Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/60

54 loved even by a little child. For a child can see Him in imagination, and be made to understand something of his sweet and tender humanity. His affections can be drawn out toward Him by the simple recital of his deeds of mercy and compassion, his gentleness, forbearance, integrity, courage, sincerity, his patience in suffering, his unbounded forgiveness and his unselfish love. And in learning about Christ, the child is learning about God. He is acquiring a genuine knowledge of the Divine character. In learning to love and obey Christ, he is learning to love and obey God. And although it is only the external humanity—the mere clothing of Divinity—that the child sees and learns about, the knowledge is none the less important for all that. It becomes in him the solid and enduring basis of the kingdom of heaven. It is like learning the literal sense of the Word. As this sense is the foundation and containant of all the higher senses, so the knowledge and love of the man, Jesus—the Lord's mere external humanity—are the foundation and containant of that higher knowledge and purer love to be unfolded in maturer years. And as the child advances toward maturity and is able to comprehend more and more of true humanity, the Saviour's character in its higher and holier aspects, unfolds itself to him with ever increasing fulness. And still later, when the