But then comes the other great question, “Can it be hastened, and if it can, how is it to be done?” “Can it be hastened” means, of course, can it be hastened healthfully and beneficially, consistently with the due development of our nature in its after stages, from life temporal to life eternal?  For as the child should grow up into the man, so also there is a term of years given in which, according to God’s will, the natural man should grow up into the spiritual man; and we must not so press the first change as to make it interfere with the wholesome working of the second.  The question then is, really, can the change from childhood to manhood be hastened in the case of boys and young men in general from its actual rate of progress in ordinary cases, without injury to the future excellence and full development of the man? that is, without exhausting prematurely the faculties either of body or mind.

And this is a very grave question, one of the deepest interest for us and for you.  For us, as, according to the answer to be given to it, should depend our whole conduct and feelings towards you in the matter of your education; for you, inasmuch as it is quite clear, that if the change from childhood to manhood can be hastened safely, it ought to be hastened; and that it is a sin in every one not to try to hasten it:  because, to retain the imperfections of childhood when you can get rid of them, is in itself to forfeit the innocence of childhood; to exchange the condition of the innocent infant whom Christ blessed, for that of the unprofitable servant whom Christ condemned.  For with the growth of our bodies evil will grow in us unavoidably; and then, if we are not positively good, we are, of necessity, positively sinners.

We will consider, then, what can be done to hasten this change in us healthfully; whether we can grow in wisdom, in love, and in thoughtfulness, faster in youth, than we now commonly do grow:  and whether any possible danger can be connected with such increased exertion.  This shall be our subject for consideration next Sunday.  Meantime, let it be understood, that however extravagant it might be to hope for any general change in any moral point, as the direct result of setting truth before the mind; yet, that it never can be extravagant to hope for a practical result in some one or two particular cases; and that, if one or two even be impressed practically with what they hear, the good achieved, or, rather, the good granted us by God, is really beyond our calculation.  It is so strictly; for who can worthily calculate the value of a single human soul? but it is so in this sense also, that the amount of general good which may be done in the end by doing good first in particular cases is really more than we can estimate.  It was thus that Christ’s original eleven apostles became, in the end, the instruments of the salvation of millions:  and it is on this consideration that we never need despair of the most extensive improvements in society, if we are content to wait God’s appointed time and order, and look for the salvation of the many as the gradual fruit of the salvation of a few.