Part 8

With all the power of divine authority He built around the feeblest among us a wall that has protected them through the ages.

Before His day the child existed only by sufferance. It had no rights.

It was but a counter, an infinitesimal atom. It was considered simply the property of the parent. Its father had power of life and death over it. The homeless dog that roams the streets to-day is more effectively shielded from cruelty than was the friendless child before Jesus came to live and to die for the weak and poor.

The law had said:

"The parent is ruler of the child, and may dispose of it as he sees fit."

But Jesus said--and these are the most beautiful and affecting words in all the moral law of the world:

"Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven."--Matthew xviii., 10.

No threats so terrifying as those aimed at men who should harm little children:

"It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."--Matthew xviii., 6.

It is impossible now to conceive the horrid indifference to childhood's rights which preceded the birth of Christianity.

Infanticide was not the exception, but a settled custom. So much so, that in Rome the "exposure" of children in desert places was almost a virtue, since it gave the child some slight chance of surviving.

Not a few, but thousands and tens of thousands of children were thus "exposed." They fell a prey to wild beasts, or to the human beasts, still more ferocious, who took the children to make slaves or criminals of them.

Jesus came, and a miracle was worked--a miracle that no man will deny.

This was the miracle:

Jesus said:

"For I say unto you, their angels behold the face of my Father which is in heaven."

Jesus spoke, and thousands of millions of men, through nineteen centuries, have believed, and obeyed the command.

Every man was warned that the child dying goes straightway into the presence of God, and there, looking upon His face, bears witness to the treatment meted out to him here.

Well might it be said of the man who mistreated such a child:

"It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."

Every man should study with awe and reverence the sad, lonely misunderstood life of Jesus, the friend of children. He had no home, and for companions only a few humble fishermen, to whom He spoke in simple parables, as to children.

"The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head."--Matthew viii., 20.

It was this childless, homeless Man that ever used His marvellous power to protect children.

It was He who gave to children their definite share in the kingdom of God.

Before His coming the wisdom of the world was devoted to telling the child ITS duty.

But Jesus explained to grown men THEIR duty toward children.

The family life was His ideal.

All men were His brothers, and, with Him, sons of God.