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Agathos, the Rocky Island, and Other Sunday Stories and Parables

Samuel Wilberforce

The following allegories and stories have been actually related by the Author to his children on successive Sunday evenings. He began the practice with the earnest desire of combining some sort of occupation suitable to the Lord's-day, with something which might amuse his little ones. Few parents can, he thinks, have failed to feel the want which he would here hope in some measure to supply. One word more should be said about the plan of these narratives. The Author's greatest care has been, while interweaving in them as much instruction as he could about the Holy Scriptures, its allegories, and some of its most striking narratives, to keep as far as possible from all lowering down of holy things, or making the mysteries of the faith common and cheap to childish imaginations. Against this most dangerous evil, which appears to him to infest and poison many of the current religious books for children, he begs here most earnestly to protest, as against that which is laying unawares the foundation of untold evils, in accustoming the mind to look curiously, and with levity, on things which man must never approach but with humiliation and adoration. It only remains further to say, for what age these stories are intended. The Author's children reach from five to nine years old, and are of ordinary powers of comprehension. Of these, the eldest has been fully interested by the simplest narratives, and the youngest has understood the most difficult. All the applications of the allegorical tales they, of course, will not understand at first; but in the Author's judgment, this is the very excellence of allegorical instruction. The minds of children may be fatally dwarfed, by never having presented to them anything but that which they can understand without effort; whilst it is exceedingly difficult to devise anything which shall at the same time attract their attention and stretch their faculties. It is exactly this want which allegory supplies; the story catches the attention of the youngest; glimpses of the under-meaning continually flash into their minds; and whilst it is difficult to say exactly how much they have fully understood, it is clear that it has been enough to give them interest, and arouse their faculties. May God hereby bless some of the tender lambs of His fold - Summary by Preface