Why and what Am I Author:James Jackson Jarves Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. RABY MORALS AND NAME. Don't yawn, old folks! Let baby talk to you a while longer. It is not often before weaning you hear spoken truth from the... more » little ones you fondle and scold, as may be your own mood. If we do not talk, we see and feel, and our little senses are wonderfully acute to detect love, sincerity, frankness; nay, more, the hidden truths of the mature heart for good or evil are revealed to us with a clearness that it would be wise in you oftener to heed. We shrink from craft, cruelty, and selfishness ; we welcome the artless, affectionate, and playful. The smile of an infant is often the touchstone of moral worth. Even the caress of a dog is not to be unheeded. How much less, then, the confidence of a young soul, whose first emotions are those of innocence and candor! My mother well understood this. She knew that in watching my dawning intelligence, in fondling and caressing me a thousand times daily, in being unwearied in her attentions to my wants and caprices, patient, loving, and faithful, she was herself reaping a harvest of happiness purer and more enduring than she could derive from any otherBource. In becoming as little children we all approach the kingdom of heaven; but it is a kingdom of peace and joy within ourselves, reflected from the guilelessness of these little playmates. The strength of this nature is shown by its influence over the most worldly, hardened minds. David of Judah and Henry of France trampled their greatness in the dust before the magnetism of an infant's love. There is a power in its spirit-fibre to turn manhood back to babyhood, because there is no selfish alloy in it. As you measure out your affections they are meted to you again. I think my father sometimes felt his loss as he would come home suddenly and find me ...« less