^ " Educate children without religion, and you make a race of clever devils."'
^ Canon Ainger. * G. Milligan. ' Wellington.
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(3) By neglect of their Place in Public Worship. — Are the Bervices of the sanctuary of such a character as to interest and benefit the young ? So long as the children sit quietly in their places few members of our congregations are really conscious of their existence and presence in the sanctuary. This ought not to be. Every part of our worship should have its share for the young as well as for the old. Our psalmody should be so arranged that their fresh voices may bear a part in its melody. Our prayers should convey their needs to the throne of grace as well as the wants of their parents. And while it is manifest that there must necessarily be much in most sermons, perhaps something in every one, that may be beyond their present powers of comprehension, ministers should recollect that they are pastors of the lambs not less than of the sheep. The congregation which affects to despise the simpler words which the preacher now and again drops for the benefit of " these little ones," should take heed lest it despise that which is precious in the sight of God.
^ In that pathetic scene in which Charles Dickens describes the death of Jo, you will remember how Jo, in answer to the question whether he ever knew a prayer, told how, different times, " there was gen'l'men come down Tom All-alone's a-prayin'. but they all mostly sed as the t'other wuns prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be a-talkin' to theirselves, or a-passin' blame on the t'others, and not a-talkin' to us. We never know'd nothink. / never know'd what it wos all about." Poor little street arab, passing away into the dim unknown with no other knowledge of Christ's religion than that ! ^
III.
A Eevelation.
The revelation is of the nature of the Kingdom — " Of such is the kingdom of God."
Of whom ? Of little children, or of those who are childlike ? Some (as Baxter) take the words literally. They understand Christ to refer to the number of actual little children which are now in heaven. Those little children never wilfully resisted
1 G. Millk'au,
248 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
grace, or put the Saviour away from them. And their guilt, which they brought with them into this world, having been rolled back in the death of Jesus Christ, they, dying in infancy, went to glory. And when we remember the exceeding great number of the infants that die on the threshold of life, and therefore the very large proportion which they must make of the company of the saints, we can quite see that there may be truth in what Christ said, even to the very letter, if infants dying are infants still — " Of such is the kingdom of heaven," Whether our Lord did refer or not to the literal childhood which there may be in heaven, He certainly extends His assertion to those who, though not children, are like them.^
^ Eemember what Christ's words are : " Of such is the kingdom of God." What can the words mean if not that children and all who resemble them, all who possess the essential qualities of child- hood, are members of that Kingdom ? If I were to point to these roses, and say, " Of such as these is the floral kingdom composed," what would you think of the good sense of a man, however wise he looked, if he should go away and affirm that what I meant was, that all flowers like roses were in the floral kingdom, but that roses themselves were not ? Or if I were speaking of angels, and said, " Of such is the kingdom of heaven," what sort of commentator would he be who should argue from my words that no angel was in that Kingdom, that they were all outside it ? And when our Lord, speaking of children, says: " Of such is the kingdom of God," what can we think of those who argue from His words that children themselves are not in God's Kingdom ? I will tell you what I think of them : I think they hold some dogma, or creed, not in harmony with the mind of Christ, and try therefore to wrest these gracious words from their plain meaning.^
What then are the qualities in children which made it possible for the Christ to say, " Of such is the kingdom of God " ? As we seek for an interpretation of Christ's warning to His disciples, in some respects it is obvious that no one would wish grown-up men to be like children. There are Christian graces which they cannot exhibit, and depths of feeling which they cannot reach. The sorrows, indeed, of childhood are possibly sharper than we think while they last. The bruised finger or the broken toy brings a paroxysm of distress. But the young
* James Vaughau. ^ Samuel Cox.
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child knows nothing of the sacredness of loss or mourning. It will play in the nursery though death has entered the house ; and the rooted love of riper years is of far nobler growth than is possible in the earliest days of life. Again, children are often heedlessly exacting and imperious. It is reserved for men and women to show forbearance and self-sacrifice. Children also are sometimes unwittingly cruel and inconsiderate. Kindness to man and beast is one of the things which we seek to teach them, and they cannot be taught too soon. But in its fulness and depth it is a mature virtue. So are steadiness and endurance. We rebuke a man for the want of them in saying he is "as giddy as a child." Again, some children, who afterwards become thoroughly trustworthy, have not always seen the value of truth. In short, there are many childish imperfections and defects which we make no great count of because children have no power to put them into mischievous force. The law, indeed, takes wise cognisance of this, refusing to admit or acknowledge their possession of responsibility in some matters till the age of twenty-one has been reached. "What, then, was it in the little children that made Jesus say, " Of such is the kingdom of God"?