The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-12-26

nothing else quite has. It is the
 strength of weakness. It appeals to
 some instinct. We cannot tell perhaps
 what that instinct is but that very
 weakness and helplessness give it a
 power and throw around it a sacred
 ness that no other life quite has This
 strange human nature with it's fierce
 idolatry of all that is strong, it's scorn
 and contempt of all that is weak yet
 feels a strong throbbing at the heart
 and a sense of impotence before this
 face so full of the new wonders of life.
 There is something there that calls
 forth new sense of tenderness. A
 feeling that his life cannot and must
 not be injured. It is so helpless, it is
 so weak and it has an innocency and
 purity about it that makes q mans
 eyes fill with tears as he looks into it
 and his heart ache with longing for
 something he had thought had gone out
 of his life forever. Many man who
 had thought never to again think of
 these things or dream those dreams
 which belong to the long ago of his
 childhood finds himself in the presence
 of a child Wistfully dreaming of the
 days in which he too was an innocent
 boy and his mind was pure from evil
 and his heart free from every wicked imagination. It has all come so strange ly. He has not thought of this little life as formidable opponent of all his ] ambitions. He has not for an instant
 felt that this was an enemy of all his i old schemes. He never dreams that 1 this child is to rule over his life in a l way that he cannot comprehend or
 change the whole history of his inner
 world. It is so silent and so gentle. No
 blare of trumpets, no call to battle but
 the little fingers clasp his strong hand
 and lead him gently away from the old 1 thoughts into the new, from the old l paths into strange ones, from the old world into another that has light in | it that never was on sea or land. How often, how almost always the little
 child is doing this for men and women hardened into conviction that they have measured the world and known its
 secrets and have left no place in their lives for weakness or for simplicity. Many a stern man has bent over the cradle where the little one lay with new look in it's eyes and he knew With wrench of the heart that he had never thought to feel that he was going to lose the strongest and noblest in spiration of his life when that little one had left him. How can we explain this all? l cannot tell you. l only know that 1t is so and this strange complex nature of our yields to gentle ness and softens and bends before weakness where the iron hand of pow CT cannot make it yield or the most tremendous energy of the human will cannot compel it to stoop. And so God
 with His deep knowledge of your soul and mine, measuring the lives Of men with that sweet compassion for their ignorance sent to them not king but a child and a king because child. Nothing is so hard to understand as this and nothing is so hard to believe All our habits of judgment go against it and even as we think of the world com ing back to God we cannot think of it coming this way. He who who shall lead men to the right path is He who died upon the cross but He who died upon the cross is He who was born at Bethlehem and the man and the child are one. This is what we do not real ize. There is such a huge chasm be- tween our infancy and our manhood, such an immense difference in the ideas and character of these ends of life that we do not realize the unity which runs through the life of Christ The gentle boy may and often does grow up into a strong self-asserting man. the sweet pure girl into a selfish, passion ate woman and we are not overwhelm- ed by the contrast between the past and the present because we carry no clear perception with us of the organic | unity of the largest and most perfect life A true life life that follows the | high laws of spiritual growth goes on unfolding and developing the original and primary elements of character. | Gentleness does not by any organic law develop into rudeness or does childish | purity into mature selfishness. The true | life takes with it all that it starts with 1 and builds up the future upon the real | of the beginning. This is the true instinct which led the poet to utter | that cry almost passionate in its in- tense longing and deep recognition:
 "The Child is Father of the Man;
 And I could wish my days to be
 Bound each to each by natural piety.
 An, who does not know how different it has been, and does not wish that of all that he has lost in the years that he has lived he might have that at least which belongs to his early recol- lectons. In His life we see this per feet unity. In the figure dying there upon the cross there is before this world of fierce passions and brute force the same helplessness even more strangely set before us as there was in the little babe Yet in this awful weakness so overpoweriag and so great here is also feeling of strength be- fore which this hard world must yield. Weak as it seems to be nothing is strong enough to overcome it. And the purity of that sad and lonely face, so humble in it's patience, so gentle in it's tenderness, is something sweeter and more unearthly than the unstained ace of the child. It is the purity of he face that has met sin and not been won by it, of the life that has been