ther feels that one has been taken
away who was still closer to her heart. Hers has been the office of
constant ministration. Every gradation of feature has developed before
her eyes. She has detected every new gleam of intelligence. She heard
the first utterance of every new word. She has been the refuge of his
fears; the supply of his wants. And every task of affection has woven a
new link, and made dear to her its object. And when he dies, a portion
of her own life, as it were, dies. How can she give him up, with all
these memories, these associations? The timid hands that have so often
taken hers in trust and love, how can she fold them on his breast, and
surrender them to the cold clasp of death? The feet whose wanderings she
has watched so narrowly, how can she see them straitened to go down
into the dark valley? The head that she has pressed to her lips and her
bosom, that she has watched in burning sickness and in peaceful slumber,
a hair of which she could not see harmed, O! how can she consign it
to the chamber of the grave? The form that not for one night has been
beyond her vision or her knowledge, how can she put it away for the long
night of the sepulchre, to see it no more? Man has cares and toils that
draw away his thoughts and employ them; she sits in loneliness, and all
these memories, all these suggestions, crowd upon her. How can she bear
all this? She could not, were it not that her faith is as her affection;
and if the one is more deep and tender than in man, the other is more
simple and spontaneous, and takes confidently hold of the hand of God.

Thus, then, do children awaken within us deep and mighty affections; and
is it not their mission to do so? Do we not see many beautiful offices
created and discharged by these affections--tender and far-reaching
relationships into which they run? Do we not see how they win the heart
from frivolity and selfishness, and make it aware of duties, and quick
with sympathies? I shall not enter into detailed considerations of the
results of this affection thus awakened in us by children. A little
reflection will render them obvious to you. Let me simply say, that in
awakening these affections children discharge an important and beautiful
mission.

IV. I might speak of other offices discharged by little children; of the
influence upon us of their purity and their innocence; their importance
in the social state; of the benefits conferred upon us by the very
duties