254 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
conflict with wishes, and caprices, and fancies, and temper, and begins to fade out of the character even more rapidly than the natural grace of innocence. But that same readiness of obedience, that same instinctive impulse to obey superior bidding, the man has to learn if he has not been able to keep. And blessed indeed is he who has kept it. The temptations, the conflicts, the falls, the sorrow, the mischief from which he is saved who has kept on from childhood the readiness to do what he is bid, and who, as other authorities are removed, transfers his hearty and quick submission to God's messenger within the soul, who shall number ?
8. Was it their Simplicity ? — One of the characteristics of the child is simplicity. There is not, there cannot well be, in a child any depth or persistency of worldly purpose. Eather a child is altogether purposeless. Affectation there may be in a child, but it cannot last. It comes and goes. Longing for some particular object there may be, but how easily it is diverted ! The heart is readily reached. There is as yet no crust formed over it by selfish aims. There is as yet nothing to check natural generosity. There may be the germs of worldliness, but they are not yet come to their growth. The springs of the heart are still fresh. The impulses are still warm. The readiness to believe is still strong. This, too, passes away, unless it is kept by prayer and by personal communion with God. This, too, if it pass away, must be recovered, if a man is to be a servant of Christ. And this cannot be kept and cannot be recovered by conflict with ourselves. To keep innocence and to keep the instinct of obedience, demand chiefly the will. But to keep simplicity demands that kind of prayer which seems to make a man familiar with the very presence of God, which seems to keep him constantly in the outer court of heaven, which seems to give him unconsciously the language, the bearing, the countenance only to be got from heavenly thoughts.
^ You must accustom yourself to seek Him with the simplicity of a child, with a tender familiarity and a confidence acceptable to so loving a Father.^
' Feaelon.
ST. MARK 255
^ In a grown man the direct and negative simplicity of a child is childishness ; yet though he may not and cannot become a child, to become in some measure childlike, to make himself refiexly and positively what he was when Nature first gave him into his own hands, is the scope of all rightly directed moral endeavour. Normally, his first exercise of liberty is to shatter this simplicity to atoms ; to go as far as may be from his infancy ; to break up and explore the infinite possibilities of his natm*e. His subsequent task is to return homeward, to reconstruct freely, consciously, appreciatively, what he has shattered; to consent understandingly to God's designs in his regard. This is the law of all moral and spiritual life.^
9. Was it simply their Attractiveness ? — The young do not know how deep an interest, how warm an affection, how keen a sympathy they always attract from those who are older. They do not know how strong is the desire which older people feel to make them happy, to win their affection, to guide them right. They do not know the pleasure which they give when they seem pleased, when they show affection, when they show nobleness, or truth, or unselfishness of character. When a man has grown to manhood there cannot be the same interest in him unless he is a personal friend. He is bound to see to himself. He cannot be helped in the same way. And Grod accordingly has not unlocked all hearts to him, as He has to those who are younger But the young are ever surrounded by those who long for their welfare, whose delight is to see them delighted, whose hope is to see their happiness resting on a sure foundation. Can there be any other time of life when it will be easier to let right feelings and warm-hearted simplicity rule the soul than while much of the childlike character still remains, and the tenderness of God is still reflected all around in the yearning good wishes of older friends ? ^ ,
10. Or was it, last of all, the powers that lay hidden in the child ? — It was not only the winning beauty of the little children that held Jesus. He saw in them the pledges and most striking emblems of the great Empire of God. " Heaven lies about us in our infancy." " Thou best Philosopher ! " "Mighty Prophet!" "Seer blest!" says Wordsworth, in his
» Father Tyrrell.
256 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
" Intimations of Immortality." Lofty language to apply to a little child, and yet all and more is contained in the simple words, " Of such is the kingdom of God."
^ Who is He in all the world who does most for us ? Think of the great world with all its roar and traffic and eager crowd ; think of all the interests that busy and concern men. There are the thinkers who think, and the artists who bless us with beauty, and the poets who sing. There are those who enrich us with the luxuries of life, and those who toil for its comfort and necessities. But who does most for us ? He does most who brings to the heart a new accession of love — of love that subdues all the thought and aim of the life ; — that uplifts its little common round into a thing purged of its selfishness and made beautiful by thought of others. If that be so, then let the world make room for the apostle of love — the little child.^