. "All those societies are wretched 



14 ROBERT FALCONER. 

inTentions for escape from the right way. There ought not to 
be an orphan asylum in the kingdom." 

"What ! Would you put them, all down then ? " 
" God forbid. But I would, if I could, make them all 
useless." 

" IIow could you do that? " 

" I would merdy enlighten the  of childless people aa 
to their privileges." 

"Which are?" 

"To be fathers and mothers to the fatherless and mother- 
less." 

"I have often wondered why more of them did not adopt 
children. Why don't they ? " 

" For various reasons, which a real wordnetdesire to child nature would 
blow to the winds,  all comprised in this, that such a child 
would not be their own child. As if ever a child could bo 
their own ! That a child is God's is of rather more conse- 
quence than whether it is born of this or that couple. Their 
 would surely be glad when they went into heaven to 
have the angels of the little ones that always beheld the face 
of their Father coming round them, though they were not 
exactly their father and mother." 

" I don't know what the passage you refer to means