A Child’s Petition.

Cromwell Argus, Volume II, Issue 99, 3 October 1871, Page 6

A Child’s Petition.

“ Kiss me, mamma, before I sleep I” How simple a boon : yet how soothing to the little suppliant is that soft, gentle kiss! The little head sinks contentedly on the pillow, for all is peace and happiness within. The bright eyes cloSe, the rosy lips part in a sweet smile, —"for the little heart is revelling in the bright and sunny dreams of innocence. Yes, kiss it, mamma; for that good-night kiss will linger in its memory when the giver is mouldering in the grave. The memory of a gertlie mother’s kiss has cheered many a lonely wanderer’s pilgrimage, and has been the beacon light to illume his desolate heart: for, remember, life has many a stormy billow to cross, many a rough path to climb, with thorns to pierce ; and we know not what is in store for the little one so sweetly slumbering, with no marring care to disturb its peaceful slumbers. The parched and fevered lips will become dewy again as recollection bears to the sufterer’s couch a mother’s love, —a mother’s kiss. Then kiss your little ones ere they sleep,—for there is a magic power in that kiss which will endure to the end of life; and they will be led to look up to a happier and more blessed country, and be brought wjth the poet, No clouds those blissful regions know, For ever bright and fair ; For sin, the source of mortal woe, Can never enter there. When after years of toil and privation, years of sin, perhaps, and folly, the man looks back in moments of solitude over his past nigged career to the days of childhood, when a mother’s hand pressed his brow, a mother’s fervent prayer for her boy went up to Heaven, and a mother’s gentle kiss lingered on his Kps, the stoney heart is melted to tears, and he is led to say, What peaceful hours I once enjoyed ; How sweet their memory still ; « But they have left an aching void The world can never till.