fit for walking attire, his arms, neck, and head being fully exposed to
the breezes which now blew cruelly on his young figure, so that he could
scarcely keep his feet, and glad was he to creep under the shelter of
the threatening rock. There he stood looking around him in wild despair,
for he had raised his voice to cry for pity, and its infant tones were
not heard amidst the roaring waters; again and again he looked round
him, but no help was there, and he trembled more from fear than cold. He
was frightened at the roaring waters, for they seemed to him to be
approaching, and wholly overcome with fear and wretchedness, and quite
incapable of contending against his unhappy situation, he crouched
beneath the threatening rock, too miserable to shed a tear. "Mamma,
mamma," he said,--"Mamma, mamma," and that weak cry was repeated again
and again, though no human ear could hear his sorrows or soothe his
cries. Poor baby, what availed it then? your earthly father was the
tenderest of parents--he could not have foreseen this trouble, and
therefore he could not have been armed against it, but your heavenly
Father's eye was on you, little one, and his eyes are ever on infants,
the loveliest beings of his creation, and he who spared Nineveh,
because there were in that wicked city more than six score thousand
souls, who knew not their right hands from their left, still watches
over his babies now, for has he not said of "Such is the kingdom of
heaven."

But observe the little one, what makes his cry of 'Mamma, Mamma,' cease?
the babe has heard a sound, a pleasant sound, and he forgets his
trouble. It is the sweet song of a bird upon a branch of a tree on the
rock above him, and the bird likes the morning air and the sound of the
waters, and he is singing his song of joy, and Reuben listened to him
and was pleased, and then the little bird hopped down from his high
perch and came lower and lower till he was quite close to the child, so