THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST.
By Andrew Murray
OH, let us not hinder, but help our children to come to Jesus! For child religion may 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 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; but 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 in their friends'; they allowed company, or pleasure, and the enjoyment of the world, to choke the good seed; 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 when 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 forever. We must, on the other side, be kept from overestimating 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.—Andrew Murray.