And yet all that might be true. They might have had yet only such appetites
and propensities developed within them as would, if they continued to hold
paramount control over them all their lives, make them selfish, unfeeling,
and wicked men; and that they were, in a special though mysterious manner,
dependent on the Divine power for bringing into action within them other
and nobler principles. And so, if a physician were called in to see a
sick child, he might see that it was in desperate danger, and that unless
something could be done, and that speedily, to arrest the disease, his
little patient would be dead in a few hours; and yet to say that to the
poor child, and overwhelm it with terror and distress, would not be a very
suitable course of procedure for averting the apprehended result.

_Judge not, that ye be not judged_.

8. And this leads us to reflect, in the eighth place, that we ought to
be very careful, in our conversations with children, and especially in
addresses made to them in the Sunday-school, or on any other occasion, not
to say any thing to imply that we consider them yet unconverted sinners. No
one can possibly know at how early an age that great change which consists
in the first faint enkindling of the Divine life in the soul may begin
to take place, nor with what faults, and failings, and yieldings to the
influence of the mere animal appetites and passions of childhood it may,
for a time, co-exist. We should never, therefore, say any thing to children
to imply that, in the great question of their relations to God and the
Saviour, we take it for granted that they are on the wrong side. We can not
possibly know on which side they really are, and we only dishearten and
discourage them, and alienate their hearts from us, and tend to alienate
them from all good, by seeming to take it for granted that, while _we_ are
on the right side, _they_ are still upon the wrong. We should, in a word,