5/100 Infancy

5. Infancy

Infancy, the morning of life! How beautiful it is! How filled with great responsibilities! An immortal soul commences its existence. A life, beginning in time, but capable of growing brighter when time is ended and eternity begun, commences to note the passing hours.

We welcome the infant with joy, and congratulate the parents, and we do well; but to an angel, who can clearly understand the infinite value of the life just commenced, the heights of happiness to which it may ascend, the depths of misery to which it may be brought, it must seem a moment so deeply freighted with solemn meaning as to dispel all expressions of joy, save only of a subdued and chastened kind.

Infancy has its hours of anxiety and trials for the parents, but it has also its hours of compensating joys. When sickness is in the midst, and it seems as if the cradle song would be exchanged for a dirge, what utter wretchedness of heart is the parent's portion! A mother watching the palpitating frame of her child as life ebbs slowly away evokes the sympathy of the sternest. A child dying dies but once, but the mother dies a hundred times. A mother mourning by the grave of her first-born, and strewing flowers over a coffined form instead of kisses on a warm brow, is one of the deepest spectacles of human woe. These are the dark shades, the night scenes of the parents' experience; but it has its richer, deeper, and more inspiring history, its seasons of comfort and delight, when the little child, insensibly, perhaps, draws the parents into a higher and a better life. What a sense of delicious responsibility fills the parents' hearts as they realize that in their hands and under their influence is to be molded a character, that they are the ones to carefully watch the unfolding of a human life, the development of a human soul.

How earnestly should they seek to set a watch over their lips, to guard well their thoughts and actions, to surround the child with such an air of refined, intelligent, loving kindness that its young life shall as naturally grow into a youth of beauty and a noble manhood or true womanhood as that the bud on the rose-bush expands to the gorgeous flower that excites universal admiration. Welcome to the parents the puny struggler, strong in his weakness, his little arms more irresistible than the soldier's, his lips touched with persuasion which Chatham and Pericles in manhood had not. His unaffected lamentation when he lifts up his voice on high, or, more beautiful, the sobbing child—the face all liquid grief, as he tries to swallow his vexation—soften all hearts to pity and to mirthful and clamorous compassion.

The parent's duty commences at the birth of the child. There is importance even in the handling of infancy. If it is unchristian it will beget unchristian states and feelings. If it is gentle, even patient and loving, it prepares a mood and temper like its own. Then how careful to banish the cross word, the impatient gesture! Let kind and loving tones only fall on its ears, and only gentle hands assist it in its little wants. There is scarcely room to doubt that all most crabbed, resentful, passionate characters—all most even, lovely, firm, and true ones—are prepared in a great degree by the handling of the nursery. The biography of many persons, faithfully written, would ascribe to the training of early years the molding not only of youthful character, but the more matured forms of mental and moral development of after years. The influence thus exerted in the early days of infancy is often the almost hopeless "casting of bread upon the waters"—often not found in any of its favorable developments until after "many days." The cares of the world and the evil example of others often choke the word of a good mother, and destroy its vitality; but not unfrequently it will be found, like seed long buried in the earth, to spring up to remembrance in active life, and the counsels imparted to the "infant of days" be found to influence and control the whole destiny of the man of mature years and gray hairs.

As it is a law of our being that all, even the most feeble and insignificant, exert a reciprocal influence on all around them, then an infant exerts a great modifying influence on the elder men and women around it. It recalls them from the contemplation of the stern realities of life to its innocent phases, from disdainful, self-reliant pride to trustful confidence. Hearts that but for the smile of innocence on the prattling lips of infancy had grown callous beat once more in sympathy with the distressed around them. The feeble clasp of well-nigh helpless hands is sometimes powerful enough to turn strong men from the road to ruin. An infant in his cradle is king, and wields his power over all who come near him.

Infants are the poetry of the world; the fresh flowers of our hearts and homes; little conjurers, with the magic of their natural ways, working by their spells what delights and enriches all ranks and equalizes the different classes of society. Every infant comes into the world, like a delegated prophet, the harbinger and herald of good tidings, whose office it is to make young again hearts well-nigh wearied with the cares of years. A child warms and softens the heart by its gentle presence; it enriches the soul by new feeling, and it awakens within it what is favorable to virtue. An infant is a beam of light, a fountain of love, a teacher, whose lessons few can resist. They recall us from much that engenders and encourages selfishness, that freezes the affections, roughens the manners, and indurates the heart. They brighten the home, deepen love, invigorate exertion, infuse courage, and vivify and sustain the charities of life.

An infant finds a place in the hearts of all people. The selfish and proud open their hearts to its silent influence. The aged, who are standing near the end of the journey of life, have the scenes of their younger days called up afresh by the child's artless ways, and in its company grow young again. The disconsolate seem to catch a fresh gleam of hope when they see the confiding ways of the little child, and take heart again.

It would seem fitting that nature should exempt little children from sickness and death, but, alas! impartial fate, which,

"With equal pace,

Knocks at the palace as the cottage gate,"

is no respecter of age. What a great hush falls on the ear, like a pall, and an untold sadness settles over the heart when the little child is sick. Is it not strange that such a wee bit of a thing should have the power to change every thing, making the sunshine that but yesterday played in and out of the windows so merrily and bright seem such a mockery to-day, changing the joyous tones of the other children into funeral notes? Why is it that the soft winds, which but lately seemed burdened with joy, and came softly whispering of pleasant dells, of flowing streams, of flowery banks, to-day seem strangely sighing, to have exchanged its joy for sorrow?

But such is the spell that baby has woven, knitting itself into the very meshes of our hearts in such a quiet, subduing manner that we scarcely know how dear it is until the little form lies still and prostrate. Great as is the influence of the little child while living it has also a sweet and sacred influence when its brief life is over and the solemn "dust unto dust" and "ashes unto ashes" has been said over the little mound in the church-yard.

Sweet places for pure thought and holy meditation are these little graves. They are depositories of the mother's sweetest joy, unfolded buds of innocence, humanity nipped by the frosts of time ere yet a canker-worm of corruption has nestled among its embryo petals.

Callous, indeed, must be the heart of him who can stand by a little grave-side and not have the holiest emotions of the soul awakened to thoughts of purity and joy, which belong alone to God and heaven. The mute preacher at his feet tells of a life begun and ended without a stain; and surely if this be vouchsafed to mortality, how much more pure and holier must be the spirit-land, enlightened by the sun of infinite goodness, from whence emanated the soul of that brief sojourner among us! How swells the soul with joy when standing by the earth-beds of lost little ones, sorrowful because a sweet treasure has been taken away, joyful because that sweet jewel glitters in the diadem of the redeemed.

Such, then, is infancy. 'Tis the brief morning hour which precedes the busy day. It may be grand and beautiful, while its after life may but be dark and lowering, going out at last with wailing winds and weeping storms. Or it may be bleak and dreary, only at last to break forth into the full glory of the beauteous Summer day. But whatever its present state care and trouble and sorrow are sure to await it. So train it, then, that it shall expect them and look to the only true source for aid and assistance for the trials that lie in store for it.