embracing a child as the visible likeness of the Lord himself. For the
blessedness is the perceiving of the truth--the blessing is the truth
itself--the God-known truth, that the Lord has the heart of a child.
The man who perceives this knows in himself that he is blessed--blessed
because that is true.

But the argument as to the meaning of our Lord's words, _in my name_,
is incomplete, until we follow our Lord's enunciation to its second and
higher stage: "He that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me." It
will be allowed that the connection between the first and second link
of the chain will probably be the same as the connection between the
second and third. I do not say it is necessarily so; for I aim at no
logical certainty. I aim at showing, rather than at proving, to my
reader, by means of my sequences, the idea to which I am approaching.
For if, once he beholds it, he cannot receive it, if it does not shew
itself to him to be true, there would not only be little use in
convincing him by logic, but I allow that he can easily suggest other
possible connections in the chain, though, I assert, none so
symmetrical. What, then, is the connection between the second and
third? How is it that he who receives the Son receives the Father?
Because the Son is as the Father; and he whose heart can perceive the
essential in Christ, has the essence of the Father--that is, sees and
holds to it by that recognition, and is one therewith by recognition
and worship. What, then, next, is the connection between the first and
second? I think the same. "He that sees the essential in this child,
the pure childhood, sees that which is the essence of me," grace and
truth--in a word, childlikeness. It follows not that the former is
perfect as the latter, but it is the same in kind, and therefore,
manifest in the child, reveals that which is in Jesus.