and the current of feeling to return to its former level.

But this is not the case with the young. The whole year to them is a
kind of perpetual spring. Their blood runs briskly throughout. Their
spirits are kept almost constantly alive; and as the cares of the world
occasion no drawback, they feel a perpetual disposition to cheerfulness
and to mirth. This disposition seems to be universal in them. It seems
too to be felt by us all; that is, the spring, enjoyed by youth, seems
to operate as spring to maturer age. The sprightly and smiling looks of
children, their shrill, lively, and cheerful voices, their varied and
exhilarating sports, all these are interwoven with the other objects of
our senses, and have an imperceptible, though an undoubted influence, in
adding to the cheerfulness of our minds. Take away the beautiful
choristers from the woods, and those, who live in the country, would but
half enjoy the spring. So, if by means of any unparalleled pestilence,
the children of a certain growth were to be swept away, and we were to
lose this infantile link in the chain of age, those, who were left
behind, would find the creation dull, or experience an interruption in
the cheerfulness of their feelings, till the former were successively
restored.

The bodies, as well as the minds of children, require exercise for their
growth: and as their disposition is thus lively and sportive, such
exercises, as are amusing, are necessary, and such amusements, on
account of the length of the spring which they enjoy, must be expected
to be long.

The Quakers, though they are esteemed an austere people, are sensible of
these wants or necessities of youth. They allow their children most of
the sports or exercises of the body, and most of the amusements or