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PART IV.

1. CHILDREN-WHAT ARE THEY?

What are children? Step to the window with The street is full of them. Yonder a school is let loose, and here, just within reach of our observation, are two or three noisy little fellows, and there another party mustering for play. Some are whispering together, and plotting so loudly and so earnestly as to attract everybody's attention, while others are holding themselves aloof, with their satchels gaping so as to betray a part of their plans for to-morrow afternoon, or laying their heads together in pairs for a trip to the islands. Look at them, weigh the question I have put to you, and then answer it as it deserves to be answered: What are children?

To which you reply at once without any sort of hesitation, perhaps, "Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined"; or "Men are but children of a larger growth"; or, peradventure, "The child is father of the man." And then perhaps you leave me, perfectly satisfied with yourself and with your answer, having" plucked out the heart of the mys

tery," and uttered, without knowing it, a string of glorious truths.

Among the children who are now playing together, like birds among the blossoms of earth, haunting all the green shadowy places thereof, and rejoicing in the bright air, happy and beautiful creatures, and as changeable as happy, with eyes brimful of joy, and with hearts playing upon their little faces like sunshine upon clear waters; among those who are now idling together on that slope, or pursuing butterflies together on the edge of that wood, a wilderness of roses, you would see not only the gifted and the powerful, the wise and the eloquent, the ambitious and the renowned, the longlived and the long-to-be-lamented of another age, but the wicked and the treacherous, the liar and the thief, the abandoned profligate and the faithless husband, the gambler and the drunkard, the robber, the burglar, the murderer, and the betrayer of his country. The child is father of the man.

Among them and that other little troop just appearing, children with yet happier faces and pleasanter eyes, the blossoms of the future, the mothers of nations, you would see the founders of states and the destroyers of their country, the steadfast and the weak, the judge and the criminal, the murderer and the executioner, the exalted and the lowly, the unfaithful wife and the broken-hearted husband, the proud betrayer and his pale victim,

the living and breathing portents and prodigies, the embodied virtues and vices of another age and another world, - and all playing together! Men are but children of a larger growth.

The

Even fathers and mothers look upon children with a strange misapprehension of their dignity. Even with the poets, they are only the flowers and blossoms, the dew-drops or the playthings of earth. Yet "of such is the kingdom of heaven." kingdom of heaven! with all its principalities and powers, its hierarchies, dominations, thrones! The Saviour understood them better; to him their true dignity was revealed! Flowers! They are the flowers of the invisible world; indestructible, self-perpetuating flowers, each with a multitude of angels and evil spirits underneath its leaves, toiling and wrestling for dominion over it!

Blossoms! They are the blossoms of another world, whose fruitage is angels and archangels. Or dew-drops! They are dew-drops that have their source, not in the chambers of the earth, nor among the vapors of the sky, which the next breath of wind or the next flash of sunshine may dry up forever, but among among the everlasting fountains and inexhaustible reservoirs of mercy and love. Playthings!

If the little creatures would but appear to us in their true shape for a moment, we should fall upon our faces before them, or grow pale with

consternation, or fling them off with horror and loathing.

Now to me there is no study half so delightful as that of these little creatures, with hearts fresh. from the gardens of the sky, in their first and fairest and most unintentional disclosures, while they are indeed a mystery, - a fragrant, luminous, and beautiful mystery!

Then why not pursue the study for yourself? The subjects are always before you. No books are needed, no costly drawings, no lectures, neither transparencies, nor illustrations. Your specimens are all about you. They come and go at your bidding. They are not to be hunted for along the edge of the precipice, on the borders of the wilderness, in the desert, nor by the seashore. They abound, not in the uninhabited or unvisited place, but in your very dwelling-houses, about the steps of your doors, in every street of every village, in every green field, and every crowded thoroughfare.

-JOHN NEAL.

2. A CHILD TIRED OF PLAY.

Tired of play! Tired of play!
What hast thou done this livelong day?
The birds are silent, and so is the bee;
The sun is creeping up steeple and tree;

The doves have flown to the sheltering eaves,

And the nests are dark with the drooping leaves; Twilight gathers, and day is done

How hast thou spent it, restless one?

Playing? But what hast thou done beside
To tell thy mother at eventide ?

What promise of morn is left unbroken?
What kind word to thy playmate spoken?
Whom hast thou pitied, and whom forgiven?
How with thy faults has duty striven?
What hast thou learn'd by field and hill,
By greenwood path, and by singing rill?

There will come an eve to a longer day,
That will find thee tired- but not of play!
And thou wilt lean, as thou leanest now,
With drooping limbs and aching brow,
And wish the shadows would faster creep,
And long to go to thy quiet sleep.
Well were it then if thine aching brow
Were as free from sin and shame as now!
Well for thee if thy lip could tell

A tale like this, of a day spent well.

If thine open hand hath relieved distress-
If thy pity had sprung to wretchedness —
If thou hast forgiven the sore offence,
And humbled thy heart with penitence

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