3. A life in its beginning is not a "little man."

The element of truth in this conception is perhaps less than in either
of these preceding. It is indeed true that child life is that out of
which man life is to come, but the difference is more vital than that of
inches or strength. The bulb shelters a lily life, but the difference is
greater than size. The chrysalis will bring forth the butterfly, but the
two are not identical. Childhood will unfold into manhood, but each has
its own characteristics and needs, differing in largest degree.

The physiologist tells us that it would be hard to find many important
points beyond the most fundamental laws in which the infant and the
adult exactly resemble each other. (Oppenheim.) In bodily proportions,
in actual composition of bones, muscles, blood and nerves, in size and
development of the organs, the differences are wide.

The psychologist proves that there is equal variance in mental
conditions. The man has a sense of responsibility to his neighbor and to
God, unknown to child life. He thinks and reasons and judges as the
child mind can not. His whole outlook upon life is opposite from that of
the child.

We recognize this difference in caring for the body, and the babe is fed
on milk and the boy on meat. But the difference must be recognized as
equally important in caring for the soul. Just as meat is meat, whether
minced or uncut, and therefore unsuited for a tiny life, so doctrine is
doctrine, whether stated in words of one syllable or four, and equally
unsuited to a beginning life. Paul refers to those who need milk and not
solid food, spiritually, because they are "without experience of the