to a jest, seeing ever a playful and humorous side, where age and sullens can only see perverseness, if not malignity; and if Philip had only practised other lessons of a similar kind, that might have been had in such a bower as this, the estimate now formed of his character by the generous part of mankind, would not be, as we before remarked, exactly what it is at present.

In general, I think that these suggestions will not be set down as wholly unfounded. Let men become like children; let them form themselves in this school by the manners and thoughts of juveniles, and they will certainly have many qualities in common with those who aim at the highest perfection; they will have neither presumption nor indocility; their genius will lose nothing in regard to grace and joyousness, but it will have no false-edged criticism or secret malignity; there will be no imposture and duplicity in their wisdom; their friendship will have no less tenderness, but it will have no cowardly complaisance; politeness will have no less attention and consideration, but it will have no mask and no hypocrisy. "Sanctity," says the Père de Neuville, "is never more in accordance with the world, than when it says anathema to those vices of the world which are so injurious to it. Nothing is so capable as sanctity to form a man perfect and accomplished according to the world. Sanctity is opposed, not to the duties and obligations, but to the abuses and scandals of the world*." In point of fact, this kind of sanctity constitutes the spirit of the bower. This can be proved.

And for my part I am inclined to think that if men throw all overboard which belongs to the juveniles, whatever sublime art they may propose to learn, whatever retreats they may be invited to make, whatever exercises to follow, whatever instructions to listen to, the chance of their succeeding to realize this type of perfection in their own character will be small indeed.

In conclusion, we may say of children and of the young, what this great orator predicates of the saints in the following remarkable words,—" qui sunt et unde venerunt?" The world itself will tell you that they have been in the world without

*Pour la Fête de tous les Saints.

taking the spirit of the world, or being governed by its false maxims. They were rich without the love of riches; poor without envy; in the midst of a deceitful world, they were true and sincere; in an ambitious and interested world, they were without the desire of honours; in a hard and insensible world, they were tender and generous; in a haughty and insulting world, they were modest and considerate; in a sensual and voluptuous world, innocent and pure. We might go on to fill up the outlines of this portrait, by using those heavenly tints which consist in fidelity to the doctrine of the beatitudes:

"Verum hæc ipse equidem, spatiis exclusus iniquis,
Prætereo, atque aliis post commemoranda relinquo."

CHAPTER IX.

BANK of wild flowers along a dusty road, will not invite, or at least persuade all persons to stop and recline on it. But there are little mites that desire nothing better for the moment, especially as they remember perhaps having had a serious guerilla fight at the very

spot with small flint stones, repelling an unprovoked attack from sundry rustic juveniles no bigger than themselves. Their position in respect to the enemy on that memorable day, was no doubt favourable, as it commanded the road, by the gentle rise of the ground; but the assailants were better provided with ammunition. The unprovoked attack seemed to awaken martial propensities in little John, who gallantly headed our brigade. What was the casus belli, no one could say; but each side knew not how to find any natural expression for their respective opinions, except, as De Quincey says, "through discharges of stones, that being a language older than Hebrew or Sanscrit, and universally intelligible." Whatever may have become of the opposing heroes now, our little combatants have long in mind made it up with them. So here

we are in undisturbed peace, to vary our scenery and “hold our bower," as it were, on the open plains, with nothing to interrupt our view of the whole blue vault of heaven; and by the way, let us observe, that it is generally the young who seem most pleased with the sky. If grown-up people, in their moments of utter idleness and insipidity, turn to it as a last resource, "which of its phenomena," asks a great author, "do they speak of? One says it has been wet, another, it has been windy. Who, among the whole chattering crowd, can tell me of the forms and the precipices of the chain of tall white mountains that girded the horizon at noon yesterday?" By children, the aerial scenery has not passed unregretted as unseen. They can describe it to you, and tell you all about its changes and its beauty. Seated then on the road-side thus, our little troop, when it condescends to turn to earth, seems prepared to laugh goodhumouredly with the merry passengers from Cockayne that sweep by every half-hour, though by no means to scrutinize them with any sauciness. Indeed, a road is often a good scene to introduce some conversation about kind, good-humoured, charitable deeds and words; for it is on the highways of this hot world that many most need them.

Through these divisions of our subject, we are following what might be termed a visible, and not a philosophic order, noticing things just as they most prominently strike our eyes, and not ranking them according to the place which belongs to the principles from which they spring; or, in other words, instead of studying the seed or the root first, it is the shoot, or leaves and fruit of the plant and tree that we begin with.

Proceeding then to consider in detail, as any one may do, some of these highest virtues which can be learned from youth and childhood, the first that presents itself is charity, for the study and attainment of which all persons might be referred to them pre-eminently, as among its best and most effective teachers.

Charity strikes our attention even before we think of faith, because its leaves, and blossoms, and fruits are so beautiful to the least cultivated eye, that we cannot engage in examining its root until we have pleased ourselves with admiring them; and, in fact, though we may not be aware of it, these delicate

charms are among the first attractions which draw and rivet us to the Children's Bower.

I know, indeed, that all these are trite subjects, worn out by men of the pen; by no one, perhaps, rendered more insipid, through repetition and citations, than by the author of these sheets; but as nature's oldest sights and stories seem new to those weary of them, when they remark the lively impressions that they produce on the fresh minds of the young to whom they are novel, so may all these things, however long familiar, sparkle out afresh, and acquire the charm of originality, when we view them, as it were, from this bower, and observe their wonderful affinities with the affections and actions, with the thoughts and language, with the spirit, or, if we prefer such a term, with the genius of childhood and of youth.

Charity, as learned from the Children's Bower, may be divided into two branches. It may be observed, first, as the disposition to pity and forgive offenders, to understand the forgiveness of men for faults, transgressions, and mistakes; to pity men as debtors, as prodigal sons, as outcasts, as victims of error; to pardon them, and to bless God for pardoning them. This is the first division of our theme. It may be considered, secondly, as being the disposition to pity men for their afflictions, for their wants and miseries, as the poor and the unhappy; and this will form the second part of the present chapter.

What are often the grown-up persons, who come as strangers to the bower, in regard to the first of these dispositions? It is the remark of St. Augustin, "that God does not esteem man so little, as one man esteems another man *." Contempt of man is the spirit of what is called the world; and in allusion to this need of what is taught here, we may repeat the poet's words, and say,

Into the bosom, you may see the light

Of the clear, heavenly eye grow cold and dim,
And the fine, upright glory of the brow,

Cloud with mistrust, and the unfetter'd lip,
That was as free and changeful as the wind,
Even in sadness redolent of love,

Curl'd with the iciness of a constant scorn.
It eats into the mind, till it pollutes
All its pure fountains. Feeling, reason, taste,
Breathe of its chill corruption. Every sense
That could convey a pleasure is benumb'd,
And the bright human being, that was made
Full of all warm affections, and with power
To look through all things lovely up to God,
Is changed into a cold and doubting fiend,

With but one use for reason,-to despise *."

The grown-up world forgives not. As Overbury says, "Usque ad ultimum quadrantem," is the period of all its charity. It says the Lord's Prayer backwards, or rather, it hath a Pater noster of its own, and that particle, "forgive us as we forgive others," it either quite leaves out, or else leaps over it. It is a dangerous rub in the alloy of its conscience. If they who ever injured it were only as dear to heaven as to it, the dogs and vultures would soon eat them, according to the amiable suggestion of the blind Homer. In fact, if you believe SaintSimon, the Duchesse de Nemours verified all this to the letter. She could not pardon, and when she used to be asked if she ever said the Pater, she replied, "yes, but that she always skipt the article about forgiving enemies t." The grown-up world speaks through Cæsar, saying, that some things alleged in excuse of others

"Might fire the blood of ordinary men,

And turn pre-ordinance and first decree
Into the law of children."

But it will not be thawed from the true quality with that which melteth them. In brief, and in point of fact, as an old writer said of some, "such is its charity that it never owes any man

* Willis.

† vi. 1.