And such wise things as those children said sometimes! It is marvellous how
children can reach the heart of the truth at once. Their utterances are
sometimes entirely concordant with the results arrived at through years of
thought by the earnest mind--results which no mind would ever arrive at
save by virtue of the child-like in it.
Well, then, upon this evening I read to them the story of the boy Jesus in
the temple. Then I sought to make the story more real to them by dwelling a
little on the growing fears of his parents as they went from group to group
of their friends, tracing back the road towards Jerusalem and asking every
fresh company they knew if they had seen their boy, till at length they
were in great trouble when they could not find him even in Jerusalem. Then
came the delight of his mother when she did find him at last, and his
answer to what she said. Now, while I thus lingered over the simple story,
my children had put many questions to me about Jesus being a boy, and not
seeming to know things which, if he was God, he must have known, they
thought. To some of these I had just to reply that I did not understand
myself, and therefore could not teach them; to others, that I could explain
them, but that they were not yet, some of them, old enough to receive and
understand my explanation; while others I did my best to answer as simply
as I could.
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