II. THE CHILD IN THE MIDST.


"And He took a child and set Him in the midst of them: and when He had
taken him in His arms, He said unto them, Whosoever shall receive one
of such children in My name, receiveth Me: and whosoever shall receive
Me, receiveth not Me, but Him that sent Me."--ST. MARK ix. 36, 37.

It is one of the characteristics of our time, one of its most hopeful and
most encouraging signs, that men are awaking to higher and purer
conceptions of the Christian life and what it is that constitutes such a
life. We are beginning to feel, as it was not felt by former
generations, that the only true religion, the only Christianity worthy of
the name, is that which aims at embodying and reproducing the spirit, the
thought, the ideas of the Saviour.

Through and underneath all ecclesiastical and mediaeval revivals, and all
vagaries of church tradition or of ritual, this feeling seems to be
growing with a steady growth, that the real test of a man's religion is
the evidence which his life affords of the Christ-like spirit. And this
growing feeling gives an ever-fresh interest to the words and the
judgment of the Lord on all matters of individual conduct and daily
intercourse; so that if we are possessed at all by it, the Saviour is
becoming more of a living person to us, and we ask ourselves more
frequently, more earnestly, with more of reality and more of practical
meaning in the question, how He would judge this or that side of our
life, whether our conduct is in harmony with His spirit, and whether the
standards of our life fit at all with His teaching and injunctions.