But coming back to the case of childhood, I maintain steadfastly--that, into all the _elementary_ feelings of man, children look with more searching gaze than adults. My opinion is, that where circumstances favour, where the heart is deep, where humility and tenderness exist in strength, where the situation is favourable as to solitude and as to genial feelings, children have a specific power of contemplating the truth, which departs as they enter the world. It is clear to me, that children, upon elementary paths which require no knowledge of the world to unravel, tread more firmly than men; have a more pathetic sense of the beauty which lies in justice; and, according to the immortal ode of our great laureate, [ode "On the Intimations of Immortality in Childhood,"] a far closer communion with God. I, if you observe, do not much intermeddle with religion, properly so called. My path lies on the interspace between religion and philosophy, that connects them both. Yet here for once I shall trespass on grounds not properly mine, and desire you to observe in St Matthew, chap. xxi., and v. 15, _who_ were those that, crying in the temple, made the first public recognition of Christianity. Then, if you say, "Oh, but children echo what they hear, and are no independent authorities!" I must request you to extend your reading into v. 16, where you will find that the testimony of these children, as bearing an _original_ value, was ratified by the highest testimony; and the recognition of these children did itself receive a heavenly recognition. And this could _not_ have been, unless there were children in Jerusalem who saw into truth with a far sharper eye than Sanhedrims and Rabbis.