188 MORAL CONDITION OF THE CHILD 



trine in holding to the acceptable relation of chil- 

 dren to God. As good a theologian as Dr. W. F. 

 Warren, as fraternal delegate from the General 

 Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church to 

 the British Conference in 1882, in ringing words 

 presented the following ideal: "What, then, is the 

 type higher and better? . . . It is the type which 

 does not demand . . . that the first years of 

 every life shall be given to the service of sin and 

 Satan; it is the type which comes of making the 

 resources of divine grace equal to all the necessi- 

 ties of childhood; it is the type which conies to 

 light in the Christian household when the child of 

 many prayers and of intelligent Christian nurture 

 yields to the drawings of the Holy Spirit so early 

 and so sweetly as never in later life to know when 

 it began to love God and to lead a life prayerful 

 and Christian and of ever-growing beauty and 

 strength. . . . Bare as its actualization may be, 

 it is the type which God by His Holy Spirit is 

 evermore trying to actualize in every Christian 

 home. ... If the Methodism of the future is to 

 be equal to her providential call and mission in 

 this respect, she must not permit the exponents 

 of a catastrophic piety to hide her loftier and bet- 

 ter ideal. . . . She must acknowledge those 

 whom God acknowledges, and, like her Lord, re- ' 

 buking all interdiction, she must take these little 

 ones in her arms and bless them, saying, 'Of such 

 is the Kingdom of heaven. ' ... In our concep- 

 tion there is perfect purity for the vilest sinner. 



