And then suppose I said to the child, ’God cares for each of these tiny living creatures.  How do you know that He does not care for them as much as He does for you?  God made them for His own pleasure, that He might rejoice in the work of His own hands.  How do you know that He does not rejoice in them as much as in you?  Those mighty worlds and suns above your head, which you call stars, how do you know that they are not as much more glorious and precious in God’s sight than you are, as they are larger and more beautiful than you are?  And mind! all these things, from the tiniest insects in the water-drop, to the most vast star or comet in the sky, all obey God.  They have not fallen, as you have; they have not sinned, as you have; they have not broken the law, by which God intended them to live, as you have.  The Bible tells you so; and the discoveries of learned men prove that the Bible is right, when it declares that they all continue to this day according to His ordinance; for all things serve Him; that sun, and moon, and stars, and light are praising Him; that fire and hail, snow and vapour, wind and storm, mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars, beasts and all cattle, worms and feathered fowl, are showing forth His glory day and night; because He has made them sure for ever and ever, each according to its kind, and given them a law which shall not be broken; for all His works praise Him, and show the glory of His kingdom, and the mightiness of His power, that His power, His glory, and the mightiness of His kingdom might be known unto the children of men.

And you!—­They keep God’s ordinance, and you have broken it; they fulfil God’s word, you fulfil your own fancies.  They have a law which shall not be broken, you break God’s law daily.  Are not they better than you?  Is not, not merely sun and stars, but even the meanest gnat which hums in the air, better than man, more worthy of God’s love than man?  For man has sinned, and they have not.’

Do you not think that I should sadden, and terrify the child, and make him ready to cry out, ’Whither shall I flee from the wrath of this great Almighty God; who has made this wondrous heaven and earth, and all of it obeys Him, except me—­I a rebel against Him who made and rules all this?’

My friends, I only say, suppose that I spoke thus to your children.  For God forbid that I should speak thus to any human being, without having first taught him the Lord’s Prayer, without first having taught him to say, ’I believe in Jesus Christ, Very God of Very God, who was born of the Virgin Mary, and took man’s nature on Him;’ without having taught him to say, ’Our Father which art in heaven, Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever, Amen.’  So it is, and so let it be:  for so it is well, and so I am safe, sinner and rebel though I be.