Our Boys and Girls
“Suffer these little ones to come unto me” Was the commafid of Him who, on the cross, Bo7ved his anointed head and with his blood Purchased redemption for our fallen race — And blessed they who to that holy task Devote the energies of their young years, Teaching, with pious care, the dawning light Of infa7it intellect to know the Lord.
Huntingdon.
“Take this child away, and nurse
it for me, and I will give thee thy
wages y Exodus 2: g.
“A?id the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof J’^ Zechariah 8: J.
“IVist ye not that I must be
about my Father’’ s business 1” Luke
2:49.
“And the Syria?is had gone out
in bands, and had brought away
captive out of the land of Israel a
little maid; and she waited Ofi
Naamaiis wife. And she said unto
her mistress, Would God my Lord
were with the prophet that is in
Samaria! then tvould he recover
him of his leprosy,’’’’ 2 Ki?igs
“The children [that were”] cryifig
in the temple, and saying, Hosanna
to the son of Davids Matthew
21: IS.
TWENTY-FIVE years ago, in a Western mining camp, a crowd of rough men had assembled
55 to listen to music and speaking. While the band was playing, a baby in the audience, the only one in the whole camp, began to cry. A tall miner arose, and with stentorian voice said, “Stop that noisy band and give the baby a chance.” The music ceased, and the rough men wiped the tears from their eyes as they listened to the baby’s crying. It brought to them the hallowed associations of the home in the East. They were children again.
My first message in this chapter is to parents. “Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages.” Give the children a chance. They have a right to be welcomed into the world, and to find a place where they can feel at home. Children are the music and poetry of family life. The Bible speaks of them as olive plants around the table. The man who is blessed with many children is compared to the hunter with strong bow and quiver full of arrows. He is ready for any emergency, and has a resource of strength upon which he can rely. A wealthy man said to a poor friend, as he looked upon his house full of children: “These are the things that make rich men poor.” “Nay, verily,” replied his friend, “these are the things that make poor men rich, and not one of them would I give for all the millions of earth.”
Yet it is possible to make boys and girls feel that they are nuisances, encumbrances, drawbacks, weights instead of wings. A little boy when he was dying, was told by the minister that he was going to heaven. His last prayer was, “Lord, make room for a little fellow.” He seemed to feel that there was no room on earth for him, and he was glad that he was going to a place where there might be room enough.
And parents need not be discouraged when their children seem to be unpromising. When Dr. Todd was an infant it was said, even by his mother, that she thought it would be a mercy if the little sickly thing were taken from the world, much as she would miss it. But Dr. Todd grew up to write the “Student’s Manual” and to make an impress on the world for good. Sir Walter Scott as a boy was dull, but the dullard of the school-house became the wizard of literature, OHver Goldsmith was so stupid that his teacher declared that he would never amount to anything, and though Oliver never learned to talk much better than poor Poll, he did write like an angel. Clarke, the commentator, was known when a boy as “Adam, the dunce,” and Sir Isaac Newton, who became the most famous mathematician of his age, seemed in childhood to have a skull so thick that the teacher could not pound into him the multiplication table. Dulness in certain things does not indicate weakness of mind. A critical remark may stir latent powers into action.
Paul Ritter wrote “I love God and flowers and little children,” and they have something in common. God is great and strong, flowers are little and weak; children are like flowers in their weakness, but they have in them the possibilities of strength which in maturity will at least remind us of God.
Give the child a chance by protecting it from the influences that will mar while its nature is plastic.
A traveler says that while he was in South America he noticed a bird fluttering about its nest, flying out and coming back with a leaf in its mouth, which it dropped among its young. He soon saw the cause of the disturbance, for a large snake had wound its body around the tree and was climbing for a meal. The moment its head reached the nest it relaxed its hold and fell with a thud upon the earth. The instinct of the bird had taught it that the leaves were poisonous to the snake, and it had protected its young by filling the nest with these leaves. How careful should we be to throw about little children those influences that will protect from the serpents of evil that would destroy.
The habits of childhood are apt to be the habits of mature age. “Do you do any literary work? “asked a neighbor of a mother.” Yes,” she replied, “I am writing two books.” “What are their titles? “‘’ ‘John’ and ‘Mary’,” she answered. “My business is to write upon the minds and hearts of my children the lessons that they will never forget.” And this should be done at any sacrifice. No pleasure-seeking or money-making should hinder us from writing the truth upon the souls of our children. The testing time comes to many a father and mother, “Shall I turn my child over to another, or shall I sacrifice my pleasure or even my business for its training.” It is said that a ship coming from San Francisco to the East took fire, and a strong man had just buckled around his waist his heavy belt of gold, when a little girl came up and with a tear in her eye said: “Can you swim?” “Oh, yes, I can swim,” “Will you not save me from drowning?” It was a question with him as to whether he would save the gold or the child. It did not take him long to decide; he flung aside his belt, took the child upon his shoulder, and swam to the shore. Whether this incident be true or not, it illustrates the crisis in the life of many a child. It is simply a question with the parents as to whether pleasure or gold shall be saved, or the child. If we decide for the child we are apt to fill the future with light. If we decide for pleasure or gold we may fill it with shadows.
My second message is to the boys and girls who are lights or shadows in our American life. We might widen the field and make it take in the whole world, for childhood is about the same everywhere. Children cry and laugh in Chinese about as they do in English. Their child nature, with its joys and sorrows, is about the same until it has been marred by the forces of evil. The fifth verse of the eighth chapter of Zechariah gives us the right of every boy and girl in the world. It is the right to play. It describes the condition of Jerusalem during the millennium, when there will be no sin, no bad neighbors to protect children from, no bad language befouling the air, no evil habits that can be learned on the streets. The streets are full of boys and girls at play. Our parks and playgrounds hedged about by good influences are a section of the millennium pushed forward. Let the happy shout fill the air, let the vigorous body work off its abundant life by running and leaping and vaulting. The more noise in the open air the better. If we had enough to drown the rattle of the trolley, and the shriek of the engine, our nerves would not be so severely tested. “Keep quiet, and do not make so much noise,” said a petulant mother to her boisterous son.
Our Boys and Girls 6i
“Mamma, were you ever a boy?” he innocently asked. The life of playful childhood may be out of our stiff joints and aching limbs, but it should never be out of our hearts. Let the children fill the world with the light of happy play.
It is certain that these playful boys and girls on the streets of the New Jerusalem are clean. I do not refer to their clothing, or their faces and hands, I have great sympathy for the child that has to sit up in clean clothes, not permitted to roll in the sand and romp in the dust. The business of its little life is to keep tidy. As well be in jail. But I do refer to clean language, and clean habits. Can you think of one of these boys playing on the streets of heaven as smoking a cigarette, or squirting tobacco juice, defiling the body with the poison of nicotine? Nor can you imagine one swearing, or lying, or uttering vulgarity? Clean lips because beneath them are clean hearts.
The boys and girls on the streets of the New Jerusalem must be gentle. You cannot think of them as cruel or unkind. They control their tempers. They never quarrel. They do not take pleasure in hurting animals, for the boy who would kill flies for a pastime would kill men, if he had the power. We are anxious that our boys should be gentlemen and our girls ladies; it is more important that the boys should first become men and the girls women. Robert Burdette says truly that he could not imagine the angel as saying, “Ye gentlemen of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?” Our attempts to make gentlemen out of boys may result in making them dudes, and that is about as near nothing as we could make. And the attempt to make ladies out of our girls may result in making them butterflies of fashion.
Luke 2: 49 gives us a portrait of the useful child. Jesus lived in his home at Nazareth helping his father and mother in their work. He was known as he grew up to be a carpenter. You cannot think of him as loafing and idling away his time. He was doubtless the first in play, the happiest of the happy. He was also industrious and useful. Sometimes the boy is called upon to help support his mother, and though it is bad for him to leave school, in this new responsibility he secures an education of great value. A newsboy in New York was run over by a dray, and as they were taking him to the hospital he handed a few cents to the officer, saying: “Take that to mother, it is all I have made this morning.” His thought was to help the one he loved. Mr. Miller, in his little book entitled, “Faults and Ideals of Girls,” tells of a girl who, after she had gone through school and acquired a good education, returned to her home duties in the nursery and kitchen to lighten the burdens of mother who had sacrificed so much for her. Every child can be more or less useful in the home even when there is no need of an income from child labor for support.
At twelve years of age Jesus is about his Father’s business. Every boy and girl have capital which is of more value than money; years before them that they can invest for God. While a Christian man in Connecticut was dying, he groaned out “Lost, lost!” The pastor, who was at his bedside, said in surprise, “I thought you said you were saved.” “Yes,” he replied, “my soul is saved, but fifty years of life are lost.” He might have been useful during that long time, but now the opportunity is lost forever. In order to invest one’s whole life in doing good, we must begin in childhood, and a useful childhood is light without a shadow.
2 Kings 5: 2-3 gives us the picture of a brave child. She had been captured by the Syrian army and taken away from home. The husband of her mistress was a leper, and though she lived among a people who despised the God and the prophets of Israel, she was bold enough to say, “If my master were in Samaria, the prophet could cure him of his leprosy.” The fact that these great people listened to this slave girl shows that she had a good character. She was truthful. They believed in her, and she was brave enough to confess in the midst of enemies that she believed in Jehovah.
There have been heroic martyrs among children. In the year 304, during the reign of the Pro-Consul Aulius of Carthage, three children, two boys, Felix and Hilarion, and one girl, Victoria, were martyred for their faith in Christ. We read of Bassa, the Christian mother of Edessa, whose husband thought he could frighten his three sons into giving up their mother’s religion, but to his consternation he found that they were brave enough to confess Christ before the executioners, and suffer death rather than deny their mother’s Saviour.
This little Israelitish maid reminds us of Daniel in a foreign court, who refused to drink the king’s wine and eat his rich food, and as a result of his faithfulness became the Prime Minister of the empire. When we think of brave children, of course the ruddy-faced David occurs to us. The boy, who, though not used to battle, but who spent his time practicing with sling and stone in the open air, was brave enough to meet the giant Goliath, and in the strength of God slew him. And every boy can be a giant-killer. I wish that we might have an order of giant-killers, boys who refuse to do wrong and who conquer evil habit, because they believe in God and righteousness.
This little maid was a truly beautiful girl. I do not know what her features were, whether’ her hair was dark or light, her eyes blue or gray; but there is a beauty which cannot be seen as you stand before the mirror: it is a beauty of soul.
She was unselfish and magnanimous. She might have said, “Let old Naaman perish in his leprosy: he had no business to take me away from my father’s house. It is good for him.” Instead of that she was anxious to do him good. Unselfishness is beauty; selfishness is ugliness.
Matthew 21:15 gives us a picture of religious boys and girls. The old people in the temple did not like the children’s noise as they praised Jesus, but Jesus took their part then as he does now. Every child has a right to be religious, and the happy religion of children fills the community in which they live with light. Joseph was religious. His dreams were his Bible, God speaking to him. We have a better Bible than Joseph had, and ought therefore to be more religious. Samuel, trained by his mother, lived in the temple all the time serving God, and became the greatest prophet of Israel. Our religion should make us play better. It was said of a certain boy, “He plays like a Christian,” 5 and that was a good compliment. Our religion, through the blood of Christ, will make us clean and keep us clean in our language and habits. It will make us gentle and brave, and useful and beautiful. Without religion a boy or a girl is only half-formed, and that means deformed. Jesus said, “Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not.” Every boy and girl in the world has a right to come to Christ on that invitation, and, when they have done so, to help fill the world with light and gladness.