THE BUFFET-GAME. 317 



which we see our children practise year after year are so 

 firmly rooted in the regard of the young of each genera- 

 tion because they are the heirlooms of an immemorial 

 antiquity. We can trace them far back to their original 

 source among primitive races, in much the same way as 

 the botanist traces his plants to their geographical 

 centres of distribution. And as our common nursery 

 tales, which once had a religious and social significance 

 which in the course of long ages has entirely evaporated, 

 when examined in this manner, have yielded striking 

 evidences of the early condition and spread of man- 

 kind ; so our common children's games in the hands of 

 men like Mr. Tylor have been used as ethnological 

 arguments to show the connection in remote times of 

 different races with each other and the various steps of 

 their civilization. Many of the sports of children arise 

 from the imitative faculty which is so strong in children 

 everywhere. They will mimic in their play, the seri- 

 ous work of grown-up people ; they will buy and sell in 

 their little toy-shops, act the doctor and the lawyer to 

 the life ; and an upturned chair will furnish to them a 

 pulpit, from which they will imitate the services of the 

 sanctuary, and preach a children's sermon to an audi- 

 ence that is, indeed, not far from the kingdom of 

 heaven. And such mimic games may have sprung up 

 of their own accord in different places. Our Lord's 

 allusion to the Jewish children sitting in the market- 

 place and acting alternately the part of a marriage 

 and a funeral, and saying to their fellows, "We 

 have piped unto you, and ye have not danced ; 



