So Bishop Taylor, in his _Life of Christ_, when speaking of mothers who do not nurse their own children, says, “And if love _descends_ more strongly than it _ascends_, and commonly falls from the parents upon the children in cataracts, and returns back again up to the parents but in small dews,--if the child’s affection keeps the same proportions towards such unkind mothers, it will be as little as atoms in the sun, and never expresses itself but when the mother needs it not,--that is, in the sunshine of a clear fortune.” So Fuller says, in his chapter on Moderation, the silken string that runs through the pearl chain of all the virtues, “yea as love, doth _descend_, and men doat most on their grand-children.” The same sentiment, with the reason in which the truth originates, has been noticed by our poets. The sweet poet, Barry Cornwall, says,-- “The love of parents, hath a deep still source, And falleth like a flood upon their child. Sometimes the child is grateful, then his love Comes like the spray returning.” In Thomson’s “Spring,” the same sentiment, containing the reason of this provision of nature, is beautifully explained. Having described the bird’s nest, and the mother stealing from the barn a straw, ’till “_soft and warm the habitation grew_,” and having described the little birds in their nest,-- “Oh what passions then, What melting sentiments of kindly care Do the new parents’ seize; away they fly Affectionate, and undesiring bear The most delicious morsel to their young, Which equally distributed, again The search begins.” And when the little birds are able to fly, the poet thus proceeds,-- “But now the feather’d youth their former bounds Ardent, disdain, and weighing oft their wings Demand the free possession of the sky: This one glad office more, and then dissolves Parental love at once, now needless grown,-- Unlavish wisdom never works in vain.” He has expressed the same sentiment in his description of the eagle,-- “High from the summit of a craggy cliff Hung o’er the deep, The royal eagle draws his vigorous young Strong-pounced, and ardent with paternal fire; Now fit to raise a kingdom of their own He drives them from his fort, the tow’ring seat For ages, of his empire: which in peace Unstained he holds, while many a league to sea, He wings his course and preys in distant isles.” Such is the nature of affection in general; but in a daughter it is so powerful, that it never quits her. According to the old adage-- “My son is my son, ’till he gets him a wife; My daughter’s my daughter, the whole of her life.”