preserving what had been the usual form of speech in the household
for all the previous years; and there is an emphasis that would fall
upon her heart, as it fell upon none other, when He answered: 'Wist
ye not that I must be about My Father's business?' We are not
warranted in affirming that the Child meant all which the Man
afterwards meant by the claim to be the Son of God; nor are we any
more warranted in denying that He did. We know too little about the
mysteries of His growth to venture on definite statements of either
kind. Our sounding-lines are not long enough to touch bottom in this
great word from the lips of a boy of twelve; but this is clear, that
as He grew into self-consciousness, there came with it the growing
consciousness of His Sonship to His Father in heaven.

Now, dear brethren, whilst all that is unique, and parts Him off
from us, do not let us forget that that same sense of Sonship and
Fatherhood must be the very deepest thing in us, if we are Christian
people after Christ's pattern. We, too, can be sons through Him, and
only through Him. I believe with all my heart in what we hear so
much about now--'the universal Fatherhood of God.' But I believe
that there is also a special relation of Fatherhood and Sonship,
which is constituted only, according to Scripture teaching in my
apprehension, through faith in Jesus Christ, and the reception of
His life as a supernatural life into our souls. God is Father of all
men--thank God for it! And that means, that He gives life to all
men; that in a very deep and precious sense the life which He gives
to every man is not only derived from, but is kindred with, His own;
and it means that His love reaches to all men, and that His
authority extends over them. But there is an inner sanctuary, there
is a better life than the life of nature, and the Fatherhood into
which Christ introduces us means, that through faith in Him, and the