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102 foretaste of that heaven, whither the soul is soon to be called away. The peaee and innocence of a wise old age have in them, indeed, something most beautiful as well as venerable. The innocence of infancy, truly is ever charming; the helplessness, the pretty motions and unconscious graces of the little new being are attractive to every observer: but the "innocence of wisdom," as it has well been termed,—the childlike simplicity, joined to profound sagacity, the fruit of knowledge ripened by experience and mellowed by goodness, which are to be seen in the countenance of a wise and spiritual-minded old man—is still more beautiful. Such, indeed, is the character of angelic beauty itself. We often see in pictures, or sculptured on monuments, the faces of angels, and they are generally represented as infantine; not that angels can really be infants, for an infant knows nothing, and as yet can hardly be said even to have feelings or affections, whereas an angel is both a wise being, and full of love. But the reason they are so represented, is from a deep perception in the mind, that innocence—that is, a state of utter absence of pride, or thought or consciousness of self, which is the characteristic charm of infancy,—is also the essential principle of heaven and of the angelic character. The difference, however, between infantile innocence and angelic innocence, is, that the former is joined with ignorance, and is only external or on the surface, while the latter is united with the highest wisdom, and has its seat in the very depths of the soul, whence it radiates in lines of beauty through the countenance. Now, in a good old man, we may note a similar character: in his face there beams a childlike innocence, but joined with wisdom; and