The Power Of A Child

Today's news headlines again and again describe the plight of tiny children. The adult world takes such unfair advantage of them. They are often disregarded as insignificant in the world around them.

"Any news?" asked a villager one February morning. "Oh, nothing", another replied, "Only a boy baby was born at the Lincoln's last night".

In 1809 most people would have thought that the greatest thing happening that year, was that Napoleon was the master of all Europe. And yet, only God and a few mothers here and there realized the possible power of the new born in the births that year of Darwin, Lincoln, Gladstone, Tennyson, Edgar Allen Poe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Cyrus W. McCormick.

When the Boy Scout movement began in America, a big camp had been arranged which was to include the youngest boys‑‑boys of eight years.

At seven o'clock on the first evening one of the little boys came to the officer who was chief of the camp and said, saluting,

"Please, sir, my mother said if I came to camp, I was to go to bed at seven o'clock."

"Very well," replied the chief, "go to bed!"

"And please, sir, my mother said that if I came to camp, I was to say my prayers."

"Very well, my boy, say your prayers!"

"Please sir," said the scout, with his hand still raised in salute,"I always say my prayers at my mother's knee; can I say them at yours?"

"The chief was so touched that he took the boy aside in the woods, and there they prayed together. From that time the Boy Scout movement became a religious movement, although it had not started along those lines."‑‑Taylor Smith

Who can measure the potential of one single life? Even a child might outweigh the strength of one modern Atlas.