--many of you must have
arrived at it,--when thought and inquiry awaken; when, out of the mere
chaos of boyhood, the elements of the future character of the man begin
to appear. Blessed are they for whom the confusion and disarray of their
boyish life is quickened into a true life by the moving of the Spirit of
God! Blessed are they for whom the beginnings of thought and inquiry are
the beginnings also of faith and love; when the new character receives,
as it is forming, the Christian seed, and the man is also the Christian.
And, then, this second beginning of life, resting on faith and conscious
principle, and not on mere passive innocence, stands sure for the middle
and the end: those who so watch and pray as to escape out of this
critical period, not merely unharmed, but, as it were, set clearly on
their way to heaven, will, with God's grace, escape out of the things
which shall befal them afterwards, till they shall stand before the
Son of Man.

But the word is, "Watch and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy
to escape." We see the time with many of you come, or immediately
coming; out of your present state _a_ character will certainly be
formed; as surely as the innocence of childhood has perished, so surely
will the carelessness of boyhood perish too. _A_ character will be
formed, whether you watch and pray, or whether you do neither; but the
great point is what this character may be. If you do not watch the
process, it will surely be the character of death eternal. Thought and
inquiry will satisfy themselves very readily with an answer as far as
regards spiritual things: their whole vigour will be devoted to the
things of this world, to science or to business, or to public matters,
all alike hardening rather than softening to the mind, if its thoughts
do not go to something higher and deeper still. And as years pass on, we
may think on these our favourite or professional subjects more and more
earnestly; our views on them may be clearer and sounder, but there comes
again nothing like the first free burst of thought in youth; the
intellect in later life, if its tone was not rightly taken earlier,
becomes narrowed in proportion to its greater vigour; one thing it sees
clearly, but it is blind to all beside. It is in youth that the after
tone of the mind is happily formed, when that natural burst of thought
is sanctified and quickened by God's Spirit, and we set up within us to
love and adore, all our days,