Children Seen in New Light with Coming of Christ

1908

Jesus the Light of Childhood. He, the only begotten Son of his Father, who had been in heaven since before the world was made; he who had shared in the making of this world, for we are told that "without him was not anything made," even he left his high estate, and so humbled himself that he came down to earth to live among men, being born of a woman.

Mary was that mother mild
And Jesus Christ that little child.

The Divine became a child, that a child might become almost divine. His birth in Bethlehem wrought a great change in the estimate of the child. Hitherto the elder or the Pharisee had been the ideal, but Jesus set a child in the midst, saying, "Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." And from that hour the whole fabric of childhood was changed.

Roman parents, perhaps the most cultured parents in the world, were guilty of the grossest cruelty to their new-born children, even abandoning them by carrying them to the Velabrum, a district in Rome, near Mount Aventine, where they were left to die or to be gathered up by ill-disposed people, who maimed them by curving their backs or shortening their limbs, in order to use them as beggars. "That workshop of human misfortunes, those shambles of infants," that was what the Velabrum was.

When the influence of Christ was felt, and Christianity began to hold sway, this crime against innocents was abated. Constantine, the first Christian emperor, put forth a proclamation to turn parents from using a murderous hand on their new-born children, and to dispose their hearts to the best sentiments. And the "abandoned" children were gathered from the Velabrum to be brought up honestly; foundling hospitals were established later, houses of mercy for children were founded by Justinian, and gradually all sorts of charities for the welfare of children have been developed, such as aid societies, creches, kindergartens, hospitals for children, schools for defective children, reformatory institutions, etc. It is the far-reaching influence of the fact that Christ was born in Bethlehem. — Christian Herald.