Children

There is in what we believe and teach
We counsel, command and even warn
That unto children our love should reach
To protect, care for, and also inform

In the Andes Mountains of Peru
During a sacrament meeting
A small boy, for food, came to peruse
But was shood away without a greeting

Yet, hopeful, the boy crept along the wall
Looking at me and then at the bread
Then he ran to my arms to sit still and small
In the speakers chair that stood at the head

What could he need more than bread crumbs?
A feeling of belonging and home?
And of something familiar as the spirit comes
There to know that all along, he'd not been alone?

For, though here sat an orphan, but a child
He had been created of God, with royal birth
And deserved an entrance through the main aisle
To be welcomed by arms that saw his great worth

And from that experience, I have gained
A place in my heart for that ragged boy
I see him oft in the faces of those who're pained
Whose eyes question "why?" and who know nought of joy

Oh, how great is the need to show God's love
And treat each child as though they're the best
Why would you want to abuse, neglect or shove
Our future leaders in whom we should invest?

Shall we not give them milk and then meat
And more- how to be nourished on their own?
Shall we not save for them, next to us a seat
And give them what they need the most until they are grown?


President Boyd K. Packer
Children
Liahona, July 2002, 7

D&C 19:22
For they cannot bear meat now,
but milk they must receive;
wherefore, they must not know these things,
lest they perish.

D&C 50:40.
Behold, ye are little children
and ye cannot bear all things now;
ye must grow in grace
and in the knowledge of the truth.


nought
Synonyms:
0, cipher, cypher, zero