It is very pleasant to see the infant in the house. What joy there is in its tender cry. But suppose that our children were always to remain infants; that would be no happiness to the parent. If you had a son twenty years of age who still needed to be carried, who required still to hang upon the nurse’s breast, would you not consider it one of the most serious of calamities? But you say you would pity the child. Ah! so you would, but suppose it was his own willful fault; suppose the little one could, by some piece of willfulness, prevent itself from growing, and would not use the proper means for development; I think you would then wisely use the rod as well as show your pity. Twenty years of age and yet still in long clothes! Thirty years of age and still uttering a babbling cry! Forty years of age and still needing milk!
Ah! you smile, but did any of you smile at yourselves? How long have you been converted to God? How long have you known the Savior? Why, I have known some converts that have been in long clothes for thirty years after they were converted, and are babies still. If you asked them to speak for Christ, they could only say a word or two of mere babble; and as for their confession of faith, it was not a reason; they did declare the hope that was in them, but they did not give a reason for it, for they could not give one. Then there are some who grow so slowly that their faith is just as weak now as it was twenty years ago. They go tottering along, and cannot run alone yet. They will want always to have preached to them just the simple elements, and if you give them a piece of high doctrine they have not cut their wisdom-teeth yet...
From a sermon entitled "Strong Meat," delivered August 19, 1863. Flickr photo by Louise Docker ; some rights reserved.
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