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Attendance at Public Worship: Young Should Be Trained

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The question is often asked how shall we get our working classes to attend public worship. The answer may be supplied by an incident of my boyhood. On the mantelshelf of my grandmother's best parlor, among other marvels was an apple in a phial. It quite filled up the body of the bottle, and my wondering enquiry was,' How could it have been got into its place?' By stealth I climbed a chair to see if the bottom would unscrew, or if there had been a join in the glass throughout the length of the phial. I was satisfied by careful observation that neither of these theories could be supported, and the apple remained, to me an enigma and a mystery. But as it was said of that other wonder, the source of the Nile: 'Nature well known no mystery remains,': so was it here. Walking in the garden 1 saw a phial placed on a tree bearing within it a tiny apple, which was growing within the crystal; now I saw it all; the apple was put into the bottle while it was little, and it grew there. Just so must we catch the little men and women who swarm our streets: we call them boys and girls: and introduce them within the influence of the church, for alas! it is hard indeed to reach them, when they have ripened in carelessness and sin.