The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young Part 13

This is an excellent ill.u.s.tration of the truth we are now considering. And certainly we should all try to learn the lesson of humility which Jesus taught, when we see how it helps to make us useful.

_And then there is one other reason why we should learn this lesson, and that is because of the_--BLESSING--_that attends it_.

Mary, the Mother of Jesus, in her n.o.ble song about the birth of her wonderful Son, said that G.o.d "filleth the hungry with good things, and sendeth the rich empty away." By the "_hungry"_ she meant the _humble_ and by the "_rich"_ the _proud_. And the "good things" with which G.o.d fills them mean the blessings He bestows on the humble. Our Saviour taught the same truth when he said, "he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." Luke xiv: 11. Being exalted here means being honored and blessed. These pa.s.sages teach very clearly the truth of which we are now speaking. They show us that we must learn the lesson of humility if we hope to have G.o.d's blessing rest upon us. And it is not more true that two and two make four, than it is that G.o.d's blessing _does_ attend and follow those who learn the lesson of humility.

How many ill.u.s.trations of this truth we find in the Bible! Moses had learned the lesson of humility before G.o.d sent him on his great mission, which has given him a name and a place among the most famous men of the world.

Gideon had learned the lesson of humility before G.o.d made choice of him to be the deliverer of his people Israel from the hands of their enemies; and then, for years to be their honored ruler. John the Baptist was so humble that he said of himself that he was not worthy to stoop down and unloose the latchet of our Saviour's shoe; and yet Jesus said of him that he was one of the greatest men that ever had been born.

The apostle Paul was so humble that he considered himself "less than the least of all saints," and "the chief of sinners;" and yet G.o.d honored and blessed him till he became the most famous and useful of all the apostles.

If we turn from the Bible, and look out into the world around us, we may compare proud people to the tops of the mountains; these are bare and barren, and of little use to the world. We may compare humble people to the plains and valleys. These are fertile and beautiful, and are the greatest blessing to the world, in the abundance of grain, and fruit, and other good things which they yield.

And then, if we take notice of what is occurring in the scenes of daily life, we shall meet with incidents continually which furnish us with ill.u.s.trations of the part of our subject now before us, that G.o.d crowns the humble with his blessing. Let us look at one or two of these ill.u.s.trations.

"The Little Loaf." In a certain part of Germany, some years ago, a famine was prevailing, and many of the people were suffering from hunger. A kind-hearted rich man sent for twenty of the poorest children in the village where he lived, to come to his house. As they stood on the porch of his house, he came out to them bringing a large basket in his hand. He set it down before him and said: "Children, in this basket there is bread for you all. Take a loaf, each of you, and come back every day at this hour, till it shall please G.o.d to send us better times."

Then he left the children to themselves and went into the house, but watched them through the window. The hungry children seized the basket, quarreled and struggled for the bread, because each of them wished to get the best and largest loaf. Then they went away without ever thanking the good gentleman for his kindness.

But one little girl, named Gretchen, poorly but neatly dressed, remained, humbly standing by, till the rest were gone. Then she took the last loaf left in the basket, the smallest of the lot. She looked up to the window where the gentleman stood; smiled at him; threw him a kiss, and made a low curtsey in token of her grat.i.tude, and then went quickly home.

The next day the other children were just as ill-behaved as they had been before, and the timid humble Gretchen received a loaf this time not more than half the size of the one she had on the previous day.

But when she came home, and her poor sick mother cut the loaf open, a number of new silver pieces of money, fell rattling and s.h.i.+ning out of it.

Her mother was frightened, and said, "Take the money back at once to the good gentleman; for it must certainly have dropped into the dough by accident. Be quick Gretchen! be quick!"

But when the little girl came to the good man and gave him her mother's message, he kindly said, "No, no, my child, it was no mistake. I had the silver pieces put into the smallest loaf as a reward for you. Continue to be as humble, peaceable, self-denying, and grateful as you have now shown yourself to be. A little girl who is humble enough to take the smallest loaf rather than quarrel for the larger ones, will be sure to receive greater blessings from G.o.d than if she had silver pieces of money baked in every loaf of bread she ate. Go home now, and greet your good mother very kindly for me."

Here we see how G.o.d's blessing attends the humble.

"Humility Proving a Blessing." Some time ago a young man went into the office of one of the largest dry-goods houses in New York and asked for a situation. He was told to call again another day.

Going down Broadway that same afternoon, when opposite the Astor House, he saw an old apple woman, in trying to cross the street, struck by an omnibus, knocked down, and her basket of apples sent scattering into the gutter.

The young man stepped out of the crowd, helped the old woman to her feet, put her apples into her basket, and went on his way, without thinking of it.

Now a proud man would never have thought of doing such a thing as that. But this young man had learned the lesson of humility, and did not hesitate a moment to do this kind act.

When he called again to see about the situation, he was asked what wages he expected.

He stated what he thought would be right. His proposal was accepted.

The situation was given him, and he went to work.

About a year afterwards, his employer took him aside one day, reminded him of the incident about the old apple woman; told him he was pa.s.sing at the time, and saw it; and that it was this circ.u.mstance which induced him to offer the vacant situation to him, in preference to a hundred others who were applying for it.

Here we see what a blessing this young man's humility proved to him!

And thus we see that there are five good reasons why we should learn the lesson of humility. These are the _command_ of Christ; the _example_ of Christ; the _comfort_ that humility gives; the _usefulness_ to which it leads; and the _blessing_ that attends it.

The first verse of the hymn we often sing contains a very suitable prayer to offer when we think of the lesson of humility we have now been considering:

"Lord forever at thy side Let my place and portion be; Strip me of the robe of pride Clothe me with humility."

CHRIST AND THE LITTLE CHILDREN

If, when Jesus was here on earth, he had shown a great interest in kings, and princes, in rich, and wise, and great men, it would not have been surprising; because he was a king and a prince, himself; he was richer than the richest, and wiser than the wisest, and greater than the greatest. But he did not do this. He took no particular notice of them; but he showed the greatest possible interest in children. When mothers brought their little ones to him, the disciples wanted to keep them away. They thought, no doubt, that he was too busy to take any notice of them. But they were mistaken. He was very busy indeed. He had many lessons to teach. He had sermons to preach; and sick people to heal; and blind eyes to open; and deaf ears to unstop; and lame men to make whole; and dead men to raise to life again. He had all his Father's will to make known to men; and all his Father's commandments to keep. He had to suffer, and to die for the sins of the world; that he might "open the kingdom of heaven to all believers." He was the busiest man that ever lived. n.o.body ever had so much to do as he had. And yet, he was not too busy to attend to the little children. He had time to give to them. So he rebuked his disciples for trying to keep the children away from him.

He told the mothers to bring them near. They did so. And then, one by one, "he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them and blessed them." And when he had done this, as though that were not enough, he spoke those precious, glorious, golden words:--"_Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven_," "verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of G.o.d as a little child, he shall not enter therein."

These things are told us by three of the evangelists. St. Matthew mentions them in chapter xix: 13-15. St. Mark x: 13-16, and St. Luke xviii: 15-17.

On another occasion, when he was in the temple, the children sang hosannas to him as the son of David. The chief priests and scribes were greatly displeased, when they heard it, and "said unto him, hearest thou what these say? and Jesus said unto them, yea: have ye never read, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?" Matt, xxi: 15, 16. Here he quoted from the Old Testament (Ps. viii: 2) to prove to them from their own scriptures, that G.o.d loves little children, and delights to have them engage in his service, and sing his praises.

And there was one other occasion on which Jesus spoke about the children, and showed his interest in them. This was after his resurrection. We read about it in St. John xxi: 15-18. He met his disciples, one day, on the sh.o.r.e of the sea of Galilee. Peter, who had shamefully denied his Master on the night in which he was betrayed was present with them. Jesus said to him, as if to remind him of his great sin, "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?" "Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee," said the penitent disciple.

"Feed my lambs," was his Master's reply. Here again, how beautifully Jesus showed his great love for the little ones of his flock!

From these different pa.s.sages, we see clearly how dear little children are to the heart of our blessed Saviour! He is the only great Teacher who ever showed such an interest in children. And the religion of Jesus is the only religion which teaches its followers to love and care for the little ones. The wors.h.i.+pers of the idol Moloch, mentioned in the Bible, used to offer their children as burnt-sacrifices to their cruel G.o.d. Mahometans look upon their women and children as inferior beings. The Hindoos neglect their infants, and leave them exposed on the banks of the Ganges, or throw them into the river to be devoured by the hungry crocodiles. In the city of Pekin many infants are thrown out into the streets every night.

Sometimes they are killed by the fall. Sometimes they are only half killed, and linger, moaning in their agony, till the morning. Then the police go around, and pick them up, and throw them all together into a hole and bury them.

In Africa, the children are sometimes buried alive; and sometimes left out in the fields or forests for the wild beasts to devour them.

In the South Sea Islands three-fourths of all the children born used to be killed. Sometimes they would strangle their babies. Sometimes they would leave them, where oxen and cattle would tread on them, and trample them to death; while, at other times, they would break all their joints, beginning with their fingers and toes, and then go on to their wrists, and elbows, and shoulders. How dreadful it is to think of such practices! And when we turn from these scenes of heart-rending cruelty and think of the gracious Saviour,--the "gentle Jesus, meek and mild," stretching forth his arms in loving tenderness, and uttering the sweet words,--"Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of G.o.d,"--what a wonderful contrast it makes!

And when we think of all that Jesus did and said to show his interest in children, we may well ask ourselves such questions as these,--Why was it so? What did he do it for? And when we come to look carefully into this part of the life of Christ, we can see four great things in it; and these are the reasons why Jesus did and said so much about children.

_In the first place we see_--GREAT LOVE--_in the interest Christ manifested towards the young_.

It was the same love which brought him down from heaven, and made him willing to become a little child himself; the same love which made him willing to live in poverty--and suffer the dreadful death upon the cross that led him to show such interest in the little ones. But if he had not told us himself how he feels on this subject, we could not have been sure of it. Children might well have said, when they heard about the love of Christ, "Yes, we have no doubt that Jesus does love grown up people, men and women in general. We believe this because the Bible tells us so; but how do we know that he loves us children?" If he had not told us so himself, we could not have been sure of it. But we know it now. And when we hear, or read of the love of Christ, we may be sure that it takes the children in.

During a famine in Germany, a family became so poor that they were in danger of starving. The father proposed that one of the children should be sold, and food provided for those that remained. At last the mother consented; but then the question arose which one of the four should be selected. The eldest, their first-born, could not be spared; the second looked like the mother, the third was like his father, and they could not give either of them up; and then the youngest--why, he was their pet, their darling, how could they give _him_ up? So they concluded that they would all perish together, rather than part with one of their little ones. When those children knew of this, they might very well feel sure that their parents loved them. But Jesus did more than this for us, he was willing to die upon the cross, and he did so die, that "not one of his little ones should perish."

"Being Loved Back Again." Little Alice Lee sat in her rocking chair.

She was clasping a beautiful wax doll to her bosom, and singing sweet lullabies to it. But every little while she looked wistfully at her mother. She was busy writing, and had told Alice to keep as quiet as possible till she got through.

It seemed a long time to Alice; but after awhile her mother laid down her pen, and pushed aside her papers, and said:--"Now I am through for to-day, Alice, and you can make as much noise as you please."

In a moment Alice laid down her doll, and running to her mother, threw her arms round her neck, and nestled sweetly in her loving bosom.

"I'm so glad," said Alice, "I wanted to love you so much, mamma."

"Did you, darling?" and the mother clasped the little one tenderly in her arms. "I am very glad that my little girl loves me;" replied her mother, "but I thought you were not very lonely while I was writing; you and dollie seemed to be having a good time together."

"Yes, we had, mamma; but I always get tired of loving dollie after awhile."