THE PLACE OF THE CHILD.

White Ribbon, Volume 22, Issue 259, 18 January 1917, Page 10

THE PLACE OF THE CHILD.

This is the dawn of the children’s day. We use the term “dawn” advisedly, for full-orbed day is not yet for the child. Still, never as now, was so much time, thought, expense, trouble, expended on c hild-life. The mandate has gone forth that each child shall have his chance. But the interpretation of that chance depends upon the interpreter. Interpreter and interpretation are one. The State is concerned for the physical, mental, material, and moral well-being of the child, where this does not clash with vested interests, as in the matter of the open har. Of all e fforts to secure to the child his inalienable rights, it might well be said, “These things ought ye to have done,” but here comes in the crux of the matter, —“and not to leave the other undone.” What is that other? Surely any interpretation of giving the child his chance that leaves God out of count. From our standpoint, the Christian standpoint, the State is found wanting that omits the Bible as the foundation of all education, discarding it not only as useless, but as an actual menace to the child. What the State depreciates we prize above* all else,—the Gospel that alone makes “wise unto salvation.” In its attitude toward child-life the State is not alone paternal, not alone humanitarian. The State has an eye to business. It has come to recognise in the child its chief asset. It gives its wisest statesmanship to consider how to fit him to be a pillar of the State; how to conserve and to augment its interests; how to fit the embryo citizen for his task. Shall we, “the children of light,” be less wise where higher citizenship is at stake than “the children of this world”? We have * >uched upon the difference that exists between ourselves as Christians, as those to whom the solemn charge has been committed. “Take this child, and nurse it for Me,” and the most benign, best-order-ed earthly State that fails to recognise this prior, higher claim. Our objective is different. We are working or seeking to work, from the standpoint of eternity. If true to our trust, our stand is for God, then humanity. The State belongs to the order of things that now is, and raters for the things of time. It has no ear for the command, “Seek ye first the Kingdom

of God and His righteousness, and all the things (material) shall be added unto you.” Have you and I, reader? Christianity gives the child his place as does no other religion. “Feed My lambs” takes precedence of “Feed My sheep.” It is the Divine order. In the religions of the East there is neither place nor message for the child. The heart of childhood is crushed out of it in heathen lands. No tribute to child life marks out its last resting-place. “Baby Tower” in China receives its piled-up heap of unhonoured small humanity. How diffc rent this when Christianity, if even bat an influence, is in evidence! But we believe in child conversion as did the early Christians. In the catacombs of Rome such recoids run, “Here lies Sosmus, a believing child of believing parents; he lived two years one month and twenty-five day-..*’ And of another, “Here rests in peace Urcia Flo.entina, a believer; she lived five years eight months and eight days.” The fact that our Redeemer entered this world a babe, and went through all the phases of development like any ordinary chili, has always fascinated us from our earliest years. And is there not something in all babes that reminds us of the Babe of Bethlehem? The poet has truly said, “Heaven lies about us in our infancy.”

Then how tender and intense the love and sympathy of Him, the children’s Saviour. He watched them a: they imitated their eiders in their play, and drew a lesson : He “called a little child unto Him. and set Him in the midst,’’ to demonstrate how entrance alone could be secured into the Kingdom of Heaven, and when He would enforce the lesson of humility, it was again a little child He made His object lesson. « When-' the disciples would have driven the children away as too small and insignificant for the Master’s notice; too young for inclusion in His great soul-saving campaign, He only drew them the nearer to Him, with the burning words of love’s entreaty, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Having regard to this command, s.iy, reader, what should he your attitude* and min" toward child-life? In what way are you and 1 trying to give effect to the* command, not alone its letter, but its spirit? GERTRUDE COCKERELL.