South African Children by Kathy Grimm
American King James Version
Matthew 19:14 “But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come to me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
Heaven Is Full of Children
Think it, at least, highly probable, that where our Lord says, ‘Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of heaven,’ He does not only intimate the necessity of our becoming like little children in simplicity, as a qualification, without which (as he expressly declares in other places) we cannot enter into his kingdom, but informs us of a fact, that the number of infants, who are effectually redeemed unto God by His blood, so greatly exceeds the aggregate of adult believers, that, comparatively speaking, His kingdom may be said to consist of little children. As if the full import of what He had said to his disciples was, think not that little children are beneath my notice; think not that I am a stranger to little children; suffer them to come to me, and forbid them not. I have often been in their society; I love their society; the world from which I came, and to which I go, is full of little children.
* * * * * * * * *
Flowers that once had loved to linger
In the world of human love,
Touch’d by death’s decaying finger
For better life above!
O! ye stars! ye rays of glory!
Gen-lights in the glittering dome!
Could ye not relate a story
Of the spirits gather’d home?”
