What gives you rights of citizenship in heaven?

A dear Christian man, who is now in heaven, once told a story of a sick child who was on a ship with her mother.

There were a number of falling stars, and the little girl asked what they were, and where they came from.

Her mother explained them to be lovely flowers blown over from the garden of Paradise to which she would shortly go. 

On the other hand, the souls of children who come home are like blossoms of the tree of human nature blown over from the earth to the world of spirits—not to wither, but to go on blooming gaily and gladly.

Does not a thoughtful mind contemplate with the purest joy the life and movement of children?

And those who on earth loved to minister to children, those friends of the Saviour are permitted to do so in heaven.

What a pleasant sight is here offered by the souls of those children who were no sooner born into earthly life than they were immediately removed from it. 

Those whose soul-life was still sleeping in the germ are like lovely and delicate flowers.

But a light is shining in the calyx of these flowers—the Light of Baptism, which gives them rights of citizenship in heaven.

On earth, the child who plays grows up by imitation in the ways and doings, and also the follies of his surroundings. In heaven, he breathes only a heavenly life.

Look at this child, it is the child of a poor man. It was very little cared for during the four years it lived on earth.

It became acquainted with the hardships of life.

The angels have just brought it to heaven.

How astonished it looks at all the beauty around it and stretches out its little hands to the companions from whom no timidity keeps it back!

And that one is my child!

My eyes always seek it and then rest upon it with maternal joy.

As on earth, his happiness is mine also, for they are not merely ties of blood that bind a mother to her child.

He is a copy of my nature and much more plainly than on earth do I see in him a picture of my own being and perceive at the same time the impression of his father's and of our parents' qualities.

Not merely was his body born from my body, but his soul-life also is in wonderful and mysterious combination with mine.

He is not my creation, but he is a gift bestowed upon me through myself by means of God's marvellous creative power.

And what God has joined together continues joined in heaven also.

And even on those who are taken from earth childless, a happiness beams here, which they have hitherto been deprived of. 

Thousands of baptised children do not find their parents in heaven and would wait for them in vain. 

What a pleasant sight it is when maiden souls whether they departed in youthful or mature age open here in heaven to maternal happiness and join themselves with some solitary child-soul, which most resembles their own nature. 

Still more pleasant is it when such a soul already matured in the love of Christ on earth draws around it whole circles of little children and serves them with ministering love. 

How beautiful is it when the solitary man who has as yet been deprived of the fellowship of love and association with believing friends and who is just beginning the life of heaven acquires maturity and strength by love to children and learns in their service to understand and value the fellowship of love!