LOVE OF CHILDREN. 109 



and the skies were bright above, as she sat beside her 

 mother, on a bench beneath the spreading branches of the 

 tall old elms in front of the house ; ' mother, what makes 

 the stars come out, only after the dark has come down, 

 and why don't the moon go up into the sky like the sun 

 in the day time ?' I listened anxiously for the reply. I 

 knew the kind heart of that mother, how truthful it was, 

 and how earnest and pure in its affection for its gentle and 

 only darling. ' Sit here upon my lap, Mary,' said the 

 mother, ' and I will try and explain it all so that you will 

 understand it.' And she told the little child how God made 

 the sun to rule the day, and the moon and the stars to rule 

 the night ; how that the stars were always in the sky, but 

 how the superior brightness of the sun put them out in the 



day time ; how the stars, that twinkled like little rush-lights 







in the heavens, were great worlds, a thousand times larger 



than this earth, made and placed away up in the sky, by 

 the same great and good God who made the world we live 

 in. Little Mary was silent and attentive to the simple 

 lecture, until it was finished, and then asked, so simply and 

 confidingly, that I could not help smiling to think that the 

 mind of chilihood should be running upon a subject, and 

 seeking a solution of the same question which has puzzled 

 the profoundest philosophers through all time : ' Mother,' 

 said the little one, ' are there people in the moon and in the 

 stars, them great worlds that look to us so like candles in 

 the sky ?' ' That question, my child,' said the mother, ' I 

 cannot answer.' ' I believe,' said the child, that th^re are 



