compassion "turneth the hearts of men as the rivers of waters are
turned," hath done it. To Him be all the glory.






CHARMS AND FAIRY FAITH

"Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We dare n't go a-hunting
For fear of little men.
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
Gray cock's feather."
ALLINGHAM.

IT was from a profound knowledge of human nature that Lord Bacon, in
discoursing upon truth, remarked that a mixture of a lie doth ever add
pleasure. "Doth any man doubt," he asks, "that if there were taken out
of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, and
imaginations, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor,
shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to
themselves?" This admitted tendency of our nature, this love of the
pleasing intoxication of unveracity, exaggeration, and imagination, may
perhaps account for the high relish which children and nations yet in
the childhood of civilization find in fabulous legends and tales of