It is worth while, therefore, to ask what conceptions of childhood are discoverable in the Old Testament literature. The actual appearances of children in the narrative portions are not frequent. We have the incident of the exposure of Moses as a babe in the bulrushes; the sickness and death of Bathsheba’s child, with the pathetic story of the erring father’s fasting and prayer; the expulsion of Ishmael; the childhood of Samuel in the temple; the striking narrative of the restoration of the son of the widow of Zarephath by Elijah; and the still more graphic and picturesque description of the bringing back to life by Elisha of the child who had been born at his intercession to the Shunamite, and had been sunstruck when in the field with his father. Then there is the abrupt and hard to be explained narrative of the jeering boys who followed the prophet Elisha with derisive cries, as they saw how different he was in external appearance from the rugged and awe-inspiring Elijah. Whatever may be the interpretation of the fearful retribution which befell those rude boys, and the indication which was shown of the majesty of the prophetic office, it is clear that the Jew of that day would not have felt any disproportion between the guilt of the boys and their dire and speedy punishment; he would have been impressed by the sanctity of the prophet, and the swiftness of the divine demonstration. Life and death were nothing before the integrity of the divine ideal, and the complete subordination of children to the will of their parents accustomed the mind to an easy assent to the exhibition of what seems to us almost arbitrary will.