Varieties.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 142, 26 October 1868, Page 3

Varieties.

They Won't Trouble You Long. — Children grow up— nothing on earth grows so fast aa children. It was but yesterday, and that lad was playing with tops, a buoyant boy. He is a man, and gone now ! There is no more childhood for him or for us. Life has claimed him. When a beginning i_ made, it ia like a ravelling stocking — stitch by stitch gives way till all are gone. The house has not a child in it. There is no more noise in the hall— boys rushing in pell-mell ; it is very orderly now. There are no more skates or sleds, bats, balls, or strings, left scattered about. Thngs are neat enough now. There is no delay of breakfast for Bleepy folks ; there is no longer any task before you lie down, of looking after anybody and tucking up the bedclothes. There are no disputes to settle, nobody to get off to school, no complaint, no importunities for impossible things, no rips to mend, no fingers to tie up, no faces to be washed, or collars to be arranged. There wa9 never such peace in the house ! It would sound like music to have some feet to clatter down the front stairs ! O for some children's noise ! What used to ail us, that we were hushing (heir loud laugh, checking their noi9y frolic, and reproving their slamming and banging the doors ? We wish our neighbours would only lend us an urchin or two to make a little noise in these premises. A home without children ! It is like a lantern and no candle ; a garden and no fl.wers; a vine and no grapes ; a brook and no water gurgling and rushing in its channel. We want to be tired, to be vexed, to be run over, to hear children at work with all its varieties. During the secular days this is enough marked. But it is Sunday that puts our homes to the proof. That is the Christian family day. The intervals of public worship are long spaces of peace. The family seems made up on that day. The children are at

home. You can Jay your hands on their heads. They seem to recognise the greater and lesser love — to God and to friends. The house i 9 peaceful, but not still. There is a low and melodious trill of children in it. But Sunday comes too still now. There is a silence that aches in the ear. There is too much room at the table, too much at the hearth. The bed-rooms are a world too orderly. There is too much leisure and too little care. Alas ! what mean these things ? Is somebody growing old ? Are these signs and tokens ? Is life waning "i— Henry Ward Beecker.