Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.
Luke xviii. 17.

Dear Soul, couldst thou become a child
While yet on earth, meek, undefiled,
Then God Himself were ever near,
And Paradise around thee here.
Gerhard Tersteegen.

CHILDLIKENESS, in its Scripture sense, is a perfectness of trust, a resting in a Father’s love, a being borne on in its power, living in it — it means a simplicity which resolves all into the one idea of lowly submissive-ness to One in whom it lives; a buoyancy of spirit, which is a fountain of joy in itself, always ready to spring forth afresh brightly and happily to meet the claims of the present hour, not looking lingeringly back to the past, nor making plans independently, as of oneself, for the future; a resting contented in one’s lot, whatever that lot may be; a singleness of intention; a pliancy, a yielding of the will, a forgetfulness of self in another’s claims. To be thus childlike in the pure sense of such an ideal, is to be living in God, as one’s Father, one’s Preserver, one’s Guide, felt to be a perpetual Presence and Providence.
T. T. Carter