to that age. And for this there are several reasons. The innocence of infancy has not yet entirely departed from the childish mind; its heavenly influences still hang about the young spirit, as if loth to depart,—like the purple and golden hues of early dawn, slowly fading into the clearer but less charming light of the full morning. Those guardian angels, too, that watched over the infant's peaceful slumbers, and infused the joyous dreams that lighted its cherub face with smiles,—still watch their charge, though as it were more distantly; and their blest influence is still felt, in a degree, in the boyish heart, and sometimes kindles beaming looks, which seem to the fond mother like lights from the heavenly world. And so they are. Childhood's joy, like the blessedness of infancy, is truly a gift from heaven and from the Lord. The same Divine love, in the good Father of all, which breathed into the infant its peace, pours into the heart of the child its full tide of delight and happiness. Whence else can it be derived than from Him who is the "Prince of Peace," and who possesses in Himself infinite joy?
The reason why those bright joys of childhood begin to fade as years increase, and at length quite lose themselves amidst the excitements and passions of youth and the cares of manhood,—is not merely because the outward worlds into which the youth enters, is filled with such excitements and such cares, but it is from a deeper cause. It is because, as the character develops, the hidden, innate propensities to evil, bad passions, and hard selfishness,—which, in the present disordered state of human nature, every one inherits from his parents and ancestors,—begin then to develop themselves. The outward covering of infantile and childish innocence,
