As a Little Child

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 80, 28 December 1935, Page 18

As a Little Child

“Something in the spirit of Christmas makes it plain that the cocksure sophistication of our day is pathetically superficial, its glittering cleverness profoundly stupid, and its towering pride tragically pitiful.” “As one listens again to the old, immortal story, and sings carols that echo down the ages, the scene which many think is only a fairy dream whicht we have agreed to dream for a day, and then forget, seems nearer to the truth than all our dim philosophies, if only because it does not seek too high for what is near by. After all, perhaps the most terrible error of our smart and giddy-paced age is that we have mistaken knowledge for truth, and cleverness for wisdom, and have forgotten to distinguish between the ‘childish things,’ which Saint Paul said should be put aside, and the great childlike things, which abide, and to which we owe the strength and sanity of life.

“By an odd freak of fact, the men in our day who are nearest to the spirit and mind of Jesus in their method and approach are men of science. Long ago Huxley—the elder Huxley, not his descendant, who shows us in an exquisite art the humour, irony and pathos of futility—said that the words of Jesus, ‘Except ye . . . become as little children,’ are the most perfect’ description of the spirit of science in its search for reality. If a man would know scientific truth, Huxley said, he must sit down before fact as a child, eager, humble, teachable, rich in wonder and pure in heart; and such a spirit is no less the secret of finding the truth of faith.

“And it is the glory of Christmas that ft makes known a truth which can never be uttered, but can only be incarnated and acted.”—Dr. Fort Newton.