may lead the rest of their Hves according to that beginning.”
Thou hast told us in Thy Word what an exceeding love Thou bearest towards children, for Thou didst take them up in Thine arms and bless them; Thou didst stop in Thy path when Thy disciples were minded to pass them by; Thou didst set a child in the midst of Thy disciples as an example of meekness and teachableness; Thy first martyrs were the holy innocents. Behold, then, how Thou didst love them. Teach me this love, that I may be a lover of their souls, a spiritual father, that I may win them to Thy truth before the world has won them through the deceitfulness of sin. Make me to yearn over them as the choice of my flock, the most pure, the most heavenly, the most like angels, trustful, ready to love, guileless, ignorant of actual sin, without art, real, sincere.
When I behold children in their innocency I could weep to think of sin and passion working in them and distorting them; their innocence doth fill me with reverence for those little ones. I feel humbled before them when I consider their guilelessness. A few little angers and waywardnesses, these are all the stains wherewith they are soiled as yet. What am I, with all these years