Each child whose musical taste is developing, receives instruction in the laws of harmony and melodious sound; each child who loves art in its expressive form of painting or sculpture receives lessons from master-minds who delight to guide the awakening talent in its proper direction. All work in concord and all delight to please each other.
The rose and the acorn, the sparrow and the bee, the tinkling brook and the mossy stone, all speak a lesson of active, changing life to the child. The stars and the sunbeams breathe a lesson of divine goodness to him; and the spirit of all things is felt as he communes with Nature. And thus these children are prepared to go forth from their spirit lyceums breathing holy inspirations upon the lives of others, gently drawing them upward towards the life that knoweth all, the Love that enfoldeth everyone.
Oh, ye fathers and mothers, who weep in sorrow today because some darling has been taken from your earthly homes; did you realize how tenderly your loved one is cared for, into what a beautiful school your child has entered, to prepare him or her to become a glorious messenger of life and light and peace to the weary and the sad, you would not mourn, but rather rejoice that you have been permitted to offer up to the service of the Lord such a beautiful and pure missionary of love.
These spiritual lyceums, unlike your earthly gatherings of like import, convene daily; and the children and leaders, in constant association with each other, grow so in harmony together in sympathy and love, that they become a perfect whole, each one fitting naturally and beautifully into his or her place; and hence are enabled to perform an unequalled amount of good for humanity; and I have found that to these bands of holy angels, together with the efforts of the red race,—our Indian brothers,—belongs the credit of swinging back the pearly gates of immortal life, and setting them forever ajar, for the benefit of those who linger yet in mortal clay.
A GOLDEN-CHAIN RECITATION.
I would like to give you a specimen of the golden-chain recitations I listened to at the lyceum of Spring Garden City. The Guardian of the school recited the first line; the teachers of the various groups or classes followed on, in concert, with the second line; then the children of the first group recited the third line; the scholars of the second group the fourth line; and so on, until all had taken part in the exercise and become impressed with its beauty and devotional tendency; when all joined in the recitation of the last four lines.
Spirit of Life and Love!
To thee our souls we bring,
And lay them on Thy Fount of Truth,
Our purest offering.