I

LED BY A CHILD

A little child shall lead them."-ISAIAH xi. 6.

THERE is no more prophetic word in the whole bible than this--for prophecy is not simply prediction, but a telling forth of God's ways and workings past, present and to come, by the man whose eyes He has opened to perceive them. Like many other prophetic words, our text was probably uttered without full consciousness of all its significance. It may be that the little child was introduced into the prophecy mainly to complete the picture of the perfect peacefulness of Messiah's reign, but it suggests more than that. It suggests that amidst all the agencies by which God is slowly bringing the discord of the world into harmony, the most powerful is the agency of the little child, and that in the ages of progress yet to come, during which the wolfish, bearish passions of mankind shall be further tamed to gentleness, the little child shall still lead. Does this sound to you strange, almost incredible? Let me try to show you that it is simple, sober verity.

I. First let me invite your attention to the part which the little child has played in the remote past

in the education of humanity from the stage of savagery to some degree of civilization. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that the cradle of the little child is the cradle of all the virtues. Here first was born and nourished the sentiment of compassion. The new-born babe in its utter helplessness first woke the emotion of pity in a mother's breast. Of its mother made, a part of herself and yet not herself, it called into being that mother-love which is at once egoistic and altruistic, the love of self passing over into the love of another-a marvellous anticipation of what philosophers tell us is to be the climax of moral development, when the selfregarding motives shall be so blended with the altruistic as to be indistinguishable. In that true millennium, just as the mother sees herself in her child, and feels not her tender ministrations to be self-sacrifice, but rather self-gratification, every man shall so see himself in his kind, and his kind in himself, as to feel the good of every man to be his own good, and when he benefits himself, find it hard to say whether he is more impelled by the sense of personal need, or by the desire that through his good his fellows shall be benefited, even as the mother when she suckles the babe at her breast. Thus this most primitive of all the virtues, maternal love and tenderness, dating from the very commencement of the human race ere yet the notion of virtue was formed, prefigures and prepares the way for that ideal state to which we look forward, as the culmination of our development, far as we are from the attainment of it.

It is a long journey from this faint foreshadowing

of perfect, all-rounded virtue to its ultimate realisation. The whole history of the human race lies between; but all the way the little child has led, and shall lead them.

We began with the sentiment of compassion, the first form of maternal love called into being. Now justice is the converse side of compassion, and its first exercise is in the same field. The rudimentary form of justice is the mother's impartiality to her offspring. It may be seen even in the lower animals

-even with kittens and chickens-how the mother chastises and chases away the strong little glutton, while she makes room for the poor weakling. So in the human family. The father's and mother's pity for their feebler offspring makes them defend them against the stronger, and enforce fairness all round. No doubt it may be said that parents, by their very fondness for their own offspring, are rendered unjust to the offspring of others; but I am shewing how the sentiment of justice originated and found its first field of exercise. The extension of it came later, but still from the same source, as will appear immediately.

The earliest administration of justice was undoubtedly within the family circle. Here the conception of law arose, the notion of government; here, too, the notion of co-operation. Children of the same family united for mutual defence and support, and as the family increased in successive generations, a clan was formed, holding together, acknowledging mutual obligations and submitting to some rude form of patriarchal government. Thus the way was prepared for the larger unity of the nation, and the

wider conception of law and order prevalent in civilised communities.

But prior to this chronologically, it should have been noticed that out of the relation between child and parent has sprung the sanctity of marriage. Every reflecting person will perceive that affection for offspring and desire to retain possession of them must have been, even in primitive times, a bond holding parents together, and tending to make their relation permanent. Ere priests or registrars were the little child led the way to the sacredness of marriage.

I might enlarge on other points, but enough has been said to indicate how, in the earliest stages of human progress, the little child has all unconsciously been the leader. No doubt affections corresponding to those of human beings may be traced in the lower animals, but there is this peculiarity about the human child-that he is for a longer period dependent on the fostering care of his parents. His influence is persistent, renewed with the birth of each child, and carried on from generation to generation, a most potent factor-I have ventured to call it the most potent factor in the moral development and discipline of the race.

II. As in the earlier stages of civilization, so in its later developments, the children still lead us forward in the path of self-forgetfulness and the other virtues I have enumerated. It needs a more than usual amount of divine grace to preserve a childless couple or an old bachelor from habits of selfishness, from the tendency to make personal comfort the first consideration, from reluctance to do anything that

will put them off their accustomed ways and disturb the even tenour of their life. Parentage works a grand transformation. It is no uncommon thing to see the thoughtless, selfish girl transformed into the careful, unselfish mother, the silent pleading of the little helpless leader proving irresistible, the selfdenial, at first almost compulsory from the urgency of the infant's needs, at last becoming voluntary, habitual, delightful. In like manner it is no uncommon thing to see the young man once roving, restless, idle, or even dissipated, sobered by the responsibilities and elevated by the affections of fatherhood, unsuspected graces emerging, latent energies called into activity, his whole character moulded on nobler lines; he becomes a grave, earnest, industrious, useful citizen. Nor would it be easy to estimate how much the community at large gains thereby. "For the children's sake "-how often is that word heard in the home, or if not heard (for it is oftener thought than spoken) how often is it the secret of countless acts of thrift and self denial, of toil and privation cheerfully borne, of temper curbed and patience exercised, of hardships encountered and self-sacrifice practised with endeavours little short of heroic— for the children's sake"; and by all this the community gains.

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But further, the presence of children in the community tends to make and keep it sweet, to foster the sentiments of tenderness, justice and purity. Nothing stirs the public mind like wrong inflicted on little children. Their very helplessness makes strong their appeal, and legislation on their behalf in factory acts, acts for prevention of cruelty to