If there is any work in the world which peculiarly deserves the name of the work of the devil, it is the hindrance which men sometimes put in the path in which their fellow-creatures are called by God to walk. Of all the temptations which surround us in this world of temptations, the most difficult, in almost all cases, to deal with, are those which our fellowmen cast in our way.
I. The most glaring form of the sin of tempting others is that of persecuting and ridiculing the conscientious. It is almost always easy to find means for doing this. Every one who endeavours to live as God would have him is sure to lay himself open to ridicule, if nothing worse. There is mixed up with our very best actions quite enough of weakness, of folly, of human motives, of human self-seeking, to give a good handle to any one who seeks for a handle, and supply materials for a bitter jest, for a scoff, not quite undeserved. How easy it is to ridicule the imperfect virtue, because it is imperfect; how easy, and yet how wicked!
II. Are Christians quite safe from doing this great and sinful mischief? I fear not. (1) In the first place, Christians are not exempt from the common failing of all men, to condemn and dislike everything which is unlike the ordinary fashion of their own lives. (2) Again, Christians are quite as liable as other men to be misled by the customs of their own society, and to confound the laws that have grown up among themselves with the law of God. (3) Again, Christians are very often liable, not, perhaps, to put obstacles in the way of efforts to do right, so much as to refuse them the needful help without which they have little chance of succeeding. (4) Again, Christians are quite as liable as any to give wrong things untrue names, and to take away the fear of sin by a sort of good-natured charity towards particular faults. (5) Lastly, Christians are liable to that which is the common form of tempting among those who are not Christians; not to persecute or ridicule what is right, but to seek for companions in what is wrong. They are tempted, whenever sin is too powerful for their wills, to double it by dragging others with them on the same path.
Bishop Temple, Rugby Sermons,1st series, p. 166.
I. The little child is the hero of Christ's panegyric in the context. The little child is the type of the citizen of God's kingdom. Its simplicity, its innocence, its frankness, its trustfulness are the badges of civic privilege in the heavenly polity. And as the little child is the subject of the encomium in the context, so is it also the occasion of the warning in the text. It is the stumbling-block placed in the way of Christ's little ones that calls down the denunciation of woe. We may resent the imputation of a childish nature; we may throw off its nobler characteristics, but its feebler qualities will cling to us still. The category of Christ's little ones is as wide as the Church is wide, as mankind is wide. We are all exposed to the force of some stronger nature than our own stronger in intellect, or stronger in moral character and definiteness of purpose, or stronger (it may be) in mere passion of temperament, attracting us to the good or impelling us to the evil.
II. Let no man think that he can escape responsibility in this matter. There is some element of strength in all, even the very weakest. It may be superior intellectual power or high mental culture; it may be a wider acquaintance with the world; it may be a greater force of character; it may be more enlarged religious views: in some way or another each man possesses in himself a force which gives him a power over others, and invests him with a responsibility towards Christ's little ones.
III. Against the perils of influence I know of only one security the purification, the discipline, the consecration of the man's self. Be assured, if there is any taint of corruption within, it will spread contagion without. It is quite impossible to isolate the inward being from the outward. No man can be always on his guard. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." Each one of us carries about with him a moral atmosphere, which takes its character from his inmost self.
Bishop Lightfoot, Oxford and Cambridge Journal,Oct. 26th, 1876.
Reference: Matthew 18:7. H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 1,579.