Children are surrounded by the unknown, and of the unknown there must always be more or less fear. A mist of romance, wonder, and mystery hangs about the world in which they move. They early learn that things are not what they seem, and they are frequently startled by being warned against apparently harmless things. Bright things, always so attractive to a baby, possess concealed dangers. The glowing fire will burn. The shining knife will cut. The pretty, velvet-coated wasp has a sting. The gleaming, crimson berry may hold poison. Seeing, then, that in its ignorance the little one finds itself taught to shun many things of which it would naturally have no distrust, what wonder that it should sometimes shrink in affright where no terror is! The nature, powers, extent, and meaning of the universe around are in great measure incomprehensible to the child. Continually are familiar objects developing qualities hitherto undreamed of, and the more sensitive and imaginative the mind, the more liable to the assaults of fear.
Darkness is a common source of terror. Although often fostered and greatly aggravated by thoughtless stories of bogies and ghosts, I yet think that the fear may, in some cases, be purely instinctive. I have seen a baby, quite too young to have been frightened by stories, cling and cry when taken into a dark room, or if the light was extinguished. To show one's self careless of the darkness, or to send the child on some little errand without a light,—not, however, insisting that it shall be performed alone. —will sometimes effect much good.
I recollect an instance in which the idea of "guardian angels round the bed," and the ever-watchful eye of God, were only a shade less terrible than the dreaded bogy itself. That was because God had been regarded only as an often angry master, and not as a pitiful Father, and His angels were invisible and unknown.
