CHAPTER XXII. 



THE PALE BELL OF THE HEATH. 



Among the most interesting of the many deep 

 mysteries that invite inquiry, above, around, and 

 within us, one, not the least attractive to me, has 

 long been the communion, that an infant soul, or 

 rather the soul of an infant, holds with its God. 

 To deny the existence of such communion would 

 be rash — to substantiate such denial, I think, would 

 be impossible. Even those who limit infant salva- 

 tion to the seed of believers, and to the baptized, 

 which I do not, must own that the disembodied 

 spirit of an infant can become a participator in the 

 joys of heaven, however early it may be called 

 away ; and surely, in an earthly creature, shapen 

 in wickedness, conceived in sin, and born under 

 the curse, with the latent seeds of every evil in- 

 herent in its nature, there must be a work wrought 

 to fit it for the habitations of unsullied purity and 

 everlasting joy. That a soul must be regenerate 

 by the power of the Holy Ghost, before it can 

 enter the kingdom of heaven, is readily admitted * 



