The reader is likely to differ from me upon the question, moved by recurring to such experiences of childhood, whether much value attaches to the perceptions and intellectual glimpses of a child. Children, like men, range through a gamut that is infinite, of temperaments and characters, ascending from the very dust below our feet to highest heaven. I have seen children that were sensual, brutal, devilish. But, thanks be to the _vis medicatrix_ of human nature, and to the goodness of God, these are as rare exhibitions as all other monsters. People thought, when seeing such odious travesties and burlesques upon lovely human infancy, that perhaps the little wretches might be _kilcrops_.[15] Yet, possibly, (it has since occurred to me,) even these children of the fiend, as they seemed, might have one chord in their horrible natures that answered to the call of some sublime purpose. There is a mimic instance of this kind, often found amongst ourselves in natures that are not really "horrible," but which _seem_ such to persons viewing them from a station not sufficiently central:--Always there are mischievous boys in a neighbourhood, boys who tie canisters to the tails of cats belonging to ladies--a thing which _greatly_ I disapprove; and who rob orchards--a thing which _slightly_ I disapprove; and behold! the next day, on meeting the injured ladies, they say to me, "Oh, my dear friend, never pretend to argue for him! This boy, we shall all see, will come to be hanged." Well, _that_ seems a disagreeable prospect for all parties; so I change the subject; and lo! five years later, there is an English frigate fighting with a frigate of heavier metal, (no matter of what nation.) The noble captain has manoeuvred, as only _his_ countrymen can manoeuvre; he has delivered his broadsides, as only the proud islanders can deliver them. Suddenly he sees the opening for a _coup-de-main_; through his speaking-trumpet he shouts--"_Where are my boarders?_" And instantly rise upon the deck, with the gaiety of boyhood, in white shirt sleeves bound with black ribands, fifty men, the _elite_ of the crew; and behold! at the very head of them, cutlass in hand, is our friend the tyer of canisters to the tails of ladies' cats--a thing which _greatly_ I disapprove, and also the robber of orchards--a thing which _slightly_ I disapprove. But here is a man that will not suffer you either greatly or slightly to disapprove him. Fire celestial burns in his eye; his nation, his glorious nation, is in his mind; himself he regards no more than the life of a cat, or the ruin of a canister. On the deck of the enemy he throws himself with rapture, and if _he_ is amongst the killed, if he for an object so gloriously unselfish lays down with joy his life and glittering youth, mark this--that, perhaps, he will not be the least in heaven.