Sunday sunshine

"Sunday sunshine" by Catharine Shaw is a collection of Christian short stories and devotional pieces written in the late 19th century. The work blends a serialized mission tale with Bible retellings and domestic vignettes for Sunday reading, emphasizing repentance, providence, and everyday kindness. Its central thread follows Hira, a blind Indian girl stirred by a hymn to seek Jesus, while companion sketches show sailors, servants, and children learning faith in testing moments. The opening of this collection sets out its contents and illustrations before beginning Hira’s Quest, where Hira hears a stranger’s hymn and the solemn call “Prepare to meet thy God,” longs to find Jesus, questions her friend Sukhiya and the nominally Christian Mary Dayál, and later is lost in a storm and rescued by the compassionate Christian household of Rámpál Singh and his daughter Shushila, who begin searching for her people as Mary’s conscience is awakened. Interleaved are brief moral pieces: a child’s quiet visit brightening an invalid (“Lettice’s Lark”), the forgiven woman at Simon’s feast, a drunk sailor redeemed who gives his life to save another (“Jim”), a providential rescue after unjust dismissal (“Turned Out”), a prodigal sailor’s homecoming (“Her Sailor Boy”), a poor girl’s honesty because “Jesus notices,” Bartimaeus’s healing, a kitchen quarrel smoothed by prayer, a prayerful decision to marry modestly, and an aunt winning a willful niece. This opening section closes mid-episode as Sukhiya is sought at dawn about Hira’s disappearance, keeping the serial’s tension alive.

Sunday sunshine, from the public domain. Republished by OpenStories from Project Gutenberg eBook #78888.