At his first aptness the maternal love Those rudiments of wisdom did improve; The tender age was pliant to command; Like wax it yielded to the forming hand: True to the artificer, the laboured mind With ease was pious, generous, just, and kind; Soft for impression, from the first prepared, Till virtue, with long exercise, grew hard; With every act confirmed and made at last, So durable as not to be effaced, It turned to habit; and from vices free, Goodness resolved into necessity. _Dryden._ The _child_ between her parents knelt, Who prayed the more to God above, Because so close to them they felt The dearest gift of Heavenly love. * * * * * To her new beauty largely given From deeper fountains, looked and smiled, And, like a morning dream from heaven, The woman gleamed within the _child_. _John Sterling._ O! how I love the prattling of that _child_, Frisking so blithely in its nurse’s hand! Fair as her face who first in Eden smiled, Ere blissful innocence had left the land! Thy dimpled cheeks remind me of a time, When first I ventured on life’s thorny way! May no false joys consume thy early prime, No friend mislead thee, and no friend betray; Thy bark, like mine, is on a rocky sea; For life’s a voyage far from shore to shore, No resting-place, unless thine anchor be The hope of glory when the course is o’er; Blest hope for thee, just entering into bloom, Thrice blessed hope for me just hast’ning to the tomb. _J. Mayne._ “Suffer these little ones to come to me,” Was the command of Him who, on the cross, Bowed His anointed head, and with His blood Purchased redemption for our fallen race-- And blessed they, who to that holy task Devote the energies of their young years, Teaching, with pious care, the dawning light Of _infant_ intellect to know the Lord. _C. Huntingdon._ The life that makes the heart to beat, The light that from the heavens doth shine, My daily strength,--the bread I eat,-- All, all, great Lord of Life, are thine. Then let me seek Thee daily, Lord, At morn, at noontide, and at even; And do Thy will, and know Thy word, That I may be Thy _child_ in heaven! _W. Martin._ I remember, I remember, The fir-trees dark and high, I used to think their tiny tops Were close against the sky: It was a _childish_ ignorance, But now ’tis little joy, To know I’m farther off from heaven Than when I was a boy! _T. Hood._