I tried long afterward, thinking that it was my duty, to build up
a wall of difficult doctrines over my spring blossoms, as if they
needed protection. But the sweet light was never wholly stifled
out, though I did not always keep my face turned towards it: and
I know now, that just to let his lifegiving smile shine into the
soul is better than any of the theories we can invent about Him;
and that only so can young or old receive the kingdom of God as a
little child.

I believe that one great reason for a child's love of hymns, such
as mine was, is that they are either addressed to a Person, to
the Divine Person,--or they bring Him before the mind in some
distinct way, instead of being written upon a subject, like a
sermon. To make Him real is the only way to make our own spirits
real to ourselves.

I think more gratefully now of the verses I learned from the
Bible and the Hymn-Book than of almost anything that came to me
in that time of beginnings. The whole Hymn-Book was not for me
then, any more than the whole Bible. I took from both only what
really belonged to me. To be among those who found in the true
sources of faith and adoration, was like breathing in my native
air, though I could not tell anything about the land from which I
had come. Much that was put in the way of us children to climb
by, we could only stumble over; but around and above the
roughnesses of the road, the pure atmosphere of worship was felt
everywhere, the healthiest atmosphere for a child's soul to
breathe in.