d's character in these four things--Humility,
Faith, Charity, and Cheerfulness. That's what you have got to be
converted to. 'Except ye be converted and become as little
children'--You hear much of conversion now-a-days; but people always
seem to think they have got to be made wretched by conversion,--to be
converted to long faces. No, friends, you have got to be converted to
short ones; you have to repent into childhood, to repent into delight,
and delightsomeness. You can't go into a conventicle but you'll hear
plenty of talk of backsliding. Backsliding, indeed! I can tell you, on
the ways most of us go, the faster we slide back the better. Slide back
into the cradle, if going on is into the grave--back, I tell you;
back--out of your long faces, and into your long clothes. It is among
children only, and as children only, that you will find medicine for
your healing and true wisdom for your teaching. There is poison in the
counsels of the _men_ of this world; the words they speak are all
bitterness, 'the poison of asps is under their lips,' but, 'the sucking
child shall play by the hole of the asp.' There is death in the looks of
men. 'Their eyes are privily set against the poor;' they are as the
uncharmable serpent, the cockatrice, which slew by seeing. But 'the
weaned child shall lay his hand on the cockatrice den.' There is death
in the steps of men: 'their feet are swift to shed blood; they have
compassed us in our steps like the lion that is greedy of his prey, and
the young lion lurking in secret places,' but, in that kingdom, the wolf
shall lie down with the lamb, and the fatling with the lion, and 'a
little child shall lead them.' There is death in the thoughts of men:
the world is one wide riddle to them, darker and darker as it draws to a
close; but the secret of it is known to the child, and the Lord of
heaven and earth is most to be thanked in that 'He has hidden these
things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes.'
Yes, and there is death--infinitude of death in the principalities and
powers of men. As far as the east is from the west, so far our sins
are--_not_ set from us, but multiplied around us: the Sun himself, think
you he _now_ 'rejoices' to run his course, when he plunges westward to
the horizon, so widely red, not with clouds, but blood? And it will be
red more widely yet. Whatever drought of the early and latter rain may
be, there will be none of that red rain. You fortify you