2. Five things — putting together St. Matthew's and St. Mark's and St. Luke's narrative — five things our Saviour did with " the little children " who were brought to Him. He shielded them under unkindness, and through rebuke brought them to Himself. Next He took them in His arms, an act of simple love, His humanity placing Himself in sympathy with love's beginnings. Then He laid His hands upon them, a solemn, appropriating act. Then He blessed them, an act of priesthood. Then He made them the text of a sermon, the germ of one great thought which admits again of a vast expansion.
3. No words of Scripture are more familiar to us than the words of this text, for they have their peculiar and special signifi- cance at every moment of our Christian lives. They are the keynote of the service by which we are, initiated into the Christian brotherhood ; they are the natural thought and con-
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solation of those who lose children by death ; they are no less the eternal gauge and standard of the spirit in which, at every age, the Kingdom of heaven is to be welcomed and received.
4. Where and when were they uttered ? for the time and place of words often throw some light upon their meaning. They were spoken in Perea, as our Lord was on His way, for the last time, from Galilee to Jerusalem. He had closed His ministry in the province of Galilee, in which He had been brought up. He had looked for the last time on the hills He had so often climbed, the lake on which He had so often sailed, the synagogues and streets in which He had so often taught. He would see no more the friendly peasants and fishermen who had hstened to Him gladly — at least with eyes of flesh. And He was going to Jerusalem, where the priests hated Him, and had set themselves to compass His death. At first He seems to have intended to take the straight road to Jerusalem, and to pass through Samaria. But when He found that the Samaritans of the border villages would not receive Him He crossed the fords of the Jordan, and travelled through Perea, on the farther, or eastern, side of the river. Now in Perea He found some of the very best people of that time ; and some of the worst. For many of the Jews of this district were half heathenised by constant contact with the heathen who, in large numbers, were settled among them. And, naturally, those who remained true to the God and to the faith of Israel were all the more faithful and zealous because of the difficulties they had to encounter and the opposition they had to overcome. And there were many difficulties in their way : among others this. In Jerusalem was the place where they ought to worship ; and the roads to Jerusalem were often closed against them. Sometimes, when the snows on the mountains melted, or great rains fell on the hills, the waters, the swelhngs, of Jordan rose so high, and ran so fast, that the fords became impassable ; and they could not go up to the Temple to make atonement tor their sins and seek the face of God. Sometimes there was war in the land ; and when- ever war broke out, among the first places to be seized were the roads, the passes on the hills, and the fords of the river. How keenly they felt thus being shut out from the worship of God, we learn from the Psalms ; for most of the Psalms which
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aie full of longing for the courts of the Lord's house, for the altars on which even the swallows might build their nests, and for the city that was compact together, were written by poets who lived across the Jordan, in Perea ; and no doubt these Psalms expressed the yearning of many hearts besides their own. It was in this district, then, where there were many good men and women who were devoted to the service of the Temple, and all the more devoted because they were often shut out from it, and because their neighbours were heathen or heathenised Jews, to whom the Temple and the God of the Temple were not dear ; it was here that they brought children to Jesus, in order that He might touch them.
5. Who was it that brought the children to Jesus ? Why, of course, it was their mothers ; for, in describing this scene, St. Luke uses a word which means not only children, and little children, but hales at the breast, " nurslings." And who should bring these to Christ but the mothers who nursed them ?
6. The disciples " rebuked " the women, and even laid their strong hands on the little ones who came running round Christ, and pushed them lack. They seem, indeed, to have been quite unusually rude and rough in their bearing. For when we read that they " rebuked " the women, we are not to understand that they used dignified and polite language. What the word means is that they chid, that they scolded them, rating them for their forwardness and presumption in intruding themselves upon the Master's notice. And whereas we read that Jesus said to the angry disciples, " Suffer the little children to come unto me ; forbid them not," what we ought to read is "Let the little children go — let go them — take your hands off them, and do not hold them lack, do not push them away" So that from our Lord's own words we learn that the Apostles were pushing the women and children back and standing in their way, in order to prevent them from coming to Jesus.^