The Solace Of Childhood

A noted huniorist, speaking of our illustriuus ancostor, Adam, said that be was sorry for Adam becauso he had never been a child. Did you ever think what this meaus, to be born grownup Did you evor imagine what ít muat be to fiad one's elf created a taan, with all the airas and ambitíons ot a man, the forcé and the nbhusiaim, with all the glory of the present nnd the hope of the future, yet with do past? No past, with its bygone joys; 110 past, with its red letter dtys; no past, with its tender regrets? Imagine a bearded man who ha9 never been sco'.ded at his mother's knee, who has never knowa the trcmulous happinesa of first trousers, who ha never gone home with a fishing-hook in his thumb, who has never been plasterd and petted, never been spanked or mutton sueted. ís there any joy of manhood that equals boyieh frolics, or any pleasure that maturity offers that can efface ohildhood's footprints in muddy shoes? Few men come like Minerva, armed cap-a-pie from the head of a Jove, ready to tight life's battle. It takes the pebbles gathered by childish hands to lay a secure foundation on which the span of hfe may arch itself with that gradual growth which means safety. Childhood has its illa, of course, as the rainbow bas its purple and the sunshine ite shadowa. But childhood's grieta are evanescent. As the dew on the rose becomes a brilliant in the sun, ïo the child's sorrow soon vanishes when chased by affection's light. It ia a well-known fact that when a man hves beyond that space allotted him by the Psalmist, when this "lean and slippered pautalom" taiks of by-?one days, he seldom speaks of his prime, or the gay gomgs-on of his early manhood, but tis ot his childhood's happy days he prates. of the day he went bird-nesting, m rt fïia nitrrWf Via rrnf lnaf ín t.liö Hnmv And as time grows on, and death draws near, what do the fjreat majority see with their dyintr eyes or speak with their tiffemng hps? Like little children, thoy totter once more, weary with gtriv ing, babbling of baby dayg, stretchmfr out their hands for help. And they go back to childhood, even to babyhood, for tbat solace of tendemess that s man feels twice, the first time at his mother'a brenst, the last time in his Father's rest.