find there the wretch most
sullen, brutal, and hardened. Then look at your infant son. Such as he
is to you, such to some mother was this man. That hard hand was soft and
delicate; that rough voice was tender and lisping; fond eyes followed
him as he played, and he was rocked and cradled as something holy. There
was a time when his heart, soft and unworn, might have opened to
questionings of God and Jesus, and been sealed with the seal of Heaven.
But harsh hands seized it; fierce goblin lineaments were impressed upon
it; and all is over with him forever!

So of the tender, weeping child is made the callous, heartless man; of
the all-believing child, the sneering sceptic; of the beautiful and
modest, the shameless and abandoned; and this is what _the world_ does
for the little one.

There was a time when the _divine One_ stood on earth, and little
children sought to draw near to him. But harsh human beings stood
between him and them, forbidding their approach. Ah, has it not always
been so? Do not even we, with our hard and unsubdued feelings, our
worldly and unspiritual habits and maxims, stand like a dark screen
between our little child and its Savior, and keep even from the choice
bud of our hearts the sweet radiance which might unfold it for Paradise?
"Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not," is still
the voice of the Son of God; but the cold world still closes around and
forbids. When, of old, disciples would question their Lord of the higher
mysteries of his kingdom, he took a little child and set him in the
midst, as a sign of him who should be greatest in heaven. That gentle
teacher remains still to us. By every hearth and fireside Jesus still
_sets the little child in the midst of us_.

Wouldst thou know, O parent, what is that _faith_ which unlocks heaven?
Go not to wrangling polemics, or creeds and forms of theology, but draw
to thy bosom thy little one, and read in that clear, trusting eye the
lesson of eternal life. Be only to thy God as thy child is to thee, and
all is done. Blessed shalt thou be, indeed, "_when a little child shall
lead thee_."

HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH MAMMON.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon of a dull winter day that Mr. H.
sat in his counting room. The sun had nearly gone down, and, in fact, it
was already twilight beneath the shadows of the tall, dusky stores, and
the close, crooked streets of that quarter of Boston. Hardly light
enough struggled