[Footnote 122: Mark x. 13-16; Matthew xix. 13-15. Luke xviii. 15-17.]
Another day, "came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." [Footnote 123]
[Footnote 123: Matthew xviii. 1-4; Mark ix. 33-37.]
Again another day, Jesus, deploring the coldness that his preaching and his miracles frequently encountered, and that even in his closest vicinity, exclaimed, here no longer addressing his disciples, but God himself, "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." [Footnote 124]
[Footnote 124: Matthew xi. 25.]
What is the full meaning of these words? They are not simply the expression of that impulse of gentle benevolence excited in all hearts at the sight of children, and their innocent confidence in all who come near them. Jesus Christ no doubt experienced the influence of this feeling, for He was strange to none of man's noble emotions; but his thoughts passed far beyond the children whose approach he permitted, and they merely furnished Him with the living occasion to address to men themselves his solemn warnings.
The child, I have already mentioned in these Meditations,[Footnote 125] is, for us, the image of innocence, the type of the creature fallible, yet who has not yet sinned, who knows not yet either error of understanding, or the seduction of passion, or the blinding influence of pride, or the troubles of doubt, or the extreme folly of sin, or the anguish of repentance; who follows in the first impulses of infancy only the spontaneous instincts of tender confidence in the parent to whom he is indebted for security and for love, for the first joys and the earliest blessings.
[Footnote 125: Meditation II., Christian Dogmas, p. 48.]