Now, a child consists, like ourselves, of a body and a soul. I am not going to say much about the guiding of the souls of children,--that is a little out of my line,--but I may tell you that the soul, especially in children, depends much, for its good and for its evil, for its happiness or its misery, upon the kind of body it lives in: for the body is just the house that the soul dwells in; and you know that, if a house be uncomfortable, the tenant of it will be uncomfortable and out of sorts; if its windows let the rain and wind in, if the chimney smoke, if the house be damp, and if there be a want of good air, then the people who live in it will be miserable enough; and if they have no coals, and no water, and no meat, and no beds, then you may be sure it will soon be left by its inhabitants. And so, if you don't do all you can to make your children's bodies healthy and happy, their souls will get miserable and cankered and useless, their tempers peevish; and if you don't feed and clothe them right, then their poor little souls will leave their ill-used bodies,--will be starved out of them; and many a man and woman have had their tempers, and their minds and hearts, made miseries to themselves, and all about them, just from a want of care of their bodies when children. There is something very sad, and, in a true sense, very unnatural, in an unhappy child. You and I, grown-up people, who have cares, and have had sorrows and difficulties and sins, may well be dull and sad sometimes; it would be still sadder, if we were not often so; but children should be always either laughing and playing, or eating and sleeping. Play is their business. You cannot think how much useful knowledge, and how much valuable bodily exercise, a child teaches itself in its play; and look how merry the young of other animals are: the kitten making fun of everything, even of its sedate mother's tail and whiskers; the lambs, running races in their mirth; even the young asses,--the baby-cuddie,--how pawky and droll and happy he looks with his fuzzy head, and his laughing eyes, and his long legs, stot, stotting after that venerable and _sair nauden-doun lady_, with the long ears, his mother. One thing I like to see, is a child clean in the morning. I like to see its plump little body well washed, and sweet and _caller_ from top to bottom. But there is another thing I like to see, and that is a child dirty at night. I like a _steerin' bairn_,--goo-gooin', crowing and kicking, keeping everybody alive. Do you remember William Miller's song of "Wee Willie Winkie?" Here it is. I think you will allow, especially you who are mothers, that it is capital. "Wee Willie Winkie Rins through the toun, Up stairs an' doon stairs In his nicht-goun, Tirlin' at the window, Crying at the lock, 'Are the weans in their bed, For it's noo ten o'clock?'