p. 6 | As a Little Child by W. A. S.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 14, 1903

“As a Little Child”

By W. A. S.

THE kingdom of heaven is open to the little child. And “whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.”

None can ever become so aged or so wise that they may not be as God’s little children. “As one whom his mother comforteth,” says the Lord, “so will I comfort you.” I remember a little one who used ever to come running into the house with bump or bruise, saying, “Kiss it, mama,” and immediately the kiss upon the very spot healed the grief and dried the tears. Just so, stricken and bruised by sin, the human heart can find comfort only in bringing the hurt to a personal Father in heaven, into whose presence we may come by faith.

We must be left as little children with God. We need no explanation, professedly scientific or otherwise, of the way in which prayer operates. The little child, with clasped hands, talking to a heavenly Father, knows the secret of the Lord which the worldly wise can never know. We would teach the little one that when he reads the Bible, God is talking to him; and that when he prays, he is talking to God. And who of us does not wish to be left a little child with God?

New-thought literature is full of discussions of God’s personality and of prayer. As the old errors are being revived, science, falsely so called, is making again the effort to explain God and divine things. Thus in old time the truth of God was turned into a lie, and heathenism came in. We must know that when science attempts to explain Christianity upon what is called a rational basis, we can have nothing else as a result than Christian Science, whether it comes truly labeled, or whether in the phraseology of this truth. Not to the clever head, but to the loving, childlike heart is the discernment of the truths of the kingdom of heaven.

And, thank the Lord! our prayers as we talk with God, actually go somewhere. John, in the Revelation, saw the prayers of all saints coming up before God in the temple in heaven. The prayer of faith is a real thing in heaven. And there are not enough evil angels in this dark world to shut away the simplest, feeblest cry of one of God’s little children. The prayer of faith will wing its way upward, straight to the throne of grace, straight to the heart of a loving heavenly Father.

Many a man has been robbed of the sweet and vivid reality of the kingdom of heaven by listening to the philosophy that in these days must put everything into the crucible of vain human reason for analysis. But he may get it all back again — as a little child.

W. A. S.