"I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my father which is in heaven."[1] Thus early is the love of our Heavenly Father shown, in gifting us with little joys, almost before we have a conscious natural understanding, or any distinct ideas or feelings. Thus are the infant's first teachings and delights from within—directly from the Lord and His angels.
And, in these first gifts of the charms and sweets of innocence, how does our Heavenly Father manifest His perfect impartiality—showing thus, indeed, from the very first, that He is "no respecter of persons," but loves equally all his children. Go to the poorest hovel in the land—a place so wretched that the proud sons of earth scorn to enter or look into it—and you will find that angels are not ashamed to be there. See that little infant lying by its mother on the straw, with scarce a rag to cover it, and its little face unwashed—yet he, too, smiles in his sleep: angels are his visitants even in that lowly cot, and in despite of poverty and squalor. For it is the soul they visit; and this infant's spirit is as bright and cleanly in the sight bf God and of them, as that in yonder palace. And when the child wakes, he will show, as it were, the effects of his interior angelic association, by a similar indifference to outward trifles. What cares he for such things? He laughs in his infant glee; and sitting on the ground, grasps the few toys that he may possess, or, for want of better, the little round pebbles (nature's toys) which his poor parents have laid before him, and clutches them in his little fingers with as much ardour and delight, as the richest child in the land feels, with his
- ↑ Matt. xviii. 10.
