_ Ver. 6'.-The leading of a little child: Sunday scliooi sermon. "And a little child shall lead them." The reduction of the fierceness of wild animals to such tameness that a little child may lead them is a very beautiful, poetical picture of the transfor- mation of the worst of the wicked to tbe excellency of the Christian spirit. We may, without impropriety, allow these words to suggest thoughts on the way in which the regeneration and perfecting of human character is brought about by the leading of the little child. God is training us all; we are all at his great school. Christ is the great Teacher; the Word of God is our "book of reference." But there are other sources of instruction at his command. Of these is the family life which he has instituted, and where we may all learn most valuable lessons. We may consider how we are led by the little child-leading sometimes from bad to good, and at other times from good to better things. The little child sometimes leads- I. FROM THJ,: FAR DISTANCE OF FLAGRANT WRONG TOW.ARDS THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. We have often read of the dissipated, or ungodly, or unbelieving parent, who has separated himself (herself) from all Mcred privileges, aud, it may be, gone far in forbidden paths, when all other influence3 have failed, being led by the soft, pleading accents of the little child to the safe precincts of the home, or to the services of the sanctuary, or to the path and practice of sobriety, and so to the kingdom of Christ. Sometimes it is not the living voice, but the remembered pleadings of the ,lcprted child coming from the other side the veil, which lead the distant wanderer to ;, come to himself," and then to "arise and go to the Father.n II. FROM OUTSIDE INTO THE SPIRITUAL KINGDOM. And this: 1. .As a model. \Vhen the disciples were discussing amongst themselves which of them should be the greatest in the kingdom, Jesus Christ took a child and set him iu the midst of them, and said th~t, except they were wholly changed aud became as little children in their spirit, they could not so much as enter that kin~dom at all. It is the child-spirit which iutruduces us into the kingdom of Christ, They who are kt>pt outside by difficulti,·s which thoy cannot solve, and they also who are excluded from faith and peace by a sense of unworthiness from which they cannot rise, need but to have the simple, unquestion- ing spirit of childhood; they need but to realize that they are God's very little children, and should take his word even BS they expect their own little ones to take theirs, and tbey will "couie in" and be blessed, 2, .Aa a motive, We are moved by many motivea. 212 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHE'l' ISAIAH, [OB, XI, 1-18.
and onr serinus decisions are usually determined by more considerations than one. There are many strong and urgent reasons why a man should yield himself to God; hut if all these fail to move him, let him remember the little child (children) beneath his roof for whom he is responsible, who will almost certainly imbibe his spirit, and gr0w up to be such as he is; and for his (their) sake, if not for his own, let him live the life which is right and worthy and wise. III. ON, IN THE KINGDOM, TOWARD THE GOAL AND THE PRIZE, 1. The little child continually reminds us of those graces which our heavenly Father looks to see in us. As we are ple:1sed with the docility, the trustfulness, the obedience, the affection of our children, and are pained when we witness the reverse, so is he affected by our attitude towards him. 2. The little child leads us into the field of Christian usefulness. The Christian Church saw the little child ignorant, unenlightened, neglected, in dan'ger of growing up to manhood far from truth and God, and it let him put his hnnd into its arm and lead it into the school where it should receive the knowledge and the influence which it needed. And the child having thus, by its very weakness and simplicity and necessity, led the Church into the school, it is for the Church to lead the child into the ways of heavenly wisdom, into the kingdom of Jesus Obrist, into the path of use- fulness and holy service.-C. .