Chapter XXVIII

More grateful to the human heart, and more
Wise with the wisdom human mothers earn
By pangs of birth and pains of loss, his lore
Who bade mankind of little children learn.

Pure, he could feel their splendid guilelessness;
Kingly, he recognised their royalty;
Longsuffering, he was one with them, nor less
Grandly magnanimous than they was he.

He dared to judge mankind best fed by truth,
Best led by love, desiring most of all—
Not lures of sin—but grace to walk like Ruth
Where natural ties and home affections call.

And so he “took a child,” with father’s touch,
And therefore said God’s kingdom was of such.