your children's neglect of its
sacred pages.

Let me, therefore, affectionately admonish you to be faithful to that
precious book you call the family bible. Read it to your children every
day. From its sacred pages teach them the way to live and the way to die.
Let it be an opened, studied family chart to guide you and them in visions
of untold glory to the many mansions of your Father's offered home in
heaven. It will soothe your sorrows, calm your fears, strengthen your
faith, brighten your hopes, and throw around the graves of the loved and
the cherished dead, the light and promise of reunion in heaven!

"A drop of balm from this rich store,
Hath healed the broken heart once more.
Like angels round a dying bed,
Its truths a heavenly radiance shed;
And hovering on celestial wings,
Breathe music from unnumbered strings."

CHAPTER IX.

INFANCY.

"A babe in a house is a well-spring of pleasure, a messenger of
peace and love;
A resting place for innocence on earth; a link between angels and men;
Yet it is a talent of trust to be rendered back with interest;
A delight, but redolent of care, honey sweet, but lacking not the bitter,
For character groweth day by day, and all things aid it in unfolding,
And the bent unto good or evil may be given, in the hours of infancy."

The birth of each child constitutes a new era in the Christian home, and
multiplies its cares, its pleasures and its responsibilities. The
first-born babe, like

"The first gilt thing
That wears the trembling pearls of spring,"

throws the rainbow colors of hope and joy over the bowers of home, and
awakens in the bosom of parents, emotions and sympathies, new-born and
never before experienced; cords in the heart, before untouched, now begin
to thrill with new joy; sympathies, before unfelt, now swell the bosom.
Sleep on, thou little one, in thy "rosy mesh of infancy," in the first
buddings of thy being! These hours of thy innocence are the happiest of thy
life. Thou art "the parent's transport and the parent's care." Blessings
are fondly poured upon thy head. Rest thee there in thy little bed, thou
happy emblem of the loved and pure in heaven!

"Visions sure of joy
Are gladdening his rest; and ah, who knows
But waiting angels do converse in sleep
With babes like this!"

imparting to his infant soul unutterable things, whispering soft of bliss
immortal g