“Again I thought, Is this a theatre?  No.  Is it a concert or a gilded opera?  No.  Is it some other vain, brilliant, beautiful temple of soul-staining amusement and hilarity?  No.  Then what is it?  What did my consciousness reply?  I ask you, my little friends, What did my consciousness reply?  It replied, It is the temple of the Lord!  Ah, think of that, now.  I could hardly keep the tears back, I was so grateful.  Oh, how beautiful it is to see these ranks of sunny little faces assembled here to learn the way of life; to learn to be good; to learn to be useful; to learn to be pious; to learn to be great and glorious men and women; to learn to be props and pillars of the State and shining lights in the councils and the households of the nation; to be bearers of the banner and soldiers of the cross in the rude campaigns of life, and raptured souls in the happy fields of Paradise hereafter.

“Children, honor your parents and be grateful to them for providing for you the precious privileges of a Sunday School.

“Now my dear little friends, sit up straight and pretty—­there, that’s it—­and give me your attention and let me tell you about a poor little Sunday School scholar I once knew.—­He lived in the far west, and his parents were poor.  They could not give him a costly education; but they were good and wise and they sent him to the Sunday School.  He loved the Sunday School.  I hope you love your Sunday School—­ah, I see by your faces that you do!  That is right!

“Well, this poor little boy was always in his place when the bell rang, and he always knew his lesson; for his teachers wanted him to learn and he loved his teachers dearly.  Always love your teachers, my children, for they love you more than you can know, now.  He would not let bad boys persuade him to go to play on Sunday.  There was one little bad boy who was always trying to persuade him, but he never could.

“So this poor little boy grew up to be a man, and had to go out in the world, far from home and friends to earn his living.  Temptations lay all about him, and sometimes he was about to yield, but he would think of some precious lesson he learned in his Sunday School a long time ago, and that would save him.  By and by he was elected to the legislature—­Then he did everything he could for Sunday Schools.  He got laws passed for them; he got Sunday Schools established wherever he could.

“And by and by the people made him governor—­and he said it was all owing to the Sunday School.

“After a while the people elected him a Representative to the Congress of the United States, and he grew very famous.—­Now temptations assailed him on every hand.  People tried to get him to drink wine; to dance, to go to theatres; they even tried to buy his vote; but no, the memory of his Sunday School saved him from all harm; he remembered the fate of the bad little boy who used to try to get him to play on Sunday, and who grew up and became a drunkard and was hanged.  He remembered that, and was glad he never yielded and played on Sunday.