XI. A Child's Service. EVEN A CHILD IS KNOWN BY HIS DOINGS, WHETHER HIS WORK BE PURE, AND WHETHER IT BE RIGHT. FAITHFUL IN A VERY LITTLE. GEORGE HERBERT says, he is no little fool that despiseth it." A child liveth not to himself. His simple words penetrate oftentimes, where the old dare not venture a whisper. Go where it may, a Christian child carries with it a quiver filled with arrows, which unwittingly it lets fly into hearts and consciences. Aged men have, at a child's rebuke, cast aside the engrained habits of fourscore years. Care-worn worldlings have put away the cashbook, or dropped the newspaper, which had long usurped the place of God's holy book on sabbath-days, all because of a child's questioning look. What a debt do mothers owe to their own little ones, whose inquiries, brooking no evasion, have sometimes first led them to confess with the mouth the Lord Jesus! The mother who, because of irresolution or self-mistrust, "A child's service is little, yet of the children. dares not make profession of her faith in the drawingroom, or to her nearest friend, yet dares not deny the Saviour to her child. Well would it be if mothers were more alive to this means of blessing to the soul. "Do you love Jesus better than you love us? . . . and better than too?" was a question put by one Finding us writing on a sabbath, while a book that was often used for week-day work lay on the table, Freddy said, "Is it God you are writing about? . . . Oh, I was sure it must be about him when you are doing it to-day." Daily after losing them, we felt the want of the keen constant watch on look and word, so beneficial by its scrutiny. But besides the unconscious influence which little children possess over others, there is a talent committed to each of them-a service of which they are capable. What is it? what does it embrace? It is for the mother to discover this. According to her idea of it, and the way she defines it, will the work of her child vary. Might not a little child be allowed to visit one dwelling of the poor,-to carry with its own hand a gift, ministering to the comfort of one sick bed,-to leave a book or tract with another? Might it not keep a little box for missions or ragged schools in a quiet corner, fetching it out once a week as a plaything suited for the sabbath? and copy on that day, too, a brief text of its own choice into its own strangely-cyphered album? Might not a child of the same age be found among the poor, in which it could take special interest? Perhaps there is not one of the tests of discipleship given by our Lord in the solemn programme of the judgment-day, which young children are excluded from applying in their own miniature sphere. Are they not always happiest when encouraged to attempt, in their feeble measure, the works of kindness and mercy, in which we long to see them hereafter engaged? Can they begin too soon? How the weight of even one regret as to our conduct towards a departed child, hangs round a parent's heart! How inexcusable our neglect appears ! And who among the bereaved has not tasted of this worm-wood? What mother does not feel that had she been more diligent, more prayerful, more patient, more believing, her store of happy recollections might have been doubled, her painful remembrances greatly less,her children's memory more blessed? Near the gate of the boys' home, there lived a poor And day by day, and hour by hour, And now, my dear, your little prayer And if you wait, and watch, and pray, Until at length, one morning bright, You'll find a heart both clean and white, How very good God is to me! ANON |