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and the birds their fancy messengers. We remember two little boys who used to watch the humble-bees make their way into the recesses of the hollyhock, then close the flower upon their prisoner, and carry him in triumph to an empty hive, and there secure him. Another and another was added to their colony, and there for several days they were fed with sugar, in hopes they would naturalize themselves in their desolate dwelling, and fill it with honey. The humble-bees too were duly classified; some black all over, and some tipped with yellow, some armed with stings, and some harmless. It is very possible those boys have since then been taught, or of themselves have learnt, the distinguishing habits of these pretty insects; how some, like masons, build with mortar, and some, like carpenters, work in wood, and some like sempstresses, fashion garments from the leaves, and some, like hermits, dwell in caves three inches deep but we doubt whether their insight into the mysteries of nature is really deeper than it was in those days, when all their spontaneous speculations floated in a rosy mist of poetry. Strange thoughts, linked in others equally strange, the fruits of many a happy musing, are entwined with all that is beautiful in nature, as it opens out its varied glories to the unoccupied mind of a docile child. In the curious recesses of the monkshood he sees Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, never idly asking why the trees are so much smaller than the man and woman who tower above them: in the soft sweetness of the rose, and the richness of the honeysuckle, and the pureness of the lily, and the deep blueness of the violet, he sees the shadows of good things, which imagination can only suggest, and hope can cling to: he is, in those days of innocence, granted glimpses of a vision of which hereafter he may gaze his fill. And such a child as this, we say, is not to be despised by the world. There is in his imaginings much of truth, reality, and nobleness. For in thus seeking his pleasures in the beauties of God's creation, he is feeding those higher and purer instincts, by which human creatures are distinguished from those below them. He is feeding them with such food as God's providence has provided them. And when the goodness and mercy, and power, and holiness of GOD, are made known to such a child, as they are revealed in the Holy Gospel, it will be found that he has been training himself to accept them. It will be found that, so far from having injured the seriousness of his mind, or induced a frivolity and fickleness of temper, by his fanciful and childish meditations among the beauties of creation, he will quite naturally accept the deeper lessons of the Gospel as the complement of that which he has learned among the flowers of the field, and under the quieting influences of the soft melodies of nature's harmonizing voices. Here then is the test of reality. No one, at least no one to whom we speak now, will deny that the great realities of life are a GOD Who sees and rules, and approves,

and is displeased: death and judgment; holiness, happiness, sin and misery. Who, then, most naturally realizes these great truths when first they are presented to the mind? who accepts them? who receives them as a part of his conscious being? who lives in them and by them? Not the man of the world, not the man of business, not the useful plodding steady member of society; but the child who has loved his mother, and revered his father, and respected his nurse, and been as a brother to his brothers, and revelled in fairy tales, and seen glorious visions where jasmine, and roses, and honeysuckles twine together round the garden bower. See how the very first beams of gospel light are reflected from his fair forehead, on which the holy mark was impressed in his unconscious infancy! Without direct teaching, without judicious discipline, without an explicit consciousness of his own condition as a child of God, he receives the simple teaching of the Gospel narratives, and the histories of the Old Testament. He reads them and loves them. He reads them and does not forget them. No pictures charm him half so well as the pictures of the holy men of whom he has read, how they walked with GOD, and GOD led them.

Oh! who could bear to part from the memory of those first vivid impressions, ever reviving with undiminished freshness, ever recalled with new delight, softened and mellowed, but not obscured, by increasing distance, as the onward journey of life proceeds, and enjoying a renewed youthfulness and vigour as nearer objects are overshadowed by the mists of old age, those bright visions of the childish heart, which were called into existence by the sacred narratives of the Holy Bible?

If, then, that which seems most fanciful and visionary in uninstructed children, their curious and often incorrect imaginings among the beauties of the creature, is thus found to have in it so much truth and reality, that it prepares them to receive the highest, holiest, deepest, and most solemn truths on which the mind of man can dwell,--as the business of life does not prepare busy men,what, may we suppose, are the inmost thoughts of those who have received the truth, and are obeying it? what earnest purposes, what holy affections, what glorious imaginings, what awful fears and hopes, what vigorous struggles are working beneath the calm and joyful exterior of their smiling faces! The thoughts, then, of good children, when they are seriously thoughtful, among those who are really educated as Christian children ought to be, are exercised upon the highest objects. They are conscious, in a manner that persons who have long lived recklessly scarcely ever can be conscious, of their high calling. They consider calmly and earnestly for what end they were created, and why regenerated. They never long together forget that they are in a state of salvation, from which they are in danger of falling by their own sin. Even when

they do wrong (and what are their wrong deeds compared with the sins of grown persons?) they do not forget the serious import of their doings for any length of time. No one except themselves, and he who watches for their souls as one that must give account, can tell how severe is the struggle by which they obtain the victory over temptation; and how impossible it is for them to be as good as they are without waging a real warfare. For of one thing there is no doubt, that those who are better taught are more severely tried. It would seem as if the untaught were mercifully shielded from temptation; whereas those who have proved their armour are called upon to use it. They undergo their probation in their youth; and sometimes it comes to an end before youth has elapsed, and they find rest betimes; and if not, we may suppose that, as a general rule, their difficulties will lessen as they grow older in proportion as they have kept an undeviating course through their earlier trials. Good children, then, whether it is obviously perceptible or not to ordinary observers, have in them that degree of seriousness which is necessary to the maintaining of a real and continual contest against evil. They also have in them the seriousness of contemplation. To those who have been brought up in a defective system of doctrine it is difficult to receive the truth, that, "whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith," not merely because it seems to them uncharitable thus to condemn those who differ, but because they cannot easily realize the importance of a "right faith." But children, rightly taught, take to themselves the creed in such a way that they are at least conscious how necessary it is for themselves, if the thought of judging others does not occur to them. They "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest:" and thereby, in the simplicity of their obedience and teachableness, attain an understanding of spiritual mysteries which surprises their teachers. This hearty and true reception of the creed gives them an understanding of Holy Scripture which they could otherwise never possess. We may be permitted to give an illustration of this; one out of a number of others equally accessible. It was, then, once our fortune to listen to the catechizing of about a dozen village children in their own church, after the second lesson, on S. Stephen's day. Of what we heard then we made a memorandum, which we will here copy out with such additions as shall convey the meaning we intended to perpetuate. It will be remembered that the first lesson for the evening of that day is Eccles. iv.

'I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive."

Q. How is this fulfilled as on this day?

A. S. Stephen dead is more glorious than his persecutors yet alive. "Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe

to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to lift him up."

Q. Was S. Stephen alone?

A. No.

Q. Whither did he look for help?

A. "He looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw heaven open, and JESUS standing at the right hand of God."

Q. How is all mankind in a sense one?

In whom are they one?
A. In Adam they are one; having one nature in him.
Q. If therefore man fell, can man lift him up again?
A. No: for human nature fell altogether.

Q. Where is it said that man cannot lift up man?

A. In the Psalms. "No man can redeem his brother, nor make agreement unto God for him.”

Q. Man then needed another, as his fellow, to lift him up. Who is He?

A. The Man CHRIST JESUS, Who being GoD and Man was free from sin.

Q. What does He condescend to call His disciples ?

A. His friends.

Q. Does CHRIST ever teach us to regard mankind as one? In which of His parables?

A. The parable of the hundred sheep.

Q. Who are the ninety and nine that went not astray?

A. The Angels.

Q. Who is the lost one?

A. All mankind.

Q. Whom has CHRIST redeemed?

A. All mankind.

Q. What does He say He came to seek and to save?

A. That which was lost.

"Better is a poor and wise child than an old and foolish king."

Q. How was this verified, as at this time? Who was the poor and wise Child?

A. Our Blessed Saviour.

Q. Who was the old and foolish king?

A. Herod.

Q. How did he show his foolishness?

A. By slaying the young children.

Q. How did our SAVIOUR escape him.
A. By fleeing into Egypt.

Q. What did He thereby fulfil ?

A. The prophecy, "out of Egypt have I called My SON."

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'I considered all the living which are under the sun, with the second child that shall stand up in his stead.

Q. Who is the second Child?

A. Our Saviour.

Q. How is He the second?

A. Because all mankind in Adam are the first; and He is the Second Adam.

Q. And how does He stand up in the stead of all the living? Consider-If Adam had never sinned, what would all his children have enjoyed?

A. Happiness; freedom from sin, sorrow, and death.

Q. When Adam fell, who fell with him?

A. All fell and were lost.

Q. What blessed company, then, takes their place?

A. The company of the elect; CHRIST'S Holy Church: His spiritual Body.

Q. What is designed for them hereafter?

A. That bliss which the natural children of Adam forfeited.

Q. How, then, and where does the second Child stand up in the place of all the living?

A. CHRIST in His Church stands up in the place of Adam in the world or the spiritual seed of the Second Adam takes the place from which the seed of the first Adam, by transgression fell.

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This, we believe, is a fair representation of the children's answers; except that in several places two or three answers separated in the catechising by "why?" "how ?" or 66 or when?" or other like interrogation, are here merged into one for the sake of brevity. Now children cannot answer in this way without thinking: nor would it suffice that they should think at the time only. They must first have meditated upon the faith, before they can see how the Scriptures abound with illustrations of it. They must first have contemplated the substance, before they can recognize the shadow as the semblance of it.

But, after all, who can do much more than guess at that which lies hidden in the inmost heart of a regenerate child? For those who think are thoughtful alone, thoughtful with their companions, and thoughtful before those who teach and rule them who can say how thoughtful in the first case? who but those who know them well could suppose at all thoughtful in the second? who could fail to observe and admire how deeply thoughtful in the third? The solitary musings of thoughtful man or child must always be in great measure hidden from every eye but one. Poets may imagine, and novelists may picture, but none can know. And yet it is easy to know whether the solitary thoughts of those with whom we are acquainted are serious or not. We may judge of them alone, by what we see of them in company. For if we see firm principles and stedfast purposes entwined, like a golden thread, in all their ordinary intercourse with those around them, we know that by a severe and difficult process that principle was formed. With many blows, and patient winding, and close attention the golden thread was produced from the parent mass. And this we have witnessed, and are witnessing daily. We see a principle working in some, of which others give no token. We see multitudes merry; among the merriest we see a few thoughtful; "merry and wise," at the

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