dear ones, these flowerets gay: to him they are
tokens dear of the earth where once he played and sang on the hills of
Judea. Can you not trust them to him who said, "Suffer little children
to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the Kingdom of
God?" Have no fear; I am but moving them into the bright heavenly
mansions, where they shall rest safely in the bosoms of the saints and
angels.'

"And the mother, who loved them so, gave up her darling ones, for she
saw, even through her tears, how happy they must be in their new home.

"'O not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The Reaper came that day;'

it was a young and beautiful Angel, not the hideous Death in black robes
and hood scarce hiding his bony head, that

"'visited the green earth,
And took the flowers away.'

"Does Death seem so terrible now? Although we must always see the vacant
chair and know that a loved one has gone forever, can we not realize
that it is we who suffer, and not the one who has been taken from among
us? Is it not selfish to grieve?"

Shall we fear Death any more? When the parent has read the poem once
more from beginning to end in silence, except as the soft words fall
from his lips, will not the hearers feel inspired to be better and
nobler boys and girls, men and women? Will darkness have more fear for
them? Will they not then go to their rooms and lie down peacefully to
sleep?

There are other poems for other hours. Some day when you wish a bit of
fun with your children you will find humorous poems in many of the
books. One is in Volume IV, on page 57. Nearly every stanza contains a
"joke": a pun, if you please, usually. Perhaps you and your children
will find them all easily, and perhaps you will not. In the last stanza
is the "joke" proper, the thing for which the rhymes were written. It is
an old joke, surely enough, and you have seen others like it; but it is
funny still and perhaps a little caustic. Not all men whom the world
calls good are good beneath the surface. Perhaps you know of cases in
which "the Dog it was that died."

Another humorous poem to use in this connection is _Echo_ (Volume III,
page 286).

Between the two extremes mentioned above are selections for all moods
and all kinds of people. The things to be remembered in reading with
children are, that poetry must be understood to be appreciated; that it
must be heard until the mind is trained to receive it through the eye
instead of t