With the Children on Sundays: Through Eye-Gate and Ear-Gate into the City of Child-Soul

In Short

This 1893 work by Sylvanus Stall is a practical guide and sermon collection designed for parents and pastors to teach Christian doctrine to children on Sundays. Through short, object-centered lessons using everyday items like candles, bread, and watches, Stall attempts to bridge complex theological ideas with a child's direct experience. The book incorporates interactive games, Bible drills, and object lessons aimed at making Sunday afternoons engaging and spiritually formative. It has endured as an authentic historical artifact of late nineteenth-century American evangelical pedagogy and family life.

The Story

The book moves from foundational instructional advice for adults toward structured, object-led sermons designed for children, concluding with seasonal and holiday celebrations. Sylvanus Stall opens by providing parents with a toolkit of practical suggestions to organize Sunday activities at home. He introduces playful Bible games—such as finding alphabet initials in scripture, constructing sand-table models of Palestine with paper and spools, and holding competitive "spelling-bee" style drills inside pretend tents—to keep young minds occupied with biblical learning.

From these preparatory instructions, the central body of the text unfolds through a series of short, structured sermons. Each discourse centers upon a tangible, familiar object. Stall uses two contrasting bouquets—one cultivated in a protected garden and the other composed of roadside weeds—to illustrate the difference between nurtured Christian children and those left in moral neglect. To explain human nature, he compares the body and soul to a watch-case and its hidden internal clockwork, demonstrating that while the physical casing decays and goes to the grave, the internal spirit lives on eternally.

As the text progresses, Stall addresses human fallenness and redemption using a tape-measure to show how God measures moral character against Christ’s perfection rather than physical height. A candle and a polished dollar bill demonstrate how material wealth can reflect Christ's light or obscure it if hidden under a bushel. Natural phenomena are also brought into the service of instruction: a winter snowstorm serves to illustrate God's immense yet silent power, while the habits of the grasshopper and ant contrast lazy self-indulgence with foresighted diligence.

Towards the conclusion, the lessons follow the calendar of biblical and Christian observances. Stall outlines the historical and spiritual meaning of the Feast of the Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles, Christmas, and Easter. He uses an egg and a chick to explain the resurrection of the body, tying the cyclical natural world back to core Christian tenets. The book ends by reiterating the necessity of receiving divine instruction into a good heart, leaving children and parents with a complete framework for home-based worship.

How It Unfolds

Laying the household foundation The author provides parents with structured games, sand-table geography exercises, and alphabetical Bible drills to make Sunday learning interactive. These activities set an approachable tone for children before formal object lessons begin.

Illustrating character and grace Using familiar items like garden flowers, weeds, anchors, and metric tape-measures, Stall explains abstract concepts of conscience, divine law, and spiritual growth. The lessons emphasize that God judges internal moral character rather than external appearances.

Exploring physical and spiritual nature Through analogies of watch-cases, daily bread, lanterns, and falling snow, the text contrasts physical reality with eternal truths. Stall shows how everyday utility reflects deeper spiritual needs and God's unseen power.

Marking sacred seasons The final chapters ground theology in the Christian calendar by explaining the Passover, Tabernacles, Christmas, and Easter with symbolic items like pine branches, gifts, and eggs. The overall journey concludes with a call to sow good seeds for an eternal harvest.

The People

Sylvanus Stall The author and clergyman who acts as the primary instructor throughout the book. He seeks to capture children's attention by translating abstract Christian theology into tangible, memorable visual lessons. He encounters the challenge of keeping young readers engaged, which he overcomes by using common objects, simple narrative examples, and interactive home activities. Ultimately, he establishes a complete methodology for domestic religious education.

The Child Reader or Listener The direct audience within the sermons, represented by figures like "little Willie" or the boy in the cornfield. They desire understanding and fun, but face the constant temptation of small sins, distraction, and moral neglect. Through the object lessons and gentle discipline, they are led to recognize their moral choices and embrace Christian values.

The Christian Parent The adult intended to deliver or facilitate these lessons at home. They seek to make Sunday both enjoyable and spiritually instructive for their family, standing against the drift of worldly carelessness. By adopting Stall's methods, they become active educators in their children's spiritual formation.

In Its Own Voice

"I have spoken of these things simply to call your attention to the fact that God has a standard of measure, and a standard of value, as well as men."

Stall introduces a tape-measure to show children that divine judgment relies on moral character rather than physical height or earthly status.

"Every man, woman and child consists of a soul and a body, and when a person dies the soul returns to God, who gave it."

While separating the inner works of a pocket watch from its outer case, Stall explains the distinction between the physical body and the immortal spirit.

"If the fruitage of your life in the harvest of the after-years is to be abundant in good and blessing, it can only be because you receive the instruction of your parents, your teachers and your pastor into a good and honest heart."

In his lesson on sowing and reaping, Stall reminds young listeners that personal responsibility dictates how religious teaching takes root.

What It's Really About

The central argument of the book is that spiritual truth must be made visible and concrete to reach a child's mind. Stall operates on the educational principle that the sensory "Eye-Gate" and "Ear-Gate" are the primary pathways into a child's moral understanding. Beneath its simple object lessons lies a traditional Protestant theology regarding sin, salvation, divine omniscience, and the immortality of the soul. The text argues that spiritual training is not an abstract exercise reserved for church sanctuaries, but a daily, practical discipline that belongs in the home. By connecting common household items to biblical principles, the book attempts to transform everyday life into a continuous lesson in faith and duty.

Why Read It Today

Modern readers interested in the history of education, Victorian-era religion, or practical theology will find this book an illuminating period piece. It offers a rare window into late nineteenth-century home life and the creative methods nineteenth-century American writers used to teach morality to youth. Reading it feels like sitting in a Victorian parlor, listening to an earnest instructor assemble simple props—a watch, a piece of bread, a candle, a dollar—to capture a child's imagination.

The book is undeniably a product of its era. Readers should expect an unabashedly didactic tone, nineteenth-century social assumptions, and a focus on evangelical instruction that may feel rigid or dated to contemporary audiences. Its strength lies in its gentle ingenuity and clear prose. What stays with the reader is Stall's underlying warmth and his firm conviction that complex spiritual ideas can be rendered clear, joyful, and plain to even the youngest minds.