"And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in
the midst of them." Matthew xviii.2.
Everything has its mission. I speak not now of the office which each
part of the great universe discharges. I speak not of the relation
between these parts,--that beautiful ordinance by which the whole is
linked together in one common life, by which the greatest is dependent
upon the least, and the least shares in the benefactions of the
greatest. In this sense, everything has, strictly, its mission. But I
speak of the influence, the instruction, which everything has, or may
have, for the soul of man. The flower, and the star, the grass of the
field, the outspread ocean, are full of lessons; they perform a mission
to our spiritual nature, if we will receive it. We may pass them by as
simply material forms, the decorations or conveniencies(sic) of this
our natural life. But if we will come to them in a religious spirit, and
study all their meaning, they will be to us ministers of God, impressive
and eloquent as human lips, and filled with truths instructive as any
that man can utter.
Jesus illustrated his teachings by these objects. He made everything
that was at hand perform a mission for the human soul. The lilies of the
field were clothed with spiritual suggestion, and the fowls of the air,
as they flew through the trackless firmament, bore a lesson of truth and
consolation. As if to show that there is nothing, however small, that
is insignificant, and that has not its mission, he selected the falling
sparrow to be a minister of wisdom, and dignified the wayside well as a
clear and living oracle of the divinest truth.
In the instance before us, the object selected was a little child. In
reply to the question, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"
Jesus set this little one in the midst of his disciples and said,
"Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little
children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Thus did he
rebuke their sensuous ideas of greatness by a spiritual truth, and make
a little child the teacher of profound and beautiful wisdom. I do not
propose, however, at this time, to dwell upon the precise doctrines
which Christ taught in the instance, but having, as it were, the little
child set in our midst, to draw from it further lessons that may do us
good. In one word, I propose to speak of the mission of little children.
In using this term "mission," I wish to have no obscurity about my
meaning. I refer, by it, to the influence which little children may
exert upon us,--to the effects which they may produce,--rather than to
any direct object which they can have in view, or for which they set
themselves to work. They may be unconscious missionaries; indeed, to a
great extent, they are so. But so are the lilies of the field and the
birds of the air. Yet if we believe that God is the ordainer of all
wisdom and of all good, that he uses an object or event in numberless
ways, and makes it the unconscious instrument of many of his plans,
then we may say that children are sent by him for the express purpose of
producing these effects, and in that sense have a mission.
I pass to consider some of the modes in which that mission is
accomplished.
I. Little children give us a sincere and affectionate manifestation
of human nature. I know that even a child will soon become artful,
and imbibe the spirit of dealing and of policy. But in a strongly
comparative sense, the child is artless. The thoughts of the heart leap
spontaneously from the lips. The bubbling impulse is closely followed
by the action. Its desire, its aversion, its love, its curiosity,
are expressed without modification. The broken prattle, those
half-pronounced words, are uttered with clear, ringing tones of
sincerity. There is no coil of deceit about the heart. There are no
secrets chambered in the brain. The countenance has put on no disguise.
There is no manoeuvring with lips or actions, no suspicion or plotting
in the eyes. It is simple human nature fresh from the hands of God, with
all its young springs in motion, trying themselves in their simplicity
and their newness. The eyes open upon the world, not with speculation,
but with wonder. To them, the ancient hills and the morning stars are
just created, new phenomena burst upon them every moment, and nature in
a thousand channels pours itself into the young soul. And how soon it
learns the meaning of a mother's smile, and the protection of a father's
hand! How soon the fountains of affection are unsealed and the mystery
of human love takes possession of the hear! But the tides of that love
are controlled by no calculation, are fettered by no proprieties, but
flow artlessly and freely.
Humanity soon runs into deceit, and the sincerest man wears a mask.
We cannot trust our most familiar friends, to the whole extent. We all
retain something in our inmost hearts that nobody knows but we and
God. The world bids us be shrewd and politic. We walk in a mart of
selfishness. Eyes stare upon us, and we are afraid of them. We meet as
traders, as partisans, as citizens, as worshippers, as friends-brothers,
if you will-but we must not express all we think, we must school
ourselves in some respects,--must adopt some conventionalities. There is
some degree of isolation between ourselves and every other one. But
from the world's strife and sordidness, its wearisome forms and cold
suspicions, we may turn to the sanctity of home, and if we have a child
there, we shall find affection without alloy, a welcome that leaps from
the heart in sunshine to the face, and speaks right from the soul;--a
companion who is not afraid or ashamed of us, who makes no calculation
about our friendship, who has faith in it, and requires of us perfect
faith in return, and whose sincerity rebukes our worldliness, and makes
us wonder at the world. And if all this makes us better and happier,
if it keeps our hearts from hardness and attrition, if it begets in us
something of the same sincerity, and hallows us with something of
the same affection, if it softens and purifies us at all, then do not
children, in this respect perform a mission for us?
And shall we not learn from them more confidence in human nature, seeing
that "the child is father to the man," and that much that seems cold and
hard in men may conceal the remains of childhood's better feeling? And,
also, shall it not make us deplore and guard against those influences
which can change the sincere and loving child into the deceitful and
selfish man-that cover the spring of genuine feeling with the thick rime
of worldliness, and petrify the tender chords of the heart into rough,
unfeeling sinews? The man should not be, in all respects, as the child.
The child cannot have the glory of the man. If it is not polluted by his
vices, it is not ennobled by his virtues. But in so much as the child
awakens in us tenderness, and teaches us sincerity, and counteracts our
coarser and harder tendencies, and cheers us in our isolation from human
hearts, by binding us close with a warm affection, and sheds ever around
our path the mirrored sunshine of our youth and our simplicity, in so
much the child accomplishes for us a blessed mission.
II. Children teach us faith and confidence. Man soon becomes proud with
reason, and impatient of restraint. He thinks he knows, or ought to
know, the whole mystery of the universe. It is not easy for him to take
anything upon trust, or to lie low in the hand of God. But the child is
full of faith. He is not old enough to speculate, and the things he sees
are to him so strange and wonderful that he can easily believe in "the
things that are unseen." He propounds many questions, but entertains no
doubts as to God and heaven. And what confidence has he in his father's
government and his mother's providence!
I do not say, here, that a man's faith should be as a child's faith. Man
must examine and reason, contend with doubt, and wander through mystery.
But I would have him cherish the feeling that he too is a child, the
denizen of a Father's house, and have sufficient confidence in that
Father to trust his goodness; and to remember, if things look perplexed
and discordant to him, that his vision is but a child's vision-he cannot
see all. Indeed, there is a beautiful analogy between a child in its
father's house and man in the universe, and much there is in the filial
sentiment that belongs to both conditions. Beautifully has it been shown
by a recent writer how the natural operation of this sentiment in the
child's heart, and in the sphere of home, stands somewhat in the place
of that religion which man needs in his maturer conditions. "God
has given it, in its very lot," says he, "a religion of its own, the
sufficiency of which it were impiety to doubt. The child's veneration
can scarcely climb to any loftier height than the soul of a wise and
good parent...How can there be for him diviner truth than his father's
knowledge, a more wonderous world than his father's experience, a better
providence than his mother's vigilance, a securer fidelity than in their
united promise? Encompassed round by these, he rests as in the embrace
of the only omniscience he can comprehend." (Martineau)
But O! my friends, when our childhood has passed by, and we go out to
drink the mingled cup of life, and cares come crowding upon us, and
hopes are crushed, and doubts wrestle with us, and sorrow burdens our
spirits, then we need a deeper faith, and look up for a stronger Father.
A kind word will not stifle our grief then. We cannot go to sleep upon
our mother's arms, and forget it all. There is no charm to hold our
spirits within the walls of this home, the earth. Our thoughts crave
more than this. Our souls reach out over the grave, and cry for
something after! No bauble will assuage this bitterness. It is spiritual
and stern, and we must have a word from heaven-a promise from one who is
able to fulfill. We look around us, and find that Father, and his
vary nature contains the promise that we need. And as the child in his
ignorance has faith, not because he can demonstrate, but because it
is his father, so let us, in our ignorance, feel that in this great
universe of many mansions, of solemn mysteries, of homes beyond the
earth, of relationships that reach through eternity, of plans only a
portion of which is seen here; so let us look up as to a Father's
fare, take hold of his hand, go in and out and lie down securely in his
presence, and cherish faith. If children only teach us to do this, how
beautiful and how great is their mission!
III. Children waken in us new and powerful affections. Nobody but a
parent can realize what these affections are, can tell what a fountain
of emotion the newborn child unseals, what chords of strange love are
drawn out from the heart, that before lay there concealed. One may
have all powers of intellect, a refined moral culture, a noble and
wide-reaching philanthropy, and yet a child born to him shall awaken
within him a depth of tenderness, a sentiment of love, a yearning
affection, that shall surprise him as to the capacity and the mystery of
his nature.
And the relation of a mother to her child; what other is like it?
Without it, how undeveloped is the great element of affection, how small
a horn of its orb is filled and lighted! What was she until that new
love woke up within her, and her heart and soul thrilled with it, and
first truly lived in it? Of all the degrees of human love, how amply is
this the highest! In all the depths of human love, how surely is this
the nethermost! When illustrations fail us, how confidently do we seize
upon this! The mother nurturing her child in tenderness, watching over
it with untiring love! O! that is affection stronger than any of this
earth. It has a power, a beauty, a holiness like no other sentiment.
When that child has grown to maturity, and has gone out from her in
profligacy and in scorn; when the world has denounced him, and justice
sets its price upon his head, and lovers and companions fall off from
him in utter loathing-we do not ask, we know, there is one heart that
cannot reject him. No sin of his can paralyze the chord that vibrates
there for him. No alienation can cancel the affection that was born at
his birth, that pillowed him in his infancy, centred in him its life,
clasped him with its strength, and shed upon him its blessings, its
hopes, and its prayers.
And no one feels the death of a child as a mother feels it. Even the
father cannot realize it thus. There is a vacancy in his home, and a
heaviness in his heart. There is a chain of association that at
set times comes round with its broken link; there are memories of
endearment, a keen sense of loss, a weeping over crushed hopes, and a
pain of wounded affliction. But the mother feels that one has been taken
away who was still closer to her heart. Hers has been the office of
constant ministration. Every gradation of feature has developed before
her eyes. She has detected every new gleam of intelligence. She heard
the first utterance of every new word. She has been the refuge of his
fears; the supply of his wants. And every task of affection has woven a
new link, and made dear to her its object. And when he dies, a portion
of her own life, as it were, dies. How can she give him up, with all
these memories, these associations? The timid hands that have so often
taken hers in trust and love, how can she fold them on his breast, and
surrender them to the cold clasp of death? The feet whose wanderings she
has watched so narrowly, how can she see them straitened to go down
into the dark valley? The head that she has pressed to her lips and her
bosom, that she has watched in burning sickness and in peaceful slumber,
a hair of which she could not see harmed, O! how can she consign it
to the chamber of the grave? The form that not for one night has been
beyond her vision or her knowledge, how can she put it away for the long
night of the sepulchre, to see it no more? Man has cares and toils that
draw away his thoughts and employ them; she sits in loneliness, and all
these memories, all these suggestions, crowd upon her. How can she bear
all this? She could not, were it not that her faith is as her affection;
and if the one is more deep and tender than in man, the other is more
simple and spontaneous, and takes confidently hold of the hand of God.
Thus, then, do children awaken within us deep and mighty affections; and
is it not their mission to do so? Do we not see many beautiful offices
created and discharged by these affections--tender and far-reaching
relationships into which they run? Do we not see how they win the heart
from frivolity and selfishness, and make it aware of duties, and quick
with sympathies? I shall not enter into detailed considerations of the
results of this affection thus awakened in us by children. A little
reflection will render them obvious to you. Let me simply say, that in
awakening these affections children discharge an important and beautiful
mission.
IV. I might speak of other offices discharged by little children; of the
influence upon us of their purity and their innocence; their importance
in the social state; of the benefits conferred upon us by the very
duties which we exercise toward them. But merely suggesting these, I
will speak at this time of but one more mission which they perform
for us, and this, my friends, is performed through sadness and through
tears. The little child performs it by its death. It has been with us a
little while. We have enjoyed its bright and innocent companionship by
the dusty highway of life, in the midst of its toils, its cares, and its
sin. It has been a gleam of sunshine and a voice of perpetual gladness
in our homes. We have learned from it blessed lessons of simplicity,
sincerity, purity, faith. It has unsealed within us this gushing,
never-ebbing tide of affection. Suddenly, it is taken away. We miss the
gleam of sunshine. We miss the voice of gladness. Our homes are dark and
silent. We ask, "Shall it not come again?" And the answer breaks upon
us through the cold gray silence, "Nevermore!" We say to ourselves again
and again, "Can it be possible?" "Do we not dream?" "Will not that life
and affection return to us?" "Nevermore!" O! nevermore! The heart is
like an empty mansion, and that word goes echoing through its desolate
chambers. We are stricken and afflicted. But must this, should this, be
always and only so? Are we not looking merely at the earthly aspect of
the event? Has it not a spiritual phase for us? Nay, do we not begin to
consider how through our temporal affection an eternal good is wrought
out for us? Do we begin to realize that in our souls we have derived
profit from it already? Do we not begin to learn that life is not a
holiday or a workday only, but a discipline,--that God conducts that
discipline in infinite wisdom and benevolence,--mingles the draught,
and, when he sees fit, infuses bitterness? Not that constant sweet
would not please us better, but that our discipline, which is of more
importance than our indulgence, will be more effectual thereby. This is
often talked about; I ask, do not we who are called upon to mourn the
loss of children realize it,--actually realize that that loss is for
our spiritual gain? If we do not, we are merely looking upon the earthly
phase of our loss. If we do not realize this spiritual good, we may.
Yes, in death the little child has a mission for us. Through that very
departure he accomplishes for us, perhaps, what he could not accomplish
by his life. These affections which he has awakened, we have considered
how strong they are. They are stronger, are they not, than any
attachment to mere things of this earth? But that child has gone from
us,--gone into the unseen, the spiritual world. What then? Do our
affections sink back into our hearts,--become absorbed and forgotten?
O, no! They reach out after that little one; they follow him into the
unseen and spiritual world,--thus is it made a great and vivid reality
to us,--perhaps for the first time. We have talked of it, we have
believed in it; but now that our dead have gone into it, we have, as
it were, entered it ourselves. Its atmosphere is around us, chords of
affection draw us toward it, the faces of our departed ones look out
from it--and it is a reality. And is it not worth something to make it
such a reality?
We are wedded to this world. It is beautiful, it is attractive, it is
real. Immortality is a pleasant thought. The spiritual land is an object
of faith. But the separation between this and that is cold to think of,
and hard to bear. It needs something stronger than this earth to draw us
toward that spiritual world; to break some of the thousand tendrils
that bind us here. My friends, though many powerful appeals, many solid
arguments, cannot break our affections from this earth, the hand of a
departed child can do it. The voice that calls us to unseen realities,
that bids us prepare for the heavenly land, that says from heights of
spiritual bliss and purity, "Come up hither;"--that voice that we loved
so on earth, and gladly can we rise and follow it.
Behold, then, what a little child can perform for us through its death!
It makes real and attractive to us that spiritual world to which it has
gone, and calls our affections from earth to that true life which is the
great end of our being, which is the object of all our discipline, our
mingled joy and suffering, here upon this earth. That little child, gone
from its sufferings of early,--gone
"Gentle and undefiled, with blessings on its head,"--
has it indeed become a very angel of God for us, and is it calling us
to a more spiritual life, and does it win us to heaven? Is its memory
around us like a pure presence into which no thought of sin can readily
enter? Or is it with us, even yet, a spiritual companion of our ways?
From being the guarded and the guided, has it risen in infant innocence,
yet in the knowledge and majesty of the immortal life, to be the guard
and the guide? Does it, indeed, make our hearts softer and purer,
and cause us to think more of duty, and live more holy, thus clothing
ourselves to go and dwell with it? Does it, by its death, accomplish all
this? O! most important, most glorious mission of all, if we only heed
it, if we only accept it. Then shall we behold already the wisdom and
benevolence of our Father breaking through the cloud that overshadows
us. Already shall we see that the tie, which seemed to be dropped and
broken, God has taken up to draw us closer to himself, and that it
is interwoven with his all-gracious plan for our spiritual profit and
perfection. And we can anticipate how it will all be reconciled, when
his own hand shall wipe away our tears, and the bliss of reunion shall
extract the last drop of bitterness from "the cup that our Father had
given us."