An appreciation of this truth is what the world, heart-sick
and weary as it is, now needs above all things else. And to illustrate
and enforce the fact that it is not a vain shadow, but a solid reality,
too solemn to be trifled with, and too important to be neglected,--to
illustrate this by deeds which bear joy to the joyless and hope to the
hopeless,--is _the_ work which Christians, the young as well as old, are
now called to perform. Will it need the voice of duty, which speaketh as
from the skies? This is the great truth, also, which, with all its
relations to life and duty, is to be impressed by the present, upon the
minds of the rising, generation. This is what my young readers are to
learn,--and not simply to learn, but to practise:--that we are all
brothers and sisters, no matter in what clime or country we may have
been born, or with what complexion we may be clothed.
A little girl, some five years of age, whom the writer of this has often
fondled in his arms, had well learned this most important lesson. By
pious parents and earnest Sabbath school teachers had she been taught,
that to be like Jesus, who took little children in his arms and blessed
them, she must love and do good unto all, as brothers and sisters. This
had sunk deep into her young and tender mind; and when, on a visit at
the house of a friend, she was asked that familiar question, which is so
often put to children,--whom she loved,--
After a moment's hesitation she replied, that she loved everybody.
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