Maintain the unity by doing the ideal things together. Go to the place of worship together, provided it is the place where the child can find expression for spiritual ideals.  If the Sunday school does not really lift the child-life and really teach the child, if it is not honest with him and makes no suitable provision for his developing nature, he will be better off in a quiet hour of family conversation and reading at home.  That means the application of parents to this hour.[33] It banishes the monstrous Sunday supplement with its hideous, debasing pictures.  It substitutes conversation in the whole group, reading aloud of stories and poems, biblical and otherwise, and songs, hymns, or at times the walk in the fields or parks.  Fortunately the better type of Sunday school is more and more to be found; children are more and more receiving a ministry actually determined by their needs.  So far as the church service is concerned the ideal situation is found when a parallel service is provided for children, based on their needs and capacities.  As to attendance, under other circumstances, in the family pew, that depends on whether the child is gaining an aversion to the church by the torture and tedium often involved.  Without doubt many adults acquired the settled habit of sleeping in church because that was the only possible relief in childhood.[34]

Maintain the family unity by stepping into the child’s ideal life.  Expect activity and use it. Why should we assume that because the adult finds a Sunday nap enjoyable the child will be blessed by enforced silence?  I would rather see a father playing catch with his boys on Sunday than see the boys cowed into silence while he slept a Sabbath sleep.  Children will play.  Their play is innocent; more, it may be helpful and educative; we can insure these values in it by our participation.  That is the parent’s opportunity for a closer sympathy with his children.  Playing together is the closest living, thinking, and feeling together.  Where games are shared, confidences, secrets, and aspirations are shared, too.  Besides, the participation of the adult may tend to tone up the game and to moderate boisterousness.

Seek the beautiful. Speaking as one who has been under both the puritanical regulation and the so-called “continental” freedom of Sunday observance, nothing seems much more beautiful than the sight of an entire family playing at home, in the park, or off in the woods or the fields of the country.  Life is strengthened, ideals are lifted, family ties knit closer, gratitude is quickened, and courage stimulated by play of this kind.

Sec. 5.  POINTS OF DIFFERENCE

But because it is evidently most important that this day should be different from other days, it is well to mark that difference in our plays and pleasures and to follow some simple principles for Sunday play.

First, make it the day of the best plays.  The participation of parents will tend to have this effect.  Sometimes some forms of play may be reserved for this day.