poor little children do not know even that. They find trouble utterly
inconsequent and unreasonable. The problem of evil is to them
absolutely incapable of solution. We know that beyond our horizon
stretches the infinite universe. We grasp only one link of a chain
whose beginning and end is eternity. So we readily adjust ourselves to
mystery, and are content. We apply to everything inexplicable the test
of partial view, and maintain our tranquillity. We fall into the
ranks, and march on, acquiescent, if not jubilant. We hear the roar of
cannon and the rattle of musketry. Stalwart forms fall by our side,
and brawny arms are stricken. Our own hopes bite the dust, our own
hopes bury their dead; but we know that law is inexorable. Effect must
follow cause, and there is no happening without causation. So, knowing
ourselves to be only one small brigade of the army of the Lord, we
defile through the passes of this narrow world, bearing aloft on our
banner, and writing ever on our hearts, the divine consolation, "What
thou knowest not now thou shalt know hereafter." This is an
unspeakable tranquillizer and comforter, of which, woe is me! the
little ones know nothing. They have no underlying generalities on which
to stand. Law and logic and eternity are nothing to them. They only
know that it rains, and they will have to wait another week before they
go a-fishing; and why couldn't it have rained Friday just as well as
Saturday? and it always does rain or something when I want to go
anywhere,--so, there! And the frantic flood of tears comes up from
outraged justice as well as from disappointed hope. It is the
flimsiest of all possible arguments to say that their sorrows are
trifling, to talk about their little cares and trials. These little
things are great to little men and women. A pine bucket full is just
as full as a hogshead. The ant has to tug just as hard to carry a
grain of corn as the Irishman does to carry a hod of bricks. You can
see the bran running out of Fanny's doll's arm, or the cat putting her
foot through Tom's new kite, without losing your equanimity; but their
hearts feel the pang of hopeless sorrow, or foiled ambition, or bitter
disappointment,--and the emotion is the thing in question, not the
event that caused it.

It is all additional disadvantage to children in their troubles, that
they can never estimate the relations of things. They have no
perspective. All things are at equal distanc