The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1846-10-29
From the Golden Rule.
Childhood end its Futurity.

! Who that loves children has ever looked
upon group of the joyous, happy creatures
without a feeling Of anxious sollcItude as to
what may await them in the future limo
cent and ignorant, the world is to them full OF
bright images and fragrant 1owers-vice and
misery, age and decrepitude, pain and anguish
may be all about them, but, needless Of these,
they play and laugh ,and sing as though earth
were one grand orchestra,and music and glad
ness forever awaited them. The little trials
and veXations that sometimes cross their path
are forgotten with the next breath, and they
return to their sports with zest that shows
how elastic is childhood under the first I'M
pressions of sorrow. But we that have lived
longer, and seen or felt more Of lites realities,
know that it is beset with sorrows that take a
deeper hold, and make more abiding I'M
preston that it is often attended with an
guish that gnaws at the hearts core, and saps
prematurely the vital energies. We know
that these ills stand thick in the path of these
unsuspecting victims that now make the air
ring again with their merry, laughing strains,
and that so sure as they drain LIES cup,
they must drink It's bitter dregs. How
much of anguish may fall to their lot we can
not foresee, and this very uncertainty gives
the imagination scope that sometimes leads
it to paint dark and fearful picture, though
it mercifully leaves us the buoying influence
of hope-hope that extends the bright bow
of promise over the cloudiest skies.
Bnt, whatever may be the feelings Of 9TH
ers in view Of the thoughtless gaiety and I'M
clouded hopes of childhood, it is the parental
heart alone, that feels the full throb of unut-
terablo solicitude. Others may look upon
the scene before them, and into the dim flu
turo of these little ones,with deep feeling and
ycarning solictitudc; but to parents only, has
God given to know the full pulsation Of that
deep tenderness which gives the clearest and
most touching impressions we can receive Of
what God feels towards the children of his
creating and redeeming love. Yes, it is the
mother, with her heart Of hearts" that takes
in at a glance the vicissitudes, the temptations
and miseries of this world, and darts an an
guished thought forward to the untold, uncon-
ceived miseries of another; tits she who, were
it not for the hope set before her in the Cos
pei" would sink in utter dismay under the
load Of her fearful torebodings for her infant
group.
But the subject appeals not to our sympa-
thie5 alone ; it has connected with it the most
weighty obligations we are capable Of sustain
ing. is our tenderest solcitude awakened in
regard to the good or i'll that may attend the
future course Of those that now revel amid the
flowers and sunshine of childhood We, in
It measure, are to determine both, by the in
Auence we exert in giving bias to their char
acters. Thirty years hence, the world will
be what the men and women of this genera
ton have made it and its misery will be
measured by its wickedness and Its crimes
1t is easy to lose ourselves in the mass, and to
forget that each day, we, as individuals, are
doing something to io11n the character Of the
next generation. What we do as parents,
teachers, brothers, sisters, as members Of So
ciety, will tell upon the interests of those who
are rising up to fill the places that we shall
soon leave vacant. We occupy, then, a fear
fully important position. We live in an age
which teens with portentous Interest," which
abounds in enterprises Of vast moment to the
human family. Agencies are being set at
work which will result in immcasurable good
or evil to po5terity, and whether they will
prove disastrous or beneficial will depend
mainly on the moral bias given to the rising
We have sterner work to do,
then, than merely to soliloquize sentimental
ly on the charms of dreaming, happy child
hood, or shed few tears over the ills that
mark its futurity. As parents, teachers, and
members of society in its various stations, we
'poaSible for the future character and we'll
being of the children that swarm about U.s.
Let us then individually, as faithful and ODE
dent servants, say, Lord, what wilt thou
have me to do ?"