Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

SERMON III.

CHILDREN, AND HOW TO GUIDE THEM.

OUR text at this time is Children and their treatment, or, as it sounds better to our ears, Bairns, and how to guide them. You all know the wonder and astonishment there is in a house among its small people when a baby is born; how they stare at the new arrival with its red face. Where does it come from? Some tell them it comes from the garden, from a certain kind of cabbage; some from Rob Rorison's bonnet,' of which wha hasna heard? some from that famous wig of Charlie's, in which the cat kittled, when there was three o' them leevin', and three o' them dead; and you know the Doctor is often said to bring the new baby in his pocket; and many a time have my pockets been slily examined by the curious youngsters-especially the girls -in hopes of finding another baby. But I'll tell you where all the babies come from; they all come

And

from God; His hand made and fashioned them; He breathed into their nostrils the breath of lifeof His life. He said, Let this little child be,' and it was. A child is a true creation; its soul, certainly, and in a true sense, its body too. as our children came from Him, so they are going back to Him, and He lends them to us as keepsakes; we are to keep and care for them for His sake. What a strange and sacred thought this is! Children are God's gifts to us, and it depends on our guiding of them, not only whether they are happy here, but whether they are happy hereafter in that great unchangeable eternity, into which you and I, and all of us are fast going. I once asked a little girl, Who made you?' and she said, holding up her apron as a measure, God made me that length, and I growed the rest myself.’ Now this, as you know, was not quite true, for she could not grow one half-inch by herself. God makes us grow as well as makes us at first. what I want you to fix in your minds is, that children come from God, and are returning to Him, and that you and I, who are parents, have to answer to Him for the way we behave to our dear children-the kind of care we take of them.

[ocr errors]

But

Now, a child consists, like ourselves, of a body and a soul. I am not going to say much about the guiding of the souls of children—that is a little out of my line-but I may tell you that the soul,

especially in children, depends much, for its good and for its evil, for its happiness or its misery, upon the kind of body it lives in: for the body is just the house that the soul dwells in; and you know that, if a house be uncomfortable, the tenant of it will be uncomfortable and out of sorts ;-if its windows let the rain and wind in, if the chimney smoke, if the house be damp, and if there be a want of good air, then the people who live in it will be miserable enough; and if they have no coals, and no water, and no meat, and no beds, then you may be sure it will soon be left by its inhabitants. And so, if you don't do all you can to make your children's bodies healthy and happy, their souls will get miserable and cankered and useless, their tempers peevish; and if you don't feed and clothe them right, then their poor little souls will leave their ill-used bodies-will be starved out of them; and many a man and woman have had their tempers, and their minds and hearts, made miseries to themselves, and all about them, just from a want of care of their bodies when children.

There is something very sad, and, in a true sense, very unnatural in an unhappy child. You and I, grown-up people, who have cares, and have had sorrows and difficulties and sins, may well be dull and sad sometimes; it would be still sadder, if we were not often so; but children should be always either laughing and playing, or eating and

sleeping. Play is their business. You cannot think how much useful knowledge, and how much valuable bodily exercise, a child teaches itself in its play; and look how merry the young of other animals are the kitten making fun of everything, even of its sedate mother's tail and whiskers; the lambs, running races in their mirth; even the young asses—the baby-cuddie-how pawky and droll and happy he looks with his fuzzy head, and his laughing eyes, and his long legs, stot, stotting after that venerable and sair hauden-doun lady, with the long ears, his mother. One thing I like to see, is a child clean in the morning. I like to see its plump little body, well washed, and sweet and caller from top to bottom. But there is an other thing I like to see, and that is a child dirty at night. I like a steerin' bairn—goo-gooin', crowing and kicking, keeping everybody alive. Do you remember William Miller's song of Wee Willie Winkie?' Here it is. I think you will allow, especially you who are mothers, that it is capital.

[blocks in formation]

The sat 's singin' grey thrums
To the sleepin' hen,

The dog's speldert on the floor,
And disna gi'e a cheep,
But here's a waukrife laddie!

That winna fa' asleep.'

"Onything but sleep, you rogue!
Glow'rin' like the moon!

Rattlin' in an airn jug

Wi' an airn spoon,

Rumblin', tumblin' roun' about,
Crawin' like a cock,
Skirlin' like a kenna-what,
Wauk'nin' sleepin' folk.

'Hey, Willie Winkie,

The wean's in a creel!
Wamblin' aff a bodie's knee
Like a verra eel,

Ruggin' at the cat's lug,

And ravelin' a' her thrums

Hey, Willie Winkie

See, there he comes!'

Wearied is the mither

That has a stoorie wean,

A wee stumpie stousie,

Wha canna rin his lane,
That has a battle aye wi' sleep

Afore he'll close an e'e-
But ae kiss frae aff his rosy lips
Gi'es strength anew to me.

Is not this good? first-rate! The cat singin' grey thrums, and the wee stumpie stousie, ruggin' at her lug, and ravelin' a' her thrums; and then what a din he is making!-rattlin' in an airn jug

« AnteriorContinua »