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CHILDHOOD AND CHILDREN.

Crying they creep among us like young cats.
Cares and continual crosses keeping with them,
They make time old to tend them, and experience
An ass, they alter so; they grow and goodly
Ere we can turn our thoughts, like drops of water
They fall into the main, are known no more.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Mad Lover.

What benefit can children be
But charges and disobedience? what's the
Love they render at one and twenty years?
I pray die, father: when they are young, they
Are like bells rung backwards, nothing but noise
And giddiness.

Beaumont and Fletcher's Wit without Money.
Look here and weep with tenderness and transport!
What is all tasteless luxury to this?

To these best joys, which holy love bestows?
Oh nature, parent nature, thou alone
Art the true judge of what can make us happy.
Thomson's Agamemnon.
O what passions then,

What melting sentiments of kindly care,
On the new parents seize.

Thomson's Seasons.

Meantime a smiling offspring rises round,
And mingles both their graces. By degrees,
The human blossom blows; and every day,
Soft as it rolls along, shows some new charm,
The father's lustre, and the mother's bloom.
Thomson's Seasons.
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe the enlivening spirit and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast!
Thomson's Seasons.
Thanks to the gods, my boy has done his duty!
-Portius, when I am dead, be sure you place
His urn near mine.

Addison's Cato.

Self-flattered, unexperienced, high in hope,
When young, with sanguine cheer, and streamers

gay,

We cut our cable, launch into the world,
And fondly dream each wind and star our friend.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Why was my prayer accepted? why did heav'n
In anger hear me, when I ask'd a son?

Hannah More's Moses. Then gathering round his bed, they climb to share

His kisses, and with gentle violence there,
Break in upon a dream not half so fair.

Rogers's Human Life.

67

The hour arrives, the moment wish'd and fear'd⚫
The child is born by many a pang endear'd,
And now the mother's ear has caught his cry;
O grant the cherub to her asking eye!
He comes-she clasps him. To her bosom press'd
He drinks the balm of life, and drops to rest.
Rogers's Human Life.
When heaven and angels, earth and earthly things
Do leave the guilty in their guiltiness—
A cherub's voice doth whisper in a child's
There is a shrine within thy little heart
Where I will hide, nor hear the trump of doom.
Maturin's Bertram.
Thou art my daughter-never lov'd as now—
Thou mountain maid,—thou child of liberty!
Urilda! well from Uri's height I nam'd thee,
Free as its breezes,-purer than its snows!

Maturin's Fredolfo.

Lo! at the couch where infant beauty sleeps,
Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps;
She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies,
Smiles on her slumbering child with pensive eyes,
And weaves a song of melancholy joy—

Sleep, image of thy father, sleep my boy:
No lingering hour of sorrow shall be thine;
No sigh that rends thy father's heart and mine;
Bright as his manly sire, the sun shall be,

In form and soul; but ah! more bless'd than he.
Thy fame, thy worth, thy filial love, at last,
Shall soothe his aching heart for all the past,
With many a smile my solitude repay,
And chase the world's ungenerous scorn away."
Campbell's Pleasures of Hope.
He smiles and sleeps!-sleep on

And smile, thou little young inheritor
Of a world scarce less young: sleep on and smile!
Thine are the hours and days when both are
cheering

And innocent.

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To aid thy mind's development—to watch
Thy dawn of little joys-to sit and see
Almost thy very growth-to view thee catch
Knowledge of objects-wonders yet to thee!
To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee,
And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss-
This, it should seem, was not reserv'd for me!
Yet this was in my nature:-as it is,

I know not what is there, yet something like to
this.
Byron's Childe Harold.
But thou wilt burst this transient sleep,
And thou wilt wake, my babe, to weep;
The tenant of a frail abode,

Thy tears must flow as mine have flow'd:
Beguil'd by follies every day,
Sorrow must wash the faults away,
And thou may'st wake, perchance to prove
The pang of unrequited love.

Byron to his Daughter. Yet a fine family is a fine thing, (Provided they don't come in after dinner ;) "Tis beautiful to see a matron bring Her children up (if nursing them don't thin her.) Byron's Don Juan.

Heaven lies about us in our infancy.

Wordsworth. The young! Oh, what should wondering fancy

bring,

In life's first spring-time, but the thought of spring!
Mrs. Norton.

And thou, my boy! that silent at my knee
Dost lift to mine thy soft, dark, earnest eyes,
Fill'd with the love of childhood.-
Mine own! whose feelings fresh before me rise;
Is it not much that I may guide thy prayer,
And circle thy glad soul with free and healthful
air?
Mrs. Hemans.
Thou art looking now at the birds, Genie,

But oh, do not wish their wing;

That would tempt the fowler, Genie,

Stay thou on earth and sing.

Stay in the nursing nest, Genie,

Be not soon thence beguil'd;

Thou wilt ne'er find a second, Genie,
Never be twice a child.

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And yet we check and chide

The airy angels as they float about us,
With rules of so-call'd wisdom, till they grow
The same tame slaves to custom and the world.
Mrs. Osgood

I know he's coming by this sign,

That baby's almost wild;

See how he laughs and crows and starts—
Heaven bless the merry child!

He's father's self in face and limb,

And father's heart is strong in him.
Shout, baby, shout! and clap thy hands,
For father on the threshold stands.

Mary Howitt. Of all the joys that brighten suffering earth, What joy is welcom'd like a new-born child!

Sleep, little baby! sleep!
Not in thy cradle bed,
Not on thy mother's breast-
But with the quiet dead.

Mrs. Norton.

Mrs. Southey

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Of will, not voice; of an internal suffrage,
Not outward sound.

On other shores, above their mould'ring towns,
In sullen pomp the tall cathedral frowns,
Tragedy of Cicero. Pride in its aisles, and paupers at the door,
Which feeds the beggars whom it fleeced of yore,
Simple and frail, our lowly Temples throw
Their slender shadows on the paths below;
Scarce steal the winds, that sweep his woodland

So much to win, so much to lose,
No marvel that I fear to choose.

Miss Landon.
Think not too meanly of thy low estate;
Thou hast a choice; to choose is to create!
Remember whose the sacred lips that tell,
Angels approve thee when thy choice is well;
Use well the freedom which thy Master gave.
O. W. Holmes.

CHURCH.

To kirk the nar, to God more far,
Has been an old said saw;
And he that strives to touch a star,
Oft stumbles at a straw.

Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar.
You rais'd these hallow'd walls; the desert smil'd,
And paradise was open'd in the wild.
No weeping orphan saw his father's stores,
Our shrines irradiate, or emblaze the floors;
No silver saints by dying misers given,
Here bribe the rage of ill requited heaven;
But such plain roofs as piety could raise,
And only vocal with the maker's praise.

Pope's Eloisa to Abelard.

Here some are thinkin' on their sins,
An' some upo' their claes;

Ane curses feet that fyl'd his shins,
Anither sighs an' prays:

On this hand sits a chosen swatch,
Wi' screw'd up, grace-proud faces:
On that, a set o' chaps at watch,
Thrang winkin' on the lasses.

Why should we crave a hallow'd spot?
An altar is in each man's cot,

A church in every grove that spreads
Its living roof above our heads.

tracks,

The larch's perfume from the settler's axe,
Ere, like a vision of the morning air,

prayer!

His slight framed steeple marks the house of
O. W. Holmes.
But when the sabbath gatherings press,

Like armies from the wilderness,
'Tis then the dim, old woods afford

The sanctuary of the Lord:

The Holy Spirit breathes around-
That forest glade is sacred ground,
Nor Temple built with hands could vie
In glory with its majesty.
The trees, like living columns rise,
Whose tops sustain the bending skies;
And o'er those earnest worshippers
God's love, like holy roof is spread,
And every leaf the zephyr stirs
Some heavenly promise seems to shed.

Mrs. Hale

Look on this edifice of marble made-
How fair it swells too beautiful to fade.
See what fine people in its portals crowd,
Smiling and greeting, talking, laughing loud!
What is it! Surely not a gay Exchange
Where Wit and Beauty social joys arrange,
Not a grand shop where late Parisian styles
Attract rich buyers from a thousand miles?
But step within: no need of further search,
Behold, admire a fashionable church!

Look how its oriel window glints and gleams,
Burns. What tinted light magnificently streams
On the proud pulpit, carved with quaint device.
Where velvet cushions exquisitely nice,
Press'd by the polish'd preacher's dainty hands
Hold a large volume clasp'd by golden bands
Park Benjamin

Wordsworth.

CLERGY AND CHURCHMEN.

But if thee list unto the court to throng,
And there to hunt after the hoped prey,
Then must thou thee dispose another way;
For there thou needs must learn to laugh, to lie,
To face, to forge, to scoff to company,
To cranch, to please to be a beetle-stock
Of thy great master's will, to scorn, to mock;
So maist thou chance mark out a benefice,
Unless thou canst one conjure by device,
Or cast a figure for a bishoprick;

And if one could, it were but a school trick.
These be the ways by which without reward,
Livings in courts be gotten, though full hard.
Spenser's Mother Hubbard's Tale.

Their sheep have crusts, and they the bread;
The chips and they the cheer:
They have the fleece, and eke the flesh,
(O seely sheep the while!)

The corn is theirs-let others thresh,
Their hands they may not file.

Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar. Schoolmen must war with schoolmen, text with text;

The first's the Chaldee's paraphrase; the next
The Septuagint's: opinion thwarts opinion;
The Papist holds then the first, th' last th' Ar-

minian;,

And then the councils must be call'd t' advise, What this of Lat'ran says, what that of Nice.

F. Quarles.

Free will's disputed, consubstantiation,
And the deep ocean of predestination,
Where, daring venture oft too far into 't,
T'hey, Pharaoh like, are drown'd both horse and
foot.
F. Quarles.

My trade is a fine, easy, gainful cheat;
How easy 't is saintship to counterfeit,
And pleasing fables to invent and spread,
And fools ne'er find the cheat till they are dead.
Crown's English Friar.
Make not the church to us an instrument
Of bondage, to yourselves of liberty:
Obedience there confirms your government,
Our sovereigns, God's subalterns, you be.

Lord Brooks's Alaham.

It never was a prosperous world Since priests have interfer'd with temporal matters; The custom of their ancestors they slight, And change their shirts of hair for robes of gold; Thus luxury and interest rule the church, Whilst piety and conscience dwell in caves. Bancroft's Fall of Mortimer.

Hood an ass with rev'rend purple,
So you can hide his two ambitious ears,
And he shall pass for a cathedral doctor.
Jonson's Volponi

Love and meekness, lord,

Become a churchman better than ambition:
Win straying souls with modesty again,
Cast none away.

Shaks. Henry VIII
But you misuse the reverence of your place;
Employ the countenance and grace of heaven,
As a favourite doth his prince's name
In deeds dishonourable.

Shaks. 2d part of Henry IV

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own road.

Shaks. Hamlet.

Babble on, ye priests, amuse mankind
With idle tales of flames and torturing fiends,
And starry crowns, for patient sufferings here:
Yes, gull the crowd, and gain their earthly goods,
For feign'd reversions in a heavenly state.

W. Shirley's Parricide.
Then might you see

Cowls, hoods, and habits with their wearers tost
And flutter'd into rags; then reliques, beads,
Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,

The sport of winds; all these upwhirl'd aloft
Fly to the rearward of the world far off
Into a limbo large and broad, since call'd
The paradise of fools.

Milton's Paradise Lost.
Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,
White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Wolves shall succeed for teachers, grievous wolves,
Who all the sacred mysteries of heaven
To their own vile advantages shall turn,
Of lucre and ambition, and the truth
With superstitions and traditions taint.

Milton's Paradise Lost.

Then shall they seek to avail themselves of names,
Places, and titles, and with these to join
Secular power, though feigning still to act
By spiritual, to themselves appropriating
The spirit of God, promis'd alike and given
To all believers; and from that pretense,
Spiritual laws by carnal pow'r shall force
On every conscience; laws which none shall find
Left them enroll'd, or what the spirit within
Shall on the heart engrave.

Milton's Paradise Lost

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