JESUS AND THE LITTLE CHILDREN.
Our Lord loved little children very much. Soon after this, some mothers brought their children and infants to Jesus that He might touch and bless them; but the apostles told them to go away and not to trouble the Lord. When Jesus knew it He was very angry, and said, "Suffer little children to come unto Me, and do not forbid them, for of such is the Kingdom of God." And He took the little ones in His arms, put His hands upon them, and blessed them. How good and kind Jesus was! Little children ought to love Him with all their heart, and be very good to please Him.
Our Lord came, you know, to bear the punishment of our sins; and He told some pretty parables to the Pharisees to try and make them understand why He talked so much to bad men. It was because His great love made Him wish to save them. He told them that if they had a great many sheep and one was lost, the shepherd would leave all the others and go to find the lost one; and when he had found it he would bring it back with great joy.
And He said: "If a woman has ten pieces of silver and she loses one she will light a candle and sweep the house and look carefully for it. And when she has found it she will call her friends, and say, Be glad with me; I have found the piece that I had lost, so"—went on Our Lord—"there is joy in Heaven with the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth."
Once Our Lord told His disciples a parable of a fig-tree. Fig-trees grow by the side of the road in that land, and people might pick the figs. But this fig-tree grew in a man's garden; and for three years it had borne no figs. Then the master called his gardener and said to him, "For three years I have come to find figs on this tree and there are none; cut it down; it is of no use." But the gardener said, "Lord, let it stay this year, I will dig round it and manure it, and if next year it bears fruit, well; but if not, then you shall cut it down."
This parable meant that Christ is always asking God, His Father, to let us have time to be sorry for our sins before we die. It meant, too, that He asked God to give the Jews time to be sorry before He destroyed their city and sent them out of their own land.
THE PARABLE OF THE LOST PIECE OF MONEY.