BOYS OF THE BIBLE. 47

But first ascend with me
The summit of this mountain. :

Seest thou up yonder valley in th> distance,
A higher range of mountains circling round ?
Within its bosom is the holy garden,

Where first thy father waken’d up to life;

His body formed of dust from out the ground
In the image of his Maker ; lifeless until

God breathed in his nostrils breath of life,
And he became a living soul. Thy mother,
By a like miracle divine, came forth,

The workmanship of God.

How can I tell thee, child, what first we felt
When conscious of existence? All around,
And all above, beneath, seem’d full of Gop.
Gop we beheld in sun, and stars, and flowers;
In trees and plants; in birds, and beasts, and fish;
In creeping things, and light-winged insect tribes;
In living things that moved, and in those things
That could not, we beheld, as in a lake
Clear and unruffled, the full face of Gop.

Son.

Oh, how delightful, father!
FATHER.
Delightful! ah, it was indeed, my son.
But these alone made not our happiness:
Our Father in high heaven oft sent down
His holy angels as our visitants;
And often, at the close of day, we saw—
When the sun sunk behind the mountain tops
And gilded every fleecy cloud with gold-—
Descending towards us a fair troop of them,
Which looked in the distance, to our eye,
As if one of those golden-tinged clouds
Was coming to convey us on a journey
Up to the courts of heaven, On they came,
And as they near approach’d, their outspread wings,
Spangled with gems, floating on ambient air,
Shed generous perfume; and all around
Was fragrant with rich odors brought from heaven.

So days and years pass on. And the boys work and
play together, and at night say their prayers at their