“ Those are the souls of little children, who have suffered in their bodies and in their affections, and who have yet complained not. The soul of little Johnny blooms brightly amongst those celestial spirits—a flower of heaven. ”

“ The drooping ashes, the solemn oaks, and the shady plane-trees, spread their long arms tenderly over the straw-thatched roofs of this lowly hamlet, as if to defend it from the burning sun and reckless storms; and the Ayrshire rose and ivy crept up and clung to its damp and crumbling walls. In the broken parts of the gables, and in the crevices of the ruined chimneys, the dew-fed wall-flower grew in poverty and beauty, and shook the incense from its waving flowers into the bosom of summer. ”

“ The mother leaned forward to part away the black hair from the boy's forehead, and said softly to his father, that she would take the lad's place at the anvil, if they should want his wages while at school. This was the crisis of my errand; and, in my imagination, I tried to catch the eyes of the children in "Our School Room" in America, as I went on to say, that they would not be willing to have Josiah go to school in his old worn out clothes, to be laughed at or shunned by well-dressed school-mates; nor that he should stay at home for want of decent and comfortable clothes. ”

“ Seeing a gate open, and hearing a familiar clicking behind the hedge, I stepped through into a little blacksmith's shop, about as large an American smoke-house for curing bacon. The first object that my eyes rested on, was a full-grown man nine years of age, and nearly three feet high, perched upon a stone of half that height, to raise his breast to the level of his father's anvil, at which he was at work, with all the vigor of his little short arms, making nails. I say, a full-grown man; for I fear he can never grow any larger, physically or mentally. ”

“ It is not on the streets that one is likely to meet the blighted flowers of the city—the drooping and the dying do not wither away there. Within the chambers of silent and sorrowful homes they breathe out their lives, and fade away. ”

“ Henceforth, if he lives, the thoughtless will laugh at him, as he moves painfully about the streets—the wicked will mock him. In thy heart only, and in the bowers of paradise, shall he now, henceforth and forever live and bloom. ”

“ Josiah was now ten years old; he had been a faithful boy; he had made nails ever since he could hold a hammer; and it was for this that he desired the more to send him to school. It had troubled him much all along that the boy was working so long and so well at the anvil, without having any of his wages to pay the schoolmaster for teaching him something that would make him rich in his poverty when he came to be a man; and he had tried to make up this to him in a little way, by reading to him easy verses from the Testament, many of which he had learned by heart. ”

“ Oh! you who are strong and full of life, speak gently to the fragile, drooping, blighted flowers of cities, and do not scorn them. They once were beautiful; and now they only linger sadly here, with no mother to cherish them. Kind words and gentle looks are everlasting sunshine to city flowers. ”

“ I was walking one day, in a pensive mood, along a crowded thoroughfare, where active men jostled each other in the pursuit of business. There was life and hope in their eyes, and vigor in their limbs. ”

“ And have you not been paid fifty times over for what you gave Josiah? "It is more blessed to give than to receive," said One who gave the greatest gift that God could give to mail. Have you not found it so in regard to your gifts to Josiah? You see how happy you have made him; how blessed it has been to him to receive your presents. But how blessed and happy you must be to make him all this joy and gladness! Ask little Phebe Alcott there, if she has not got her pay ten times over for going without milk so many days that he might have some warm clothes for winter. ”

“ Let him go for a few months, and when he came back to the anvil, he might work all day, and in the evening he might get together all the nailer children that lived within a mile, and teach them how to read and write. There was the little Wesleyan chapel within a rod of their own door, lying useless except on Sundays. It would be just the place for an evening school for fifty or even a hundred little children, whose parents were too poor to send them to the day-schools of the town. ”

“ It is not often he gets a newspaper; for it is not the like of us that can have newspapers and bread too at the same time in our houses. But now and then he begs an old one, partly torn, at the baker's, and reads it to us of a Sunday night. ”

“ We heard tell a while ago that the poor people would not have to make so many nails for a loaf of bread much longer, because Sir Robert Peel and some other men were going to take off the port-locks and other taxes, and let us buy bread of them that could sell it the cheapest. ”

“ They will be written by persons of highly cultivated hearts and minds in England and America, and be adapted and designed for circulation among children in Sunday Schools, Common Schools, and other institutions for the education of the young, and in family circles generally. We trust that their benevolent teachings, and the Christian spirit which pervades them, will commend them to Sunday School Teachers, and all others engaged in the moral education of children, as appropriate gifts to the young. ”

“ He is an oldish man, as I was saying, yet he not only works eighteen hours every day at his forge, but every Friday in the year he works all night long, and never lays off his clothes till late of Saturday night. A good neighbor is John Stubbins, and the only man just in our neighborhood who can read the newspaper. ”