The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-05-06

| this sermon the preacher takes us
/ IL back TO that wonderful period of
life whom the mind of the child, emerg-
] ing from the mysterious twilight land,
first begins to think Independently. He
warns aus to respect these visions of
childhood. The text is Luke ii. 40, ''Wlst
| we not that must be about My Fathers
business?'
Without doubt one of the most satis-
factory pictures ever painted of Jesus
| Christ is that of Hoffman, called Christ
| the Boy Talking With the Doctors in
the Temple" We have seen scores of
pictures of Jesus Christ. The Partisan
Louvre is full of them. The Vatican is
/ full of them. The art galleries Of Ant
werp and Brussels and Berlin and Venice
are full of Them But, though the greatest
artists have exhausted their genius to
reproduce for us an inspired idea of the
Saviour's face, yet most of them have
come far short of the ideal. They either
make Christ's face too effeminate, as did
Bida, Da Vinci and Steine; or too much
of a Hercules as did Rubens and Van
dyke; or too grotesque, as did Tintoretto
and Rembrandt and Guido; or too mer-
cenary, as did Bernardo, Strozzi and
Plockhtirst or too stern, as did Dore
and Alhrecht Duerer; or too agonizing,
as did Bouguereau and Correggio; or TOO
lachrymose, as did AIRY Scheffer. But to-
ward Hoffman's picture there is no divi-
sion of opinion. We are here unit In
our appreciation. When we see Hoffmans
youth standing among the doctors in the-
temple we at once say yes, that Is
my idea of Jesus the child. That child
looks Just as I supposed Christ looked
as boy 80
The eyes are big and intelligent. They
seem to be looking far off They truly
seem to be catching an inspired vision
of his Fathers business. THE halo about
the head, the beautiful curls falling In
graceful curves about those shoulders,
show the human and the divine com
minglng. The robe about his 1.-the form
is as pure and spotless as his life. He
seems to stand there as a child, and yet
he seems to be reaching far into the
future. All worlds, all ages, seem to be
his In contrast to this beautiful face,
with its wonderful features, are the as
tonished and puzzled countenances OF the
bald headed, learned sages, who were not
accustomed to debate with youths, but
only with their compeers in the sanctum
sanctorum of the Hebrew sanhedrin.
The Twelfth Year.
And yet, as | stood watching the beau
tiful face of that Divine Child, this ques-
ton came to me- "Why should those
Hebrew rabbs wonder at that boys in
telligence9 Should not all men and women
stand in awe before the average boys of
the present day? Do not most youths and
maidens of twelve summers have inspired
visions from God, as Christ had an in
spired vision? Does not God call to them
at this critical age to be about their
Fathers business, He does. l want you
! to study with me this morning some of
those childhood visions. Men and women,
! too, have their times of reachout out to
things unseen, but this morning let us
| think chiefly of those bright imaginings
of youth This age the twelfth year, Is
to me the most important of life. May
we be very careful how we deal with
our children when they are entering the
| sacred portal of their early teens! The
! way they tread the path of life WILL in
all probability, decide the way they shall
/ tread these paths through time and
through eternity.
Why do put such an emphasis upon
! the age of -? Because 1t is about the
year when the child for the first time
let's go of his parents or guardians hand
| and begins to climb the heights of I'M
seen world and to think for himself. That
| Is the time when he begins for the first
time on his own account to ponder about
| God and what God wants him to be. Be
fore that age the child for the most part
is completely under the control of the
father and the mother, but at the twelfth
year the parent is astonished at the
strange questions which the boy puts.
Suddenly and seemingly without any pre-
conceived thought, the boy will break out
| with such questions as this: Mother,
where was before | was born?' Mother.
| where shall | go after | am dead?"
Mother, how can | live in heaven when
| my body is buried in the earth?"
| Mother last night when | was laying
| awake in bed, made up my mind that
Jesus wanted me to be preacher, like
Paul and Timothy, about whom we studied
in our Sunday school last week" These
questions or statements seem to spring
from the lips almost involuntarily. When
he first speaks thus you look at him in
,amazement. Then you say. who has been
talking to you, my SOM He answers
simply, mo one, mother; no one" All.
yes, some one has been talking to him.
Like Christ. the boy in the temple, he
hears strange voice. He sees strange
visions These visions are not of earth,
but of heaven. He cannot see those visions
full-orbed; but, like Christ, the boy he
can see them in their dim outlines. He
hears the divine. voice, and in his faint
way he is sayinsA"I must be about my
Fathers business
Beginning to Climb.
Has your boy never astonished you by
his strange questions and answers. as
Christ astonished the lawyers and doc
tors in the temple when but IL years Of
age? Some time ago an anxious mother
said: when my children were very
young they were mine. 1 could say to
| Them Children, sit down" and they would
sit down. l could read to them book
and explain to them the pictures, and
they would accept my statements as true,
because mother said it. But there comes