Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/51

Rh, and this chiefly through the medium of the five senses, and concerning the sensible objects immediately around him.

Now if you fully understand this infantile state, if you know precisely all the little child's wants and fears and limitations, you can adapt yourself perfectly to his needs. You can come down to and sympathize with him in his feeble state; you can enter into his childish thoughts and feelings, can instruct and inspire him, can lift him up mentally and morally, and lead him along little by little to the state of mature and robust manhood. But how could you do this without the requisite knowledge of the child's weakness and wants? And how could you obtain this knowledge if you had not once been a child yourself? You remember how you felt and thought when you were of that feeble age; therefore you can understand and sympathize with the child. You have yourself had the same infantile experience that he is now having. You have passed through all the states of childhood from infancy to mature years. And if your recollection of these states were full and perfect, you would be able to come still nearer to the child; to enter more fully and with more perfect sympathy into all his states; and so be to him a wiser counsellor, a better friend, a more efficient. helper and guide.