SPARE THE CHILDREN
(Sunday-School Anniversary Sermon.)
Isaiah 13:18. Their eye shall not spare children.
This declaration is made concerning the Medes, by whom the power of Babylon was destined to be broken. So thoroughly bent will they be upon their mission of revenge, that they will not be turned away from it by any appeals either to their avarice (Isaiah 13:17) or to their pity (text). The helplessness of infancy and the innocence of youth, which are naturally so impressive and persuasive, will not avail to stay them in their devastating career.
We should display a singular ignorance of the world in which we live, if we were therefore to pronounce the Medes exceptional monsters of iniquity. Alas! there are many imitators of their relentless cruelty. In our own land children are not spared in relation to evils even more terrible than war. Youth is always beset by dangers, even when it is most carefully guarded; but when it is specially under the influence of wicked men, it is often ruthlessly sacrificed. Widespread is the spirit of evil which knows not how to pity it. Examples of its existence and operations are to be found—
1. In houses where the most hurtful principles and vicious practices are continually set before children. From their youth up they are not spared from the most disastrous influences (H. E. I., 775–779).
2. In business, where often the most sacred interests of childhood are sacrificed for the sake of gain. Their health, by inflicting upon them excessive labour. Even their morality, by fiends who tempt them into haunts of vice. Compared with these incarnations of diabolical cruelty, the Medes were merciful.
The season of childhood appeals to our concern and should awake our compassion—
1. By its helplessness. It has to lean upon others.
2. By its ignorance. It has had no time to learn (H. E. I., 780).
3. By its inexperience. Unless it is aided by the guidance of mature wisdom, it must almost necessarily go astray.
4. By its peculiar susceptibility to every kind of moral influence. To these appeals let us give reverent, cheerful, and thoughtful heed. Let us not be content to shudder at this prediction concerning the Medes, or at such historical records as that of the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem (Matthew 2); let us make the children the objects of our care.
1. Let us spare our own children, from all unreasonable demands upon them, from the mischiefs that will inevitably come upon them if we do not carefully train them in the way they should go.
2. Let us spare the children of the poor from the evils of ignorance. These evils are terrible and far-reaching. Not to rescue them from these evils when we have the power to do so, is to doom them to them. In the Sunday-school we have a means of rescue which we cannot neglect without sin.—William Manning.