588 APPENDIX TO PART III

you, and this without risk to your soul; then, also, from this younger Soldier in Christ’s army, from this feebler pilgrim in Christ’s way, withdraw the breastplate of Righteousness, the Sword of the Word; let him trust in his assurance of salvation, subject him to no discipline and to no reproof, instruct him not in the will, train him not in the ways of God, and trust still that he will endure to the end, and be saved.¹ But if you dare not do this in your own case, much less dare you do it in his? For a time, you are just as literally the Keeper of that Child’s Conscience and Soul as you are of your own; do not meet me with the common escape-truism, that Christ is your soul’s keeper-you will not be able to tell Christ at the Judgment, if then you have lost your soul, that you thought He would have taken care of it for you. You are just as much the Keeper of your soul as you are of your Life; and as much of your child’s soul as of your own. What you tell him he will believe, until he finds you out in a lie; what you do before him he will imitate; what you suggest to him he will pursue; all his thoughts, affections, and habits are at your mercy; and do you say that with this power, and God to pray to, you cannot keep his Soul? Have you ever heartily tried-have you not left it in a thousand instances to his own keeping or to that of Strangers-or have you cared about his soul at all, or as much as you cared whether he were handsome and well bred?

§ 26.”Yes,” perhaps you answer, unhappy parent, “I have done all I could for him, and he is reprobate still; I baptized him in faith, I taught him God’s Word, I set good and evil before him and he has chosen the evil.” And fain would we leave this bitter sorrow without even the shadow of reproach. But if ever in your sorrow you are led to doubt the efficacy of the rite which God ordains, or the faithfulness of this promise attached thereto, dare to ask yourself whether your treatment of the lost child was wise as well as religious, consistent as well as holy. Was there common sense, common resolution, in the education, as well as piety and love? Nay, you reply, a child is not a reprobate because its Parent wants common sense! Alas, why not because of this want, as well as for any other? Are not Men’s souls lost every day for want of common sense? and why not Children’s also? There is no cause, no instrument so small, but God uses it to produce, or prevent, events the most momentous. You see the Ship drift to the Rocks, but you know not how many times God, when He had appointed its destruction, touched the finger of the Steersman months ago, on the calm water of its Path. And perhaps you would know, if you were admitted for an instant into the Counsel of the Most High, that one of those light touches of the steersman’s finger was more the cause of the destruction of the Ship than the current which carried her to the Reef, or the white waves that are rending her before your eyes. And when His judgment is set, and the books are opened, you will perhaps discover that while no soul was ever lost but by the determined counsel and Foreknowledge of God, yet a strange account of Secondary Causes has been kept against those who dealt with them upon the Earth, and that many and many a one of those condemned Spirits has been lost for want of a single quiet word spoken at the right time.

¹ [Ephesians vi. 14; Matthew x. 22.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]