of right, the dawn of a new era,—­all, all were hidden from her behind a lump of wax.  And what was true of her is true of all her class.  Having eyes, they see not; with their ears they do not hear.  The din of arms, the waving of banners, the gleam of swords, fearful sights and great signs in the heavens, or the still, small voice that thrills when wind and fire and earthquake have swept by, may proclaim the coming of the Lord, and they stumble along, munching bread-and-butter.  Out in the solitudes Nature speaks with her many-toned voices, and they are deaf.  They have a blind sensational enjoyment, such as a squirrel or a chicken may have, but they can in no wise interpret the Mighty Mother, nor even hear her words.  The ocean moans his secret to unheeding ears.  The agony of the underworld finds no speech in the mountain-peaks, bare and grand.  The old oaks stretch out their arms in vain.  Grove whispers to grove, and the robin stops to listen, but the child plays on.  He bruises the happy buttercups, he crushes the quivering anemone, and his cruel fingers are stained with the harebell’s purple blood.  Rippling waterfall and rolling river, the majesty of sombre woods, the wild waste of wilderness, the fairy spirits of sunshine, the sparkling wine of June, and the golden languor of October, the child passes by, and a dipper of blackberries, or a pocketful of chestnuts, fills and satisfies his horrible little soul.  And in face of all this people say—­there are people who dare to say—­that childhood’s are the “happiest days.”

I may have been peculiarly unfortunate in my surroundings, but the children of poetry and novels were very infrequent in my day.  The innocent cherubs never studied in my school-house, nor played puss-in-the-corner in our back-yard.  Childhood, when I was young, had rosy cheeks and bright eyes, as I remember, but it was also extremely given to quarrelling.  It used frequently to “get mad.”  It made nothing of twitching away books and balls.  It often pouted.  Sometimes it would bite.  If it wore a fine frock, it would strut.  It told lies,—­“whoppers” at that.  It took the biggest half of the apple.  It was not, as a general thing, magnanimous, but “aggravating.”  It may have been fun to you who looked on, but it was death to us who were in the midst.

This whole way of viewing childhood, this regretful retrospect of its vanished joys, this infatuated apotheosis of doughiness and rank unfinish, this fearful looking-for of dread old age, is low, gross, material, utterly unworthy of a sublime manhood, utterly false to Christian truth.  Childhood is preeminently the animal stage of existence.  The baby is a beast,—­a very soft, tender, caressive beast,—­a beast full of promise,—­a beast with the germ of an angel,—­but a beast still.  A week-old baby gives no more sign of intelligence, of love, or ambition, or hope, or fear, or passion, or purpose, than a week-old monkey, and is not half so frisky and funny.  In fact, it is a puling, scowling, wretched, dismal, desperate-looking animal.  It is only as it grows old that the beast gives way and the angel-wings bud, and all along through infancy and childhood the beast gives way and gives way and the angel-wings bud and bud; and yet we entertain our angel so unawares that we look back regretfully to the time when the angel was in abeyance and the beast raved regnant.