And we are showing thereby
that we are not yet decayed into old age. That if we be men, and not
still children, yet the child is father to the man; and the child's heart
still beats underneath all the sins and all the cares and all the greeds
of our manhood."
More than one foreign nation is looking on in wonder and in envy at that
sight. God grant that they may understand all that it means. God grant
that they may understand of how wide and deep an application is the great
law, "Except ye be converted," changed, and turned round utterly, "and
become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of
heaven." God grant that they may recover the childlike heart, and
replace with it that childish heart which pulls to pieces at its own
irreverent fancy the most ancient and sacred institutions, to build up
ever fresh baby-houses out of the fragments, as a child does with its
broken toys.
Therefore, my friends, be not ashamed to have felt acutely. Be not
ashamed to feel acutely still, till all danger is past, or even long
after all danger is past; when you look back on what might have been, and
what it might have brought, ay, must have brought, if not to you, still
to your children after you.
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