`But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness.’ Matt. 8: 12.

In what close union we have here before us the wonderful privilege and the terrible danger that attach to the place our children have in the Church of Christ. They are children of the kingdom: what more glorious! They can be cast out into outer darkness: what more awful! The only way certainly to avoid the latter is fully to grasp the former; to let it be not a name but a power ruling and renewing the whole life. To this end let us try to apprehend all it implies.

Children of the kingdom! What kingdom? The answer is simple: the kingdom of God! And where is this kingdom? In heaven. It is that Divine rule or dominion which obtains in heaven and the whole heavenly world. Its center is the Throne of God, on which He dwells who is the Holy One, from whom all life and all law and all love flow forth. Around that Throne are powers and principalities and dominions, with their untold myriads of holy spirits who do His will and are the messengers of His power. Of that kingdom the mark is, that in God everything is love and blessing, in His subjects everything obedience and joy.

And how can this heavenly kingdom be here on earth? When God created the heavens and the earth, it was with the object of securing new territory in which His heavenly empire might be established. But the power of another kingdom, the kingdom of Satan, interfered, and in the fall of man the coming of the kingdom was delayed. For four thousand years it was promised and hoped for, but the kingdom of heaven was not yet on earth.

And how did this kingdom come? It was in the fulness of time, when the King Himself came to earth, that the message was heard: The kingdom of heaven is at hand, the kingdom of heaven is come unto you. He came, first in His own life as a subject and a servant, to show us what the spirit is that animates all the subjects of the kingdom — implicit obedience, delight in doing the will of God. In that obedience unto death He broke the power of Satan and of sin, showed forth the wondrous love with which as our King He loved us, and set us free for the blessed life of serving and obedience like His own. And then, when as King ascending to heaven, He took His seat upon the throne, the kingdom could come. In the outpouring of the Holy Spirit the kingdom came in power, and was set up in the hearts that had been prepared to receive Him, and to enter the kingdom.

And who were the subjects of this kingdom? Jesus had said: `Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ Nothing less than the Spirit of God, the Spirit of heaven, coming in and taking possession of a man, could fit him to enter, or even see the kingdom, or to live as one of its subjects. But with this solemn message Jesus had also spoken: `Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven:’ to become an heir of the kingdom, nothing was needed but the consciousness and confession of poverty; having nothing, we might possess all.

And the marks of those who truly belong to this kingdom? Nothing less than the marks by which the King was known on earth: obedience and love towards God, obedience to the uttermost, an absolute surrender to His will. And towards man, love, giving itself to live and die, to bring the blessings of the kingdom to all around. `The kingdom is not in word but in power;’ the kingdom of heaven above everything is in the infinite power of the eternal life: as the kingdom comes down, the Holy Ghost, the power, comes also to give the strength to live as members of the kingdom. In each one of whom the kingdom truly takes possession, the prayer, `Thy kingdom come,’ becomes the desire of the heart, and everything is subordinate to its extension and the manifestation of its glory.

And who are the children of the kingdom? Jesus spoke this word even of the Jews who rejected the kingdom. God had in His great mercy committed the promise of the kingdom to Israel, and all its children were its heirs. And now our children, born under its influence, destined for its blessings, baptized into the fellowship of the Church, which is the nursery and training school of the kingdom — our children are children of the kingdom — ‘of such is the kingdom of heaven.’

And what is needed to secure for them the possession of the kingdom to which they have thus been made the heirs? That they may lose it, we see — children of the kingdom may be cast out into outer darkness. What is needed above everything is this, that they be so educated and trained under the influence and power of the heavenly life, in the very spirit of the kingdom, that the blessing which their name, as expressive of their destiny, brings, may become their own personal and everlasting possession.

And who is to train them thus? Christian parents? this is our holy privilege. As children of the kingdom, they are entrusted to us to keep and nourish. The keynote of our education, the watchword in all our desires and efforts on their behalf, our plea with God for them, and with them for God, must be this: They are children of the kingdom. To parents God has entrusted the high commission of leading their children on from the place where their title is only yet a name and a promise, to the life of possession and full enjoyment.

And what is needed to enable the parent to do this? Nothing less than that with his whole heart he himself live in and for the kingdom of heaven. The atmosphere of the home must be the spirit of heaven; Christ’s command, `Seek first the kingdom of God,’ must be the ruling principle of all its conduct: unconsciously the child must receive the impression that not only personal blessing, but the interests and extension of God’s kingdom, are the hope and the joy of life. Parents whose citizenship is in heaven, who have in truth entered the kingdom, and live in it, will alone be found worthy or fit to train the children as heirs of the kingdom.

And how are parents able thus to live? ‘My kingdom,’ Jesus said, ‘is not of this world: my kingdom is not from here.’ It is from above, from heaven, from God, the kingdom comes; it is from above, from heaven, from God, the Spirit and the life and the power of the kingdom must come each day. Coming out of the world, daily rising upward and entering into the Holiest within the veil through the blood, the believer must tarry in God’s presence in worship and surrender, until the anointing is fresh upon him so only can he come down into his home, and consecrate it as the nursery for children of the kingdom. So long as we are content with just religion enough to save ourselves and our children, we must not be surprised if they remain unsaved: it is only in seeking to be filled with the Spirit, to have our whole life, like Christ’s, sacrificed for the kingdom, that we may count on the blessing of a successful education. `My kingdom is not of this world: ‘ the spirit of the world, perhaps unconsciously, ruling in the parents, destroys all that they hope to effect by their purposes, their precepts, or their prayers. In Christ’s command, `First the kingdom,’ we have the secret and the certainty of a successful education.

Parents! your children are children of the kingdom, the kingdom of God in heaven! Hold and love and train them as such, for God alone! From God alone be your hope. From above, from above must be your help. Seek it in much prayer. Accept it in childlike faith, that believes that have what you ask. Yield yourself to it, denying self, not allowing self any say in the guidance of your life or home. Yield yourself to it, keeping the ear open every hour to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, through whom alone the laws aid the powers of the kingdom can work in us.

Above all, remember Jesus! HE SAID, `Suffer little children to come UNTO ME, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.’ He is the King: in Him we have the kingdom as a Presence. Live with Him, on Him, in Him. He loves our children and looks after them; His presence and love will more than anything fill us and them with a holy enthusiasm for the kingdom: so will they grow up in the kingdom and for the kingdom. And we shall taste the joy unspeakable of having our home, with its life and love and training, within the kingdom; yes, of having the kingdom of heaven within our home.

Our Father in heaven, Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory. Blessed be Your name, that by Your Almighty power Your kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, has come to this earth, and will come, until the whole earth be filled with Your glory. Blessed, too, be Your name, that we and our little ones are the children of the kingdom. O Father! we look to Your Father-love to give us who are fathers and mothers grace to realize how sacred our calling and our home is, because we are training children of the kingdom for You. Teach us, we pray You, never to put asunder what the words of our Lord have joined together — the children and the kingdom. May all our love and communication and influence help to link them inseparably with the kingdom. May they never know that they are not living and growing up in it.

Blessed Lord Jesus! who say of the little ones, `Of such is the kingdom,’ we do beseech You, reveal to us what Your kingdom is in its spiritual reality and glory; what it is even here on earth as the rule of God by the Holy Spirit in the hearts and lives of His people. May the kingdom of God be within us in such power, and we within it in such truth, that our children may not only have the name, but that the very atmosphere they breathe in our home be such as will really make them children of the kingdom, Amen.

`A woman of Canaan came and cried unto Him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David! my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. . . . Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.’ Matt. 15: 22, 28.

In the Old Testament we found God’s promises of blessing on the godly training of children most clear and sure. Nor were His threatenings on the neglect of this duty less distinct. And in more than one terrible example we saw with what relentless power the threatening came true. In the sons of Aaron and Eli, in the family of David and Solomon, proof was given that the personal righteousness of the father could not save the ungodly child. And we found no answer to one of the most solemn questions that can be put, and which has been as a burning fiery furnace to many a parent’s heart: Is there still hope for a child grown up in sin, and passing out from beyond the reach of a parent’s influence?

It is in Christ Jesus that God has revealed how completely the power of sin and Satan has been broken. It is in Christ Jesus that God has shown us what it is possible for His grace to do. It is in Christ Jesus, too, we must seek for the answer to every question of a parent’s heart. And as it is His earthly life in which we have revealed all that the unseen Father and He now too in His exaltation, are willing to do for us, so there we must find what a parent may hope for from His mighty saving power on behalf of a wandering child. As we study this carefully, we shall be surprised to find how many of the most precious and encouraging words of Christ in regard to faith have been spoken to parents in reference to their children. `Fear not, only believe;’ `All things are possible to him that believeth;’ `O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.’ Such words, which have countless times been the strength and comfort of the penitent seeking pardon, or the believer pleading for some spiritual blessing, are in the first place the parent’s property; the blessed assurance that there is no case in which a child, now in Satan’s power, is beyond the reach of a Savior’s love and a parent’s faith. Let us see how wonderfully this will come out in the well known story of the Syrophenician mother, as we think of her daughter’s misery, her prayer’s refusal, her faith’s perseverance, and her rich reward.

Her daughter’s misery. `My daughter is grievously vexed with a devil: How many a mother is there who has to pray this prayer for a child possessed with an evil spirit far more terrible than that of which we read there. In this case it was more sickness than sin, it was the power of Satan in the body more than the soul. But, alas! how many of the grown-up children of Christian parents there are who are under the power of Satan, given up to pleasure or worldliness, to self-will or to sin. Let our story encourage them to believe that, however hopeless their case appears, there is One who is mighty to save, the parent’s Friend, the children’s Redeemer. Let them come to Him with their need, and cry out in prayer, `My child is grievously vexed with a devil.’ Let them make full confession of their child’s lost estate. Beware of excusing their sin by the thought of what is good or loveable about them, or by laying the blame on circumstances or companions. Bring them to Christ, and say it out that they are lost, under the power of Satan, that they have deserved and are on their way to be with him forever. Hide not their wretchedness. Ask not only that they may be saved and made happy and taken to heaven. Ask nothing less than that they may turn from the power of Satan unto God, that they may be translated from the power of darkness to the kingdom of God’s dear Son. Ask that they may be born again, changed from being the children of the devil and enemies of God to be His friends and children. Honor God by confessing their sin fully and clearly, and acknowledging His righteous judgment; ask distinctly and definitely for a full salvation.

Her prayer’s refusal is the second lesson this woman has to teach us. Christ appeared to turn a deaf ear to her prayer. At first He did not answer her a word. When He did speak, His answer was worse than His silence; it cut off all hope. He was not sent to the heathen. A second answer, given as she had come nearer and had again worshiped Him, saying, Lord, help me! appeared to heap contempt on her misfortune: she was not only a heathen, but a dog. A true picture of what passes in the heart of many a pleading parent! They hear of Christ’s love and power, and begin to pray with great urgency. But He answers not a word: there is no sign of thought or change on the part of the lost one. Still they pray, and it is as if the power of sin grows stronger, and the loved one only wanders farther off. Conscience begins to speak of parental sin and unworthiness. Others, who are holier, and have more power with God, may be heard: how can we expect that God should work a miracle for us? And the parent settles down in a quiet despondency, or a vague hope that tries to shut its eyes to its own wretchedness. Oh, the dark, heartrending uncertainty as to the salvation of that child!

Her faith and perseverance. It is for this specially that the mother’s example is held up to us. She refused to be denied. She met silence and argument and contempt alike with one weapon — more prayer, more trust. She had heard of the wondrous Man and His compassion; she saw it in His face; she heard it even in the voice that refused her; she would not believe He could send her away empty. She hoped against hope; she believed against appearances, and, what is more, against His very words; she believed and she triumphed. And now, mother! you who are pleading for your prodigal child, you have her example. And not only her example, but a thousand words of promise, and a revelation of the Father’s will and the Savior’s power and love such as she never had. Let her faith and perseverance put your unbelief to shame. In the face of all appearances and all doubts, let your faith rise and claim the promise of an answer to prayer in the name of Jesus. Yield yourself to the Holy Spirit to have everything searched out and brought to the light that you must confess and cast out. Trust not to the fervency of your desires or the wrestling urgency of your petition; seek your strength in God’s promise and faithfulness, in His power and love. Let the soul, in restful deliberate confidence in Jesus, praise Him for His promise and His power to save. In this confidence let nothing shake you from the continuous and persevering prayer of faith. The prayer of faith is always heard.

The wondrous blessing she obtained is for us too. There was not only her daughter’s deliverance from this grievous trouble; there was something almost better — a spiritual blessing — our Lord’s delighted approval of her faith: `O woman, great is thy faith! be it unto thee even as thou wilt.’ Yes, it is in the earnest, believing supplication for a child that the parent’s heart can be drawn out toward the Lord, can learn to know and trust Him aright, can rise to that insight into His love which is most pleasing to Him, and bring down into the soul the consciousness of His good pleasure. Mother, who are pleading for loved ones far from the fold, come nearer, come nearer to Jesus. He is able, indeed, to save them. He waits for your faith to take hold of His strength, to accept their salvation. Oh, let not your child perish, because you refuse to come and take time with Him, until His love has inspired you with faith. Mother! come nearer, tarry with Jesus in prayer, trust Him: your child can be saved.

Blessed Lord Jesus! I, too, like the Syrophenician woman, have a child grievously vexed with a devil. Like her I come pleading, `Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David.’

O Lord! I would confess the sin of my child. You know it all: unconverted, and an enemy to You by nature, he has rejected Your love, to choose the world and sin. I confess my sin, too, Lord! You know how bitter the thought is, that, had my life been less in the world and the flesh, purer and holier, more full of faith and of love and of You, my child might have grown up differently. Lord! in deep sorrow I confess my sin; oh, let not my child perish, Son of David! have mercy on me.

Blessed Lord! I put my trust in You. I look in faith to Your Almighty power; the things that are impossible with man are possible with God. I look in faith to Your promise to hear prayer. Lord, I believe You hear me; help my unbelief. I lay this perishing child at Your feet, and plead Your love. Savior! I do believe in Your love, and claim deliverance for my child. In this faith I will praise You for Your grace. I will tarry at Your feet day by day in the rest of faith, praising You, and looking out for Your fulfilment. Make haste, O my Lord, for Your name’s sake. Amen.

`Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso receiveth one such little child in My name, receiveth Me.’ Matt. 18: 4, 5.

The disciples had come to Jesus with the question, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? He spoke so often of the kingdom; to them it suggested the idea of power and glory; they could not but wonder who would have the highest place. How utterly strange and incomprehensible must have been the, answer Jesus gave to their question. He called a little child, and set him in the midst of them. He told them that as long as they were thinking of who would be greatest, they could not even enter the kingdom; they must first become as little children: and then in the kingdom the humblest and the most childlike would be the highest. And whoever should receive one such little child in Jesus’ name, should receive Himself. The deeper the sympathy with the child-nature, recognizing Jesus and His name in it, the closer and more complete the union with Himself.

How wonderfully applicable to parents is what Jesus spoke to His disciples. In creating a family, with father and mother, God sets a little child in the midst. And in that little child He opens to them the mystery of the kingdom of heaven and the spiritual world. He tells them that if they want to know about heaven, and what will prove their fitness for its highest place, they must study the child-nature. On earth they will find nothing so heaven-like as a little child, and no surer way to the highest enjoyments of heavenly dignity than in receiving little children in His name, for in doing this they will receive Himself in whom the kingdom is. These are the three lessons we parents must learn.

First, the heavenliness of the little child. Wherein does this consist? Our Savior uses one word, `Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom.’ The greatest will be he who thinks least of being greatest, because he loses sight of himself in seeking God and His kingdom. The great beauty of childlikeness is the absence of self-consciousness. The true child loses himself in that which is around him. The curse of sin is that it makes man, every man, his own center; even when he seeks the kingdom of heaven he is still thinking how he can be greatest in the kingdom. In the true child self does not yet manifest itself; it lives and is at rest outside of itself in the parent. It loves, and rejoices in being loved; it is truthful, and trustful to all around, showing itself as it is, counting upon others to be what they appear. This naturalness and simplicity of the child, Jesus tells us is something heavenly, the thing in nature most allied to the kingdom. And the lesson we need to learn is that there is nothing a parent should seek to preserve and cherish more carefully than this heavenly childlikeness. It is the secret of that beautiful calmness and serenity which is the image of the peace and the rest of heaven.

The spirit of the world is the very opposite; with its rivalry and its ambition, its seeking excitement and possessions, it destroys all that is so beautiful and heavenly in the child, to make way for the show and self-seeking that are its marks. Especially Christian parents who have the means for gratifying taste and pleasure at their disposal, are in danger of destroying the simplicity and tenderness of the child-life by stimulating the desires which are of the earth and draw thither. And so, in the midst of a great deal of Bible-teaching and hymn-singing, the very heart of true religion may be eaten out by the artificial and unchildlike spirit of the homes in which the children are reared.

Parents: make a study of it to find out what the thought of Jesus’ heart was when He spoke so strongly of the need of being childlike, as the only path to heaven and heavenly greatness. Value the childlikeness and simplicity of your little one as its heavenly beauty; realize that the little one, in its tender susceptibility of impressions, is all alive to what surrounds it, to the fostering influence of the heavenly life, or the withering effect of a worldly life. Believe that between the Holy Spirit, who brings heaven down to us and reveals it within, and the heavenliness of childhood, there is a wonderful suitableness for each other; train your children in that holy, happy stillness which keeps the heart open to His workings.

But how shall the parent succeed in doing this? Our Lord’s words have a second lesson. If we are to watch over the heavenliness of our children, we must ourselves be childlike and heavenly-minded. Christ put a little child in the midst of strong men to teach them. Parents often owe more to the teaching of their children than these to them. Our children lose their childlikeness so soon because parents have so little of it. The atmosphere of the home is so little that of simple, happy, trustful living in the Father’s presence. Amid many of the proprieties of religion the spirit of the world too often reigns. To be great in the kingdom of heaven is all too seldom the object of earnest desire. To be the greatest, as Jesus puts it, by being humble and childlike, the least and the servant of all, this is hardly dreamt of. No wonder if parents, instead of maintaining and strengthening the spirit of the child and of the kingdom, hinder and quench it.

Let parents study to be childlike. There are very few studies more difficult; very few that will bring a richer reward. The little treasures entrusted to us have a higher worth than we know; their very littleness, of which we often think only in connection with their weakness, and their future value, is what to Him, who looked at things in the light of God, constitutes their greatest attraction. It is only the childlike life of the parent, living in great simplicity of truth and trust with the Father in heaven, that can maintain the childlikeness in the child too.

To this end let us take in the third lesson our Savior has: `Whoso receiveth one such little child in My name, receiveth Me.’ Let us at their birth receive our children in the name of Jesus, in His Spirit, with His appreciation of their simplicity and humility. Let us receive them in His name, as those whom He loves and blesses, and of whom He says, `of such is the kingdom,’ to be kept and trained for Him and His kingdom alone. Let us receive them in His name, as sent by Jesus to remind us of His own childlike humility and obedience to the Father. Let us receive them day by day in His name, coming as a gift from the Father and the heaven from which He came, to draw us thither too. Let us receive them and cherish them in His name, just as He would receive them, as He did receive them, and bless them. Let us receive them in His name, just as we would receive Himself.

Yes, just as we would receive Himself. This is not saying too much, for He asks and promises nothing less. `He that receiveth one such little child in My name, receiveth Me.’ He that recognizes and loves the humility, the childlikeness, the Christlikeness of the little child, and on this account receives and treasures the child, receives Christ Himself. This is the promise. With every child something of heaven and of Christ comes into the house. In many cases it is not noticed, not cared for, and all of heaven is pushed aside by the world. Blessed they who know truly to receive the child in Jesus’ name, a being from heaven, and like heaven, and for heaven — they receive Himself. He comes to such with the little one to be its and their Savior. `Whosoever receiveth one such little child in My name, receiveth Me.’ With the child He sets in their midst He takes the parents afresh into His training, to teach them how to be great in the kingdom of heaven. He comes to make their child a blessing to them, that so they may be prepared to be a real blessing to it. He comes to bless parent and child together, and make the home what it was meant to be — the picture, the promise, the pathway, to the Father’s home in heaven.

Dear parents! shall we not ask our Lord Jesus most earnestly to open our minds to take in His Divine thoughts about the heavenliness of our children, to open our eyes to see Him in them, to bring our hearts into perfect sympathy with Himself, so that our little ones may day by day be the blessed messengers that lead us to heaven, that bring to us Jesus Himself, the life and the light of heaven?

Blessed Lord! open our ears to hear what You speak, and our eyes to see as You see. Give us hearts to beat in sympathy with Yours at the sight of every little child; and above all, our Lord, to understand and experience how surely and how blessedly You fulfill Your promise, `Whosoever receiveth one such little child in My name, receiveth Me.’

Lord Jesus! we do ask You for a childlike spirit. May the simplicity and restfulness, the love and the loveliness, the trustfulness and truthfulness, of the child-nature so dwell in us, that in communion with us the heavenly childlikeness of our little ones may not be lost, but cherished and maintained through advancing years. Give us to feel very deeply that we cannot truly fulfil our parental calling except as in simplicity and godly sincerity our walk with God be that of little children.

Blessed Lord! we do thank You that, however feeble we be, and however far short our attainments fall of what we should be, in receiving a child in Your name we receive You. You come Yourself to be our Teacher and our Helper. We pray You to strengthen us and all parents in this faith, that we may rightly understand that nowhere are You nearer or more ready to bless than in the home where the children are received in Your name, to be saved by You, to be trained for You. Amen.

‘But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto Me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.’ Matt. 19: 14.

What deep significance there is in this word, `Suffer little children to come unto Me.’ We suffer, or allow, or permit that which we are not naturally inclined for, which we would prefer to be otherwise. The mothers had probably heard of the words Jesus had just spoken (18: 3-5), and brought their little ones to be blessed of this wonderful Teacher. Jesus saw the disciples rebuking them. They found it so hard to understand and to follow the Master: what could the little children have to do with Him? Jesus hears them, and says: Forbid them not; allow them to come unto Me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Among His disciples He loves to have the children: they are nearest the kingdom, the fittest for it; the kingdom needs them as the teachers of the wise and the great, to show the path through which alone heaven can be entered.

`Suffer little children to come unto Me:’ the word reminds us how, now still, our wisdom cannot understand that the kingdom and the little ones are specially fitted for each other. It is only as it were by sufferance that the religion and the faith of a child is borne with; a thing not to be too much trusted or rejoiced in. No wonder that with such a spirit in parents or the Church the youthful grace is quenched, and that the child’s religion becomes very much as that of the majority of older people. Let us hear the words of the Master today. If you cannot understand or fully approve, still do not forbid or hinder the children coming to Jesus; just bear with it, until you see how He can bless them, until His word, `of such is the kingdom,’ has entered your heart, and you learn to receive them as He did. Then only and truly will you have right views of what child-religion is, its nature, its dangers, its needs.

Child-religion must consist of that which constitutes the very center of God’s revelation — coming to Jesus. In His own well known words, `Come unto Me,’ our Lord spoke of the blessed rest He would give to all who came to Him to exchange their weary burdens for His loving yoke. This simple gospel is just what a child needs. Its faith is ready to believe in the unseen One, so kind and loving. Its humility finds no difficulty in confessing its sin and its need of help. And nothing appears more simple and natural than that this loving Savior should be obeyed and followed. As by instinct it reconciles faith and works; it sees at once that trust in Him should beget obedience. But, above all, the child at once takes in what older people often cannot apprehend — that all religion and salvation centre in a living Person: to a child, Jesus, Jesus loving and to be loved, Jesus trusted and obeyed, Jesus Himself, is religion. Would that it were so all our life! coming to Jesus in prayer, in surrender, in love, would be the spontaneous exercise of our faith. Oh, let us not hinder, but help our children to come to Jesus!

For this child-religion can be hindered. The words of Jesus suggest the thought. The child is weaker than the older disciple, is under his influence, can be kept back by him. God has given the making of the children into the hands of their elders. And the natural religiousness of the child, his simple faith and sense of love and duty to Jesus, may be terribly checked by the example and conduct of those around him. And so Jesus says, Forbid them not. The word means (as it is elsewhere translated), Hinder them not. The religion of the child is feeble, and can so easily be hindered. Christian parents are appointed as guardians, to watch and foster its growth. All growth comes from within, and depends upon a healthy life. But young and feeble growth needs to be preserved from danger from without, and to have provided for it the sustenance it demands. Often parents have been bitterly disappointed in their children: when young they could feel so deeply and speak so beautifully; they had not lived long before all was lost. It was probably because parents trusted to what was a blessed, but still only a feeble, beginning. They did not watch over the evil influences which the young plant could not yet resist. They allowed the spirit of the world, in their own religious life or their friends, they allowed company and pleasure and the enjoyment of the world, to choke the good seed. Or they failed to supply the needful nourishment. There was not, as the child grew up, any more the personal speaking of this blessed Jesus, the helping of faith and obedience by the fellowship and example of a warm, living Christianity, a living love to Jesus. The child’s religion disappeared, because the parents hindered it in coming to Jesus.

How different the result is where this coming to Jesus is, in a right spirit, fostered and encouraged not only in the little ones, but in the growing boy and girl through the years that lead to maturity. We need to be kept from right-hand as well as left-hand errors. On the one side, we must beware of despising a child’s religious impressions as of little value. Like all beginnings of life and growth, they may be feeble and easily lost; they are still of infinite value as the preparation for that which abideth ever. We must, on the other side, be kept from over-estimating or trusting in it. We must remember that the tender plant needs unceasing watching, and that only in the congenial atmosphere of a home holy to the Lord, and wholly dedicated to His service, can we count on its ripening fruit to eternal life.

We have already suggested what a child’s religion needs. Just suffer the child to come to Jesus, and remove every hindrance. Believe deeply what Jesus says, `of such is the kingdom,’ and allow this heavenly element in the child’s nature to show itself’, and to reach out after the Son of God. Let, in your education, Jesus and the coming to Him to be saved from sin, to have the heart sanctified and satisfied, be your chief end. Beware of coming in between the child and Jesus; let the child under your leading have free access to Jesus. Beware of hindering it by distrust or coolness. Let the warmth of your love to Jesus, your holy example of obedience, your teaching and praying, in one word, your whole living — be a daily help to the child to see Jesus, to live with Him, and to long for Him. Jesus Christ is meant to be our every-day friend, our every hour companion. Let all the wondrous influence you possess in forming your child and fixing his destiny be wielded for this one thing — to satisfy the desire of the Savior’s heart, and make your child wholly His.

These words of Christ’s were spoken to disciples who knew Him, and confessed Him the Son of God. They were sound in the faith, Christ’s chosen friends. But they understood not His thoughts about the children: this was too high for them, because the love of childlikeness is one of the highest things in the kingdom. Many a theologian and preacher and parent is not yet in sympathy with Jesus. Dear parents! who have taken the Savior as your only teacher in the revelation of the mysteries of Divine love, let Him teach you the preciousness of your little ones. Learn to see in them what He does; in His light your care of them will become a blessing to yourself and to them.

Blessed Savior: again do we beseech You, open our eyes to see in our little ones what You see; to think of them as you do, as belonging to You and the kingdom. Make this so clear to us, that it may become impossible to do otherwise than to lead them to You. Let Your claim on them, Your love to them, be the secret principle that inspires all our education.

And we ask, Lord, for a heavenly wisdom to know how to guide them in coming to You, and to help them to abide with You. Teach us to estimate aright a child’s impressions, both in their weakness and in their worth, as the seeds of the eternal life. And may our faith in Your love to them, and in their share in the kingdom, be the power by which their young hearts are made strong.

Blessed Lord! You are the parent’s and the children’s Friend. Come unto me, is Your one call, in every need and for every blessing. We come now, Lord, and ask grace to enable us to bring our children. Grant us Your Holy Spirit, that day by day, and year by year, we may possess and train them for You alone and for Your glory. Amen.

`And straightway the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe: help Thou mine unbelief.’ Mark 9: 24.

When Jesus spoke to the disciples about the mothers who were coming with their little children to Him, His word was, Suffer the children to come, and forbid them not. In this story He uses a stronger word. When the father of the lunatic had told Him that the disciples had not been able to cast out the evil spirit, and Jesus had reproved their unbelief, He spoke, Bring the child to me. The expression is a stronger one, still setting forth the same truth. The little ones were quite ready and willing to come to the loving Stranger to be blessed. This poor child, at times all unconscious or rebellious, had to be brought, whether he knew it or not. There can be no evil spirit in a child so strong, no resistance so desperate, but the parent has the liberty and the power to bring him to Jesus. To every disciple, to every father and mother, in every extremity of sin or need, Christ’s voice is heard calling, Bring the child to me.

And then, if we want to understand what it is really to bring a child, on whom Satan has a hold, to Jesus, we have this most wondrously set forth in the further communication of this father with Jesus. When, in answer to Christ’s question, he had told the touching story of how ever since his childhood the boy had been the prey of this terrible trouble, and had pleadingly added, `If Thou canst do anything, have compassion on us and help us,’ Jesus threw all the responsibility of the issue of the case upon the father, and said, `If thou canst! all things are possible to him that believeth.’ It was not the question whether Jesus could and would do it, but whether the father could believe. If he did, the healing was sure; if he did not, it could not take place.

`If thou canst! all things are possible to him that believeth.’ These words are one of the well known expressions in which all the blessings of God’s mighty saving love are put at the disposal of faith. `By faith we understand, both what God has done and will do. By faith we see Him who is invisible, in the reality of His almighty power and His love towards ourselves. By faith we receive His word into our very heart as a quickening power, that works in us the very thought and sentiment that was in His heart when He spake it. By faith our heart; our nature, our life is opened up to give place to God, so as to let Him be and do in us what He pleases. By faith we become fully conscious of what the purpose of His will is, and of Himself as waiting to work it in us. By faith we forsake the visible, ourselves, with our own thoughts and strength; we look to God to do what He has promised, and so give Him the glory. Faith is the exercise of a will that yields itself for God’s holy will to take possession of it and work out its pleasure. `All things are possible to him that believeth,’ because `with God nothing shall be impossible,’ and faith is union with God.

In speaking these words to the father of the lunatic, Jesus gave to us for all time the secret of successful parental training and prayer. He tells us that it is not only the ministers of His gospel, the watchmen, and the workers in fields of special danger or difficulty, but every Christian parent, that needs to exercise strong faith, and in strong faith may most assuredly secure the salvation of his child. It teaches us that His compassion and power are longing to help us, if we can believe. If not, it is our blame if our children perish.

There are parents who think this is a hard saying. They seek the cause of unconverted and unsaved children in God and not in themselves. Has God’s sovereignty nothing to do with the salvation of our children? Is there not such a thing as election? And if so, how can all the responsibility be thrown on our unbelief? Scripture reveals to us most clearly God’s sovereignty; His grace is electing grace; the final decision of the destiny of each man is in His hands. Scripture reveals as clearly man’s responsibility, and the all-prevailing power of faith. True humility accepts both statements without reconciling them; it bows under the solemn truth Jesus utters here, that if the parent can believe the child can be saved.

How this truth ought to affect us, our text tells us. With tears the father cried, `Lord, I believe! help mine unbelief.’ In the agony of the thought that his unbelief may keep the blessing from his child, in the consciousness of how strong unbelief is still in himself, he bursts into tears, and casts himself to confess at Jesus’ feet that unbelief, and ask deliverance from it. It is amid these tears of penitence and confession that the faith is exercised to which the victory is given. The devil is east out, and the child is saved. Christ’s blessed and most heart-searching word had done its work; it had revealed the unbelief, but also wakened the faith that brought the blessing.

Christ’s word must do the same with every parent, with every father, who pleads for a child’s liberation from Satan’s power. A father’s tears have power. There must be confession and humbling wherever there is to be strong faith. There must be the conviction and confession of the sin of unbelief: that it has been the cause of the blessing being withheld, and that we are verily guilty in being unbelieving. When the disciples asked the Master why they could not cast out this devil, He told them it was because of their unbelief, and that this unbelief was caused by their life not being one of prayer and fasting. Unbelief is not, as many think, a weakness, inexplicable and beyond our power. Unbelief has its reasons: it is the indication of the state of heart. The world, the worldly man, cannot believe. The self-righteous, the proud man, cannot believe. It is only the pure in heart, the humble, the soul that thirsts for God, and forsakes all to follow Christ, that can be strong in faith. And therefore the first step in the path of an overcoming faith is the confession of its sinfulness, and the sins of which it is the index and the symptom.

I have heard parents plead very earnestly with God for the conversion of their grown-up children, when I secretly feared that they could not be heard. I saw no sign of confession of parental sin. There are parents whose worldliness, whose lack of living faith, whose “self-indulgence and neglect in the education of their children, have simply sown the seeds of which they are now reaping the fruit in the departure of their children from God; and yet they wonder why their children are not more religious. They sometimes pray earnestly for them, and try to have the faith, perhaps think they have it, that their children will be saved. They may be deceiving themselves. True faith sanctifies. It searches the heart. It confesses the sin of unbelief, and all the sin in which that has its root and strength. It casts itself weeping and helpless at the feet of Jesus. There, and there alone, bowing in its weakness, resting on his strength, it obtains the blessing He loves to bestow.

Fathers, who have sons you would fain bring to Jesus to be saved, come and hear the lessons the Lord would teach you. Let these children first bring you to Jesus in confession, and prayer, and trust; your faith can then bring them in truth. And in yourself and in them you will experience what the all-prevailing power and truth is of the word: ‘If thou canst! all things are possible to him that believeth.’

Blessed Son of God! look in mercy upon a parent who now comes to You with a child still unconverted and under the power of the Evil One. O Lord Jesus! have compassion on us and help us! Let the child be delivered from Satan’s power; oh, make Him a child of God.

Lord! I have heard Your voice — `If thou canst believe!’ and it has filled my heart with trembling. I have to confess how little my life has been a life of faith, and how my unbelief has hindered the blessing from my child. I have to confess the worldliness and selfishness, the want of entire surrender and obedience to You, which made a strong faith impossible. I bow in shame at the thought of all the unbelief that even now comes up in me. Lord, I do believe! help my unbelief.

I do believe, Lord, in Your mighty power. I do believe in Your infinite Love. I do believe in You as my Savior, my Friend, my Covenant Redeemer. I do believe, my Lord, that You hear me now for this child. Lord, I believe! help my unbelief. I look to Your word, and hold it fast. I yield myself to a life of entire surrender to You, to be Yours alone. Blessed Lord Jesus, I do believe! You hear and save my child. In this faith I praise Your holy name. Amen.

`He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb.’ Luke 1: 15.

May God grant us His grace, to meditate in holy tenderness and reverence on the truth revealed to us here, a truth of unspeakable preciousness and power to a believing parent: the mother’s womb the work-place of the Holy Spirit. Our Lord has taught us that the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John the Baptist; if he could be filled with the Holy Spirit from before his birth, how much more, now that Christ is glorified and the Holy Spirit given, the child of those who have become partakers of the full redemption, and the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ.

We find here, at the very opening of the New Testament history, the same truth that came out so strongly in the laying of the foundations of the covenant with the patriarchs. In preparing and securing servants to do His work, God loves to begin at the very beginning, and from before the birth, from the very first conception of life, to take charge and to sanctify the vessel He is to use for His service. The more distinctly we apprehend this part of God’s plan with His Church as one of the root principles of the economy of redemption, the better shall we understand the holy privilege and duty of parentage. Very specially will mothers be encouraged and strengthened in faith to yield themselves, with all the hopes and joys of motherhood, to be God’s chosen vessels for the fulfilment of His purpose and the perfecting of His Church.

Let us look first at what Scripture teaches us of the mother in whom the Holy Spirit is thus to work. Of John’s parents it is testified: `They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.’ It is the God of nature, who in this world of cause and effect has ordered that like begets like, who is also the God of grace. With omnipotence at His command, ready to work any miracles He pleases, He yet most carefully observes His own laws, and when He wants a holy child, seeks for holy parents. Throughout Scripture, specially in the New Testament, the blessed indwelling and inworking of the Holy Spirit is promised to the obedient. Man must, in obedience to Divine command, and under the preparatory moving of the Spirit, build the house; then does the Holy Spirit as the glory and the presence of the Lord take possession and fill it. And so it was of parents, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless,that he would be born who was to be filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb, and the forerunner of Him who should baptize with the Holy Ghost. It is of holy parents that God would take a holy child.

The double lesson for every parent, and especially for every mother, is of the deepest interest. A righteous and blameless life prepares for, and may also count upon the power of the Holy Ghost in the unborn child. Let expectant mothers, who would fulfil their holy calling as the ministers of their Lord’s purposes, study Elizabeth’s character: `righteous, and walking in all the commandmentsof the Lord blameless.’ Itis to such a life that God chose us, `that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.’ It is to such a life Jesus redeemed us: `He hath reconciled you in His body through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight.’ It is no more than what every child of God ought to be and can be, `blameless and harmless, without blemish in the midst of a perverse generation.’ But it is specially what every mother should be, who would offer her body as the temple of the Holy Ghost, that in her the very first beginnings of life may be over-shadowed by the Holy Ghost. Oh, that mothers, and fathers too, understood to what a terrible degree the spirit of the world and the flesh, a life in which blamelessness before God is never expected or sought after, in which sin and selfishness are allowed to have rule, hinder the influence of the Spirit, and entail upon the child, more than is needed, the heritage of unholy appetite and passion. Let them believe that a life which, in deep humility and the faith of Jesus as our sanctification, seeks to walk in obedience and righteousness, blameless before the Lord, will be accepted and honored of Him. Let them believe that they have a right to ask, and most confidently to expect, the Spirit that is in them to take possession of the life God gives through them. Let them cherish this as the highest and the brightest hope of a holy motherhood: `He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb.’

Let us now look at what the angel’s message teaches us of the child thus conceived and born: `Thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his birth, for he shall be great in the sight of the Lord,’ — three marks of a child born under the covering of the Holy Spirit. The parents are to have joy and gladness. Alas! how many a Christian parent has had reason to say in bitter agony, Would God my child had never been born! Would you have divinely given and divinely secured joy and gladness in the children that are given you? Oh, let the Holy Spirit take possession of them from before their birth. Yours will be the holy joy of heaven in them, as you see the beauty of the Lord upon them, a joy that none can take away.

`And many shall rejoice at his birth.’ Alas! how many children of Christian parents have been the curse of their fellow-men! Would you have your child blessed and made a blessing, with many to thank God that ever they knew him or that he was born? Study the story of John’s birth. Study it in connection with the story of Jesus’ birth. It was for Jesus’ sake, in the power of the Son of God coming in the flesh, in virtue of his connection with Jesus, that John was thus filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb. Plead the coming, and the birth, and the redemption of Jesus on behalf of your child; claim the outpouring of the Spirit upon all flesh, and the promise of the Spirit to you and your children, and your faith will be strengthened to perfect confidence that your child too may in his measure be filled with the Spirit, and shall make many to rejoice at his birth.

`And he shall be great in the sight of the Lord.’ This sets the crown on the whole. A joy to his parents, a blessing to his fellow-men, and great in the sight of the Lord, is the Spirit-born child. Among men he may not make a name, in gifts and talents he may not be great, but great he will be in the sight of Him who sees not as man sees. He will be a vessel God can use for His work, a true way-preparer for the coming of the Lord in His kingdom.

Mother! God gives you this picture of Elizabeth and her child of promise, with the double lesson: live as she did; believe and receive what she did. Young mother, your motherhood is in God’s sight a holier and a more blessed thing than you know. If you are indeed God’s child, you have in everything been placed under the leading and the rule of His Holy Spirit. Be sure that all the tender interest and solemn thought, all the quiet trust and joyful hope, which expectant motherhood calls forth, may be sanctified and refined by God’s Holy Spirit, and you be united with your little one under the overshadowing of His heavenly grace.

Ever blessed God! once more You have shown me Your way in preparing a seed to serve You, and what a deep interest You have in securing a holy and blameless motherhood. I have seen You training a mother for Your service. You do fill her heart with the thought of the Divine destiny of her child. You do stir her faith to the confident expectation of Your Divine Spirit and blessing on her seed. You do call her in righteousness and blamelessness of life to her holy work. You do in all things teach her that the life she is to bring forth is a holy gift from You, to be received and borne in a pure and holy vessel.

O great and glorious God! in deep humility and trembling Your handmaid bows before You, to offer herself to Your service. O my Father! who do much more surely than fathers on earth give good gifts to their children, give Your Holy Spirit to Your children, to make even their body Your temple, fulfil Your wondrous promise to Your child. Let Your Holy Spirit dwell in me. If it please You to make me the mother of a child, oh, let him be filled with the Spirit from the womb. Let me be filled with the Spirit. And let my child be born only for this one thing, that he may be great in Your sight, and a blessing to all around him. Amen.

`And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.’ Luke 1: 33.

We have often had occasion to notice the wonderful oneness of mother and child, and to what extent the former, in her life and character, influences and decides what the child is to be. The life she imparts is her own life, in the deepest meaning of the term. When God gave His Son to be born of a woman, this law was not violated, and the mother He chose for His Son was doubtless all that grace could make her to be the fit vessel through whom He should receive His human nature and disposition.

And so, just as Jesus Himself is in everything our example, so we may naturally expect that in His mother God has given us one of His servants who may be an example to our mothers. If the child Jesus be an example to our children, there will be something for mothers to learn from His mother. She to whom the heavenly messenger said, ‘Hail! thou highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women;’ and to whom Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Ghost, also said, `Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, and blessed is she that believed,’ will surely in her words and ways have left an example for every mother who yields herself like Mary to the Lord, to bear a child that can be called a son of the Most High. Were there more mothers like Mary — this we may confidently say, without forgetting the infinite distance between her child and ours — there would be more children like the holy Child Jesus.

And what, looked at from the human side, constitutes the most marked feature of Mary’s motherhood? It is the childlike simplicity of faith in which she surrenders herself to the Divine purpose: `Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.’ She calls herself the Lord’s slave or bondwoman; she gives her will, herself, up to Him, to do what pleases Him; in quiet trust and expectancy she will look to Him to do what He has said. It is the same spirit of obedient faith which had once fitted Abraham to be the father of the promised seed, which now prepares her to become the mother of Him in whom the promise is to be fulfilled. Not that there were no difficulties or questionings. We read, `She was greatly troubled at the saying of the angel, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.’ When again he had spoken, she feared not to ask, ‘How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?’ But when once the angel had spoken to her of the power of the Most High overshadowing her, she yielded herself to the Divine word. And she became an example to every mother who would like her share the benediction, ‘Blessed is she that believeth, for there shall be a fulfilment of the things which have been spoken to her from the Lord.’ It is the surrender of faith that makes a blessed motherhood: ‘Blessed art thou, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.’

`Behold the bondmaid of the Lord.’ Mary teaches a mother to yield herself to God for the service of His kingdom, that in her His purpose and glory may be made manifest. It was not by the birth of Mary’s son alone that God’s kingdom was to come. Believing parents may look upon their children as the stones of the great temple of which Jesus was the cornerstone. Not less than with the birth of Isaac, and every child of the chosen race down to Christ, is the birth of each of our children under God’s guardianship a link in the golden chain of the good pleasure of God’s will. Over all the impulses of human love and the instincts of a God given maternity, there hovers a Divine purpose using them for the carrying out of His plan. And nothing will do more to sanctify the life of the wife and the mother than when she realizes herself to be the Lord’s bondwoman, redeemed for this too, that from her the chosen seed may be multiplied, that from her may be born a generation to serve the Lord. Human love will receive a Divine consecration; what otherwise appears to be only nature and earthly is elevated into the heavenlies, the region of God’s will and God’s favor; the expectant mother knows herself to be like the angels, one of His servants, doing His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His word.

`Be it unto me according to Thy word.’ Such is the faith that gives the strength to surrender oneself to God’s service. It looks no longer at difficulties or impossibilities; it counts upon God to carry out His purpose, and to give the grace and the strength for the work to which He has called us. And it is just this faith that above everything fits for the blessed duties of motherhood, that gives that quiet rest of body and spirit which to mother and babe is health and strength. Or what mother is there who, as she first becomes conscious of her new vocation, is not at times with Mary `greatly troubled,’ and does not feel the question come many a time, `How can all this be?’ She finds no rest so sure or sweet as to cast her troubles on her Lord — let Him do what seems to Him good. If the God of nature has created her for a calling, and the God of grace has redeemed her to fulfil that calling in the interests of His kingdom, she assuredly may trust His power and love not to forsake her in her hour of need. `What hour I am afraid I will trust in Thee; in God have I put my trust, I will not be afraid:’ such words have a thousand times over been the stay of the trembling but trusting handmaid of the Lord.

`Be it according to Thy word:’ to understand fully the teaching of Mary’s example here, there is one trait of her character we must not omit to notice. Twice it is said of her, Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.’ It is in the holy quiet of meditation and reflection on what God has said that the spirit of trust is cultivated. It is only as God’s words are kept and pondered in the heart that they can quicken and deepen a living faith in Him who spoke them. Every mother who searches Holy Scripture will find there many a saying of God with reference to her sacred calling, which, if truly drunk in, will fill the heart with confidence and joy. They will teach her to regard everything connected with the birth of the child as a matter of deepest interest to the Father in heaven, and of great importance to His kingdom, as the ushering in of a new member into its number. She will see how all the exceeding great and precious promises may be claimed by her for the little one, before ever yet it has seen the light. She will see how her receiving the little one in the name of Jesus has the promise of Jesus’ presence for herself and for it. She will find that all the ordering and training of the child has been provided for in regulations of Divine wisdom and love, and that all the grace needed for carrying out these orders is most surely given to each one who, like Mary, will but be a bondmaid of the Lord, and will believe what He has spoken. All of care and fear, of danger and pain in the life of motherhood, all the help and joy and rich reward God has connected with it — all is written in the Book of the Lord; the mother who listens, and waits, and believes, will, in view both of what she fears and what she hopes, be able to say, `Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to Thy word.’ As she bides her time, let quiet retirement, in which she not only hides herself from the world but opens her whole being to the rays of heaven, let thoughtful, trustful pondering of God’s words engage the heart, she will find how true the word is, `Blessed is she that believed.’

What a holy and what a blessed thing the birth of a child becomes in the light of the birth of Jesus! What a holy and what a blessed task that of the mother becomes in the light of the favor of the Most High God, as the means of the fulfilment of His purpose, the promotion of His glory, the experience of His special grace and mercy! As the mother ponders these things, she will understand something of the deep meaning of that word of Paul, `She shall be saved through the childbearing, if they continue in faith, and love, and sanctification, with sobriety.’ Just as labor in the sweat of his brow was given to man, to be in his fallen state one of his greatest blessings, so the labor of childbearing to the woman, that through it and its blessed discipline the salvation of Christ might the more effectually be inwrought into her whole character and disposition. It calls and helps to a continuance in that blessed life of faith and trustful dependence, of love and gentleness and motherly kindness, of holiness in the indwelling and sanctification of the Spirit, of sobriety and self-restraint and temperance, in which true blessedness is found. It helps, to them who are rightly exercised thereby, to form that perfect womanly character which is one of God’s most beautiful gifts on earth. It is in this path of loving acceptance of God’s appointment, and trustful resting in His promise, that the word will come true, as a greeting to each expectant mother: `Blessed art thou, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.’

Behold the handmaid of the Lord! Yes, Lord! as You have already looked upon her in Your mercy, and set her apart for the sacred work of bearing and bringing up a seed for You, still continue to look upon her to give her all that she needs, and to work in her all that is well pleasing in Your sight. As the eye of a maid unto the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look unto the Lord our God, until He have mercy upon us. Grant to Your child an ever increasing clearness, the blessed assurance that in this holy calling of motherhood she is indeed Your handmaiden, called to the fulfilment of Your purposes, set apart for the service of Your kingdom. Let this thought teach me to look upon everything connected with the birth of my child as of deepest interest to my Father. Let it encourage me to cast every fear and burden, every care and pain, on Him in whose service they come. Let it sanctify all the hope and joy with which You do so wonderfully sweeten the sorrow with which sin had filled our cup.

And so let it be unto me according to Your word. In childlike faith, O my Lord, I would take Your blessed Word, with all its teachings and its promises, as my light and strength. In the time of patient waiting, or in the hour of anguish, Your Word shall be my stay. Let Your Holy Spirit unfold to Your handmaiden what treasures Your Word contains for her as mother, that she may know at the right time to receive what You have provided for her. May she so be prepared that the child which has been received according to Your word may be trained according to that Word, and enter into the full enjoyment of all that Your Word holds out in promise to the seed of Your people. Behold the handmaid of the Lord! be it unto me according to Your word. Amen.

`And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. For He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden.’ Luke 1: 46-48.

There is perhaps no such moment of exquisite joy, of deep, unutterable thanksgiving taking the place of pain and sorrow, as when a mother knows herself to be the living mother of a living child. Our blessed Lord used it as the fittest type of that wondrous surprise, that strange resurrection joy, with which His disciples should find Him whom they mourned as crucified and dead to be the Living One. `A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come, but as soon as she is delivered of the child she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.’ A mother will find no more fitting expression for her joy than in thanksgiving to Him to whom she owes so much. And for the expression of that thanksgiving she will find in many portions of Holy Scripture the most suitable language. How often, for instance, has the mother almost instinctively asked for the words of Psalm 103: ‘Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and with tender mercies; who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.’ But as the simple summary of all a mother has to say, no words will be found more beautiful than these of the mother of our Lord: `My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Savior. For He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden.’

In His holy providence the Father has so ordered it that the first week after the birth of the little one is a time of weakness, in which nothing is so much needed as quiet and rest for the restoration of nature’s exhausted powers. The arrangement is one of wondrous grace, giving the mother time to prepare herself again for the new duties devolving on her. While household duties and ordinary relation are kept at comparative distance, the Lord would keep His child for a little while in the secret place of His Holy Presence, to encourage and instruct her for the solemn responsibilities now again awaiting her. And there is nothing that will be more pleasing to her Lord, and more refreshing and strengthening for her own life, and a fitter preparation for blessing to the little one, than that the spirit of thanksgiving should give its bright tone to all her thoughts and hopes, and the song of praise, from the lips of the model mother, be repeated day by day, and from hour to hour: ` My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Savior. For He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden. For He that is mighty hath done to me great things, and holy is His name; and His mercy is on them that fear Him, from generation to generation.’

It is hardly necessary to remind a mother of what all there is to stir her to praise. She has but to think of the anxious thoughts and fears that would sometimes come up as the solemn hour of her trial rose up before her, and her song is, `I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.’ She looks at the precious little treasure that has been given her, with all the love and joy it brings into heart and home; and the words come spontaneously, `What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me?’ She sees in the little one, as she looks upon it in the light of God’s purpose and promise, an immortal being, fitted for showing forth God’s glory on earth, and sharing that glory in heaven, as a jewel in Jesus’ crown; and her soul bows in trembling wonder at the thought that the charge of keeping and forming such a treasure should be committed to one so feeble. She remembers that, though the little one has inherited from her an evil nature, yet through her too it has the promise of the covenant and the earnest of the Spirit: her child is holy, because she is one of God’s holy ones in Christ. She thinks of all the grace and wisdom and strength provided her in Christ to secure to her and her child all that God’s love had prepared; and as she listens to the voice, `My grace is sufficient for thee: my strength is made perfect in weakness,’ she can only sing again, ‘My soul doth magnify the lord, and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Savior; His mercy is on them that fear Him, from generation to generation.’ It is not only God’s mercies, but God Himself, in whose love they have their value and their continuance; it is God himself in whom Mary, in whom the believer, in whom the grateful mother, is glad and rejoices. True praise uses God’s mercies only as the steps of the ladder along which it rises to leave them behind and rejoice in God alone.

This spirit of thanksgiving, in which, not content with the blessings alone, we rise up to the God who gave them, and rejoice in Him, is of greater worth than can well be expressed. It elevates and sanctifies both the joy, the gift that causes it, and the glad possessor, because it lifts all out of the sphere of nature into the fellowship of the spiritual and the Divine. And in this way it is the true preparation for all the work the mother has before her. We saw in Mary’s surrender of herself to her God, that He might fulfil in her the good pleasure of His will, how there were combined in it two elements, the surrender to the work she had to perform, `Behold the bondmaid of the Lord,’ and the trust that counted on God to do for her what He had promised, `Be it according to Thy word.’ In both of these aspects the thanksgiving and joy of the hour of deliverance, if cultivated and kept up, will be guidance and strength.

`Behold the bondmaid of the Lord.’ The labor of bearing a child is but the beginning of that labor of love to which God has appointed and set apart the mother. The whole work of rearing and guarding and training the child is now to follow. The spirit of thanksgiving is the best preparation for the altar of consecration. If the mother is indeed to receive grace for the right and successful fulfilment of this new charge, it will need on her part a very distinct consciousness and confession of unfitness, a very definite giving up of herself to be henceforth the Lord’s willing, loving slave for this holy work. As she looks at how much there may be that has to be parted with and put away, how much that she will have to struggle against and overcome, to be the holy mother of a holy child, entirely consecrated to God, the thought may conic up that the sacrifice and the strain will be too great, that it is impossible to live so strictly, so entirely and peculiarly given up to God’s service. We fear to be too different from others; God could bless us and our children even though we are not so very holy. Oh, that a mother, if such thoughts come up, would just pause and think of what God has done! There is the new life given to herself, and the life of her precious little one, there is the love and mercy of God, and all the promise of more love and mercy to be poured out — has the thanksgiving been so unreal, has the joy been so selfish and earthly, that there can be any hesitation as to whom these lives shall belong to? God forbid! if the thanksgiving has been true, it cannot but lead the mother to say that utterly and entirely she will live for God, that she may have grace to train a child who, too, shall utterly and entirely be the Lord’s. `The joy of the Lord is your strength;’ a mother’s joy is the power for a mother’s work; the spirit of thanksgiving leads to the altar of consecration where mother and child are laid as living sacrifices to be the Lord’s alone.

`Be it unto me according to Thy word:’ this word of faith and trust, looking to God to do all that He has promised, gets new meaning after the experience of the first part of its fulfilment. In all the work that waits the mother in the future, the goodness just experienced teaches her to trust. Let her but yield herself heartily, not to her work, but to her God for His work; she may depend upon it that His teaching and His help and His strength are realities. Let her in the joyful spirit of praise take His word, and, as she studies what it says of a mother on earth, note what it says of the Father in heaven and the abounding grace He has undertaken to supply, and her faith will grow strong that her vow of surrender has been accepted, that its fulfilment is possible and certain, and that the joy of a child born into the world is but the beginning of a joy that shall know no ending. Let thanksgiving lift the heart to God in praise; there faith becomes easy. Let faith lift the heart to God too; there thanksgiving becomes natural, and the life of mother and child may become one unceasing song of faith and love, of surrender and obedience, of thanksgiving and praise.

Blessed be the Lord! for He has showed me His marvelous kindness! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits! What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me?

O my Father! in this the time of her weakness and gladness of heart, Your handmaid draws near to praise Your mercy and Your love. Here am I and this precious child You have given me, the witnesses of Your power and Your goodness; may our lives, all our days devoted to You, be the sacrifice of thanksgiving we bring You.

Oh, hear the prayer of Your handmaid, and let my life, now received anew as from Your hand, indeed become wholly new. In daily relation with my Father, in close following and fellowship with my Lord Jesus, in a very tender yielding to the leading and sanctifying of the Holy Spirit, I desire henceforth to live only and wholly as Your handmaid.

And with myself, Lord, I offer You my precious child. Let the grace I have implored of You fit me from its very birth to hold it as Your property, a sacred trust from You to nurse and train as Yours. It comes from You, O my God, a gift to me; accept it from me again, a living gift to You. Come to Your handmaid, I pray You, in this her time of weakness and thanksgiving: let in this time of holy quiet Your presence overshadow me, and give me the assurance that my prayer is heard; that You have accepted her and her little one to keep as Your own forevermore. Amen.

`And they brought Him to Jerusalem, to present Him to the Lord, as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord, and to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord.’ Luke 2: 22-24.

According to the law of God in Israel, a child was circumcised when eight days old; this was done in its home. On the fortieth day the mother was to appear in the temple to bring the sacrifice of her purification, and to present her child to the Lord. If the child was a firstborn, then its presentation had special reference to the firstborn belonging to the Lord, and it had to be redeemed. The Child Jesus had thus also to be presented to the Lord, as being made under the law, and made like unto His brethren in all things. Made like in all things, not only that He might have experience of everything we pass through, but that we might know that every state and condition has been sanctified by His Holy Presence and merit, and that He now, by giving us the spirit which was in Him when passing through them, might impart to us the blessing and the sanctifying grace that flow from fellowship with Him. This truth has thoughts of wonderful joy and comfort for parents as they bring their little ones to God’s home, to present them before the Lord in baptism.

Let us study this presentation of the holy Child Jesus. There He is, presented to His Father in heaven by His earthly parents; a helpless infant, but yet a pleasing sacrifice, a sweet smelling savor. There, too, He comes as the first-born among many brethren, the Forerunner, through whom our little ones too can be acceptable to the Holy One. For now, when we bring our child to present him to the Lord, He looks down from heaven on the offering, and gives, in answer to the parent’s faith, to our child the spirit of His holy childhood. He was indeed made like us, that we might become like Him; He was made like unto our children, that they might be made like Him. He was not only Mary’s firstborn, but the Father’s first-born among many brethren. Where the first-fruits are holy the whole family is holy. The presentation of the Child Jesus to the Father gives us a right to present ours, and makes them acceptable too. Blessed thought! to place my child beside the holy Child, and in faith to claim that in Him my child is holy and accepted too. In Israel the presentation of the child was accompanied with a sacrifice to cleanse away the defilement of sin cleaving, at every birth, to both mother and child. This we need too. And what a mercy that the mother now can look to the blessed Jesus, the great sin-offering and atonement (Lev. 7: 6), for her cleansing from all sin, so that she may be accepted and fitted for being a true mother to this God-devoted child! And what mercy that the children, too, share in the efficacy of that great sacrifice ere they know it! that from their birth they now are holy to the Lord, and may receive that Holy Spirit which is the lawful inheritance of the seed of God’s believing people. We present our little one to the Lord, with Jesus as the great sin-offering making us acceptable and clean, and holy to the Lord.

The object of this presentation in the temple of the children was very specially to acknowledge God’s claim upon them, and to devote them to Him as His property. With what gladness and confidence parents do this when first they have seen Jesus presented in the temple. Or what does this mean? Has the Eternal God indeed not spared His only-begotten Son, but given Him up for us and our children? Has He in very deed given His Son, the Lord of glory, to be our and our children’s possession, to enter into all their feebleness and misery, to be like them subjected to a birth needing purification and presentation with sacrifice, and to a death like ours under the curse, and shall we now withhold our children from Him? Or shall we not most gladly present them before Him to be only and wholly His, devoted to His service and glory? Shall we not place our little one beside this holy Child, and on His merits, and say, Father! through Thy holy Child Jesus, with Him, in Him, like Him, I present my child to You, to be the Lord’s only and forever?

Be assured that in such a presenting of your child, after the example, in the power and spirit of God’s Child, there is a rich and sure blessing. Presented to God in Jesus, accepted in Jesus, it may now grow up with and like Jesus. Let your faith lay hold of the holy child-life of Jesus as belonging to your child, as communicable by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let your faith maintain and renew daily the solemn act in which you as parent appeared before the Lord to present your child to Him, ere you took it back to your home to rear and train. Let your faith rejoice in that definite Divine transaction in which, when you presented your child in the name of Jesus, it was accepted of the Father as His own. What we present to God, `according to that which is said in the law of the Lord,’ that, in accordance with His word, God takes. And what He takes He keeps. And our faith has only ever to look to God’s taking and keeping, to have the joyful assurance that the matter is finally settled between God and us. Let this faith make you strong to train the child for God, in a strength and grace which He will give, to secure His property for Himself. Let this faith speak to your child, as he can receive it, of his having been presented with Jesus, like Jesus, in Jesus, to the Father, and of his fellowship in the life and spirit of Him who became the children’s Surety. Let the holy childhood of Jesus overshadow and sanctify the childhood of your little one. Let your children grow up in the friendship and the footsteps of the holy Child. Live in everything as those who are going to train children who are to be like Jesus. If the thought appear too high, let it but constrain you to ask the Father whether He does indeed desire your child to be wholly like His, and whether He does expect of you to train it to be so. The answer will not be withheld, and the presentation of Jesus in the temple will become to you a pledge of the grace that enables you to see how Jesus is in everything the promise of what your child can be, and to train him accordingly.

We all know how, in the economy of grace and in the work of salvation for man, there are always two powers in action, the Divine and the human. To the former corresponds faith, that ever looks to God’s promise and power; to the latter works, without which faith cannot be perfected, and which obey and fulfil the will of God. In our study of the teachings of God’s Word on the parent’s calling, we have ever found how these two aspects of truth are presented by turns, and how, while at one moment everything appears to depend upon a parent’s faith in what God does, very soon after a parent’s character and conduct appear to decide all. The two are inseparably interwoven: the more intently we pursue the one line of thought, the clearer will the other become. And we shall see that the deeper our insight into the indispensable necessity of either, the greater will be our felt need of the other as its complement.

We have here again been meditating on the spiritual side, and apparently speaking less of the practical training of daily life. Let all parents be assured that there is nothing more intensely practical than an act of real faith. If our presenting a child to the Lord be the deed of an intelligent, childlike, heartfelt faith, it will have its mighty influence on our daily treatment of the child. If it be renewed from day to day, it will have its effect on our whole relation to the little one growing up under our care. As we think of it as God’s devoted and accepted property, as we regard ourselves as trustees to whom it has been committed for keeping and training, as we realize how God never would expect of our feebleness to take charge aright of an immortal spirit without providing the grace to do it well, and give ourselves with the child to a life of consecration and holiness, our faith will be the vital principle ruling all our conduct.

`John answered, saying, I indeed baptize you with water; but there cometh He who is mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.’ Luke 3: 16.

Man has a twofold nature: there is the external and visible; there is the internal, unseen, spiritual. Sin brought both equally under the power of the curse. In redemption both are to be made partakers of the glorious liberty of the children of God: `we wait for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body;’ the whole man, body and spirit, is to be saved. All God’s dealings with us have respect to both sides of our nature; through the external He seeks to reach the inner man; the inner again is renewed that thence the blessing may stream out and take possession of the outer man.

It is on this ground that we have the twofold baptism of which our text speaks: the baptism with water, and the baptism with the Holy Spirit. The Baptist teaches us the relation existing between the two; the insufficiency of the baptism with water in itself, and its high value as the pledge and the preparation of what was to come. In his words, ministers and parents, through whom together the little ones receive their baptism of water, find the clearest light on their duty towards the baptized child, and on the spirit in which they themselves, and afterwards the child under their guidance, are to regard its baptism.

And first we note the faith which the baptism with water warrants and demands as a sign and seal of the baptism of the Spirit. It is a sign in which God sets forth the working of regeneration, the cleansing of our nature by the renewal of the Holy Spirit. It is also a seal, an assurance that, where God has given the water, He most certainly gives the Spirit too, to the faith that claims and takes it. When John had come, the coming of Christ was certain too; when John had baptized with water, the baptism with the Spirit was certain too. God gave the one to awaken faith and expectation for the other. So intimate is the connection, that our Savior did not hesitate to speak of being ‘born of water and the Spirit;’ thus closely does He join and make them one. God would teach us that what He has meant to be one, and made one in promise, our faith can make one in reality. As in the whole economy of grace the connecting link between God’s promise and His fulfilment is our faith, so here too. The promise of God is no empty word, though our unbelief may make it of none effect. In His purpose the water and the Spirit are inseparably united: `what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder;’ let not a parent’s unbelief rest content with the water without the Spirit. Claim and accept with the most assured confidence the baptism of the Spirit for your child; and in faith praise for it as the divinely secured heritage of your little one.

Let us now observe the work to which the baptism with water calls and pledges us. The whole history of John teaches us that the Spirit could not be received until the way had been prepared for Him. The Baptist knows how little his labors avail until the baptism of the Spirit is given. And yet he labors. He does the double work of preaching repentance of sin and faith in the Lamb of God. A most blessed lesson for the Christian parent. In some children the workings of the Spirit are given from the very birth. In others they become manifest at very different stages of later growth. But in all, the manifestation of the Spirit needs a parent’s education in the lines of John’s preaching. The child needs to be taught what sin is and what repentance is, what the giving up of everything that is not according to the will of God. And it needs to be pointed to Jesus, the Lamb of God, through faith in whom the full influx of the Spirit is to come. So that, just as in the parent there is to be the harmony of faith and work, so the child no less from its earliest youth has to be trained for a God who asks to be trusted and obeyed. It is by the obedience of faith that parent and child are prepared for the fulfilment of the promise.

Learn one more lesson from John. The secret of the wondrous union between faith and work in him you will find in his deep humility. His preaching had been with mighty power. A great revival of religion was taking place; all men were flocking to him; no prophet in Israel had ever preached as he had done. And yet he says, `The latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose.’ It is ever thus. The more the soul has received of the vision and the fellowship and the power of the Holy One, the deeper the sense of its utter nothingness and absolute dependence. But then, also, the deeper its confidence in the truth and power of Him whom it has seen, and the greater its courage for His work, because it knows whence its help most surely comes. The thought might rise, or we might even hear others say it, that the assured confidence of the Spirit’s being given to our children may lead to pride, or may slacken exertion in their behalf. He that understands what faith is knows the answer. True faith and deep humility are inseparable, because faith is the becoming nothing to let God be all. And so true faith and faithful labor are no less inseparable, because faith yields itself to God to use and to work through us. Let it be with the parent as with John; there is nothing that makes us so strong to honor God as when we are bound by the threefold cord of strong faith, earnest effort, and deep humility.

Christian parent! have you accepted the promise of the Spirit with the water? Oh, hold that promise fast in a living faith. Praise God unceasingly for His gift to your child, even when you do not yet see its fulfilment. In your daily home-life, let everything be subordinated to the high destiny for which thy God has entrusted a child to you: he is to be a vessel filled with His Spirit. Labor earnestly and hopefully with this blessed prospect in view. As often as these labors teach you your impotence or your unfaithfulness, look to Him whose servant you are, and who has made you the messenger of the Spirit. He will fit you for the work He has given you to do. Jesus has said, `He that believeth in me, rivers of living water shall flow out of his belly.’ Believe in Jesus! try again, and once again, and ever more again the unexhausted fulness of that word; live your life by the faith of the Son of God. Through you the Spirit will flow out to your child. And each baptism you witness will be the glad reminder of the riches of the inheritance of your child too.

And, you ministers of Christ, if any such read these lines — to whom is committed the ministration of this holy baptism, seek, oh, seek, like John, with every baptism to testify that He who has sent you to baptize with water has said to you that there is One coming after you to baptize with the Holy Spirit! Let us pray God to make all His servants indeed ministers of the Spirit, that they may have grace in all their ministrations to speak and act as men who have realized that the Spirit has been given to follow and to seal the message and the work of faith. And especially that they may have grace to lead and train both parents and children into the apprehension of that presence of the Holy Spirit in their home-life, through which the family can again take its place as God’s first and choicest ordinance for the maintenance and the extension of the kingdom of heaven. It is as ministers and parents, as the whole Church, awakes to this truth, that the baptism of little children will no longer be, what it has too often been, a religious form, or a promise that is never fulfilled; but a sacrament, mighty and efficacious, of the presence of the Holy Ghost in the Church and in the home.

Gracious God! I thank You for the holy ordinance of baptism, with its Divine assurance of the baptism of the Spirit. And I thank You that as our little ones are with us children of the covenant and its spiritual promises, they also share in the seal of the covenant. And I thank You that their baptism is the token of their being holy to the Lord, and the heirs of the promise of the Spirit. Lord God! teach me, teach all believing parents, teach Your Church, to believe that, wherever in Your name the baptism of water is received, You wait to fulfil Your engagement to give the baptism of the Spirit too. In the great gift of Your Son, You have given us Him who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

Blessed Lord Jesus! I come to You with my children. I bring them to You. I claim for them the baptism of the Spirit. In faith I accept of it. In that faith I would train them to believe in You, that they may by faith in You come into the personal possession of what I have received for them. Yea, ere they can yet believe, I offer myself, that through me and the influence of my life Your blessed Spirit may rest upon them.

Blessed Savior! give me grace in this faith to train them wisely, and according to Your will, preparing in them the way of the Lord. Amid the consciousness of unworthiness and impotence, may this be my one hope and aim, that my children may daily live under the rule of Your Holy Spirit. Amen.