her soul, and the sweet syllables, succeeding each
other on the blessed page, were all united by the memories her heart had
been treasuring every hour that her father or her mother had read aloud
in her hearing from the Book of Life. "Suffer little children to come
unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of
heaven"--how wept her parents, as these the most affecting of our
Saviour's words dropt silver-sweet from her lips, and continued in her
upward eyes among the swimming tears!

Be not incredulous of this dawn of reason, wonderful as it may seem to
you, so soon becoming morn--almost perfect daylight--with the "Holy
Child." Many such miracles are set before us--but we recognise them not,
or pass them by with a word or a smile of short surprise. How leaps the
baby in its mother's arms, when the mysterious charm of music thrills
through its little brain! And how learns it to modulate its feeble
voice, unable yet to articulate, to the melodies that bring forth all
round its eyes a delighted smile! Who knows what then may be the
thoughts and feelings of the infant awakened to the sense of a new
world, alive through all its being to sounds that haply glide past our
ears unmeaning as the breath of the common air! Thus have mere infants
sometimes been seen inspired by music, till, like small genii, they
warbled spell-strains of their own, powerful to sadden and subdue our
hearts. So, too, have infant eyes been so charmed by the rainbow
irradiating the earth, that almost infant hands have been taught, as if
by inspiration, the power to paint in finest colours, and to imitate
with a wondrous art, the skies so beautiful to the quick-awakened spirit
of delight. What knowledge have not some children acquired, and gone
down scholars to their small untimely graves! Knowing that such things
have been--are--and will be--why art thou incredulous of the divine
expansion of soul, so soon understanding the things that are divine--in
the "Holy Child?"

Thus grew she in the eye of God, day by day waxing wiser and wiser in
the knowledge that tends towards the skies; and, as if some angel
visitant were nightly with her in her dreams, awakening every morn with
a new dream of thought, that brought with it a gift of more
comprehensive speech. Yet merry she was at times with her companions
among the woods and braes, though while they all were laughing, she only
smiled; and the passing traveller, who might pause for a moment to bl