To think that a child cannot bear to enter the dark, cannot bear to be alone, cannot bear to be separated from its loving and protecting parents, and yet must suffer in a few moments from a fatal disease--the agony of all this, in the face of death, is the crime of crimes, too damnable and horrible for words. I remember once seeing a little lost child. It cried for its mother. Hot tears were streaming down its burning cheeks. Its face portrayed the severest form of suffering that life is capable of experiencing. If Nature ever made a frail article, it is our tender offspring, so bewildered, so utterly helpless, so agonizingly delusioned, so pitifully searching for some familiar face; something to make it discover its lost self. Oh, what power ever made us so tender, so incapable of self-help, as to have us undergo and feel such terrific suffering! It is injustice enough when adults are made to suffer mental and physical ills, without inflicting such a painful decree upon mere infants. At least an adult has some conception of his suffering. He can make provision for some remedy. He can seek others to ask them to render help. He knows, he feels, he understands the situation, and can adjust himself as best he can to obtain some relief. But not so with the child. Its mind is not capable of comprehending the condition which makes its suffering so sharp. Its little brain is too feeble, hardly strong enough to direct its awkward and bulky body, much less to solve such an incredible predicament as being utterly destitute of help, in a world fashioned upon such an unsatisfactory plan. There is not, nor can there be, a sadder, more distressing sight, than to see a little lost child overcome with fright. If it were in my power to abolish any of Nature's cruel laws, I would take from the little child its feeling of pain. Let me ask, would man, were it in his power, send a helpless creature, utterly unable to sustain itself, without power of thought, understanding or expression, so dependent upon loving care, kindness, help and comprehension, into a world that is a wilderness, a world reeking with pestilence and populated with shrieking beasts and brutal and savage people? As a passing word regarding the child, let me say this: Do not judge your child as an ordinary mechanical instrument, as if he could be wound up to a certain degree and gradually, as if by clockwork, tick away each moment of the day. The child is a combustible force, and, although there are certain rules by which you may obtain the greatest degree of improvement, you cannot rigidly adhere to them. There are numberless instances when the propensity or inclination of the child may appear to you to be aggravating and annoying; nevertheless, you must not let _your_ irritability interfere with the development of that trait preëminent to the child's character.