Children of the Sun

“ At the naming of the new-born infant in ancient Mexico, the mother thus addressed the Sun and the Earth: "Thou Sun, Father of all that live, and thou Earth, our Mother, take ye this child, and guard it as your son." A common affirmation with them was: "By the life of the Sun, and of our Lady, the Earth" (529. 97) .
Many primitive tribes have the custom of holding the newborn child up to the sun.
Not a few races and peoples have called themselves "children of the sun." ”

“ The people whose hearts were set high needed such intercourse—whose wish was so beautiful that there were no experiences in this world to satisfy it. And these children of the moon, with their unappeased longings and futile dreams, were a finer race than the children of the sun. ”

“ Ages ago, when it was a monster of destructive passion, scorching with its hot breath and poisoning with its venomous lava all the beautiful things of the valley, the Children of the Sun complained to their celestial father, beseeching him to stifle the evil genius and save them from his malevolence. ”

“ Matilda, this morn we went forth in the sun, Like those children of sunshine, the bright summer flies, That sport in the sunbeam, and play through the skies While the skies smile, and heed not each other: at last, When their sunbeam is gone, and their sky overcast, Who recks in what ruin they fold their wet wings? So indeed the morn found us,—poor frivolous things! Now our sky is o'ercast, and our sunbeam is set, And the night brings its darkness around us. ”

“ The children of the sun, the children of their sun—oh, how beautiful they were! Never had I seen on our own earth such beauty in mankind. Only perhaps in our children, in their earliest years, one might find some remote, faint reflection of this beauty. The eyes of these happy people shone with a clear brightness. Their faces were radiant with the light of reason and fullness of a serenity that comes of perfect understanding, but those faces were gay; in their words and voices there was a note of childlike joy. Oh, from the first moment, from the first glance at them, I understood it all! ”

“ By the sight and the touch of children, we are, as it were, indulged with something finer than a fruit or a flower in untimely bloom. The childish bloom is always untimely. The fruit and flower will be common later on; the strawberries will be a matter of course anon, and the asparagus dull in its day. But a child is a perpetual primeur.
Or rather he is not in truth always untimely. Some few days in the year are his own season—unnoticed days of March or April, soft, fresh and equal, when the child sleeps and rises with the sun. ”

“ In much the same way children try to understand the movements of the sun and other heavenly bodies by help of the familiar movements of terrestrial objects. Thus the sun was thought by American children to fly, to be blown, perhaps like a soap-bubble or air-ball, and, by a child with a more mechanical turn, to roll, presumably as a hoop rolls, and so forth. ”

“ The greediness and selfishness of the Sun and Wind impress little children, for these are perhaps the two sins possible to childhood; and all children will fully appreciate why the Sun and the Wind received so swiftly the punishment they deserved. ”

“ Children do not look at the sky unless it is suggested to them to do so. When the sun dips to the narrow horizon of their stature, and comes to the level of their eyes, even then they are not greatly interested. Enormous clouds, erect, with the sun behind, do not gain their eyes. ”

“ As there were two boys and two girls, it came to pass soon that another pen was built, and four naked children received a daily baptism in the blessed sunshine. And these children all improved in health, as much as that rose-bush did after we removed its funny dress. The good Lord has so made children that they are as dependent upon the sun for their life and health as plants are. When you try to make a house-plant grow far removed from the window, where the direct rays of the sun cannot fall upon it, you know it is small, pale and sickly; it will not long survive. ”

“ They will always take the keenest interest in the mystery of seeds and shoots, of roots and growing leaves, if there is a teacher to direct them.
CHAPTER VI.—SUNLIGHT AND SHADOW. We have heat again, and now as an elementary lesson in the distribution of sunshine. Children love to observe continual changes. The shadow is an object of interest. It has an element of mystery about it which borders upon the supernatural. Children observe spontaneously the long shadows of morning and the lengthening shadows of the descending sun. Most farm boys can tell the moment of noon by their shadows. ”

“ It became a riotous glory of wild children who romped and played with an impassioned glee beneath the moon. For the world was young and they, her happy offspring, glowed with the life she poured so freely into them. ”

“ "You stand alone upon a height," he said, dreamily, "like one in a dreary land. Behind you all is darkness, before you all is darkness; there is but one small space of light. In that one space is a day. They come, one at a time, from the night of To-morrow, and vanish into the night of Yesterday.
"I have thought of the days as men and women, for a woman's day is not at all like a man's. For you, I think, they first were children, with laughing eyes and little, dimpled hands. One at a time, they came out of the darkness, and disappeared into the darkness on the other side. ”

“ Then they went riding on the clouds, and the light of their faces gave a brightness to the edge of the clouds, so that the people on the earth loved to stand watching them, never fancying what a troop of angel-children were frolicking on them. ”

“ We all know that plants, including trees, make their best growth and yield their best results in the open air, where they are exposed to the sun, wind, rain, storm and drouth. And it is there they can receive the tillage they need.
You see how readily this beautiful figure applies to the rearing and education of children. "That our sons may be grown up in their youth." Their manhood as to faith, virtue, obedience, wisdom, intelligence and piety is largely developed while they are yet young. ”

“ So, too, have infant eyes been so charmed by the rainbow irradiating the earth, that almost infant hands have been taught, as if by inspiration, the power to paint in finest colours, and to imitate with a wondrous art, the skies so beautiful to the quick-awakened spirit of delight. What knowledge have not some children acquired, and gone down scholars to their small untimely graves! ”

“ Nowhere, in the telling of this oft-told tale, is present nature veiled in more transparent personification, nowhere is the world’s familiar daily life repeated with more childlike simplicity as a story of long past ages, than in the legend of ‘The Children of Heaven and Earth’ written down by Sir George Grey among the Maoris about the year 1850. ”

“ The darkness is a sullen thing;
And they, the Children of the Night,
Seem lost in Fortune’s winnowing.
But some are strong and some are weak,—
And there’s the story. House and home
Are shut from countless hearts that seek
World-refuge that will never come. ”

“ Solar Light.--But this is only one of the reasons why, for health's sake alone, it is of the first importance to give children long days in the open country. They want light, solar light, as well as air. ”

“ The moon looks not on the maiden’s blushing face as she listens, in the garden-walk, to the welcome words of love, and tears the unoffending rose, lest it should breathe the tale. The musical laugh of little children echoes no more through blooming alcoves. ”

“ Your baby pleads, "Don't leave me by myself." You place a night-light on a little shelf, and baby smiles and feels quite comforted, and thus companioned, snuggles into bed. The road seems very dark and long to you; the hand-clasp of a friend, a smile that's true, and that grim darkness is dispersed by love and brightly shines the sun or moon above. The mind that gropes in darkness for the truth, and sees a little light is rich, forsooth. ”

“ This peculiarity was noticeable to outsiders, to their own circle, to their children. At mere mention of the trees the shadow of coming cloud would lessen, then waste, then grow invisible. Their mutual love for these voiceless yet voiceful and kingly creations was as the love of children for a flower—simple, nameless, beautiful and powerful beyond words. ”

“ Poor little uncared-for, unwanted human atoms, they are not children. Children are bright-eyed, chubby, and shy. These are dingy, screeching elves, their tiny faces seared and withered, their baby laughter cracked and hoarse.
The spring of life and the spring of the year were alike meant to be cradled in the green lap of nature. To us in the town spring brings but its cold winds and drizzling rains. We must seek it among the leafless woods and the brambly lanes, on the heathy moors and the great still hills, if we want to feel its joyous breath and hear its silent voices. ”

“ And I wonder, too, if we are not ourselves to blame, if in the pleasant walks of life we gather not enough of sunshine up to last through cloudy weather? And yet, we must dream our own dreams and live our own lives.
The hearts of little children drink in the spring sunshine as freely, even, as the birds and flowers. ”

“ Sometimes when I walk home from school after a hard day and I look down on the road and think over the problems of handling certain trying children so as to get the best out of them and the latent best in them developed, I look up all of a sudden and the sky is so wonderful that, somehow, my troubles seem trivial. It’s just as though the sky were saying, ’Child, you’ve been looking down so long and worrying about little things that you’ve forgotten that the sky is blue and the clouds are still sailing over you.’ And, Martin, don’t you like the stars? ”

“ As they passed through the encompassing clouds circles of rainbows o’er-spanned them and paths of rainbows guided them to their spirit-home. When the other children saw them approaching they sang, “O, the rainbows! O, the rainbows! When you dry the tears of sorrow and help those in need you make rainbows.”
All spirit children are taught to visit the scenes of Earth life. The home and its loved ones, where they are missed, ever attracts them and they are taught to minister, to aid, to guard. If they had no home on Earth they try to aid those who still remain in the “orphan” realm of human life. ”

“ Then the innocent maids gave themselves, body and soul, to the infatuated, delighted youths, and fell with the falling of the stars! When the stars on windy nights twinkled fiercely through the wailing boughs of the bending forest giants, lovers gazed heavenward anxiously, for to them the glimmering stars were the tiny bright legs of their unborn children running happily across the fields of paradise. ”

“ If I were mother to the moon I'd spank her every day Until she learned to stay at home And never run away!
Song for a Child Watching Clouds I've watched the clouds by day and night, Great fleecy ones all filled with light, Gray beasts that steal across the sky, And little fellows slipping by. Sometimes they seem like sheep at play, Sometimes when they are dull and gray The pale sun seems a ship to me, Sailing through a rolling sea; And I've seen faces in them too, Funny white men on the blue, They look so many different ways, And not one single cloudlet stays ”

“ At sunset a vapor-boat carried the drops back home and in the eastern sky they stood with robes of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, and made a bright bow of promise.
As they looked down upon Earthdom once more, everything was fresh, and sweet, and glad, because the little raindrops had done so much to help others, and had left no part of their work undone. The night shadows came, and the rainbow faded slowly away, leaving a message for the children of Earthdom. "Do your best, little children, and big children, too, for God has work for all." ”

“ From infancy to ten years of age we witness, or at all events assist at, 3650 sunsets and the same number of sunrises, and are gradually trained to the phenomenon by nature. What infant troubles its head about the changes of day and night? What boy of ten is the least alarmed at the sun’s disappearance, accustomed to it as he is from the earliest days of awakening consciousness? ”

“ They will not get you into harm; so you may safely try it, if you like. Do you agree for the day to do as they do, and so have your wish?"
"Yes, we promise," answered the children.
"Tell no one till night, and be faithful shadows to the shadows." ”

“ The child looked at him wonderingly.
"You have seen a thunder-cloud," he said, answering the look, "how leaden and dismal it is of itself; but let the sun shine strike it and its edges are fringed with rosy gold, its masses turn purple and warm crimson, it breaks apart and rainbows leap from its bosom, bridging the sky with light; do you understand, my child?"
"Oh! yes, sir, I have seen the clouds melt away into rainbows so often."
"Well, it is the sunshine that makes a thing of beauty, where was only a dull black cloud. In the human face, my child, goodness acts like sunshine on the clouds. ”

“ Wherever there are children in the Summer-land, no matter what the name of their home,—whether it be Fairy Nest or Happy Valley, Golden Nest, Rocky Nook, or Sunny Isle,—will be found beautiful sights and sweet sounds; for the expression of childhood is beauty, and in heavenly life the little spirits are provided with the surroundings and conditions that harmonize with their own interior life. ”