ffect of reality. No man, whatever his sensibility may be, is ever
affected by Hamlet or Lear as a little girl is affected by the story of
poor Red Ridinghood. She knows that it is all false, that wolves
cannot speak, that there are no wolves in England. Yet, in spite of
the knowledge, she believes; she weeps; she trembles; she dares not go
into a dark room lest she should feel the teeth of the monster at her
throat.' And from these premisses, Macaulay proceeds to his inevitable
conclusion. 'He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires
to be a great poet must,' he says, 'first become a little child. He
must take to pieces the whole web of his mind. He must unlearn much of
that knowledge which has perhaps constituted hitherto his chief title
to superiority. His very talents will be a hindrance to him. His
difficulties will be proportioned to his proficiency in the pursuits
which are fashionable among his contemporaries; and that proficiency
will in general be proportioned to the vigour and activity of his
mind.' Could there be any finer comment on the words of the Master?

'Simplicity and sublimity always go together!' said John Wesley that
hot July night at Dublin.

'Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the
greatest in the kingdom of heaven!' said the Master on that memorable
day in Galilee.

'He who aspires to be a great poet must first become a little child!'
says Lord Macaulay in his incomparable essay on Milton.

I have carefully put the Master in His old place. He is _in the
midst_, with the very greatest of our modern apostles on the one side
of Him, and the very greatest of our modern historians on the other.
But they are all three of them saying the same thing, each in his own
way. It is a pity that we teach our children that the sublimest thing
about them--their simplicity--is a thing of which they need to be
ashamed. And the way in which their tiny tongues stumble over the
great word seems to show that, following a true instinct, they do not
take kindly to that clause in their bedtime prayer.

I am told that, away beyond the Never-Never ranges, there is a church
from which the children are excluded before the sermon begins. I wish
my informant had not told me of its existence. I am not often troubled
with nightmare, my supper being quite a frugal affair. But just
occasionally I find myself a victim of the terror by night. And when I
am mercifully awa