'Of such is the kingdom.' 'Except ye be converted and become like
little children,' etc. Now this does not refer to innocence; for, as a
matter of fact, children are not innocent, as all schoolmasters and
nurses know, whatever sentimental poets may say. Innocence is not a
qualification for admission to the kingdom. And yet it is true that
'heaven lies about us in our infancy,' and that we are further off
from it than when we were children. Nor does it mean that children are
naturally the subjects of the kingdom, but only that the
characteristics of the child are those which the man must have, in
order to enter the kingdom; that their natural disposition is such as
Christ requires to be directed to Him; or, in other words, that
childhood has a special adaptation to Christianity. For instance, take
dependence, trust, simplicity, unconsciousness, and docility.
These are the very characteristics of childhood, and these are the
very emotions of mind and heart which Christianity requires. Add the
child's strong faculty of imagination and its implicit belief; making
the form of Christianity as the story of a life so easy to them. And
we may add too: the absence of intellectual pride; the absence of the
habit of dallying with moral truth. Everybody is to the child either a
'good' man or a 'bad.' They have an intense realisation of the unseen;
an absence of developed vices and hard worldliness; a faculty of
living in the present, free from anxious care and worldly hearts. But
while thus they have special adaptation for receiving, they too need
to come to Christ. These characteristics do not make Christians. They
are to be directed to Christ. 'Suffer them to come unto Me,' the
youngest child needs to, can, ought to, come to Christ. And how
beautiful their piety is, 'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings
Thou hast perfected praise.' Their fresh, unworn trebles struck on
Christ's ear. Children ought to grow up in Christian households,
'innocent from much transgression.' We ought to expect them to grow up
Christian.