"The sterner souls would grow more stern, Unfeeling natures more inhuman, And man to stoic coldness turn, And woman would be less than woman. "Life's song, indeed, would lose its charm, Were there no babies to begin it; A doleful place this world would be, Were there no little people in it."--_John Greenleaf Whittier._ When Franklin made his discovery of the identity of lightning and electricity, people asked, "Of what use is it?" The philosopher's retort was: "What is the use of a child? It may become a man!" This question--"What is the use of a child?" is not likely to be asked by our young married friends in reference to the first miniature pledge who is about to crown their wishes. They believe that one day he will become "the guardian of the liberties of Europe, the bulwark and honour of his aged parents." What a bond of union! What an incentive to tenderness! That husband has an unfeeling disposition who does not find himself irresistibly drawn by the new and tender tie that now exists. I hope I appreciate the value of children. We should soon come to nothing without them. What is a house without a baby? It may be comparatively quiet, but it is very dull. A childless home misses its discipline and loses its music. Children are _not_ "certain sorrows and uncertain pleasures" when properly managed. If some parents taste the stream bitter it is very often they themselves who have poisoned the fountain. They treated their children when very young merely as playthings, humouring every caprice, and sacrificing to present fancies future welfare; then, when the charm of infancy had passed, they commenced a system of restraint and severity, and displayed displeasure and irritability at the very defects of which they themselves laid the foundation. "In an evening spent with Emerson," says one who knew him, "he made one remark which left a memorable impression on my mind. Two children of the gentleman at whose house we met were playing in the room, when their father remarked, 'Just the interesting age.' 'And at what age,' asked Mr. Emerson, 'are children _not_ interesting?'" He regarded them with the eye of a philosopher and a poet, and saw the possibilities that surround their very being with infinite interest. Each of his own children was for him a harbinger of sunny hours, an angel sent from God with tidings of hope. Jeremy Taylor says, "No man can tell but he that loves his children how many delicious accents make a man's heart dance in the pretty conversation of those dear pledges; their childishness, their stammering, their little angers, their innocence, their imperfections, their necessities, are so many little emanations of joy and comfort to him that delights in their persons and society." And what shall be said of the man who does not love his children? That he, far more than the unmusical man--