The Day of the Child 239 



The Day of the Child 



THIS day the churches called Christian 

 commemorate the mystery of Incarna 

 tion, wherein God came down to dwell 

 with man, being born in the babe of Mary as all 

 souls are born into bodies, and not otherwise, no 

 matter what faith be held as to the mystery. Since 

 and before, God has always been coming in the 

 form of a babe to regenerate the earth, even as 

 Jesus, when he was grown to be a prophet among 

 his people, testified, when he said that their angels 

 do always behold the face of the Father in heaven, 

 and that he who should not receive the kingdom 

 of heaven as a little child, he might in nowise enter 

 therein. Words not for the moment, but for all 

 times, before and since and forever. 



The naive, confiding, open and frank attitude 

 of the little child is not often kept, seldom enough 

 regained; yet often as one grows old, he discerns 

 how little by little he has been reassuming the 

 child s thought of many things, how sophistica 

 tions and subtleties, mockeries and antagonisms, 



