^ The human form is considered to be the highest expression of beauty and perfection for the following reasons. It is adapted to the greatest number of uses, its powers within the limits of its strength being certainly, as far as the hand is concerned, inex-
' A. Whyte, The Walk, Conversation, and CJiaracter of Jesics Christ our lord, 40.
ST. LUKE II. 40 91
haustible. The erect form rises upwards, indicative of the aspiring mind, a characteristic not shared by any other animal. The beautiful head is poised on a splendid column, the neck, which is elevated from the base line formed by the spread of the shoulders. The balanced rotundity and flatness of the limbs ; the lovely movements of the wrist and marvellous structure of the hand, its powers, as has been already said, apparently almost inexhaustible ; the general harmony of proportion, several parts of the body being neither too short nor too long for beauty — these compare to advantage with analogous parts of the lower creation.^
If It is a pain to think of children living in conditions where they cannot grow in body as they should. Why are their frames so shrunken, and their little faces so pale and old-looking ? Be- cause they have no sufficient breathing-space in life, and no proper food to eat. In one of our seaports a church organized free suppers for poor lads one hard winter. At supper one night a superintendent noticed a boy who was not eating anything, and when he asked him why, the boy said, " I have been boiler-scaling." The superintendent, though he had lived in the seaport all his life, had never heard of boiler-scaling before. Very small boys are employed to go into the boilers of ships with a hammer to strike down the scales of rust that form there. They come out half- suffocated with rast-dust and with a bronzed appearance. For this work they get a miserable pittance of pay, though it is work that none but very small boys can do. They usually take a candle, but the lad who was ill at supper had been sent into a boiler which was so hot that the candle quickly melted, and he had to have a small oil lamp. The lamp fumes and the boiler-heat and the dust made the supper impossible, as you may well imagine. I daresay it would be true that the other conditions of that boy's life were not much more favourable to his growth. Thousands of children in this country, it is tragic to think, are doomed not to grow in body as they should.^
ii. Mental Growth, "Filled with wisdom."
1. Sometimes the body grows and the mind remains a dwarf. After the mind has reached a certain point it may refuse to grow and want to stay where it is. Big men and women sometimes have very small minds. They may be six feet tall and weigh
* George Frederic Watts. vA. 8.
' T. R. Wi]lia,tns, Addresses to Boys, Girls, and Young People, 46.
92 THE GROWTH OF THE CHILD JESUS
ever so many pounds, and still have a little bit of a mind. Their aims may be low, and their ambitions small, and their sympathies narrow, and their affections stunted, and their ideas puny. They are mental dwarfs. Everybody who comes near them knows they are small. Their conversation is thin, their dealings are petty. They are cross and crabbed, and unreasonable and ugly, and very hard to get along with. They are hard to live with because they are so small. We sometimes call such people childish, and I have heard them called big babies. A little baby a few months old is the sweetest thing in all the world, but a big baby is one of the most terrible of all living creatures.
2. It is not said that Jesus was filled with knowledge, or with learning, or with great talents, or with great promise of great eloquence, though all that would have been true, in the measure of His years. But wisdom is far better than all these things taken together. " Wisdom is the principal thing," says the wise man, " therefore get wisdom." Knowledge is good ; knowledge is absolutely necessary. Knowledge, however, often puffs up; but never wisdom. Wisdom always edifies. He grew in knowledge, you may be sure, every day. He passed no day without learning something He did not know yesterday. He listened and paid attention when old men spoke. He read every good book He could lay His hands on. He went up as His custom was to the Synagogue every Sabbath day. And then all that was turned on the spot into wisdom to Him, like water turned into wine.
II How common a thing is all learning, and all knowledge, and all eloquence; and how rare a thing is a little wisdom to direct them ! How few men among our great men are wise men ! Eeally wise men. How few among our own relations and friends are really wise men. If you have one wise man in your family, or in the whole circle of your friendship, grapple that man to your heart with a hook of gold.^
^ Let us distinguish wisdom from two things. From infor- mation first. It is one thing to be well-informed, it is another thing to be wise. Many books read, innumerable facts hived up in a capacious memory — this does not constitute wisdom. Books give it not; sometimes the bitterest experience gives it not. Many a heart-break may have come as the result of life-errors