i LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. # 
 
 # ~ # 
 
 | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. J 
 
THE ANGELS APPEARING TO THE SHEPHERDS. 
 
kit Jesus. 
 
 Wis Birth, Wis Life, 
 
 Wis Payables, and 
 
 His Miracles. 
 
 By UK CLE JESSE, 
 
 Author of "The Sea-Shore," "Talks about War? etc. 
 
 1 1 
 
 CINCINNATI: 
 WESTERN TRACT AND BOOK SOCIETY, 
 
 No. 176 Elm Street. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 186$, by the 
 
 WESTERN TRACT AND BOOK SOCIETY, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Uaited States, for the 
 Southern District of Ohio. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 The Shepherds and the Child 5 
 
 Other Visitors- 8 
 
 The Dreams '. 12 
 
 Killing the Children 16 
 
 Going Home again 20 
 
 Going to Jerusalem 23 
 
 Jesus in the Temple 28 
 
 The Baptist . 31 
 
 The Temptation 36 
 
 Calling the Disciples 40 
 
 How Jesus looked. 43 
 
 How Jesus lived 48 
 
 How Jesus worked Miracles 53 
 
 How Jesus prayed 57 
 
 How Jesus taught ~. 61 
 
 The Good Shepherd , 65 
 
 The Sower and the Seed 69 
 
 The Vine and the Branches 73 
 
 The Fig-tree 77 
 
 Children in the Market-place 82 
 
 The Neglected Supper 86 
 
 The Wedding Garment 90 
 
 Feeding the Multitude 94 
 
 Miracles 97 
 
 The Blind Men 100 
 
 The Deaf and Dumb Man 103 
 
 Peter and John's Miracle 106 
 
TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE SHEPHERDS AND THE CHILD. 
 
 T was night, but the sky was clear, 
 and the stars twinkled as if they 
 had a great secret that they wanted 
 to tell to the people on earth. Out in the 
 fields there were some men watching flocks 
 of sheep, that fed on the grass around them. 
 All at once it became as light as day. The 
 men looked up, and there was an angel in 
 the sky above them. He seemed to shine 
 like the sun. They were afraid. But the 
 angel said, " Do not be afraid, for I have 
 come to bring you good news. In the town 
 close by a child has just been born, who 
 shall save you from all your sins, and make 
 you happy. Go and see him. You will 
 
TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 find him at the stable of the tavern. His 
 mother has just laid him in the manger, 
 because she has no other place." 
 
 And, as soon as he stopped speaking, 
 there came a great many angels. They 
 sang altogether, and most sweetly, this 
 song: 
 
 "Glory to God, 
 Peace on the earth, 
 Good-will to men." 
 
 No man ever sang so beautifully. The 
 men would have loved to listen to those 
 angels all night. 
 
 But soon they went back to heaven ; and 
 then the men said : " Let us leave our 
 sheep, and go to town, and see this won- 
 derful child that the angels have told us 
 about." 
 
 So they went into the town, (its name 
 was Bread Town in their language,) and 
 there they found, in the stable, a man and 
 his wife, and a little child. It w r as all just 
 as the angels had told them, and they were 
 very glad. And they told what they had 
 seen out in the field to the man and his 
 
THE SHEPHERDS AND THE CHILD. 
 
 wife, and then went back to their sheep, 
 singing praises to God. 
 
 Although the child's parents were poor, 
 they felt sure that God had given them a 
 child that would grow up to be a great and 
 good man, and they were very glad, and 
 loved the child very much. 
 
 I want you now to tell me the name of that 
 child, and whose son people thought he 
 was, and whose son he really was, and 
 where he w T as born, and why he was born 
 there, and how taverns are built in the 
 East, and where the man and his wife had 
 been when they stopped at that tavern, 
 and where they lived, and what was the 
 man's trade; where was Bread Town, and 
 what is the name of it in the Bible, and 
 why was it called so. 
 
TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OTHER VISITORS. 
 
 jJFTER the shepherds went away — 
 perhaps the same night, and per- 
 haps several days later — another 
 company of men came to see the infant in 
 the manger. These men came from a great 
 distance. They probably traveled on camels, 
 as almost every body travels that way in 
 the East when they have deserts to cross. 
 These men were very fond of looking at the 
 stars, and they thought that they could tell 
 by the looks and motions of the stars what 
 was going to happen on the earth. This 
 was a foolish notion. But God sometimes 
 uses even men's foolish notions to bring 
 them where they will learn the truth and 
 be made better. These star-gazers had the 
 sky all marked off, and each part they said 
 belonged to one of the nations of the earth. 
 
OTHER VISITORS. 9 
 
 When any thing very bright or strange 
 appeared in a particular part, they thought 
 something wonderful was going to happen 
 in the nation that this part belonged to. 
 One night they saw a very large star in 
 the part of the sky that belonged to the 
 Jews, and they said to each other, " Some- 
 thing very strange must have happened 
 among the Jews. Perhaps a child has 
 been born who is to be their King. Let 
 us go and see." 
 
 So they started, and traveled a great 
 many days, on their camels. At last they 
 reached the Capital of the Jews, and they 
 began to ask every body, " Where is he 
 that is born to be King of the Jews ? We 
 have seen his star in the East, where we 
 live, and have come to worship him." And 
 the people all said, " There is no such child 
 here." And the man who was king of the 
 Jews then, said that he did not know any 
 thing about such a child. At last they 
 went up to the temple, and asked the priests 
 there, and they took down a piece of parch- 
 ment and unrolled it, and said they thought 
 
10 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 that there was something in it about the 
 child. And they hunted; and at last they 
 found that a Prince was to be born in Beth- 
 lehem. So the men from the East thought 
 that they would go to Bethlehem, and ask. 
 It was only six miles off, and soon they 
 were there. It was a little town. They 
 asked the people, and they told them that 
 there was an infant at the stable of the tav- 
 ern. So the men went there ; though they 
 thought it was a strange place for a King to 
 be born in. And when they got to the stable, 
 there was the star right over it, and shining 
 down as if it wanted to say, " This is the 
 place." And when the men saw the star 
 they were very glad, and went in. And when 
 they saw the child in its mother's arms they 
 kneeled down around it, and called it a 
 King. Then they told its mother about the 
 star, and they took out some most beauti- 
 ful and costly presents, and gave them to 
 the little child. 
 
 Do you not think it very strange, chil- 
 dren, that those men should have traveled 
 so far, just to see a little child? And that 
 
OTHER VISITORS. 11 
 
 when they found it in a stable they still 
 thought it was a young King, and gave it 
 costly gifts ? 
 
 Now tell me, what were these men called 
 in the Bible? And what country did they 
 come from ? And what was the name of 
 the city, that they first went to? And 
 what book did the priests in the temple read 
 from about Bethlehem? Was it a printed 
 book ? What language was it in ? Was the 
 little child really a King? And what kind 
 of a King was he ? Where is that child 
 now? Can we go to him? Ought we to 
 worship him? And what present does he 
 want us to bring, and give to him? What 
 kind of a star is he called sometimes? And 
 do y^u know a hymn about that star ? 
 
12 
 
 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 CHAPTEK III. 
 
 THE DREAMS. 
 
 jlOU remember the king that the men 
 from the East saw in Jerusalem. 
 He made them believe that he was 
 very glad the child was born, and that he 
 would like to see it. And he told them if 
 they found it, they should bring word back 
 to him. And they said that they would. 
 They could not look into the king's heart, 
 and see what he was thinking about. But 
 there was Somebody, who did look right 
 into his heart, and read it, as well as you 
 read this book; and he saw that the king 
 wanted to kill the little child. He was a 
 wicked, cruel king, and he was afraid that 
 the child, when it grew to be a man, might 
 punish him for his wickedness ; so he meant 
 to kill it. 
 
 But He who read the king's heart loved 
 
THE DREAMS. 13 
 
 the little child, and said that it should not 
 be killed. Who was he, children? And 
 why did he love the little child ? 
 
 I have told you how the wise men went 
 to Bethlehem, and found the child, and wor- 
 shiped it. After they had given it their 
 presents, they went into the tavern, and 
 went to bed. They thought that, in the 
 morning, they would go back to Jerusalem, 
 and tell the king. They went to sleep. In 
 the morning one of them woke up and said, 
 " I had a strange dream last night. I 
 dreamed that an angel came and said to me, 
 'Don't go to Jerusalem; the king is afraid 
 of the little child, and wants to kill it — 
 don't tell him any thing about it.'" And 
 the others said they had all dreamed the 
 same dream. So they thought that it must 
 be true, and they said, " We will not tell 
 and body about the child, but will go right 
 home as quietly as we can." 
 
 So they loaded up their camels, and start- 
 ed away from Bethlehem, and went back to 
 the country where they lived. 
 
 Children, how did they all happen to 
 
14 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 dream the same dream, and a true one 
 too? 
 
 The next night, while the father of the 
 little child was asleep, he thought he heard 
 some one talking to him. And he looked, 
 and there was an angel standing beside 
 his bed. What the angel said, you will find 
 in the thirteenth verse of the second chapter 
 of Matthew. 
 
 And after the dream the man woke up, 
 and he arose, though it was in the middle of 
 the night, and he awoke his wife, and told 
 her what he had dreamed , and she got up, 
 too. And they dressed themselves and the 
 child, and packed up their things (they did 
 not have a great many, for they were poor), 
 and started off as still as they could. They 
 got out of town without waking any body, 
 and traveled off south, in the dark. 
 
 They had no carriage to ride in, but only 
 a mule to carry their things, I expect; so 
 the man and his wife had to walk, and carry 
 the child in their arms. Poor little babe ! 
 to have to go away in the night because a 
 wicked king wanted to kill it ! 
 
THE DREAMS. 15 
 
 Now, children, I want you to find out the 
 name of the wicked king. I want you to 
 think about dreams, and whether these peo- 
 ple were right in believing them. I want 
 you to find out where they took the little 
 child, and how old it was at this time. 
 
16 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 KILLING THE CHILDREN. 
 
 HE king waited a good many days, 
 thinking that the men from the 
 East would come back and tell him 
 about the little child; but, after awhile, he 
 heard that they had gone home, without 
 coming to see him. And he was very angry, 
 and thought that they must have found the 
 child, and were afraid to tell him. And he 
 said to himself, in his wicked heart, " I will 
 kill that child, even if I can't find it. I will 
 send my soldiers, with their sharp swords, 
 down to Bethlehem, and I will tell them to 
 kill every male child there, that is less than 
 two years old. Among them this ' King of 
 the Jews ' will be sure to perish." 
 
 What do you think, children, of such a 
 plan as that, and of such a king? Would 
 you like to live in a country where such a 
 
KILLING THE CHILDREN. 17 
 
 king ruled, and could do just what he chose 
 to? 
 
 Well, the king sent for his soldiers, and 
 told them what he wanted them to do ; and 
 the soldiers said, "Yes, king, we will go." 
 It is the business of soldiers to kill people. 
 Would you like to be a soldier ? 
 
 I do n't know how many soldiers there 
 were in the company ; but they took a 
 piece of paper from the king, called a de- 
 cree, and started off to Bethlehem. The 
 decree read something like this : 
 
 " I, Herod, the king, command you to go 
 to Bethlehem, and to kill all the children 
 that are boys and less than two years old." 
 And to this paper there was a big seal. 
 When the soldiers got to Bethlehem, some 
 of them stood at the gate and in the streets, 
 to see that nobody ran away. And the rest 
 went into the houses to hunt for children to 
 kill. 
 
 Nobody in Bethlehem knew that the sol- 
 diers were coming ; some of the infants were 
 prattling in their mother's arms, and some 
 were asleep in their cradles. But wherever 
 2 
 
18 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 one of the soldiers found a baby boy he 
 took it, and, in spite of all his mother's 
 screams and tears, he cut its head off with 
 his sharp sword, and threw it down dead, 
 and went out. So they went all over town, 
 and did not spare a single male child that 
 was less than two years old. 
 
 Don't you think that there must have 
 been a great many mothers crying for their 
 children that day in Bethlehem ? And that 
 it was a most cruel thing to kill so many 
 little boys, that were just able to creep 
 about, or to walk, or to prattle a few 
 words ? 
 
 How many children did the soldiers kill 
 in all ? Did they kill Jesus among the rest? 
 Where was he at this time? And how long 
 did he stay there? Can you find out any 
 body else whom this king Herod slew ? Did 
 he slay John the Baptist? What became 
 of this wicked king ? How did he die ? 
 
 What is a country called when a king 
 rules over it? And what is it called when 
 the king can do just as he pleases ? Could 
 any body in our country send and kill chil- 
 
KILLING THE CHILDREN. 19 
 
 dren in this way ? What kind of a govern- 
 ment is ours ? Does one man make all the 
 laws for us ? 
 
 Why have we not a king, like the Jews ? 
 Who is our King? Can he take care of 
 every little child, as he took care of the 
 child Jesus ? 
 
20 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 GOING HOME AGAIN. 
 
 HE carpenter Joseph and his wife 
 did not like to live in Egypt. The 
 people were all strangers to them 
 there, and, what was worse yet, they were 
 idolaters. Can you tell me, children, what 
 an idolater is? and about some of the 
 idols that they worshiped in Egypt? What 
 were their names? and what did they look 
 like ? Would you want to live where there 
 are no Christian people, and no churches, 
 and no sabbath-schools, and where every 
 body prayed to stones, and snakes, and 
 oxen? 
 
 Every evening, when Joseph came in 
 from his work, he and Mary would talk about 
 their home, and wish that they could get 
 back again. One evening, after talking 
 about it a long time, they went to sleep. 
 
GOING HOME AGAIN. 21 
 
 and Joseph dreamed that an angel came to 
 him, and said, "Arise, and take the young 
 child and his mother, and go into the land 
 of Israel; for they are dead which sought 
 the young child's life." 
 
 Why did not Joseph read about Herod's 
 death in the newspapers ? Why did God 
 send an angel to tell him of it? 
 
 Joseph was very glad of the dream. He 
 thought it came from God. So he got up in 
 the morning, and took the child and its 
 mother, and started for the Land of Israel. 
 What way did he go — north or south, east 
 or west? And how far did he go? Over 
 what kind of country did he travel ? — a 
 country with farms, and houses, and good 
 roads, like ours? Can you think of any 
 body else in the Bible who went down to 
 Egypt from the Land of Israel, and of any 
 persons who came up out of Egypt, and 
 went to Canaan ? 
 
 When Joseph got back to Bethlehem, he 
 was afraid to stay there, for he heard that 
 one of Herod's sons was king in his place, 
 and he thought that the son might be just as 
 
22 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 bad as the father. So he went on into an- 
 other province, that was under another ruler. 
 
 Fifty or sixty miles north of Jerusalem, 
 there was a beautiful town built on the side 
 of a hill, with steep mountains all around it. 
 Joseph thought that this would be a safe 
 place to live in ; but he soon found that the 
 people there were very wicked. So wicked, 
 indeed, that it was a common saying all over 
 the land, that nothing good could come out 
 of that place. Can you tell me the name of 
 this town, and the name of the province in 
 which it was, and the name of the king or 
 governor of it at that time ? And tell me 
 also the name of Herod's son, who reigned 
 in Judea. 
 
 How long did Jesus live in this place? 
 and what name did he get by living there? 
 
GOING TO JERUSALEM. 23 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 GOING TO JERUSALEM. 
 
 jlT was in April, but it was not cold 
 and stormy, as it is here in April. 
 It was warm and mild, like June. 
 Long, clear, sunny days, so pleasant to 
 travel in. And every body was starting off. 
 Where can they be going? See ! they bring 
 out cloth for tents, and food to eat during 
 the journey, and pots, and dishes ; and, last 
 of all, they bring out a lamb — a beautiful 
 white lamb about a year old, with its horns 
 just beginning to grow. What are they 
 taking it for? And now they start, a great 
 company of men, women, and children. 
 They go down the south side of the hill, and 
 sing as they go. 
 
 Where are these people from Nazareth 
 all going? What feast did the Jews keep in 
 April? And what did they keep it for? 
 
24 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 And what day do some people keep yet in 
 April, because of what happened at one of 
 these feasts of the Jews ? And why do lit- 
 tle boys like to have colored eggs about that 
 time? 
 
 Now let us go back and look at these 
 travelers. There, among them, is an old 
 man and his wife and a little boy twelve 
 years of age. I do not know whether he 
 was a pretty boy or not, but I am sure that 
 he was a very good one. He always did 
 just what his 'parents told him to. Do you 
 know of any little boy or girl that is just 
 like him in this ? 
 
 The boy was delighted with what he saw 
 all along the way; but when, on the third 
 day, he got to the top of a hill, and saw just 
 before them a beautiful city, with a large 
 building in the midst of it, that shone, in the 
 sunbeams, like gold, and all the people began 
 singing again, he was so happy that I think 
 he must have cried for joy. Oh, how he 
 had wanted to see Jerusalem and the tem- 
 ple ! Can you tell me why he was so anx- 
 ious to see them ? 
 
GOING TO JERUSALEM. 25 
 
 They went into the city, and spread their 
 tent right in the street, or perhaps in some- 
 body's yard ; and they staid there seven or 
 eight days. Every morning, about nine 
 o'clock, they went to the temple, and again 
 at three o'clock in the afternoon. Why did 
 they go at that hour ? On Thursday even- 
 ing, they killed and ate the lamb which they 
 brought with them. Why did they eat it 
 then ? and what kind of bread did they eat 
 with it ? 
 
 At last the feast was all over, and the first 
 day of the week — what day is that? was it 
 the Sabbath among the Jews ? — on the first 
 day of the week, they went up to the temple 
 for the last time, and then started home. 
 There was a great company, just as when 
 they came. Many of them were relations; 
 Joseph and Mary had brothers and sisters 
 and cousins there, and Jesus had uncles and 
 aunts. And they were all very fond of him, 
 I am sure. When they were coming to the 
 feast, he had sometimes traveled awhile with 
 one of them, and sometimes with another. 
 And his parents, knowing that he was a 
 
26 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 good boy, let him go about in the company 
 wherever he pleased. 
 
 They started from the temple, as I said, 
 and went back toward Nazareth. They 
 traveled on all day. Once Joseph said to 
 Mary, "Do you know where Jesus is? I 
 have not seen him since we started." 
 
 "No," she answered; "but he is with 
 some of our friends, talking about the feast. 
 He will come to us, when we stop for the 
 night." 
 
 At last night came, and, about twenty 
 miles from Jerusalem, they stopped, and 
 pitched their tents. Mary got supper ready, 
 but Jesus did not come. Then they went 
 to the other tents, and asked after him ; but 
 he was not to be found and nobody had seen 
 him. Where could he be? They hurried 
 all over the encampment; but could hear 
 nothing of him. He must have been left in 
 Jerusalem. Oh, how sad Joseph and Mary 
 were ! It was dark then, so they laid down 
 and tried to sleep. I am afraid that they 
 did not succeed very well. Do you think 
 
GOING TO JERUSALEM. 27 
 
 that your mother could sleep, if you were 
 lost? 
 
 Early in the morning, they left the rest 
 of the company, and went back to Jerusa- 
 lem. What happened there I will tell you 
 in the next chapter. 
 
 And now I want you to learn all you can 
 about this feast that they went to keep in 
 Jerusalem. When was it first kept? and 
 why? 
 
 Also, learn as much as you can about Je- 
 rusalem, and the temple, and what they did 
 there at nine o'clock in the morning, and at 
 three o'clock in the afternoon. 
 
28 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 JESUS IN THE TEMPLE. 
 
 HEN Joseph and Mary got to Jeru- 
 salem, they went all over the city, 
 looking and asking for their lost 
 child. But that evening they could not find 
 him. They had to lie down another night 
 in anxiety and grief. 
 
 Next morning they thought they would 
 go up to the Temple. Perhaps they expected 
 to find him there, and perhaps they only 
 went there to pray. When people are in 
 trouble they should always pray to God. 
 Can you tell me why ? And can you find a 
 verse in the Bible about God's being " a 
 very present help in trouble?' 5 Where is 
 it? 
 
 When Joseph and Mary had climbed up 
 the broad steps, they saw a good many old 
 men sitting together, and talking. Those 
 
JESUS IN THE TEMPLE. 29 
 
 old men were called Doctors — that is, teach- 
 ers, because they spent all their time in 
 studying the Law of Moses, and then taught 
 what they learned to the people. Those 
 doctors were old men. But right among 
 them there was a little boy, and when he 
 talked, they all listened to him. They 
 seemed to wonder at him, because he knew 
 so much about the Bible. That little boy 
 was Jesus. Can you tell w T hy he loved so 
 to talk about the Bible ? And what kind of 
 a Bible had they at that time? Was it as 
 large as the Bible we have ? Was it in Eng- 
 lish or in some other language? 
 
 When Joseph and Mary saw Jesus, they 
 were very glad, and yet they felt angry too, 
 because he had staid behind and given them 
 so much trouble. His mother said to him, 
 " Son, why hast thou dealt thus with us ? be- 
 hold, thy father and I have sought thee sor- 
 rowing." 
 
 And he said unto them. " How is it that 
 ye sought me ? wist ye not that I must be 
 about my Father's business?" 
 
 And they understood not what he meant. 
 
30 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 How could it be his Father's business to sit 
 among the doctors "hearing them and ask- 
 ing them questions?" Can you tell, chil- 
 dren? Which of his fathers did Jesus 
 mean? What is God's great business in 
 this world? What does he send Bibles to 
 us for, and give us ministers and Sabbath- 
 school teachers ? Would you not have liked 
 to be in that Bible-class in the Temple when 
 Jesus was teacher? 
 
 Jesus left the Temple and the Doctors, 
 and went down to Nazareth with Joseph and 
 Mary, and was subject to them. They were 
 poor people, and had to work for a living, 
 and Jesus worked with them, and worked 
 for them. We believe that he was a car- 
 penter, too, and helped his father build 
 houses in Nazareth. 
 
 Now, children, why did Jesus obey Joseph 
 and Mary ? Do you think that he did it to 
 set an example to little boys and girls ? Do 
 you know what he says about honoring pa- 
 rents ? And do you know of any child that 
 does not obey that commandment, and does 
 not follow the example of Jesus ? 
 
THE BAPTIST. 31 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE BAPTIST. 
 
 pESUS' mother had a cousin who 
 lived at Hebron. This cousin had 
 a son six months older than Jesus. 
 He was a strange boy, and did not love to 
 play as most children do, but would rather 
 go off among the hills, and wander there 
 alone. He was a very pious boy, and could 
 not bear to see any one do wrong. 
 
 Every body that saw this boy said that he 
 would make a remarkable man. He would 
 not drink any wine, or eat any rich food. 
 He would not have his hair cut, or wear 
 any but the plainest clothes. He grew up 
 very strong, and very bold, too, so that he 
 was not afraid to tell any body just what he 
 thought. 
 
 When he became a man, he went out from 
 his father's house, and lived in the desert. 
 
32 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 He found locusts there — little things some- 
 what like grasshoppers — -and in the old trees 
 were swarms of bees that made honey. So 
 he ate the locusts and the wild honey. His 
 clothes were not made of broadcloth, but he 
 had a kind of cloak made of coarse camel's 
 hair, and he buckled this cloak around his 
 waist with a leathern strap, and so he went 
 dressed. He wandered about in the desert 
 until he was thirty years of age. Then he 
 went out to the towns where the people 
 lived, and began to preach. He told them 
 that they were very wicked, and that God 
 wanted them to repent. He said that God 
 had sent him to baptize all who were willing 
 to forsake their sins, and that God would 
 soon send somebody after him who would 
 save them from their sins. And great crowds 
 would get together to hear John preach, and 
 some were angry when he told them about 
 their wickedness, and some were sorry, and 
 said they would try to do better, and then 
 he took them down to a river that ran 
 through Judea, and baptized them. And 
 the people kept coming, and a great crowd 
 
THE BAPTIST. 33 
 
 would stand on the bank all day, and the 
 man dressed in camel's hair would tell them 
 how wicked they were, and every now and 
 then one would say : " It is true, I know, 
 that I am wicked, but I mean to try to 
 do better;" and he would go up to the 
 preacher, and tell him, and would be bap- 
 tized. This was called the " Baptism of Re- 
 pentance." 
 
 So he kept on eating locusts and wild 
 honey, and preaching and baptizing for a 
 good many weeks, perhaps for six months. 
 The people often asked him if he was not 
 the Savior that God had promised; but he 
 always said, "No, I am not he, but am sent 
 to go before him, and he will soon come." 
 
 One day, the man dressed in camel's hair 
 saw a young man in the crowd, that Grod 
 told him was the Savior, and he cried out to 
 the people: "There is one standing right 
 among you, I am not worthy even to kneel 
 down before him, and untie his shoes." 
 And every body wondered who he meant. 
 Pretty soon the young man came down to 
 the shore, and said that he wanted to be 
 3 
 
34 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 baptized. But the preacher would not bap- 
 tize him at first. He said : " Do you come 
 to me ? I ought to go to you, for you are a 
 great deal better than I." But the young 
 man said : " No, you must baptize me." 
 And they went to the water together, and 
 when the young man had been baptized, 
 and came back from the water, he stopped, 
 and, looking up to heaven, he prayed, and 
 right above him the sky seemed to open, 
 and a dove came down, and lighted on his 
 head. And then a voice came out of the 
 sky. It sounded very much like thunder, 
 but it said, so that all the people could hear : 
 
 " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am 
 well pleased." 
 
 Now, I have a good many questions to 
 ask, and some hard ones. 
 
 Who was Mary's cousin, that lived in He- 
 bron? and what was her husband's name? 
 And what was his occupation? And what 
 was the name of their son? Do people eat 
 locusts nowadays? Do the men in Pales- 
 tine dress as we do — or what kind of clothes 
 do they wear ? 
 
THE BAPTIST. 35 
 
 What is repentance? Does repenting 
 make people any better? Was it foretold 
 in the Old Testament that a prophet should 
 be sent just before the Savior came ? Who 
 was the young man that God called his be- 
 loved Son? And what was the dove that 
 descended upon him? Can you repeat a 
 hymn about this "Heavenly Dove?" 
 
36 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE TEMPTATION. 
 
 jjFTER Jesus was baptized, and God 
 called him his "beloved Son," he 
 went away into the wilderness — 
 that is, into a wild place, where nobody 
 lives. He wandered about a number of 
 days, without any thing to eat, until he be- 
 gan to feel very hungry. Then some one 
 met him in the wilderness. It was not 
 some body, for I expect that it had no 
 body. It was a spirit, and it went along 
 with Jesus, and talked with him* And the 
 spirit saw how hungry Jesus was, and it 
 said to him : "Are you the Son of God ? " 
 And Jesus said: "Yes, I am." Then it 
 said again: "Can not the Son of God 
 make any thing that he wants to?" "He 
 can," Jesus answered ; for he makes every 
 thing — the stars that shine, and the grain 
 
THE TEMPTATION. 37 
 
 that grows. "Well, then/' whispered the 
 spirit, "you are very foolish to suffer so 
 here in the wilderness; take one of these 
 stones and make it a loaf of bread. If 
 you can make thousands of bushels of wheat 
 grow every summer, surely you can make 
 enough for your dinner." And Jesus knew 
 that he could change the hard stones to 
 bread ; but, hungry as he was, he would not 
 do it. 
 
 Can you tell me why he would not? 
 
 Then they went away from the wilderness 
 and traveled to Jerusalem. The spirit was 
 close to Jesus all the time, but nobody 
 could see it. And they went to the temple, 
 and walked out to the wall, where it was 
 very high. And the people saw Jesus walk- 
 ing on the top of the wall, and, perhaps, 
 some of them knew him, and said to one 
 another: "There is the young man that 
 John said was to come after him — look at 
 him ! " And while they were looking, the 
 spirit said: "This is a good time to show 
 that you are the Son of God. Just throw 
 yourself from this high wall, right among 
 
38 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 the stones down there. You can keep from 
 getting hurt, for the angels will hold you 
 up, and when the people see the miracle 
 they will all believe in you." But Jesus 
 said : " No ; " and to show why he did not 
 do it, he quoted a verse out of the Old Tes- 
 tament. You will find it in the 6th chapter 
 of Deuteronomy. Can you explain this 
 verse, and what Jesus meant by quoting it ? 
 When the spirit could not get Jesus to 
 throw himself down from the wall of the 
 Temple, he pointed to a high mountain away 
 off, and said : " Come, let us go there." And 
 they went ; and when they stood on the top 
 of the mountain they saw a great many 
 towns, and cities, and farms. And the spirit 
 said : " All this world is mine, and I can 
 give it to whoever I choose. I will give it 
 all to you, and make you the greatest king 
 that ever lived, if you will only fall down 
 and worship me. You have come from 
 heaven to get this world back again. It 
 serves me now instead of God. And you 
 want it to serve God, as Adam did in Eden. 
 You are going to suffer and die in order to 
 
THE TEMPTATION. 39 
 
 get it back again. But there is an easier 
 way — just kneel down and pray to me once, 
 and you shall have the whole of it, right 
 away, without any more trouble." 
 
 What did Jesus say to this ? And what 
 did the spirit do then? And what is the 
 name of this spirit ? Does he ever talk to 
 people nowadays? How do spirits talk? 
 Does what they say seem as if we thought 
 it ourselves? What is meant by tempta- 
 tion? And what is the best way to resist 
 temptation ? What kind of a weapon is the 
 Bible called ? Has this spirit ever spoken to 
 you ? Did you do what it told you to ? 
 
40 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CALLING THE DISCIPLES. 
 
 FEW days after the evil spirit went 
 away, Jesus was walking on the 
 shore of a beautiful lake, and on 
 the lake were a great many boats, with men 
 in them, catching fish. They had nets, 
 which they let down into the water, and 
 drew them up again, sometimes empty, and 
 sometimes full of fish. In one boat, Jesus 
 saw two brothers, called Simon and Andrew. 
 They lived in a town near the lake, called 
 Capernaum, and made their living by fish- 
 ing. They were just throwing out their net 
 Avhen Jesus saw them. He called out to 
 them, and said : " Come, go with me, and I 
 will teach you how to catch men — that is a 
 great deal better than catching fish." As 
 soon as they heard him, they threw their 
 net down in the boat, and rowed to the 
 
CALLING THE DISCIPLES. 41 
 
 shore, and there left their net and boat, and 
 went with Jesus. He had no money to 
 give them, no home to take them to ; but 
 they followed him, day and night, for more 
 than three years. Often they were hungry, 
 and had no food ; often they were tired, and 
 had no place to sleep ; often the people 
 abused them for going with Jesus ; but still 
 they followed him, They wanted to be 
 " fishers of men." Do you know what 
 Jesus meant by that ? Who are fishers of 
 men nowadays? Would not some of my 
 young readers like to be fishers of men ? 
 
 Jesus went on a little further with Simon 
 and Andrew, and soon they saw a boat by 
 the shore, and three men sitting in it, mend- 
 ing their nets. They were fishermen, too- — 
 an old man named Zebedee, and his two 
 sons, named James and John. And Jesus 
 asked them to go with him; and they did 
 not say, " We will finish our fishing, and go 
 to-morrow." They did not ask any ques- 
 tions even, but immediately left their net 
 just as it was, and their father in the boat, 
 and went with Jesus. 
 
42 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 They turned away from the lake, and 
 went through a town, and soon they came 
 to a place where people had to pay their 
 taxes ; and there, in a little office, sat a 
 man named Matthew, to collect the taxes. 
 When Jesus got near enough, he said to 
 him, just as he did to the fishermen, " Fol- 
 low me." And right away Matthew left his 
 office, and his tax-books, and his money, 
 and went along. 
 
 How strange that these men were willing 
 to go with Jesus as soon as he asked them ! 
 Can you tell me w^hy they were willing? 
 And what were they called, because they 
 went with him, and were taught by him? 
 How many were there that went so with 
 Jesus, and what were their names? 
 
 And can you tell me something about 
 that lake that the men were fishing in? 
 What names has it in the Bible ? How 
 long is it ? How wide ? Are there any 
 fishermen there now? Are there many 
 boats on the lake now? 
 
HOW JESUS LOOKED. 43 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HOW JESUS LOOKED. 
 
 jlHEN a great man comes among us, 
 we are all anxious to know how he 
 looks. " Is he tall ? " " Is he hand- 
 some?" we ask. Now, it is natural that 
 children, and older people too, should want 
 to know how the Savior looked. Some 
 persons have painted pictures of him, that 
 is, of him as they think he. was. They 
 guess at the color of his hair, and the shape 
 of his face, and so on. Now, this is all 
 very foolish; for if God had wanted us to 
 know, he would have told us just how Jesus 
 looked ; and since he has not told us, we 
 must be willing to go without knowing, 
 until we see him in heaven. 
 
 I wish all of you would hunt in your 
 Bibles for all the verses that tell any thing 
 
44 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 about the appearance of the Savior, and, in 
 the meantime I will give you my own ideas 
 about it. 
 
 I do not think that Jesus was a very hand- 
 some man, as some suppose. Some people 
 tell us that the humanity of Christ was per- 
 fect, because he was to be a perfect Savior. 
 But I can not understand how a beautiful 
 face, or a tall and straight body, should have 
 any thing to do with his holiness of char- 
 acter. Some of the best people that I 
 have ever seen were very homely. Many 
 cripples, and weak, sickly persons are 
 very pious. They could not be pious if 
 the Holy Spirit did not live in their hearts. 
 And if he — the Holy Spirit — will often 
 choose a poor body, full of pain, rather 
 than a healthy and beautiful one, Christ 
 may have done just the same, and lived 
 here on earth in a body that was very plain- 
 looking. 
 
 And Christ dressed very plainly. You 
 will find something about this in your Bible. 
 He did not wear royal robes, like Herod, 
 but wore such clothes as poor people wore 
 
HOW JESUS LOOKED. 45 
 
 at that time. As he went over the country, 
 people saw nothing very grand or showy 
 about him. They did not say : " There goes 
 the handsomest man in Judea ! " or " See 
 what a splendid robe he has ! " but they 
 called him u the carpenter's son/' and " the 
 Galilean." 
 
 But although Jesus may not have been a 
 handsome man, or richly dressed, I am sure 
 of one thing — that he was a good-looking 
 man. 
 
 Can you tell me the difference between 
 being good-looking and handsome? And 
 why Jesus must have been (/oodMooking ? 
 
 I saw a young man the other day. He 
 had fine brown hair, that curled beautifully 
 all over his head. His eyes were large and 
 bright; his face very regular, his cheeks 
 red, and his form graceful. His clothes 
 were fine, and fitted well. Many people 
 would have said : " What a good-looking 
 young man ! " But he was going along the 
 street, puffing a cigar, and talking aloud 
 with another young man, and every other 
 word was an oath. And when he came to 
 
46 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 a muddy place, where a narrow board was 
 laid across, he met a poor, lame boy, with 
 a basket of apples on his arm, and saying, 
 " Get out of the way, you brat ! " He pushed 
 the little fellow into the mud, and spilled all 
 his apples. And then, instead of being 
 sorry, he only laughed, and swore another 
 great oath, and went on. And as I saw 
 this, I thought the young man was ugly- 
 looking, in spite of his bright eyes and fine 
 features. 
 
 And as I was going to help the apple- 
 boy, an old woman hobbled past me, and 
 began picking the apples up for him, and 
 wiping them with a corner of her ragged 
 shawl. And she said : " Do n't cry, honey ! 
 We will soon fix them all right. There, 
 now, they are clean again ! Go sell them, 
 and may God bless you ! " 
 
 I looked into the old woman's face ; it 
 was wrinkled and sunken, but there was so 
 much kindness and cheerfulness shining 
 over it, that I thought she was really hand- 
 some. 
 
 Now, children, how will you try to be 
 
HOW JESUS LOOKED. 47 
 
 good-looking? Don't you think that the 
 angels are all beautiful? And what is it 
 that makes them so? And how can the 
 plainest little boy or girl that reads this 
 book look like an angel? 
 
48 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HOW JESUS LIVED. 
 
 NTIL Jesus began to preach, he 
 lived with his parents at Nazareth, 
 They were not rich, but had to 
 work for their living. Hence, they could 
 not have had a fine house, or costly furni- 
 ture, or have dressed their children in showy 
 and expensive clothes. 
 
 But after Jesus became a man, and God 
 called him his " beloved Son," would you 
 not expect him to live like a prince? The 
 sons of Queen Victoria have the most splen- 
 did and costly things, even when they are 
 infants, because they are the children of a 
 queen. The people of England give them 
 a great deal of money every year from the 
 time they are born. Now, Jesus' father, 
 his real father, God, is King of all the 
 earth. He is the greatest King that ever 
 
HOW JESUS LIVED. 49 
 
 was or will be. He owned all the land of 
 Israel — all its houses and palaces were 
 his. Why, then, did he not take one 
 of them for Christ to live in ? or why did 
 he not build one on purpose, more beau- 
 tiful than any in the world? He could 
 have done it very easily, could he not? 
 And since he did not, he must have had 
 a good reason for not doing it. Can you 
 tell me that reason? Think about it. 
 Study in your Bible, and see what it says 
 about this. 
 
 Christ had no home — after he went out 
 from the house of Joseph, the carpenter, in 
 Nazareth, he had no home. He did not 
 own a bed to sleep on at night. Though 
 every little bird had its nest to go to when 
 the sun went down — and the beasts in the 
 fields had holes to crawl into — and there 
 were folds for the sheep, and stables for 
 the cattle, there was often no place but the 
 cold mountains or the damp woods for the 
 Son of God. Think of this, dear children, 
 as you go home from school or from play 
 to your pleasant homes — think of this as 
 4 
 
50 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 you lie down in your nice beds to sleep. 
 0, think that Jesus lived out of doors, and 
 often had to sleep on the ground, with no 
 covering but the blue sky ! 
 
 The Savior had no money, except what 
 people gave him now and then. He was 
 often without a farthing. Can you find a 
 passage in the Bible to prove this? He 
 was often hungry, when he could get noth- 
 ing to eat, and suffered just as you would 
 if you had to go all day without any food. 
 Can you find any thing about this in your 
 Bible? 
 
 The Savior lived just to do good — that 
 was all he eared about. Do you remember 
 about his stopping one day at Jacob's well ? 
 He had had no breakfast that morning, and 
 was so weak and weary that he could not 
 go any further. While his disciples went to 
 get bread, he found a poor, sinful woman, 
 and began to tell her how to be good and 
 happy, and he forgot that he was hungry. 
 And when the bread came, he did not want 
 it. He said it was Mb bread to do the will 
 of God. He went all over the land, heal- 
 
HOW JESUS LIVED. 51 
 
 ing sick, and lame, and deaf and dumb, and 
 blind people. He did not take pay from 
 any of them. All he received for his kind 
 and mighty deeds was a dinner or a supper 
 now and then. And those that asked him 
 to come to dinner often treated him very 
 rudely — -just as if they felt above him. Can 
 you find an instance of this, where a Phari- 
 see, to whose house he was invited, gave 
 him no water to wash, and did not treat 
 him at all as people in the East treat their 
 visitors ? 
 
 Jesus lived poor and despised — had no 
 home — only a few friends, and they poor 
 like himself. He worked hard — did a great 
 deal of good — suffered much — was badly 
 treated a great many times. Yet he never 
 complained — and all this time he was the 
 Son of God. 
 
 Why, children, did he live so ? Are peo- 
 ple any better or happier because they have 
 plenty of money, and fine houses, and fine 
 clothes ? What ought to be the first thing, 
 and the great thing, for people to think 
 about — something to eat, or to wear, or 
 
52 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 houses, or lands, or money? Will you live, 
 like the Savior, to do good, or like the men 
 and women around you, just to enjoy your- 
 selves ? 
 
HOW JESUS WORKED MIRACLES. 53 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HOW JESUS WORKED MIRACLES. 
 
 ERHAPS all of you have wondered 
 at the many and mighty things that 
 Jesus did while he was on earth. 
 He made sick people well, he opened the 
 eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf. 
 He fed a thousand hungry men with a sin- 
 gle loaf. He raised the dead up out of their 
 graves and made them alive again. 
 
 I want you to study these miracles, and 
 see what you can learn from them about 
 Jesus ; for it is what people do that shows 
 what they are. 
 
 First, see how easily Jesus seemed to do 
 these great things ! He would just touch a 
 blind man's eyes, or break the loaf of bread, 
 or say to the dead, "Arise!" He did not 
 have to use medicine, as the doctors do, and 
 try and try again. No; a word from him 
 
54 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 or a touch was enough. Can you give proof 
 of this? And what do you learn from it 
 about Jesus ? 
 
 Secondly, see how quickly Jesus wrought 
 his miracles. He did not rub his hand upon 
 the eyes of the blind, and say, " Come again 
 to-morrow," and so restore their sight after 
 a while, but did it instantly. Find in your 
 Bible how long was the longest time it took 
 Christ to work a miracle. Then tell me 
 how it was in the case of others to whom 
 God gave power to work miracles. How 
 long was Elijah in bringing the Shunamite's 
 son back to life ? How long was Peter in 
 restoring Dorcas? And how long was 
 Christ in raising Lazarus? 
 
 Thirdly, see how many different kinds of 
 miracles Christ wrought. He not only 
 healed diseases, but he made bread and 
 wine ; he stilled tempests ; he walked on 
 water ; he made trees wither away ; he 
 brought a fish out of the sea with money in 
 its mouth, and so on. 
 
 See how many different kinds of diseases 
 Christ healed, and how many other kinds 
 
HOW JESUS WORKED MIRACLES. 55 
 
 of miracles he did. What do you learn 
 from this great variety? 
 
 Fourthly, see how ready Jesus was to 
 work miracles for any body in distress who 
 came to him. He was going along the 
 road, very busy talking. A blind man was 
 sitting on a stone by the roadside, and 
 he cried out, " Have mercy upon me ! " 
 The people that were listening to Jesus 
 were angry because the blind man inter- 
 rupted him. But Jesus was not angry. He 
 stopped right away, and opened the blind 
 man's eyes. 
 
 Fifthly : Jesus did not work any of his 
 miracles to make money by them, or to get 
 any thing for himself; but they were always 
 done for the good of others. When he was 
 hungry, he did not make bread to feed 
 himself, but when the five thousand men 
 were hungry in the desert, he fed them by 
 a miracle. 
 
 Most of the people that he healed were 
 poor, and had nothing to pay him but 
 thanks. No doubt there were rich persons 
 in Judea who Were sick, and lame, and 
 
56 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 blind. If Jesus had gone to them, and 
 offered to heal them for money, he might 
 have become very rich. Why did he not 
 do so ? 
 
 Finally, Jesus never boasted of his mira- 
 cles. He did not say: ''See what wonder- 
 ful things I can do ! " Nor did he make 
 any display or parade of them. He did 
 them when they were needed, did them 
 quietly, and then went on teaching again. 
 
 And now, what do you learn, children, 
 from these miracles of Jesus ? How many 
 do you think he wrought in all ? How 
 many different kinds were there of them ? 
 In how many different places did he, do 
 them ? What did he want to prove by 
 them ? Did every one who saw these mira- 
 cles admit that Jesus was the Son of God? 
 How did the Pharisees say that he worked 
 miracles ? Why could it not have been 
 done by the power of Satan? Is Satan 
 able to raise the dead? Or even to open 
 the eyes of the blind? If Satan worked 
 miracles, would he not want to make money 
 by them ? 
 
HOW JESUS PRAYED. 57 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HOW JESUS PRAYED. 
 
 | VERY body ought to pray. Is 
 there any child who reads this 
 book that never prays ? — that goes 
 to bed at night without asking God to take 
 care of it, and without thanking him for the 
 home and the friends that he has given it ? 
 I hope not. But saying prayers is not 
 praying. What is real praying — such as 
 God loves to hear? 
 
 Christ prayed often — not just so many 
 times a day, but whenever he felt the need 
 of it. Can you count up in your Testa- 
 ment, and tell me how many times it speaks 
 there of the prayers of Christ ? 
 
 Christ prayed long — he continued and 
 wrestled in prayer. Do you remember 
 about his going away off one evening, and 
 climbing up a mountain, and spending the 
 
58 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 whole night in prayer? Did he do this 
 more than once ? 
 
 Although Christ prayed long, he did not 
 use many words. Do you recollect about 
 his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane? 
 It contained only twenty-one words. Can 
 you repeat them? And yet those twenty- 
 one words he repeated over and over, for 
 about three hours. Do you know the prayer 
 that Christ taught to his disciples ? It be- 
 gins, " Our Father which art in heaven." 
 It is called the Lord's Prayer, and every 
 child should know it by heart. Well, it is 
 a short prayer. It has all been written in- 
 side of a ring only as large as half a dime. 
 
 Again : Christ prayed very earnestly. In 
 the Garden he fell down on the ground, and 
 his sweat was like great drops of blood. 
 And this was at midnight, and the night 
 was so cold that people needed fire to warm 
 themselves by ! Can you tell me where a 
 fire was made that night, and who stood by 
 it to warm himself? 
 
 Christ prayed almost always for other 
 people, and not for himself. We don't 
 
HOW JESUS PRAYED. 59 
 
 know that he ever prayed for himself, ex- 
 cept in Gethsemane, and even then it was 
 because he was bearing our sins. Do you 
 remember who he prayed for on the cross ? 
 
 Did Christ pray in heaven before he 
 came to this world? Why did he not? 
 Had he any sins to ask forgiveness for? 
 Did he need any thing from any body else ? 
 Or was he not God, equal with the Father ? 
 But does not Christ pray in heaven now? 
 Who does he pray for? 
 
 Dear children, if Christ prayed for us on 
 earth, and prays for us in heaven, should 
 we not pray for ourselves ? Should we not 
 pray often, as he did ? Should we not pray 
 for just what we want, and nothing else? 
 Should we not pray earnestly for it — pray 
 over and over again — pray all night even, 
 as Christ did ? When a little child is hun- 
 gry, it cries for food. It does not ask for 
 playthings then, but keeps crying and cry- 
 ing, over and over again : " Please give me 
 something to eat." So if one of you wants 
 to have a new heart, you should go and ask 
 God for it. You should ask in earnest — 
 
60 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 ask often — ask over and over, and God will 
 hear you. He wants to give you a new 
 heart just as soon as you ask him for it in 
 the right way — just as soon as you show, 
 by your praying for it, that you really 
 want it. 
 
HOW JESUS TAUGHT. 61 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 HOW JESUS TAUGHT. 
 
 ESUS did not have a school for 
 people to go to, and yet he was 
 teaching all the time. He came 
 down to this world to teach men, as well as 
 to die for them. The Jews had a great 
 many strange notions about God, and about 
 praying, and being good, and going to 
 heaven. They thought that if they only 
 said so many long prayers every day, and 
 fasted two days in every week, they might 
 lie, and cheat, and do almost every thing 
 bad, and yet God would love them, and 
 make them happy. Can you tell me what the 
 Savior calls these people, that had all their 
 religion on the outside — who pretended to 
 be very good, while their hearts were very 
 wicked ? Do you think it does any good to 
 pray unless the heart is in the prayer ? 
 
62 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 Jesus knew that these ideas of the people 
 were all wrong, and would lead them to 
 hell, and not to heaven. He wanted to 
 teach them better. He wanted them to 
 know that God looks at the heart. Hence, 
 he was all the time explaining this to them, 
 and he did it often by parables. Can you 
 tell me what is meant by a parable ? Some 
 things it is easy for us to understand, and 
 some it is hard. And very often the thing 
 that is hard is like something that is easy. 
 When it is, a good teacher will explain the 
 hard thing by the easy thing that is like it; 
 and this is a parable. 
 
 When Jesus wanted to tell the people 
 that in order to be good, there must be a 
 beginning in the heart, and that this was 
 but a small beginning often, but that from it 
 would grow good thoughts and good habits, 
 so that the man would be getting better 
 and better all the time; and that would be 
 easy for him, too, because there was love 
 in his heart — it was hard to make the Jews 
 understand this. When any body talked 
 about piety, or being good, they thought 
 
HOW JESUS TAUGHT. 63 
 
 only of saying prayers and offering sacri- 
 fices. And what did Jesus do then, in order 
 to make it plain to them ? He picked up a 
 little seed, and said to them : " See this 
 seed ; how small it is ! But if you put it in 
 the ground, it will sprout, and grow, and 
 after a while it will become a large tree, and 
 then the leaves will come out all over its 
 branches, and, after a while, blossoms and 
 fruit. They will come easily, naturally, 
 because the tree is alive. The sap grows up 
 from the root and starts the buds, and they 
 open into leaves, and so on. If the tree 
 was dead, you might work at it for years, 
 and you could not make a single leaf or 
 apple on it. 
 
 In just this same way does love to God 
 act. A man or a little child hears about 
 the Savior — how he suffered and died for 
 sinners, and he begins to think : " 0, how 
 good he was ! 0, how much I ought to do 
 for him ! I will try to do something. 5 ' This 
 feeling is like the seed. The child begins 
 to pray to God, and to study the Bible, and 
 to try to keep the commandments, and to 
 
64 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 be like Christ. And the more it thinks 
 about him and tries to serve him, the easier 
 this becomes. Love grows in the heart. It 
 comes up, like the sap of the tree, and 
 makes our words and our actions lovely. 
 
 You see, then, dear children, what a par- 
 able is. I wish you would count in your 
 Bibles how many parables Christ taught. 
 You will find a great many, and some of 
 them very beautiful. 
 
THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 65 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 
 
 SUPPOSE you have all read the 
 beautiful parable of the sheep and 
 the shepherd. The sheep is a timid 
 animal, and needs somebody to take care of 
 it. It seems, also, to like those that feed 
 it, and to have great confidence in them. 
 In eastern countries there are men who do 
 nothing all their lives but take care of 
 sheep. They go out early in the morning, 
 and the sheep follow them. The shepherd 
 does not lead his sheep with halters, or drive 
 them, but he goes wherever he wants them 
 to go, and they go after him. 
 
 It is a beautiful sight to see hundreds of 
 sheep following their shepherd over the hills 
 until they come to the place of pasture ! 
 There the shepherd stops, and sits down, 
 and the sheep begin to feed upon the grass. 
 5 
 
66 
 
 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 While they feed, the shepherd watches them, 
 and if he sees a wolf coming, he calls, and 
 at once the sheep all run to him, and gather 
 close together around him. If some care- 
 less little lamb wanders away too far from 
 the rest, the shepherd calls it by name (for 
 he has a name for every one in the flock, 
 and they all know their names;) and as soon 
 as the lamb hears his voice, it comes to him 
 like a child. How pretty a flock of sheep 
 must look, feeding on the green hills, with 
 their shepherd in the midst of them ! 
 
 Do you know what Jesus wants to teach 
 us by this parable? Who is the good Shep- 
 herd ? And why does he say that he is 
 the good Shepherd? What does he do for 
 his sheep ? What does he give for them ? 
 
 Suppose you saw a lion come out of the 
 woods, close by where a little lamb was feed- 
 ing, and spring upon the lamb, and begin to 
 tear it to pieces. And suppose that the 
 shepherd should run to the lion, and try to 
 get the lamb away, and that the lion should 
 leave the lamb, and begin to tear the shep- 
 herd with his claws, and that the shepherd, 
 
THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 67 
 
 in saving the lamb, should be wounded so 
 badly that he died, would you not think that 
 the shepherd loved the lamb very much? 
 Would you not say that he was a good 
 shepherd? Such a Shepherd you have. Do 
 you know his name ? Who is the lion that 
 is trying to devour you? And how does 
 Christ save you? Do you not think, too, 
 that Christ watches you all the time? Do 
 you not think he knows when you are doing 
 wrong? Have you never heard him call to 
 you to come back to him ? Has not some- 
 thing seemed to say in your heart, " Go and 
 pray to Christ, and try to be good again ? " 
 That was Jesus speaking to you. And as 
 the sheep follow their shepherd, so you 
 ought to follow Jesus. 
 
 When night comes, the shepherd takes 
 his sheep home with him. He has a place 
 for them that is called a fold. There no 
 wolf or other wild beast can get at them. 
 Do you know that a night is coming to 
 each of you, dear children ? That night is 
 called death. When it comes, you will 
 want a fold to enter — a place where the 
 
68 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 roaring lion can not go to devour you. 
 Christ has such a fold. If you are his 
 lambs, he will take you there. That fold 
 is wide, and bright, and beautiful. It is 
 full of trees, and streams, and mansions all 
 along the golden streets. Do you know 
 what it is called ? Would you not like to 
 go there when you die? Will you not be 
 one of Christ's lambs? 
 
THE SOWER AND THE SEED. 69 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE SOWER AND THE SEED. 
 
 you know why there are trees, 
 and flowers, and bushes, and grass 
 all over the ground? Does God 
 make them, and put them there? Or do 
 they not all grow from little seeds ? Did you 
 ever see a seed ? It does not look as if it 
 would ever grow, does it? An apple-seed 
 does not seem as if it had a tree inside of 
 it. But if you plant the apple-seed in the 
 garden, where the ground is mellow, where 
 the sun can shine and the rain can fall upon 
 it, after a while a little green thing will burst 
 out from it, and grow up to the top of the 
 ground. It is so soft that you could crush 
 it with your foot if you trod upon it. But 
 the germ keeps on growing, and soon it is 
 a little tree, with bark and leaves. And 
 then it begins to have buds and branches; 
 
70 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 and after a while it is a great tree, so that 
 men can stand under it and gather from it 
 bushels of ripe fruit. All those baskets and 
 barrels, full of beautiful apples, which you 
 see in autumn, have come from the planting 
 of little seeds in good ground. 
 
 If you take that seed and lay it on a 
 rock, it will not grow, but the sun will dry 
 it up until it is all withered and dead. If 
 you put the seed out in the hard, dusty 
 road, where horses and wagons are going 
 all the time, it will not grow. If you put it 
 among weeds, they will cover it so that the 
 sun can not get to it to make it germinate, 
 and it will never become a tree and bear 
 fruit. 
 
 You see, then, that the seed must be put 
 in the right place, or it will do no good. 
 And just so it is with what the Bible 
 teaches, and with what ministers preach, 
 and with what uncle Jesse prints in this 
 book. Truth that you are told — truth about 
 your own hearts, about Christ, and about 
 the way to be good, is just like the apple- 
 seed. If you are careless about it ; if you 
 
THE SOWER AND THE SEED. 71 
 
 do not try to remember it and think of it ; if 
 your mind is full only of play, then it will be 
 as useless to you as seed on the rock, or in the 
 road, or among the weeds. It will not make 
 you any wiser, or any better, or any hap- 
 pier. But if you try to understand what you 
 read and hear — if you think about it, it will 
 begin to grow in your heart as the little seed 
 grows in the ground. And the reason is, that 
 you keep your heart mellow by thinking 
 about it, just as a gardener keeps his garden 
 mellow by digging in it. 
 
 When you learn about Christ — how he 
 suffered and died for you, and how he loves 
 little children — if you keep it in your mind, 
 you will begin to love Christ ; you will want 
 to learn more about him ; you will want 
 to pray to him; and you will find a great 
 deal of pleasure in thinking about him, and 
 Christ will smile upon you, as the sun 
 shines on the plants; and the Holy Spirit 
 w^ill come to you as gently as the dew 
 comes to the flowers ; and your mind will 
 grow in the knowledge of good things, and 
 your heart will grow in the love of them, 
 
72 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 and you will be kept from a great many 
 wicked thoughts and unhappy feelings. 
 You will be a good and happy child; you 
 will grow up to be useful in the world, and 
 when you die, God will take you to heaven. 
 
 Remember, then, dear children, about 
 these little seeds. Your parents are trying 
 to plant them in your hearts. And your 
 Sabbath-school teacher is trying, and your 
 minister is trying, and uncle Jesse is trying. 
 Receive them into good ground, so that 
 they may do you good. 
 
 The parable that this lesson is taken from 
 you will find in your Bible. I will not tell 
 you where, for I want you to hunt it up, 
 and to study it. 
 
THE VINE AND BRANCHES. 73 
 
 CHAPTER XYIII. 
 
 THE VINE AND BRANCHES. 
 
 ID you ever see a grapevine full of 
 ripe grapes? How beautiful it is, 
 with its clusters of purple fruit 
 among the green leaves ; and how sweet 
 those clusters are ! But how did the grape- 
 vine become so large and full of leaves and 
 grapes? A few years ago, a little root 
 that looked just like a stick, was put into 
 the ground, and the water in the ground 
 went into the root, and the sun shone upon 
 it; and after a while a little branch came 
 out on one side of it, and then another on 
 the other side of the black-looking stick ; 
 and then branches grew, and other branches 
 came out through the bark of these two, 
 and so on, until the vine covered a large 
 frame that had been built for it ; and then, 
 all over the branches came out leaves, and 
 
74 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 blossoms, and fruit. Now, the reason that 
 the vine kept growing was, that the root 
 remained in the ground, where it could 
 drink in the moisture, and that all the 
 branches were united with the root. If 
 any of the branches should be cut off from 
 the vine, they would stop growing, and, in 
 a few days, would wither up and be dead ; 
 and if a little branch or bud should be 
 brought from any other vine and grafted 
 into this, it would begin, right away, to 
 draw sap from the root, and would bear 
 leaves and grapes, just like the other 
 branches. 
 
 You see, then, how it is that vines grow, 
 and why the branches on the vine are so 
 beautiful ; you see where they get their 
 leaves and their grapes. If there was no 
 vine, with its root in the ground, the 
 branches would all die. Every moment 
 they have to be drawing up sap from the 
 root. This is what they live on; this is 
 what they make their leaves and fruit out 
 of. Thus the branches would be good for 
 nothing without the vine. 
 
THE VINE AND BRANCHES. 75 
 
 Now, this is one of Christ's parables. 
 He says, in the Bible, " I am the vine, ye 
 are the branches." He is speaking to his 
 disciples who loved him; and every body 
 that loves him is one of his branches; for 
 those that love him try to get near to him, 
 by praying, reading the Bible, and thinking 
 about him. In this way, they get their 
 minds full of truth about Christ, and their 
 hearts full of love to him ; and this truth 
 and love are like the sap in the grapevine ; 
 they make good and happy thoughts grow 
 within us. They lead us to be kind and 
 gentle, to try to do right, and to make 
 others good and happy. This is what Christ 
 means by telling us that he is the vine, and 
 asking us to be branches. It is a beautiful 
 parable, and one that I hope all my young 
 readers will study. 
 
 What is more beautiful than a good child, 
 one that is always pleasant, and always try- 
 ing to be useful! How her eyes sparkle! 
 What a sweet smile upon her lips ! What 
 a bright color in her cheeks ! She is like 
 a branch covered with flowers and fruit ! 
 
76 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 But a child that is willful, and cross, and 
 disobedient, has red swollen eyes, and 
 pouting lips, and scowling face — nobody 
 loves such a child. It is like a stick with- 
 out any leaves or fruit, and with its bark 
 all shriveled up ! 
 
 Which will you be, the branch that is in 
 Christ, the child that loves to read and 
 think about him, and pray to him; or will 
 you be the branch that is cut off from him 
 because it does not love him ? 
 
 You can not be good and happy without 
 Christ. If you try alone, it will be just as 
 foolish as if a branch should try to bear 
 grapes when it was cut off from the vine. 
 You must go to him ; read about him, think 
 about him, pray to him, and get his Spirit in 
 your heart, or you will be cast out as a dead 
 branch, that is fit only to be burned. 
 
THE FIG-TREE. 77 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE FIG-TREE. 
 
 OU have seen figs, packed in small, 
 round boxes. But perhaps you 
 never saw them grow. There are 
 very few fig-trees in this country. Our 
 climate is too cold for them. The few that 
 we have require a great deal of care, and, 
 after all, do not grow to their full size or 
 bear much fruit. In Palestine, or the Holy 
 Land, where Jesus was when on earth, there 
 are a great many fig-trees. They are as 
 common as apple-trees are with us, and th© 
 fruit, when ripe and fresh, is delicious. The 
 figs that we buy in stores are good, but are 
 no more like the figs of Palestine than dried 
 apples are like the ripe apples, so mellow 
 and juicy, that we pick from the trees in 
 autumn. 
 
78 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 The people of Palestine think a great 
 deal of their fig-trees. They build walls 
 around the orchards where they grow, to 
 keep the cattle from destroying them ; they 
 dig about their roots, to keep the ground 
 mellow, and do all they can to make them 
 grow large and bear a great many figs. 
 
 One day, while Christ was preaching to 
 the people, he told them a story about a 
 certain fig-tree. A man had planted it, 
 when it was a little scion, in his vineyard. 
 He spaded up the ground, and made it as 
 rich as he could; then, year after year, he 
 cut the weeds away, and dug around the 
 roots, and when the ground became dry, he 
 carried water out into the vineyard and 
 watered his young fig-tree. He expected 
 that, when it grew large enough, it would 
 bear figs for him, and that, in this way, 
 he would be repaid for all his labor and 
 care. 
 
 The tree grew. The spring came. It 
 was full of leaves, but not a blossom could 
 be seen. Autumn came, and other people 
 were gathering their figs, but he had none 
 
THE FIG-TREE. » 79 
 
 to gather. He was almost tempted to cut 
 his tree down and burn it, but he thought 
 that he would wait another year. Spring 
 came again, and there was no blossom ; 
 autumn came again, and there was no fruit. 
 He was angry and discouraged, but thought 
 he would try once more. He dug about 
 the tree, he manured it, he watered it. He 
 felt sure that this time he would not be dis- 
 appointed. But the next season passed, 
 and not a fig grew on his tree. At last he 
 cut it down and threw it into the fire. He 
 did not want to keep a tree in his vineyard 
 that would not bear any fruit. He did not 
 want to take care of and work about a tree 
 that had nothing on it but leaves ! 
 
 Do you blame this man, children, for cut- 
 ting down his fig-tree ? Was it not right 
 for him to want to get it out of the way, 
 and to get a better one in its place? 
 
 But do you know what Christ meant by 
 telling this story ? Suppose that God places 
 a little boy or girl in a home that is as safe 
 and pleasant for it as the vineyard was for 
 the fig-tree. Suppose that he gives it pa- 
 
80 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 rents and Sabbath-school teachers, to tell it 
 how to be good and happy. Suppose that 
 he gives it the Bible and other good books. 
 Do you not think that that little boy or girl 
 ought to love God, and to do what God 
 wants it to, and to obey its parents, and to 
 be kind, cheerful, and useful ? Do n't you 
 think that God has a right to expect fruit 
 from his fig-trees that he plants in such 
 good places? And when God sees such 
 children disobedient and cross, must he not 
 feel as the man did about the fig-tree ? 
 Must he not think, " I had better cut it 
 down, for it will do no good ! " 
 
 Last year, was not God very kind to you ? 
 Did he not do a great deal for you? And 
 what did you do for him? Were you a 
 barren fig-tree ? And is it not strange that 
 he spared you as he did? 
 
 People should not expect God to let them 
 live unless they try to be useful. He often 
 spares wicked men a great many years, but 
 it is only because of his great goodness. 
 They do not deserve to be spared. 
 
THE FIG-TREE. 81 
 
 I want you to find this parable about the 
 fig-tree, and to study it. I want you to 
 think about all that God has done for you, 
 and to begin to try to bear fruit for him. 
 Will you? 
 6 
 
82 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 CHILDREN IN THE MARKET-PLACE. 
 
 N all the towns in the East there is 
 an open square that is called the 
 market-place. It is not like our 
 market-houses, to sell meat and vegetables 
 in, but people go there to talk with each 
 other and to hear the news. When the men 
 are not in the market-place, it is a fine place 
 for children to play in, and they often have 
 merry times there* 
 
 One day Christ told the Jews a parable 
 about the children in the market-place. He 
 said that some of them were cross and 
 sulky. When the others said, u Come, now, 
 let us blow our trumpets, and play a wed- 
 ding!" they answered, "No, we don't feel 
 like being merry to-day. We do n't want to 
 dance and sing, as they do at wedding ! " 
 " Well, then," the other children say, " we 
 
CHILDREN IN THE MARKET-PLACE. 83 
 
 will play any thing that you choose. If 
 you don't feel like singing and dancing, 
 and playing wedding, we will walk slow, and 
 look sorry, and cry, and play a funeral." 
 And they began to form a procession, as if 
 they were going to the graveyard, and to 
 mourn aloud, as people do at funerals in the 
 East. But the cross ones were no better 
 pleased with this play than with the other. 
 They stood still, and would not join in the 
 funeral procession. They were determined 
 not to be satisfied with any thing. When 
 their companions piped, they would not 
 dance, and when they mourned, they would 
 not lament. 
 
 Don't you think that these were very 
 unhappy children? Now, Christ says that 
 all wicked people are just like them ; yes, 
 all wicked people, no matter how young 
 or how old they are. When sin is in the 
 heart, it makes us unhappy. It makes us 
 dissatisfied with what God does. It makes 
 us murmur and fret when we ought to be 
 thankful and glad. If God sends rain, 
 wicked men and wicked children cry out : 
 
84 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 " dear, it always rains just when I want 
 to go out ! " They forget that, without rain, 
 there would be no grass, or flowers, or fruit. 
 If God sends sunshine, they are no better 
 pleased. " The sun is so hot, and the roads 
 are so dusty ! " 
 
 When they are well, they do not thank 
 God for it, and take care of their health, 
 but eat every thing that they like, no matter 
 how unwholesome, and expose themselves 
 to damp air and other things that they know 
 will make them sick. And when they do get 
 sick, instead of thinking that it was their 
 own fault, and asking God to forgive them 
 for being so foolish, they complain, as if he 
 ought to keep them well in spite of them- 
 selves. 
 
 The only way to be contented and happy 
 is to get sin out of the heart — to learn to 
 love God and to trust in Christ — to say, 
 when it rains or shines, when we are in 
 health or sick — in every place and all the 
 time, "He doeth all things well!" This 
 feeling makes the angels happy in heaven. 
 They are never cross and sulky. They 
 
CHILDREN IN THE MARKET-PLACE. 85 
 
 never complain of God, but they serve him 
 and praise him all the time. 
 
 If any reader of this book wants to be an 
 angel, the way is to begin by loving God; 
 by thanking him for all the good things he 
 gives you ; by feeling that he is a great 
 deal kinder and better to you than you de- 
 serve. Do this, and you will be contented, 
 you will be happy. You will have a little 
 heaven in your own heart, no matter 
 whether it rains or shines, whether you are 
 rich or poor, sick or well. 
 
86 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE NEGLECTED SUPPER. 
 
 NB day, a man in the East pre- 
 pared a great supper. He was 
 rich and had plenty of servants, so 
 he set them all at work killing oxen, and 
 sheep, and lambs to roast, making bread, 
 and cakes, and butter, gathering honey and 
 all kinds of fruit. They were busy many 
 days, and the rich man thought that he 
 would give his friends the greatest supper 
 that they had ever seen. He was sure that 
 they would all be very much pleased when 
 they received their invitations, and would 
 come. At last, when the feast was ready, 
 he told his servants to go and invite the 
 people. He sent them to every one of his 
 friends, and they said to each, u Our master 
 has prepared a great feast, and he wants 
 you to come to it." 
 
THE NEGLECTED SUPPER. 87 
 
 One of these friends said : " Tell your 
 master that I haven't time to go to his feast ; 
 I am very busy; I have just been buying 
 forty acres of land, and I want to go and 
 see it." He did not even thank him for the 
 invitation. 
 
 Another said : " Why, I 've just been 
 buying five yoke of oxen, and I must go 
 and try how well they can work. Tell 
 your master that I care more for my oxen 
 than I do for him, and that I can't go." 
 
 A third one said: "Your master must 
 excuse me, indeed he must, for I have just 
 been getting married, and, of course, I can 
 not leave my wife to attend his supper." 
 
 So every body had some excuse for not 
 going, and the servants went back and told 
 their master. He thought it was too bad 
 that, when he had taken so much pains to 
 prepare a supper for his friends, none of 
 them would come. He felt very much 
 grieved because they made so many excuses, 
 and did not even want to come at all. And 
 he said to his servants : " Our supper is 
 ready — it will spoil if we do not find some 
 
88 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 body to eat it. Go out into the street, and 
 into the lanes and alleys, and hunt up all 
 the poor people — the beggars, the blind, 
 and the lame. No matter how ragged they 
 look, bring them in. I will give to each of 
 them a new dress, and they shall eat my 
 great supper/' And the servants did so, 
 and they made the poor, hungry, ragged 
 people come, and the rich man's house was 
 full of them ; and they were all dressed in 
 clean, new clothes, which the rich man gave 
 them, and never was there such a feast 
 before ! 
 
 Now, dear children, this is not a story 
 that uncle Jesse has made up, but is one 
 of Christ's parables. He means to teach 
 you something by it. Do you know what 
 is meant by this great supper ? Have you 
 ever heard a hymn that begins : 
 
 " Come, sinner, to the royal feast! " 
 
 Do you know any body that the Savior has 
 invited to sup with him, and would not — 
 who said by his conduct, I would rather 
 play with my playthings, or read this silly 
 
THE NEGLECTED SUPPER. 89 
 
 story-book, or think about my clothes, than 
 to love Christ, and have him love me ? Do 
 you know any such person ? And do you 
 not think that he is a very foolish person? 
 And even if a little boy or girl is doing so, 
 must they not be very foolish, like the men 
 that would not go to the great supper ? 
 
90 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE WEDDING GARMENT. 
 
 •fOU remember, children, the supper 
 that I told you about in the last 
 chapter, Matthew says it was a 
 wedding supper; that the rich man's son 
 had just been married, and that it was for 
 him the feast was prepared. The people in 
 our country buy nice clothes for themselves 
 when they go to a wedding, but in the East, 
 the man who invites them gives every body 
 a new dress to wear at the supper. As 
 soon as the poor people were brought into 
 the rich man's house, they were sent into a 
 room full of clothes, and were told to take off 
 their old rags and dress themselves in fine 
 new garments. They were all very glad to 
 do so. They were as much pleased to get 
 the new clothes as to get the supper. 
 I said all — but no, I am mistaken ; there 
 
THE WEDDING GARMENT. 91 
 
 was one man in a ragged, dirty coat, who 
 would not take it off and put on a better 
 one. He said that it was good enough, 
 and that the rich man had no business to 
 ask him to take a better one ; that he 
 wanted to eat the supper, but he meant 
 to do it in his own clothes. The others 
 thought he was a very foolish man. They 
 urged him to put on one of the wedding 
 garments. They said that the rich man 
 would be angry if he did not ; that his beg- 
 gar's dress was not fit to go to such a 
 grand supper in, and, finally, that he had 
 no business to come to the supper at all, 
 unless he would come just as he was invited 
 to ; that if he was not willing to wear a wed- 
 ding garment, he ought not to come to the 
 wedding. But the man would not listen to 
 them. He was one of those silly people 
 that will always have their own way ; so he 
 marched into the banquet hall in his rags, 
 as proud as he was filthy. Soon the rich 
 man came in. He looked all along the 
 table, and saw this ragged fellow among 
 the clean and well-dressed people, and he 
 
92 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 went to him and said : " How did you come 
 here ? Why have you not a wedding gar- 
 ment on, like the rest?" 
 
 And in a moment the man saw how fool- 
 ish he had been, and he hung down his head 
 and could not say a word. And then the 
 rich man called his servants, and told them 
 to put him out of doors, where it was cold 
 and dark. And they did so. And the 
 poor foolish man could only look in through 
 the windows and see the others enjoying 
 the feast. And he cried and gnashed his 
 teeth together, he was so hungry and cold, 
 and so angry with himself for what he had 
 done. 
 
 Children, would any of you act like that 
 man? Don't you think that he was very 
 foolish, and deserved to be put out from the 
 feast? Well, children, this is a parable, 
 and it means you. God has prepared a 
 great supper for us in heaven. He asks us 
 all to come and enjoy it. He wants to 
 make us happy there, not for one evening 
 only, but forever. But he tells us to put 
 on the "righteousness of Christ" for our 
 
THE WEDDING GARMENT. 93 
 
 wedding garment. He means by this that 
 we are to love Christ and to trust in him, 
 and to place all our hope of heaven in what 
 he has done for us. He means that we are 
 to be Christians. Are you a Christian? 
 Do you love Christ, and trust him, and try 
 to serve him ? And if not, do you expect to 
 go to heaven ? Do you expect to sit down 
 at the marriage supper of the Lamb ? 
 
 God, who made the supper, has a right 
 to say what we shall wear at it. He has a 
 right to say how we shall come there ; and 
 if we neglect Christ, and die with the rags 
 of our sins around us, he will not let us into 
 heaven, but he will turn us out into that dark 
 place, where there is weeping and gnashing 
 of teeth. 
 
94 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 FEEDING THE MULTITUDE. 
 
 EE that crowd of people ! Men, 
 women, and children, at least ten 
 thousand of them. They are not 
 in a city, or near one. No, they are away 
 out in the wilderness— out where there are 
 no houses — out where nobody lives, and 
 where nothing grows but bushes and trees. 
 There they have been three days, and had 
 nothing to eat. How hungry they must 
 have been! Why did they stay there so 
 long with nothing to eat? Why did they 
 not go home, or to some town where they 
 could buy bread ? I will tell you why : 
 They were listening to Jesus ; they wanted 
 to hear him tell about God and heaven, 
 and they loved so to hear him that they 
 almost forgot that they were hungry. But 
 on the third day they became very faint; 
 
FEEDING THE MULTITUDE. 95 
 
 they were too weak to go home then. Jesus 
 saw it, and felt sorry for them. But what 
 could he do ? He had only five loaves and 
 two fishes. That was hardly enough for 
 him and his disciples. He told all the peo- 
 ple to sit down on the grass ; then he sent 
 for the five loaves and two fishes. The peo- 
 ple all wondered what he was going to do. 
 Was he going to cut each loaf into two 
 thousand pieces, and give every one a 
 crumb? He did not explain what he meant, 
 but, with the bread before him, began to 
 pray. After he had asked God, his father, 
 for a blessing, he took up a loaf and broke 
 it, but as soon as he did so, each half became 
 larger than the whole loaf had been before. 
 And then he broke the halves again, and 
 then there were four large loaves instead 
 of one ; and so he went on, until there lay 
 all around him, on the grass, thousands of 
 loaves — a great heap of bread. And then 
 the disciples took baskets full of the bread 
 and carried it to the hungry people, and 
 they all ate of it, and of the fishes, too, 
 until they were filled. 
 
96 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 And after the ten thousand people were 
 done eating, there was bread enough left to 
 fill seven baskets. A great deal more was 
 left, you see, than the five loaves that Jesus 
 asked a blessing on ; so that he made bread 
 enough for all that crowd of people while 
 he was breaking the loaves. 
 
 There is something very wonderful in 
 this — do n't you think so, children ? Well, 
 they call it a miracle, and the word miracle 
 means " a wonderful thing." We will talk 
 about miracles in the next chapter, and ex- 
 plain to you what we are to learn from 
 them. 
 
MIRACLES. 97 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 MIRACLES. 
 
 PROMISED to explain some things 
 about miracles. You remember how 
 31 Christ made the five loaves of bread 
 feed seven thousand men, besides women and 
 children. I told you that, as he brake the 
 loaves, every piece grew twice as large as 
 it was before, and so on, until there were 
 more than a thousand loaves instead of five. 
 Now, some people say that such a thing is 
 impossible, and that they can not believe it. 
 But they must be very ignorant people, as 
 you will see presently. What is bread 
 made of? Is it not from flour? and is not 
 flour grains of wheat ground up? Then, 
 where does wheat come from ? Do men 
 find it all over the ground, like stones? 
 " 0, no ! " you answer, " it grows." But 
 why does it grow ? " Because somebody 
 7 
 
98 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 sows it." Yes, the farmer takes a few 
 quarts of wheat, and puts them in the 
 ground, and after a while he has many 
 bushels ! What makes so much wheat from 
 a few seeds? Does the ground do it? or 
 the sun, or the showers? or do they all 
 agree to do it ? You say : " No ; for the 
 ground, and the sun, and the showers have 
 no minds to plan such things, and no 
 tongues to talk about them. God makes 
 the wheat. He uses the ground, and the 
 sun, and the rain in doing it, but he could 
 make it without them if he chose. He 
 must have made the first kernel of wheat 
 so, for there was no seed to plant before 
 it was made, and the ground, and the sun, 
 and the rain can not do any thing without 
 seeds. 
 
 Well, if God can make thousands and 
 thousands of fields full of wheat every sum- 
 mer, could he not make a hundred bushels 
 of wheat right away ? Does it seem to you 
 any harder to make a hundred bushels of 
 grain in a minute, than to make millions 
 and millions of bushels in a few months, as 
 
MIRACLES. 99 
 
 God does every year? And if God could 
 make one hundred bushels of wheat in a 
 minute, do you not think that he could just 
 as easily make a thousand loaves of bread ? 
 Would it not be just as easy for him to make 
 bread as to make wheat? 
 
 When people tell you that they can not 
 believe in these miracles (or wonderful 
 things) that are told in the Bible, just ask 
 them if they believe that wheat and corn 
 grow every year. And then ask them who 
 makes it all grow ? Then ask them if they 
 do not think it is as wonderful to make 
 grain enough, in four or five months, to feed 
 the eight hundred millions of people in the 
 world, as to make bread enough in a minute 
 to feed seven thousand men? Tell them 
 that miracles just as wonderful are happen- 
 ing every year and every day. 
 
100 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE BLIND MEN. 
 
 S Jesus was going up from Jericho 
 to Jerusalem, he saw two men sit- 
 ting by the side of the road. They 
 staid there all day, to beg of the people that 
 passed by. Why did they not work, instead 
 of begging? They were blind. It was 
 night, dark night to them all the time. No 
 matter how bright the sun shone, or how 
 beautiful the fields looked, the poor blind 
 men could not see any thing. 
 
 Do you not think that it must be very 
 hard to be blind ? These men thought so, 
 and when they heard that Jesus was com- 
 ing along the road, they cried out : " Have 
 mercy on us, Lord, thou son of David ! " 
 And Jesus stopped as soon as he heard 
 them, and asked them what they wanted of 
 him, and they said that they wanted him to 
 
THE BLIND MEN. 101 
 
 open their eyes. And Jesus went close to 
 the two blind men, and put out his hands, and 
 just touched their eyes, and as soon as he 
 did so their eyes were opened. They saw the 
 light; they saw the earth and the sky; they 
 saw Jesus and all the people around him. 
 How strange that just touching the eyes of 
 the blind men should make them see ! 
 
 When people have weak eyes or sore 
 eyes, doctors can sometimes cure them ; but 
 no doctors in the world ever tried to cure 
 blind people. Only God can do that. And 
 why can God do it ? Does he not make all 
 our eyes? And if he makes them for us 
 when we are born, can he not make them 
 afterward if he chooses ? So you see that 
 this miracle is done over and over again 
 every time a little baby gets eyes to see 
 with, and that God has had mercy on all of 
 us as well as on the two blind men of Jericho. 
 He might have left us all without eyes, and 
 then we would have had to crawl about and 
 feel our way. We could not have seen any 
 of the beautiful things that the world is full 
 of. 0, what a mercy to us, dear children, 
 
102 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 are these eyes that can look in a moment 
 to the sun and the stars! Do you ever 
 thank God for them ? 
 
 But, children, though you have each of 
 you two bright eyes, yet you are blind. 
 God says that all sinners are blind, and we 
 are sinners. The eyes of our souls are dark- 
 ened, and we do not see God and heaven by 
 faith, as we should. We do not remember 
 that God sees us all the time, and that any 
 moment we may die, and have to go and 
 answer before him for all that we have done. 
 We ought to have our minds open all the 
 time to these things, on which our future 
 happiness depends. But we will not, unless 
 God touches our hearts, and makes us think 
 about them and feel them. 
 
 Pray, then, to him ! Pray as the blind 
 men did : " Have mercy upon me, Lord, 
 thou son of David, and open the eyes of 
 my understanding! Help me to see thee 
 by faith — to love thee and to serve thee, so 
 that, when I die, I may go and live with 
 thee forever! 5 ' 
 
THE DEAF AND DUMB MAN. 103 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE DEAF AND DUMB MAN. 
 
 HILE Jesus was walking by the 
 sea of Galilee, the people brought 
 a man to him who was deaf and 
 dumb. The rest all talked to Jesus, and 
 heard what he said; but the poor man that 
 they brought could not say a word or under- 
 stand one. He could only make noises, like 
 those that animals make. Do n't you think, 
 children, that it must be very hard to be 
 deaf and dumb ; not to hear the birds sing ; 
 not to hear the kind voices of our friends ; 
 not to be able to tell them what we want, 
 or how we feel ? 
 
 There are many such people. We build 
 asylums for them, and there they learn to 
 talk with each other by signs. The signs 
 they make with their fingers. It is a strange 
 sight to see deaf and tlumb people talking 
 
104 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 with their fingers. And at the asylums they 
 are taught a great many things. But in the 
 time when Christ was on earth, there were 
 no asylums for the deaf and dumb, and the 
 man that was brought to Jesus by the sea 
 of Galilee must have led a very sad and 
 lonely life. 0, how often he must have 
 wished that his ears were opened and that 
 his tongue was loosed, so that he could hear 
 and talk like other people ! 
 
 When his neighbors heard that Jesus was 
 coming along that way, they said to one 
 another : " Let us take him to this great 
 prophet, and see if he can cure his deaf- 
 ness;" and so they went. 
 
 And when Jesus saw the man, he pitied 
 him, and he took him away from the crowd, 
 and put one of his fingers on each of his 
 ears and touched his tongue with his own, 
 and looked up to heaven, and said: "Be 
 opened ! " And right away the man's ears 
 were opened, and his tongue was loosed, and 
 he heard, and began to talk. The people 
 were astonished. Such a thing had never 
 been seen or heard of before. No man had 
 
THE DEAF AND DUMB MAN. 105 
 
 ever been able to make a deaf man hear and 
 talk. But God, who gave us all our tongues 
 and our ears — who made our tongues to ar- 
 ticulate sounds, and our ears to receive 
 them, and tell the one from the other — God 
 could make all the deaf and dumb people 
 hear and speak in a moment if he chose. 
 And when we see Christ curing a deaf and 
 dumb riian without any medicine — by just 
 touching his ears — we 'know that Christ 
 must have been God. I will explain, in 
 another chapter, the difference between the 
 miracles of Christ and those of good men, 
 like the apostles and prophets. 
 
 Two things I want you to think about : 
 One is, w T hy Jesus sighed when he said, "Be 
 opened?" Did he have to suffer himself 
 when he relieved others ? And the other 
 is, do you know of any one whose soul is 
 deaf — of any one to whom God speaks again 
 and again, and who pays no attention to 
 his voice? 
 
106 TALKS ABOUT JESUS 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 PETER AND JOHN'S MIRACLE. 
 
 9EiS| PROMISED to show you, children, 
 n pi the difference between miracles 
 =2£=9S wrought by good men and those 
 wrought by Christ. We will look at the 
 first miracle of the disciples after the Savior 
 had gone back to heaven. 
 
 About three o'clock one afternoon, Peter 
 and John went to the Temple in Jerusalem. 
 At that hour every day there was a sort of 
 prayer-meeting, and pious people loved to 
 go and join in the worship of God. Now, 
 in Jerusalem there was a poor lame man. 
 He could not work, and lived by begging. 
 This man thought that people who prayed 
 a good deal would be likely to give more 
 to the poor than those who did not pray, so 
 he had himself carried every afternoon to 
 the Temple, and he lay down by one of the 
 
PETER AND JOHN'S MIRACLE. 107 
 
 doors, and whenever any body was about to 
 go in, he held out his hand to them, and 
 said: "Please give something to a poor lame 
 man!" 
 
 When Peter and John came along, he 
 asked them as he did the rest. But they 
 were poor too ; they had no money. Peter 
 told him so, and then was going on into the 
 Temple. But he remembered how often 
 Christ had healed such sufferers, and that 
 Christ had said, " Ask, and ye shall receive ;" 
 "Lo,I am with you always ;" " Greater works 
 than mine shall ye do," etc. He prayed a 
 moment, and felt that God had heard him. 
 Then he turned to the lame man, and said : 
 " In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, 
 rise up and walk!" The man looked at 
 him astonished. Then Peter took hold of 
 his right hand and lifted him up, and the 
 man tried to rise, and as he tried, his feet 
 and ankles became strong, and in a moment 
 he was leaping all about with joy. How 
 pleasant it must have been to him to be 
 able to walk, after lying on his bed for 
 years ! No wonder that he praised God. 
 
108 TALKS ABOUT JESUS. 
 
 You see that Peter did not use any med- 
 icine. He just lifted the man up, and he 
 was well right away. The miracle was 
 done just as quickly as those that Christ 
 himself did, and just as easily. . What, then, 
 was the difference? What did Christ say 
 when he healed people, or made the dead 
 alive ? Did he say : " In the name of God, T 
 bid you rise, or be well ? " No ; but he said : 
 " Be opened ! " * Be healed ! ■-* - "1 say unto 
 thee, arise!" He spake just as if he him- 
 self had power to cure diseases and to raise 
 the dead. But. when Peter wanted to heal 
 the lame man, he said : " In the name of 
 Jesus Christ of Nazareth ! " He knew that 
 he could not do any thing of himself, but 
 believed that Christ could hear him, and 
 could heal the man, just as he used to heal 
 people when on earth. And in the name 
 of Christ the man was healed. Christ did 
 it, and not Peter. 
 
 So you see that the miracles which the 
 disciples did showed Christ's power and his 
 goodness just as much as those that he did 
 himself. Peter told the people so in the 
 
PETER AND JOHN'S MIRACLE. 109 
 
 Temple that very afternoon. Get your 
 Bibles, and read what he said, in the third 
 chapter of Acts. 
 
 If Christ had not been God, it would have 
 been wicked for him to pretend to heal peo- 
 ple in his own name. If he had been a man 
 only, or even an angel, he would have had 
 to pray, as Peter did, and to have said: "I 
 heal you in the name of God." " God does 
 it because I pray to him." But Christ al- 
 ways said that he had power in himself to 
 do these miracles, and he did them; and that 
 is one of the ways in which we know that 
 he was really the Son of God. If he had 
 not been God, he could not have done such 
 things in his own name, and God would not 
 have done it for him, while he was telling a 
 lie — while he was pretending to be Divine 
 when he was not. 
 
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