Truly, and too truly, alas! he goes on to say—
“Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy.”
Will you let the shades of that prison-house of mortality be peopled with little save obscene phantoms? Truly, and too truly, he goes on—
“The youth, who daily further from the east
Must travel, still is Nature’s priest,
And by the vision splendid,
Is on his way attended.”
Will you leave the youth to know nature only in the sense in which an ape or a swine knows it; and to conceive of no more splendid vision than that which he may behold at a penny theatre? Truly again, and too truly, he goes on—
“At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.”
Yes, to weak, mortal man the prosaic age of manhood must needs come, for good as well as for evil. But will you let that age be—to any of your fellow citizens—not even an age of rational prose, but an age of brutal recklessness; while the light of common day, for him, has sunk into the darkness of a common sewer?
And all the while it was not the will of their Father in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. Is it your will, my friends; or is it not? If it be not, the means of saving them, or at least the great majority of them, is easier than you think. Circumstances drag downward from childhood, poor, weak, fallen, human nature. Circumstances must help it upward again once more. Do your best to surround the wild children of Liverpool with such circumstances as you put round your own children. Deal with them as you wish God to deal with your beloved. Remember that, as the wise man says, the human plant, like the vegetable, thrives best in light; and you will discover, by the irresistible logic of facts, by the success of your own endeavours, by seeing these young souls grow, and not wither, live, and not die—that it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.
SERMON XXXIV. NATIONAL SORROWS AND NATIONAL LESSONS
On the illness or the Prince of Wales.