If
they felt as I do about the lines that head this article they would
have "Sunday" scratched out and "Sabbath" written in before you
could bat an eye. The mere substitution of one word for another
may seem a light matter to a man that has never composed anything
more literary than an obituary for the Western Advocate of Sister
Jane Malinda Sprague, who was born in Westmoreland County,
Pennsylvania, in 1816, removed with her parents at a tender age to
New Sardis, Washington County, Ohio, where, etc., etc. If he
wanted to extract a word he would do it, and never even offer to
give the author gas. But I know just how it hurts. I know or can
imagine how the gifted poet that penned the deathless lines I have
quoted must have walked the floor in an agony until every word and
syllable was just to suit him, and so, though I feel sure he meant
to write "Sabbath-school," I don't dare change it.
To most persons one word seems about as good as another, Sunday or
Sabbath, but when there are young people about the house you learn
to be careful how you talk before them. Now, I would not go so far
as to say that "Sunday" is what you might call exactly rowdy, but
er . . . but . . . er . . . Let me illustrate. If a man says, "It's
a beautiful Sunday morning," like enough he has on red-and-green
stockings, baggy knickerbockers, a violet-and-purple sweater, a cap
shaped like a milk-roll, and is smoking a pipe.
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