“THE CHILD’S PAPER.”

            This is a beautiful specimen of typography published by the “American Tract Society” monthly. The paper is white, thick, and smooth. The type appears to be new, and very fair to look on. It consists of four pages quarto, which are illustrated with finely executed wood cuts. The title is adorned with an engraving of Christ with two little children on his knees and larger ones beside him. There are two children at each end of the cut under the words “Child’s” and “Paper;” one couple reading the “Child’s Paper” with great earnestness; and the other on their knees in the attitude of prayer with the Bible behind them. Under the group with Christ in the centre are the words “Suffer little children to come unto me.”

            We dislike very much to say any thing in disparagement of so pleasing a specimen of the Black Art; but we cannot permit it to beguile us of our better judgment by its commending itself to the desire of the eyes. This would be to tread in the steps of our mother Eve, who sacrificed her allegiance to the truth to the gratification of taste into which she was seduced by the beauty of the temptation she beheld. “The Child’s Paper” is indeed “pleasant to the sight; but not good for food.” The vine-tendrils at either end of the vignette enclose the symbols of the idea which editorially pervades the sheet; namely, prayer and “The Child’s Paper” the introduction to Jesus; the Bible just a background embellishment of the situation.

            We can commend no paper based upon such a principle. Of all papers in the world the Bible ought to be the alpha and omega of a paper designed to instruct religiously the tender and plastic minds of children; because no ideas make such indelible impressions upon us as those implanted in our earlier days. God’s thoughts therefore should be the first to vibrate in the child, and then man’s, if at all, on religious subjects. Illustrations of the Bible adapted to the minds of children, with fictions of an interesting character whose “morals” inculcate its relative precepts and divine principles, is the sort of “Child’s Paper,” which still is, and we expect ever will be, a desideratum until the instruction of people is taken out of the hands of “the pious,” and transferred to the Saints of the Most High God in the Age to Come. But an imperfect system of moral training is better than none, provided it does not deify villainy after the Romish fashion. “The Child’s Paper” will help to impress the morality of Judaism on the mind, such as “thou shalt not steal,” “thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath Day,” “thou shalt not covet,” &c., with other principles of common morality; but as to showing “the way, the truth, and the life,” exhibited in the divine word, that is of course altogether out of the question. It is not fit for the lambs of Christ’s sheep. They must be nourished by food of a divine quality. Kids may browse upon it and be improved.

            Here follow a few specimens of its traditions. “A soft answer is a mighty cure-all. It is the principle which is going to conquer the world.” We apprehend that the answer of the Lord who is to roar out of Zion against the Gentile armies in the Valley of Jehoshaphat will not be a very soft one to them, for it is said their wickedness will be great.

            “What is ‘I’ children? It is the thinking, judging, willing, loving, hating principle within you, called the soul.” It is well known what sort of a soul is meant. This is the first lesson in immortal-soulism. But me is as much the thinking principle as I; for it is the same person, only in the objective instead of the nominative case. Now of this first person Paul says “in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing.” The me, and therefore the I, is flesh; therefore the principle that thinks is the flesh or brain; which when speaking of its result, he terms the thinking of the flesh.

            A boy goes fishing on Sunday. He is said in so doing to break the law. “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.” Thus leaving the child under the impression that Sunday is the Sabbath Day, instead of Saturday to which the law refers.

            “Take me, when I die, to heaven, Happy there with thee to dwell.” This is from an “Evening Prayer of a Little One.” First taught that the thinking principle, or “I,” is the soul that never dies; and then to pray the “I” may go to heaven at death! A scripturally instructed teacher would show that we are all by nature sinners; and that prayer is the privilege only of those who are constituted the Saints of God. That a child who is born a sinner, must learn the truth; and then when they are old enough to choose for themselves between good and evil, they will have the privilege of obeying it, and so becoming saints. Then being in Christ, they have to come to him in the proper and only way they can get at him since his departure from earth; and are through him eligible to approach the Father who is in heaven, and to make their requests known to him.

            The paper professes to be non-sectarian. This may be. It may not make Methodists, or Presbyterians; but it indoctrinates the child with dogmas which prepare it to become a sectarian in after life. But indoctrinate it with the truth, and it would become a sectarian never. As we have said, “The Child’s Paper” will do for the kids of the goats, but not for the lambs of the sheep of God.

EDITOR.