Dodge City times., 1889-06-27
JESUS CHRIST AS A BOY.
SERMON PREACHED BIZ DIR. TALMAGE
IN BROOKLYN.

He Describes Christ as q Village Lad an
Holds That the Lords Character Wa
tho Same Then as When He Was
Man.
About Christ as a village lad speak
There is for the most part a silence NOR
than eighteen centuries long abou
Christ between infancy and manhood
What kind of a boy was He? Was He
genuine boy at all, or did there settl
upon Him from the start all the intensi
ties of martyrdom! We have on thi
subject only little guessing, few sur
mises, and here and there an unimport
ant perhaps. Concerning wha
bounded that boyhood on both sides w
galleries of canvas and sculpture. Be
taking His first sleep in the rough out
Paul Veroneses Holy Family" and
Perugino's Nativity" and Angelica ds
Fiesole's Infant Christ" and Rubens
Alteration of the Magi" and Tintoret's
Alteration of the Magi" and Chirlan.
dojo's Alteration of the Magi" ant
Raphaers Madonna" and Orcagna's
Madonna" and Murillo's Madonna,
and Madonnas by all the schools OF
painting in all lights and shades and
with all styles of attractive feature and
impressive surroundings, but pen and
pencil and chisel have with few eXcep-
tions passed by Christ the village lad.
Yet by three onjoined evidences think
we can come to as accurate an idea OF
what Christ was as boy as We can OF
what Christ WAS as man.
First, we have the brief Bible account.
Then We have the prolonged account of
what Christ was at thirty years of age.
Now you have only to minify that ac-
count somewhat and you find what He
was at ten years of age. Temperaments
never eLa.ge. A sanguine tempera-
ment Fever teeercsS a phlegmatic tenn
perament. A nervous temperament
never becomes a lymphaiic tempeEa-
ment. Religion changes ones affec-
tions and ambitions, but it is the same
old temperament acting in different
direction. As Christ had no religious
change, he was as q lad what ne was as
q man, only on not SO large a scale.
When all tradition and all art and all
history represent Him as a blonde with
golden hair know He was in boyhood a
blonde.
We have, beside, an uninspired book
that was for the first three or four CEN
turies after Christ's appearance received
by many as inspired and which gives
prolonged account of Christ's boyhood.
Some of it may be true, most of it may
be true, none of it may be true. 1t may
be partly built on facts, or by the
passage of the ages, some real facts may
have been distorted. But because a
book is not divinely inspired We are not
therefore to conclude that there are rot
true things in it. Prescotts Conquest
of Mexico was not inspired, but We be-
lieye it although it may contain mis-
takes. Macaulay's History of England"
was not inspired, but We believe it al
though it may have been marred with
many errors. The so-called apocryphal
Gospel in which the boyhood of Christ
is dwelt upon / do not believe to be
divinely inspired, and yet it may present
facts worthy of consideration. Because
it represents the boy Christ as perform
ing miracles some have overthrown that
whole apocryphal book. But what right
have you to say that Christ did not per-
form miracles at ten years of age as well
as at thirty? He was in boyhood as cer-
tainly divine as in manhood. Then
while lad he must have had the power
to work miracles, whether He did or did
not work them. When, having reached
Christ turned water into wine
that was said to be the beginning of
But that may mean that it
was the beginning of that series of man
hood miracles. In word, think that
the New Testament is only small
of what Jesus did and said.
Indeed, the Bible declares positively
that il all Christ did and said were writ
ten the werld would not contain the
books. So We are at liberty to believe
or reject those parts of the apocryphal
Gospel which say that when the boy
Christ with His mother passed band of
thieves He told His mother that two of
them, Dumachus and Titus by name,
would be the two thieves who afterwards
would expire on the crosses beside Him.
Was that more wonderful than some of
Christ's manhood prophesies? Or the
uninspired story that the boy Christ
made fountain spring from the roots
of a sycamore tree so that His mother
washed His coat in the stream-was that
more unbelievable than the manhood
miracle that changed common water
into a marriage beverage? Or the unin-
spired story that two sick children were
recovered by bathing in the water where
Christ had washed? Was that more
than the manhood miracle by
which the W woman twelve years a COM
plete invalid should have been made
straight by touching the fringe of
Christ's coat? Or the uninspired story
that when a mother brought dead child
by the name of Bartholomew to Mary,
the mother of Christ, she said: DO
thou place thy son in my sons bed and
cover him with his clothes;" and, SO
done. the dead child opened his eyes
and called with a loud voice for bread.
Is that more wonderful than the man.
hood miracles by which Christ reani-
mated the dead again and again without
going where they were or even seeing
them? Why should We disbelieve the
apocryphal New Testament when il says
that boy struck the boy Jesus till he
cried out, or the story that Christ with
other boys made clay figures of birds,
and these clay figures took life and few
away? Is that more unbelievable than
the Bible account that Adam was made
out of clay and walked forth a man, and
afterwards scared an immortal? Not
half SO much of an undertaking to make
bird out of clay as make a man out of
clay. Or the uninspired story that the
boy Christ took the cloths of a Overs
shop and threw them into the fire. and
after the dyer's protest and ejaculation
brought forth the cloths in the color
that the dyer wished? Isthat more unbe-
lievable than the manhood miracle in
the wilderness picnic, where five biscuits
the size of your fist were turned into
enough bread to feed five thousand and
the fragments filled twelve baskets? Or
the uninspired story that Joseph the
father as carpenter, having Or
ders to make a throne for the king at
Jerusalem, and toiling two years on it,
found that after it was done it was two
spans too short. and the boy took hold
one side of the throne and His father the
other side of it and pulled it to the
right size? Is that any more wonderful
than that after growing to manhood He
folded mp, as easily as you would a fan,
a Galilean hurricane? Or the uninspired
story that His comrades in their play
brought flowers and crowned Him as
king? should think they would have
dome So Or the uninSpired story that q