Spirit Of The Age

Fireside Reading.

"DON'T BOTHER ME."

BY L. VIRGINIA FRENCH.

It was a sweet clear voice that said it. and yet there was a carelessness in the tone, and a slight dash of petulance also, which surprised you when you looked at the speaker. She was a lovely young woman, in the bloom of life, with soft, gold brown hair, and azure eyes, and sweet rosy mouth that seemed only made for smiles. She stood in a richly furnished chamber, and before her spread out upon the bed, was a magnificent ball dress. "As she lifted up the flounces of costly lace, and shook out the rich folds of pearl-colored moire, her soft eyes sparkled with delight in anticipation of her evening triumph. Already she saw herself the "cynosure of neighboring eyes"—she saw the crowd bow to her peerless beauty and unrivalled taste—already the incense of adulation floated up around her—and—

"Mamma, who made God?" queried a sweet child's voice, and her little son, a cherub boy of five summers, stood near her, his baby hands full of fresh violet blooms. Seeing his mother did not heed him, he continued, "Nurse Nannie says God made these pretty violets, but Nannie don't know who made God—can't you tell me Mamma?"

"What a magnificent thing it is—Why De la Mode is a very witch, and I must really tell her so," soliloquized the beautiful mother dropping the rich lace from her delicate fingers; and for the first time noticing the boy, she exclaimed, "What do you say my child? Don't bother me now—I am busy, don't you see;" then seeing the tear start as the child crept away, she laughed gaily, caught him in her arms, and covering his beautiful face and neck (the very counterpart of her own,) with hasty kisses, she whispered, "There now—don't cry, darling, mamma loves her pretty boy—see what she has got for him," and taking a paper of bon-bons from the mantle, she crowded them in the skirt of his little sacque which he held up in both hands, one of which still grasped his violets—then kissing him fondly, she added coaxingly, "Now, honey, run out and play; find Nannie and you may go in the garden for a long play." Then as the boy passed out with his query unanswered, and only half satisfied, notwithstanding his store of bon-bons, she turned back to admire her dainty costume, murmuring to herself, "What a child to ask questions, and such odd questions too? 'Who made God,' indeed! I wonder who could answer such things—I'm sure I don't know how to reply to that child's endless question-ings, or what to make of him. But live satisfied him for once, at all events; so it's all right, I suppose. Yes this sleeve is an exquisite thing; I never saw anything of the kind so grateful." And she turned to her jewel-box and looping up the sleeve with an agraffe of diamonds, gazed admiringly upon its starry brilliancy.

Ah! most mistaken mother, your baby-boy bore away with him a jewel which "kings are too poor to buy," but you heed it not as you sit there dreaming of that pretty bauble, millions of which, when weighed against an immortal soul, would not be a feather in the scale.

Mothers, do not learn to say in reply to the quaint questionings of the little pat-lers at your knee, 'don't bother me,' or 'I'm busy now,' or 'I don't know, my child,' Especially when they question you in regard to Nature, or the Great First Cause of all things, do not refuse to explain to them as well as it may be in your power, the character and designs of the mighty Author. There is no more hardening process than that which remains indifferent to the inquiries of childhood or refers them to 'chance.' It comes like the northern blast, chilling and congealing the gushing spring, and worse than this, it forms an ice about the soul's fresh fountains, which not all the rays of your summer love can melt. It makes the young child skeptical—with no poetry in his soul; all is flinty, icy, materialism. To him, Nature is comparatively a 'sealed book'—her wonders and her beauties give no play to his slumbering fancies, no rich and glowing tints to his sleeping faculties. He experiences no real love for nature who does not, with a glowing and graceful heart, 'look through Nature up to Nature's God.' When such a one arrives at maturity, he will become only a dull, dreary plain, and should his be a gifted spirit, his nature will take the semblance of Lucifer—a mountain soul which throws its haggard cliffs in mockery to heaven.—Southern Homestead.