THE CHILD'S IMAGINATION.
By Harriet A. Eager
[Harriet A. Eager, in the Congregationalist.] TWO children were standing by the window, watching the hunter's moon come up in all her wonderful splendor. “Sister, I see God right through that moon,” said the boy. The little sister was a practical maiden and exclaimed, in horror: “Why, you know you can’t. That’s a wrong story. You know it is.” Poor little brother was shocked, too, for a bit, being brought so suddenly down from the top of the golden stairs. He rallied himself, however, to ask, in a pitying tone, “Sister, can’t you see anything except with your eyes?” “No, I can’t, and you can’t either. You know you can’t.” Here is where the difficulty lies. Some of us can not see anything “except with our eyes,” and in our limited vision try to impose the conditions of our poverty upon the little ones. Fortunately, this dear little fellow had an understanding mother. When the shocked sister appealed to her, that wise woman took their hands firmly in hers, and away they all went, through the moon, up among the angels, right to the foot of the great white throne. Does it surprise you that the boy, grown to a youth now, has laid his heart there, and that the proper little maiden still questions the reality of it all? God has endowed most children with imagination; but we, in our weakness, do not perceive that their wonderland is the most real of all places, and is the country through which they must journey to their11Father in heaven. We do not realize that to keep the child always upon this earth is to bind the man or woman to the ground. Some children are so richly endowed that away they will go in spite of everything. The poets and artists are the result of such persistent vagrancy. But most little ones are checked in their development by having the idea thrust upon them, all too soon, that the things of this world are wholly material. Have you watched little ones at play? It is worth your while to journey with them, with their toys, into fairyland. Enter with them into the ecstasy that transforms a few blocks into a palace, the home of a lovely princess. People this life for them with heroes who live the ideal. Use these denizens to illustrate qualities which you would have them emulate. Here can be men and women who need not be hampered by earthly modifications. Too soon must the young lives be chilled by the human frailties of their fellows. Let us teach the children how to walk by faith, seeing, yet not seeing, and believing. Let us train them to see with the inner eye, cultivating this greatest gift, by which they can roam where they will. It is by imagination that all things are conceived. The great general must first, in imagination, go through the victory before the battle begins. He must see the end from the beginning. “We have nothing without imagination, God least of all.” But we must also clearly understand that this superb power, like others, has its time of infancy, and must have a chance to grow in a baby's way, with feeble journeyings and often with grotesque maneuvers. Exercise it must have, or extinction will come. It needs food suitable for its stage of development as much as the little body needs its proper nutriment.