Hidden within each heart is the longing to feel the peace and to taste the joy of the ever present kingdom of our God. No grander prayer can rise to eternal Love than, "How may we enter?" Twenty centuries ago our Master gave the answer that will ever stand inviolate: "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein." There is no other way. That one simple quality, childlikeness, is absolutely necessary to enable men to enter.
Mortal sense, with its pride of opinion, willfulness, and desire to be seen and honored, must wait outside in the darkness until one beholds the star and follows it to the manger, there to give homage to the "beauty of holiness" expressed in the simplicity of Christ. What pain and tears and agony would have been spared had men really learned the deep life-lesson taught by Christ Jesus when he took the little child and set him in their midst! The Master surely did not refer to the physical child as the example, but to those qualities of thought that the true child expresses.
Childlikeness is a compound quality consisting of many heavenly rays, such as love, humility, simplicity, meekness, gentleness, receptivity, trust in good, freshness, obedience, gladness, gratitude, thoughtfulness, spontaneity, teachableness. We cannot become human children again, but we can, nevertheless, all learn and use the spiritual ideas that constitute true childlikeness; for this quality belongs to man's God-bestowed spiritual nature.
