you come in here
and tell me that there is a baby over yonder in the next square, that
is three weeks old, and can talk Greek and Latin, and Spanish and
Italian, and solve all the problems in mathematics, I will tell you
that that is a monstrosity, and you don't want that kind of babies in
your house: they will turn you out in a few days. So, if you come
in here and tell me that you have, down in your prayer-meeting, a
spiritual baby three or four weeks old, that can teach all the old
saints, and can tell them all about God, and heaven, and faith, and
theology, and all about everything in the Church, I will tell you
that that is a monstrosity. And you don't want that kind in your
prayer-meeting; they will turn you out before a great while. St. Paul
says: "Ye are born babes, and ye are fed on milk"; and the trouble
with too many of us is that we keep on that diet when we ought to be
eating meat. The Master says: "First the blade, then the ear; after
that, the full corn in the ear." So I am free to say that God's plan
of making saints is to give them the divine germ--if you please, the
supernatural principle; or, as our scientists would say, with proper
environments, "That have the divine initial impulse," but as our
fathers would have said, "They got through at the altar"; born of God,
and then cleansed of God in the true process of education and faith,
they matured at the harvest. God gives us the start and the cleansing,
and we have to do all the rest of it. He will give us opportunity for
growth by loading and goading us, by setting on our track every sort
of force to test us--to "polish us," as the old Hebrew word means.
When Abraham was tested he was "polished." He will put us on such
lines that, if we stand true to our convictions and walk according to
the light we have, He will bring us on to manhood.

See how wonderfully the Word of God fits down upon this? Take that
remarkable passage that, to me, is as beautiful as anything can be,
where He says: "Come unto Me, all ye that labor"--I know what
that means in the struggle under sin--"all ye that labor and are
heavy-laden, and I will give"--I will give: it is mine. You cannot
earn it: you cannot buy it; you cannot find it; you cannot dig it out.
It is mine--"I will give you rest"--the blest pardon that only God can
give. Then, in the very next second and breath, He says: "Take my yoke
upon you"--that means work--"and learn of me"--that is more work--and,
"For I am