ut in
the place of a living Christ, but would yet have held that place. The
great brother, the human God, the eternal Son, the living one, would
have been as utterly hidden from the tearful eyes and aching hearts of
the weary and heavy-laden, as if he had never come from the deeps of
love to call the children home out of the shadows of a self-haunted
universe. But the Father revealed the Father's things to his babes; the
babes loved, and began to do them, therewith began to understand them,
and went on growing in the knowledge of them and in the power of
communicating them; while to the wise and prudent, the deepest words of
the most babe-like of them all, John Boanerges, even now appear but a
finger-worn rosary of platitudes. The babe understands the wise and
prudent, but is understood only by the babe.

The Father, then, revealed his things to babes, because the babes were
his own little ones, uncorrupted by the wisdom or the care of this
world, and therefore able to receive them. The others, though his
children, had not begun to be like him, therefore could not receive
them. The Father's things could not have got anyhow into their minds
without leaving all their value, all their spirit, outside the
unchildlike place. The babes are near enough whence they come, to
understand a little how things go in the presence of their father in
heaven, and thereby to interpret the words of the Son. The child who has
not yet 'walked above a mile or two from' his 'first love,' is not out
of touch with the mind of his Father. Quickly will he seal the old bond
when the Son himself, the first of the babes, the one perfect babe of
God, comes to lead the children out of the lovely 'shadows of eternity'
into the land of the 'white celestial thought.' As God is the one only
real father, so is it only to God that any one can be a perfect child.
In his garden only can childhood blossom.

The leader of the great array of little ones, himself, in virtue of his
firstborn childhood, the first recipient of the revelations of his
father, having thus given thanks, and said why he gave thanks, breaks
out afresh, renewing expression of delight that God had willed it thus:
'Even so, father, for so it seemed good in thy sight!' I venture to
translate, 'Yea, O Father, for thus came forth satisfaction before
thee!' and think he meant, 'Yea, Father, for thereat were all thy angels
filled with satisfaction,' The babes were the prophets in heaven, and
the