It had been long since Livingstone had prayed. He attended church, but if he had any heart it had not been there. Now this prayer came instinctively. It was simple and childish enough: the words that he had been taught at his mother's knee. He hardly knew he had said them; yet they soothed him and gave him comfort; and from some far-off time came the saying, "_Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter_--" and he went on repeating the words. Another verse drifted into his mind: "_And he took a child and set him in the midst of them, and said, * * * Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea._" The events of the evening rose up before Livingstone--the little girl in her red jacket, with her tear-stained face, darting a look of hate at him; the rosy-cheeked boys shouting with glee on the hillside, stopped in the midst of their fun, and changing suddenly to yell their cries of hate at him; the shivering beggar asking for work,--for but five cents, which he had withheld from him. Livingstone shuddered. Had he done these things? Could it be possible? Into his memory came from somewhere afar off: "_Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me._" There flashed through his mind the thought, might he not retrieve himself? Was it too late? Could he not do something for some one?--perhaps, for some little ones? It was like a flash of light and Livingstone was conscious of a thrill of joy at the idea, but it faded out leaving him in blanker darkness than before. He did not know a single child.--He knew in a vague, impersonal way a number of children whom he had had a momentary glimpse of occasionally at the fashionable houses which he visited; but he knew them only as he would have known handsomely dressed dolls in show windows. He had never thought of them as children, but only as a part of the personal belongings of his acquaintances--much as he thought of their bric-à-brac or their poodles. They were not like the children he had once known. He had never seen them romp and play or heard them laugh or shout. He was sunk in deep darkness. In his gloom he glanced up. His father's serene face was beaming down on him. A speech he had heard his father make long, long ago, came back to him: "Always be kind to children. Grown people may forget kindness, but children will remember it. They forgive, but never forget either a kindness or an injury." Another speech of his father's came floating to Livingstone across the years: "If you have made an enemy of a child, make him your friend if it takes a year! A child's enmity is never incurred except by injustice or meanness."