Page:Letters to Mothers (1839).djvu/20

viii germ quickened by Spring, it opens the folding-doors of its little heart, and puts forth the thought, the preference, the affection, like filmy radicles, or timid tendrils, seeking where to twine.

Ah! how much have we to learn, that we may bring this beautiful and mysterious creature, to the light of knowledge, the perfect bliss of immortality! Hath any being on earth, a charge more fearfully important, than that of the Mother? God help us to be faithful, in proportion to the immensity of our trust.

The soul, the soul of the babe, whose life is nourished by our own! Every trace that we grave upon it, will stand forth at the judgment, when the "books are opened." Every waste-place, which we leave through neglect, will frown upon us, as an abyss, when the mountains fall, and the skies shrivel like a scroll. Wherever we go, let us wear as a signet-ring, "the child! the child!" Amid all the musick of life, let this ever be the key-tone, "the soul of our child." L. H. S.