Studying reverently _these_ signs of the times, what indications do we find for our guidance in the bringing up of children? The tender sympathy of the child must be allowed to flow in ways of help and kindness towards all life that anyway touches his. I once knew a little girl of five, who came in from her walk under an obvious cloud of distress. “What is the matter, H----?” she was asked. A quick little “Nothing,” with the reticence of her family, was all that could be got out of her for some minutes; but a caress broke her down, and, in a passion of pity, she sobbed out, “A poor man, no home, no food, no bed to lie upon!” Young as she was, the revelation of the common life in humanity had come upon her; she was one with the beggar and suffered with him. Children must, of course, be shielded from such intense suffering, but woe to mother or nurse who would shield, by systematically hardening, the child’s heart. This little girl should have had the relief of helping, and then the pain of sympathy would not have been too much for her. Whatever our own opinion of the world and of human nature, let us be careful how we breathe the word “impostor” into the ear of a child, until he is old enough to understand that if the man is an impostor that does but make him the object of a deeper pity and a wiser help--a help whose object is not to relieve but to reform. Again, children are open to vanity as to all other evil dispositions possible to human nature. They must be educated to give and to help without any notion that to do so is goodness on their part. It is very easy to keep them in the attitude of mind natural to a child, that to serve is promotion to the person who serves, for indeed he has no absolute claim to be in a position to pour benefits upon another. The child’s range of sympathy must be widened, his love must go out to far and near, rich and poor; distress abroad and distress at home should appeal to him equally; and always he should give some manner of help _at real cost to himself_. When he is old enough, the object lessons of the newspapers should be brought before him. He should know that atrocities in Armenia, for instance, are the cause of real heart-trouble in English homes; that there are cases of abstract right and wrong for nations as for individuals, which admit of no considerations of expediency; that to succour our neighbour in mortal distress is such an occasion, and that he who has fallen among thieves is therefore our neighbour, whether as a nation or as an individual. Do not let us bring up our children in glass houses, for fear of the ravages of pity upon their tender hearts. Let them know of any distress which would naturally come before them, and let them ease their own pain by alleviating in some way the sufferings they sorrow for. Children were not given to us with infinite possibilities of love and pity that we might choke the springs of pity and train them into hardness of heart.