Our fathers and mothers and the grown-up people were always telling us what a good boy Henry was, and asking us why we didn’t do things the way he did. Of course, we couldn’t do as he did, no matter how hard we tried.
In the Sunday-school Henry always told us what to sing; he would talk to us softly and quietly, and he never scolded the least bit. He always asked us to be good, and told us how much happier we would be if we learned lots of verses, and never called bad names, or fought, and always tried to do right. Henry told us all about the lesson papers, and seemed to know everything there was in the Bible, and all about Damascus and Jericho and those foreign cities that are in the Bible. Then he used to give out the Sunday-school books. We usually took one of these home with us, but we never cared much about them. The stories were all rather silly, and didn’t amount to much.
We boys used to argue about what a superintendent was, and just how high an office Henry had. We all knew that it was not so high as the preacher’s, but we thought it was next to his, and some said it was below a deacon. Some of us thought that Henry was elected by the Sunday-school teachers, and some thought his office was higher than theirs and that he could turn them off whenever he had a mind to.
When the Sunday-school began, Henry would make us a little speech, telling us something about the lesson-papers, and sometimes telling us a story that he said came out of the Bible; and then he would have one of the boys pass around the singing-books, and tell us what piece to sing. The boys and girls rather liked the singing. With the boys the singing partook largely of the nature of physical exercise.
We used to stand up and sing together in a chorus, or as nearly in harmony as the superintendent and the organ could possibly keep us. True, the songs were not of a humorous or even cheerful nature; but then we really had no idea of what they meant, if indeed the teachers or the authors had, and we sang them with the same zest and vigor that we would have given to any other words. I especially remember one song that we sang pretty well, and very loud and earnestly; not with the least bit of sadness or even solemnity, but with great energy and zeal. It began with the lines, “I want to be an angel, and with the angels stand.” Now, of course, there was not a boy or girl in the school who wanted to be an angel; neither did the teachers or the superintendent, or even the parson. In fact, this was the last thing that any of us wanted; but we fairly shouted our desire to be an angel in a strong chorus of anything but angelic voices. I presume children sing that same song to-day in Sunday-school, and sing it without any more thought of its meaning than the little freckle-faced boys and girls who used to gather each Sunday in the old white church and fidget and fuss over their new stiff clothes and their hard and pinching boots.