A Child’s Gratitude––A mother, who remembered a little penny scent-bottle as an early joy of her own, took three such small bottles home to her three little girls. They got them next morning at the family breakfast, and enjoyed them all through the meal. Before it ended the mother was called away, and little M. was sitting rather solitary with her scent-bottle and the remains of her breakfast. And out of the pure well of the little girl’s heart came this, intended for nobody’s ear, ‘Dear mother, you are too good!’ Think of the joy of the mother who should overhear her little child murmuring over the first primrose of the year, ‘Dear God, you are too good!’ Children are so imitative, that if they hear their parents speak out continually their joys and fears, their thanks and wishes, they, too, will have many things to say.
Another point in this connection; the little German child hears and speaks many times a day of der liebe Gott; to be sure he addresses Him as ‘Du,’ but du is part of his every-day speech; the circle of the very dear and intimate is hedged in by the magic du. So with the little French child, whose thought and word are ever of le bon Dieu; he also says Tu, but that is how he speaks to those most endeared to him.