in the thought of men, with the power of proverbs, the experience of thousands condensed into the word of one.

What a gift, to be able to sing for the world! To put into the form, and to give the power of wings to pure, holy, uplifting thought, so that it shall fly over the land and sea, lighting on the cot of the sick one in the lowly valley, and then flying into the palace window, where the smitten queen mourns her beloved dead; cheering the wearied laborer when his day's work is over, and rousing the nation's heart with stirring song:

"Sail on, O ship of State!

Sail on, O Union strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate !"

The best gifts of God are by some most basely abused. But when a nation, yes, a race, the human race, wherever English speech is known, is silently sad in hearing of Longfellow's death, mourning that a friend to whom they are in debt for comfort and aid, is gone, I think how good and how blessed it is to have filled the world with music without one false note; with pictures and not a canvas on which an eye can look with pain; with thoughts all and only pure, and purifying; making rich and adding no sorrow; songs to be sung in all time to exalt, console and bless. Happy the poet who sleeps under wreaths from all lands! happy the poet whose songs have made the whole world kin!

EMERSON AND THE CHILDREN.

IT was not my pleasure to spend more than one evening in company with Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Then he made but one remark which left a memorable impression on my mind. Two children of the gentleman at whose house we met were playing in the room, when their father remarked:

"Just the interesting age."

“And at what age,” asked Mr. Emerson, "are children not interesting?" He regarded them with the eye of a philosopher and a poet, and doubtless saw the possibilities that surround their very being with infinite interest.

With the added view of a Christian believer, considerations of eternity as well as of time invest the child with a sentiment in the highest degree sublime.

So much of play and prattle is associated with infancy and childhood, that it requires a little thought to get hold of the serious and wonderful that surround and pervade an existence suddenly merged in our own, and to be associated with ours through the life that now is, perhaps always. Mr. Emerson would apprehend all this, and in the child playing on the floor would see a future hero, perhaps an angel.

To me there is nothing in social life more disagreeable than a child assuming to be a man. It is better for a child, when a child, to be a child. To think as a child and to speak as a child was what one of the greatest men said he did when he was one. Old heads on young shoulders are out of place. To be natural is far more pleasing than affectation, however smart the child may be. The interesting is not to be found in what the child is taught to do and say, beyond its years, out of the line of easy development, but in the spontaneous outcome of the child-soul that animates its little body, and gives signs of the budding genius and the swelling heart. The speeches of little children are often garnered, and repeated to admiring friends, but they are not so much admired for their evidence of smartness beyond their years, as they are for those strange associations of ideas that give them the semblance of inspiration. They are so odd and unexpected, they excite wonder, and fond parents imagine there never were such children before.

I have often tried to imagine what children are thinking about as they lie in the cradle, long before they have learned a word. They do think, and words are not needful to thoughts. It is well to bear this in mind when playing with them. Impressions for good or evil may be made on an in

fant's mind, in the first months of its life, and continued to old age. We do not sufficiently appreciate this susceptibility. We notice its words and ways, without thinking that what we are saying and doing will have much to do with its future health of body and soul. It has often surprised me to be assured by parents that their children read these letters of mine in the Observer from week to week. Some have told me that their children read them all, and make them the subject of conversation. And that fact wakes me up to the thought that very little can be done for the young after they have ceased to be children. At any age in childhood they are interesting, from an infant of a week old to the time when they pass out of their teens, and they are children all that time, infants in the eye of the law, though the word infant means unspeaking only. It was this thought that commended the children, little children, to the Great Teacher, and led him to say of such is the kingdom. Few of the older people are brought in. Therefore he would have little children come unto him. There is no point of time in the child's life when it may not be made the subject of the grace that saves. And if the child has lived to be old enough to read, and has not learned the way of life through Jesus Christ, just so much time has been lost already, and so much greater the need of diligence in seeking after God. Get the heart set on him and his service, and all the rest of life's work will be safe, easy, and will finally end in glory.

There is great difference among men in the interest they take in children. Mr. Emerson was ardently and always interested in them. I have known very great men who found pleasure in playing with children, even in the most childish games. One of my friends being shown into the palace of the king of France, found him on his hands and knees romping with his children, as he told me, "just like any private father." I should think so. Why not? Being king he did not cease to be a man, and as a man he loved the children. They interested him as they did the Concord philosopher. And there is a great difference in children, which explains the lack of interest which people take in

them. Mr. Jerrold said he was always glad to have children cry in company, because they were then carried out. Such a man would make a child cry any time. It keeps the old man young, and it makes the child wise betimes to have the old and young mingle in domestic and social life. There are sports that the old may enjoy without loss of dignity, and the young always delight in them fourfold if the elder people join them heartily. But the stiff, formal, dignified style of living is good neither for the parents nor the children. Cheerful familiarity does not lead to disrespect, but it does inspire love and confidence, it does encourage obedience, and fills the house with sunshine which is good for the body as well as for the soul.

Mr. Canning was Prime Minister of England, and being one morning at the house of a nobleman, was urged by his friend to step into the nursery and speak to the children. He begged to be excused, and assured his friend he could not say anything if he should go in. But the nobleman would not let him off. "Come in; the children will remember it all their lives that the Prime Minister came into the nursery and spoke to them.”

Over-persuaded, Mr. Canning went in with his friend, looked at the children to whom he was introduced, and for the life of him could not think of a word to say! He turned about, and retired in confusion. He who could sway senates with his eloquence, and keep the dinner-table in a roar with his wit, could not say a word to children. Mr. Emerson was more interested in children than Mr. Canning. Few men have a gift for interesting children in conversation or public speech. Some talk to them as if they were babes, I wish baby-talk could be abolished altogether. Some talk to them as if they were a class in metaphysics. "I will now give you," said a grave and reverend divine of this city to a Sabbath-school, “a summary of this lesson. But perhaps you do not know what a summary is; it is a compendium, an epitome, a synopsis." And so he piled the big words upon them till they were nearly smothered.

One who loves little children finds them interesting al

ways, and has no great trouble in making himself interesting to them. When I was younger than I am now I met with the lines, being the reflections of an old man who has found a flock of children sporting in the hay:

"I love to look on a scene like this,

Of wild and ceaseless play,

And persuade myself I am not old,
And my locks are not yet gray."

And it does one good; it is good for his health and his work, good for his friends, that the old should keep himself fresh by intercourse with the young. Old age will come soon enough, with all its infirmities of mind, body, and spirit, when the strong men bow themselves, and a grasshopper is a burden. Happy is he who, like Mr. Emerson, is always interested in children. It was a beautiful tribute the children paid him when, on his return from Europe, they assembled and formed a double line through which he walked into his own door.

HOURS WITH GEORGE RIPLEY.

It was my purpose, when Mr. Ripley passed away, to have the enjoyment of an hour in writing of that remarkable and interesting man.

The perusal of his Life by Mr. Frothingham has revived the purpose, and at the same time has furnished me with many features of his character which were not familiar to me before. Many will see these lines who never heard of George Ripley, except as one of the editors of the New York Tribune and of "Appletons' Encyclopædia." They do not know that in early life he was a minister in the Unitarian connection, and the founder of the Brook Farm community, a socialistic association that had a short life near Boston some forty years ago. Those who knew Mr. Ripley as an elegant man of society and letters, courtly in manners and