watched the eyes of little children. Feeling and
thought would seem to come upon them like very inspiration--so strong it
often is, and sudden, and clear; yet, no doubt, all the work of natural
processes going on within Immortality. The wisdom of age has often been
seen in the simplicity of childhood--creatures but five or six years
old--soon perhaps about to disappear--astonishing, and saddening, and
subliming the souls of their parents and their parents' friends, by a
holy precocity of all pitiful and compassionate feelings, blended into a
mysterious piety that has made them sing happy hymns on the brink of
death and the grave. Such affecting instances of almost infantine
unfolding of the spirit beneath spiritual influences should not be
rare--nor are they rare--in truly Christian households. Almost as soon
as the heart is moved by filial affection, that affection grows reverent
even to earthly parents--and, ere long, becomes piety towards the name
of God and Saviour. Yet philosophers have said that the child must not
be too soon spoken to about religion. Will they fix the time? No--let
religion--a myriad-meaning word--be whispered and breathed round about
them, as soon as intelligence smiles in their eyes and quickens their
ears, while enjoying the sights and sounds of their own small yet
multitudinous world.

Let us turn to another strain of the same mood, which will be read with
tears by many a grateful heart--on the "Churching of Women." What would
become of us without the ceremonies of religion? How they strengthen the
piety out of which they spring! How, by concentrating all that is holy
and divine around their outward forms, do they purify and sanctify the
affections! What a change on his infant's face is wrought before a
father's eyes by Baptism! How the heart of the husband and the father
yearns, as he sees the wife and mother kneeling in thanksgiving after
childbirth!

"Consider the lilies of the field how they grow: they toil not, neither
do they spin; and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these." What is all the poetry that genius
ever breathed over all the flowers of this earth to that one divine
sentence! It has inspired our Christian poet--and here is his heartfelt
homily.

FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

"Sweet nurslings of the vernal skies,
Bathed in soft airs, and fed with dew,
What more than magic in you lies
To fill the