impeded by the unevenness of the way.  He must have stepped on some distance, when all of a sudden he was unable to proceed farther along the path, by the jutting out of a rock into the stream, for the water was pouring down rapidly and more profusely than was general, for there had been heavy rains in the mountains, and thus the bed of the torrent was fully covered, its width being very inconsiderable beneath the rock.  The spot was one wholly unknown to the child, and surely it was a terrible sight to meet the eye of a babe, who hitherto had not known what it was to be left without a mother’s or nurse’s care.  The place was in the heart of a mountain gorge, famed for its rare beauty, and the cascade came dashing from the rocks, which were very bold and picturesque in the little creek or gully where the child stood.  The water, as I said, was pouring down white with foam, and majestically pursuing its course, shaking the earth around with its terrible roarings.

Fancy our little forlorn one then standing under the shelter of the rock, which, hanging over him in rough masses, threatened to fall an crush his baby form, the stream rushing impetuously at his feet, and one little place beneath the rock, in fact part of the rock itself being somewhat elevated from the bed of the stream below, forming his only secure and dry resting place.  I have said before, he had no covering on fit for walking attire, his arms, neck, and head being fully exposed to the breezes which now blew cruelly on his young figure, so that he could scarcely keep his feet, and glad was he to creep under the shelter of the threatening rock.  There he stood looking around him in wild despair, for he had raised his voice to cry for pity, and its infant tones were not heard amidst the roaring waters; again and again he looked round him, but no help was there, and he trembled more from fear than cold.  He was frightened at the roaring waters, for they seemed to him to be approaching, and wholly overcome with fear and wretchedness, and quite incapable of contending against his unhappy situation, he crouched beneath the threatening rock, too miserable to shed a tear.  “Mamma, mamma,” he said,—­“Mamma, mamma,” and that weak cry was repeated again and again, though no human ear could hear his sorrows or soothe his cries.  Poor baby, what availed it then? your earthly father was the tenderest of parents—­he could not have foreseen this trouble, and therefore he could not have been armed against it, but your heavenly Father’s eye was on you, little one, and his eyes are ever on infants, the loveliest beings of his creation, and he who spared Nineveh, because there were in that wicked city more than six score thousand souls, who knew not their right hands from their left, still watches over his babies now, for has he not said of “Such is the kingdom of heaven.”