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. S. PARKES CADMAN. The Parish House, |
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