LETTER III.
INFANCY.
Intercourse with infancy is improving, as well as delightful. It subdues pride, and deepens piety. Obdurate natures are softened by its sweet smile, and the picture of its sleeping innocence. Its entire helplessness, its perfect trust, dissolve the soul. The bold wanderer in the world's crooked ways, gazes, and recalls the time when he was himself unstained. Tender remembrances take him captive, and ere he is aware, the tear trickles down his cheeks in fond regret, perhaps in healthful penitence.
The construction of the infant's frame; the little beating heart, sending life-blood through its thousand thread-like channels; the lungs, fastening with delight on the gift of the pure air; the countless absorbents, busied in their invisible work-shops; the net-work of nerves, minute as the filaments of thought, quickening with sensation; the tender brain, beginning its mysterious agency; the silken fringe of the eyes, opening wider as some brilliant colour strikes the dazzled retina; the slender fingers unfolding themselves, as some new sound winds its
