will dare to say that it is not the divine way? Often, no doubt, it
will _appear_ otherwise, for the childlike child is easier to save than
the other, and may _come_ first. But the rejoicing in heaven is
greatest over the sheep that has wandered the farthest--perhaps was
born on the wild hill-side, and not in the fold at all. For such a
prodigal, the elder brother in heaven prays thus--"Lord, think about my
poor brother more than about me, for I know thee, and am at rest in
thee. I am with thee always."

Why, then, do I think it necessary to say that this child was probably
Peter's child, and certainly a child that looked childlike because it
was childlike? No amount of evil can _be_ the child. No amount of evil,
not to say in the face, but in the habits, or even in the heart of the
child, can make it cease to be a child, can annihilate the divine idea
of childhood which moved in the heart of God when he made that child
after his own image. It is the essential of which God speaks, the real
by which he judges, the undying of which he is the God.

Heartily I grant this. And if the object of our Lord in taking the
child in his arms had been to teach love to our neighbour, love to
humanity, the ugliest child he could have found, would, perhaps, have
served his purpose best. The man who receives any, and more plainly he
who receives the repulsive child, because he is the offspring of God,
because he is his own brother born, must receive the Father in thus
receiving the child. Whosoever gives a cup of cold water to a little
one, refreshes the heart of the Father. To do as God does, is to
receive God; to do a service to one of his children is to receive the
Father. Hence, any human being, especially if wretched and woe-begone
and outcast, would do as well as a child for the purpose of setting
forth this love of God to the human being. Therefore something more is