grey stone pulpit. The villagers settled to listen--he did not
often preach.

"My brothers and sisters, to-night we keep the Birth of the Holy
Babe, and to-night you and I stand at the gate of the Kingdom of
Heaven, the gate which is undone only at the cry of a little child.
'Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not
enter.'

"The Kingdom is a great one, nay, a limitless one; and many enter
in calling it by another name. It includes your own hearts and
this wonderful forest, all the wise and beautiful works that men
have ever thought of or done, and your daily toil; it includes your
nearest and dearest, the outcast, the prisoner, and the stranger;
it holds your cottage home and the jewelled City, the New Jerusalem
itself. People are apt to think the Kingdom of Heaven is like
church on Sunday, a place to enter once a week in one's best:
whereas it holds every flower, and has room for the ox and the ass,
and the least of all creatures, as well as for our prayer and
worship and praise.

"'Except ye become as little children.' How are we to be born
again, simple children with wondering eyes?

"We must learn to lie in helpless dependence, to open our mouth
wide that it may be filled, to speak with halting tongue the
language we think we know; we must learn above all our own
ignorance, and keep alight and cherish the flame of innocency in
our hearts.