Jesus, He loves one and all;
Jesus, He loves children small;
Their souls are sitting round His feet,
On high, before His mercy-seat.
When on earth He walked in shame,
Children small unto Him came;
At His feet they knelt and prayed,
On their heads His hands He laid.
Came a spirit on them then,
Greater than of mighty men;
A spirit gentle, meek, and mild,
A spirit good for king and child.
Oh! that spirit give to me,
Jesus, Lord, where'er I be!
So—
But I did not finish them, not seeing very clearly what to do with that spirit when I obtained it; for, indeed, it seemed a much finer thing to fight material Apollyons with material swords of iron, like my friend Christian, or to go bear and lion hunting with David, than to convert heathens by meekness—at least, if true meekness was at all like that of the missionary whom I had lately seen.
I showed the verses in secret to my little sister. My mother heard us singing them together, and extorted, grimly enough, a confession of the authorship. I expected to be punished for them (I was accustomed weekly to be punished for all sorts of deeds and words, of the harmfulness of which I had not a notion). It was, therefore, an agreeable surprise when the old minister, the next Sunday evening, patted my head, and praised me for them.
"A hopeful sign of young grace, brother," said he to the dark tall man.
"May we behold here an infant Timothy!"
"Bad doctrine, brother, in that first line—bad doctrine, which I am sure he did not learn from our excellent sister here. Remember, my boy, henceforth, that Jesus does not love one and all—not that I am angry with you. The carnal mind cannot be expected to understand divine things, any more than the beasts that perish. Nevertheless, the blessed message of the Gospel stands true, that Christ loves none but His Bride, the Church. His merits, my poor child, extend to none but the elect. Ah! my dear sister Locke, how delightful to think of the narrow way of discriminating grace! How it enhances the believer's view of his own exceeding privileges, to remember that there be few that be saved!"
I said nothing. I thought myself only too lucky to escape so well from the danger of having done anything out of my own head. But somehow Susan and I never altered it when we sang it to ourselves.
* * * * *