Gladly would the compiler have furnished
more, but the leaves are too much scattered and mutilated to be
rearranged and given complete.

FIRST MEMORY.

Childhood has its secrets and its mysteries; but who can tell or who
can explain them! We have all roamed through this silent
wonder-wood--we have all once opened our eyes in blissful astonishment,
as the beautiful reality of life overflowed our souls. We knew not
where, or who, we were--the whole world was ours and we were the whole
world's. That was an infinite life--without beginning and without end,
without rest and without pain. In the heart, it was as clear as the
spring heavens, fresh as the violet's perfume--hushed and holy as a
Sabbath morning.

What disturbs this God's-peace of the child? How can this unconscious
and innocent existence ever cease? What dissipates the rapture of this
individuality and universality, and suddenly leaves us solitary and
alone in a clouded life?

Say not, with serious face. It is sin! Can even a child sin? Say
rather, we know not, and must only resign ourselves to it.

Is it sin, which makes the bud a blossom, and the blossom fruit, and
the fruit dust?

Is it sin, which makes the worm a chrysalis, and the chrysalis a
butterfly, and the butterfly dust?

And is it sin, which makes the child a man, and the man a gray-haired
man, and the gray-haired man dust? And what is dust?

Say rather, we know not, and must only resign ourselves to it.

Yet it is so beautiful, recalling the spring-time of life, to look back
and remember one's self. Yes, even in the sultry summer, in the
melancholy autumn and in the cold winter of life, there is here and
there a spring day, and the heart says: "I feel like spring." Such a
day is this--and so I lay me down upon the soft moss of the fragrant
woods, and stretch out my weary limbs, and look up, through the green
foliage, into the boundless blue, and think how it used to be in that
childhood.

Then, all seems forgotten. The first pages of memory are like the old
family Bible. The first leaves are wholly faded and somewhat soiled
with handling. But, when we turn further, and come to the chapters
where Adam and Eve were banished from Paradise, then, all begins to
grow clear and legible. Now if we could only find the title-page with
the imprint and date--but that is irrevocably lost, and, in their
place, we find only the clear transcript--our baptismal
certificate--beari