And what can have been the purpose with which the only particular of our Lord’s early life has been handed down to us, if it were not to direct our attention to this special truth, that our youth, no less than our riper age, belongs to God?  “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” were words spoken by our Lord when he was no more than twelve years old.  At twelve years old, he thought of preparing himself for the duties of his after-life; and of preparing himself for them, because they were God’s will.  He was to be about his Father’s business.  This is Christ’s example for the young; this, and scarcely anything more than this, is recorded of his early years.  Those are not like Christ who, at that same age, or even older, never think at all of the business of their future lives, still less would think of it, not as the means of their own maintenance or advancement, but as the duty which they owe to God.

Such as these are the very persons whose hearts are like the house in the parable, empty, swept, and garnished.  The house so described in the parable is one out of which an evil spirit has just departed.  In case of the young, the evil spirit in this sense, that is, as representing some one particular favourite sin, may perhaps have never entered it.  That empty, swept, and garnished house, how like is it to what I have seen, to what I am seeing so continually, when a boy comes here with much still remaining of the innocence of childhood!  Evil spirit, in the sense of any one particular vice, there is none to be found in that heart, nor has there been any ever.  It is empty, swept, and garnished:  there is the absence of evil; there are the various faculties, the furniture, as they may be called, of the house of our spirits, which the spirit uses either for evil or for good.  There is innocence, then; there is, also, the promise of power.  God hath richly endowed the earthly house of our tabernacle:  various and wonderful is the furniture of body and mind with which it is supplied.  How can we help admiring that open and cheerful brow which, as yet, no care or sin has furrowed; those light and active limbs, full of health and vigour; the eye so quick; the ear so undulled; the memory so ready; the young curiosity so eager to take in new knowledge; the young feelings, not yet spoiled by over-excitement, ready to admire, ready to love?  There is the house, the house of God’s building, the house which must abide for ever; but where is the spirit to inhabit it?  Evil spirit there is none:  is it, then, possessed by the Spirit of God?  Has the fire from heaven as yet descended upon that house,—­the living sign of God’s presence, which alone can convert the house of perishable clay into the everlasting temple?