Shepherd of tender youth,

Guiding in love and truth,

Through devious ways;
Christ, our triumphant King,
We come Thy name to sing,
And here our children bring,
To shout Thy praise.
- Saint Ambrose

And they brought young children to Him, that He should touch them: and His
disciples rebuked those that brought them.
But when Jesus saw it, He was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer
the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the
kingdom of God.
Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a
little child, he shall not enter therein.
And He took them up in His arms, put His hands upon them, and blessed
them.
- Bible, Matthew (ch. X, v. 13-16)

"Suffer that little children come to Me,

Forbid them not." Emboldened by His words,
The mothers onward press; but, finding vain
The attempt to reach the Lord, they trust their babes
To strangers' hands; the innocents, alarmed
Amid the throng of faces all unknown,
Shrink, trembling, till their wandering eyes discern
The countenance of Jesus, beaming love
And pity; eager then they stretch their arms,
And, cowering, lay their heads upon His breast.
- James Grahame

Were we more anxious about the children we would do more work of a

Christian kind. The old man seems to be beyond our reach, but the little child
seems to be made for Christ. It would seem--do not let us shrink from the
term--natural for every little child to put out his arms to cling to the Child of
Bethlehem. Save the children and you will purify society; expend your
solicitude upon the young, opening, tender life, and you shall see the result of
your concern after many days. Services should be constituted for children; the
old people have had the sanctuary too long; their ears are sated with
eloquence; their minds are stored with names that never turn into inspirations;
churches might be built for children, and preachers trained to speak to them
alone. We have reversed all things and thus have gone astray. * * * A poet
says he was nearer heaven in his childhood than he ever was in after days,
and he sweetly prayed that he might return through his yesterdays and
through his childhood back to God. That is chronologically impossible--locally
and physically not to be done, and yet that is the very miracle which is to be
performed in the soul--in the spirit; we must be "born again."
- Joseph Parker

When children ask you questions about gray hairs, and wrinkles in the face,
and sighs that have no words, and smiles too bright to be carved upon the
radiant face by the hands of hypocrisy--when they ask you about kneeling at
the altar, speaking into the vacant air, and uttering words to an unseen and in
an invisible Presence--when they interrogate you about your great psalms,
and hymns, and anthem-bursts of thankfulness, what is your reply to these?
Do not be ashamed of the history. Keep steadily along the line of fact. Say
what happened to you, and magnify God in the hearing of the inquirer.
- Joseph Parker

And let me say only this one word more: that the little things that a little
Christian does are not any more than the larger things that an older Christian
does.
- Charles Henry Parkhurst

For you, a boy or girl, to be a Christian will be for you to be as nearly as you
can like what Jesus was when He was at your age. That is one reason why it
is worth so much to us to have a Jesus that began in the cradle and gradually
grew up. If we had a Jesus that was already a man when He came, and hadn't
stopped to be a baby and a boy, we should hardly have known what to say to
the children about these things; we might have had to say that only grown-up
men and women could be Christians. But now we have Jesus all the way
along, from eighteen inches up, so that we can say to any one, "You can be a
Christian by being as nearly as you can like what Jesus was at your age."
 - Charles Henry Parkhurst

Little works, little thoughts, little loves, little prayers for little Christians, and
larger and larger as the years grow.
- Charles Henry Parkhurst

Most of you will have a very happy Children's Day, we trust; but there will be
many of Christ's little ones who will have to be at home on beds of sickness
and pain, and cannot go to the Lord's house and worship Him among the
beautiful flowers and loving friends who will make everything so attractive.
Remember such ones. Carry them flowers and some sweet, helpful words, to
make the day less burdensome to them. There may be others obliged to stay
away, who have not suitable clothes to wear, because of their poverty. Seek
out such and overcome any hindrances in their way that you can, so that as
many as possible of Christ's little ones may gather together in His courts on
that especial day.
- Susan Teall Perry

Some kind hearts have lived in every generation, but it is only within a few
years that the older Christians have come into such perfect love and
sympathy with children's needs as to set apart a Sunday for their especial
benefit. Those who planned the grand day seem to enjoy it as much as the
little ones, for the churches are full of grown-up people, many of them with
silvery hair and wrinkled faces; but many of the wrinkles seem to be smoothed
out by the happy, fresh looks that come over them when the children's voices
are heard taking a prominent part in the worship. We older ones can testify
that Children's Day has benefited us in many ways, and is the Sunday of the
whole year which we enjoy the best.
- Susan Teall Perry

And so sweetly adapted is the child-mind to the Gospel and the Gospel to the
child-mind that they cheerfully coalesce, and the babe's milk is not more
palatable and nutritious than is the bread of life to the new-born soul. No one
can say how soon a child may intelligently apprehend the divine truth. Many
saints of God have no memory of the period in their early lives when Christ
was not dear to their hearts. When they were born from above they do not
remember any more than they can recollect the moment when they first
breathed the breath of life. It is not so with all; perhaps not so with the most.
But the true theory of the Gospel is that children should be brought up on it, as
their daily food; be nurtured b it; renewed by the Holy Spirit, and made heirs of
salvation.
- Samuel Irenaeu Prime

Ought there to be room in the bonds of church-fellowship for the great mass of
average boys and girls who, by judicious training and careful Christian
nurture, may be induced very early to give their hearts to God? Aye, we
believe with all out heart there ought to be such a place. We believe that
before many years there will be such a place in every true church, and it will
be just as much expected that many young children will form part of the
membership of every church as that there will be gray-haired men and women
there.(Clark, F.E.} Children should be educated in and into the church.
Whatever our theory may be of the spiritual relation of the child to the church,
this is certain and true: That children should be consecrated to God from their
birth. Of such is the kingdom of heaven. We should assume this as the normal
state of the case and treat the child accordingly. He should be trained in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord. His first intelligent lesson should be of
God and worship. The happiest hours of child-life should be in learning of the
way to God through Jesus Christ.
- Samuel Irenaeu Prime

So with the children. It is even more important that religious exercises should
not be made irksome and burdensome to them. Too much of a good thing is
bad for them. I would not require them to be all the livelong day in a treadmill
of religious work. They will be disgusted and hate the service, which should be
always attractive to them and a delight. It is a serious question with ministers
how to make the pulpit useful and pleasant to the young. Preachers with the
gift of talking to children--a gift not so rare as is often thought--sometimes give
a brief discourse to the children before the regular sermon. The objection to
that practice is that children take it as their portion and dismiss the sermon
that follows from their attention altogether. Now the art of talking to children
does not consist in baby-talk or little stories or poor jokes. A man need not be
a mountebank in order to interest the young in what he is saying. Children are
not fools. If a man is simple in his words and earnest in his manner, children
will hear with attention and get instruction from a sermon that is designed for
the whole people.
- Samuel Irenaeu Prime

Anything we do to hinder a child from coming to Jesus greatly displeases our

dear Lord. He cries to us, "Stand off. Let them alone. Let them come to Me,
and forbid them not."
- Charles Haddon Spurgeon

But these dear boys and girls--there is, something to be made out of them. If
now they yield themselves to Christ they may have a long, happy, and holy
day before them in which they may serve God with all then hearts. Who
knows what glory God may have of them? Heathen lands may call them
blessed. Whole nations may be enlightened by them. O brethren and sisters,
let us estimate children at their true valuation, and we shall not keep them
back, but we shall be eager to lead them to Jesus at once.
- Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Do not others expect from children more perfect conduct than they
themselves exhibit? If a gracious child should lose his temper or act wrongly
in some trifling thing through forgetfulness, straightway he is condemned as a
little hypocrite by those who are a long way from being perfect themselves.
Jesus says, "Take heed that ye despise not one oœ these little ones."
- Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I will say broadly that I have more confidence in the spiritual life of the children
that I have received into this church than I have in the, spiritual condition of
the adults thus received. I will even go further than that, and say that I have
usually found a clearer knowledge of the gospel and a warmer love of Christ
in the child-converts than in the man-converts. I will even astonish you still
more by saying that I have sometimes met with a deeper spiritual experience
in children of ten and twelve than I have in certain persons of fifty and sixty.
- Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Few special days in the average Sunday school are looked forward to with
such eager expectancy on the part of the scholars as Children's Day. Even
fathers and mothers, big brothers and sisters, who perhaps seldom enter
church doors, go then if at no other time. With many schools it is practically
the end of a year's work and an anniversary corresponding to
Commencement Day in our public schools. But in every school it may be a
day of unusual opportunity for presenting the joy of the Christ-life and the
friendship of the All-Loving One to many who perhaps are not reached at
other times during the year.
- Unknown, New Century Teachers' Monthly

Dr. Holmes was asked when the training, of a child should begin. "A hundred
years before it is born," he replied. This is a strong way of putting the truth that
the training of children should begin with the training of their grandparents.
- Samuel Ellis Wishard