XVIII BIRTH-GIFTS: A SERMON TO What manner of child shall this be?-ST. LUKE i. 66. WHEN John, who afterwards became the Baptist, was born, there were many things which made people wonder what kind of man he would grow up to be, and made the best people expect a great deal from his future. He was peculiar, exceptional-men spoke about him even when he was a baby, and hoped he would be and do something wonderful, and there was even a promise given his father that he would be great in the sight of the Lord. Not only his friends, but all sorts of strangers were curious about him, and people asked curiously and hopefully, What manner of child shall this be? That baby was not really different from any other baby. He was only exceptional in degree, as we say, that is, he was special because he had a special work cut out for him, and because of that more people were interested in him than usual. But there is the same kind of curiosity and the same kind of hope fulness about every other baby that has ever been born. Somebody at least is full of wonder and full of anxiety over every little child. Your father and mother and friends and teachers and minister and everybody who thinks of you and wishes you well, when they knew that you were born, asked in some fashion the same question, I wonder, I wonder what manner of child shall this be? If I were preaching from this text to your parents instead of to you, I think I would do it differently. I would not say the same things as I mean to say to you, because you see their duties are different from yours. I think if they asked me about you, and if I had to answer in a single sentence, What manner of child shall this be? I would say, He or she will be the manner of child that you, the parents, make him or her. Yet I am not sure if that would quite satisfy me. It would if there were not something which we call, in religion, grace, a special element which enters in a special measure into different lives, if there were not a peculiar and incalculable thing about every one of you, that makes you different from anybody else in the whole world. And so a text like this is not only for parents; for the manner of child you are, and the manner of man and woman you will be, depend a great deal on yourself. Each human life is separate and peculiar a thing by itself, as truly separate and special as John the Baptist was; and yet like each other, with the same possibilities in kind, capable of becoming, like him, great in the sight of the Lord. You have all got certain good gifts given you at birth, the gifts which make you human-birth-gifts. We talk of some children being born great, or born lucky, or born rich, or as the proverb has it, born with a silver spoon in their mouths, which is often a very bad and unfortunate thing indeed. But when looked at truly, these things are not real gifts, and do not really count when a man's life is summed up at the end. But all of you are born great in the sight of the Lord, and that is the gift of gifts. People's minds are full of stupid and wrong notions about these gifts that are given to little children, as you can see from the foolish way they speak about them. Men even think that they can themselves give gifts, birth-gifts, and birthday gifts, and not bad things at all these things are, are they? It is a very good thing indeed, is it not, for your friends to give you pretty things and nice things and things good to eat on your birthday, if only they and you will remember that they are not gifts at all but only presents? And they do it because they are interested in you, and love you and are continually wondering what manner of child you are going to be. You know that when Jesus was born, wise men (and they must have been very wise) brought precious things to lay at His feet. But the gold and the frankincense and the myrrh the wise men brought were not the true gifts which the little child Jesus received. He was born great in the sight of the Lord, quite apart from all these things. Even the lovely fairy stories which men write for you sometimes mislead you about these real gifts. You know how the fairies are said to give some lucky little baby splendid things, finer and better than presents of gold and such-like. You know the story of the princess, who was the only child of her parents. They had a very fine christening for her, and the princess had for her godmothers all the fairies who could be got in the kingdom, seven in number. Just when they were going to sit down at table, another old fairy came in who had not been invited, and who was angry because she had been passed over. You know that the custom with fairies is that after they have been entertained at such feasts, they all give some gift to the child. Well, they all gave this lucky princess the best gifts they could think of. One gave for her gift that she should be the most beautiful person in the world; another that she should be clever, the third that she should be very graceful in everything she did; the fourth that she should be a lovely dancer; the fifth that she should be a charming singer; the sixth that she should play all kinds of musical instruments magnificently. When the spiteful and angry old fairy came over the cradle she gave as her gift that the princess should have some terrible misfortune, that a spindle should pierce her hand and she should die, or some such unlucky thing happen to her. And though one of the seven fairies had suspected this, and had hidden behind a curtain so as to be the last to wish something and if possible make things better for the poor princess, yet she could not quite overturn the misfortune, but could only wish her something which would help to make the misfortune less. Now these things such as the fairies gave to that princess cannot be the real gifts about which we have been speaking, because you remember we said that the real gifts were given in some measure to all. You cannot all be so accomplished as the beautiful princess. You cannot all be great singers. You cannot all play the piano well if you practised all |