iven, and pouring into his new-born senses the dreams of opening
heaven.

What charms and momentous interests surround the cradle of infancy! When
the first wailing of dependence reaches the listening ear, what new-born
sympathies spring up in the parent's bosom! What a thrill of rapture the
first soft smile of her babe sends to the mother's heart! It is this, the
parents' likeness unsullied by their faults and cares; it is this, their
living love in personal being,--their love breathing and smiling before
them, lisping their names; it is this,--their new-born hope and care,--that
gives to infancy such a charm, such a never-dying interest, and causes the
parent to cling to it with such fond tenacity. "Can a mother forget her
sucking child?" Never, while she claims a mother's heart! The couch of her
babe is the depository of all those fond hopes and joys and cares and
memories to which a mother's heart is sacred.

The infant is the most interesting member of the Christian home. It is the
first budding of home-life, disclosing every day some new beauty, "the
father's lustre and the mother's bloom," to gladden the hearts of the
family. "As the dewy morning is more beautiful than the perfect day; as the
opening bud is more lovely than the full blown flower, so is the joyous
dawn of infant life more interesting than the calm monotony of riper
years." It is the most interesting, because the purest, member of the
household. It is the connecting link which binds home to its great antitype
above. "Ye stand nearest to God, ye little ones," nearer than those who
have tasted the bitter cup of actual sin. They are the budding promises,
the young loves, the precious plants of home; they are its sunshine, its
progressive interest, its prophetic happiness, the first link in the chain
of its perpetuity. Like the purple hue of the wild heath, throwing its gay
color over the rugged hill-side, they cast a magic polish over the spirit
of the parent, causing the home-fireside to glow with new life and
cheerfulness.

Infants are emblems of the loved and sainted ones in heaven. "Of such is
the kingdom of heaven." "Except ye become as this little child, ye cannot
enter into the kingdom of heaven." This is based upon proper principles.
The heart of the child is purely devotional and confidential. It is a
helpless dependent upon the parent. It abdicates its self-will with joy;
silently do the laws of home control it; its reverence and love are t