HMS Terrible (By J. P. Struthers)

One day lately I saw a pretty child with a cap inscribed "HMS Terrible." At the first glance it seemed a ludicrous misnomer. But on second thoughts one saw that there is something terrible in the eyes of a child, and especially in those of a little girl.
You know what is meant by the phrase l'enfant terrible. It describes the child that in the innocence or simplicity of its heart blurts out things at inconvenient moments. But it is not the child that tells things that is to blame, but we who do the things that won't bear telling. I once heard a very good and very wise man say - and he was one who was singularly happy in his marriage - that a man should have a certain feeling of awe in the presence of his wife. A good woman - I mean one of the highest type - should represent not only the infinite tenderness and forgivingness of God, but His purity and holy severity as well. Her look of pain when one whom she loves does anything unworthy, is a glimpse of God's own face. There is an awful truth in the saying of M. Renan, that the judgements that shall be pronounced in the valley of Jesoshaphat will not differ much from those already passed on us by good women.

May every child we see draw us nearer God; may its face look forth to us as the morning -

Fair as the moon,

Clear as the sun,

Terrible as an army with banners.