years of age, the second for children from ten to sixteen,
the third for adults. If the children, however, show any deficiency of
intelligence, they are kept in the first or second series, though the
stated age has been passed.
The discourses addressed to the young people are adapted to their age
and intelligence, and ordinarily bear reference to their own passing
actions, and consequently to their hours of play and of study. They are
intended to inculcate lessons of self-control, love for parents or
associates, contentment, and the mode of showing gratitude for benefits
received, by cultivating the faculties which God in His goodness has
bestowed. The discourse often points out the mode of contending against
any bad feelings that might possibly be awakened. They might be told,
for instance, that if during play any dissatisfaction with their
companions arose, and they felt they could not control themselves, they
ought immediately to retire from the game, in order that their feelings
might have the opportunity of returning to their proper channel, and on
no account to urge anything against the supposed offender until they had
advised with some friendly adult, or more especially a Character-diver.
The children are encouraged not only in their affection to their parents
and immediate associates, but in brotherly love to all, and the whole
discourse, which is very short, is pointed to their duty to God, being
calculated to instil feelings of love and adoration for His goodness.
In the first series, for very young children whose intelligence is
undeveloped, we have forms and ceremonies, the tendency of which is to
fix their attention and inculcate thoughts and habits of a good
tendency.
In the second series the addresses are of a more elevated character, and
are accompanied by fewer forms and ceremonies.
In the highest series there are scarcely any ceremonies, and although
the service and discourses are short, every one is expected to pass a
certain time each day in voluntary prayer and meditation in the private
cabinet which in every house is set apart for devotion only.
Though the prayers for children are short, the preacher is greatly
assisted by our method of education, inculcating the worship of the
Supreme by habits which the child is led to form. Thus we require the
greatest attention to cleanliness, to the mode of eating, sleeping,
talking, and indeed to all the daily practices of life.
The inculcation and exercise of good habits is considered to form, as it
were, a perpetual living hymn to the Creator.