This was a childish speech of one of Benjamin Palmer’s children when not very old. She later died in young adulthood, at 18 years of age, another child lost. But he said that when she grew old enough to talk, her baby accents lisped continually of another world:

When I went to Heaven.” she used
to say, ‘
‘ I saw a big white gate with a
man standing just inside. Before it was a
pool of water with a board across it ; and
the man said, ‘ Come in, Sissy, but don’t
fall in.’ But I fell in ; and he took me out
into a room where there were a great many
glory-children, and dressed me in white
with wings like theirs. Then he took me
to see God. I saw a big red pillow, with
five black dots, that God rests on. And,
mother, there were two gold rocking chairs
for you and father, and five little ones for
us children. And, Mauma (her nurse),
there was a beautiful white satin dress for
you ; it felt so smooth ; just put your hand
on your hair, it felt just like that. I
wanted to bring it to you ; but when 1
went to take it, it just slipped away. And
now 1 spend every Sunday in Heaven,
with God. He puts a ladder down for me
every Saturday evening, and I go up and
come home on Monday.”

Those words of his precious child echoed in his mind and came back as clear as day after he lost her at 18 years old to death. What comfort such a memory must have given him when he knew he would never see her face or hear her voice again, this side of heaven.

If only more professing Christians in full maturity of adulthood, and perhaps spiritual maturity at least age wise, would have that heart and outlook for the Lord’s Day. To ascend to heaven for the whole day, and not to come home until Monday to continue ones earthly life.
Instead, the scenario we are often faced with by the majority of the visible church, even among some of the Reformed church, is to go to Church for public worship, because that is what Christians do. It’s almost like a formality, and they leave the service as unchanged as before they went in and heard the sermon and God speak to them.
Then once home from church, they spend the rest of the day in idle and selfish pursuits, (when I say selfish I mean self pleasing and what they desire to do to find fulfillment from, ignoring the command of God at what he requires us to do; watching the football match; going out to eat at a restaurant where people are being paid to work and serve and wait upon them, on a day that no one should work, but for the ungodly laws our countries have made in recent years, that Sunday’s is no different as far as shops, stores, restaurants or any business opening than any other day of the week; they may attend a concert, or go and take part in some sporting activity. For some, this may also including going to work for paid employment where clearly mammon is put before God.
Yet what does Scripture teach? I think its pretty clear. Exodus 20:8 says it succindtly and well, yet there are far more in depth examples. Isa 58:13; Ex 31:14; Neh 13:8; Matt 12:8; Mark 15:42;

The Lord’s day should be a day of holy rest. Not idleness but holy rst. Leaving aside the acitivities and pursuits and recreations we partake of in the week, to spend the day in holy purusits. It is a day of holy rest, but a day of spiritual business.

Thomas Watson wrote:

Many come to the Word only to feast their ears; they like the melody of the voice, the mellifluous sweetness of the express sign, the newness of the notion (Acts 17:21). This is to love the garnishing of the dish more than the food, this is to desire to be pleased rather than edified. Like a woman that paints her face, but neglects her health.

And Richard Baxter Wrote:

You think you serve God by coming to church; but if you refuse to let the Word convert you, how should God be pleased with such a service as this?…. Every time you hear, or pray, or praise God, or receive the sacrament, while you deny God in your heart and remain unconverted, you do out despise Him, and show more of your rebellion than your obedience…. God biddeth you come to church and hear the Word, and so far you do well; but withal, He chargeth you to suffer the Word to work upon your hearts, and to take it home and consider it, and obey it.

Now one could bear with new converts and young believers who may not know any different or any better. Who have not had time to get well acquainted with God’s work, or have much sanctification of their souls wrought as yet, and who havn’t sat under the mnistry of the Word for that long as yet. But for those who are old Christians, spiritualy old, and have done the opposite of all those things one may say about the young convert, then I don’t understand how they do so, and it not even seem to give a pang of conscience, because they have no shame in announcing the idle and worldly purusits they partook of on a Lord’s Day with no sense of wrong doing or sinning against the God of Heaven. Rather than practicing the holy pursuits of Lord’s Day they seem to be born advocates for endorsing and living out the King James book of Sports of which the puritans took such a defiant stance against.
It is commonly believed that the Plague of London, shortly thereafter followed by the Great Fire of London, were judgments upon the city of London for the profaning of the Lord’s Day. Most of the Lord’s judgments, wherever in the world, but on a scale of disaster can be traced back to happening more on a Sunday than any other day. People are aghst at such tragedies and disasters and loss of life, yet why should they be when even the Lord’s people, at least by profession and outwardly, flout his laws as much as anyone else. The fear of the Lord is beginning of the wisdom. A holy, reverntial fear of the Lord, knowing he could blow any or all of our cities to dust in an instant, and there are example after example where disaster has struck at huge loss of life all over the world, should make us think very carefully, before we think we know better than God and can do what we like with the day he told us to give unto him. When affliction strikes us personally, in our own lives, does it occur that tho it needn’t be, it could be God’s punishment for our own personal sin, including how we may have have dfeiled his day with worldly pursuits and did what we wanted rather than as He required.
The grace of the New Testament and the blood of Christ is of course to cleanse us of sin, and not one of us doesn’t sin every second that we are alive. However, the blood of Christ is for the sins of infirmity, that we try to be pleasing to him, but we can never reach the holy standard no matter how hard we try. There is only one who ever has, the Son of God, which is why he was the sacrifical lamb without blemish. But the grace of God should not be turned into lasciviousness, as there is a world of difference between sins of infirmity, than those of wilful rebellion and disregard for what God wants of us. Christ died on the cross for the payment of the one kind, but certainly not for the other. Or else everyone in the entire world would go to heaven, because the latter kind of sin is the same kind that the unbelieving world commits.
If only more Christians who have professed to be so for many a long year, could have the wisdom and discernment, shown in the childish chatter of Benjamin Palmer’s little girl as uttered above.