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obligations it may create, and yet not the obligation to learn and to teach religious lessons. We may "take the child and nurse it" for our own parental joy-for our social, or commercial, or ambitious purposes-and yet not nurse it for God." Every feeling of joy may be awakened by it except religious joy; every sense of obligation except religious obligation. It ought to expel all selfishness, to purify and intensify conjugal love, and to multiply it by a new affectionand yet selfishness may feel a child a restriction upon social pleasure, a tax upon wordly gain. It ought to inspire thoughtfulness and faith;-it is an entrustment so high and holy-a soul to train for God, and heaven, and eternity;-an entrustment accompanied by great promise, connected with the highest joys and with the greatest destinies ;-and yet the highest thoughts and purposes inspired by it may be selfish and earthly; or, if pious feeling is excited by it, it may be only misgiving and fear-an unbelieving, godless feeling, that, almost as a matter of course, it will grow up wicked, and need conversion in adult life.

THESE LITTLE ONES.

REV. J. BALDWIN BROWN, B.A., LONDON.

THESE little ones! Not angels, then ; but nurslings of Christ. "Take it, and bring it up for Me." I have no call to enter here into curious doctrinal discussions as to the natural estate of young children. Blessed be God,

their estate in Christ has become a spiritual estate, and all their destiny has passed under the rule of His redeeming love. I turn to the God-man, who gathered the infants around Him, and took them in His arms, and blessed them, and said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Gladder was He, perhaps, at that moment, as the little ones clustered round His knee and pressed to His heart, than through His whole pilgrimage of sorrows. As the pure fresh morning air, in which the rosy flush is glowing, and on which the meadows have flung their dewy sweets, must the balmy breath of these little ones have played on the Saviour's strained and weary heart. Unselfish, unworldly, uncareful, unfearful, unenvious, ungrasping, unconscious, innocent! What a garden of flowers is here, with the morning light playing upon it, and the air alive with song! Take heed that ye despise it not. It is the garden where, in the early light, you may meet the Master. He is abroad in it betimes, and here you may learn His deepest thoughts, and hear His wisest and most lovely words: "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."

Little children. The whole force of the words is here. They soon learn the battle-cries of our conflicts, and shape their puppets after the likeness of our follies and sins. But little children are Christ's own nurslings. They love, and trust, and give, after the fashion that reigns in heaven. Love is their sunlight; they ask for nothing but to bask in it. There is no glow for

them when that sun in the home is clouded; there are no clouds for them when that sun in the home is unveiled. They have no possessions which they do not increase by sharing. Give a little one the gift it longs for, and straightway it toddles off in its glee to share it with its friend. Their only idea of having is sharing, till you have taught them a darker lesson. The very birds trust not more joyously the bountiful hand of the Father which is over them all. "Never mind," said a little one once to a father who had his full share of the burdens and struggles of life, and who was lamenting to her that he was too poor to gratify some desire which she had expressed "never mind, papa, you have enough to go on with." Yes, I thought when I heard it, "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast ordained strength, and perfected praise.'

IDENTITY PRESERVED IN HEAVEN.

REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER, NEW YORK.

A BEREAVED Mother sent this query to the far-famed Henry Ward Beecher: "Last Thursday our little three-year old baby left us. She was the sunlight of our home here; and is it true that when I, too, cross the river, I shall not know her, and knowing, shall not love her?

The following was Mr. Beecher's reply:—

"The nature of the body to which we come by resur

*The Home Life: in the Light of its Divine Idea. By James Baldwin Brown, B.A. London: Smith, Elder, & Co. 1866.

rection is a matter purely of speculation. Nothing conclusively is taught by the Scriptures. Paul declares that flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God. So far as this negative reaches, the teaching is clear enough. Whatever the body is, it is not flesh and blood. But what conception can we form of a body except of that flesh and blood body in which we have always dwelt? The Apostle seems to teach that our spiritual body, without being material, will be one which shall correspond to our earthly one. It will answer our spiritual condition just as the mortal body does our earthly state. Beyond this all is fancy and speculation. Every one trying to fashion a conception of a spiritual body, will follow the peculiarities of his own mind, or his habits of thought and the tendencies in which he has been educated. As an exercise of the imagination, such speculations may not be without some benefit. They will certainly be harmless, if one does not fall into the conceit of thinking that his idealisings are literal truth. Good men and learned men have in every age so differed among themselves as to the probable spiritual, that no one need be afraid of differing from everybody else. Even Paul could not explain the facts to us. Instead, he drew illustrations from the vegetable kingdom, implying that as a corn of wheat when planted did not come up with the same body or form, but that it developed a new form out of the seed which was planted, so it should be with the human body.

"The main truth to be cherished is, that we shall

really live on after death, and that our identity will not be lost, but that the heavenly state will so develop itself out of the materials gathered in the earthly, that we shall be the same beings, recognise ourselves as the same, employ the same faculties, and carry forward that very mind and disposition with which we left the world.

But shall we recognise each other in heaven? This precise question is neither put nor answered in the Sacred Scriptures. But beyond all dispute, it is implied, assumed as the very necessity of a moral state, that the principle of memory will exist; that the sufferings, temptations, triumphs of men over evil-that the Divine helpfulness and fidelity displayed during the whole of men's earthly lives, will be an occasion of thanksgiving and praise. Now, if memory survives, why should its action be limited to one class of experiences? Why, if we remember earthly sufferings, should we not remember those who soothed or sympathised in them? If we remember adult friends, why should we forget little children, which take hold upon the heart with a grasp even firmer than any grown person can? there is no authority for suppositions which parcel out the memory and limit its free activity.

It may be safely said, to all of that great company of mourners whose children have gone away from them, GOD HAS TAKEN YOUR BABES: THEY ARE SAFE. They did not venture out into some great void, some vague and unexplored way, where the little wanderers were left to find their own way. If there be use for angels,