The path of obedience is exalted by the Majesty of heaven coming to the earth and condescending Himself to become a little child and living simply and naturally as children should live, submitting to restraint and privation ...

The apocrypha of the New Testament attempts to supply the silence of the Scriptures in reference to the early life of Christ by giving a fancy [fanciful] sketch of His childhood years. These writers relate wonderful incidents and miracles which characterized His childhood and distinguished Him from other children. They relate fictitious tales and frivolous miracles which they say He wrought, attributing to Christ the senseless and needless display of His divine power and falsifying His character by attributing to Him acts of revenge and deeds of mischief which were cruel and ridiculous. 

In what marked contrast is the history of Christ as recorded by the evangelists, which is beautiful in its natural simplicity, with these unmeaning stories and fictitious tales. They are not at all in harmony with His character. They are more after the order of the novels that are written, which have no foundation in truth, but the characters delineated are of fancy creating.


The life of Christ was distinguished from the generality of children. His strength of moral character and His firmness ever led Him to be true to His sense of duty and to adhere to the principles of right, from which no motive, however powerful, could move Him. Money or pleasure, applause or censure, could not purchase or flatter Him to consent to a wrong action. He was strong to resist temptation, wise to discover evil, and firm to abide faithful to His convictions.... 

His wisdom was great, but it was childlike, and increased with His years. His childhood possessed peculiar gentleness and marked loveliness. His character was full of beauty and unsullied perfection....

The path of obedience is exalted by the Majesty of heaven coming to the earth and condescending Himself to become a little child and living simply and naturally as children should live, submitting to restraint and privation, giving youth an example of faithful industry, showing them by His own life that body and soul are in harmony with natural laws....

Although children live in a fallen world, they need not be corrupted by vice. They may be happy and through the merits of Christ attain heaven at last.—Youth’s Instructor, April 1872. FH 230


God does not mean that any of us should become hermits or monks and retire from the world in order to devote ourselves to acts of worship. The life must be like Christ’s life—between the mountain and the multitude. He who does nothing but pray will soon cease to pray, or his prayers will become a formal routine. When men take themselves out of social life, away from the sphere of Christian duty and cross bearing; when they cease to work earnestly for the Master, who worked earnestly for them, they lose the subject matter of prayer and have no incentive to devotion. Their prayers become personal and selfish. They cannot pray in regard to the wants of humanity or the upbuilding of Christ’s kingdom, pleading for strength wherewith to work. SC 101



He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. John 1:10 (King James Version)