1 H. S. Dyer.
ST. MARK 243
new hearts and right spirits, or else they will go astray as other children do.^
^ A mother was knitting under the porch of her house one autumn afternoon. Her boy was playing with other children on the village green. Beyond the green was the river, and on the opposite bank of it was a wood full of nuts and berries, and sweet-smelling leaves, and flowers, and many other things which children delight to gather. "Let us cross to the wood," said some of the bigger children. " I shall cross too," said the little boy whose mother was knitting at the door. The ford was a little to the right, and just out of his mother's view. There were stepping-stones all the way across. And the little nutting and berrying party got quite safely to the other side. But the clouds had been darkening over the sky since morning. And now it began to rain. First it came in heavy drops, then there was a peal of thunder, then came down torrents of rain. The bigger children hurried back to the ford, and one by one got over safely. The little boy whose mother was knitting under the porch was last. The river had by this time risen. The stepping- stones were beginning to be covered. The little man took one step, then a second, then he came to a stone over which the river was flowing swiftly, and his heart failed. He wrung his hands with fear, and cried with a piercing cry. The mother heard his cry, and flew to the ford. She was too late. She could not reach her child. A broad black flood of water came thundering down between her boy and her. " My child ! " she cried. " Mother ! mother ! come for me," cried the boy. All the village came down to the riverside — men and women, young and old ; but no one would venture to cross. They looked and pitied; they looked and wrung their hands, but they gave no help. At that moment a young shepherd, leading his flock down from the mountains, entered the village, and saw the peril of the child. He left his sheep on the green, and took great strides to the river brink. The roaring of the water over the stones was terrible, but he heeded not. He stepped boldly from stone to stone. In the centre the flood had carried some of them away : he plunged into the stream. With strong arms he beat the water to the right and left. He pressed his feet against the currents, and swam right over to the boy. With one arm he clasped the child, with the other he once more grappled with the flood. There was the roaring of the stream beneath, and the raging of the storm above; but the brave shepherd, partly walking and partly swimming, brought the boy to the bank,
* C. n. Spurgeon.
244 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
and delivered him to his mother. That was a boy who found a saviour. And what the brave young shepherd saved him from was death. But Christ was the real Saviour that day.^
3. How are children hindered from coming to Jesus still ?
(1) By force of Example and Conversation. — The force of example, whether for good or bad, is very powerful, and especially is it so with parents upon their children and teachers upon their pupils. Peradventure, father, if you had been an earnest Christian your son would not have been ungodly ; possibly, dear mother, if you had been decided for the Saviour the girls would have been Christians too. How few consider the extent to which the minds of young children are affected by the conversation they hear ! Men talk lightly and falsely upon religious and moral subjects. They may mean no harm to the child ; they may forget its presence, or ignore the fact that it is listening, and drinking in much that they say. Yet it is doing so ; and, being unable to balance and weigh the truth for itself, their words have left a stamp of irreverence, of doubt, of sinful thoughts, and perhaps obliterated the lessons of purity and the fear of God learned at a mother's knee. They can hardly inflict a deadlier or more cruel injury than this.
^ If there is one thing which, more than any other, is woven into every part of the texture of modern society, it is that which in mercantile and commercial transactions goes by the name of credit. Credit is merely a Latin equivalent for our good, homely English word " trust." Society is held together at every turn by trust — by mutual trust. Impair this mutual trust and confidence, and you get in commercial circles what is called a "panic." Destroy it, and society is brought to a standstill, — is disintegrated, and broken up. Now, where is the meaning of the word " trust " first learned ? And where is the thing which corresponds to the word first practised ? Evidently in the home. The baby drinks it in with its mother's milk. The growing child, by what seems to be a natural instinct rather than an acquired habit, trusts those whom he learns to call by the names "father" and " mother." It is an evil thing for the family, and an evil thing for society, when the child's confidence is shaken and he finds that father and mother are not always to be trusted. And this lesson of trust is not confined to the relation of parent and child only, but belongs equally, though in other forme, to every relation