"Where did you come from, baby dear? Out of the everywhere into here. Where did you get your eyes so blue? Out of the skies as I came through. What makes your forehead smooth and high? A soft hand stroked it as I went by. What makes your cheek like a warm white rose? I saw something better than any one knows. Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss? Three angels gave me at once a kiss. Where did you get that coral ear? God spoke, and it came out to hear. Where did you get those arms and hands? Love made itself into bonds and bands. Whence came your feet, dear little things? From the same box as the cherubs' wings. How did they all first come to be you? God thought about me, and so I grew. But how did you come to us, you dear? God thought about you, and so I am here. Yes, God is thinking about our highest interests when He sends children to us. They are sent as little missionaries to turn us from evil and to develop within us the Divine image. When we see sin stirring in our children, no stroke seems too heavy to crush the noxious passion before it grows to fell dimensions and laughs to scorn the sternest chastisement. Heaven is saying to us, "Physician, heal thyself; strike hard, strike home; purge thine own heart of the evil. Lest your children should suffer, restrain your temper, curb your passions, master your unholy desires." This, then, is one of the most important reasons why God "setteth the solitary in families." He desires not only that they should train up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, but also that they may by doing so be brought to Him themselves. When the day of account comes, after life's brief stormy passage is over, He wishes them to be able to say, "Here am I, for I have been educated by the children whom Thou hast given me." CHAPTER XVIII. WANTED!--MOTHERS. "There are comparatively very few women not replete with maternal love; and, by the by, take you care if you meet with a girl who '_is not fond of children_,' not to marry her _by any means_. Some few there are who even make a boast that they 'cannot bear children,' that is, cannot _endure_ them. I never knew a man that was good for _much_ who had a dislike to little children; and I never knew a woman of that taste who was good for anything at all. I have seen a few such in the course of my life, and I have never wished to see one of them a second time."--_Cobbett's "Advice to Young Men."_