\ Lockwood had a religious mind, and retained through life his faith in the Christianity his parents had taught him. The chatter in the magazines about such matters had never interested him, and not even the symposia of eminent men, paid three guineas a sheet, about immortality had engaged his attention. He knew enough about human nature to know it was deeply wounded somewhere, and sorely stood in need of a healer.^
^ I was reading a while ago a little book in which the author told the story of his own life, and in the preface he had written : " This is a book with but one intention — that in being read, it may read you." That is what might be said of the influence of the Gospels. They are the story of a life ; but, in being read, they read you. They report to you, not only the story of Jesus, but the story of your own experience. It is not only you that find their meaning ; but, as Coleridge said, they " find you." In his letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul tells the same story in a striking figure. It is, he writes, as though the Christian were set before a wonder-working mirror, in which was reflected the glory of God. At first the image of this glory dazzles the beholder, and he puts a veil between it and himself; but gradually, as he looks again into the mirror, he discerns his own ^ F. Y. Leggatt. ^ ^ Birrell, Sir Frank Lockwood, 192.
ST. LUKE II. 34, 35 79
features reflected back to him, but touched with something of that glory which was itself too bright to bear, until at last his own image is changed into the image of the Divine likeness, so that the looker-on becomes like that on which he looks. " Beholding," the Apostle says, " as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image ... by the spirit of the Lord." That, he thinks, is what may happen as one looks steadily into the mirror of God. It is not that he shall be all at once made perfect, but that by degrees the veil shall be drawn away before the magic glass, and he shall see his imperfect thoughts touched with the glory of God's intention, until that which he is changes before him into that which he prays to be, as by the Spirit of the Lord.i
^ F. G. Peabody, Sunday Evenings in the College CJiapel, 28.
The Growth of the Child Jesus.
ST. LUKE — 6
Literature.
Brooke (S. A.), Sermons, i. 108.
„ „ The Fi(jld of Faith, 273.
Campbell (W. M.), Foot-prints of Christ, 1 1 , Clifford (J.), The Dawn of Manhood, 34. Crookall (L,), Topics in the Tropics, 21. Eytori (R.), The True Life, 93. Gibbon (J. M.), The Children's Year, 60. Goodwill (H, M.), Christ and Humanity, 81. Gray (W. H.), The Children's Friend, 82. Jefferson (C. E.), My Father's Business, 25. Laing (F. A.), Simple Bible Lessons, 159. Leathes (A. S.), The Kingdom Within, 217. Manning (H. E.), Sermons, ii. 17. Morrison (G. H.), The Footsteps of the Flock, 19 Robertson (F. W.), Sermons, ii. 175. Robinson (J. A.), Uiiity in Christ, 155 Rutherford (W. G.), The Key of Knowledge, 191. Sidey (W. W.), The Silent Christ, 13. Simpson (W. J. S.), Addresses on St. John Baptist, 68. Stanley (A. P.), Sermons for Children, 1. Swing (D.), Sermons, 120. Talniage (T. de W.), Sermons, iv. 354. Tynims (T. V.), The Private Relationships of Christ, 36. Whyte (A.), The Walk, Conversation, and Character of Jesus Christ out
Lord, 40. Williams (T. R.), Addresses to Boys, Girls, and Young People, 41. Children's Pulpit : First Sunday after the Epiphany, ii. 355. Christian World Pulpit, xxxv. 8 (Lyman Abbott); Ivi. 259 (T. V.
Tymms). Churchman's Puljnt : Sermons to the Young, xvi, 77 (A. P. Stanley). Preacher's Magazine, viii. 555 (J. Feather).
The Growth of the Child Jesus.
And the child grew, and waxed strong, filled with wisdom : and the grace of God was upon him. — Luke ii. 40.
1. There is great significance in the fact, seldom appreciated by common believers or teachers of Christianity, that Jesus was once a child, with a child's thoughts, feelings, joys, griefs, and trials. Not only was He a man, and therefore nothing human was alien to Him but sin, but He was also a child, and no childish experi- ence is unknown to Him or removed from His sympathy. He became a child, as Irenseus beautifully observes, that He might be the Saviour of children. He has sanctified childhood, as He has every other age and experience of humanity, by passing through it. And the light and sanctity of this Divine childhood still linger around every human child, as the ideal of the artist hovers over the statue he has wrought, making it beautiful by the reflection of its pure and perfect beauty.
2. The subject of the text is the growth of Jesus. " The child grew." Many read this statement without perplexity ; but in all ages of the Church reflective minds have felt the difficulty of harmonizing the idea of progress with that of Divinity. The difficulty is undeniably a real one and may not be ignored ; yet there would surely have been far more difficulty if Luke had said or implied that the Child did not grow. The Incarnation is a mystery which transcends our powers of explanation ; but when once we have been told, and have believed, that Jesus was born and that Jesus died, we have left ourselves no excuse for doubting that the interval between these two events must have been filled up with years of normal human life.