But he had lain too long on the damp
bank of the river without his coat, and cold and fever soon sent him
to join the band of his brothers in their home.
These are legends, superstitious, you will say. But, in casting aside
the shell, have we retained the kernel? The image of the child Jesus
is not seen in the open street. Does his heart find other means to
express itself there? Protestantism does not mean, we suppose, to
deaden the spirit in excluding the form.
The thought of Jesus, as a child, has great weight with children who
have learned to think of him at all. In thinking of him they form an
image of all that the morning of a pure and fervent life should be and
bring.
In former days I knew a boy-artist whose genius, at that time, showed
high promise. He was not more than fourteen years old--a pale, slight
boy, with a beaming eye. The hopes and sympathy of friends, gained by
his talent, had furnished him with a studio and orders for some
pictures. He had picked up from the streets a boy, still younger and
poorer than himself, to take care of the room and prepare his colors,
and the two boys were as content in their relation as Michael Angelo
with his Urbino.
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