The birth of each child constitutes a new era in the Christian home, and multiplies its cares, its pleasures and its responsibilities.  The first-born babe, like

                        “The first gilt thing
  That wears the trembling pearls of spring,”

throws the rainbow colors of hope and joy over the bowers of home, and awakens in the bosom of parents, emotions and sympathies, new-born and never before experienced; cords in the heart, before untouched, now begin to thrill with new joy; sympathies, before unfelt, now swell the bosom.  Sleep on, thou little one, in thy “rosy mesh of infancy,” in the first buddings of thy being!  These hours of thy innocence are the happiest of thy life.  Thou art “the parent’s transport and the parent’s care.”  Blessings are fondly poured upon thy head.  Rest thee there in thy little bed, thou happy emblem of the loved and pure in heaven!

                     “Visions sure of joy
  Are gladdening his rest; and ah, who knows
  But waiting angels do converse in sleep
  With babes like this!”

imparting to his infant soul unutterable things, whispering soft of bliss immortal given, and pouring into his new-born senses the dreams of opening heaven.

What charms and momentous interests surround the cradle of infancy!  When the first wailing of dependence reaches the listening ear, what new-born sympathies spring up in the parent’s bosom!  What a thrill of rapture the first soft smile of her babe sends to the mother’s heart!  It is this, the parents’ likeness unsullied by their faults and cares; it is this, their living love in personal being,—­their love breathing and smiling before them, lisping their names; it is this,—­their new-born hope and care,—­that gives to infancy such a charm, such a never-dying interest, and causes the parent to cling to it with such fond tenacity.  “Can a mother forget her sucking child?” Never, while she claims a mother’s heart!  The couch of her babe is the depository of all those fond hopes and joys and cares and memories to which a mother’s heart is sacred.

The infant is the most interesting member of the Christian home.  It is the first budding of home-life, disclosing every day some new beauty, “the father’s lustre and the mother’s bloom,” to gladden the hearts of the family.  “As the dewy morning is more beautiful than the perfect day; as the opening bud is more lovely than the full blown flower, so is the joyous dawn of infant life more interesting than the calm monotony of riper years.”  It is the most interesting, because the purest, member of the household.  It is the connecting link which binds home to its great antitype above.  “Ye stand nearest to God, ye little ones,” nearer than those who have tasted the bitter cup of actual sin.  They are the budding promises, the young loves, the precious plants of home; they are its sunshine, its progressive interest, its prophetic happiness, the first link in the chain of its perpetuity.  Like the purple hue of the wild heath, throwing its gay color over the rugged hill-side, they cast a magic polish over the spirit of the parent, causing the home-fireside to glow with new life and cheerfulness.