Speak gently to the little child!
Its love be sure to gain;
Teach it in accents soft and mild:
It may not long remain.
—Geo. W. Hangford.
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I Samuel ii, 18—"Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child; girded with a linen ephod."
The Rev. John Brown was born in 1722, in the county of Perth in Scotland. In a narrative of his experience, he remarks, "I reflect on it as a great mercy, that I was born in a family which took care of my Christian instruction, and in which I had the privilege of God's worship, morning and evening. About the eighth year of my age, I happened, in a crowd, to push into the church at Abernethy, on a Sacrament Sabbath. Before I was excluded, I heard a minister speak much in commendation of Christ; this, in a sweet and delightful manner, captivated my young affections, and has since made me think that children should never be kept out of church on such occasions."
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To impose on a child to get by heart a long scroll of phrases without any ideas, is a practice fitter for a jackdaw than for anything that wears the shape of man.
—Dr. I. Watts.
