"Now I lay"—repeat it, darling;
'Lay me,' lisped the tiny lips
Of my daughter, kneeling, bending
O'er her folded finger-tips.
"Down to sleep"—'To sleep,' she murmured,
And the curly head dropped low;
"I pray the Lord"—I gently added,
You can say it all, I know.
"'Pray the Lord'—the word came faintly,
Fainter still—'My soul to keep;'
Then the tired head fairly nodded,
And the child was fast asleep.
"But the dewy eyes half opened
When I clasped her to my breast,
And the dear voice softly whispered,
'Mamma, God knows all the rest.'"
No. 154. Natural Language.—A youngster of only two and a half, who had often heard complaints in the family about pegs hurting the feet, stole up to his mother one day, with his fingers in his mouth, and said, "Mamma! O mamma! Me dut pegs tummin in my mouf, and dey hurts Billy." On further examination, he was found to be cutting no less than three little teeth.
No. 155. An embryo Theologian.—A little boy, disputing one day with his elder sister upon some Bible question, sung out, "I tell ye, it's true! for Ma says so; an' if Ma says so, it is so, if it ain't so." That boy's career is evident enough. Submission to authority, and sheer dogmatism, will be likely to overtop the pretensions of private judgment.
No. 156. Budding Subterfuges.—A little girl, belonging to Hartford, Connecticut, was called to account one day by her mother for killing flies. The amusement had become a serious occupation, and her dexterity in catching them was only to be matched by her astonishing aptitude in killing them. Her mother had begun to be frightened. "Mary, my love," said she, "don't you know that God loves the little flies?"
Mary stood for a few moments, lost in thought, her beautiful countenance growing sadder and sadder, as if her conscience had begun to testify against her in a whisper, just as poor Herod's might have done, after the slaughter of his innocents. At last, having apparently settled the question with herself, she stole up to the nearest window where a big blue-bottle was blundering and bumping about, and buzzing at a fearful rate. After watching it for several minutes, with a piteous expression, as if her heart were too full for speech, she began whispering just loud enough to be heard by her mother, "Do ee fy know dat Dod loves oo? Duz oo love Dod?"—stretching out her little hand as if to soothe its evident terror. "Duz oo? Duz oo want to zee Dod?—well," in a tone of the tenderest commiseration, putting her finger on the fly, and crushing it softly against the glass—"Well—oo sal!"
No. 157. A young Nero.—And this reminds me of something told me by General Fessenden, the father of all the general Fessendens we know of. "When I was a little fellow," said he, "not more than so high, the Old Adam within me (what we Phrenologists call Destructiveness, he meant) led me to pull off the wings of flies, and to impale them on pins, and set them buzzing at the end of a hair. My father, in passing one day, stopped long enough to catch me in the act. 'Nero!' said he, and passed on. 'Well,' said I to myself, 'what did he mean by that? Nero—Nero—I'll ask somebody.' I did so—found out who Nero was, and from that day to this, have never tormented any of God's creatures! And yet, he was a lawyer, in large practice—and I believed him—that is, I believed him, till I knew better."
No. 158. Total Depravity.—"Do you say your prayers every day, my little man—every night and morning?" said a mother in Israel to a little reprobate of a shoe-black, to whom she had just given a trifle. "Yes 'm,—I alluz says 'em at night, mum; but any smart boy can alluz take care o' hisself in the daytime," was the reply.