* * * * *

I was walking this afternoon along a certain street, coming home from visiting certain sick persons, and wondering how I should conclude this essay, when, standing on the pavement on one side of the street, I saw a little boy four years old crying in great distress.  Various individuals, who appeared to be Priests and Levites, looked, as they passed, at the child’s distress, and passed on without doing anything to relieve it.  I spoke to the little man, who was in great fear at being spoken to, but told me he had come away from his home and lost himself, and could not find his way back.  I told him I would take him home, if he could tell me where he lived; but he was frightened into utter helplessness, and could only tell that his name was Tom, and that he lived at the top of a stair.  It was a poor neighborhood, in which many people live at the top of stairs, and the description was vague.  I spoke to two humble decent-looking women who were passing, thinking they might gain the little thing’s confidence better than I; but the poor little man’s great wish was just to get away from us,—­though, when he got two yards off, he could but stand and cry.  You may be sure he was not left in his trouble, but that he was put safely into his father’s hands.  And as I was coming home, I thought that here was an illustration of something I have been thinking of all this afternoon.  I thought I saw in the poor little child’s desire to get away from those who wanted to help him, though not knowing where to go when left to himself, something analogous to what the immature human being is always disposed to.  The whole teaching of our life is leading us away from our early delusions and follies, from all those things about us which have been spoken of under the similitude which need not be again repeated.  Yet we push away the hand that would conduct us to soberer and better things, though, when left alone, we can but stand and vaguely gaze about us; and we speak hardly of the growing experience which makes us wiser, and which ought to make us happier too.  Let us not forget that the teaching which takes something of the gloss from life is an instrument in the kindest Hand of all; and let us be humbly content, if that kindest Hand shall lead us, even by rough means, to calm and enduring wisdom,—­wisdom by no means inconsistent with youthful freshness of feeling, and not necessarily fatal even to youthful gayety of mood,—­and at last to that Happy Place where worn men regain the little child’s heart, and old and young are blest together.

REMINISCENCES OF STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.

I do not propose to enter upon a discussion of the question that now agitates the entire population of Brandon township, Vermont,—­namely, whether Douglas was born in the Pomeroy or the Hyatt mansion.  It is enough for our purpose to record the fact that he was born, and apparently well born,—­as, from the statement of Ann De Forrest, his nurse, he first appeared a stalwart babe of fourteen pounds weight.