Part 7 (1/2)

”Oh,” said I, ”you have a good friend who has a whole sky full of goodness He gave you all the goodness and love you have in there (I touched his breast), and will give you h to be good with all the time”

He looked perfectly blest, did not speak, but laid himself down close by me, took my arm and put it over him, and said, as he nestled up to ood friend gives you all your joy to be glad with, and all your love and goodness They always go together And now listen toto cry (I used his own practical expression instead of saying the next tiood friend who has a whole sky full of goodness and he will give uess you will not cry” He responded only with huggings and kissings and exclamations of ”I love you a whole sky full,” and as I did not want to overdo or say anything to e of a noise I heard, to change the subject, and said:--

”What is that noise?”

He jumped out of bed, went to the , and said:--

”It is the carpentersa house,” and after a pause, asked, ”Who made all the other houses?”

”Carpenters,” said I; ”don't you see they make houses out of boards?”

”Who made the boards?”

”The boards are made out of trees People cut down the trees, and then they saw thes and smooth them out into pieces we call boards”

”Who made the trees?” said he

I understood very here the tyrannizing unity of his personality was leading his understanding, but did not wish, just then, to risk giving outward forht of the Divine Cause, so I said:--

”The trees grow out of the ground; don't you see old trees and young trees and little baby trees growing out of the ground?”

For this inforive me that hearty ”_yes_” hich he had received ain I persisted, however, in talking playful nonsense for half an hour, until his nurse came to take him up to dress him As soon as she appeared at the door, he started up on his knees again, crossed his arms over his breast, and in a loud, joyful voice cried out:--

”Mrs Doyle! I have a good friend up in the sky who has a whole sky full of goodness, and he will give ood with _all the tiood-hearted Roman Catholic, who, like all the servants, had been forbidden to talk to the child about God or any kindred subject, looked at ratified, and said:--

”What will his lad; she only wanted to wait till she thought he could understand But I have told hih for the present; don't talk to hi to you, come and tell me”

”Yes,” said she, ”and I thank God you have co”

I then said to her aside, ”His htened about God and death when she was a little child, and has suffered fro She has been a double orphan ever since she can remember”

I said this to her for several reasons: one was my extreme desire to see what the one siave _good friend_ for God's name Of course, the mother craved to know exactly what had passed on this iratified at what I told her, and wanted it all to be written down; and thus it happened that I made memoranda of this and subsequent conversations, and even of those held in her presence, for they continued to be no less interesting than they began

Observe these points in the child's speech to the nurse: he interpolated the words _up in the sky_ I had given no place to the good friend, though I had said he had a whole sky full of goodness and love; and the sky being the glorious symbol of unboundedness, elevation, purity, and power to the huination, in all nations and times, as is proved by the earliest idolaters orshi+pped the heavens, and the host of stars, and verifying the more spiritual conceptions of the Hebrew Psalmist, and of Job, who did not confound (nor did this child) the sign with the Living God who created it to signify His Being Another thing: Observe it was not even as the giver of love and joy, but as the giver of _goodness_ that the Person of Persons had seized the iination of the child so powerfully It onderful to see that very day, the effect upon his understanding of this conversation The night before, when I told him the story of the little worination a very narrow scope But in the course of the day (in which, for the first ti innuood friend_, he see I am very sorry I have not my writtenin order; but I reood friend_ ”looked”

I replied by asking hihed, and said, ”Love does not look, but feels” ”Well,” said I, ”so your good friend does not look, but feels Don't you feel hihed assent, and said, ”Where is he?”

”Wherever love and goodness are,” said I; ”in you, in ed to believe he would coinable and inconceivable as such truth is to the , for I had in my remembrance a conversation I once overheard between two children, one five and the other not three years old, at which I had not ceased to wonder since I heard it I was sitting draith their mother in a recess of a rooht, when our attention was diverted by hearing the younger one say:--

”Can God see me nohen I am all wrapped up in this shawl?”

The elder one replied very earnestly, ”O yes! God can see everybody, everywhere”

”But I don't see how He can see me when I am all wrapped up in this shawl It is dark,” persisted the little three-year-old There was a pause, when Eliza, in a very anxious voice, said:--

”Aination)