^ When I introduce my little one to the Saviour I am intro- ducing her to a lifelong friend. Marvellous, and ever-growingly marvellous to me, is my Lord's adaptability, or should I rather say, our Lord's susceptibility, to a little child. How He can accommodate Himself to the little span of their comprehension, and weave Himself into their desires and enthusiasms and hopes ! But more beautiful still is it to watch how His stride enlarges with their years, and how He shares with them the pilgrim's sandals and the pilgrim's staff when life becomes a grave crusade. He is "the same yesterday and to-day," when we begin to shoulder responsibility, and to take up the burden of our prime.
HEBREWS XIII. 8 489
And when we reach the summit of our years, and the decline begins, and we march down through the afternoon towards the west where the clouds are homing for the night — when old age comes, with all its regret and fears, He will be as finely suscep- tible and responsive to our need as in those playful, careless hours of the dawning, when first He called our names.^
Whate'er may change, in Him no change is seen, A glorious sun, that wanes not, nor declines;
Above the clouds and storms He walks serene, And on His people's inward darkness shines.
All may depart — I fret not nor repine,
While I my Saviour's am, while He is mine.
He stays me falling ; lifts me up when down ;
Keclaims me wandering; guards from every foe; Plants on my worthless brow the victor's crown.
Which in return before His feet I throw, Grieved that I cannot better grace His shrine Who deigns to own me His, as He is mine.
While here, alas ! I know but half His love, But half discern Him, and but half adore;
But when I meet Him in the realms above,
I hope to love Him better, praise Him more,
And feel, and tell, amid the choir divine,
How fully I am His, and He is mine ! ^
1 J. H. Jowett.
' H. F. Lyte, Poems Chiefly Religious, 76.
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