No department of Christian literature is of more importance for the
future of the Church than that which seeks to enlist the children in the
service of Christ. Mr. Chidley, by his gifts and experience as a pastor
and a teacher of the young, is eminently fitted to contribute towards
this most vital phase of Christian activity. His successful career in
the Central Congregational Church of Brooklyn, where I shared the
privilege of his valuable co-operation, and in the Trinity Church of
East Orange, New Jersey, of which he is now the beloved and honored
pastor, bespeak the merits of this series of addresses to Boys and
Girls. They are at once an efficient protest against the Protestant
neglect of the young and a remedy for that neglect. Parents,
instructors, and guardians of the juvenile members of our Churches will
be wise to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the teachings and
exhortations presented here. It is a book of absorbing interest, and
the little folks and those of older years can not fail to be both
profited and delighted by it. The revolution in Christian thought
concerning the relation of children to the Church and the Kingdom of God
is apparent on every page. Dr. Martineau averred that children do not
require to be led so much as not to be misled, and in these "Fifty-two
Stories" we have a model application of his weighty aphorism. The
receptive and expansive hours of child nature are admirably considered,
and what is here written has a direct bearing upon its spiritual
development and welfare.