As a Little Child

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 7, 1873

As a Little Child.

THERE is a touching passage in McDonald’s poem, “Within and Without,” which describes an interview between the poor, unhappy hero of the tale and his lovely little daughter. She runs to him as he sits absorbed in mental conflicts, saying, “Father, what is poetry?” “A beautiful thing, of the most beautiful God has made,” was his reply. Then he opens a book, and shows her some poetry. She looks at it with disappointment, and says, “I don’t think that’s so very pretty, father; one side is very well—smooth,” running her finger up and down the row of capital letters, but the other side is rough, just like my hair in the morning before it is brushed. “I don’t care about poetry.” Her father then reads aloud some verses, and that pleases her; but still she cannot understand why poetry is beautiful. “Her mother is beautiful; but this is not as pretty as mother.” Her father tells her she cannot understand till she is older, but then she will find out for herself, and love poetry well. “Do you believe me, dear?” “Yes, father;” but still in an aside, with a glance at the book, “I wonder where its prettiness is, though; I cannot see it anywhere at all.” The father resumes his train of thought, and looking up suddenly, “terribly wretched, and beyond relief,” at the mystery of God’s ways with him, he sees his daughter in a corner curiously examining the book of poetry. She peeps into it; then holds it to her ear; then rubs her hand over it; then puts her tongue to it; still she is baffled. She has no faculty by which to judge of what is beyond her comprehension, and, in spite of her assertion that she was willing to take her father’s word for it, she was yet questioning. The father caught the lesson, and, bursting into tears, prayed, “Father, I am thy child. Forgive me this. Thy poetry is very hard to read.” There are hours in the experience of every person when there is nothing good or beautiful in the lesson of life; but the day is coming when the soul shall know as it is known, and see as it is seen. Until that day of new and larger life there is no resting-place for the restless, undeveloped soul, save in the sure and abiding word of God, which shall never fail.—Christian Weekly.