Suppose we plant an acorn in a corner of our garden.  After awhile a green shoot springs out from it.  We go to look at it when it is about a foot high.  We find it getting crooked; but with the gentlest touch of thumb and finger, we can straighten it out.  We wish it to lean in a particular direction.  We give it a slight touch, and it leans just that way.  Afterwards we conclude to have it lean in the opposite direction.  Another slight touch, and it takes that direction.  It is true, as the poet says, “Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.”  But, suppose we let it grow for twenty or thirty years, and then come back to it.  It is now a great oak tree.  There is an ugly twist in its trunk.  We try to straighten it out; but in vain.  No power on earth can do that now.  You can cut it down; or saw it up; or break it into splinters; but you cannot straighten it.

Suppose, that you and I should go to one of the highest summits of the Rocky Mountains.  In a certain place there, we should find two little fountains springing up near each other.  With the end of a finger we might trace the course in which either of those little springs should flow.  We could lead one down the eastern side of the mountains, and the other down the western side.  It would be very easy to control them then.  But suppose now we travel down the side of the mountain till we reach the plain, at its base.  Now see, yonder is a great river, rolling on its mighty flood of waters.  That is what the little spring has grown to.  It is too late to control it now.  The time for controlling it was up yonder near the spring.

It is easy to control the spring; it is very hard to control the river.  Jesus wished to control the spring when he directed us to bring the children to him.  And in this he showed his wisdom.

It is wise to take an interest in children, and bring them early to Jesus—­because they have great influence in the world.

Who can tell the influence that children are exerting in the world?  We have an illustration of this in the words that were once spoken by Themistocles, the celebrated Grecian governor and general.  He had a little boy, of whom his mother was very fond and over whom the child had very great influence.  His father pointed to him, one day, and said to a friend, “Look at that child; he has more power than all Greece.  For the city of Athens rules Greece; I rule Athens; that child’s mother rules me, and he rules his mother.”

I feel sure our Saviour must have felt very much as some one has done, who writes in this way about

THE GOOD THAT CHILDREN DO.

  “A dreary place would be this earth
    Were there no little people in it;
  The song of life would lose its mirth
    Were there no children to begin it;

  “No little forms, like buds to grow,
    And make the admiring heart surrender;
  No little hands, on breast and brow,
    To keep the thrilling love-chords tender.