Suffer the Little Children

But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. LUKE 18:16

Amanda Smith was a child whom the world counted as property. She was being got ready for market, as she later wrote, without knowing it, until her father bought her. She bore five children and buried four. She raised her surviving daughter largely alone, by washing and ironing through the night. In Africa she took two children who were not her own and raised them as hers. And in her old age she spent the last of her strength, and much of her peace, on a home for Black children whom no one else would take. The care of children runs through the whole of her story.

Teaching a child to pray

Her daughter Mazie was converted during a revival in her early teens, and her mother at once set about helping her to grow. Every morning they read the Bible, verse about, sang a verse of a hymn, and prayed. A few days after the conversion, Amanda said to her: “Now, Mazie, the Lord has converted you, and you are very happy; and now if you want to be a real, growing and strong Christian, you must learn to pray.” Mazie answered honestly that she said her prayers but did not know how to pray. Her mother told her that if she asked the Lord, He would teach her, and that from now on, when they knelt together, and at their little Saturday-night prayer meeting, Mazie would pray first.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. PROVERBS 22:6

The first morning was hard. Mazie sighed, and sighed again, and at last began, in her childish way, to thank the Lord for what He had done and to ask Him to teach her to pray. Her mother, kneeling beside her, knew the heavy cross had been taken up.

There is a tender detail her mother only reveals afterwards. The real reason she had Mazie pray first on Saturday nights was that the child had been carrying heavy baskets of washing all day, and her mother knew she would probably fall asleep on her knees while the others prayed. So she let her pray first, and never told her why. That is a small picture of wise Christian parenting: expectation and tenderness together, a real cross laid on the child, and a mother quietly making it bearable.

And ye, fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. EPHESIANS 6:4

Bob

In 1887, at Cape Palmas in Liberia, a small boy and his playmate used to hang on the gate of the house where she stayed, shouting good morning to her, and she would give them scraps from her table. One day the father of one of them came and asked her to take his boy and teach him about God, so that he would not grow up as ignorant of God as his father felt himself to be. She was sick with fever and had no money, and at first she told him to find a Liberian family instead. She explained to him that if she took the boy she must be his mother, just as if she had borne him herself; her heart would have to be as big as his own mother’s.

Then she prayed. She told the Lord that she had no money to support the child and did not want the responsibility with nothing to help herself or him, but that if He made it clear it was His will, she knew He would help her. It became clear. The father and mother came and signed an agreement giving their son Bob to Mrs. Amanda Smith to raise and educate as her own child, with Bishop Taylor as a witness. She took him to England, where one morning, kneeling together for their daily worship, he was converted, and then to America. She also cared for a little African girl, Frances, who was too sick to travel, and made provision for her before she left.

And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. MATTHEW 18:5

Other people’s children

Her book is full of children who were not hers. In Monrovia she worried over the African boys who worked as servants in Liberian families and drifted about on Sundays with no one to care for them. She rejoiced when some were converted in her meetings; these, she said, were to her the most interesting cases, because no one thought much about them. In Old Calabar she saw a missionary take in a newborn twin that had been left to die, wash it, and try in vain to feed it; she saw the young wives of chiefs, some of them girls of fourteen. She wrote of these things with grief.

Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. PSALM 82:3

Harvey

Her Autobiography ends in 1893, but the work that crowned her life came later. In 1899, in Harvey, Illinois, near Chicago, she opened an orphanage and industrial home for Black children — at a time when few institutions in the state would take them. She put into it the proceeds of her book and much of her savings. It was a hard work, always short of money and troubled by difficulties with staff, neighbours and inspectors; it cost her health and, by most accounts, a good deal of her peace. She kept at it until she could no longer carry it, and in 1912 she retired to Florida.

It would be easy to tell that story as a triumph, and it was not quite that. It was faithfulness. The woman who had trusted God for passages across oceans found the daily grind of feeding and clothing children heavier than any voyage. She did it anyway. She had been a child that the world counted worthless, and she would not let others be counted so.

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. JAMES 1:27

What she teaches

Three things stand out. First, children are to be brought to Christ early and helped to grow, not merely kept respectable; she expected her daughter to pray aloud and to lead. Second, the care of children is a matter for prayer and costly obedience, not only for sentiment; she counted the cost of taking Bob before she said yes. Third, the children the world overlooks — servants, orphans, the children of other races and nations — are precisely the ones Christ calls to Himself, and His people must make room for them.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. If you have children, find one simple way this week to help them pray for themselves rather than only listening to you.

2. Think of a child or young person in your church who has no one taking particular notice of them. Take notice.

3. Find out who is caring for orphaned, fostered or vulnerable children near you. Ask how you could help — with money, time, or a home.

4. If you are weighing a costly commitment to a child, pray as she did: tell God honestly what you lack, and ask Him to make His will clear.

5. Pray for Christian workers who care for children through long, unglamorous years without much recognition.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You called the little children to come to You and would not let anyone forbid them. Make my heart like Yours.

Help me to teach the children in my care to pray, with expectation and with tenderness.

Give me eyes for the children no one notices, and a heart big enough to receive them in Your name.

And bless all who care for orphans and the fatherless. Supply their need, and give them strength for the long, hard days. Amen.