Article September 14, 1912 Issue

LIKE UNTO A CHILD.

OLIVE B. WILSON.

For many ages the purity, simplicity, and confidence of the child thought has been held before humanity as a pattern, the kingdom of heaven being likened unto it; yet very seldom do we find ourselves giving the matter serious attention. We do not seem to have been greatly impressed with the necessity of obeying the injunction; we go on our way, occupied, like Martha, with "much serving," forgetting that such a condition of thought is truly requisite for admission into the kingdom.

There is a lesson full of significance in the rebuke given by Jesus to his disciples when they endeavored to keep the little children from seeking him. He emphatically followed the reproof with the declaration, "Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein." And again we find that he made this declaration, as though he could not call attention to it often enough: "Whosoever shall receive this child in my name receiveth me,"—who seeth man with the gentle, loving, pure child thought, seeth the God-idea, God expressed.

How fully Mrs. Eddy appreciated the purity of the child thought, and humanity's need of it, is shown in the closing paragraph of her "First Address in The Mother Church." The sweet admonition reads: "Beloved children, the world has need of you,—and more as children than as men and women: it needs your innocence, unselfishness, faithful affection, uncontaminated lives" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 110). There lies in this repeated reference to the condition of thought reflected by the little child, a meaning far deeper than is to be detected by a casual allusion to it. Without doubt it was the Christ thought referred to by Jesus when he likened the kingdom to little children. He knew full well the confusion of his adult listeners, and that in order for them to reflect the Christ likeness—manifest the consciousness of good—they would have to empty thought of all that was impure, all that was selfish, unloving, unjust, unkind, and the example best adapted for his use, to make clear his meaning, was the child thought. So he called them to him, blessed them, and said: "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God."

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