The Meeting of Life's Extremes

''and said, "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3

''to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.'' Eph. 3:19

       To become a little child; to be filled with all the fulness of God - how shall we reconcile these two aspirations! They need no reconciling. Do you want to get back the qualities of your childhood? You can only do so by going forward. There are only two things which can give the qualities of the child ''emptiness and fullness'' the opening, and the completed, day. Take the Sermon on the Mount - the blessing which Jesus pronounced on certain qualities. They are all qualities of the child - humility, dissatisfaction, meekness, hunger, mercy, purity, peacemaking; and the child has them by reason of its emptiness. But the man can get them back by his fullness. The child is ''poor in spirit " because he has no ideal; the man, because his ideal is so high. The child often " mourns " because he is too small for his environment; the man because he is too big for his environment. The child is "meek" because he is shallow; the man, because he is balancing the depths. The child "hungers" before he takes food; the hunger of the spiritual man comes after tasting. The child "forgives" because he forgets; the man, because he remembers - remembers the frailty of his brother's frame. The child is "pure" because he is innocent; the man, because he sees impurity's stain. The child "makes peace" because he is ignorant of self-interest; the man, because he has learned self-sacrifice. The spiritual man gets back the virtues of the child; but he gets them back "on the Mount." My brother, often have I heard thee lament the loss of thy youth. Ever art thou deploring that the hours of the morning pass so soon away, that the afternoon and evening come so quickly round. What if the afternoon and evening should be the road back to the morning!

       What if the fulness of experience should restore the very glory which was to thee associated with ignorance of the world! It can restore it; it will restore it. Thy youth is coming back to thee by the very chariot in which it departed. It departed with opening experience; it will return with completed experience. The star that waits for thee is "the bright and morning star." Behind the afternoon clouds, behind the evening shadows, behind the night watches, lies thy prospect of a second dawn. Is it not written ''when the fulness of the time was come, God sent His Son" - the Child-Christ! So shall it be in the fullness of thine experience. Thy Child-Christ shall come. Life will dawn anew. Morn will break once more. Thou shalt stand again in the east with the rising sun. Thou shalt hear again the shepherds' song over the plains of Bethlehem. And the song shall be all hope - the hope that comes only with the morning, the optimism of first bells, the expectation that is inseparable from the dawn "Glory! peace! goodwill!" by Dr. George Matheson