a task for him to grow in knowledge and in thought,
than for a lily of the field to lift up its head towards the sun. That
child's religion was like all the other parts of his character--as prone
to tears as that of other children, when they read of the Divine Friend
dying for them on the cross; but it was profounder far than theirs, when
it shed no tears, and only made the paleness of his countenance more
like that which we imagine to be the paleness of a phantom. No one ever
saw him angry, complaining, or displeased; for angelical indeed was his
temper, purified, like gold in fire, by suffering. He shunned not the
company of other children, but loved all, as by them all he was more
than beloved. In few of their plays could he take an active share; but
sitting a little way off, still attached to the merry brotherhood,
though in their society he had no part to enact, he read his book on the
knoll, or, happy dreamer, sunk away among the visions of his own
thoughts. There was poetry in that child's spirit, but it was too
essentially blended with his whole happiness in life, often to be
embodied in written words. A few compositions were found in his own
small beautiful handwriting after his death--hymns and psalms. Prayers,
too, had his heart indited--but they were not in measured
language--framed, in his devout simplicity, on the model of our Lord's.
How many hundred times have we formed a circle round him in the
gloaming, all sitting or lying on the greensward, before the dews had
begun to descend, listening to his tales and stories of holy or heroic
men and women, who had been greatly good and glorious in the days of
old! Not unendeared to his imagination were the patriots, who, living
and dying, loved the liberties of the land--Tell--Bruce--or Wallace, he
in whose immortal name a thousand rocks rejoice, while many a wood bears
it on its summits as they are swinging to the storm. Weak as a reed that
is shaken in the wind, or the stalk of a flower that tremblingly
sustains its blossoms beneath the dews that feed their transitory
lustre, was he whose lips were so eloquent to read the eulogies of
mighty men of war riding mailed through bloody battles. What matters it
that this frame of dust be frail, and of tiny size--still may it be the
tenement of a lordly spirit. But high as such warfare was, it satisfied
not that thoughtful child--for other warfare there was to read of, which
was to him a far deeper and more divine delig