n, the ungodly, the
ignorant of heavenly mercy, all the diseased of spirit who were
gathered there in search of the soul's health, sang together: not as
the morning-stars which shouted for joy, but like living hearts that
cried for purity; yea, like hearts that so desired it, they would have
broken for it, and blessed God.

"_God is a Spirit. God is a Spirit. We would worship Him. We would
worship Him in spirit. Yea, in spirit. And in truth._"

My little boy was playing in the garden, decking himself with the
strange and beautiful flowers which luxuriated in the spot. I remember
that he had tall white lilies and scarlet passion flowers, or something
like them, held above one shoulder, and floating like a banner in the
bright, white air. He was absorbed in his sport, and had the sweet
intentness of expression between the eyes that his mother used to wear.
When the vesper anthems sounded out, the child stopped, and turned his
nobly moulded head toward the unseen singers. A puzzled and afterward
a saddened look clouded his countenance; he listened for a moment, and
then walked slowly to me, trailing the white and scarlet flowers in the
grass behind him as he came.

"Father, teach me how to sing! The other children do. I'm the only
little boy I know that can't sing that nice song. Teach me it!" he
demanded.

"Alas, my son!" I answered, "how can I teach you that which I myself
know not?"

"I thought boys' fathers knew everything," objected the child, bending
his brows severely on me.

A certain constraint, a something not unlike distrust, a subtle barrier
which one could not define, but which one felt the more uncomfortably
for this very reason, after this incident, seemed to arise in the
child's consciousness between himself and me. As docile, as dutiful,
as beautiful as ever, as loving and as lovable, yet the little fellow
would at times withdraw from me and stand off; as if he looked on at
me, and criticised me, and kept his criticism to himself. Verily the
child was growing. He had become a separate soul. In a world of
souls, what was mine--miserable, ignorant, half-developed, wholly
unfit--what was mine to do with his? How was I to foster him?

When I came face to face with the problem of Boy's general education,
this question pressed upon me bitterly. Looking abroad upon the people
and their principles of life, the more I studied them, the more did I
stand perplexed before them. I was in th