Sermons at Rugby | Page 6

more commonly disregarded by us in our early
years than the brevity of our life through all its successive stages, and
the fleeting nature of its opportunities.

In childhood we are almost entirely unconscious of both these
characteristics of life. Indeed, it would hardly be natural if it were
otherwise. That reflective habit which dwells upon them is the result of
our experience, and comes later. It is enough for a child if he follows
pure and safe instincts, and lives without reflection a healthy,
unperverted life, under wise guidance and good teaching. Growing in
this way, free from corrupting influences or the contagion of bad
example, and poisoned by no bad atmosphere, he develops naturally
towards a manhood which is rooted in healthy tastes, affections
unspoilt, and in good habits. Thus you see what the very young have a
right to claim at the hands of all their elders--that they should be careful
not to mislead them, and should see that they live in pure air, and feed
their growing instincts and activities in wholesome pastures.
During the stage of earliest growth it would be a sign of unhealthy
precocity if a child were much occupied with the continuity of things,
or the close union of to-day with to-morrow, or of all our thoughts, acts,
pleasures, and tastes, with the bent of character which is being silently
but surely formed in us; and it would be equally unnatural if his
thoughts were to dwell much on the essential shortness of our life, and
the flight of opportunity which does not come back to us.
It is part of the happiness, or, I fear, it must be said sometimes, part of
the pain of early life, that the time before it seems so long. The day is
long with its crowded novelty or intense enjoyment, or possibly with its
dreary and intolerable task-work; to-morrow, with all its anticipations
of things desired or to be endured, seems long; and the vista of years, as
they stretch through boyhood and youth, manhood and age, seems to
lose itself in the far distance of its length. So, viewed from its
beginnings, life is long.
But with the approach of manhood all this begins to change. As we
grow out of childhood our self-conscious and reflective life grows; and
thus there rises in us the feeling of moral responsibility never to be
shaken off again. Not, however, that we should leave all our childhood
behind us. It hardly needs to be said that there are some characteristics
of our earliest years which every man should pray that he may retain to

the end. Unless he retains them his life becomes a deteriorating life.
And first among these is the reverential or filial habit. This deserves
our careful attention, because we sometimes see an affectation of silly
and spurious manliness, which thinks it a fine thing to cast it off. This
reverential or filial feeling, which is natural to the unspoilt and truthful
nature of the child, is preserved in every unspoilt manhood; only with a
difference.
It is raised from the unreflective, instinctive trust in a father's guidance
or a mother's love to that higher feeling which tells us that, as is the
child in a well and wisely ordered home, so is each of us in that great
household of our heavenly Father. This spirit of true piety, which
uplifts, refines, strengthens, and gives courage to manhood, as nothing
else can do, is the natural outcome and successor of a child's
trustfulness, as we rise through it to the feeling that we are
encompassed by a Divine consciousness, and that our life moves in a
holy presence. Or again, we pray that we may not lose that simplicity
and freshness of nature which is at once a special charm of childhood,
and, wherever it is preserved, the chief blessing of a man's later years.
These qualities and characteristics of our infancy--trust, filial reverence,
freshness, simplicity--are not qualities to be left behind, but the natural
forecast of that religious spirit which is the highest growth of maturity,
and our own safeguard against the hardening and debasing influences
of the world and the flesh. And this was the Saviour's meaning when
He said, "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little
child shall in nowise enter therein." And if there is one thing more than
another that constitutes the special curse of any depraved influence
acting on young lives, it is that it robs the later life of these childlike
qualities which are the gifts of God to bless us in youth and age.
But assuming that we bear all this in mind, and hold fast to these
fundamental gifts, and so escape those lower and baser forms of life
which we meet all