The mind itself grows and expands, and with every addition to its own vigor and stature, does it find new truths in those expressive and pregnant formulas of doctrine with which it has from childhood been familiar. It is like looking at a material object, first with the naked eye, and then with glasses of continually increased magnifying power. The more we increase the power, the more we see in the same bit of matter. Yet no glass will ever reveal to us the very interior essence of even the smallest particle of dust. God only knows fully either any single thing or the sum of things. Because, however, we cannot see into the essence of a pebble or a grain of sand, shall we shut our eyes to it altogether? Shall we not look at it, first as an infant does, then as a child, then as a youth, then as a man, then as a philosopher? We can never see it as God does. But we shall see it with ever-growing powers of vision, until that which was to us at first only a rude mass becomes an exhaustless organized microcosm of wonders. I do not advocate the overloading of children with verbal statements of abstruse doctrines, whether of religion or of science. Much less would I turn them into parrots, to repeat phrases to which they attach no meaning at all. But when it is demanded, on the other hand, that they shall learn nothing but what they understand, I demur. I ask for explanation of the rule. I insist that, every statement of truth which they learn, even the most elementary, contains depths which neither they nor their teachers can fathom. I insist that, both in science and religion, there are certain great, admitted elementary truths, reduced to forms of sound words with which the whole world is familiar; and that while these formularies contain many things which a child cannot understand, they yet contain many things of which even the youngest child has a fair comprehension. I insist that a carefully prepared religious creed or catechism, even though it contains many things beyond a child's present comprehension, is a fit subject for study. Memory in childhood is quick and tenacious. The treasures first laid away in that great storehouse are the last to be removed. They may be overlaid by subsequent accumulations, but they are still ready for use. Forms of sound words are certainly among the things which parents and teachers should store away in the young minds of which they have charge. If the child does not understand all that he thus places in his memory, he understands portions of it just as he sees certain qualities of the pebble which he holds in his hand, and he will see and understand more, as his mind expands and his powers of spiritual vision increase. VII. CULTIVATING THE MEMORY IN YOUTH.