* C. H. Spurgeon.
ST. MARK i4i
inopportune moment. And so they pushed them back, and I dare say called out, " Keep back there ! He can't attend to you now. Don't you see that He is busy ? "
(2) Doubt of the children's capacity to understand Jesus. — They regarded the child perhaps from the point of view of its intellectual attainments, and reasoned that it was too young to distinguish between truth and falsehood, between system and system. Does not our Lord's answer favour this interpretation ? For He at once showed that if it was not the mere innocence of the child that He was prepared to bless, neither was it the child's willingness to receive information and ask no further; but that it was upon that spirit of truthfulness, upon the desire to know truth for its own sake, that He conferred His blessing. And Jesus at once proceeded to show how that same quality which He blessed might be still alive, still unquenched by the world in the full-grown man. " Verily I say unto you. Whoso- ever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein,"
^ I will say broadly that I have more confidence in the spiritual life of the children that I have received into this church than I have in the spiritual condition of the adults thus received. I will even go further than that, and say that I have usually found a clearer knowledge of the Gospel and a warmer love to Christ in the child-converts than in the man-converts, I will even astonish you still more by saying that I have sometimes met with a deeper spiritual experience in children of ten and twelve than I have in certain persons of fifty and sixty. It is an old proverb that some children are born with beards. Some boys are little men, and some girls are little old women. You cannot measure the lives of any of us by our ages, I knew a boy who, when he was fifteen, often heard old Christian people say, "The boy is sixty years old: he speaks with such insight into Divine truth." I believe that this youth at fifteen did know far more of the things of God, and of soul travail, than any around him, whatever their age might be.^
(3) Forgetfulness of their value. — The soul's price does not depend upon its years. " Oh, it is only a child ! " " Children are a nuisance." " Children are always getting in the way." This talk is common. God forgive those who despise the little ones. A boy is more worth saving than a man. It is infinite
^ 0. H. Spurgeon. ST. MARK — 1 6
242 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
mercy on God's part to save those who are seventy ; for what good can they now do with the fag end of their lives ? But these dear boys and girls — there is something to be made out of them. If they yield themselves now to Christ they may have a long, happy, and holy day before them in which they may serve God with all their hearts. If a famous schoolmaster was accustomed to take his hat off to his boys because he did not know whether one of them might not be Prime Minister, we may justly look with awe upon converted children, for we do not know how soon they may be among the angels, or how greatly their light may shine among men.
^ The writer knew a splendid missionary woman in India, who, when only eight years of age, saw, as in a vision, multitudes of heathen children on a distant shore beckoning her to come and teach them of the true God. Another, who did good service in Africa, was, in her childhood, so desirous to help the cause, that she collected shavings from the carpenters' shops and sold them for kindlings to the neighbours, the money earned going into her missionary box.^
(4) Ignorance of their need of Jesus. — If any mother in that throng had said, " I must bring my child to the Master, for he is sore afflicted with a devil," neither Peter, nor James, nor John would have demurred for a moment, but would have assisted in bringing the possessed child to the Saviour. Or suppose another mother had said, "My child has a pining sickness upon it, it is wasted to skin and bone ; permit me to bring my darling, that Jesus may lay His hands upon her " — the disciples would all have said : " Make way for this woman and her sorrowful burden." But these little ones with bright eyes, and prattling tongues, and leaping limbs, why should they come to Jesus ? They forgot that in those children, with all their joy, their health, and their apparent innocence, there was a great and grievous need for the blessing of a Saviour's grace. If we indulge in the novel idea that our children do not need conversion, that children born of Christian parents are some- what superior to others, and have good within them which only needs development, one great motive for our devout earnestness will be gone. Our children need the Spirit of God to give them