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.
