SERMONS FOR CHILDREN"
IT is more than a great pleasure, it is almost a duty, to recommend this admirable volume to the consideration of parents and those who stand in the place of parents, and especially to those who teach the young. Youth—and very early youth—is the time when the imagination is most lively, and most reverential, and when the supernatural not only gives no offence to the reason, but seems most in accordance with experience ; indeed, it is a fair argument for the supernatural in religion, that it is dear to the hearts of children. And since true religion . is a matter of the heart, and not of the mind only, it is of the greatest importance that it should be implanted when the heart is purest,—when, in fact, the mind is scarcely awake, but the heart has attained full and eager life, and is ready to burst with joy or break with grief. And it is equally clear that if religion is to be taught early, it cannot be taught in formal lessons, nor from books, except in so far as the Bible will supply all the principles to be inculcated, and the illustra- tions best adapted to impress them ; but the former must come to the child direct from the heart of the teacher, and the latter must be supplied by his living lips. And this is the method which Mr. Waugh uses. He takes a principle of the religion of Christ, clothes it in some simple and beautiful Bible words, and illustrates it, as our Lord did, by some story applicable • The Children's Sunday Hour. By the Rev. Benjamin Waugh. London : William Isbister, Limited. to the hearer's circumstances. And not only is Mr. Waugh's method attractive, but his principle is true. His desire is to eliminate fear from the child's idea of religion,—all fear, that is, of God ; while he endeavours so to increase the personal love for God as to produce that generous fear of paining or grieving him, which is the only fear that should be associated with true religion. Every lesson, therefore, is on God's goodness to us in one form or another; how God leads us ; how he presents constant opportunities to do right, or to turn back to right; how he is thoughtful, as a good earthly parent is, but in an immeasurably higher degree ; how all our self-denial for those we love dwindles before his ; how the greatest happiness and most divine spirit is the result of working for others, with us, as with God and his especial ministers ; how God's goodness is constantly made distinctly apparent to us to prevent faith from fainting, and his promises fulfilled in a way that precludes doubt lest his word should be a word only. And this religion of personal love and confidence has the immense advantage over a religion much mixed with fear, that besides being intrinsically truer, it is enduring. A religion of fear may be laid aside with maturer years, as mere physical courage increases ; or as scientific doubt, perhaps, ripens into unbelief, behind which the timid worldling may entrench him- self and bid defiance to the threats of the preachers of a religion of terror; or as he who is convinced of the innate nobility of human nature casts off the responsibility of being his brother's keeper, and devotes himself to abstract science. But a religion founded not on fear but on love will survive even intellectual doubt. An extract will exemplify in the best way Mr. Waugh's persuasive lessons. He is illustrating true glory and honour by the true story of a poor little fellow who risked his life to save another poor little fellow. An Earl is giving him a medal at a home and refuge for boys, and he is being held forward by his little comrades, for he is shy and nervous, and tries "to sidle away :"— " Look at the noble chairman ; he himself had driven down from his proper place in the House of dukes, and earls, and lords, where were gathered the men who had done well as lawyers, and judges, and statesmen, and warriors, and the princes of the royal blood. Yet, all peer though he was, he was moved to the sincerest depths of his being as he murmured, I have the honour,' and pinned the life- saving medal on the child's jacket. His heart was fall. He paused to swallow down something that would rise in his throat before he could go on. There is the Glory and Honour' of successful states- men, and warriors, and lawyers, but the glory of self-forgetful saving of life is a glory that excelleth, and that was the wondrous glory won by this boy. He had plunged into the stream, shared for a moment a drowning man's risk, and that little hand—look at it there, steady- ing him by holding that table—had come out holding the saved. And why has self-forgetfulness such mighty power ? Why can a twelve- year-old child bow down an audience of grown men before him, and give to that brow with its stubbly crown of shorn black hair glory and honour more than the lustre of gold and jewels ? Why is it that that small body in its little breeches and jacket, brushing away a tear from its cheek, grips three thousand hearts, and holds them all, and makes them, in short, loyal members of his kingdom ? Why is it so ? It is so because God is like him. He has a bit of the same beauty we were all made on purpose to worship; the glory before which angels give a great cry, and all the company of heaven fall down and adore, and adore, and adore ! Now, my children, see that sight as a peep into heaven ; and, one thing more, see in what it is that heaven and earth in a very deep sense are both alike. Had that brave young heart in the struggle with the man had it gone down ; had there been a little swirl on the surface Of the river, a few tiny bubbles rising and bursting ; had the little struggler, too brave for his strength, landed not on the bank of the Thames but on the strand of the eternal world—had death been his reward, would he have landed in silence ? Would the little stranger whom we all cheered with delightful tears in our eyes have arrived there without a cheer ?"
Or take this little story—also true—in illustration of the joy of living for others :— "In one of the worst of the courts leading out of Golden Lane two children lived alone ; it was no uncommon thing in quarters like these. One, a boy of twelve or fourteen years, went out to sell newspapers ; the other, a girl of nine or ten, lay upon a truckle-bed all day, sitting up only when her brother was at home. She did not undress. Day and night too she lay there in her clothes. She was too weary to dress and undress herself, and her brother did not happen to see any reason why such a work should be done. He was a true and loyal brother, which was well for her, poor girl ; for she had no one in the world besides him to care for her. He would have taken off her clothes for her and put them on again willingly, but she was such a poor, puny thing, and lifting her about seemed to hurt her. She often Liked of the grave; for her mother was dead, and her father was dead. Her mother had died a few weeks before. She, too, had been puny and ill, and used to lie on the other side of the room and talk to the girl; but now it was so lonely. Her brother was out all day. Now and then she cried bitterly for the dead, but sometimes she cried that she might die too. She longed for- the country. And there the puny thing lay all summer days and nights
in a stifling attic, with no sight of a green tree and scarcely any of the sky, while the buttercups bloomed and withered, and the wild rose was in flower, and the hay was made, and the corn was cut all round the cottage where they used to live. But they had left that
now. She was slender and frail now, but she had been a chubby little girl of five years old then, with soft warm limbs, and curls as
brown as nuts, which curled of themselves and hung on to her shoulders ; and father and mother had taken it in tarns to carry her as they tramped up from their village to London, all the way on foot. It was all long since now, and things were changed. Bat she hart never forgotten the face of her father, always bright, at least when it looked at her on that weary journey; nor of her mother, always sad at her father's choice to come to London. And now the bitter fruit had come, and father and mother had passed away. As little could she forget the hedges and the honeysuckle, the birds and the butterflies, and the wheat and barley fields, where the sun was still shining and the winds blew. What would she give for a feel of the
wind on her limbs just now ? Tom,' she said one Sunday afternoon, as she took him by the hand while he sat by her bed, 'do you think I could get out anywhere, just for once 'Could you stand it ?' Tom asked. 'I'd like it very well if you could.'—The girl looked a little doubtful, and anxiously said, Will you try ? There's no harm in trying; I should so like it.' Tom's kindly heart was in a difficulty. He knew the sort of pain it would give her to be 'lifted and lugged' downstairs. But he understood the rare anxiety with which her eyes were just now shining. She panted just to be in the air, that was all, and have the light upon her. Tom put her hat on—his own cap was already on, he seldom took it off- end throwing his arms round her in the most comfortable, cordial way, he lifted her tenderly and carried her downstairs into the street. His sister gave a tiny cry of joy. The streets were quiet and fall of sunbeams, which the wet of a recent shower on the pavement re- flected into crystal. A few women stood at their doors and some happy children were playing about. How lovely !' the poor girl murmured. And they sat together on the doorstep, and Tom wound his arm round her, for he thought she had shivered a little. 'Would you like to go down to the Embankment P' he inquired in a while, looking at her happy little face. There are gardens there.' Her pale, pinched cheeks grew almost rosy, and her two lustrous eyes grew grave and serious. Could you manage it ?' she said, in her humble suppliance.—' Manage it !' he rejoined. And they stretched out their arms to one another and threw them around one another ; she clung around his neck, and Tom lifted her up. There was more than their usual affectionateness in their ways; she kissed him on his cheek, and he kissed her on her lips. They were not given to kisses, bat they were uncommonly happy to-day. They reached the end of their journey once more, and Tom put his dear burden down upon a seat just inside one of the garden gates. Dear Tom !' she said softly, as she gazed upon the scene, and her heart was too fall. 'It is heaven.' And for deep joy, she began to cry. And she was right; for Tom and she had never been so lost in the loveof one another. But that was not quite what the poor girl meant. What she saw when the tears cleared away and a pallid smile flickered on her thin face again were great round and oval beds and banks full of flowers —of caloeolaria, petunia, geranium, lobelia—with the autumn after. noon sunbeams full upon them, and crimson and white and purple and gold strewn everywhere about them, a wonderful bewilderment of colour ; and they shone with a glory which fields and hedges never had, even in the bright days of her childhood; and the poor heart thrilled with all manner of happy feelings. And how glad Tom was ! Never had the Embankment garden been as beautiful as now; and never had it yielded him a thousandth part of the joy it yielded him now as he saw it reflected in his poorly sister's wonderment. His joyous heart swelled with a deep draught of the waters of heaven. There, in his rags as he stood leaning over the little figure on that chair in that garden, he understood what are the joys of redeeming love. He drank of the streams at which angels drink, and ate their food, and life with him was at its strongest and best. And there is nothing in earth below or heaven above better than this. We should never again marvel at the angels' ceaseless ministry if to us the joy of doing good were but as deep and sacred as it is to them. Indeed, you would no longer wonder at all the pain and all the suffer- ing of your Redeeming Lord; it is nothing to the immense delight of hearing this great, sick world of ours in the place where He leads us, once murmur with a deep, spontaneous joy of that weary little child in the gardens—' It is heaven !' This is the joy set before Him, for which He endured the cross and despised the shame."
As we ought to say what we find imperfect, as well as what we admire, we must remark that some of the thoughts are a little far-fetched, and scarcely appreciable by a young child's mind; such, for instance, as the description of angels' food; a child's mind cannot, with any good effect, follow a comparison between spiritual and bodily food. Again, Mr. Waugh uses occasionally expressions and phrases that strike us as magniloquent and exaggerated; as when he speaks of the glory before which "all the company of Heaven fall down and adore, and adore, and adore !" or, again, when he speaks of "a great tear-dripping cry." Is it not always well to keep feeling well in hand, so as to avoid the risk, not only of alienating the fastidious, but of using-up too fast the sensibilities of the uncritical reader ? How- ever, these are the motes in the sunbeam. Mr. Waugh's book is, for its purpose, nearly as good as it is easy to conceive that such a book should be made.
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