The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1858-03-24
hours, in which he might make ships, or

| opiiSeo 10 leaVe all his affairs, often IN q
very precarious situation, and 60 through
the useless ceremonies threading and spell
ing. When he comes home the house
maid has swept his foremast into the fire,
and mama has put his top-dails into the
rag bag, and all his affairs are in desper-
ate situation. Sometimes he gets terribly
misanthropic; all grown people seem con-
spring against him; he is called away
from his serious avocations so often. and
his attention distracted with such irrele-
want matters, that he is indignant. He
is rushing through the passage in hot
haste, hands full Of nails, strings and Irvine
and Mary seizes him and wants to brush
his hair, he is interrupted in burst of
enthusiasm and told to wash his hands
for dinner! or perhaps, greater horror
than all, company is expected, and he
must put on clean new suit, just as he
has made all the arrangements for ship
launching down by the swamp This
dressing and washing he always re-
CARDS with unutterable contempt and dis
gust; secretly too, he is skcptical about
the advantages of going to school and
learning to read he believes, to be sure,
when papa and mama tell him ofunknown
future advantages to come when he is a
''great man." but then the present, he is
sure Of, his ships and sloops; his bits of
strings and fish hooks, and old corks and
broken railroad cars; and above all, his
new skates; these are realities. And he
knows also what Tom White and Bill
Smith say and so he walks by sight more
than by faith.
All, the child is father of the man =
When he gets older he will have the great
toys of which these are emblems; he will
believe in what be sees and touches-in
house, land, and railroad stock-he will
believe in these earnestly and really, and
in his eternal manhood, nominalv and par
italy. And when his Fathers messengers
meet him, and face him about and take
him off. his darling pursuits, and sweep
his big ships into the fire, and crush his
full-grown cars, then the grown man will
complain and murmur, and wonder as the
little man does now. The Father wants
the future, the child the present, all thro'
life, till death makes the little child a
man.
So, though our Charley has his mfr
mites, he is little bit of a Christian af-
ter all. Like you, brother, he has his
good hours, when he sits still and calm,
and is told Of Jesus; and his cheeks glow,
and tears come to his eyes, his bosom hea-
yes; and now he is sure he is going to be
always good; he is never going to be
naughty. He will stand still to have his
hair combed; ho will come the first time
mother speaks; he will never speak a
cross word to Katy; he repents of having
tyranized over grandmammy and made
ma'ma's head ache; and he is quite sure
that he has got the victory over all SIM
Like the Israelites by the Red Sea, he be-
holds his spiritual enemies dead on the
sea-shore. But tomorrow, in one hour
even, what becomes of his good rcsolu-
tons? What becomes of yours on Mon
day?
With all our Charley's backslidings, he
may teach us one thing which we have
forgotten. When Jesus would teach his
disciples what faith was, He took child
and sat him in the midst of them. We
do not presume that this child was one of
those exceptional ones, who have memoirs
written, but a common average child, with
its smiles and tears, its little naughtlness-
es and goodnesses, and its aptness as an
example was not in virtue of an exception
al but universal quality. If you want
to study faith, 90 to school to "your Char
lev" See his faith in you. Does he
not believe that you have boundless
wealth, boundless wisdom, infinite strength
Is he not certain of your love to that de-
GREE that he cannot be repealed from you.
Does he hesitate to question you on any
thing celestial or terrestrial? Is not your
word enough to outweigh that of the WI
sest of earths You might talk him out
of the sight of his eyes, the hearing Of
his ears, so boundless is his faith IN you
Even checks and frowns can not make
him doubt your love; and though some
times when YOU cross him, the naughty
murmuring spirit arises, yet in an hou'
it dissolves, and his little soul flows back
prattling and happy into your bosom. =
Be only to God as he is to you' ana the
fircside shadows shall not have been by
yuor hearth in vain.
-Harbor no jealousy in your bosom