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They are

His love

them up into His arms and blesses them." safer with Him than they could be with us. can do for them what our poor love cannot do. With our children in Christ's arms, we ourselves shall follow more willingly and eagerly. When our dying hour comes, and we have to commend our spirits into His hands, we shall remember that they are the loving hands which received our children; that He has already taken to Himself, as it were, part of us; our children are "preferred before us;" and we hasten to Him who has received and blessed them, and to the Father's house which they gladden and enrich with their prosence; and so shall we and the children which God gave us be for ever with the Lord.

THE CHARM OF CHILDHOOD.

REV. GEO. GILFILLAN, DUNDEE.

THE charm of childhood-who has not felt it?—although it may not always be easy to analyze its elements. Some of them, however, are obvious enough, and are found in the young of all animals, and in all youthful things. The full-grown tree has much beauty, but more still belongs to the tender sapling, which the snow almost breaks as it descends upon it, and which seems so helpless, yet interesting, in its infancy. The full-blown rose is a gorgeous object, but sweeter still the rosebud, peering out timidly through its halfopened eye into the strange atmosphere of earth, and making you cry with the poet,

"Sweet flower, thou'rt opening on a world
Of sin and misery;

But this at least consoles my mind,

They cannot injure thee."

The river, mature in age, swelled by a hundred tributaries, arisen in flood, and raging in wrath from bank to brae, may be a sublime sight; but surely it is more attractive in its youth, when a narrow strip of green, amidst barren moors, is its only boundary, and one star reflected on it from the proud heavens, is its sole companion. You tremble at the eagle, swooping and screaming through the upper ether, with the lightning in his eye, and the lamb in his talons; out you love to look at the young eaglet, lying secure in its lofty eyrie, and expecting the arrival of its food-bearing father. The old sparrow is a thief-and, as such, detested—but the young sparrow is the favourite and pet of the child-herself a pet and a favourite. The sheep seems silly enough, while bleating in her pastures, and running away when no one pursueth; but how lovely and dear the lamb, suddenly appearing by her mother's side, as if dropped from one of the white spring clouds, or meekly following in her train, even though it be to slaughter and death! And so with the children of the human family. Coming out of the awful cloud of darkness which enshrouds birth, they come out as stars. Taken out of earth's lowest parts, they shine forth as gems of the purest water, and the brightest colours. Bursting up, as it were, from the bowels of the world, they burst up as flowers of the sweetest

fragrance and the most variegated hues. Purity, simplicity, instinct, and unconsciousness, compose at first the elements of a child's existence. There it lies

like a thing of heaven and eternity, amidst the bustle and care, and evil, of the world-nourished on smiles, turning, sweet satellite! round the orb of its mother's face-sending up aimless, but beautiful smiles of its own-both when awake and when asleep-and dreaming that "strangest of all things, an infant's dream." In what innocence it is wrapped-as if in swaddlingbands of snow! No envy wrinkles that smooth brow -no lust and no hatred lurk in that heart- -no fury burns in that clear, mild eye-its only food is milk, and its only sin is tears. In what blessed ignorance it dwells! It knows not of God-but neither does it know of His many foes and rebellious creatures. It knows not of good—but neither does it know of evil. The alarm of war it never heard the blood-spotted and tear-stained records of the sad history of humanity it never read—of the folly, falsehood, cruelty, impiety, and madness which dwell in the heart and blacken the life of man, it is altogether unaware; and yonder spring rosebud, first meeting the smile of the light, is not more unconscious of the rude realities of the world than that newly-budded babe. Beautiful all this; but there is a period a little farther on when the child becomes more interesting far; that is when the soul awakes within it-and the coming forth of the evening star from a mass of clouds is not so beautiful as the first awaking of immortal mind in a child's eye; and when the heart

awakes within it, and its smiles are no longer undistinguishing and no longer aimless, but become deeper in their significance, while equally sincere-and the understanding awakes within it, and proceeds to ask questions which no philosophy and no theology have yet been able to resolve and the power of speech awakes within it, and its tongue overflows with that artless but piercing prattle which is more delightful than the murmur of streams, than the bleat of lambs, or than the stir of wind-swept flowers; because, while equally unconscious and equally musical, it is full of articulation, of meaning, and of love.

THE EARLY REMOVAL OF CHILDREN A
PROOF OF DIVINE GOODNESS.

REV. GEORGE C. HUTTON, PAISLEY.

THERE is a sinless grief. Jesus Himself could weep. The heart, no less than the flesh, must bleed when wounded, and some of its softest tendrils are torn when little ones are plucked away. Still, this most amiable sorrow, the sorrow of Rachel weeping for her children, may reach excess. It is possible to nurse it in morbid luxury or desperateness of spirit, to the stoppage of all duty. The moan may swell into the murmur, and the smarting soul, Jonah-like, think it well to be angry. Yet why should a living man complain? There is worse grief in Bochim. "I would rather," said a greyhaired sire, following his son of shame, "have carried him to the grave." To have buried Hophni and

Phinehas when simple babes, would have cost less anguish to Eli, than to hear of their death at Aphek in the "blossom of their sins." Bitter as it was for David to lose the child of Bathsheba, it was bitterer far to part with evil Absalom. It is told of an artist that, once engaged on a painting of Innocence, he took for his model the face of a lovely child. Long afterwards, being occupied on a companion picture of Guilt, he visited the dungeon of a noted felon in search of artistic hints, only to find his cherub-model of other years transformed into that dark-visaged convict. So it is the cradle hides many unknown developments. Herod once smiled on the breast; Cain once played at the knees of Eve. If it could be said of some, Better they had not been born; it might be thought of others, Better they had early died.

Yes, mourning parent-Let God alone. His time and ways are ever best. Even were your offspring to be all Samuels and Timothys in riper life, would it lessen the pang to part with them then? Did it so with Jacob mourning Joseph, or the woman of Nain lamenting her manly son? Or if you shrink when the pruning knife removes the buds and blossoms, would you prefer that it should be applied to your faithful spouse, the earthly stem which is better than “ten sons?" Say not, "All these things are against me. Only "wait patiently for the Lord." be ashamed that wait for Him."

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