I would teach a child, in defiance
even of reason, that God is the one Power that loves and
understands him through thick and thin; that He punishes with
anguish and sorrow; that He exults in forgiveness and mercy; that
He rejoices in innocent happiness; that He loves courage, and
brightness, and kindness, and cheerful self-sacrifice; that things
mean, and vile, and impure, and cruel, are things that He does not
love to punish, but sad and soiling stains that He beholds with
shame and tears. This, it seems to me, is the Gospel teaching about
God, impossible only because of the hardness of our hearts. But if
it were possible, a child might grow to feel about sin, not that it
was a horrible and unpardonable failure, a thing to afflict oneself
drearily about, but that it was rather a thing which, when once
spurned, however humiliating, could minister to progress, in a way
in which untroubled happiness could not operate--to be forgotten,
perhaps, but certainly to be forgiven; a privilege rather than a
hindrance, a gate rather than a barrier; a shadow upon the path,
out of which one would pass, with such speed as one might, into the
blitheness of the free air and the warm sun.
Pages:
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388