Aquilius.—"Hymns in Prose!" Is not that one of Mrs Barbauld's books for children, I have often heard mothers say, "that is so very good?"
Curate.—Oh yes! Here it is in Lydia's library.
Aquilius.—Open it—any where.
Curate.—Well, now, I do not think the information given to the child here is quite correct in its order, for I think the parent of the mother must be the child's grandmother. "The mother loveth her little child; she bringeth it up on her knees; she nourisheth its body with food."
Aquilius.—A very unnatural parent if she did not. It is very new information for a child. Well, go on.
Curate.—"She feedeth its mind with knowledge. If it is sick, she nurseth it with tender love; she watcheth over it when asleep; she forgetteth it not for a moment."
Aquilius.—A most exemplary and extraordinary mother—not a moment! Go on.
Curate.—"She teacheth it how to be good; she rejoiceth daily in its growth." I do not see the connexion between the "teaching to be good" and the growth. "But who is the parent of the mother? Who nourisheth her with good things, and watcheth over her with tender love, and remembereth her every moment? Whose arms are about her to guard her from harm?"
Aquilius.—Stay a moment—whose arms? Why, the husband's to be sure; which the child may have seen, and need not have been told as a lesson.
Curate.—"And if she is sick, who shall heal her?" Now, you would say, the apothecary, and so would the child naturally answer; but that would not be according to the "rational plan." The riddle is to have a religious solution—"God is the parent of the mother; he is the parent of all, for he created all."