So the missionary dream died out of me, by a foolish and illogical antipathy enough; though, after all, it was a child of my imagination only, not of my heart; and the fancy, having bred it, was able to kill it also. And David became my ideal. To be a shepherd-boy, and sit among beautiful mountains, and sing hymns of my own making, and kill lions and bears, with now and then the chance of a stray giant--what a glorious life! And if David slew giants with a sling and a stone, why should not I?--at all events, one ought to know how; so I made a sling out of an old garter and some string, and began to practise in the little back-yard. But my first shot broke a neighbour's window, value sevenpence, and the next flew back in my face, and cut my head open; so I was sent supperless to bed for a week, till the sevenpence had been duly saved out of my hungry stomach--and, on the whole, I found the hymn-writing side of David's character the more feasible; so I tried, and with much brains-beating, committed the following lines to a scrap of dirty paper. And it was strangely significant, that in this, my first attempt, there was an instinctive denial of the very doctrine of "particular redemption," which I had been hearing all my life, and an instinctive yearning after the very Being in whom I had been told I had "no part nor lot" till I was "converted." Here they are. I am not ashamed to call them--doggerel though they be--an inspiration from Him of whom they speak. If not from Him, good readers, from whom? Jesus, He loves one and all; Jesus, He loves children small; Their souls are sitting round His feet, On high, before His mercy-seat. When on earth He walked in shame, Children small unto Him came; At His feet they knelt and prayed, On their heads His hands He laid. Came a spirit on them then, Greater than of mighty men; A spirit gentle, meek, and mild, A spirit good for king and child. Oh! that spirit give to me, Jesus, Lord, where'er I be! So-- But I did not finish them, not seeing very clearly what to do with that spirit when I obtained it; for, indeed, it seemed a much finer thing to fight material Apollyons with material swords of iron, like my friend Christian, or to go bear and lion hunting with David, than to convert heathens by meekness--at least, if true meekness was at all like that of the missionary whom I had lately seen. I showed the verses in secret to my little sister. My mother heard us singing them together, and extorted, grimly enough, a confession of the authorship. I expected to be punished for them (I was accustomed weekly to be punished for all sorts of deeds and words, of the harmfulness of which I had not a notion). It was, therefore, an agreeable surprise when the old minister, the next Sunday evening, patted my head, and praised me for them. "A hopeful sign of young grace, brother," said he to the dark tall man. "May we behold here an infant Timothy!"