mong its
noblest treasures of sacred song. That one of Doddridge's, beginning
with

"Ye golden lamps of heaven, farewell!"

made me feel as if I had just been gazing in at some window of the
"many mansions" above:--

"Ye stars are but the shining dust
Of my divine abode-"

Had I not known that, ever since I was a baby? But the light does not
stream down even into a baby's soul with equal brightness all the time.
Earth draws her dark curtains too soon over the windows of heaven, and
the little children fall asleep in her dim rooms, and forget their
visions.

That majestic hymn of Cowper's,--

"God moves in a mysterious way,"

was one of my first and dearest. It reminded me of the rolling of
thunder through the sky; and, understood as little as the thunder
itself, which my mother told me was God's voice, so that I bent my ear
and listened, expecting to hear it shaped into words, it still did give
me an idea of the presence of One Infinite Being, that thrilled me with
reverent awe. And this was one of the best lessons taught in the
Puritan school,--the lesson of reverence, the certainty that life meant
looking up to something, to Some One greater than ourselves, to a Life
far above us, which yet enfolded ours.

The thought of God, when He was first spoken of to me, seemed as
natural as the thought of my father and mother. That He should be
invisible did not seem strange, for I could not with my eyes see
through the sky, beyond which I supposed he lived. But it was easy to
believe that He could look down and see me, and that He knew all about
me. We were taught very early to say "Thou, God, seest me"; and it was
one of my favorite texts. Heaven seemed nearer, because somebody I
loved was up there looking at me. A baby is not afraid of its father's
eyes.

The first real unhappiness I remember to have felt was when some one
told me, one day, that I did not love God. I insisted, almost
tearfully, that I did; but I was told that if I did truly love Him I
should always be good. I knew I was not that, and the feeling of sudden
orphanage came over me like a bewildering cloud. Yet I was sure that I
loved my father and mother, even when I was naughty, Was He harder to
please than they?

Then I heard of a dreadful dark Somewhere, the horror of which was that
it was away from Him. What if I should wake some morning, and find
myself there? Sometimes I did not dare to go to sleep for that dread.
And the thought w