The Journals of Martha E. McMillan

day of worship and moral culture should be avoided; and all family arrangements for the day should be made with reference thereto” (322). Martha finished reading Stowe’s House and Home Papers on June 5, 1867, so Stowe’s views of home religion likely influenced Martha’s understanding of the purpose of and appropriate practice for the Sabbath. Martha certainly structured her Sabbath day around “cultivating her moral nature” and encouraged her children to do the same. A typical Sabbath for Martha included attending church in the morning with her husband James and listening to a sermon or two, visiting with friends or at times tending to the sick, and reviewing catechism with the younger children in the evening. Her teenagers—Fred 18, Harlan, 16 and Homer, 14, and Clayton, 8 attended Sabbath school as well as the “Young folks prayer meeting” which apparently started at 5:30. On 20 May, 1888, Martha writes, “Harlan and Homer went to the Sabbath School as usual and came back home” and on 13 May she writes, “At half past five Fred and Harlan attended the young folks prayer meeting.” At some point, Martha also became a Sabbath school teacher herself, a role she took very seriously. Martha, too, led her younger children—the ones who couldn’t go the “Young Folks prayer meeting”—in Bible reading and catechism reciting. According to Graham, “the catechism [was] a series of questions and answers based on the Bible and ratified by the Southern Presbyterian Church” (156). Some of the questions in the catechism covered the topics of “sin and salvation, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer” (156). Nearly every Sabbath, Martha mentions the “questions, Psalms, and Bible reading” in her report of the day. On 17 June she writes, “We had our catechism (?) and Bible reading as usual,” showing that this Sunday- evening routine was just that—routine. 89