but they put them aside as things that belong to the debatable land. Now, you and I have been looking into this question—whether we should give our sanction to the doing of anything, or getting profit from anything which, either in principle or in practice, we are in doubt about, as to its being abstractly right or wrong. So it is with mirth and joy. Is it right or wrong to be mirthful? If right, then, in God's name, why look always with such a sad and serious face upon the things of life? Much of this drab, east-winded sort of religion comes from following the New Testament too closely, as though its grand rules and laws were meant to be explanations or pictures of the whole of human life, instead of being, as they are, special rules for special matters and special times. Of course it has struck you what a difference there is between the Old Testament and the New. When I was a boy, I never heard anything about the joy of God in his works. One might as well have lived in a shop, for all I knew about the God of nature. The Old Testament spreads over centuries. The human race had had leisure to write it, and therefore put into it what the writers of the New Testament could not do. The New Testament had one work to do-to open the gate of mercy

to all mankind, and to break down the middle wall of partition between all tribes and nations. It had no time or occasion to attend to aught else, and so had little to do with mirth and joy. So religious people are in doubt whether or not these are things fit for fallen men. It is clear to them that apples belonged to the sinless; but, having been taken by the sinful, they doubt whether they have any longer a right to enjoy them.

Now, do deliver your child from this sort of thing. Let the little child learn from the beginning that the dear God is a God of mirth. Tell him of how God made the little bird, and gave its little brain the divine mathematics by which it makes its wondrous nest so secure and so strong against the wind. And then, when the little nest is ready, the eggs are laid, and by-and-by the young birds are hatched. Then there is the rearing and feeding of the little brood (and in that may be seen a lesson of devotion which men and women would do well to copy). So the child may be taught to behold the dear God in these things. If children were

brought up in that, instead of in things that don't concern them-catechisms about damnation and other succulent things for babes-it would be much better for them. At least they would be brought

up to understand that the Lord rejoices, and shall rejoice, in his works. Let me plead for your children. It is pitiful to me to see how, in this town, children grow up, oh! so ignorant of the works of God-unable to understand anything of the marvel and mystery of the great "River of God." It is to me ungrateful that the dear God should have spread so abundant a feast, and these children should have no wedding-garment on.

It has been well said that "The works of the Lord are sought out by those that take pleasure in them." If the stars were to appear only once in a thousand years, how mankind would date from it and talk of it! If the moon were to shine forth only once in your lifetime, what a night it would be! How it would go into the calendar! How you would stand at the street corners to talk of how Heaven had been opened, and a gleam of the glory of Heaven had shown forth! But, because these things happen almost every night, they are not "sought out" by man. Instead of being amazed at the prodigal wealth of God, and with hearts full of thankfulness crying out, "The earth is full of Thy riches: O Lord, how bountiful are all Thy works!" we pass them by with indifference. Now, I say distinctly that a very large part of the

religion of a little child should consist in the loving admiration and intelligent understanding of the works of God in nature.

A child should not only be taught to love them, but to understand them; for he does scant justice to the works of God who simply takes them as an appearance or show. That is one of the glories of nature, no doubt; but the "second thoughts," that come from "searching out" the works of God, are what are needed in order truly to understand them. For, to them who understand the great office of nature, all is spirit, showing itself in a material form; everything that the eye of man beholds, preexisted in the mind of God as a joy, a wish, a delight.

Therefore, it is wise that the little child should very early be taught that the only way in which man can know the mind of God is through his works; that night and day, river and sea, calm and storm, earthquake and volcano, beast and bird, acid and alkali, bone and blood and muscle-all once were necessarily ideas in the mind of God; that they are what they are by virtue of a preceding affection in God. Whatsoever I behold is a thought of God, handed to me in the only way in which I could understand it. The stone tells tales of

Him, the blue egg of the bird, the nightingale's song, the foam of the sea; the snail and its shell; all things in nature speak to me of God. And, if I love the Eternal Lover as the Eternal Lover should be loved, I take up any one of these little things and kiss it reverently, and say, "It is Thine, O God, and it was once Thy thought." I try to catch what it was that God intended.

To me, nothing is common or unclean. All that has now passed away had once its meaning and its use. The lion and the bear, the wolf and the spotted tiger; each have their meaning, each have their day, and pass away. So I come to understand that, almost in a material sense, "the child shall put his hand upon the cockatrice's den, and that the calf and the young lion shall lie down together, and a little child shall lead them." So it shall be that the soft and gentle spirit of the Child shall one day lead away the tigers and lions of the world; the gentleness of Christ, which is the gentleness of God, shall one day put away all those "terrible things in righteousness." Having done their work, the days of the world shall pass away, in order that the sweet and blessed days of God's peace may come.

So, let not your child call anything common or