The Master and the Children

"In the House of Too Much Trouble Lived a lonely little boy;

He was eager for a playmate,

He was hungry for a toy.

But 'twas always too much bother, Too much dirt and too much noise, For the House of Too Much Trouble Wasn't meant for little boys.

"And sometimes the little fellow
Left a book upon the floor,
Or forgot and laughed too loudly,
Or he failed to close the door.
In the House of Too Much Trouble
Things must be precise and trim-
In the House of Too Much Trouble
There was little room for him.

'He must never scatter playthings,
He must never romp and play;
Every room must be in order
And kept quiet all the day.
He had never had companions,
He had never owned a pet-
In the House of Too Much Trouble
It is trim and quiet yet.

'Every room is set in order— Every book is in its place, And the lonely little fellow

Wears a smile upon his face. In the House of Too Much Trouble He is silent and at rest

In the House of Too Much Trouble, With a lily on his breast."

CHAPTER XIX

The Master and the Children

E who are working for the children cannot too often remind ourselves of our Lord's words to

Peter about the lambs. He

speaks of them as "my lambs." So the little children belong to Christ. Then he makes definite provision in his church for their care. He bade his apostle to feed his lambs. Feeding is a large word, however. The care must cover the whole life, the body, the mind, the spirit.

This is mother's work, first of all. No teacher can be substituted for a mother. It is God's ordinance that the mother comes first in shepherding the child. If she does her part faithfully, according to her ability, her hand never slacking, nothing will go wrong with the keeping of her child. There is no miracle of beautiful result in the bringing up of children who turn out well. That is the

divine way when the home care has been what it was ordained to be, and it cannot fail.

Next to the mother comes the teacher. The mother cannot do all. Her part is large and essential. God and the mother do the first work in the training of the child. Not God only-God and the mother. You cannot leave the mother out. God does not make men without mothers. You cannot substitute prayer for a mother-some one praying for the child instead of being a living mother to it. The human link may not be left out. It must be God and the mother.

Then the teacher.

Here another heresy

sometimes creeps in. Too much is left to God. The teacher depreciates his own work. He thinks he can do nothing. This is true of the teacher alone. "Apart from me ye can do nothing." But this does not mean that all the work is done by Christ and nothing by the teacher. God's plan is that we shall be coworkers with him. It is God and you. The weakness of a great deal that is called Christian work is that it has in it an

abundance of dependence upon the divine power, but the human part is lacking. If the teacher does indifferent work instead of his best, there will be a blank instead of splendid, Christ-made men and women. Christ still calls Peter to feed his lambs, and if Peter's hand slacks, the lambs will go unfed.

The teacher's work is essential. It is like the mother's, yet different. A great deal has been done in recent years to exalt the importance and widen the scope of the teacher's work. We have thousands of training classes in which students are drilled in the knowledge of the Bible, in child study and in matters which make them more skillful in teaching. There cannot be too much preparation and we must do our best. What Jesus had in mind and laid on Peter's heart was feeding his lambs. We know quite well the outcome our Lord desires to have from the work done by the church for the children. He wants them shepherded until they are full-grown. It is enough to say here a little in general of the way the teachers should do their work.