And yet what intensity of feeling, this little unknowing, unconscious one awakens in its mother's heart! And were an infant a rare sight, what interest and admiration would it excite in a mere passer-by! What artistic perfection is exhibited in the proportion, and symmetry and grace of its baby-form! How lovely are those rounded arms, those fair dimpled hands! What delicacy in the coloring, and what beauty in the features of that small round face! And what serenity is imaged on that infantile brow! And that snowy curtaining lid, with its blue veins so delicately traced, and its dark silken fringe shading the rosy cheek on which it rests,— oh, what a sweet picture is a sleeping infant! Who but the heavenly Artist can thus paint? But that fair lid is raised, and from its bright mirror the soul looks out inquiringly, and seeing a kind face bent over it, what confidingness beams forth! Take its small soft hand;-how lovingly the tiny fingers cling around your own! It moves-it lifts its baby-arms. With what skill is joint fitted to joint, and with what ease and grace, every several part of this exquisite workmanship performs its office! Who but the al mighty Artificer can construct like this? These motions are now its involuntary exercise, strengthening the physical powers. But soon that little slumbering will awakes, and then,-strange mystery! its hidden springs begin to play, and all parts of that wonderful mechanism move cordantly with its secret impellings. Oh, this living miniature of man! "Who taught its pure and even breath To come and go with such sweet grace ?" who but He, that could now place his finger on that heart, and its beatings would be forever stilled? Then clasp not thy little one, fond mother, so closely to thy bosom. There is One lingering ever at thy threshold; and commissioned from on high, he may soon place his icy kiss upon that brow, and seal those lips in eternal silence. Make no idol then, of thy child, but hourly give it back to God. The New Bome. "Do what I may, go where I will, There dost thou glide before me still, I feel thy breath upon my cheek, Methinks thou smil'st before me now, The hair thrown back from thy full brow I see thine eyes' deep violet light, D. M. MOIR. It is natural to the human heart to undervalue present blessings. If in a bright summer's day, we recline under a shady tree, drinking in the balmy air of heaven, and listening to the warbling birds, the whispering trees, the singing brooks, and all nature's "unwritten music," while the eye rests dreamily upon a cloudless sky, or upon the flower-starred fields;-is there not enough to fill the senses with delight, and the heart with thanksgiving and love? Yet because this enjoyment is so often within our reach, of how little comparative worth is it to us! It is not till the sky is overcast, till the flowers are faded, and we are saddened and chilled by the cold breath of autumn,-it is not till then, that we realize how bright and beautiful was the summer's scene. So it is not till the clear sky of our domestic life is clouded, till its green leaf is sere and red, till the cherished flowers of our heart lie cold and dead before our eyes, and the bright summer of our home has passed forever;— it is not till we are shaken and bowed before grief's wild tempest, that we realize our past bliss. During the Spring, Carrie heard of the death of a little girl whom she knew. She talked much about her having "wings on," and "a gold harp in her hand," and said one day, that she thought her little friend was "in the cubbyhouse up in heaven." About this time, we were obliged to go through the discomforts of moving, a process more gratifying to children than to older people. Most distinct in my remembrance is the last afternoon we spent in that dear nursery. Carrie was in her element as she stood at the window, watching the loads of furniture, admiring the horses, and every now and then discovering some familiar article as it lay piled upon the wagon. "Oh, there are our chairs Louise," and "there mama, see our cunning little table." And she was full of what she was going to have and to do " in the new house." At length the carriage came, and dear Carrie passed for the last time through the yard over those planks, where her little feet had so often bounded along. She came with us for a season into our new home, to render it as the scene of her happiest and of her last days, dearer and more hallowed to our hearts in its indescribable desolation, than the brightest spot on earth. The children were delighted with the "cunning little room" opening from the nursery, which was to be their sleeping room and baby |