The Penn's Grove record., 1906-08-10
THh PULPIT.
-
A BRILLIANT SUNDAY SERMON By
THE REV. |. L. TAYLOR.
Subject: Children's Rights.

Taylor, preached a sermon in antici-
patton of Anniversary Day, on Chill
dren's Rights" The text was from
Mark 1914: Suffer the little chill
dren to come unto Me, and forbid
them not; for of such is the kingdom
of God" Among other things, Mr..
Taylor said:
Here is the Magma Charta, the
great charter of children's rights.
The kingdom is their kingdom. The
Christ is their Christ. He recognizes
their right to be; their right to be
children; their right to a blessed
life as children. The kingdom can
not nm except as children have
their rights. Could we save the chill
dren of but one generation, the king
dom would be here. God does not
work in just that way; but the king
dom will never come unless we keep
our hearts with the children and our
faces toward the unborn. The world
must become better by being born
again. That is the way the kingdom
has been coming. The human race
makes progress by being better born
each time. The right to be well
born should be secured to every
child and from birth on all it's rights
as a child should be safe-guarded.
Christ's blessing rests upon every
plea for children's rights, upon every
law enacted for their protection from
Nhuman parents, guardians and en-
ployers; upon every provision for
their welfare when orphaned, or de-
serted, or sick, or feeble minded, or
crippled, or in any way dependent,
defective or delinquent. But the
children who are thus afflicted, the
children who are beaten and sent
out to beg and steal, the children
n are compelled to work long
hours and under unwholesome con-
ditions, the children whose parents
are dead or unable to provide for
them, are not the only children who
need to have their rights examined.
In what we call the best homes GER
tain rights of the children are in
danger of being overlooked, are in
need of being declared, championed
and secured.
First and foremost, l would put
the right of children to be children.
They have as good a right to be
children as we have to be grown up
folks; a better right, probably.
Childhood is as much a part of the
framework of this universe as earth
or sky or sea. The right to a child
hood is inalienable. Your child has
a right not only to live but to live as
a child. We are not to infer that
Paul was ashamed of his childhood
because he said: when T became a
man I put away childish things"
We are not to think the less oil
childhood because we were meant tc
outgroW it. Such real men as Pau
was are generally discovered to have
had a real childhood. He certainly
had had a childhood sufficiently
marked to be we'll remembered
Some men and women are not Sc
fortunate. They seem to have for
gotten that they ever were or we're
meant to be children. But Pau
said: when / was a child, I spoke
as a child, 1 understood as a child
l thought Cor r~easoned) as a child
And there seems to have been no
body to interfere with him. Child
hood and youth are vanity" sale
the preacher. But perhaps he wa:
simply lamenting their brevity
Make the most of childhood ant
youth for they are soon gone" Blu
if we are to understand him as pro
nouncing vain and profitless tn,
golden days of all our life, he is sadl.
out of tune with all the rest of tn,
Bible. Vanity! Emptiness! TIT
fulness of life's worth and meanin!
is nowhere writ so large as in tn,
soul of youth. Is it Just a lie wri
large? Oh, no, for God wrote i
thus:
The men who retain childhood
sense of the reality and eagerness o
life are the men who never groy
old and never get through learning
There is nc substitute" says tn
bright from whose charmin
book of nursery logic l have Dor
rowed the title Of this discourse
"for a genuine, free, serene, healthy
Observation-Disclosures childhood. A fin
manhood or womanhood can be bull
DE- no other foundation" God say
the foundation shall be childhood
Why, then, should we be impatient
Why should we fear to trust wha
He puts nethermost for all the res
j. to stand upon? 1t is well enough t
think of the manhood and the VIC
manhood we want our children t
attain and to give to the world. Blu
l am persuaded that we think les
than we should of the childhoo
which it is our first duty to Civ
them.
The second right OF childhoo
which 1 shall mention is the RICH
to be governed. By a real childhoo
, l do not mean an unrestrained chile
hood. A child left to itself will nc
have a natural childhood. Tha
. which is most distinctive and beaut
full in childhood is contributed to i
or developed in it, by wise and 10y
ing restraint. The street Arab
not the ideal child. Nor is the chill
who grows up in a home where tn
political maxim that government
derive their just powers from tn
consent of the governed" is accepte
as applying to parental authorit,
The authority of father and mott
er is derived from the Fifth Con
mandment and from the constitutio
: of nature which lies back of tn;
commandment. There is no autho
ity more august, more sacred, MOI
God-given than parental authorit.
We abdicate it to our shame and so
lOHs " IL 0AoA1S III ~
0 church, to the shame and sorrow
our children themselves.
But, having said this, let me mai
haste to say that in the endeavor
maintain the control of our childrel
our steadfast aim should be to pl
! them at last in control of themselve
Our control should be the scaffoldir
Of self-control. A child has a RICH
[ say, to an intelligent, firm, consis
snt government that shall represel
in a way, adapted to its years, Il
conditions under which some day
will have to shift for itself. In
sense, we cannot begin too early
e put a child in control of himsel
= that is, to teach him s~elf-contro
d We have no right to crafty a child
ever. wish. The child has a right
be denied some things; to be +
strained; to learn from us, in lov
L something of the inexorable cond
al tons of mature life. We have /
~ richt IN infarfpra with the law