The Loves of Childhood.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIII, Issue VI, 6 August 1904, Page 62

The Loves of Childhood.

Men and women in their egotism often imagine that love belongs to them alone; that this experience is unknown to a girl until she is 18 years old and a boy until he is 21. But this is far from being

true, for impulse and affection are more natural to child life than thought and reason. Children left to develop by themselves will love and play; love and play the livelong day. It is only by these activities that they broaden their experience; thought has little meaning for them.

Of far more worth are brothers and sisters and playmates. There never was a child who was not sure that its baby sister or brother was the loveliest child in the world. Baby has such cunning hands and feet and such soft, sweet lips. This first sweet kiss of endearment is not always given to the little sister; it is more often bestowed on some little playmate. For all that, it is sweet, and in this kiss is found the first expression of childhood love. The baby, intuitively feels the natural balm of affection, and tlie kiss is more graciously received than by an older girl or boy.

The seed of affection that r..r.mnates in a baby kiss is not lost; it buds and unfolds in the nursery and playground. When mothers and nurses grow weary of amusing their little ones, the children turn to their friends and toys for the love and play they need. Much as little girls enjoy playing with their dolls, they are happiest when their little boy friends are allowed to hold their children, a privilege they grant to few. The boys in turn show their appreciation by allowing their little sweethearts to ride on their sleds and rocking horses, which is a great privilege in boyland. There are not many boys who pass the age of six without having some little girl to love. They are not even ashamed to confess this feeling to their mothers. They may not always say they are in love with a certain little girl, but they will talk so much about the large blue eyes and dark brown curls that mothers intuitively know what this means. Girls may be more bashful about making these confessions, but this early echo of love gives them pleasure. They have many ways of showing it; it may take a little girl ever so long to put on her overclothes when she is going out to play, but if a little boy friend is waiting for her below the things go on more rapidly. This assurance of protection and love enables many a little girl to overcome fears she can conquer in no other way. All the children are going to coast down hill or play on the toboggan slide, but

there is one little girl who is afraid of falling off. Hard as the other children try to convince her she will not heed until her tiny beau explains: “You need not be afraid, you can sit close to me and hold on as tight as you like.” These words of reassurance have their marked influence; at once all thought of fear vanishes, and going down the steep hill becomes a delight. If it is snowballing instead of coasting the story is much the same. In the beginning many little girls are afraid of this lively sport; they do not know how to make the right kind of snowballs, and they whisper that when the boys make the balls they are so hard they hurt. But all thought of fear is forgotten as soon as some little boy shows them the proper way of making them, and, acting as big brother, says that he will snow the life out of any boy who harms them.

Much as play in winter time goes to awaken childish love, the coming of spring is even a greater impetus to this feeling. It is when the warmth of spring and refreshing dew of the morning awaken the trees and bushes that buds of love burst into fullest bloom. In response to this note of love children are like sunbeams, and their hearts throb with love.

There is no one so conscious of the spring songs in nature as children who are impatient to learn where the birds are building their nests; to dance over the meadows and watch the butterflies and bees on the flowers. The birds and butterflies work wonders for childish affection. Most boys when they first visit some newly made nest long to carry off the eggs, and only yield to the protests of some little girl they love.

Though they do not know it, this expression of approval stimulates their affections. On the other hand, there is many a little girl who is almost afraid to play with a butterfly because she is certain that bees sting. But when her little friend takes the beautiful butterfly out of his net and lets it light on her hand, and explains its hidden beauty, she not only learns to love the insect, but grows fonder of him because of this tenderness for so tiny a life.

Play and nature are not the only two things that awaken and increase this love in children; work is the other great force. It is in the schoolroom and in going to and from school that children are drawn closer to each other, and their experience of love broadened and ennobled.

In the first years of school children become interested in many children, and soon learn to love them. This friendship

ripens so rapidly that often boys find themselves walking home with two or more girls instead of one, but it is usually not hard to tell by their faces which girl is the dearer to them, which one was his first love. Many girls may be fond of a certain boy, but they think that it is quite right and natural that he should love his own sweetheart most. He in turn does not care if other boys admire the little girl that he loves so long as he is sure that he is dearest in her eyes.

But what a sore trial it is for young girls and boys to find themselves disappointed in this first and truest love; that the baby kiss, the youthful tenderness, and constancy were soon to be forgotten and given to another. It is equally hard for both when this disappointment comes. Though they may gradually find comfort and pleasure in the affections of another, it requires a long time to heal a wound caused by early disappointment. But if two young lovers remain true, how much the richer their boyhood and girlhood becomes. Sign of Seven in the Bible. The phenomena of the figure 7 and its multiples, occurring in the New Testament, have been touched upon by Ivan Panin, a Russian student of the Bible, who for a number of years has made his home at Grafton, Mass. This significance of the “seven” group will not be lost even upon the superstitious who are outside the pale of Scriptural points, and, as Mr Panin has shown them, their relations of their groupings to the first eleven verses of the New' Testament must suggest that they were scarcely chance. For instance, in these first 11 verses of Matthew, the vocabulary consists of 49 words, or seven sevens; of these words there are 28, or four sevens, which begin with vowels and 21, or three sevens, which begin with consonants. “This distribution bv sevens between

vowel words and /consonant words justly might 11#ve been deemed accndental but for the fact that of the 49 words 42 of them are nouns —six sevens—and seven are not nouns,” is the comment of the writer. “Of the 42 nouns there are 35 proper nouns, or five sevens, while seven are common nouns. Of the 35 proper names four sevens are male ancestors of Jesus and seven are not such. Not only then is the distribution of the 49 words of the vocabulary by sevens as between vowel words and consonant words, but also as between the parts of speech.” As a further and absolute proof that these phenomena of the sevens are not accidental, Mr Panin points out thatjthe 49 words of the vocabulary show 14 words that are used but once, while 35 of them, or five sevens, are used more than once. His conclusions after an exhaustive arrangement of the “seven” features are that “Not even the choice of the languages in which the Scripture were written was made without marked numerical design at the threshold of the subject.”