CHRIST'S
INFANT KINGDOM.
REV.  Jc T.,TUCKER, i               -
APPROVED BY THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION.
BOSTON:
CONGREGATIONAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY.
. I
T 37,0, 
I. 
. T   l 
TO THE PARENTS AND PASTORS OF CHRIST'S LIT       TLE ONES;
I HAVE gathered up the grain which  is here
ground over, from many fields of observation and reflection, through a full generation of ministerial cares
and experiences; and, what I have produced in this
much-wrought line of study, I offer to your kind attention. The topic is always urgent, and is gaining
increased interest and acceptance in the Christian
community. The conviction is deepening in serious
minds, that just here is one of the pivotal points on
which soeiety is to swing around into a purer state
than ours. The thoughts, now put into a brief and
condensed form, may get a reading from some who
would not be drawn to a longer discussion. I believe them to be true, and hope they may be helpful.
CHICOPEE FALLS PARSONAGE, July, 1870.
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-,,  -t~r -i                                       4 v
I
i 
CONTENTS.
WHAT HE SAYS OF IT........           5
THE SUBJECT STATED........         7
METHODS TO EFFECT -THIS.........   10
EARLY CONVERSIONS.............12
A CASE SUPPOSED.............15
THE INFANT HEART SUSCEPTIBLE OF GRACE..  17
BIBLE-CASES OF YOUTHFUL PIETY.........23
POINTS THUS FAR MADE.............29
BIBLE-THEORY OF FAMILY LIFE..........31
THE COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM..........36
THE SEAL OF THAT COVENANT.........45
BAPTISM IN CHRIST'S INFANT KINGDOM.... 49
BAPTIZED CHILDREN AND THE CHURCH.... 58
WHY THIS ORDINANCE IS SO MUCH NEGLECTED IN OUR
CHURCHES...............60
THE ARGUMENT CONCLUDED......,,. 68
CHILDREN IN A CHRISTIAN HOME.........70
THE SPIRIT OF THE HOME-LIFE..........72
CHILDHOOD'S LONG DEPENDENCE ON PARENTAL CARE. 80
HOME GOVERNMENT............. 83
CASES OF HOME DISCIPLINE...........89
HOME TEACHING AND DEVOTION.........93
PARENTS CANNOT DELEGATE THIS WORK....99
4 
CHRIST'S INFANT KINGDOM.
WHAT HE SAYS OF IT.
Then were there brought unto him young children,
little children, infants, that he should put his hands
on them, and pray; and his disciples rebuked those that
brought them. But, when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to
come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the
kingdom of God. And he took them up in his arms, put
his hands upon them, and blessed them.
THE GOSPELS.
MORE is contained in these ever-precious
words than the implied promise, as gener
ally understood, that young children dying
5 
6    Christ's Infant Kingdom.
enter the heavenly world. They infold
another, and, in its place, quite as impor tant a truth,- that, through the gathering
of young children into Christ's fold, the
kingdom of God and of heaven is to be set
up and perpetuated on this, earth, as a
principal agency.
"They brought unto him their babes,"
writes the evangelist Luke. This gives
us the guiding clew to the way in which
this work must be mostly done, especially
in its earlier stages. Sacred art has
caught the right idea, and beautifully set
it forth; for all the painters show us the
mothers of these little ones leading or
bearing them to Jesus. No one can doubt
whence comes that look of tenderest love.
And who but the mother should bring the
babe of her own bosom to Him who still 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.
is saying, "Suffer the little children to
come unto me "?
THE SUBJECT STATED.
The end which Christianity proposes to
reach is the moral and religious salvation
of society. Christ came into this world
thus to ifake all things new.
No system of mere civilizing forces has
effected or nearly approached this result.
The best condition of communities has
been their simplest periods, which ordinarily has been their infantile. Age has corrupted, and not improved them. Men and
society have generally run down into
heart-dQmoralization under every form of
merely natural culture, however an intellectual or artistic refinement may have
flourished. Such refinement has been
7
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8     Christ's Infant. iingdom.
Only on the surface, covering untold inward vice. The main tendency of Greek
art, with all its exquisite grace, was im
moral.
The question is seriously arresting not a
few vigorous thinkers among us, whether
the same thing is not threatening our own
social structure, though based on at least
nominally Christian principles and concessions. There are aspects of the subject
involving statistics of pauperism and crime,
of ignorance and brutal barbarism, on the
one hand, and, at the opposite extreme,
of luxurious and atheistic mammonism,
which are not a little alarming.
We indeed fall back upon the sure word
of prophecy to sustain our faith and hope.
But, then, we must be careful hot to mistake the methods of prophetic fulfilment. 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.
The end which God proposes, and the means
through which he proposes, are never to be
put asunder,  The latter are as imperative
as the former is positive. While, therefore,
we hold the assured belief of the triumph,
ere long, of a true Christian civilization, it
is a very grave question, always in order,
whether we are mistaking the divine methods provided, and consequently alone sufficient, to secure the social salvation.
We fix, at the outset, this position, that
a personal regeneration to holiness is essential to the setting-up of Christ's kingdom among men. Society has had every
other kind of culture, and is not yet saved.
The next, and the only adequate, change
which we know of, is the penetration of
its entire structure with the truth and
grace of Christ.
9 
I o0 Christ's Infant KingdoMn.
METHODS TO EFF!CT THIS.
There are two methods which may be
relied on to reach this end. One, adult
conversions; the other, the sanctification
of children through parental and other
co-operating influences.
Adult conversions must go on so long
as men and women grow up having no
hope, and without God in the world.
But a glance at Christian and heathen
lands will show the small relative gain
thus made against the kingdom of sin.
What length of time, yea, of uncounted
ages, it might take thoroughly to Christianize our earth even by revivals of great frequency and power, one would not like to
attempt to calculate. No issue lies between revival-efforts in our churches, and 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.   II
the theory to be unfolded in this treatise.
There will be room enough for both to put
forth  their utmost  activity before  the
promised day of "the restitution of all
things" shall dawn.  No friend of revivals
need slacken his hand in their wise and
earnest promotion. But to rely mainly on
this or any method of gathering the sheep
into Christ's fold, while the lambs are as
much neglected as they have been, is as
devoid of good Christian common sense
as it is of scriptural warrant.
Besides, adult conversions do not give,
as a general fact, that symmetrical, consistent, solid piety, which is needed more
than ever now. Too much dross is mixed
with the gold; too many crooked things
in temper, habits, history, to  be made
straight. With such materials' largely 
I2   Christ's Infani Kingdom.
making up our church-memberships, too
much labor will still be needed to keep old,
easily-besetting,  and  long-indulged sins
from usurping the dominion of the heart,
and from stirring up discord, or bringing
in coldness and languor, among the friends
of Christ.
The Church and the world need a style
of piety which shall not consume nearly so
much of its power in keeping itself from
backsliding and apostasy.  This must be
secured through infant-sanctification; by
generations of the seed of the Church
growing up into the fruit-bearing trees of
the Lord's garden.
EARLY CONVERSIONS.
In support of this position, I adduco
several considerations: - 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.
We are entitled to look for a method
of propagating true religion among men,
somewhat  equivalent,  in  manner  and
scope, to the way in which unholiness
maintains   and   distributes  its  power
among   men,  though  in  contrast,  of
course, with its spirit. We know how this
offspring of the night and darkness lives
and grows. It roots itself in the soil of
human being at the very outset. Sin infects the soul. From the original act of
human transgression, each individual life
springing from that stock has taken a bias
towards evil.  An  impure fountain  has
sent forth impure streams;  not streams
which will grow muddy and foul by flowing through defiling soils, but which bear
outward and onward the impurities of the
spring-head itself. Can a bitter fountain
send  out  sweet waters?v Can a clean
I3 
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14   Christ's Infa n t Kingdom.
thing come from an unclean? We must
measure correctly, so far as we can measure at all, the forces, of earthly evil in
seeking their correctives. We must suppose that God measures the whole accurately, and, as he works in grace as well
as in providence through competent means,
that he has intended the cure to take
action upon the disease just as soon as is
possible in the nature of the case.
Sin, then, marks and permeates the
human race, -the world estranged from
God. It sweeps down the centuries like
an ocean turned into a swift descending
river. Its only counteracting force at all
commensurate is the consecrating power
of holy character through successive generations of the regenerate, from parents to
children; thus creating another great tide 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.   1 5
of spiritual influence, which shall by and by
take up and bear onward the common sentiment and life of society. In this mighty
rivalry, sinfulness has the start most disastrously, by its long and universal hold on
human nature. But, reasoning from the
known good-will of God towards us, we
must conclude that there is a way of materially reducing this odds against holiness
in the earth: so we push backward the
agencies of regenerative mercy into the
beginnings of mortal and immortal being
to avert the poison-working of depravity
in its very earliest germs.
A CASE SUPPOSED.
A supposition will assist my meaning.
Select a starting-point of religious influence, as when Noah came out of the ark
I 
i6 Christ's Infant Kingdom.
(eight souls in all); but that is too far
away. Take, then, the landing of our pilgrim-fathers. Suppose their piety had
steadily and earnestly lived in their
descendants; reproducing itself, with but
little exception, through the six or eight
generations between them and us. Or
take one family through the same time.
The two who began it a half-dozen generations ago were united in the Lord. Their
offspring followed their devout examples;
and so, downward, the seal of the renewing
Spirit has rested upon them until now;
making it a Christian stock in a special
sense. Does any one doubt that the grasp
of original sin and of natural depravity
would be greatly weakened in its hold
upon that lineage, giving a thousand probabilities of continuous conversions to 
Christ's Infant Kxingdom.
Christ in its circles, over and above those
of an irreligious line of descent? The case
here imagimned is not an unknown one altogether, and should be indefinitely multiplied..
THE INFANT HEART SUSCEPTIBLE OF GRACE.
Another consideration in support of this
position is, that divine  grace  can more
easily impress the infant than the adult
heart.  I use the word "infant  in the
parallel terms of our Lord's words, cited at
the beginning, -to signify the very early
stages of human life.  But I have a special eye, just here, to what we mean literally by infancy, - the period back of actual
sinning, yet not of innocence as before the
Fall, and of the consequent need of a renewing work of God upon it.' This is my
2
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i8   ChrisI's Infant Kingdom.
thought, that the commencing of the
sanctifying power of the Spirit of holiness
in the childcl need not wait until sin is
known and chosen by the understanding
and the will.
This fact is generally conceded, and is
eagerly and firmly held with respect to
those who die in infant unconsciousness of
evil and good. The ground of belief in
their salvation is, that, through the atoning
blood and gracious mediation of our Lord,
they are fitted for life eternal. Fitted how,
and from what, and why? Fitted by a
new birth - young as they may be, out of
an impure moral state, and because "by
nature" they are in it,- even a state of
"wrath" -for a holy heaven. If we mean
any thing by infants being prepared for
heaven by the Spirit of God, we must mean 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.
as much as this.  Or we have only to say
that they need no work of grace in them
for heavenly joys, and then we fall back
on the tabula rasa theory; that is, that
the infant soul is but a sheet of blank
paper, not yet written upon in any way,
for good or evil.
But now, if God can graciously fit a
child so early to die, why can he not fit it
to live as well, by communicating to it, just
as early, an equally effective impulse towards holiness, which it shall never lose
amid all after-assaults of wickedness?
Why may he not so put a young soul into
the moulds of his Spirit, as that it shall no
more have the imprint fade out, if contin uing in the world, than if removed to
heaven?  Is the one continually done, and
the other not possible to be done at all?
-t
I9 
20   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
If the dying infant can be regenerated
for heaven, cannot the living infant be
regenerated for this world?
We are not denied this hope and trust
from the Christian doctrine of the new
birth, as taught by our Lord; namely, that
it requires a personal repentance and faith
in its subject. Certainly it does in all who
are mature enough to exercise these spiritual acts. They who are of years to hear
and understand preaching, or to read the
Scriptures, and are not Christians, have no
other gospel of salvation but this of "repentance towards God, and faith in our
Lord Jesus Christ."
But shall we limit the Almighty Spirit?
Shall we say, that while depravity has its
full sweep upon the infant nature, according to its incipient conditions, the counter 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.   21
acting grace of the Purifier cannot breathe
also over that pliant nature, awaking the
first germs of a better fruitage?  If we
will so limit the divine work for the child
that lives, why not necessarily, too, for the
dying child?  But what has our reasoning to do in prescribing methods and
bounds to that mysterious power, the
working of which is as the wind, the sound
whereof is heard, but man cannot tell
whence it cometh, or whither it goeth: so
is every one that is born of the Spirit.
We know the methods, so far forth as
revelation teaches them, of God's work
in minds arrived at a teachable age; but,
anterior to this, no man can tell what the
divine Spirit can do, has done, and waits
to do on a wondrously-enlarged scale, in
bringing up to that point a multitude of 
22 Christ's Infant Kingdom.
these little ones touched by his gracious
love, who shall never remember a time
when they were converted to Christ, because their first recollections were those
of praise and tender love to God and to his
dear redeeming Son.  Something like this
is believed, if any thing is meant by the
wishes, often expressed, that our children
may be sanctified from their birth. It
should demand very strong testimony to
disprove that God may have methodcls of
grace with the human soul, by which he
can check the growth of sin in it from that
early date, and go on checking it as the
years go on, without in any way infringing
its freedom. Nor need it disturb this persuasion that I cannot understand the mode
of that gracious visitation; for I am not
able to explain, even to myself, all the agen 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.   23
cy of God in saving the adult soul, while
believing most fully the fact which our
Lord announced to Nicodclemus, "Except
a man be born again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God."
IBTE-CASES OF YOUTHFUL PIETY.
It was a beautiful device of the late
Prince Albert of England to erect at
Windsor Castle, for the benefit of his
young children, a statue of Edward VI.,
pointing with his royal sceptre to this
verse on the page of an open sculptured
Bible,"  Josiah was eight years old when he
began to reign; and he did that which was
right in the sight of the Lord, and walked
in all the ways of David his father, and
turned not aside to the right hand or to
the left." But these examples are valuable, 
24   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
not only as models for imitation; not only
as teaching us the fact of piety beginning
with the:-rst dawn of consciousness; for
beyond this they show us an important part
of the human instrumentality of this fact.
Take the cases of Samuel, John Baptist,
and Timothy.
The case of Samuel presents these
points, -a religious father and an eminently devout and godly mother; a consecration of the babe to God in most fervent prayer, even before its birth; yea
more, a receiving his very existence as an
answer to prayer in order that he might be
consecrated to the Lord " all the days of
his life;" a ratification of the vow by lending him to the Lord from earliest boyhood, in
the service of the tabernacle. The phrase
"lent to the Lord" may imply a contin 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.   25
ued sense of maternal responsibility, as well
as solicitude for this son of many hopes.
The result if all this was, that "the child
Samuel grew on, and was in favor, both
with the Lord, and also with men."
John Baptist was likewise the son of
eminently religious parents, with the same
ante-natal anxieties and spiritual preparations for a holy life; the whole power of
the mother's desire having been concentrated upon his early sanctification. "4 And
the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit,"
as the servant of the Lord, of whom he had
spoken by the prophet, "Behold, I will
send my messenger, and he shall prepare
the way before me."
Timothy's father was a Greek, perhaps a
pagan worshipper, and also a man of educated tastes. His mother and his grand 
26   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
moth er were excellent Christians, of whom
St. Paul wrote, "When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee,
which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois,
and in thy mother Eunice, and I am persuaded in thee also." He was early
trained in the Scriptures, which he knew
the power of in a remarkably rich experience as a disciple of Jesus.
The influences which are here brought
to bear on the formation of character are
domestic, parental, but especially maternal.
They embrace the concentration of prayer
and devout feeling upon this point of infant
regeneration, -the claiming (so to say) of
the power of the renewing Spirit to re-create from the first that which is to be sent
forth into life under the conditions of probation and redemption. They recognize 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.   27
the closeness of the mother's relation to
the child, as giving her the privilege, and
placing her under the obligation, of a paramount agency in its early spiritual renovation. These biblical illustrations of our
doctrine are not without similar corroborating cases in the religious biographies of
more recent times.
As a matter of fact, the explanations of
which are very obvious, far more depends,
in the Christian nurture of young children,
on the mother's thai on the father's influence. This may be the reason, in part,
why, in the providence of our loving God,
so many more mothers than fathers are
reached by the converting grace of Christ.
Is he looking after the souls of the
little  ones  in  this dispensation  of his
mercy? -looking towards the fulfilment 
28   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
of his own tender command, "Feed my
lambs"?
Here, moreover, we have the out-cropping of thle transmitted or hereditary faith,
which, like a stratum of solid rock, underlaid these Scripture genealogies, - the faith
"of thy mother Eunice, and thy grandmother Lois, and that is in thee also,"- not
passed downward mechanically from mother to child, but as creating a powerful tendency and pressure Christward, -  a drift, a
current as of long running and deepening
streams, or as the preparation of a rich,
warm soil all ready for the reception and
nourishment of the young plants of righteousness.
This is just the difference, as I apprehend it, between the effects of a continuous
religious and irreligious influence in a line
k 
Chrisg's Infant Kingdom.   29
of family descent,- that, in the one, the
common nature (so to call it) of the family stock is like a field subjected for a long
time to good tillage; not so, indeed, that
weeds will not spring there profusely, if a
careful cultivation be not still kept up; but
it is in a good condition, comparatively,
for a useful crop: while the other is just a
piece of forest land, uncleared and unfenced; or some low, undrained swamp, or
an old worn-out and given-up glebe, which
looks like any thing rather than producing
the means of life to man or beast.
POINTS THUS FAR MADE.
The progress of our argument thus far
is this: the establishment of the kingdom
of Christ over our world is the grand aim
and end of Christianity. To rely chiefly 
30   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
on adult conversions to effect this is an inadequate dependence. Christ himself says,
that his kingdom is of children, little children, infants. Its hope, its reliance, must
be in infalt consecration and sanctification,
by generations of the seed of the Church
coming forward as Christian disciples.
We are entitled to hold this position,
because, 
1. As unholiness begins so soon to vitiate our race, it is to be expected that grace
may also have a very early beginning to
counteract its power.
2. Divine grace can more easily impress
the infantile than the adult heart.   It
does effectually in them who die, to fit
them for heaven.  Why not, then, to fit
them who do not die, to live?
3. Scripture examples are conclusive of 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.   31I
the fact of early holiness through domestic
piety, in the transmission of faith in God,
from generation to generation, through his
early regenerating grace; thus shadowing
forth a mighty instrumentality of the prospective spread of true religion among men.
BIBLE-THEORY OF FAMILY LIFE.
These individual examples of youthful
piety, with our previous line of thought,
have opened the way to a more thorough
examination of the general biblical doctrine of the subject under consideration.
We shall find a clearly marked philosophy
of human life, and the adaptation of
specific means-to give this effect, each
worthy of our very careful study.
It is obvious that the populating of the
earth by human beings might have been 
32   Chrisl's Infant Kingdom.
effected as easily by successive creative
acts of divine power, as its inhabitation
was thus begun in the persons of the original pair. Or this might have been surrendered over to a wholly lawless and unrestrained license in the human species,
as it has been in the merely animal and
irresponsible orders of life.
Instead of these methods of prolonging
our race, the divine Father instituted in
Eden the law and covenant of marriage
as the basis of the family organization,
and made the continuance of mankind the
sacred prerogative of this ordinance from
the beginning: in defence of which constitution of domestic love and life stands
one express command of the decalogue
the seventh; and another, the fifth, as an
additional buttress to protect its inviola 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.   33
bility. Moreover, the whole force of scriptural condemnation and promise and appeal, from first to last, moves like a unit
in the interests of purity, chastity, and
against every thing like promiscuous indulgence of the passions here involved. The
Sermon on the Mount answers to the voice
on Sinai with an intensified emphasis.
The deeper we get into the clearer spiritual discernments of Christianity, and feel
the invigorating, cleansing influences of
its more heavenly life, this strictness of
prohibition gathers a closer grasp.
Why, then, this central, most ancient
feature of God's administration of our
race? There should be a very commanding reason for it. There was and is. Turn
to the last of the prophets before our
Lord's incarnation (Mal. ii. 15): "And
8 
34   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
did not he make one?" One married pair
and fountain of the human posterity. And
could not -ie have made more in the same
way?  "Yea, had he the residue of the
Spirit,"- the creative energy still to work
as he might determine.   Then "wherefore one?"   Mark the reply, "That he
might seek a godly seed.   Therefore take
heed to your spirit, and let none deal
treacherously against the wife of his
youth."  This solves the whole problem.
So Calvin on this text:  " He sought then
the seed of God; that is, he instituted
marriage, that legitimate and pure offspring might be brought forth," -legally
legitimate in order to a moral and spiritual
purity. With this agrees the turning of
"the heart of the fathers to the children,
and the heart of the children to their 
Christ's Infani Kingdom.   35
fathers," in the concluding verse of this
prophecy, and which finds a yet fuller interpretation, as an element of Christian
power, in the citation of this Scripture by
St. Luke, as applicable to the forerunner
of our Lord: "And he shall go before
him, in the spirit and power of Elias, to
turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom
of the just; to make ready a people
prepared for the Lord." This expresses
God's original thought respecting all who
should be born of the "one" whom  he
made in the beginning,  "male and female."
If, then, that primeval  "one" should
have fallen through temptation into sin;
yet, if repenting and amending, there was
still the possibility, thenceforward, of a 
36   Christ's infant Kingdom.
faithful keeping upon the path of pious
character  and duty for their offspring,
from age to age, through the sanctities of
the family ordinance. Hiad that possibility
become a reality, how mighty a check
would soon have been laid on rebellion in
the earth!
But that rebellion, in fact, took some of
its earliest and most defiant strides in revolt against this very law of marriagefaith, as it has ever since nourished its
godless forces at the same sensual source;
Sodom being the name for uncounted
centres of licentiousness from the first days
of human apostasy.
THE COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM.
We turn another page of primitive history. While the nations of the old-world 
Christ's Infant Kingdom. 37
cradle are left for a while to propagate
heathenish corruption, we strike a narrower vein of divine endeavor to secure
"a holy seed" in the person of Abraham,
and the compact made with his household.
Even Dr. Hedge admits that we here
emerge upon historic ground; finding, at
length, the first individual who is any thing
more to us than a name (Primeval World
of Hebrew Tradition, p. 253). Respecting
the relations of God with this "father of
the faithful," we have a direct and ample
revelation.
God's purpose with Abraham was first
national:  "I will make of thee a great
nation."  "I will make thy seed as the
dust of the earth; so that, if a man can
number the dust of the earth, then shall
thy seed also be numbered."  "Look now
* 
38   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou
be able to number them. And he said
unto him, So shall thy seed be" (Gen.
xii. 2; xiii. 16; xv. 5). This was the prediction and the pledge of Hebrew empire.
A second promise had a religious object.
Its idea is thus unfolded: "For I know
him, that he will command his children,
and his household after him; and they
shall keep the way of the Lord, to do
justice and judgment; that the Lord
may bring upon Abraham that which he
hath spoken of him " (Gen. xviii. 19).
To accomplish the designs of this separation of Abraham from the idolatrous
world, Jehovah entered into a specific
covenant with him as a binding ordinance
upon him and his posterity.   "The  Lord
appeared unto Abram, and said unto him, 
Christ's -Infant Kingdom.   39
I am the Almighty God; walk before me,
and be thou perfect. And I will make my
covenant between me and thee, and will
multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram
fell on his face; and God talked with him,
saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is
with thee, and thou shalt be a father of
many nations.... And I will establish my
covenant between me and thee, and thy
seed after thee, in their generations, for an
everlasting covenant; to be a God unto
thee,  and  to  thy  seed  after  thee"
(Gen. xvii.).
The founding of a new nationality is
here recorded, in order to the rescue and
the preservation of the worship and service
of the one true God among men. It was
made with a direct regard to this, as St.
Paul writes of it to the Romans, " To the 
40   Christ's lizfanI Kingdom.
end the promise might be sure to all the
seed; not to that only which is of the law,
but to that also which is of the faith of
Abraham, who is the father of us all [all
believers] (as it is written, I have made
thee a father of many nations), before him
whom he believed [that is, Abraham,
standing in the presence of HIim whom
he then and there took at his word], even
God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though
they were" (Rom. iv.).
The whole conception of the Hebrew
state was this of "a holy nation, a chosen
generation, a peculiar people."   And the
ever-springing germ of this perpetual
separation unto God was the consecration
of the children into the faith of their
fathers.  There was no anticipation, in the 
Christ's Infant Kingdom. 41
theory of this compact, of a contrary
style of education. To go in this way,
andi  not  another, the child  should  be
trained.   The   Mosaic   Scriptures,  the
books of David, Solomon, and of the prophets also, are full of the thought of this
transmission of the religious life of the
land, as well as of its political ordinances,
to future ages, - the later writings mostly
in the way of stern rebuke to the
people for their failure to meet the
divine intention in this regard. " These
words which  I command thee  this day
shall be in thy heart; and thou shalt teach
them  diligently unto  thy children, and
shalt talk of them when  thou  sittest in
thy house, and when thou walkest by the
way, and when thou liest down, and when
thou risest up."  " Set your hearts unto 
42 Christ's Infant Kingdom.
all the words which I testify among you
this day, which ye shall command your
children to observe to do, all the words
of this law" (Deut. vi. 6, 7; xxxii. 46).
The same position is also maintained in
the numerous  threatenings  against  the
want of this sense of parental responsibility, this exercise of parental care.
It is noticeable that the channel of blessings, from Abraham,  the founder of the
Hebrew State and Church, downward, is
domestic: "And I will make of thee a great
nation; and I will bless thee, and make
thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing; and I will bless them that bless thee,and curse him that curseth thee; and in
thee shall all the families of the earth be
blessed"  (Gen.  xii.  3).   The  promise
looks alike to this, as its end and its 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.   43
means. Abraham's righteousness is to
bless his seed, as the families springing
from his loins,;and all others, shall possess
his piety.
It is a blessing of piety, not of political
greatness and perpetuity, here ultimately
contemplated. The apostle comes again
to the explanation of these ancient
pledges:" And  the Scripture, foreseeing
that God would justify the nations 
through faith, preached before the gospel
unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all
nations * be blessed. So, then, they which
be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham" (Gal. iii. 8, 9).
'This, then, was the covenant of Jehovah, that the ancestral faith, going down
as an inheritance from Abraham to his off
* The same word in the Greek: rta ai,. 
44 Christ's Infant Kingdom.
spring, should bless them, in all their generations and families, as the chosen people
of the Lord; but not that it should always be limited to this people. That plant
was to be cultivated in this nurseryground into a strength and fruitfulness
which would bear the ingrafting, in after
times, of shoots and scions from the wild
olive of the other nations, - the outlying
heathen or Gentile tribes.    That tree
could take these grafts, for it was not a
Jewish, but essentially a Christian tree of
righteousness, as St. Paul has just told
us, and as Christ also intimated to the
Jews:  "Your father Abraham  rejoiced
to see my day; and he saw it, and was
glad," -rejoiced that he should see it and
its salvation as the ultimate and completed
outcome of the blessing thus promised the
believing patriarch. 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.    45
THE SEAL OF THAT COVENANT.
The covenant with Abraham had a seal,
or sign of fulfilment. No such document
is executed formally, until it is signed,
sealed, and recorded. "And God said
unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant, thou and thy seed after thee in
their generations.  This is my covenant,
which ye shall keep between me and you,
and thy seed after thee: every man-child
among you shall be circumcised. And the
uncircumcised man-child... shall be
cut off from his people: he hath broken
my covenant" (Gen. xvii. 9, 10, 14).
This was primarily a religious rite, and
only secondarily, and by derived use, a
state or civil act. It belonged to the Hebrew Church, and to the State only as re 
46   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
lated to this, according to the theocratic constitution. St. Paul to the Romans writes,
"And he'received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of faith."
And to the Colossians he explains its
meaning as "the putting-off the body of
the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of
Christ." Thus Lange on Gen. xvii. 10:
that circumcision "should be the symbol
of the new birth, i.e., of the sanctification
of human nature from its very source and
origin, is shown both by the passages which
speak of the circumcision of the heart
...and  from  the  manner  of  speech
in use among  the  Israelites, in  which
Jewish proselytes were described as new
born." Its value was (a) to keep God's
covenant with them continually and vividly in mind, and (b) to secure God's grace
t, 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.   47
to them as they should thus avail themselves of it in his own appointed way. It
was not the introduction of a rite in use
among neighboring nations for sanitary
purposes, though, within a very restricted
circle, it may have been practised by others.*  It was a specific sign or seal of God's
living and abiding power and presence to
preserve a holy seed in Israel according to
the election of his grace, in the keeping of
his commandments; and it was to be virtually perpetual, as ever bearing witness
to the same covenant of God with man,
and as a source of holy influence on the
earth.
Therefore, when that wonderful sermon
was preached at Pentecost to thousands of
Jews gathered from every land, the apos
* Smith's Bible Dictionary; " Circumcision." 
48   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
tle closed up his invitation to them to enter the Christian fold with these thoroughly Jewish words: "For  the promise is
unto you and unto your children." What
promise? Jehovah's to Abraham. What
promising? A godly seed. " That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles," - those "afar off"... whom "the
Lord our God shall call"... "that we
might receive the promise of the Spirit
through faith" (Acts ii. 39; Gal. iii. 14).
We are, consequently, in precisely the
same line of the divine plan and working
now, as were those elder brethren of ours,
with respect to family piety and household consecration to God, and with respect, moreover, to the means of drawing
out of the divine covenant its intended
grace. We have that covenant, and its 
Ckrist's InfanI Kingdom.    49
seal also, and the Holy Spirit of Christ, to
fulfil to us, in our children, the promised
inheritance' of righteousness.   That promise is "unto us and to our children" as
fully, to say the least, as it was to any
Israelite.
BAPTISM IN CHRIST'S INFANT KINGDOM.
Planting ourselves at the opening of the
Christian era, this is obvious, - that no son
of Abraham after the flesh would have
ever looked at the Christian Church as a
spiritual home, if he could not have
brought his offspring with him into the
same fold. They had dwelt together in
the Hebrew fold for as long a period before
Christ's coming as we live after that event.
Our Saviour's words-" Suffer the little
children, and forbid them not, to come
4 
50   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
unto me " - were in full accord with the
religious   habit   of  his  countrymen's
thoughts and life.  These little ones, too,
belonged to his kingdom on earth as well
as in the heavens.  He did not design to
have them left outside of his Church, while
their parents are sheltered there. A Jew
would have felt this to be unnatural and
cruel. Should a Christian think it kind?
Infants have a mark of the Good Shepherd to receive now as always. They are
to be taken into the enclosures of his sheep.
"Feed my lambs" is his charge to his pastors. Feed them where? By the roadside? Or not rather inside the fold, the
Church?
The question is not, Where is infant
baptism commanded? but, where is it
repealed? 
Christ's Infant'Kingdom. 51
The form is changeable, unessential
The fact is one and permanent. Infant
consecration to the Lord by a visible religious act has stood on the statute-book of
divine enactments since Jehovah made the
covenant of his grace, in Christ, with the
father of his believing and obedient
Church. Then was its Christian significance and power established in reality, if
not in name; and its observance was
sacredly bound on all the children of that
friend of God forever. If not, where was
its repealing act so hidden that no NewTestament writer could find it?
I almost fancy that I see the reader
smiling at the above phrase of the "Christian significance and power" of an ordi.
nance which has fallen so largely out of
the observance of too many of our churches. 
52   Chrisg's Infant Kingdom.
Just here is one of the places where it is
so hard to walk by faith, and not by sight,
- so hard for gospel-disciples to imitate
Abraham four thousand years ago.  "And
Abraham believed God; and it was counted
to him for righteousness." "And Abra ham took Ishmael, his son, and all that
were born in his house, and circumcised
them the selfsame day, as God had said
unto him."   What good could that do
them? asks some doubting Thomas.
It put God's mark of ownership on
them, that they were his.   It obeyed
God's direction, who is best qualified to
arrange the channels through which his
heavenly power shall reach human hearts.
It pledged the parental head of the house.hold most solemnly to personal holiness in
their own behalf, as the presiding authority 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.   53
and guide of the family, and as the medium of a sanctifying influence to the
offspring given to them in the Lord. It
did not itself confer grace unto salvation;
for Ishmael roved  off  into  paganism.
Nor does the preaching of the gospel save
all or any who hear it, as a merely human
utterance; yet it is not to be given up.
Infant baptism has been perverted into
a sacramental regeneration; thus defeating
its sanctifying power, and raising up violent opposition against the usage. But
adult baptism has been the occasion of
equally gross superstition. There are immersionists who insist, that, in and by the
act of submersion in water, sin is supplanted by holiness, and the subject passes
into the state of grace. The dogma of
adult baptismal regeneration has as firm a 
54 Christ's Infant Kingdom.
hold in corrupt churches as that of the
cleansing away of infantile pollution in
baptismal water. Grave perversions of
adult baptismal efficacy were of early origin. The narrative of the baptism of Constantine the Great, in Stanley's "Eastern
Church " (pp. 314, 315),-is an illustration in
point. After twenty-five years of a nominally Christian confession, during which
period he "had been considered by Christian bishops an inspired oracle and apostle
of Christian wisdom,... had opened the
first general council of the Church,...
had joined in the deepest discussions of
theology,... had preached to rapt audiences," on his death-bed, this powerful
head of Christendom received this ordinance; having thus delayed under the
superstitious notion that in it was to be 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.   55
secured "a complete obliteration and expiation of all former sins." But such perversions of the sacrament of adult baptism
are not accepted as valid objections
to its practice.  The  Lord's supper has
likewise been perverted into a Popish
mass; thus utterly changing its nature, and
degrading its sanctity. But this proves
nothing but the folly of its corrupters.
Any means of spiritual grace can be
turned into the same kind of sacramental
machinery. Most of these have been so
turned. Yet that furnishes not the smallest reason against their proper and legitimate use.
The question is this: Has the wisdom
of our loving Father, from the founding
of the Church upon the promise of Christ
in the household of Abraham, recognized
-S 
56   Ckrist's Infant Kingdom.
the consecration of children to God, in
parental faith, as a means of securing to
such children the renewing grace of his
Spirit? I affirm it on the scriptural authority now set forth. It is a divine ordination, and is no more to stand at the bar of
our judgment, to pass on its fitness to such
an end, than is any thing else which God
has ordained for this or any other purpose, and which he has, as here, never
repealed or countermanded. But, in its
Christian form, this ordinance has a freer
usage than before, according to the nature
and spirit of the new dispensation, which
is richer and ampler in its applications
than its forerunner. All have the privilege of it, as St. Paul tells the Galatians:
"For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 
Christ's Infant Kingdom. 57
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is
neither bond nor free, there is neither male
nor female; for ye are all one in Christ
Jesus. And if ye are Christ's," mark the
linking backward and forward, "then are
ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to
the promise" (Gal. iii. 27-29).  We go to
ruin, so we confess, if we slide from the
original covenant of faith. Then why not
hold to the whole of it as well as a part?
Did God put more into that covenant than
was needed? No.
"The words of his extensive love
From age to age endure:
The angel of the covenant proves,
And seals the blessings sure.
"Jesus the ancient faith confirms
To our great fathers given:
He takes young children in his arms,
And calls them heirs of heaven." 
58   Christ s Infant Kingdom.
BAPTIZED CHILDREN AND THE CHURCH.
The baptized children of the Church are
related to it as probationers for full mem bership when they shall give credible
evidence of personal regeneration.  This
should be early expected. They should be
under its careful instruction as the lambs
of Christ's flock; should be taught from
their first intelligent days that they are
his by parental consecration. To give our
children thus to the Lord, and then to turn
them adrift to rove as fugitives wherever
temptation may lure them, is as unchristian as to unite ourselves to his Church,
and then to fall back into any kind of
worldly inconsistency. Our Congregationalism needs some definitely accepted system
of juvenile care and education, more di 
Christ's Infant Kingdom. 59
rect and spiritual than the Sabbath school
furnishes, to prepare its baptized youth
for church-communion,- something like
that which, among our Methodist brethren, organizes all this portion of the young
into classes, under suitable leaders, as candidates for full church-relations.  Or, pastors should take this work into their own
charge as a regular part of their ministerial
duty, as in the Lutheran and the Episcopal
Churches; from which we need not decline
to receive a help like this, for fear of lapsing
into an undue formalism. The church
which baptizes its children is bound to assume the responsibility of their oversight in
conjunction with parental watchfulness, and
as a stimulus to this which is apt to be neglected. To deny that an infant baptized
into the name of Jesus is a part of his 
60 Christ's Infani Kingdom.
Church, in the measure above indicated, is
certainly to reduce the act to a very unmeaning form. Yet this is often virtually
done.
. WHY THIS ORDINANCE IS SO MUCH NEG      LECTED IN OUR CHURCHES.
One cause has been the lack of a clear
conception of the truth just noticed. It
has not been perceived, and consequently
not felt, how this dedication of children to
the Lord should and does affect their relation to Christ and his Church. Hence it
has grown to have little significance, and
to be widely neglected. Another cause
has powerfully worked to the same end.
Our civil institutions, and our whole national life, have, from the days of Plymouth Rock, been constantly developing 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.   6 I
a spirit of individual responsibility, which
is making itself injuriously felt in at least
some directions. Our theory of secular
duty and rights is, that every one is a free
and independent citizen, responsible to no
one but God and his own conscience.  We
have nothing hereditary among us save by
personal will.  People are units; every one
beginning and ending his own history inside his individual record.  This tendency
has received impulse from our very natural
dislike of the political and ecclesiastical
systems, against which our Church and
State are alike a protest, until we are in
danger of running far beyond the, limits of
discretion, in what in its place is indispensable to a true manhood and a free
commonwealth.
How is this influence operating here? 
62   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
In the outer circles of a professed respect
for general Christianity, that is, among
very liberal Christians so called, it has
taken the ground to let children grow up
without any creed-instruction one way
or another; so that, when they get old
enough to believe any thing or nothing,
they can take their choice, - be Christians
or Pagans in their own right, as they
please: and this so as not to abridge
their natural liberty; or, as Dr. Holmes
once told us in an "Atlantic Monthly,"
so as not to make them "Flathead Indians," as that eminent naturalist avers
most ministers' children, and, by inference,
most of their docile flock who feed in
evangelic pastures, unhappily are.
Inside the Christian circle itself, this exaggerated individualism shifts off responsi 
Ch ris's Infa n t Kingdom.   ~ 63
bility from itself by the covert plea, that,
as each one must answer for his own soul
before God, each one should look out for
his own salvation, without expecting too
much help and sympathy from others.
Hence a very common indifference to the
impenitent outside the Church, and a lack
of hearty fellowship and love within its
enclosures.
But, worse than this, it actually turns the
hearts of parents away from instead of to
their offspring, by weakening down almost
to nothing the conviction of parental obligation for their salvation. Thus they are
turned over to the hope of a conversion to
Christ, no one can tell when,- in some
religious revival; or, if worst comes to
worst, on a dying-bed.  Let the question
reach you, parents of unregenerate chil 
6t  Chr4isa's Infan! Kingdom.r,
dren, whether your hope has steadily rested
on the sanctification of your offspring i~
early chil!dhood, as God's blessing on your
covenant-keeping piety; or not rather on
their conversion by and by through Sabbath-school agencies or revival-pressures.
Do you remember your fault to day?
Hence,., againm, this. n, otion, of independent action has kept back multitudesof our
little ones from Christ in the sacrament of
baptism.
It is not for want of Scripture-texts to
command it,  There is not one word- of the
Lord which specifically tells us to keep
the first day of the, week as- our day of the
Lord.  Still we do it, as our fathers did,
from his resurrection; and this because the
Jews had a Sabbath; and we reason rightly here,. that. a'Christian should have'at 
C Chrr/s i,fant Kingdm.   65
least as much of religious privilege as an
Israelite. The change of time from one
day to the:next makes no difference: why,
then, should the baptismal change of a
mere outward form in the consecrating act
-of children to God make any more difference?
It would not, but for this fiction of individual rights. It never has in countries of
Christendom where society is organized on
a less personal theory. We have let our
American feeling in'this matter (for such it
unquestionably is) bias overmuch our religious convictions. We have let our political
ideas  run over into our Christian practice;
and we think it as unreasonable to baptize
our children unto God in faith that they
shahll grow up citizens of his kingdom, as
it would be for us to pledge their adhe
5 
66   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
sion, in advance, to some party in the
State.
And so we are often told by believing
parents, that they would not object to
bring their little ones to the baptismal
font, provided the act might be repeated
in after life, should these sons and daughters then desire it; for it looks like depriving them of a right to give themselves
thus to Christ, if this dedicating act is
now done, once for all, in their behalf in
their unconscious or youthful days. And
these very parents, baptized in their infancy, have perhaps felt (they have said
so) that they were forestalled in a privilege which they wish had been reserved
for their own personal enjoyment.
But this idea of individual privilege and
right thus carried out is an altogether 
Christ's infant Kingdom.   67
extravagant assumption. While it is true,
so far as adult duty goes, as enforcing repentance, and belief in Christ; and the
working-out of salvation in earnest, personal diligence, because  each  one must
stand or fall to his own Master, it is just
the reverse of true or biblical with regard
to the relation of Christian parents to
their offspring. It is not natural; for we
are continually taking grave responsibilties in their behalf, because we ought to,
and cannot avoid it. We do it in many
secular interests without a question of its
propriety. We should be most censurable
if we did it not. It is just as right and
obligatory in religious concerns. God has
made us parents for this very purpose. 
68   Christ's Infant Kxgdom.
THE ARGUMENT CONCLUDED.
This, then, is the sum of the argument.
The Author of grace and redemption has
made a perpetual covenant with his church
of believing disciples, which covenant of
salvation is "to us and to our children" in
all generations.   It has ever had a seal
which he affixed to it, and has never removed; the pattern of it only having
been changed under providential sanetions.  It is a mark of Christ's flock, —the
sheep and the lambs alike. Its purpose is
to bind human souls to God and holiness;
to perpetuate this consecration by a visible as well as spiritual ratification of
vows from parents to their offspring;, to
be a household bond of faith and love and
hope; to secure, in a word, a Christian 
Chzist"s Infant Kizngdom.   69
posterity from a Christian stock. So far
from being a trifling, unimportant, unscriptural ceremony, this bringing young
children to Christ in baptism is to be regarded as the direct path to their introduction into his kingdom of grace.  I do not
say that the heart is renewed in this ordinance; certainly it cannot be renewed by
it: nor that an unbaptized child dying is
not saved. God does not so restrict his
mercy, nor visit on us the consequences
of unfaithfulness to his methods for its
bestowment. So, in riper years, the unbaptized, as well as others, are converted.
But the multitudes of these in Christian
families, as elsewhere, who need conversion, is a weighty proof that we can have
no general household piety passing down
from generation to generation, taking up 
70 Christ's Infant Kingdom.
the newborn souls, and bringing them
from the first stages of life under the
grace of the renovating Spirit, thus shaping them in their earliest mould for piety,
Christ, and heaven, until this doctrine and
this ordinance of infant-consecration are
restored to the household and to the
Church as the seal and sign of a living faith
in Christ, and covenant with him, by his
help, to devote every child given to parental love to him as his own rightful property, and then to train it up as a Christian child "in the nurture and admonition
of the Lord."
CHILDREN IN A CHRISTIAN HOME.
The-practical details of this training and
nurture, to which the remaining pages must
be given, is not the easiest part of this 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.
subject. It is less difficult to prove a
truth by argument than to put it into
working  order.   Then,  again,  the  fair
working of this truth demands an already
confirmed religious character in the family
growth as a preparation for its full effectiveness; that is, the sanctification of the
rising race'is to be looked for in the line
of a Christian family stock running backward long enough to furnish an accumulated power of grace, and to insure the
inheritance of covenant mercies according to the biblical doctrine of a "godly
seed" now stated.   And, more disheartening than all, we have to meet at the
threshold of our practical suggestions and
appeals a disbelief, in many Christian
parents, that God has any plan of this
kind concerning the children of his peo
71 
7'2  Chrisl's Infant Kingdom.
-ple.  Further: they feel a sense of discouragement about their offspring's salvation, because of past neglect.   And,
in parents just coming under these responsibilities, there is too often a lack of
steady purpose to begin and continue their
domestic life in the right way. These
obstacles, however, only increase the need
of a careful and faithful dealing with parental consciences and hearts.
To bring oUr children to Christ as the
rule, and not the exception, of their condition, leads me to remark, first, upon
THE SPIRIT OF THE HOME-LIFE.
We have seen that the family was
organized as God's sacred institution to
perpetuate holiness among men; antedating the church, the ministry, the priest 
Christ's Infantg Kingdom    73
hood, the Sunday school, - itself God's
primeval church and ministry of grace.
This desiga,nof the household, therefore,
shows what should be its spirit. It
should be thoroughly Christian in that
bright and summer-like glow of a cheerful piety which no more needs a label to
tell us what it is than does the sunsine
of a June morning.
I cannot do even physiological justice
to this part of the subject, without here
saying, that this Christian sunshine is an
important preparation for maternal cares.
Children should be anticipated and accepted as a blessing from the Lord.  The
contrary habit of feeling is one of the
particularly bad symptoms  of a civilization too corrupt and selfish and debilitated
to meet the proper duties of humanity. 
74   Christ's Infa nt Kingdom.
To regard a family offspring as a trouble some interference with other business or
pleasure- to fret and worry about these
burdens, is enough to poison beforehand
the life of a child, as it also shows a lack
of trust in the divine providence, and of
acquiescence in the divine plans, which
quite unfit that parent to be the conveyer
of a holy nurture to the young spirit in
her keeping.  Mothers should know that
their Christian duties begin before God
puts these little ones into their arms. It
were a false modesty to hide a thought so
vital to this subject.
The spirit of a home which shall be a safe
place for a young immortal should show a
steady control of religious considerations
in its common life. We very well know
what is meant by the temper of a family, 
Chrisg's Infant Kingdom.
as peaceful or quarrelsome, or selfish or
benevolent, or vain or ambitious or frivolous or slanderous, or devoutly Christian.
That is the atmosphere, whatever it be,
which the members of that home-circle
are daily breathing. The children absorb
it at every pore, and are nourished or
poisoned by it. It impresses infancy with
its forces, in tones of the voice, expressions
of the familiar faces, and the keynote of
the continual routine of work and play.
It is a mistake which indolence or petulance often tries to believe, that very
young children are not much impressed by
surrounding things. So far firom this is
the fact, Ihat the first five years; which
are years mostly of mere external impressions from domestic scenes, do actually set
the growth of most children in a way that
75 
76   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
is never constitutionally changed even by
converting grace.
Your ehild is not a month old before it
begins to be impressed, favorably or unfavorably, by your way of handling it,
speaking to it, using it.  It lies on its
mother's lap a babe without the power of
speech; but her countenance is the book
from which that infant mind reads its first
lessons of feeling and thought,- an illustrated page  beaming  with  smiles and
peacefulness, or roughened with frowns,
defaced by fretfulness and passion.   It
cannot speak; but its ear is quick to catch
the gentle tones of affection, or the sharp
explosions of impatience: and, if-its understanding be not old enough to tell in what
they differ, its heart knows well enough
that they are as unlike as light and dark 
Ckrist's Infant Kingdom.   77
ness. Then come the questions of right
and wrong, which, in a few years, will be
asked and -answered,-  answered, not in
words only or chiefly, but in the conduct
and bearing of every-day life.  That child
is learning its commandments out of your
temper and behavior.  It is getting its
sense of obligation from what it sees is
your code of truth and duty.  You are
educating its conscience to a delicate
sensitiveness, or to a dull, heavy sluggishness. The first time it fairly knows that
a parent is doing, speaking, or feeling
wrongly, is like twisting a tender nurserytwig into a crooked stick, and tying  it
there. 0 lamentable twist!
The parent is to that child in the place
of God. How faultless, then, should that
parent be! Parental goodness, kindness, 
78   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
calmness, truthfulness, justice, should be
to the young child its best revelation of
God's fatherly excellence and love. Children do get their earliest impressions of
God from the parental character. What
should that be? What is it?
The spirit of the home as thus demanded is not the product of what are
called easy circumstances, nor need it be
prevented by narrow and straitened condlitions in life. It is impossible to say
that the former are, on the whole, better
adapted to secure it than the latter. It
is the product of God's daily grace in
hearts which realize, and love to remember,
that they live to be a vital link between
God and the souls which he has given to
their direct forming influence.   It is a
holy spirit within them, strong and steady, 
Christ's Infant'Kingdom.   79
and heavenly enough, to repress all efforts
for mere show and rivalry in dress, furnishings, style as an object of ambitious
desire; to check, before spoken, every
word of detraction and ill-will; to subject
the anxieties of life as to food and raiment,
and secular getting-on in the world, to a
hopeful trust in an ever present and loving
God; thus keeping hushed the voice of
repining  and murmuring,  of  "fretting
against the Lord," or, what is the same
thing, against the orderings of fortune and
misfortune. It is plain that we are concerned here with a host of "little things,"
wlfhich only a soul habitually at peace
with itself, and raised above the world by
union with Christ, can properly adjust.
Very likely you are tempted to say, "This
is beautiful, but impossible." That unbe
~. O  
8o   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
lief will doubtless make it so to you; but it
is not impossible.  It has been and is an
actual, if not an absolutely perfect, attainment in circumstances as difficult as yours
can be. It is only requiring, that, while
"not slothful in business," in doors or out,
you  be "fervent  in spirit, serving  the
Lord;" and that thus your children shall
draw their first breath, and their daily
breath, in a home of love and cheerfulness
and contentment, and faith in God, and
benevolent sympathies, and kind words,
and heavenly aspirations.
CHILDHOOD S LONG DEPENDENCE ON PA            RENTAL CARE.
What, but to give parental influence
time to mould thie young, is the reason
tha.t it talkes a dozen years or more to
I..,
.'i 
;  a.     i 
Ckrist's Infan! Kingdom. 8i
bring a boy or girl forward to the same
amount of physical, self-sustaining vigor
which is rteached by most animals in a
single year? Some writers have set this
down as a point of inferiority in the
human race, compared with the lower
races, that they are so soon able to cast off
this oversight, while we must depend on it
for a long period.  But suppose that we
needed to remain at home no longer than
the brood of birds in their nest, or the
young of the flocks and herds, where
would be the opportunity to transmit
character from sire to son? To some, in
truth, it would be a mercy, could they
dispense with the care of those who
brought them into this world, as early as
the brute which perishes can do without
its mother. And so it might have been
6 
82   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
in all cases of human birth so far as our
bodily make is concerned. We could
have  bees  endowed with strength and
instinct enough for this speedy self-protection, had this been all.  But the whole
arrangement for the propagation of mankind contemplated these facts, - that
parents should be worthy to transfer by
home-nurture their moral likeness to their
offspring, and should have years enough
of slow and gentle and most confidential
intercourse with them, and influence over
them, in which effectually to do it. This
was the original family-idea; nor has the
outbreak of sin among men altered any
thing of the intention of the family, -its
laws and obligations. 
Christ's Infant Kingdom 83
HOME GOVERNMENT.
There  1ll not be need for much of this
if the home spirit is right; or, rather, it
will be a government which will so justify its goodness, even in severity, that it
will be accepted cheerfully as just and
kind.
But we must not be betrayed into ideal
speculations. These children, even if under
the moulding of the Divine Spirit, are still
but children, unripe in wisdom, experience,
self-knowledge, imperfect and sinful. If
grown-up Christians need government,
young Christians also need it; and young
aliens from Christ need it yet more.
Authority is vested in parental hands.
It is to be asserted, maintained, used, in
family administration.  To discard it, and 
84   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
to attempt to supply its place with other
suasions, is to run against divine teachings
and true philosophy. Yet while authority
is to be felt in the home as the pervading
presence of its very life, -its foundation
under it, and its roof over it, - it should be
so manifestly a Christian authority, that it
will no more be disputed by the young
wills and consciences there than is the
dominion of God over all right natures.
It is the authority of the heavenly Father
delegated to the family head:" Children,
obey your parents in the Lord; for this is
right."                             -:
There is no necessary connection between
authority and harshness;  no opposition
between steady and even stern government,
and the spirit of love. It is a slander on
love to call it blind.  It is a poor sort of 
Ckrist's Infant Kingdom. 85
love which has no eyes to see peril and
wrong, and no hand to hold back, with the
infliction (~ need be) of present pain, the
inexperienced and the endangered. The
love of God is no such soft and easy and
nerveless a thing as that. Fear and punishment have their proper place in his administration. They will be wanted within
call in the most Christian house. Yet they
are not to be called in, except in the last
resort; but they are to be known as lying
back among the resources of domestic discipline, - a real fact to fall back upon when
absolutely required as the ultimate defence
of the parental supremacy.  And  being
thus known, even as we know that the Almighty Father, with all his tender-heartedness, has a rod and a scourge always within
reach, they will only the more demonstrate 
86   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
how worthy is that human parent of the
profoundest respect and affection.
The ideal conception of government, like
every thing else in a Christian home, should
be as a means of holy nurture. Its end is
not just to have this or that order obeyed,
but to form a spirit of obedience, a subjection of the will to that which is right.
Hence all commands and wishes should
be conscientiously right; and they should
be expressed in a right temper, with no
blustering agitation or heated menace.
And if, unhappily, they involve the enforcement of punishment (as very seldom they
should need to), this is to be inflicted in the
most tendey, prayerful, Christian temper of
all.
Commands should be thoughtfully and
lrightly given, then never recalled or evad 
Christ's- Infant Kingdom.   87
ed: but they should be carried through,
slowly if best, but surely; without chastisement, if possible to avoid it; but if this
becomes necessary, then time and place
(always alone) are to be wisely selected.
And never begin severely, but gently, yet
firmly, watching most carefully the effect;
pausing to mark it, to put in kind and winning words, to hold your own temper in
most complete control: but never dismiss
the case until you have good evidence that
the will of your child has sincerely submitted to your own.
You see the delicacy of this matter of
the home government: it forbids a rough,
exacting, teazing, spasmodic management
of  children, -all sugar one hour,  and
all vinegar for a good many more than the
next. It looks to a subdual of the wi]l, 
88   Chris/'s Infant Kingdom.
not a breaking of it (there is a worldwide difference here). We want men and
women Qf unbending wills, but not of
stubborn wilfulness. Family government
in all its processes looks to a cheerful submission of the will to duty, to right, to
holiness, to Christ: it must not rest in any
end short of this. If it does, it fails of its
Christian office. If it be merely a trial
of strength between parent and child, of
cunning, of persistence,'or any thing of
this kind, you will gain no real mastery
of that child: you will educate it into a
hypocrite or a stouter rebel. If, on the
contrary, your child sees, from its earliest
perceptions, that you are using your parental authority in the same spirit, and for the
same ends, that you pray in your houshold,
and fill it withi the sunlight of your Chris 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.   89
tian love and grace, it will be a short
struggle, if any, which you will have, to
bring everysloving heart in that charmed
circle into habitual dutifulness to you as
put by God over that circle of young hearts
to connect it with the family of the Lord in
heaven.  Does this. require much grace?
Certainly. But does it require any more
than every Christian should have, may
have,- may daily exercise?
CASES OF HOM01E DISCIPLINE.
One or two examples of correction will
illustrate the importance of not yielding
until the will of the child is subdued.
A little girl between two and three years
of age had manifested, one morning, a peculiarly unlovely and refractory spirit.
Being the first-born of that family, it was 
go Christ's Infant Kingdom.
felt to be especially needful thoroughly to
settle the principle of obedience in her
case.   The father - a clergyman -laid
aside his usual work, took his daughter
alone to a chamber, explained to her as
clearly as he could wherein she was wrong,
and told her kindly, but firmly, that neither
would leave the room until he was satisfied
of her sincere repentance, and surrender to
his will.  Hours passed before that point
was reached; but reached it was, at last
(and that without any other chastisement),
in a tearful, heart-broken, intelligent giving-up of that young rebellion. It was a
severely painful trial to more than two
hearts in that house; but it never had to
be repeated. It broke up the business-arrangements of a day; but it saved hours
and days of after trouble. It placed upon 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.  9I
a thousand subsequent acts and feelings
the seal of an easy submission to parental
government.  That little girl gave good
evidence of Christian character before she
ceased to be a little girl.
A second example. The son of another
clergyman, scarcely beyond infantile years,
came up to his father's study-table, and
taking up his watch by the chain, which
was hanging within his reach, retreated to
the other side of the room.  The father
called him to bring it back. The boy
would not obey. The father, holding out
his hand, bade him put the watch in it.
Still he refused. Again and again he was
bidden to do it. At length the child reluctantly began to come towards the table.
The struggle against submission was giving way under the steady eye of the father, 
92   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
until the half-yielding boy held the watch
directly over his parent's hand. Still the
order w s to place it therein. But, while
yet for a moment the hesitating boy debated the point of doing as he was told, the
father hastily caught the watch from his
grasp. The child had conquered. He felt
it; and that father felt it, and years after
he said, that, from that unfortunate day, he
never had evidence of a hearty yielding of
that boy's will to his on a debated point.
A superficial obedience was the most which
he could secure. Do you say that a thing
like that is a mere trifle? So is the hinge
that swings the massive gate.of a city; so
is the spark which explodes a magazine.
The smallest divergence from a right line,
if followed out, will by and by make an
immense and an immeasurable divergence. 
Chris.'s Infant Kingdom. 93
HOME TEACHING AND DEVOTION.
I join these together, because religious
instruction should always be saturated with
devout feeling.  If it ever is dry, hard, repulsive to the young, the reason is, that it
is attempted as head-work and will-work,
without much, if any, heart in it. Children, above all others, are to be reached
through the affections.
Family religious teaching should not be
set off by itself as a thing apart from all
other interests. It should not be confined
to the Lord's Day, nor to any set way of
inculcation. It should blend itself with
the other interests of life, and flow in naturally and freely with the stream of daily
thought and conversation.  There should
be nothing forced or sanctimonious in deal 
94   Christ's Infant Kingdom.
ing religiously with childhood. Young
minds are quick to detect pretences: they
catch byintuition the motive and feeling
of others. If they see that you bring themn
up to a lesson of this sort because the time
has come, and you think you ought to, you
will only disgust them with the whole subject of Christian truth and devotion.
Religious conversation should be easy
and spontaneous in a religious home, - the
most so of any conversation in it.  It should
readily start from a hundred things suggesting the care and love of God, the purity
and the sympathy of Jesus, the spiritual
value of life, the expected blessedness of
heaven.
The religious lessons of childhood should
follow, as a rule, the capacity of its years.
The Bible is its great storehouse; and 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.   95
surely, for the beginnings of this instruction, the narratives of both Testaments are
just the subjects adapted to interest and
benefit the opening mind. Children never
weary of Scripture stories; and nothing can
take the place of these as a power over
the young spirit to mould it aright. No
one will question that the teaching given
should, for the most part, be within the
child's comprehension. Yet I dissent
from the opinion, that there should be no
lessons given beyond this limit; for we
all have to learn many such lessons as long
as we live. Why, then, should not the
young begin to do so? This, too, is absolutely necessary in order to cultivate the
principle and habit of faith. Christ's rule
is not, believe only what you can see, but
blessed is he, who, not seeing, still believes. 
96   Christ's Infani Kingdom.
This rule is as good for the first years of
life as for the last. And let this be noted,
that scepticism has increased in the world
just as this modern notion has gained sway,
that you must teach children nothing but
what they can understand about God and
Christ, and the soul and religion. Imbibing this fallacy in childhood, they most
naturally demand to carry it out in afteryears: and it will carry them out to halfway or utter infidelity. It is a proud ambition which can never give the repose of
heart which we all need. It shuts off
heaven from the soul as completely as the
brass slide kept closed at the end of a telescope will shut from the eye th6 splendors
of the starry sky.
Consequently, while making the easy
portions of the Bible the staple of Chris 
ChIrist's Infant Kingdom. 97
tian teaching in the family, this instruction
should be judiciously strengthened with a
simple statement of the fundamental doctrines of redemption, as also being revealed
facts to be learned and remembered; with
little or no attempts to explain them
further than can be easily followed. They
are to be received on trust until they shall
bemore fully understood.
Fcr eighteen hundred years, the Church
relied on catechetical instruction as a necessary part of the Christian training of its
youth. Within fifty years, this has been
decried as unphilosophical, irrational, antiquated, oppressive. Whence this cry?
From the camp of the sceptics and that
wing of the Christian communion which
lies nearest them. This kind of teaching
should be restored in our families and
7
4.  
98   Christ's Infani Kingdom.
churches, but in a simpler form than that
in which it used to be given. One of our
pressing'cdenominational wants is a catechism for the young, which shall be more
devotional than dogmatic in its character,
dealing less with sharply-cut definitions
for the intellect, and more with living and
moving appeals to the heart. Such a help
to  domestic  and  pastoral  instruction
would be warmly welcomed in hundreds
of our homes.
What other aids to this instruction may
be used should be cautiously selected by
parents and teachers, whether in the form
of religious newspapers for the young or for
older readers; for the children will not be
content without a sight of what their elders read. In the department of religious
biographies, and particularly of religious 
Christ's Infant Kingdom.   99'
novels, this care should be constant and
close; and, if it was, the numbers of these
books would undergo a rapid and large
diminution.  If nine out of every dozen
of the last-named volumes could be turned
again into blank paper, the moral and spiritual dangers of our young people would be
immensely lessened.
PARENTS CANNOT DELEGATE THIS WORK.
This office of instruction cannot be
turned over by parents to other hands.  It
inheres in the family constitution as much
as nursing and feeding and clothing your
offspring. It would be no stranger for you
to send your children out to your neighbors
for these cares than to rely, for example,
on the Sabbath school for their Christian
education. Here is a fearful neglect of 
too 00  Christ's Infant Kingdom.
parental duty and privilege. Thousands
of our church-members have actually con    signed this grave matter to Sabbath-school
teachers, who may or may not be compe    tent to such a work, - many of them not
fathers or mothers themselves, and with
no personal consciousness, therefore, of pa    rental solicitudes. But if they are, and
if they were most competent to this duty,
they are not these children's parents, and
as such will never have to answer for these
children's souls.
The Sabbath school has its important
work to do. It may greatly aid the Work
of the Christian parent. It has a special
and wide field of labor among the irreli   gious families and masses of Christendom.
And the Church should also sustain.it by
its presence and influence to give it stand, *:*.., F  
Chrisg's Infang Kingdom.   I O
ing and power, as much as it sustains the
public and social worship of God. But
the Sabbat school must not foster, without a constant protest, parental negligence
and unfaithfulness. Parents can turn it
to their help every week, by making it a
point to look after the preparations of their
children for the school-lesson, and then
following up its labors with their own additional counsels and prayers.
The daily worship of God in the assembled household is a power for holiness
which no faithful and consistent Christian
will neglect. It lies very close to the fulfilment of this gracious promise of the
Lord: "I will pour my Spirit upon thy
seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring."
A short selection of Scripture; a brief,
natural, and loving prayer; a familiar 
I02   Chirist's Infant Kingdorm.
hymn of adoration, gratitude and trust,these acts of devotion will not weary or
disgust the youngest child. A simple,
humble, fervent worship thus maintained,
and inwoven with the first impressions of
life, is one of the most undying of influences which the human heart receives.
So should the infant tongue be taught
itself to pray, and to sing hymns of praise
to Christ for his redeeming love. A Christian's child should be taught from the beginning that he or she is Christ's; that
they were made for him; that they have
been solemnly dedicated to him in baptism
according to the eternal covenant of faith;
that they are more his children, by every
right and bond, than they are ours. This
idea should be a constant presence with
them, -that they are to grow up in the 
Christ's Infant Kingcom.   103
flock of the Good Shepherd as his lambs,
his sheep, made his by regenerating grace;
that they are the very ones whom  he
meant, and now means, when he said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me,
and forbid them not; for of such is the
kingdom of God."
I bring these pages to a close with an
earnest appeal to the fathers and mothers
who may read them to take the truths
now set forth into good and honest hearts.
If there be a motive to draw a Christian
parent closer to God, and a motive to
draw an unchristian parent to Christ in a
sincere conversion to his service, these
children of yours are these motives, whom
you should be leading with you every day
heavenward. The parental tie is the most
sacred thing on earth. God winds it 
!O4  Christ's Infant Kingdom.
around hearts here to make, through it,
a circle of love and worship beyond thliis
life. It is the channel along which he
would pour the tides of holiness over this
earth. Thus are the nations to be saved.
The family is to fill the Church;  the
Church is to fill the world.
"Give, then, 0 Lord, thy holy Spirit to
these little ones, that they may be born
again, and be made heirs of everlasting salvation: through our Lord Jesus Christ, who
liveth and reigneth with thee and the holy
Spirit, now and forever.  Amen."
s   *JA    2<-   ~49
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