University of Virginia Library

Children.

One cold market morning I looked into a milliner's
shop, and there I saw a hale, hearty, well-browned
young fellow from the country, with his
long cart whip, and lion shag coat, holding up
some little matter, and turning it about on his
great fist. And what do you suppose it was? A
baby's bonnet! A little, soft, blue satin hood,
with a swan's down border, white as the new fallen
snow, with a frill of rich blonde around the edge.

By his side stood a very pretty woman holding,
with no small pride, the baby—for evidently it
was the baby. Any one could read that fact in
every glance, as they looked at each other, and
then at the large unconscious eyes, and fat dimpled
cheeks of the little one.

It was evident that neither of them had ever
seen a baby like that before.

“But really, Mary,” said the young man, “isn't
three dollars very high?”

Mary very prudently said nothing, but taking

the little bonnet, tied it on the little head, and
held up the little baby. The man looked, and
without another word down went the three dollars;
all that the last week's butter came to; and
as they walked out of the shop, it is hard to
say which looked the most delighted with the
bargain.

“Ah,” thought I, “a little child shall lead
them.”

Another day, as I was passing a carriage factory
along one of our principal back streets, I saw
a young mechanic at work on a wheel. The rough
body of a carriage stood beside him, and there,
wrapped up snugly, all hooded and cloaked, sat a
little dark-eyed girl, about a year old, playing
with a great shaggy dog. As I stopped, the man
looked up from his work and turned admiringly
toward his little companion, as much as to say,
“See what I have got here!”

“Yes,” thought I, “and if the little lady ever
gets a glance from admiring swains as sincere as
that, she will be lucky.”

Ah! these children, little witches, pretty even
in all their faults and absurdities. See, for example,
yonder little fellow in a haughty fit; he

has shaken his long curls over his deep blue eyes;
the fair brow is bent in a frown; the rose-leaf lip
is pursed up in infinite defiance; and the white
shoulder thrust naughtily forward. Can any but a
child look so pretty, even in their naughtiness?

Then comes the instant change; flashing smiles
and tears, as the good comes back all in a rush,
and you are overwhelmed with protestations, promises,
and kisses! They are irresistible, too, these
little ones. They pull away the scholar's pen;
tumble about his paper; make somersets over
his books; and what can he do? They tear
up newspapers; litter the carpets; break, pull,
and upset, and then jabber unimaginable English
in self-defiance, and what can you do for
yourself?

“If I had a child,” says the precise man, “you
should see.”

He does have a child, and his child tears up
his papers, tumbles over his things, and pulls his
nose, like all other children, and what has the
precise man to say for himself? Nothing; he
is like every body else; “a little child may lead
him.”

The hardened heart of the worldly man is unlocked

by the guileless tones and simple caresses
of his son; but he repays it in time, by imparting
to his boy all the crooked tricks and callous
maxims which have undone himself.

Go to the jail—to the penitentiary, and find
there the wretch most sullen, brutal, and hardened.
Then look at your infant son. Such as he is to
you, such to some mother was this man. That
hard hand was soft and delicate; that rough voice
was tender and lisping; fond eyes followed him as
he played, and he was rocked and cradled as
something holy. There was a time when his
heart, soft and unworn, might have opened to
questionings of God and Jesus, and been sealed
with the seal of Heaven. But harsh hands seized
it; fierce goblin lineaments were impressed upon
it; and all is over with him forever!

So of the tender, weeping child, is made the
callous, heartless man; of the all-believing child,
the sneering sceptic; of the beautiful and modest,
the shameless and abandoned; and this is what
the world does for the little one.

There was a time when the divine One stood
on earth, and little children sought to draw near
to him. But harsh human beings stood between

him and them, forbidding their approach. Ah!
has it not always been so? Do not even we
with our hard and unsubdued feeling, our worldly
and unscriptural habits and maxims, stand like a
dark screen between our little child and its Saviour,
and keep even from the choice bud of our
hearts, the sweet radiance which might unfold it
for paradise? “Suffer little children to come
unto me, and forbid them not,” is still the voice
of the Son of God, but the cold world still closes
around and forbids. When of old, disciples would
question their Lord of the higher mysteries of his
kingdom, he took a little child and set him in the
midst, as a sign of him who should be greatest in
Heaven. That gentle teacher remains still to us.
By every hearth and fireside, Jesus still sets the
little child in the midst of us.

Wouldst thou know, O parent, what is that faith
which unlocks heaven? Go not to wrangling polemics,
or creeds and forms of theology, but draw
to thy bosom thy little one, and read in that clear
trusting eye the lesson of eternal life. Be only
to thy God as thy child is to thee, and all is done!
Blessed shalt thou be indeed, “when a little child
shall lead thee!”