Infinite! So beautiful, indeed, is a parent's affection for his little ones, that "the Father of mercies" has often employed it is a figure to shadow the eternal love and pitifulness of His own benignant heart towards his chosen and adopted heirs :-"Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him."-PSALM CIII. 13. "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.”. ISAIAH XLIX. 15.

But the Divine Being is far more interested in little children than humanity—however amiable and affectionate-can possibly be. Jehovah is the God of Love. He is its fountain; and human love, at its best estate, is only a tiny streamlet flowing from the boundless ocean. The finite cannot feel as intensely and incomprehensibly as the Infinite. The love of God selects little children and makes them its protegées, and stretches over them its broad, warm wing. Nothing, indeed, which the Creator has fashioned is disregarded or treated with indifference by Him, from the lowest and meanest insect to the highest and mightiest angel; for

His tender mercies are over all His works. He hears the ravens when they cry, and He feeds the young lions when they roar; and even a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice. Little children cannot, therefore, be forsaken and forgotten objects. It is a law of His providential kingdom, that they are to be regarded with a distinguished care, and angels have charge concerning them. When they have been ill-treated, and none have come forth to vindicate their rights, and revenge their wrongs, God has done it himself. Whoso toucheth them toucheth the apple of His eye. The house of Israel was visited with divine punishment, because they had filled the streets of their metropolis "with the blood of the innocents." And what a terrible fate overtook the sanguinary Roman butcher, who slew so many young children at the birth of "the young child" who was the destined Redeemer of mankind! Their blood cried for vengeance from the stained earth; and the many-voiced wailings of the bereaved mothers of Bethlehem joined in thrilling and mournful concert, imploring retribution from Heaven. And retribution, signal and fearful, came at last! Now,

we naturally conclude, that if God is so mindful of the temporal condition of little children, He cannot be less concerned respecting their spiritual and eternal interests. But we are not left to simple conjecture, or natural inference, on this momentous point. He has graciously included them in His "everlasting covenant," and made over to them very many "exceeding precious promises;" and has also legislated for them as well as for man; and given them patterns of youthful moral excellence in Scripture chronicle for their early imitation. For this specific purpose, the characters of the illustrious and virtuous Hebrew slave of Potiphar, and the juvenile prophet Samuel, whose startling enunciations made both the body and soul of the doting and venerable Eli to tremble like an aspen leaf-are delineated by God. And so also are the characters of the young King Josiah, who copied not the hellward example of his royal predecessors, but walked in God's ways; and the child Timothy, who, from early infancy, was well versed in the theological lore of Scripture. And last, but not least, the beautiful and transparent character of the "holy child Jesus," who "increased in wis

dom and stature, and in favour with God and man." Divinity lived, and smiled, and slept in the bosom of an infant, and sanctified the earliest periods of the humanity of the Son of God, which became subject to his parents, that in childhood and youth, as well as in advanced manhood, he might be our human Archetype, and leave "an example that we should follow in His steps." Little children, then, have a large share in the pitiful love of God,—their present weal and future destiny are bound up in His everlasting purposes of mercy and salvation.

And when the Saviour of the world "went about doing good," fulfilling His great and gracious mission, and transacting His "Father's business," He was not so absorbed in His noble work as to forget little children. He did not pass them by as not yet possessed of the solemn prerogatives of man, the awful trust of moral responsibility; nor did He think it beneath His matchless dignity to stoop and notice them; but He took them from the warm bosom of maternal love, pressed them to His far warmer heart, put His hands on them, and breathed a benizon over them, which contained

their glorious charter of everlasting bliss! It is true we do not read of the Saviour taking so much outward interest in infant beings as 66 grown-up men and women," inasmuch as His mission, as the Great Teacher, was chiefly to those who were responsible agents, and who could understand what He taught, and why He came down to our earth. His beaming eye, nevertheless, was on them: His miracleworking power was often exerted to relieve them from temporal and physical maladies : and doubly welcome to His heart, after the rude rejection and vile treatment of the elders of the Hebrew people, was the waving of palm-branches, and the music of their hosannacry, which shook the Mount of Olivet, and reverberated in the arches of the metropolitan temple of Judea!

If, then, the frozen-hearted philosopherwho talks so loudly about infancy being too despicable for the contemplation of thinking man-treats the young race, on whom hangs the future destiny of the world, with scornful contempt; and if Gentilism, in her savage and superstitious madness, immolates them on her legion altars, the Christian parent regards them