who should be the greatest, and the Lord wanted to show them that such
a dispute had nothing whatever to do with the way things went in his
kingdom. Therefore, as a specimen of his subjects, he took a child and
set him before them. It was not, it could not be, in virtue of his
humanity, it was in virtue of his childhood that this child was thus
presented as representing a subject of the kingdom. It was not to show
the scope but the nature of the kingdom. He told them they could not
enter into the kingdom save by becoming little children--by humbling
themselves. For the idea of ruling was excluded where childlikeness was
the one essential quality. It was to be no more who should rule, but
who should serve; no more who should look down upon his fellows from
the conquered heights of authority--even of sacred authority, but who
should look up honouring humanity, and ministering unto it, so that
humanity itself might at length be persuaded of its own honour as a
temple of the living God. It was to impress this lesson upon them that
he showed them the child. Therefore, I repeat, the lesson lay in the
_childhood_ of the child.

But I now approach my especial object; for this lesson led to the
enunciation of a yet higher truth, upon which it was founded, and from
which indeed it sprung. Nothing is required of man that is not first in
God. It is because God is perfect that we are required to be perfect.
And it is for the revelation of God to all the human souls, that they
may be saved by knowing him, and so becoming like him, that this child
is thus chosen and set before them in the gospel. He who, in giving the
cup of water or the embrace, comes into contact with the essential
childhood of the child--that is, embraces the _childish_ humanity of
it, (not he who embraces it out of love to humanity, or even love to
God as the Father of it)--is partaker of the meaning, that is, the
blessing, of this passage. It is the recognition of the childhood as