Year: 1861

! ",u", o"Iy SKIP from pleasure to
pleasure, and find delight in the impulsive
exercise Of their little powers. We were
once ike them. Life was once as fresh
ana moving, and impulsive and obiectless
as u IS with them aud when we are weary
aud oppressed with labor and loaded down
with responsibility aud filed with thourbts
oil the great destiny before US, we turn our
! eyes backward with a sigh for DAYS once
ours out lost forever. Lost forever This
Is the romantic pain that fills US ia all our
contemplatonS Of simple animal content.
II is lost to us, because we are lost to it..
Like passenger, far out upon the sea.
adVehturlng upon long voyage, we look
back upon the fading hills of our native
land, aud sigh to think that the breeze
which bears US away can never bring US
back


Inc question comes TO US what is there
in our present life to repay us for this loss ?o
There are multitudeS who can ask this uues.
tion, and answer honestly, nothing" 1t
IS SAD, out true, that countless men and
women have never found anything in
lite which compenSateS them for the loss of
the simple, animal enjoyment and content
OF cn'luhood. Sickness, perhaps has i'm
posed upon them years Of pain. Poverty
mas condemned them to labor through every
waking hour TO win Sustenunce for them.
selves and their dependents. The heart
has been cheated of its idol Friends have
proved false, fortune tickle. Life has gone
wrong through all the avenues of their be-
ing. Yet there are others who, while look.
lug with pleasure upon the sports of animal
lie, ana recalling the simple joys of child
hood Win delight, are content With the lot
OF manhood aud womanhood, and would
look upon return to their simpler aye as
the greatest calamity that could be inaict.
ed upon them. With browS wrinkled by
care aud toll, and heads silvered by prema-
ture age, and great burdens upou heart and
brain, they glory in life within and before
them, by The side of which the life of child.
hood is as favorless and frivolous as that
OF fly. ....


have been much impressed by pass.
/ age in the "Recreations of Country Par.
son"-whch, by the way, is one of the best
and cleyerest books Of its kind in English
lauguage-in which this question is lucid
entally touched upon, and SO happily touch





criUing the whole passage. The writer rep.
reSents himself to be seated upon manger,
! writing upon the fat place between his
horses eyes, while the dccle animals nose
is between his knees and il is the horse
that he addresses


For you, my poor fellow creature, l
think with sorrow as l write here upon
your head, there remains no such imm ortali-
ty as remains for me. What q differauce
between US You to your sixteen or
eighteen years here, aud then oblivion
to my three score and ten, aud then eterni.
ty ! Yes, the difference is immense and it
touches me to think Of your life and mine,
of your doom and mine. know house
where at morning and evening prayer, when
the household assemblies, among the serYents
there always walks in q shaggy little dog,
who listens with the deepest attention and
the most solemn gravity to all that is said,
and then when prayers are over, goes out
with his friends. | cannot witness that
silent procedure without being much moved
by the sight All my fellow.creature, this
is something in which you have no part
Made by the same hand, breathing the
same air, sustained like US by food aud drink
you are witnessing an act OF ours which re-
lates to interests that do not concern you,
and of which you have not idea. And so
here we are, you standing at the manger,
old boy, and | sitting upon it the mortal
and the immortal close together your
nose on my knee, my paper on your head
yet with something between US broader than
the broad Atlantic.


Here we fnd one man plying his poor,
dumb, unconscious companion, and the lit
tie dog that trots in to attend the morning
prayers, because their life is so brief and,
more particularly, because it is so inSignii'
cant. lie recognizes the feeble likeness be-
tween himself and them, aud appreciates
also the tremendous difference. lie does
not think that he would be glad to
exchange his lot Of labor and care for their
carelessness and content, but, reaching for
ward to grasp the hand Of all immortal des-
tiny, he sorrows that he must leave his
dumb servants aud companions behind him.
And this is the normal view of the question.
We rise out of semi-consciousnes infancy
iuto life of the senses, which goes on to
perfection in our childhood. We come in
to a state in which the mechanism of the
body enjoys its freest play, in which the
senses imbibe their sweetest satisfactions,
and in which life either swells into irrepres
BILE oyeraowings, or subsidies into careless
content. Looking at her children at this
period of their life, many a mother has said:
let them play while they can let them be
merry while they may for they are seeing
their happiest days" But this animal life
is not all. In its perfection it is very beau
tifu, and it is good because God made it
but it is only the coarse basis upon which
rises a shaft whittier than marble-Wrought
with divine deVices-crOwned with the light
of Heaven. 1t is only those who have fail
ed to secure q distinct perception of the
highest aspect of human life, who can say
to child that be is seeing his happiest
days. ..-


| remember with entire diStinctness the
moment when the consciousness possessed
me that my childhood was transcribed by
initial manhood, aud can never forget the
paug that moment brought me. 1t was on
a bright, moonlight night, in mid'winter,
when my mates, boisterous with life, were
engaged in their usual games in the snow,
and | had gone out expecting TO share In
their enjoyment. i had not played, or ra.