The children had said nothing that the minister had not said. Was it not less what they had said than the fact of their saying it that changed the whole course of feeling and action in that parish?
On the days when it is our lot to share in doing large tasks, the children help us. What of the days which bring with them only a "petty round of irritating concerns and duties?" Do they not help us then, too?
In a house on my square, there lives a little girl, three years old, who, every morning at about eight o'clock, when the front doors of the square open, and the workers come hurrying down their steps, appears at her nursery window,--open except in very stormy weather. "Good-bye!" she calls to each one, smiling, and waving her small hand, "good-bye!"
"Good-bye!" we all call back, "good-bye!" We smile, too, and wave a hand to the little girl. Then, almost invariably, we glance at each other, and smile again, together. Thus our day begins.
We are familiar with the thought of our devotion to children. As individuals, and as a nation, our services to the children of our land are conspicuously great. "You do so much for children, in America!" It is no new thing to us to hear this exclamation. We have heard, we hear it so often! All of us know that it is true. We are coming to see that the converse is equally true; that the children do much for us, do more than we do for them; do the best thing in the world,--make us who are so many, one; keep us, who are so diverse, united; help us, whether our tasks be great or small, to "go to our labor, smiling."