which aims at embodying and reproducing the spirit, the
thought, the ideas of the Saviour.

Through and underneath all ecclesiastical and mediaeval revivals, and all
vagaries of church tradition or of ritual, this feeling seems to be
growing with a steady growth, that the real test of a man's religion is
the evidence which his life affords of the Christ-like spirit. And this
growing feeling gives an ever-fresh interest to the words and the
judgment of the Lord on all matters of individual conduct and daily
intercourse; so that if we are possessed at all by it, the Saviour is
becoming more of a living person to us, and we ask ourselves more
frequently, more earnestly, with more of reality and more of practical
meaning in the question, how He would judge this or that side of our
life, whether our conduct is in harmony with His spirit, and whether the
standards of our life fit at all with His teaching and injunctions.

And how full of new meaning every familiar chapter of the Gospel becomes
to you, if you are once roused to this kind of feeling; if you are
feeling all the time, here is the spirit which should be dominating my
own life and determining it, here are the thoughts, ideas, and views of
conduct which should be mine also. How does my common life fit with all
this? And it is with something like this feeling in your minds that I
would ask you to consider the text I have just read to you. "Jesus took
a child and set him in the midst of them. He took him up in His arms and
said, Whosoever shall receive one of such children in My name, receiveth
Me." And while we are considering it, let us notice also that in St.
Matthew's narrative there are two other very emphatic expressions.
"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not
enter into the Kingdom of Heaven"; and "Whoso shall offend one of these
little ones that believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone
were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
. . . Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say
unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of My
Father which is in heaven."

Here, then, is the child taken up by Jesus and set in the midst; we know
nothing more of him but this one thing, that he represents to us our
Lord's Divine love of little children, and His high estimate of
childhood, as the mysterious embodiment of that character and those
qualities whic