The Hope of Glory

by E. C. Dargan - 1919

Children At Play

WHEREVER there are cities there are children, and wherever there are children there is play. These two passages from the Bible, one in the Old Testament and one in the New, speak of children as they play in the streets and open places of the city. Children in old times were not so different from children in our time. The first one of these texts is from the prophet Zechariah. He was telling about what would be in Jerusalem when the people who had been taken captive and carried away should be brought back again. He was thinking about how the loved city that had been destroyed should be rebuilt, and how once more the life and doings of the people should be much as they had been before the terrible destruction and captivity had occurred.

Among other things, he mentions that there should be very old people in the city, and also very young people. That means, of course, there should be people all in between. One of the signs of a city’s life and prosperity is the presence and play of children. So it is not surprising that this good old prophet should have mentioned the play of children in the streets as one of the things to which the returning captives should look forward. That would be a very lonesome town in which there were no boys and girls to play in the streets and parks where it was proper to do so.

In the second passage, from the book of Matthew, we have a saying of Jesus. This was many, many years after the prophet Zechariah had written about the playing children. Jesus was speaking of the way the people acted toward John the Baptist and himself. They criticised John for doing one way and Jesus for doing just the other way. The people could not be suited either way. So Jesus said they were like children playing in the markets - that is in the open squares, somewhat like our parks - and quarreling with each other over their games. They said, ”We cannot do to suit you anyway. We played lively music and you wouldn’t skip, and we played mournful music and you wouldn’t cry.” That’s the way children do sometimes when they get cross. Anyhow, it is an interesting thing to think of Jesus watching children at their play, and drawing a lesson from it. So when we put the meaning of both these texts together we find that the Bible has something to say about the play of children in the streets, and that is what we are to think about for a little while.

The first thing for us to think about is that too often there is something bad in children’s play. When Jesus saw the children playing, he noticed that they were a little quarrelsome and hard to please, and couldn’t be suited. We all know how that is - children and grownups both - for the grownups haven’t forgotten how they used to be selfish in their play, and they have to reprove the children many a time for not playing nicely. Jesus doesn’t like bad playing. It is wrong in our play to insist on having our own way; to get into the pouts and refuse to join in because the play is not what we proposed. Isn’t it a pity for our ugly tempers and our selfishness to get into our play and spoil it? Why play ought to be full of fun and gladness. Nothing that is good ought to be spoiled. You don’t like spoiled fruit, do you, nor spoiled butter? Well spoiled play is bad too, and it is spoiled whenever one boy or girl, or one side, wants to have it all their way and nobody can do to suit anybody else. The playground is the place where character, that is the kind of boys and girls we are, always shows itself. Sometimes play may not only be selfish, but too often it is rude and coarse, and that is worse yet. Boys ought to be little gentlemen, and girls little ladies in their play. What we learn to be on the playground we are very apt to be when we grow up. If we are rude and selfish and hard to please at play, we are more than likely to be that at work when we grow up. In this way we shall make ourselves very unhappy, and what is worse, make other people unhappy too. The playground is a fine place to develop character; that is, to learn how to hate what is bad and love what is good, to control ourselves, make ourselves mind.

There is another thing we must remember, and that is that Jesus watches us while we play. He knows how we feel, and what we say. If we are bad and cross and selfish and hard to please, he knows it, and he doesn’t like it. He was never that kind of child himself, and he wants children, in their play as well as when they grow up and work, to be like himself. The playground is a good place to show how unselfish and patient and kind and gentle we can be.

This brings us to think about the good side of play. It was this that the good prophet Zechariah had in mind when he thought of the beautiful city being built up again, and full of happy boys and girls playing in the streets. A city which has great buildings and factories, and wide streets and a great many people living in it, and a great deal of business going on is a fine thing. But did you ever think how lonesome and strange a city would be if there were no children to play in it ? Now of course there are some parts of the city where children ought not to play. Where there is much business going on, and many wagons and automobiles, it is dangerous and improper for children to play. And then there are beautiful parks which would be injured by playing upon them, and sometimes the noise of play may be disagreeable to the people living in certain places. All these things must be thought of. But every city should provide playgrounds for children, or permit their play in such streets and parks as are suitable for that purpose. Some of the cities in Europe, and in our country too, are doing a great deal in this direction. In Chicago there are many beautiful parks and places on the lake front where thousands of children may play. In some parts of some cities, as in New York, where there is so much confusion and crowding, it is hard for the children to find a place to play. Some years ago there was a good man in New York named Jacob Riis, and he was much concerned because the children in the crowded parts of the city couldn’t find places to play, so he got the people to do something about it. He was the children’s friend. The school houses and yards were made so children could play in them, and roof gardens were made and fixed so they would be safe for the children to go up on the house tops and play in the fresh air. Every city ought to take care of the health of its children, and so provide playing places for them. On the other hand the children should not abuse their playgrounds. They should avoid rough, selfish and bad conduct on the city’s playgrounds. All ought to try to play right, to play fair, so that the people of the city will be proud of their playgrounds, and not find them a noisy nuisance. Certainly the older children, especially those who are Christians, should take care of one another, and of the little ones, and not be cruel and unkind to them in the playgrounds. If the playground is a pretty place, it is a place for pretty conduct.

When we think of these two texts together, we may think of the second as a fulfillment of the first. Zechariah the prophet saw in his imagination a new Jerusalem, full of boys and girls playing in its streets, and it was a happy thing to him to think that joyful daily life should again be found in the city that had been destroyed. So when Jesus came to that Jerusalem which had been rebuilt, as he walked its streets he found the children playing in it, and saw what the prophet promised come true in the actual Jerusalem in which he lived and worked. It is true that the play was not perfect, but Jesus wanted to make it so. He wants all our cities to be full of good boys and girls, happy in their play because they are unselfish and sweet in their games. Now the real Jerusalem was God’s city, and sometimes in the Bible heaven is spoken of as the New Jerusalem, the Holy City of God. And so I think it is not out of place for us to think of heaven as a glorious home and city where boys and girls are happy in their play. You know in the book of Revelation some wonderful descriptions are given of the heavenly city. Thousands and thousands are there, singing God’s praise, and rejoicing in him and one another. There used to be a little hymn that was sung very much when I was a child, and I loved it greatly.

”Around the throne of God in heaven,
Thousands of children stand;
Children whose sins are all forgiven,
A glorious, happy band.”

I believe there is truth in what that little hymn says. Many, many children die, and their spirits go to heaven to be with Jesus, and that heavenly city is full of those children who are not bad any more. Jesus has made them perfectly pure because they have loved and trusted him here in this life. I do not think it could he a perfect heaven if there were no happy children there. And though it pains us to part with them here, it gives us joy to think that they are happy, and we shall be happy with them when God brings us home to himself. There is only one way to make sure of being happy in heaven forever, and that is, as you know, to take Jesus for our Saviour; to give our hearts to him and love him and do what he says. Jesus loves children and he wants children to love him. And so if we do give ourselves to him and try to be in everything, even in our play, just what Jesus wants, he will make us happy here in this world, and then afterwards he will take us to be with him, and with all the good people. And so we must think of heaven as a glorious and beautiful place, full of happy saints who have been old, and middle aged, and even little children, who somehow will continue to be what they were, only changed for the better. There will be no more badness, no more crossness, no more selfishness. We do not know just what the saints and the happy children will be doing, but we do know that something like play will continue for the children, and they will be perfectly happy. And heaven itself will be all the brighter because the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls, rejoicing forevermore.

No doubt a number of older persons here to-day have sweet and tender reason to think of the children in heaven. It is a comfort beyond words to feel sure that our loving Saviour has received our little ones, sundered from us by death, into His own presence and keeps them for our coming.

”My Lord hath need of these flowerets gay,”
The reaper said and smiled;
”Dear tokens of the earth are they,
Where He was once a child.’’

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