Page:Beauty for Ashes.djvu/94

 is reasonable, good, and beautiful. Some say it is too good and too beautiful to be true. Too good and too beautiful to be true! Is there any thing too good or too beautiful for God to do?—, who is Himself the fulness and perfection of all goodness and all beauty? Did He not create man for heaven, and is it not the constant effort of His love to bring all human beings into heaven? What is there, then, in the nature of the case—what is there in the revealed character of God, in the known laws of His providence, or in the character of little children themselves, to hinder their lot in the other world from being precisely what Swedenborg has declared that it is? Is not the Lord's infinite love a sure pledge that such will he the eternal condition of all who die in infancy and childhood? And does not his holy Word give assurance of the same? What affecting tenderness did the divine Saviour exhibit towards little children when He called them to Him, put his hands upon them and blessed them! And how plainly did He declare their innocence, and their fitness for the society of the angels, when He said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. xix. 14.) And again, when He "called a little child and set him in the midst of them [the disciples], and said. Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever, therefore, shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom