DAILY READINGS IN LIFE OF CHRIST - J.R. Miller (1890)

September 24. The Children's Friend

"Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them." Matthew 19:13 

Those children must have been glad in after days, to remember that Jesus had laid His hands upon their heads and blessed them. Sometimes the remembrance even of a human hand laid on the head in childhood, stays all through life, and is a benediction.

A Christian man said late in his life, that he could still feel the touch of his dying mother's hand on his head as she bade him farewell and asked him to promise to follow Christ. A boy was brought to his father's bedside, and was "kissed and blessed and given to God." All through his youth, when there came any temptation to do wrong, the thought would come, "No! I must not do this, for I am the boy who was kissed and blessed and given to God." When, later in life, burdens pressed and he was about to yield to despair — he would remember his father's acts and words, and the remembrance would support him: "No! Am I not the boy who was kissed and blessed and given to God?"

In the stress of life his mind at last gave way, and he spent years in the gloomy apartments of an insane asylum. And thence in his brighter moments he would write to his daughter: "Here I am shut away and very lonely. I have no one to sing to me as you used to do — 'Jesus, lover of my soul,' or 'Rock of Ages, cleft for me.' It seems very dark and hard; but yet, I am the boy that was kissed and blessed and given to God." 

Thus all through his life he was sustained and strengthened by the remembrance of his father's last blessing. If all who have consecrated themselves to Christ, and have had His hand laid on them, would ever remember that holy touch — how pure and true would it make their lives!

NOTE: I once wrote a short devotion on a painting of the late eighteenth century that was on display in the Louvre in Paris of Christ and the Children. I cannot find that painting now, but it presented a perspective on the Gospel that is worth repeating. Christ is seated with a child on his lap and surrounded by children of all races - all are so close as to be touching Christ except one little black boy is seated just before Christ but not touching him. Christ has his gaze fixed on this young boy of color. The point of the artist was to depict all the nations to which the Gospel had been plentifully delivered except the great continent of Africa. Christ yearned to send missionaries into Africa to reach that little boy and others. (J.Ogles)