Sermons for Children, including "The Beatitudes" and "The Faithful Servant."
By A. P. Stanley, D.D., late Dean of West- minster (John Murray.)—This small book is one for the house- hold, old and young, to love. It contains nine sermons preached to children assembled in Westminster Abbey between the years 1871 to 1880; four on "The Beatitudes," addressed to Saturday afternoon congregations during the summer of 1881; and one preached at Alderley in 1856, which, though of special interest to the Stanley family, is well worthy of the wider notice one may now hope that it will attract. It would, indeed, have been a pity if these utterances of the good Dean had remained restricted to the private circulation for which they were originally printed, as, not- withstanding a few blemishes caused by the meagreness of the notes left for the editor's guidance, the true spirit of them is evidently reproduced. Preaching to a special class brings its own special difficulties, which can only be overcome successfully when preacher and hearers are in full sympathy ; and that this was the case in the Abbey on these occasions, no one can doubt who observes the simplicity of the language employed, and the adaptation of the thoughts so conveyed to those of the young. For example, when, in the sermon on "The Child Jesus," he fixes on the azidng of questions as specially to be imitated :—" By asking questions as He did ; that is, by trying to know the meaning of what you learn, by cross-questioning yourselves, by inquiring right and left to fill up the blanks in your minds. Nothing is more charming than to see a little child listening, not interrupting, but eager to hear what is taught. Nothing is more charming than to hear a little child asking questions. That is the only way in which we are able to know whether you take in what has been taught you." That "not interrupting" shows acquaintance with the habits of children, and wishing them to ask ques- tions bespeaks a love which does not mind the trouble of answering. The Dean always teaches by stories, drawn often from passing events, as in the case of the "Goliath boys ;" and in the second sermon, "Love one another," the various legends regarding the beloved disciple are used with excellent force. The one of St. John and the partridge is so good for 1113 all, that it may bear quotation, though well known There came one day a hunts- man who had heard so much of this great, wise old man, that he went out of his way to see him; and to his great surprise, he found St. John gently stroking a partridge which he held in his hand, and he could not help saying how surprised he was to see so great a man employed on anything so small. Then St. John said, What have you in your hand?' And he said, A bow.' And St. John said, 'Why is it not bent?' And the huntsman said, Because then it would lose its strength.' 'That is just the reason,' said St. John, why I play with the partridge.' " And in the third sermon, the true lover of children and the true lover of his Lord comes out where he says :—" And so too, in the Gospel history, where we hear how often our Saviour took notice of little children, how He set them up in the midst of His disciples, how He took them up in His arms and laid his hands on their little heads and blessed them, and by His outward gesture and deed declared His good-will towards them—this shows us how he enjoyed what we enjoy. It is the answer to the question which is sometimes asked—we hear that our Lord wept, and we ask, But did He ever smile ?' Yes, He did smile. He must have smiled as he fondled these little ones." And yet there is nothing akin to the spirit now so prevalent in fashionable society, which treats children as if they were soulless toys, disguising their native simplicity under fantastic clothing, and making them, as he says, "bad children, vain children, who are no comfort and no example to anybody." Then, again, that reverence for them, which is too often forgotten in the midst of the fuss made about them, comes out strongly in his remarks on the words, " Whoso shall offend," &c. :—" Think what it is to mis- lead, or to pervert, or to corrupt, or to give needless pain to any of these children, who were sent to us with the special view of keeping alive within us whatever there is of good or pure or just To accustom them in their early years to sounds or sights of cruelty or vice ; to teach them by precept or example those bad habits, those slang, vulgar words, which confuse their delicate sense of right and wrong, which deprave their taste for what is beautiful ; to encourage, by foolish laughter or by reck- less indulgence, the tricks, or the mistakes or the frivolities of those who soon learn to know what it is that sinuses their elders, and who have a fatal facility of imitating what is bad as well as what is good ; these are so many ways of offending God's little ones, causing them to stumble, go astray, spoiling them (to use that homely but expressive word) for any good word or work in after-life." The one on "Sick Children" includes some remarks on the different results produced by similar infirmity in Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott, and sums up the Christian, as opposed to the heathen feeling about the weak and sickly, in these emphatic words :—" But they are worth saving; they may be the saving of those about them." The Dean's loving knowledge of the noble building committed to his care is shown throughout the whole of these sermons by his use of in- scriptions on little-known monuments. "Jane Lister—dear child," seems to have been an especial favourite, as it is used more than once; and the Saturday sermons are illustrated throughout by examples taken from the lives of those buried within the Abbey walls. A very pathetic interest belongs to the fourth of these sermons, which was his last, preached only nine days before his faithful service here was exchanged for some better service, which, as yet, those who still miss him cannot understand.
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