The Lord's innocence flows into the angels of the third heaven, where all enjoy the innocence of wisdom, and it passes through the lower heavens, but only through the innocence of angels there, and so directly and indirectly into children. Children are hardly different from carved forms, but for their ability to receive life from the Lord through the heavens. But if the parents too were not to receive that influence in their souls and in the inmost parts of their minds, the innocence of children would be unable to affect them. There must be something matching and similar in kind in the other for communication to be established, and to permit reception, affection and so linking. Without this it would be like a delicate seed falling on a rock, or like a lamb thrown to a wolf. That then is why the innocence flowing into the souls of parents makes a link with the innocence of children.

[2] Experience can show that this link is established among parents with the help of the bodily senses, but above all through touch. For instance, the sense of sight is intimately charmed by watching children, that of hearing by their talk, that of smell by smelling them. The fact that the chief mode of communication and linking is by touch is evident from the pleasantness of carrying them in one's arms, of hugging and kissing them, especially by their mothers, for they take delight in having their mouths and faces pressed on their laps and at the same time by touching them there with their hands. Generally speaking, they enjoy having them suck their breasts and take milk, and touching their bare bodies, and they never tire of taking them on their knees to wrap them up and to clean them.

[3] It was shown in several places above that love and its delights are imparted between married couples by the sense of touch. This too serves to impart mental states, because the hands are the last part of a person, and his first is at the same time present in his last. By this means all the parts of the body and all the parts of the mind, which lie between, are held together in an indissoluble bond. This is why Jesus touched children (Matt. 19:13, 15; Mark 10:13, 16), and He healed the sick by touching them; and those who touched Him were cured. This too is why today the ordination of priests is by the laying on of hands. These facts make it plain that the innocence of parents and that of children meet in touching, especially by the hands, and so they become linked as if by kisses.