1. Was it their Weakness and Dependence ? — Every child is, and must be, very weak. It is its nature to be weak. It could not be a little child if it were not weak. So it is with every child of God. His weakness is an essential part of his being what he is. He could not be a child of God if he were not weak. What is weakness ? Emptiness — for God to fill witli Himself. What is weakness ? Eoom where God may work and His grace expand. What is weakness ? To be nothing, that God may be everything. We do not march into heaven ; no one enters heaven so ; we are to be borne in the arms and on the bosom of Jesus Christ. And we are undertaken for in every- thing ; just as the father for his babe, so Christ for us : provision for all our wants, to feed our body and our soul, to pay all our debts, to carry out all our true wishes, to carry us, to train us, to perfect us, to make us quite happy in Him, and to glorify Himself in us.
2. Was it their Trustfidness 1 — The little child is charac-
250 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
terised by trust. We almost smile at a child's credulity. Why do we smile ? Because we have learned too painfully that it does not do, in such a world as this, to trust any man as that little child trusts us ; and to take him at his word as that little child is accepting us at our word. Alas that we should have to unlearn that holy art, that characteristic of childhood ! Alas for a world which finds it necessary to coin such a word as that, — credulity ! The greatest lesson we have to learn in life, the hardest thing we have to do, is to take God at His word. It will be an end of all unhappiness and of all sin, if we can just do that, take God at His word.
^ A lady said to a little daughter of the missionary Judson, " Were you not afraid to journey so far over the ocean ? " " Why, no, madam," returned the believing child ; " father prayed for us ! " ^
^ During a recent hard winter, a poor widow, with several helpless children, was reduced almost to her last crust of bread, when one of her little boys, who saw her distress and anxiety, said to her, " Please don't cry, mother ; I will write a letter to Jesus to help us ! " The woman was too much occupied with her troubles to notice his singular remark, and so, taking her silence for approval of his purpose, he sat down and scrawled on a bit of paper, torn from an old writing-book, these words : " Dear Saviom- : my mother and my brothers and sisters have had no breakfast nor dinner to-day ; please send us something to eat." He then signed his name, with the street and number, and, running to the post-office, dropped the letter into the box. When the letters were sorted, the clerk's attention was attracted by one directed, in a child's hand, "To Jesus Christ." In his perplexity, he showed it to the postmaster, and he, in turn, handed it to a good Christian man who came into the office for his mail " I will take care of it ! " said the gentleman.'^
A tender child of summers three,
Seeking her little bed at night, Paused on the dark stair timidly. "Oh, mother! take my hand," said she,
"And then the dark will all be light."
We older children grope our way
From dark behind to dark before; And only when our hands we lay, Dear Lord, in Thine, the night is day, And there is darkness nevermore.
» J. N. Norton. =" Jbid.
ST. MARK 251
Eeach downward to the sunless days, Wherein our guides are blind as we,
And faith is small and hope delays ;
Take Thou the hands of prayer we raise, And let us feel the light of Theel^
3. Was it their Candour ? — There is a notably direct ex- pression of thought by children. It is true that their exercise of this candour may need to be checked. There are many things which we think, but which, for various reasons, we rightly abstain from saying. And yet a child might teach us to say nothing which we do not mean. The cynic may sneer- ingly remark that the use of language is to conceal our thoughts. It is, however, scarcely necessary to ask whether this does not suggest a radically un-Christian perversion of speech. How well it would be were people to be more straightforward in their words ! Without their being rudely outspoken, what needless difficulties would be escaped, what misunderstandings would be avoided, from what mischievous perplexities would families and society be spared !
^ We are sometimes afraid to say this, or do that, which, if said or done, would bring welcome and legitimate relief to our- selves and others. How often a man regrets that he had not the moral courage to take such and such a course, to have been a little more plain spoken ! What mistakes and misapprehensions would have been avoided, what explanations would have been rendered unnecessary, if he had only said what he believed when the opportunity presented itself ! How the air is sometimes cleared by the utterance of a thought which had been (so they afterwards fancy) in the mind of all, but which no one had had the courage to express in words ! This direct, uncalculating simplicity of speech is just one of the things in which men may well learn of children.^