Our Sunday reading may well include all that is referred to in Phil. iv. 8:  “Whatsoever things are noble.”  I would not say this or that book is wrong on Sunday—­a book which is good on Saturday does not become bad on Sunday, but, as is the case with many excellent weekday employments, it may very well be a misuse of Sunday time, because we could be doing something better.  I strongly advise you to make your Sunday books—­and as far as possible all your Sunday habits—­different from those of the week, if only to give yourself a chance of getting out of grooves, of getting that complete change of air which is so conducive to a new start in one’s inner life and mental vigour.  Lord Lawrence’s Life would be splendid Sunday reading, but if you are reading it in the week, you would be wise to put it away on Sunday in favour of a change of air.

It is quite possible that you are busy on Sunday, sometimes a father or brothers, hard at work all the week, want you to amuse them on Sunday.  Or you may be busy with Sunday-school or Classes, which equally prevents the personal keeping of Sunday, while many household arrangements may make an old-fashioned Sunday impossible. (Let those who can have it be thankful instead of rebelling at its dulness!)

At the same time, I would suggest that the very young men for whose sake you are making the sacrifice—­(the sacrifice of doing things which amuse you as much as them, sometimes more, since a young man occasionally likes to lie in a hammock and read, without having the girls always about)—­those very young men need Sunday quiet whether they desire it or not.

Would it not be well also, if you do have games, to keep to those which allow of talk if the impulse comes, since a Sunday talk is often a help, and whether or no it is combined with boating or golf.

I do not say to you, stand out against household ways and make yourself disagreeable by carrying out a Puritan Sunday—­the only kind I believe in.  No; surely that would be a very unchristlike way of spending Sunday.

But every girl knows the difference between helping to make a pleasant family circle and lounging idly through the day in self-indulgent gossip and games.  You must do what others do, and yet you must have a clear plan of the reading and prayer and thinking which is right for you personally.  If you cannot do it at one time on Sunday, find another, or else get it done on Saturday.  Nearly every one could find time for Sunday duties, only you would rather not, because they are dull.  I am not surprised, it is not natural to like them till the spiritual nature is alive in you, but that will never be until you force yourself to take this spiritual food as a duty, or rather, as essential to your life.

    “A Sabbath well spent
    Brings a week of content
    And strength for the toils of the morrow.”

Those are very old words by Sir Matthew Hale:  I know them framed in the hall of an old-fashioned country house, and they bring back to me rest and quiet, and sweet sounds and scents—­the bowl of roses and the pretty old chintz on the sofa just under the words.