ONDERFUL IT7TZ CHRIST BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN. Suffer Little Children to come unto Me, and Forbid them not."— Mark 10 : 14. BIRTH OF CHRIST. "And they came with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a Manger." — Luke 2 : 16. THE •S LIFE OP CHRIST; OR, The Wonderful Life. BY HESBA STRETTON, *4 it ^ Author of " Jessica's First Prayer," " Lost Gip," " The King's Servants," etc. PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED. "His Name shall be called Wonderful." Isaiah ix. 6. JOHN C. WINSTON & CO., PHILADELPHIA. CHICAGO. %, ILLUSTRATIONS BY PLOCKHORST AND HOFMANN The sixteen half tone pictures in this book are from the designs by ulEINRICH JOHANN MICHAEL FERDINAND HOFMANN, who is one of the oldest and best known Biblical artists now living. He was born in 1824, and after traveling and studying in Holland, Belgium, Germany, France and Italy, he took up his residence in Dresden, where he is now a Professor in the Academy. His greatest work is his "Christ Among the Doctors." This was purchased by the Imperial Government a few years since for the famous Dresden Gallery of Fine Arts. It is conceded to be the most popular modern Biblical picture now in existence. Thirteen of the fine line wood engravings are designed by another famous German artist of the modern school — Plockhorst. These two complete sets of illustrations are universally admitted to include the best and most instructive religious art works ever designed for the New Testament. They may be said to show what genius in art oan accomplish. Copyright, 1891. ***-*J m ^♦^♦♦^♦^♦♦♦^♦♦♦♦♦♦♦^^^^^♦^♦^fr Preface. M ■B S HE following slight and brief sketch is merely the story of the life and death of our Lord. It has been written for those who have not the leisure, or the books, needed for threading together the fragmentary and scattered incidents recorded in the Four Gospels. Of late years these records have been searched diligently for the smallest links, which \D i might serve to complete the chain of those years passed amongst us by One who called himself the Son of man, and did not refuse to be called the Son of God. This little book is intended only to present the result of these close investigations, made by many learned men, in a plain, continuous narrative, suitable for unlearned readers. There is nothing new in it. It would be difficult to write anything new of that Life, which has been studied and sifted for nearly nineteen hundred years. The great mystery that surrounds Christ is left untouched. Neither love- nor thought of ours can reach the heart of it, whilst still we see him as through a glass darkly. When we behold him as he is, face to face, then,, and only then, shall we know fully what he was, and what he did for us. Whilst we strain our eyes to catch the mysterious vision, but dimly visible, we are in danger of becoming blind to that human, simple, homely life,' spent amongst us as the pattern of our days. "'If any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. But if any man love God, the same is known of him." Happy they who are content with being known of God. ^w^^^'^^^^^^^^^^^v^^X'v^vyvw^vWvv saassg^-x go^agH^^gg-gg^ggg^ggaffi^gggggggg^agggagga^-gggggggg CONTENTS. ■>••»» BOOK I -THE CARPENTER. CHAP. PAGE I. The Holy Land, 11 II. Jerusalem and Bethlehem, 14 III. In the Temple, 18 CHAP. IV. The Wise Men, - V. Nazareth, VI. The First Passover, PAGE 20 25 28 BOOK II.-THE PROPHET. I. John the Baptist, - 35 IX. At Nain, 67 II. Cana of Galilee, - 37 X. Mighty Works, 69 III. The First Summer, - 40 XI. A Holiday in Galilee, 75 IV. Samaria, - - ■ - - 46 XII. In the North, - 80 V. The First Sabbath-Miracle 49 XIII. At Home Once More, 86 VI. His Old Home, - 54 XIV. The Last Autumn, 93 VII. Capernaum, - 56 XV. Lazarus, - 99 VIII. Foes from Jerusalem, - 63 XVI. The Last Sabbath, - 105 BOOK III.-VICTIM AND VICTOR. I. The Son of David, - - 109 II. The Traitor, - - - 117 III. The Paschal Supper, - 119 IV. Gethsemane, - - -128 V. The High-Priest's Palace, 129 VI. Pilate's Judgment - Hall, 134 TH. Calvary, - - 138 8 VIII. In the Grave, IX. The Sepulchre, X. Emmaus, XI. It is the Lord, XII. His Friends, ■ XIII. His Foes, 143 146 154 157 160 165 ^^j>^^><»^>^^^>ffi^f^■ gagZEEgJRKBaggggaBaggggggggEEgggJKEEEffig^a^^^^Bl jgXX^g3^XS XrSXXXX XXSXS-2^^ I I 3 The Wonderful Life. I H * «»— «~ M M 8 boos: i. the carpenter. CHAPTER I. i H M 1 M ^C^l 7fe Holy Land. Gh^iw®?ERY far away from our own country lies the land where /^«i MU Jesus Christ was born. More than five thousand miles stretch '^V^TBEBI De tween us and it, and those who wish to visit it must journey over sea and land to reach its shores. It rests in the very heart and centre of the Old "World, with Asia, Europe, and (crtlj\^ Africa encircling it. A little land it is, only about two hun- /*ri3f dred miles in length, and but fifty miles broad from the 5 \qu Great sea, or the Mediterranean, on the west, to the river ^-^ Jordan, on the east. But its hills and valleys, its dusty roads, and green pastures, its vineyards and oliveyards, and its village-streets have been trodden by the feet of our Lord ; and for us, as well as for the Jews, to whom God gave it, it is the Holy Land. The country lies high, and forms a table-land, on which' there are moun- tains of considerable height. Moses describes it as " a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills , a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates ; a land of oil olive, and honey ; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without £J scarceness. A land which the Lord thy God careth for : the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year, even unto the end of the year." The sky is cloudless, except in the end of autumn and in winter, and no moisture collects but in the form of dew. In former times vineyards and orchards climbed up the slopes of every hill, and the K ii &2B^SgE^a-ggg^S^S3- gg^-g MgSggg g Mgggg^ggg *^^4-4^^4^- < 8^*^^^*' , fi^^*^^^^ 4 8^^^4^4 > *^^^^ i «^^^^^*4 > <^»^* EE5281 plains were covered with wheat and barley. It was densely peopled, far more so than our own country is now, and over all the land villages and towns were built, with farm-houses scattered between them. Herds of sheep and goats were pastured in the valleys, and on the barren mountains, where £he vines and olives could not grow. There are two lakes in Palestine, one in the northwest, the other south- west, with the river Jordan flowing between them, through a deep valley, sixty miles long. The southern lake is the Dead sea, or Sea of Death. No living creature can exist in its salt waters. The palm-trees carried down by the floods of Jordan are cast up again by the waves on the marshy shore, and lie strewn about it, bare and bleached, and crusted over with salt. Naked rocks close in the sea, with no verdure upon them ; rarely is a bird seen to fly across it, whilst at the southern end, where there is a mountain, and pillars of rock-salt, white as snow, there always hangs a veil of mist, like smoke ascending up forever and ever into the blue sky above. As the brown and rapid stream of Jordan flows into it on the north, the waters will not mingle, but the salt waves foam against the fresh, sweet current of the river, as if to oppose its effort to bring some life into its desolate and barren depths. The northern lake is called the sea of Galilee. Like the Dead sea, it lies in a deep basin, surrounded by hills ; but this depth gives to it so warm and fertilizing a climate, that the shores are covered with a thick jungle of shrubs, especially of the oleander, with its rose-colored blossoms. Grassy slopes here and there lead up to the feet of the mountains. The deep blue waters are sweet, clear, and transparent, and in some places the waves ebb and flow over beds of flowers, which have crept down to the very margin of the lake. Flocks of birds build among the jungle, and water-fowl skim across the surface of the lake in myriads, for the water teems with fish. All the early hours of the morning the lark sings there merrily, and through- out the live-long day the moaning of the dove is heard. In former times, when the shores of the lake were crowded with villages, hundreds of boate and little ships with white sails sailed upon it, and all sorts of fruit and corn were cultivated on the western plain. The Holy Land, in the time of our Lord, was divided into three prov- inces, almost into three countries, as distinct as England, Scotland, and "Wales. In the south was Judaea, with the capital, Jerusalem, the Holy City, where the temple of the Jews was built, and where their king dwelt. The people of Judaea were more courtly and polished, and, perhaps, more M N H <§>4>^»^4>4><>^S4>3>^^»*>4><3>3>«3>«><& H THE WONDERFUL LIFE. 13 educated than the other Jews, for they lived nearer Jerusalem, where all the greatest and wisest men of the nation had their homes. Up in the north lay Galilee, inhabited by stronger and rougher men, whose work was harder and whose speech was harsher than their southern brethren, but whose spirit was more independent, and more ready to rebel against tyranny. Between those two districts, occupied by Jews, lay an unfriendly country, called Samaria, whose people were of a mixed race, descended from a colony of heathen who had been settled in the country seven hundred years before, and who had so largely intermarried with the Jews that they had often sought to become united with them as one nation. The Jews had steadily resisted this union, and now a feeling of bitter enmity existed between them, so that Galilee was shut off from Judsea by an alien country. The great prosperity of the Jewish nation had passed away long before our Lord was born. An unpopular king, Herod, who did not belong to the royal house of David, was reigning ; but he held his throne only upon suf- ferance from the great emperor of Rome, whose people had then subdued all the known world. As yet there were no Roman tax-gatherers in the land, but Herod paid tribute to Augustus, and this was raised by heavy taxes upon the people. All the country was full of murmuring, and discontent, and dread. But a secret hope was running deep down in every Jewish heart, helping them to bear their present burdens. The time was well-nigh fulfilled when, according to the prophets, a King of the house of David, greater than David in battle, and more glorious than Solomon in all his glory, should be born to the nation. Far away in Galilee, in the little villages among the hills, and the busy towns by the lake, and down in southern Judsea, in the beautiful capital, Jerusalem, and in the sacred cities of the priests, a whisper passed from one drooping spirit to another, "Patience! the kingdom of Messiah is at hand." As the land of our Lord lies many hundreds of miles from us, so his life on this earth was passed hundreds of years ago. There are innumerable questions we long to ask, but there is no one to answer. Four little books, each one called a gospel, or the good tidings of Jesus Christ, are all we have to tell us of that most beautiful and most wondrous life. But whenever we name the date of the present year we are counting from the time when he was born. In reality, he was born three or four years earlier, and though the date is not exactly known, it is now most likely 1894, instead of 1891, years since Mary laid him, a new-born babe, in his lowly cradle of a manger in Bethlehem. M H 14 CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. CHAPTER II. Jerusalem and Bethlehem. JERUSALEM was a city beautiful for situation, built on two ridges of rocky ground, with a deep valley between them. It was full of splendid palaces and towers, with aqueducts and bridges, and massive walls, the stones of which are still a marvel for their size. Upon the ridge of Mount Zion stood the marble palaces of the king, his noblemen, and the high-priest ; on the opposite and lower hill rose the temple, built of snow- white marble, with cedar roofs, and parapets of gold, which, glistening in the bright sunshine and pure moonlight, could be seen from afar off in the clear, dry atmosphere of that eastern land. From ridge to ridge a magnifi- cent viaduct was built, connecting the temple mount with Mount Zion and its streets of palaces. Every Jew had a far more fervent and loyal affection for the temple than for the palace of the king. It was in fact the palace of their true King, Jehovah. Three times a year their law ordained a solemn feast to be held there, grander than the festivities of any earthly king. Troops of Jews came up to them from all parts of the country, even from northern Galilee, which was three or four days' journey distant, and from foreign lands, where emigrants had settled. It was a joyous crowd, and they were joyous times. Friends who had been long parted met once more together, and went up in glad companies to the house of their God. It has been reckoned that at the great feast, that of the Passover, nearly three millions of Jews thronged the streets and suburbs of the Holy City, most of whom had offerings and sac- rifices to present in the temple ; for nowhere else under the blue sky could any sacrifice be offered to the true God. Even a beloved king held no place in the heart of the Jews beside their cemple. But Herod, who was then reigning, was hateful to the people, though he had rebuilt the temple for them with extraordinary splendor. He was cruel, revengeful, and cowardly, terribly jealous, and suspicious of all about him, so far as to have put to death his own wife and three of his sons. The crowds who came to the feasts carried the story of his tyranny to the remotest corners of his kingdom. He even offended his patron, the emperor of Rome ; and the emperor had written to him a very sharp letter, saying that he had hitherto treated him as a friend, but now he should deal with him as an enemy. Augustus ordered that a tax should be levied on B H M H M M H M H H H M H 1 M H P M m THE WONDERFUL LIFE. 15 H *< M & the Jews, as in other conquered countries, and required from Herod a return of all his subjects who would be liable to the tax. This command of the Roman emperor threw the whole nation into dis- turbance. The return was allowed to be made by Herod, not by the Romans themselves, and he proceeded to do it in the usual Jewish fashion. The registers of the Jews were carefully kept in the cities of their families, but the people were scattered throughout the country. It was therefore necessary to order every man to go to the city of his own family, there to answer to the register of his name and age, and to give in an account of the property he possessed. Besides this, he was required to take an oath to Caesar and the king ; a bitter trial to the Jews, who boasted, years afterwards, under a Roman governor, " We are a free people, and were never in bondage to any man." There must have been so much natural discontent felt at this requirement that it is not likely the winter season would be chosen for carrying it out. The best, because the least busy time of the year, would be after the olives and grapes were gathered, and before the season for sow- ing the corn came, which was in November. The Feast of Tabernacles was held at the close of the vintage, and fell about the end of September or beginning of October. It was the most joyous of all the feasts, and as the great national Day of Atonement immediately preceded it, it was probably very largely attended by the nation ; and perhaps the gladness of the season might in some measure tend to counteract the discontent of the people. But whether at the Feast of the Tabernacles, or later in the year, the whole Jewish nation was astir, marchinsr to and fro to the cities of their families. At this very time a singular event befell a company of shepherds, who were watching their flocks by night in the open plain stretching some miles eastward from Bethlehem, a small village about six miles from Jeru- salem. Bethlehem was the city of the house of David, and all the descend- ants of that beloved king were assembled to answer to their names on the register, and to be enrolled as Roman subjects. The shepherds had not yet brought in their flocks for the winter, and they were watching them with more than usual care, it may be, because of the unsettled state of the country, and the gathering together of so many strangers, not for a religious, but for a political purpose, which would include the lowest classes of the people, as well as the law-loving and law-abiding Jews. No doubt this threatened taxing and compulsory oath of subjection had intensified the desire of the nation for the coming of the Messiah. Every man desires to be delivered from degradation and taxes, if he cares nothing IM >&*l»<&&<&<&&*l*<&<$>\ 1 1 16 CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. a ; — ' I about being saved from his sins. It was not safe to speak openly of the expected Messiah : but out on the wide plains, with the darkness shutting them in, the shepherds could while away the long chilly hours with talking of the events of the passing times, and of that promised king who, so their teachers said in secret, was soon, very soon to appear to crush their enemies. But as the night wore on, when some of them were growing drowsy, and the talk had fallen into a few slow sentences spoken from time to time, a light, above the brightness of the sun, which had sunk below the horizon hours ago, shone all about them with a strange splendor. As soon as their dazzled eyes could bear the light, they saw within it a form as of an angel. Sore afraid they were as they caught sight of each other's faces in this terrible, unknown glory. But quickly the angel spoke to them, lest their terror should grow too great for them to hear aright. "Fear not," he said, " for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you : Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." Suddenly, as the angel ended his message, the shepherds saw, standing with him in the glorious light, a great multitude of the blessed hosts that people heaven, who were singing a new song under the silent stars, which shone dimly in the far-off sky. Once before "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy " because God had created a world. Now, at the birth of a child, in the little village close by, where many an angry Jew had lain down to a troubled sleep, they sang, " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." The sign given to the shepherds served as a guide to them. They were to find the new-born babe cradled in the manger, with no softer bed than the fodder of the cattle. Surely, the poorest mother in the humblest home in Bethlehem could provide better for her child. They must, then, seek the Messiah, just proclaimed to them, among the strangers who were sleeping in the village inn. All day long had parties of travellers been crossing the plain, and the shepherds would know very well that the little inn, which was built at the eastern part of the village, merely as a shelter for such chance passers-by, would be quite full. It was not a large building ; for Bethlehem was too near to Jerusalem for many persons to tarry there for the night, instead of pressing forward to the Holy City. It was only on such an occasion as this that the inn was likely to be over-full. £23k/9 H M H THE WONDERFUL LIFE. 17 M W But as the shepherds drew near the eastern gate, they probably saw the glimmering of a lamp near the inn. It is a very old tradition that our Lord was born in a cave ; and this is quite probable. If the inn were built near to a cave, it would naturally be used by the travellers for storing away their food from the heavy night dews, although their mules and asses might stay out in the open air. A light in the cave would attract the shepherds to it, and there they found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. A plain working man, like themselves, his wife, and a helpless new-born child ; how strangely this sight must have struck them, after the glory and mystery of the vision of angels they had just witnessed ! How different was Mary's low, hushed voice as she pointed out the child born since the sun went down, from that chorus of glad song, when all the heav- enly host sang praises to God. A strange story they had to tell Mary of the vision they had just seen. She was feeling the first great gladness and joy of every mother over her child born into the world, but in Mary's case this joy was brightened beyond that of all other women, yet shadowed by the mystery of being the chosen mother of the Messiah. The shepherds' statement increased her gladness, and lifted her above the natural feeling of dishonor done to her child by the poor and lowly circumstances of his birth ; whilst they, satisfied with the testimony of their own senses, having seen and heard for themselves, went away, and made known these singular and mysterious events. All who heard these things wondered at them ; but as the shepherds were men of no account, and Joseph and Mary were poor strangers in the place, we may be sure there would be few to care about such a babe, in those days of vexation and tumult. Had the Messiah been born in a palace, and the vision of the heavenly host been witnessed by a company of the priests, the whole nation would have centred their hopes and expectations upon the child ; and unless a whole series of miracles had been worked for his preser- vation the Roman conquerors would have destroyed both him and them. No miracle was wrought for the infant Christ, save that constant ministry of angels, sent forth to minister unto Him who was the Captain of salvation, even as they are sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation. i I y M H M H 18 CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. CHAPTER III. In the Temple. JOSEPH and Mary did not remain in the cave longer than could be helped. As soon as the unusual crowd of strangers was gone, they found some other dwelling-place, though not in the inn, which was intended for no more than a shelter for passing travellers. They had forty days to wait before Mary could go up to the temple to offer her sacrifice after the birth of her child, when also Joseph would present him to the Lord, accord- ing to the ancient law that every first-born child, which was a son, belonged especially to God. Joseph could not afford to live in idleness for six weeks ; and as he had known beforehand that they must be detained in Bethlehem so long, he probably had carried with him his carpenter's tools, and now set about looking for work. It is likely that both he and Mary thought it best to bring up Jesus in Bethlehem, where he was born ; for they must have known the prophecy that out of Bethlehem should come the Messiah. It was near to Jerusalem, and from his earliest years the child would become familiar with the temple, and its services and priests. It was not far from the hill country, where Zacharias and Elizabeth were living, whose son, born in their old age, was still only an infant of six months, but whose future mission was to be the forerunner of the Messiah. For every reason it would seem best to return no more to Nazareth, the obscure village in Galilee, but to settle in Bethlehem itself. At the end of forty days, Mary went up to Jerusalem to offer her sacrifice, and Joseph to present the child, and pay the ransom of five shekels for him, without which the priests might claim him as a servant to do the menial work of the temple. They must have passed by the tomb of Rachel, who so many centuries before had died in giving birth to her son ; and Mary, whose heart pondered over such things, may have whispered to herself as she clasped her child closer to her, " In Rama was a voice heard ; lamen- tation and weeping, and great mourning ; Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not." She did not know the full meaning of those words yet ; but, amid her own wonderful happiness, she would sigh over Rachel's sorrow, little thinking that the prophecy linked it with the baby she was carrying in her arms. At this time the temple was being rebuilt by Herod, in the most costly and magnificent manner, but we will keep the description of it until twelve THE WONDERFUL LIFE. 19 8 H S seeing this little child, he took him into his arms, and blessed God, saying, " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." Whilst Joseph and Mary wondered at these words, Simeon blessed them, and speaking to Mary alone, he continued : " Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel ; and for a sign || which shall be spoken against ; (yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." This was the first word of sorrow that had fallen upon Mary's ears since the angel had appeared to her, more than ten months before, in her lowly home in Nazareth. Hitherto, the great mystery that set her apart from all other women had been full of rapture only. Her song had been one of triumphant gladness, with not a single note of sorrow mingling with it. Her soul had magnified the Lord, because he had regarded her low estate ; she was hungry, and he had filled her with good things. She had heard through the countless ages of the future all generations calling her blessed. A new, mysterious, tender life had been breathed through her, and she had been overshadowed by the Highest, whose shadow is brighter than all earthly joys and glories. Now, for forty days she had nursed the Holy Child, and no dimness had come across her rapture. Yet, when she brings the child to his Father's house, the first word of sorrow is spoken, and the first faint thrill of a mother's ready fears crept coldly into her heart. So as they walked home in the cool of the day to Bethlehem, and passed again the tomb of Rachel, Mary would probably be pondering over the words of Simeon, and wondering what the sword was that would pierce her own soul. The first prick of that sharp anguish was soon to make itself felt. Besides Simeon, Anna, a very aged prophetess, had seen the child, and both spoke of him to them that looked for redemption or deliverance in Jerusalem. Quietly, and in trusted circles, would this event be spoken of; m M years later, when Jesus came to his first passover. Mary's offering of two turtle-doves, instead of a lamb and a turtle-dove, proves the poverty of Joseph, for only poor persons were allowed to substitute another turtle-dove or young pigeon for a lamb. These birds abound in the Holy Land, and were consequently of very small value. After she had made her offering, and before Joseph presented the child to the Lord, an old man, dwelling in Jerusalem, came into the temple. It had been revealed to him that he should not see death before his eyes had beheld the blessed vision of the Lord's Christ, for whom he had waited through many long years. Now, M l£X^2£^3^ ^.'^^'^♦^^▼♦♦^►▼♦♦^^'♦■♦♦♦^►♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦'♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦^^♦^^C^ M ^^ 20 CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. IHI - H ~"~ ~ ~ "~~ H N for all knew the extreme danger of calling the attention of Herod to such a matter. They were too familiar with the cowardice and cruelty of their king to let any rumor reach him of the birth of the Messiah. It does not appear, moreover, that either Simeon or Anna knew where he was to be found. But a remarkable circumstance, which came to pass soon after, exposed the child of Bethlehem to the very peril they prudently sought to shield him from, and destroyed the hopes of those who did not know that he escaped the danger. ** N M CHAPTER IV. % The Wise Men. AMONG the many travellers who visited Jerusalem, which was the most magnificent city of the East, there came at this time a party of dis- tinguished strangers, who had journeyed from the far East. They were soon known to be both wise and wealthy ; men who had given up their lives to learned and scientific studies, especially that of astronomy. They said they had seen, in their close and ceaseless scrutiny of the sky, a new star, which, for some reason not known to us, they connected with the distant land of Judaea, and called it the star of the King of the Jews. There was an idea spread throughout all countries at that time that a personage of vast wisdom and power, a Deliverer, was about to be born among the Jews. These wise men at once set off for the capital of Judaea ; for where else could the King of the Jews be born? Possibly they may have expected to find all the city astir with rejoicings ; but they could not even get an answer to their question, " Where is he ? " Those who had heard of him had kept the secret faithfully. But before long Herod was told of these extraordinary strangers, and their search for a new-born King, who was no child of his. He was an old man, nearly seventy, and in a wretched state, both of body and mind ; tormented by his conscience, yet not guided by it, and ready for any measure of cunning and cruelty. All Jerusalem was troubled with him, for not the shrewdest man in Jerusalem could guess what Herod would do in any moment of rage. Herod immediately sent for all the chief priests and scribes, who came together in much fear and consternation, and demanded of them where the Messiah should be born. They did not attempt to hesitate, or conceal the birth-place. If any of them had heard of the child of Bethlehem, and THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.— Matt. 2 : 13. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.— Matt. 2:11. M 8 M THE WONDERFUL LIFE. 23 Simeon's and Anna's statement concerning him, their dread of Herod was too powerful for them to risk their own lives in an attempt to shield him. "In Bethlehem," they answered promptly. Right glad would they be when Herod, satisfied with this information, dismissed them, and they went their way safe and sound to their houses. Thus at the outset the chief priests and scribes proved themselves unwilling to suffer anything for the Messiah, whose office it was to bring to them glory and dominion. Privately, but courteously, Herod then sent for the wise men, and inquired of them diligently how long it was since the star appeared ; and bade them seek the- child in Bethlehem, and when they had found him to bring him word, that he might go and do homage to him also. There was nothing in the king's manner or words to arouse their suspicions of his real purpose, and no doubt they set out for Bethlehem with the intention of returning to Jerusalem. Still it appeared likely that there would be some difficulty in discovering the child, of whom they knew nothing certainly, except that they were to search, and to search diligently, for him in Bethlehem. They rejoiced with ex- ceeding great joy, therefore, when, as they left the walls of Jerusalem behind them in the evening dusk, they saw the star again hanging in the southern sky, and going before them on their way. No need now for guides, no need to wander up and down the streets, asking for the new-born King. The star, or meteor, stood over the humble house where the young child was, and, entering in, they saw him, with Mary, his mother, and fell down, doing him homage as the King whose star was even now shining above the lowly roof that sheltered him. There was no palace, no train of servants, no guard, save the poor carpenter, whose day's work was done, and who was watching- over the young child ; but they could not be mistaken. The future glorious King of the Jews was here. They had not come from their distant country to seek a king empty- handed. Royal presents they had prepared and brought with them ; and now they opened their treasures, and offered costly gifts to him, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh, such as they would have presented, had they found the child in Herod's own palace in Jerusalem. Then, taking their leave, they were about to return to Herod, when a warning dream, which they could not mistake or misinterpret, directed them to depart into their country another way. The hour was at hand when the costly gifts of the wise men would be necessary for the preservation of the poor little family, not yet settled and at £XX23ES33EH33 ♦♦♦^♦♦^♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦^♦♦^♦♦<»«i>»»^<»«^fl^»4><»^>»<»^>^>»« <&4^*^#<§^<£^^<»«>^ 24 CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. home in its new quarters. Even as a babe the Son of man had not where to lay his head ; and no spot on earth was a resting-place for him. After the wise men were gone, the angel of the Lord came to Joseph in a dream, saying, "Arise, take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word : for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him." Mary's chilly fears then were being realized, and she felt the first prick of the sword that should pierce her soul. The visit of the wise men from the far East had been another hour of exultation and another testimony to the claims of her Son. Possibly they may have told her that the king himself wished to come down from Jerusalem, and worship him ; and dreams of splendor, of kingly and priestly protection for the infant Messiah might well fill her mind. But now she learned that Herod was seeking the child's life, to destroy him. They could not escape too quickly ; there was no time to be lost. The angel's words were urgent, "Arise, at once." It was night ; a winter's night, but there must be no delay. At day- break the villagers would be astir, and they could not get away unseen. Before the gray streak of light was dawning in the east, they ought to be some miles on the road. Mary must carry the child, shielding him as best she could from the chilly dampness of the night ; and Joseph must load himself with the wise men's gifts. Little had she thought, when those rich foreigners were falling down before her child in homage, that only a night or two later she would be stealing with him through the dark and silent streets, as if she was a criminal, not the happy mother of the glorious Mes- siah. And they were to flee out of the Holy Laud itself, into Egypt, the old land of bondage ! Unseen, unnoticed, the flight from Bethlehem was made. They were but strangers there ; and very few, if any, of the inhabitants would miss the strangers from Nazareth, who had settled among them so lately, and who had now gone away again with as little observation as they came. Herod very soon came to the conclusion that the wise men, for some Teason or other unknown to him, did not intend to obey his orders. They &E^&&&&&tt&&&&&&&&£&^&&&& &&£&^ ^T&Stt : X ►♦♦♦♦♦^♦♦♦♦'♦♦♦♦^K THE WONDERFUL LIFE. 27 It was no lonely life that Jesus led. We read again and again of his brethren and sisters ; and though it is not generally thought that these could have been Mary's children,* but the children of her sister, they were so associated with him that all his life long they acted as his own brethren and sisters. With them he would go to school, and learn to read and write, for all Jews were carefully educated in these two branches. The books he had to study we know and possess in the Old Testament. Very probably he would own one of them, though they would be so costly as to be almost beyond his means, or those of his supposed father. We should like to know that he had the Book of Psalms, those psalms which Mary knew so well and had sung to him so often ; or the prophecy of Isaiah, in which his young, undimmed eyes, that had hardly looked upon sorrow yet, and had never smarted with tears of penitence, would read and read again the warning words of the Messiah's sufferings, " a man of sorrow, and acquainted with grief." When he was alone yonder on the breezy summit of the mountain, did he ever sing, " The Lord is my Shepherd ? " And did he never whisper to himself the awful words, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Besides his cousins there were his neighbors all about him, quite common- place people, who could not see how innocent a«ad beautiful his life was. They were a passionate, rough race, notorious throughout the country, so that it had become almost a proverb, " Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ? " Jesus dwelt among them as one of them ; Joseph the carpen- ter's son. He could not yet heal the sick ; but is there no help and comfort in tender compassion for those who suffer ? The widow's son at Nam was not the first he had seen carried out for burial. The man born blind was not the only one groping about in darkness who felt his hand, and heard the pitying tones of his troubled voice. We may be sure that amongst his neighbors in Nazareth Jesus saw many a form of suffering, and his heart always echoed to a cry, if it were but the cry of an animal in pain. In one other way Jesus shared the common lot of boys. He had to take to a trade which was not likely to have been his choice. Whether as the eldest son of a large family, or the only son of a woman left a widow, he liad to learn the trade of his supposed father. The little workshop, where N * I agree in this opinion, chiefly for the reason that when Jesus died he committed Mary to the care of his young disciple John, which would seem unnatural to any tender-hearted, good mother, who had at least four other sons and two daughters living. Our Lord would iiardly throw so much discredit upon such relationships. 8 \S^^^^^T^^^^^Z^TTS^^^^^SmT^^ ^T^^^^^^^^ S^^S^^ ^^^^^^Sm^^^SrT^S. ^i CHAPTER VI. The First Passover, THERE is one incident, and only one, given to us of the early life of our Lord. It was the custom of his parents to go up to Jerusalem once a year, to the feast of the passover. For the Jews living in Galilee it was a long journey ; but the feast came at the finest time of the year for travelling, after the rains of winter, and before the dry heat of summer. It was a great yearly pilgrimage, in which troops from every village and town on the road came to swell the numbers as the pilgrims marched southward. Past the corn- fields, where the grain was already forming in the ear ; under the mountain slopes, clothed with silvery olive trees and the young green of the vines ; g i 28 CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. neighbors could always drop in with their trifling gossip, or at work in their own houses, where they could grumble and find fault ; this must have been irksome to him. The long, monotonous hours, the insignificant labor, the ceaseless buzz of chattering about him ; we can understand how weary and worn his spirit must have felt as well as his body. If he could have been a shepherd, like Moses, the great lawgiver, and David, his own kingly ancestor, how far more fitting that would have seemed ! How his courage and tenderness toward his flock would have been a type of what he would be in after life ! The solitude would have been sweet to him, and the changing aspects of the seasons from year to year. In after life he often compared himself to a shepherd, but never once is there any reference to his uncongenial calling in the hot workshop of Nazareth, where the only advantage was that it did not separate him from his mother. Does a blameless life win favor among any people? There was one man in Galilee, one only in the wide world, who never needed to go up to Jerusalem to offer any sacrifice for sin. Neither sin-offering nor trespass- offering had this man to bring to the altar of God. The peace-offering he could eat in the courts of the temple as a type of happy communion with the unseen God, and of a complete surrender of himself to his will. But, let the people scan his conduct as closely as village neighbors can do, not one among them could say that Jesus, the son of Joseph, had need to carry up to Jerusalem an offering for any trespass. Did they love him the better for this ? Did he find honor among them ? Nay, not even in his father's house. M M M g THE WONDERFUL LIFE. 29 Sj _ £ i . g across the babbling brooks, not yet dried by heat ; through groves of syca- mores and oak trees fresh in leaf, the long procession passed from town to town ; sleeping safely in the open air by night, and journeying by pleasant stages in the day, until they reached Judaea; and, weary with the dusty road from Jericho to Jerusalem, shouted with joy when they turned a curve of the Mount of Olives, and saw the Holy City lying before them. Jesus was twelve years old when, probably, he first made this long yet joyous march up to Jerusalem. We can fancy the eager boy "going on before them," as he did many years later when he went up to his last pass- over ; hastening forward for that first glorious view of Jerusalem, which met his eye from Olivet, the mount which was to be so closely associated with his after life. There stood the Holy City, with its marble palaces crowning the heights of Zion ; and the still more magnificent temple on its own mount, bathed in the brilliant light of the spring sunshine. The white, wondrous beauty of his Father's house, with the trembling columns of smoke ever rising from its altars through the clear air to the blue heavens above, rose opposite to him. We know the hymn that his tremulous, joyous lips would sing, and that would be echoed by the procession following him as they too caught sight of the house of God, " How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts ! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord : my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God ! " Thousands upon thousands of pilgrims had chanted that psalm before him ; but never one like that boy of twelve, when his father's house was first seen by his happy eyes. Perhaps there was no hour of perfect happiness like that to Jesus again. Joseph was still alive, caring for him and protecting him. His mother, who could not but recall the strange events that had accompanied his birth, kept him at her side as they entered the temple, pointing out to him the splendor and the sacred symbols of the place. The silvery music of the temple service ; the thunder of the aniens of the vast congregations ; the faint scent of incense wafted towards him ; all fell upon the vivid, delicate senses of youth. And below these visible signs there was breaking upon him their deep, invisible, spiritual meaning ; though not yet darkened with the shadow of that awful burden to be laid upon himself, when he, as the Lamb of God, was to take awav the sins of the world. This was the time, perhaps, when " he was anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows " more than at any other season of his life. The temple had been rebuilt by Herod in the vain hope of winning popu- AAA^AA^><^A^^AAAA^>AA^AAAA<^.AA^AAA^^^>4^^A M <&&^<3>4>4"$"&4"i"&<&$% >< 3><£H EE 30 CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. larity among his people. The outer walls formed a square of a thousand feet, with double or treble rows of aisles between ranks of marble pillars. These colonnades surrounded the first court, that of the Gentiles, into which foreigners might enter, though they were forbidden to go further upon pain of death. A flight of fifteen steps led from this court into that of the Women, a large space where the whole congregation of worshippers assem- bled, but beyond which women were not allowed to go, unless they had a sacrifice to offer. The next court had a small space railed off, called the Court of Israel ; but the whole bore the name of the Court of the Priests,, in which stood a great altar of unhewn stones forty-eight feet square, upon which three fires were kept burning continually, for the purpose of con- suming the sacrifices. Beyond these courts stood the actual temple, con- taining the Holy Place, which was entered by none but a few priests, who were chosen by lot daily; and the Holiest of Holies, open only to the high-priest himself, and to him but once a year, on the great day of atonement. It was here, in the temple, that Jesus loved to be during his sojourn in Jerusalem ; but the feast was soon ended, and his parents started home- wards with the returning band of pilgrims. Probably Jesus set off with them from the place where they had lodged ; and they, supposing him to be with some of his young companions, with his cousins perhaps, went a day's journey from Jerusalem. But when the night fell, and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance, he was nowhere to be found. A terrible night would that be for both of them, but especially for Mary,. whose fears for him had been slumbering during the quiet years at Nazareth, but were not dead. Was it possible that any one could have discovered their cherished secret, that this was the child whom the wise men had come so far to see, and for whom Herod had slain so many infants in Bethlehem ? They turned back to Jerusalem seeking him in sorrow. It was the third day before they found him. Where he lived those three days we do not know. Why not "where the sparrow hath found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself?" It was in the temple that Joseph and Mary found him ; in one of the public rooms or halls opening out of the court of the Gentiles, where the rabbis and those learned in the law were wont to assemble for teaching or argument. Jesus was in the midst of them asking questions, and answering those put to him by the astonished rabbis, who had not expected much understanding from this boy from Galilee. His parents themselves were amazed when they saw him there; and Mary.. ►•♦♦^^^^♦<9^^<»^#4 > ^«^v^*^^^^^^4 > ^^^^^^ < >^'^^^4 > ^^*^'^^-^ < ^4 > 4 > ' | * m ^^4»^^4 > ^^^t > ^^<&"^ CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE. And ale that heard Him were Astonished at His Understanding."— Luke 2 : 47 "GET THEE HENCE, SATAN."— Matt. 4:10. &^>^^&^)^^»«*4^»^^«^4&«^A/ THE WONDERFUL LIFE. 33 who seems to have had no difficulty in approaching him, spo^e to him chidingly. "Son," she said, " why hast thou dealt thus with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing." The question fell upon him as the first dimness upon the glory and glad- ness of his sojourn in the temple. The poor home at Nazareth, his father Joseph, the carpenter's shop, the daily work, pressed back upon him in the place of the temple music, the prayer, the daily sacrifice. There they stood, his supposed father, weary with the long search, and his mother looking at him with sorrowful, reproaching eyes. He was ready to go back with them, but he could not go without a pang. " How is it that ye sought me ? " he asked, sadly ; " did you not know that I must be in my Father's house ? " But he had not come to this earth to dwell in his Father's house ; and he- must leave it now, only to revisit it from time to time. "He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart." Eighteen more years, years of monotonous labor, did Jesus live in Naza- reth. Changes came to his home as well as to others. Joseph died, and left his mother altogether dependent upon him. Galilee was still governed by Herod Antipas ; but in Judaea the King Archelaus had been dethroned, and the country was made a province of Rome, under Roman governors. This had happened whilst Jesus was a boy, and a rebellion had been attempted under a leader called Judas of Galilee, which had caused great excitement. Though it had been put down by the Romans, there still remained a party, secretly popular, who used every effort to free their country from the Roman yoke. So strong had grown the longing for the Messiah, that a number of the people were ready to embrace the cause of any leader, who would claim that title, and lead them against their enemies and masters. There was a numerous class of his fellow-countrymen to whom Jesus must have been naturally drawn during his youth, and to whom he may have attached himself for a time. This was the sect of the Pharisees, noble and patriotic as our Puritans were, in the beginning ; and at all times living a frugal and devout life, in fair contrast with the Sadducees, who were wealthy, luxurious, and indifferent. The Pharisees were mostly of the middle classes; and their ceaseless devotion to religion gave them great authority among the common people. To the child Jesus they must have N m 34 CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. m appeared nearer to God than any other class. There were among them twc parties : one following a rabbi of the name of Hillel, who was a gentle, cautious, tolerant man, averse to making enemies, and of a most merciful and forgiving disposition. Some say that he began to teach only thirty years before the birth of Christ ; and it is certainly amongst his disciples that Jesus found some friends and followers. The second party was that of Shammai, who differed from the other in numberless ways. They were well known for their fierceness and jealousy, for stirring up the people against any one they hated, and for shrinking from no bloodshed in furthering their religious views. They were scrupulous about the fulfilment of the most trivial laws which had come down to them through tradition. These had grown so numerous through the lapse of centuries, that it was scarcely possible to live for an hour without breaking some commandment. Yet among the Pharisees there were many right-minded and noble men, to whom Jesus must have been attracted. " The only true Pharisee," said the Talmud, that collection of traditions which they held to be of equal authority with the Scriptures — " the only true Pharisee is he who does the will of his Father which is in heaven because he loves him." Such Phar- isees, when he met with them, as he did meet with them, won his love and approbation. It was the (< Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites," whom he hated. W m M 1 H N I M H | HI I 1 I M M g b g j g iSgg«iM» g a B Sg «g«Mij^ ^ gfrBgaM Sfrx-M gg-gggggg gs-s-gggggg&aEg g-E&gggg; <$*£» «J> «J» *J»*J» *J» <*» <£« *»*<£« «i> *J»'*J* *J»'€*'' , »* V^V» « M H book: ii. the prophet. CHAPTER I. % H John the Baptist. ESUS was about thirty years of age when a rumor reached Nazareth of a prophet who had appeared in Judaea. It was more than four hundred years since a prophet had arisen ; but it was well known that Elias must come before Messiah as his forerunner. Such a prophet was now baptizing in Jordan ; and all Judaea and Jerusalem itself were sending multitudes to be baptized by him. Before long his name was known : it was John, the son of Elisabeth, Mary's cousin, whose birth had taken place six months before that of Jesus. We have no reason to suppose that any person living at this time, except Mary, knew Jesus to be the Son of God. Those who had known it were Joseph, Zacharias, and Elisabeth ; and all these were dead. John, to whom we might suppose his parents would tell the mysterious secret, says expressly that he did not know him to be the Messiah until it was revealed to him from heaven. He was familiar with his cousin Jesus, and felt himself, with all his stern, rigid life in the wilderness, to be unworthy to stoop down and unloose the latchet of his sandals ; although he was a priest, who was known throughout the land as a prophet, and Jesus was merely a village carpenter, whose life had been a common life of toil amidst his comrades. Mary alone knew her son to be the promised Messiah ; and though the long years may somewhat have dulled her hopes, they flamed up again suddenly when the news came that John the forerunner had begun to preach " The kingdom of God is at hand," and that multitudes, even of the Pharisees, were flocking to his baptism, so to enlist themselves as subjects of the new kingdom. But this news did not make any change in our Lord. There was not less 36 CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. tenderness and pity in his heart when he lived among his neighbors in Nazareth than when he healed the sick who came to him from every quarter. Neither was there any more ambition in his spirit when he passed from town to town, amid a throng of followers, than when he climbed up into the loneliness of the mountains about his village home. How could he be touched by any earthly ambition, who knew himself to be not only a Son of God, but the only-begotten Son of the Father ? He had been waiting through these quiet, homely years for the call to come, and now he was ready to quit all, with the words in his heart, " Lo, I come : in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God ! " It may well be that Mary went with him a little way on his road towards Jordan, on that wintry morning, when he quitted his workshop, and the familiar streets of Nazareth, to dwell in them no more. There was no sur- prise to her in what had come to pass; but there must have been a thrill of exultation mingled with fear. He had been her son all these years, but now he was to belong, not to her, but to the nation. What sorrow and triumph must have been in her heart when at last he bade her farewell, and she watched him as long as he was in sight, clad in the robe she had woven for him without seam, like the robe of a priest. Was he not a priest and a king already to her ? It was winter, and though not cold in the valley of the Jordan, the heavy and continuous rains must have dispersed the multitudes that had gone out to John, leaving him almost in solitude once more. There could have been no crowd of spectators when Jesus was baptized. Yet even in January there are mild and sunny days when he and John might have gone down into the river for the significant rite which was to mark the beginning of his new career. But John would not at first consent to baptize his cousin Jesus, declaring that it would be more fit for himself to be baptized by one whose life had been holier and happier than his own. The rich and powerful and pious Pharisees John had sent away with rebukes, yet when gj Jesus came from Galilee, he forbade him. But Jesus would not take his refusal. For some months John had been waiting for a sign promised to him from heaven, which should point out to him the true Messiah ; and the people of the land looked to him to show them the Christ, whose kingdom he was proclaiming. Now, after he had baptized his cousin in the waters of the Jordan, already troubled with the rains from the mountains, and they were coming up again out of the river, he saw the pale wintry sky above them opening, and the Spirit of God de- &^X2Egg^^X3^-XX^XX^23^3ir3^^ M M m M H N K THE WONDERFUL LIFE. 37 H M scending, visible to his eyes in the form of a dove, which lighted upon Jesus, whilst a voice came from heaven, speaking to him, and saying, " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." What passed between them further, the Messiah and his forerunner, we are not told. Jesus did not stay with John the Baptist, for immediately he left him and the place where he had been baptized, and went away into the wilderness, far from the busy haunts of ordinary men, such as he had dwelt among until now. His commonplace, everyday life was ended, and had fallen from him forever. A dense cloud of mystery, which no one has been able to pierce through, surrounds the forty days in which he was alone in the wilderness, suffering the first pangs of the grief with which he was bruised and smitten for our iniquities, being fiercely assailed of the devil, that he might himself suffer being tempted, and so able to succor all those who are tempted. The com- passion and fellow-feeling he had before had for sufferers he was henceforth to feel for sinners. There was to be no gulf between him and the sinners he was about to call to repentance ; he was to be their friend, their com- panion, and it was his part to know the stress and strain of temptation which had overcome them. Sinners were to feel, when they drew near to him, that he knew all about them and their sins, and needed not that any man should tell him. He had been in all points tempted as they had been. | — •<>. — m CHAPTER II. * Cana of Galilee. "TT7"HEN Jesus returned to Jordan the short winter of Palestine was » V over, and already an eager crowd had gathered again about John. On the day of his return a deputation from the Pharisees had come from Jerusalem to question John as to his authority for thus baptizing the people. They were the religious rulers of the nation, and felt themselves bound to inquire into any new religious rite, and to ask for the credentials of any would-be prophet. These priests who had come to see John knew him to be a priest, and were, probably, inclined to take his part, if they could do so in safety. They asked him, eagerly, "Art thou Christ?" "Art thou Elias ? " "Art thou that prophet ? " And when he answered, " No," they ask again, " Who art thou? What sayest thou of thyself?" The crowd was listening, and Jesus, standing amongst them, was also listening for his E ggggg gggggggg ggg^ gggiga 38 CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. reply. " I am a voice," he said, " the voice spoken of by Isaiah the prophet, crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the ways of the Lord." The priests were disappointed with this answer, and asked, " Why baptizest thou then ? " They had not given him authority to appear as a prophet, yet here he was drawing great multitudes about him, and publicly reproving the most religious sect of the nation, calling them a generation of vipers, and bidding them bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. From that time they began to throw discredit upon the preaching of John the Baptist, and spoke despitefully against him, saying, " He hath a devil." Nothing is easier than to fling a bad name at those who are not of our own way of thinking. Two days after this, John the Baptist pointed out Jesus to two of his dis- ciples as the Messiah whose coming he had foretold. These two, Andrew and a young man named John, immediately followed Jesus, and being in- vited by him to the place where he was staying, they remained the rest of the day with him ; probably took their first meal with him, their hearts burning within them as he opened the Scriptures to their understanding. The next morning Andrew met with his brother Simon, and said, " We have found the Messiah," and brought him to Jesus. The day following, Jesus was about to start home again to Galilee, and seeing Philip, who already knew him, he said to him, " Follow me ! " Simon and Andrew, who were Philip's townsmen, were at that time with Jesus ; Philip was ready to obey, but he first found Nathanael, and said to him, " Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph, is he of whom Moses and the prophets did write ! " " Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? " cried Nathanael, doubtingly; but he went to Jesus and was so satisfied by the few words he spoke to him, that he exclaimed, " Rabbi, thou art the Son of God ; thou art the King of Israel ! " With these five followers Jesus turned his steps homewards, after an absence of nearly two months. All of them lived in Galilee ; and Simon Peter and Andrew, who had a house in Capernaum, at the head of the lake of Galilee, appear to have turned off and left the little company at the point where their nearest way home crossed the route taken by the others. Jesus went on with the other three : Philip, whom he had distinctly called to follow him • Nathanael, whose home in Cana of Galilee lay directly north of Nazareth ; and John, who was hardly more than a youth, and as yet free from the ties and duties of manhood. A pleasant march must that have been along the valleys lying south of Mount Tabor, with the spring B I N M M M B H H H M M Hi g M N | M n I M \^ ^^^ ^m^^^^^mmm ^^m^m^m ^m ^^mmx^ aES&Sgg&gg ^gggSl 8 $&'&'$$&&$&&&4?$^&&&&&&$^&&&&&&&&&&&&*&&'&&&$&&&4&''& i &&&&&&&&&&& THE WONDERFUL LIFE. 39 M N 8 sun shining overhead, and all the green sward bedecked with flowers, and the birds singing in the cool, fragrant air of morning and evening. But they did not find Mary at Nazareth. She was gone with the cousins of Jesus to a marriage at Cana in Galilee, the town of Nathanael, where he had a home, to which he gladly urged his new-found rabbi to go. He could not have foreseen this pleasure ; but now, as they went on northward to Cana, the Messiah was his guest, and, with Philip and John, was to enter into his house. But no sooner was it known that they were come into the village than Jesus was called with his friends, one of whom was an old neighbor of the bridegroom, to join the marriage feast. There was very much that Mary longed to hear from her son after this long absence ; but the circumstances could not have been favorable for it. In his beloved face, worn and pale with his forty days of temptation and fasting in the wilderness, her eyes saw a change which told plainly that his new life had begun in suffering. He looked as if he had passed through a trial which set him apart. Perhaps he found time to tell her of his hunger in the desert, and the temptation which came to him to use his miraculous powers in order to turn stones into bread for himself. It seems that, in some way or other, she knew that, like Elijah and Elisha, the great prophets of olden times, he could and would work miracles as a sign to the people that he came from God ; and she felt all a mother's eagerness that he M IHI should at once manifest his glory. So when there was no more wine she turned to him, hoping for some open proof to the friends about her that he possessed this wonder-working power. Besides, she had been accustomed to turn to him in every trouble, in any trifling, household difficulty; casting all her cares upon him, because she knew he cared for her. So she said to him quietly, yet significantly, " They have no wine." Some of Elisha's miracles had been even more homely ; he had made the poisoned pottage fit for food, and had fed a company of people with but a scanty supply of barley-cakes. Why should not Jesus gladden i\e feast and save his friends from shame, by making the wine last out to N lie end? H M i A few days before our Lord had been in the desert, amid the wild beasts, with the devil tempting him. Now he, who was to be in all things one with us, was sitting at a marriage feast among his friends ; his mother and kinsfolk there, with his new followers; every face about him glad and happy. It was not the first marriage he had been at, for his sisters, no doubt, were married, and living at Nazareth ; and he knew what the mor- M H ^*£<^ < ^y<£^ < £^£<£*3Mg><£<£<&<^+>&A&$&<&*i*&%>*3><&$ 44 CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. The Jews held the Galileans in scorn, as only little better than the Samari- tans. " What sign shewest thou/ 7 they ask, " seeing that thou doest such things ? " The things were signs themselves ; the mighty, prevailing anger of the Lord, and the smitten consciences of the merchants, if they had not been too blind to see them. Jesus gave them a mysterious answer, which none could understand. " Destroy this temple," he said, " and in three days I will raise it up." What ! were they to puU down all they most prided in, and trusted in : their temple, which had been forty and six years in building ! They left him, but they treasured up his words in their memories. The disciples also remembered them, and believed them when the mysterious sign was fulfilled. But Jesus did not seek to convince the people without signs, and signs which they could understand. He worked certain miracles in Jerusalem during the week of the feast, which won a degree of faith from many. But their faith was not strong and true enough for him to trust to it, and he held himself aloof from them. What they looked for was an earthly king, who should plot and conspire for the throne ; and the Roman soldiers, who garrisoned the strong fortress which overlooked the temple, would not have borne the rumor of such a king. There was at all times great danger of these expectations reaching the ears of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, who was not a man to shrink from needless bloodshed. For the sake of the people themselves Jesus did not commit himself unto them. Amongst those who heard of the miracles he had wrought was one of the Pharisees, a member of the great religious committee among them called the Sanhedrim. His name was Nicodemus, and he came to our Lord by night, to inquire more particularly what he was teaching. Jesus told him more distinctly than he had yet done what his new message to the Jews and to the whole world was : " For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Nicodemus went away strongly impressed with the new doctrine, though not prepared to give up all for its sake, and not yet called upon to do so. But from that time Jesus had a firm friend in the very midst of the Pharisees, who used his powerful influence to pro- tect him ; and the feast passed by without any further jealous interference from the priests. But it was not quite safe or suitable to remain in Jerusalem ; and after the greater number of their friends and kinsmen had returned home, Jesus, with two or three of his disciples, sought the banks of the Jordan, whither M IHI THE WONDERFUL LIFE. 45 " ~ ~~~ @ John the Baptist had already returned. The harvest was beginning, for it h was near the end of April, and bands of harvesters passed to and fro from uplands to lowlands until all the corn was gathered in by the end of June. Down in the valley of the Jordan the summer is verv hot : and the wants of life are few. They could sleep in the open air, or in some hut of branches rudely woven together ; and their food, like John the Baptist's, cost little or nothing. There was to be no settled home henceforth for any one of them. The disciples had left all to follow the Son of man, and he had not where to lay his head. Crowds of eager and curious followers came to Jesus, as the year before they had flocked to John the Baptist, who had now moved some miles far- ther up the river, and was still preaching " The kingdom of God is at hand." But John did no miracle, and the crowds that followed Jesus were greater than those who followed him. In the eyes of the Pharisees it must have seemed that the two prophets were in rivalry ; and many a jest and a sneer would be heard in the temple courts and in the streets of Jerusalem as they talked of those " two fanatics " on the banks of the Jordan. Even John the Baptist's disciples fancied that a wrong was done their rabbi by this new teacher, who had been with him for a while, and so learned his manner of arousing and teaching the people. They went to John, and said, " Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou bearest wit- ness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come unto him." jjjj Now was John's opportunity to manifest a wonderful humility and devo- tion. " I am of the earth, earthy, and speak of the earth," he said ; " he that cometh from heaven is above all. The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hands. I am but the friend of the bride- groom ; I stand and hear him, and rejoice greatly because of his voice. This my joy therefore is fulfilled." Did he hear that voice often, and rejoice in it? There were not many miles separating them, and both of them were hardy and used to long marches. It may well be that during those summer months they met often on the banks of the river — the happiest season of John's life. For he had Jbeen a lonely, unloved man, living a wild life in the wilderness, strange to social and homelike ways ; his father and mother long since dead, with neither brother nor sister, he would find in Jesus all the missing relation- ships, and pour out to him the richest treasures of a heart that no loving trust had opened until now. So the summer passed away, and the autumn with its vintage ; then the H_ | H rainy months drew near. Bands of harvestrnen and bands of pilgrims had gone by, tarrying for a few hours to learn truths they had never heard before, even in the temple. Many of them were baptized by the disciples, though Jesus baptized not. The new prophet had become more popular than the old prophet, and John's words were fulfilled, " He must increase, but I must decrease." CHAPTER IV. Samaria. rr^HERE were several reasons why our Lord should leave the banks of -*- the Jordan, besides that of the rainy season coming on. The Phari- sees were beginning to take more special notice of him, having heard that he had made more disciples even than John, whom they barely tolerated. Moreover, this friend and forerunner of his had been seized by Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee, and cast into a dreary prison on the east of the Dead sea. This violent measure was likely to excite a disturbance among the people ; and Jesus, whose aim was in no way to come into collision with the government, could not prudently remain in a neighborhood too near the fortress where John was imprisoned. He therefore withdrew from the Jordan, in the month of December or January, having been in Judaea since the feast of the passover in the spring. One way to his old home, the place where his relatives were still living, lay through Samaria, a country he had probably never crossed, as the in- habitants were uncivil and churlish towards all Jewish travellers, especially if their faces were towards Jerusalem. But Jesus was journeying to Galilee, and did not expect them to be actively hostile to him and his little band of companions. It was an interesting road, and led him through Shechem, one of the oldest cities in the world, lying between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, in a vale so narrow at the eastern end, that when the priests stood on these mountains to pronounce the blessings and the curses in the ears of all the children of Israel, there was no difficulty for the people standing in the valley to hear distinctly. Two miles away was a very deep well, the waters of which were cool in the hottest summer ; a well dug by the patri- arch Jacob upon the same parcel of a field where he built his first altar to the God of Israel. Here too were buried the bones of Joseph, which had been carried for forty years through the wilderness to the land his father JfcEgraffigggMffig^gggigggigggagEa^igggg^ THE WONDERFUL LIFE. 47 | H ■ | Jacob had given to him and to his children specially. Shiloh also lay along m the route ; and Jesus, who possessed every innocent and refined taste, must t| have enjoyed passing through these ancient places, so intimately connected § with the early history of his nation. h Shechem lay about eighteen or twenty miles distant from the fords of Jordan, near which we suppose Jesus to have been dwelling. By the time he and his disciples reached Jacob's well, after this long morning's march, it was noonday, and he was wearied, more wearied than the rest, who appear always to have been stronger than he was. They left him sitting by the side of the well, whilst they went on into the city to buy food for their mid-day meal. Their Master was thirsty, but the well was deep, and they had nothing to draw up the water. They hastened on, therefore, eager to return with food for him whom they loved to minister to. Not long after a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and was much astonished when this Jew asked her to give him some to drink. She was probably less churlish than a man would have been, though she was barely civil. But as Jesus spoke with her she made the discovery that he was a prophet; and immediately referred to him the most vexing question which separated the Jews from the Samaritans. The latter had a temple upon Mount Gerizim, which had been rebuilt by Herod, as the temple at Jerusa- lem had been ; and she asked which is the place where men ought to wor^ ship ? Here, or at Jerusalem ? She could only expect one answer from a £ Jew ; an answer to excuse her anger, and send her away from the well without satisfying his thirst. But Jesus had now forgotten both thirst and weariness. He knew that many a 'sorrowful heart had prayed to God as truly from Mount Gerizim as from the temple at Jerusalem. There is no special place, he answered, for in every place men may worship the Father ; the true worshippers worship him in spirit and in truth, for God is a Spirit. This, was no such answer as the woman looked for; and her next words were spoken in a different temper. " We are looking for the Messiah, as well as the Jews," she said, " and when he is come, he will tell us all things that we do not yet know." Jesus had already told her the circumstances of her own life, and she was looking at him wistfully, with this thought of the Messiah in her mind, when he said to her more plainly, more distinctly, perhaps, than he had ever done before to any one, " I that speak to thee am he. m By this time the disciples had come back, and were much astonished to find him talking to the woman. If they heard these last words they would | i 48 CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. marvel still more, for Jesus generally left men to discover his claims to the Messiahship. The wrong impression prevailing among the Jews concerning the Messiah was not shared by the Samaritans. The latter kept closely to the plain and simple law of Moses, without receiving the traditions which the Pharisees held of equal importance with the law, and were thus more ready to understand the claims and work of Christ. The woman therefore hurried back to the city, leaving her water-pot, and called together the men of the place to come out and see if this man were not the Christ. They besought him to stay with them in their ancient city under the Mount of Blessing ; and, no doubt very much to the amazement of his disciples, he consented, and abode there two days, spending the time in teaching them his doctrine, the very inner meaning of which he had already laid open to the woman. " God is a Spirit ; he is the Father, whom every true worshipper may worship in the recesses of his own spirit." Many of them believed, and said to the woman, " We have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world" Wonderful words, which filled the heart of Christ with rejoicing. Not his own nation, not his own disciples, not even his own kinsmen, had learned so much of his mission as these Samari- tans ; ever afterwards he spoke of them with tenderness, and when he would take a type of himself in the parable of the man fallen among thieves, he chose not a Jew, but a despised Samaritan. From Sychar Jesus passed through one of the long deep valleys which lead to the plain of Esdraelon, where he was once more in Galilee. It was winter, and the snow was glistening on the lower mountains, as well as upon the distant range of Lebanon. The heavy rains had swollen the brooks into floods ; and all the great plain before him, which in four months' time would be ripe for harvest, a sea of golden grain, scarcely rippled by a gust of wind, was now lying in wintry brownness and desolation, and swept by the storms of hail and rain. He seems to have passed by Nazareth, staying, if he stayed at all, for a few hours only, and to have gone on with Nathanael to his home in Cana, where Jesus had many friends, especially the bride- groom whose marriage-feast in the spring he had made glad with no common gladness. g| He had not been loner in Cana before the streets of the little village wit- nessed the arrival of a great nobleman from Capernaum, who had heard of the fame of Jesus in Judaea, and the miracles he had wrought there. Until now, with the exception of Nicodemus, it would seem that none but people of his own class had sought him, or brought their sick to be healed by him. H 1 w*K'^ >< j > ^ k J > 4 > ^> THE WONDERFUL LIFE. 49 N W i But this nobleman had a son, whose life all the skill of the Jewish physi- cians could not save ; and his last hope lay with Jesus. His faith could not grasp more than the idea that if Jesus came, like any other physician, to see and touch the child, he would have the power to heal him. " Sir, come down," he cried, " before my son is dead." " Go thy way," Jesus answered ; " thy son liveth." What was there in his voice and glance which filled the father's heart with perfect trust and peace ? The nobleman did not hurry away, though there was time for him to reach home before nightfall. But the next day, as he was going down to Capernaum, he met his servants, who had been sent after him with the good news that the fever had left his son yesterday at the seventh hour ; that same hour when Jesus had said to him, " Thy son liveth." Now he had a friend and disciple amongst the wealthiest and highest classes in Capernaum, as he had one amongst the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem. Both protected him as much as it lay in their power ; aud it is supposed by many that the mother of the child thus healed was the same as Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, who, with other women, attended our Lord during the last year of his life, and ministered to him of their sub- stance. Thus, on every hand, Jesus was making friends and enemies. A year had scarcely passed since he quitted his humble home in Nazareth ; but his name was already known throughout Judsea, Galilee, and Samaria ; and everywhere people were ranging themselves into two parties, for and against him. Amongst the common people he had few enemies ; amongst the wealthy and religious classes he had few friends. He felt the peculiar difficulty these latter classes had in following him ; and expressed it in two sayings, " I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance," and " It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." | — ^ — CHAPTER V. The First Sabbath Miracle. , A FTER staying a short time in Cana, Jesus went once more to Jeru ** \ salem, about the middle of March, a month or so before the pass- over. At this time there was a feast of the Jews, not a religious, but rather a national feast, in celebration of the deliverance of their race in the days of Esther. It drew together many of the poorer and lower classes, among X-X-X-T-X^ -S-X-X-X-XT-X-X-X 'X-X-X-Z-X-X-X'X-X-Z-X-r-Y -XXXT-' ^4^«& <£><{».«£<{» 4>»!><£"&4 >< & <£*V^<£# , ^<*4>«> ¥ >' 50 CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. whom our Lord's work specially lay, and so offered to him, perhaps, unusual opportunities for mingling with the common people living near Jerusalem. For we do not suppose that the Galileans went up to this feast ; only the country-folks dwelling in Judaea, within a few miles of their chief city, who could make a holiday at that time of the year. Either upon the feast-day itself, or the Sabbath day nearest to it, Jesus walked down to the sheep- gate of the city, near which was a pool, possessing the singular property, so it was believed, of healing the first person who could get into it after there had been seen a certain troubling of the water. A great crowd of impotent folk, of halt, blind and withered, lay about waiting for this movement of the surface of the pool. There was no spot in Jerusalem where we could sooner expect to find our Lord, with his wondrous power of healing all manner of diseases. Not even his Father's house was more likely to be trodden by his feet than this Bethesda, or house of mercy. Probably there was a greater throng than usual, because of the feast, which would offer an opportunity to many to come out of the country. Jesus passed by until he singled out one man, apparently because he knew he had now been crippled for thirty-eight years, and had been so friendless that during all that time he had no man to help him to get down first to the water. The cripple was hopeless, but still lingered there, as if to watch others win the blessing which he could never reach. Upon this miserable man Jesus looked down with his pitying eyes, and said, as though speaking to one who would not hesitate to obey him, " Rise, take up thy bed, and walk." It seems as though Jesus passed on, and was lost in the crowd ; but the cripple felt a strange strength throbbing through his withered limbs. He was made whole, and he took up his bed, to return home, if he had any home, or at least to escape from that suffering multitude. Then did the Pharisees behold the terrible spectacle of a man carrying his bed through the streets of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day ! They cried to him hastily, " It is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed on the Sabbath day." He answered them by telling the story of his miraculous cure, though he did not know who the stranger was, for Jesus was gone away. No doubt he put his burden down at the bidding of the Pharisees, but he did not lose the new strength that had given him power to take it up. The same day Jesus found him in the temple, whither he had gone in his gladness. Once more those pitying, searching eyes were fixed upon him, and the voice that had spoken to him in the morning sounded again in his H m WHOSOEVER DRINKETH OF THE WATER THAT I SHALL GIVE HIM SHALL NEVER THIRST."— John 4 : 14. CHRIST HEALING THE SICK. " He laid His Hands on Every One of Them, and Healed Them." — Luke 4 : 40. THE WONDERFUL LIFE. 53 ears. " Behold," said Jesus, " thou art made whole ; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee." The man departed and told the Pharisees who it was that had made him whole, thinking, no doubt, to bring praise aud glory to his deliverer. Possibly until now the presence of Jesus at this feast had not been known to the Pharisees. The last time he was in Jerusalem he had solemnly and emphatically claimed the temple as his Father's house, and had indirectly reproved them by assuming the authority to rid it of the scandals they had allowed to creep into it. Now they found him deliberately setting aside one of their most binding rules for keeping the Sabbath. John the Baptist, though both priest and prophet, Jiad never ventured so far. Their religion of rites and ceremonies, of traditions, of shows and shams, was in danger. With their religion, they firmly believed their place and nation would go, and Jerusalem and Judaea would become like the heathen cities and coun- tries about them. It was time to put a stop to it. John the Baptist was in prison. What if Jesus of Nazareth could be slain quietly, so as not to disturb the common people, who heard him gladly? Jesus then, forewarned, it may be, by a friend, found himself compelled to quit Jerusalem hastily, instead of sojourning there till the coming passover. He was now too well known in the streets of the city to escape notice. More than this, if he stayed until the Galileans came up to the feast, there would be constant danger of his followers coming into collision with the Pharisees. Riots in Jerusalem at the time of the feasts were not uncommon, and often ended in bloodshed. Not long before, Pilate had slain eighteen Galileans in some tumult in the temple courts ; and there was every probability that some such calamity might occur again should any provocation arise. Jesus, therefore, retreated from Jerusalem with a few friends who were with him. He had not yet chosen his band of twelve apostles, but John, the youngest and dearest of them all, was with him, for it is he alone who has given us this record of the first year of our Lord's ministry. Philip, also, we suppose to have been his disciple from the first, in obedience to the call, "Follow me;" for Jesus seems to have been particularly grieved with his dulness of mind, when he says to him, " Have I been so long time with you, Philip, and yet hast thou not known me?" Moreover, when Jesus was next at Jerusalem for the passover, those Greeks who wished t<> see him came and spoke to Philip as being best known as the attendant of our Lord. Whether there were other disciples with him, or who they were, 59 g^a ggggg g&ggg&gaaEggg&ggggEggggs M M 54 CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. \ve do Dot know. It was a little company that had lived together through eleven months, most of which had been spent on the banks of the Jordan, in a peaceful and happy seclusion, save for the multitudes that came to be taught the new doctrine, or to be healed of their afflictions. Now they were to be persecuted, to have spies lurking about them, to be asked treach- erous questions, to have perjured witnesses ready to swear anything against them, and to feel from day to day that their enemies were powerful and irreconcilable. With a sad foresight of what must be the end, our Lord left Jerusalem and returned into Galilee. H B I l I M 1 KH CHAPTER VI. His Old Home. JESUS came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. His aunt, Mary Cleophas, was still living there with her children, if his mother was not. The old familiar home was the same, and the steep, narrow streets of the village in which he had played and worked. Coming down to it from the unfriendly city of Jerusalem, it seemed like a little nest of safety, lying amongst its pleasant hills. Here, at least, so his disciples might think, they would find repose and friendship ; and the soreness of heart that must have followed the knowledge that the Jews sought to slay their Master would here be healed and forgotten. The Sabbath had come round again ; a week since he had given strength to the cripple. It was his custom to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath ; and the congregation which met there had been familiar with him from his childhood, when he went with his supposed father, Joseph. The rabbi, or ruler, could not but have known him well. These rulers of the synagogue had a certain power of both trying and scourging heretics in the place itself. They could also excommunicate them, and lay a curse upon them ; and Jesus knew that they would not be averse to exercising their power. But now he went to his accustomed place, looking round with a tender yearning of his heart towards them all ; from those who sat conspicuously in the chief seats, to the hesitating, inquisitive villager, seldom seen in the congregation, who crept in at the door to see what was going on. For all the people of Nazareth must have been filled with curiosity that day. Their townsman had become famous ; and they longed to see him, I M M M I W ^^^^♦♦♦♦♦♦<^4^4 s v^4^<^<^4^>^«>v ?______ THE WONDERFUL LIFE. 55 § M M fj and to witness some miracle wrought by him. Almost all had spoken to him at one time or another ; many had been brought up with him, and had been taught by the same schoolmaster. They had never thought, of him as being different from themselves, except perhaps that no man could bring an evil word against him; a stupendous difference indeed, but not one that would win him much favor. Yet here he was among them again, after a M year's absence or so, and throughout all the land, even in Jerusalem itself, he was everywhere known as the Prophet of Xazareth. When the time came for the Scriptures to be read, Jesus, either called by the minister, or rising of his own accord, stood up to read. It must have been what all the congregation wished for. The low platform near the £J middle of the building was the best place for all to see him ; their eyes were fastened upon him, and their satisfaction was still greater when he sat down to teach them from the words he had just read. They were astonished at the graciousness of his words and manner, and before he could say more than, " This day is this Scripture fulfilled," they began whispering to one another, " Is not this Joseph's son ? " There is nothing strange or unnatural in this conduct, nor indeed any- thing very blamable. It is precisely what would take place among ourselves now under the same circumstances. Jesus was grieved, though we cannot suppose him to have been disappointed. He knew they wanted to see him do something like what he had dene in Capernaum. His sinless life had been neither a sign nor a wonder to them ; so blind were they, and so hard of heart. But if he would do some astonishing work they would believe in him. u Xo prophet is accepted in his own country/' he said, and leaving the verses he was about to explain to them, he went on to remind them that both Elijah and Elisha, their wonder-working prophets of olden times, had passed over Jewish sufferers to bestow their help on Gentiles. They could not miss seeing the application. If they rejected him, he woul xi-i-z-x j i-a-i-x-i-i-a-i-i'i-i'Xi-i-i-i-z-z-i-z-z-i-;'X j a'Z-i-zz-i-i'i^ r^X^'^Z^T'X'S^X'S^ ^'^^'Xa^^X'" 2f^3£S"Xs 58 CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. INI M 181 imposing place than the one at Nazareth ; and no doubt it would be filled with a congregation as crowded and attentive. Whilst Jesus was teaching them, an unlooked-for interruption came, not this time from the fury of his listeners, but from the outcry of a poor man possessed of a devil, who had come in with the congregation. Jesus rebuked the evil spirit, and the man was cast down in the midst of the synagogue in convulsions, with the people crowding round to help. But when the devil had come out of him the man himself was uninjured and in his right mind. Such a miracle, in such a place, spread far and wide, and with great swiftness, for all who had seen it wrought would be eager to speak of it. At noon Jesus went with Peter to his house for the usual mid-day meal Here he healed the mother of Peter's wife of a great fever so thoroughly that, feeling neither languor nor weakness, she arose and waited upon them. In the afternoon probably he went to the synagogue service again, to be listened to more eagerly than ever. E mm We can imagine the stir there would be throughout Capernaum that after- noon. Fevers were very prevalent in the spring and autumn, and it is not likely that Peter's mother was the only sufferer. There was no one there as yet to cavil at miracles being worked on the Sabbath-day; still the people waited until the sun was set, and then in the brief twilight a long procession threaded the streets to the house where Jesus was known to be, until all the city was gathered about the door. And as the light faded in the clear sky, a number of little twinkling lamps would be kindled in the narrow street, lighting up the pale sickly faces of the patients who were waiting for the great Physician to come by. We see him passing from one group to another, missing not one of the sufferers, and surely saying some words of comfort or warning to each one on whom he laid his healing hand — words that would dwell in their memories forever. All had faith in him, and all were cured of whatsoever disease they had. It must have been late before this was over, and the crowd dispersed to their homes. It seems as though our Lord, after this busy day of active ministry and untiring sympathy, was unable to sleep ; for, rising a great while before the dawn, he sought the freshness of the cool night air and the quiet of a lonely place, where he could pray, or rather speak to his Father unseen and unheard. He trod softly through the silent streets, lately so full of stir, and made his way to some quiet spot on the shore of the lake, pondering, it may be, over the strange contrasts in his life, his rejection by the Nazarenes, and the enthusiastic reception of him by the city of Capernaum. m THE WONDERFUL LIFE. 59 ** As soon as it was day, however, the grateful people, discovering that he was not in Peter's house, urged his disciples to lead them to the place where he had found a brief repose. The disciples would probably require little urging, for this was the homage they expected their Master to receive. They came in multitudes, beseeching him to tarry with them ; for, like Nicodemus, they knew him to be a teacher from God, by the miracles he had done. This host of friends crowding about him to prevent him from departing from them must have given him a moment of great gladness. But he could not stay with them, for he must go to preach the kingdom of God in other cities also, and if he found faith there, to perform the same wonderful and tender miracles he had wrought in Capernaum. For the next few days Jesus, with five or six disciples, passed from vil- lage to village on the western coast of the lake, and in the plain of Gen- nesaret, a lovely and fertile tract of land, six or seven miles long, and five wide, surrounded by the mountains which fall back from the shore of the lake to encircle it. It was thickly covered with small towns and villages, lying so near to one another that the rumor of his arrival brought the in- habitants of all the cities to any central point where they heard that he was staying. Herod had built a city at the south of the plain and called it Tiberias, after the Roman emperor ; but probably our Lord never entered its streets, though all who desired to see and hear him could readily find an opportunity in the neighboring villages. It was in one of these places that a leper, hopeless as his case seemed, determined to cast himself upon the compassion of this mighty prophet. No leper had been healed since the days of Naaman the Syrian ; yet so wonderful were the miracles wrought by Jesus, so well known, and so well authenticated, that the man did not doubt his power. " If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean," he cried. He soon discovered that Christ's tenderness was as great as his power. He touched him ; and immediately the sufferer was cleansed. The leper noised it abroad so much, that Jesus was compelled to hold himself somewhat aloof from the town, and keep nearer to the wild and barren mountains, where the plain was less densely peopled, until a day or two before the Sabbath he returned to Capernaum, at the northern extremity of the plain. During those few days his journeyings had been confined to a very limited space, the beautiful but small plain of Gennesaret, with its thick population and nu- merous villages, where he could teach many people, and perform many miracles with no loss of time in taking long journeys. During the week Capernaum had been in a fever of excitement. It was M * M « <^AA^^^A^^AA^AAAA^AA^^l»A^^A^^^AA^^A^^^AA^^^A^A^&^A^^^^\ m i CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. quite practicable for many of the inhabitants to go out three or four miles to the spot where Jesus was, for the day, and return at night with the story of what he was doing. The excitement had not been lessened by the arrival of a party of Pharisees from Jerusalem itself, who were openly unfriendly to the Galilean prophet and his new doctrines. The Galileans naturally looked up to the priesthood at Jerusalem, especially to the Sanhedrim, as the great authorities upon religious points. There were, moreover, plenty of Pharin sees in Capernaum, as in every Jewish town, who readily took up the opinions of these Pharisees from Judaea, and joined them eagerly in forming a party against Jesus and his innovations. No doubt they discussed the miracle wrought in their own synagogue on the first Sabbath day that Jesus was there ; and were the more zealous to condemn him, because none of them had seen the sin of it before it was pointed out by their keener and more orthodox brethren from Jerusalem. No sooner, then, was Jesus known to be in the house at Capernaum than there collected such a crowd that there was no room to receive them ; no, not so much as about the door. But some of the Pharisees had made good their entrance, and were sitting by cavilling and criticising in the midst of his disciples. At this time the friends of a paralytic man who were not able to bring him into the presence of Jesus, carried him to the flat roof of a neighboring house, and so reaching the place where he sat to teach all who could get within hearing, they took up the loose boards of the roof and let down their friend before him. Jesus, pausing in his discourse, said first to him, " Thy sins are forgiven thee ! " words that filled the Pharisees with horror, yet with secret satisfaction. "Who is this?" they say to one an- other ; " who can forgive sins but God alone ? " " You cannot see that his sins are forgiven," answered Jesus, " but I will give you a sign which you can see. It is easy to say. Thy sins be forgiven ; but I say unto thee, O man, arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house." Even the Pharisees, the less bitter Pharisees of Galilee at least, were silenced by this, and were for once touched with fear of this Son of man, who had power on earth to forgive sins. They glorified God, saying, " We have seen strange things to-day." But the day was not ended. Jesus, as his custom was, went down to the shore, where he could teach greater numbers than in the narrow streets. As he was passing along he saw a tax-collector sitting in his booth gathering tolls for the hated Roman conquerors. Such a person was singularly offen- sive to all Jews, but especially so to the Pharisees, who looked upon publi- M N S.S&a^M'' "BUT A CERTAIN SAMARITAN HAD COMPASSION ON HIM."-Luke 10 : 33. " YOUNG MAN, I SAY UNTO THEE, ARISE.'— Luke 7:14. THE WONDERFUL LIFE. 63 IHI cans as the most vicious and degraded of men. Mark tells us this man was the son of Alpheus, or Cleophas, the uncle of Jesus by his marriage with Mary, his mother's sister. If so, he was a reprobate son, probably dis- owned by all his family, to whom he was a sorrow and disgrace. The presence of Jesus and his brethren in Capernaum must have been a trial to him, bringing back to mind the days of their happy boyhood together in Nazareth, and making him feel keenly the misery and ignominy of the present. But now Jesus stands opposite his booth, looks him in the face, not angrily but tenderly, and he hears him say, " Levi, follow me ! " And immediately he arose, left all, and followed him. The same evening, Levi, or Matthew as he was afterwards called, gave a supper at his own house to Jesus and his disciples ; and, no doubt with our Lord's permission, invited many publicans like himself to come and meet him and hear his teaching. The Pharisees could not let such a circumstance pass uncriticised. For their part, their religion forbade them eating even with the common people, and here was the prophet eating with publicans and sinners. This was a fresh offence ; and Jesus answered only by saying, " They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." No defence was offered, and no excuse made. But there was a sad sarcasm in his reply w which must have stung the consciences of some of them. Were they the righteous, whom he could not call into the kingdom of God ? N CHAPTER VIII. Foes from Jerusalem. AS spectators at Matthew's feast were two of John's disciples, who had been sent by their master with a strange question, "Art thou he that should come, or look we for another?" John had now been im- prisoned for some time in a gloomy dungeon on the desolate shores of the Dead sea. His disciples, who were inclined to be somewhat jealous of the younger prophet, had brought him word of the miracles wrought by Jesus, but wrought upon the Sabbath day in direct antagonism to the Pharisees, and, as it seemed, to the law of Moses. The very first miracle at Cana of Galilee was altogether opposed to the austere habits of John, who had never &X£S&£33^; <&&tt+vv**&&<>±&&&*&&*&&tt'*&&&&&<^&&&4>4?&&+*&&&&&&**&&4>* *<&♦*>♦♦*♦»<»♦♦♦# <§*#^ 64 CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. tasted wine. There was something perplexing and painful to him in these reports ; and he had nothing else to do in his prison than brood over them. Was it possible that he could have made any mistake — could have fallen under any delusion in proclaiming his cousin Jesus as the promised Messiah? Had he truly heard a voice from heaven ? Could this be indeed the Son of God, who mingled with common people at their feasts, and visited Samaritans ? He, who all his life long had lived in the open air, free from even social restraints, was becoming morbid in his captivity. It grew necessary to him at last to send his disciples to Jesus for some comforting and reassuring message. When John's disciples came to Jesus, they seem to have found him feast- ing with the publicans — a circumstance utterly foreign to their master's custom. They felt themselves more akin to the Pharisees, and asked him, " Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not ? " Jesus answered them that he was the bridegroom of whom John himself had spoken, and that as long as the bridegroom was with them they could not mourn. But the days would come when he should be taken away, and then they would fast. He would have no pretence at mourning or fasting to be seen of men. He would have no acting. These were days of joy, and it was meet to make merry and be glad when a brother who had been lost was found. Matthew was their brother, and he was restored to them ; how could they mourn ? But Jesus kept John's disciples with him for a short time, that they might see how miracles were his everyday work, not merely a wonder performed in the synagogues on a Sabbath day, before sending them back to the poor prisoner in Herod's fortress. The next day was a Sabbath. The Pharisees kept closely beside Jesus, following him even when he and his disciples were walking through the fields of standing corn, possibly after the synagogue service, but before the Sabbath was ended. It was the second week of April, and the grain was growing heavy in the ear ; perhaps a few ears of it were ripe, for in the lowlands about Capernaum it ripened earlier than in the uplands of Galilee. The disciples plucked the ears of corn, rubbing them in their hands with the careless ease of men who thought it no harm, and who had forgotten the captious Pharisees beside them. The latter ac- cused them sharply of breaking the law, and aroused Jesus to defend them by giving them instances from their own Scriptures and observances of the law of Moses being broken without blame. Then, pausing to give more weight to his last words, he added, " The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath." He did not acknowledge their authority to make laws for the Sabbath. Nay, more, he claimed to be Lord of it himself. Without doubt this answer deepened the enmity and opposition of the Pharisees ; nor can we wonder at it. There was now no middle course they could take. If they acknowledged Jesus to be a prophet sent from God, they must own him as Christ, the Messiah, with a Divine authority over their laws and traditions. He was setting these at defiance, asserting him- self to be Lord of the temple and Lord of the Sabbath. John had made no such claims, though it was well known that his birth had been foretold by the angel Gabriel to Zacharias, his father, when he was ministering in the Holy Place. But John's career was at an end ; and if Jesus was not taken out of the way he would turn the world upside down, and the Romans would bring them into utter subjection. Both religion and patriotism demanded that they should seek his death. A day or two after this weekly Sabbath came a legal Sabbath, one of the holy days among the Jews. Jesus was in the synagogue ; and there also, probably in a conspicuous place as if to catch his eye, sat a man with a withered hand. It seems almost as though he had been found and posted there in order to test Jesus. The Pharisees were growing eager to multiply accusations against him before they returned to Jerusalem for the approach- ing feast of the passover. Even they might feel that the sin of plucking ears of corn was not a very grave one. Here was a man for Jesus to heal. The case was not an urgent one ; to-morrow would do as well as to-day for restoring the withered hand. But Jesus will show to them that any act of love and mercy is lawful on the Sabbath day, is, in fact, the most lawful thing to do. God causes his sun to shine, and his rain to fall, on that day as on any other. He looked round upon them all with their hard faces set against him ; and he was grieved in his heart. Then, with the authority of a prophet, he bade the man stand up and stand forward in the midst of them. If they had been secretly plotting against him in bringing the man there, he was not afraid to face them openly. u Is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good or to do evil ? to save life or to destroy it? " he asked. But the Pharisees from Jerusalem could not answer the question ; and when he healed the man in the sight of all the people, they were filled with madness. Possibly they had reckoned upon the miracle failing, for by this time it was understood that only those who believed in the power of Jesus could be healed, and they had not expected this man to have faith in him. It S | m N 66 CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. seems that they left the synagogue at once, and though it was a Sabbath day they held a council against him how they might destroy him. They even entered into an alliance with the Herodians, their own opponents. For the Herodians favored the adoption of Roman laws and customs, against which the Pharisees had formed themselves into a distinct sect. But they were now ready to join any party, or follow any plan, so that they might destroy this common enemy. It became impossible for Jesus to remain in Capernaum, and he left it immediately, probably the same evening, withdrawing to some mountain near the lake, where he continued all night in prayer to God. To a nature like his this bitter and pitiless enmity, aroused by acts of goodness only, must have been a terrible burden. They were his own people, not the heathen, who were hunting him to death — men who all their lives long had heard and read of God, his heavenly Father, who offered sacrifices to him, and gave tithes to his temple of all that they possessed. They knew, or ought to have known, what they were doing. There was no excuse of igno- rance for them. All night he prayed, with the bright stars glittering above him in the blue sky, and the fresh breeze from the lake and the mountain, laden with the scent of flowers, breathing softly on his face. No sounds near him save the quiet sounds of night on the mountain side, and the wail of the curlew over the lake. This was better than sleep to him ; and as the day dawned he was ready once more to meet his disciples, and to face the numerous duties coming with the sunrise. His first act was to call his disciples to him, and from them he chose twelve to form for the future a group of attached followers and friends, who would go with him wherever he went and learn his message, so as to carry it to other lands when his own voice was silenced. Him his foes might and would destrojt; but his message from God must not perish with him. Philip was one of them, he who had been with him from the first; and John, the youngest and most loved, who sat nearest to him at meal times, and who treasured up every word that fell from his lips, so that, when he came to write the history of his Lord, so many memories crowded to his brain of things Jesus had said and done, that he cried in loving despair, "All the world could not contain the books that might be written ! " Two at least, if not three, of our Lord's own family were amongst the chosen twelve : James, his cousin, of whom it is said he was so like Jesus as sometimes to be mistaken for him ; and Judas not Iscariot, who, like the other kinsmen of Christ, asked him, even on the last night that lie lived, THE WONDERFUL LIFE. 67 " Why wilt thou manifest thyself to us, and not unto the world ? " Levi, if he was the son of Alpheus, was a third cousin, and each one wrote for us a portion of the New Testament. How much might these three have told us of his early life in Nazareth if no restraint had been laid upon them ! Then there was Peter, always the leader among the apostles, impatient and daring, so eager that he must always meet his Lord, and not wait for him to come to him ; walking upon the sea, or casting himself into it to reach more quickly the shore where Jesus stood, exclaiming rapturously at one time, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," and at an- other, with oaths and curses, repeating, " I know not the man." Of the rest we know little, save one dark name, read amidst the blackest shadows of the past. Why did Jesus call Judas Iscariot ? Why did he make him a familiar friend, in whom he trusted? They went up together into the house of God, and took sweet counsel together. He gave and received from Jesus the kiss of friendship. To him was intrusted the wealth of the little band, and every trifling want of his Master's he had to supply, an office that brought him into the closest intimacy with him. Why was he chosen for this service ? Was he the eldest amid this company of young men ? a wise, shrewd man, cautious and prudent, where others might have been rash or forgetful ? We do not know ; but whilst Peter, James, and John followed their Lord into the chamber of Jairus' little daughter and up to the Mount of Transfiguration, Judas had the bag, and bore what was put therein. CHAPTER IX. , At Nain. TT was broad daylight now, no time for secret assassination, and, sur% -*- rounded by his twelve devoted friends, Jesus returned to Capernaum, where his mother would probably be waiting in a state of anxious restless- ness. As soon as it was known that he was entering the town, some of the rulers of the synagogue came to meet him, beseeching him to work a miracle in favor of a Roman centurion, whose servant was likely to die. The most bigoted amongst them could not deny that Jesus of Nazareth did many mighty works; and they could not decline to offer this petition to him when the centurion, who had built them a synagogue, commissioned them with it. The servant was healed without Jesus going to the house, the Eg centurion sending to say that he was not worthy that the Lord should enter under his roof. Even Jesus marvelled at the man's faith, and though he had just chosen twelve of his most trustworthy disciples, he cried, " I have not found so great a faith ; no, not in Israel." The next day, Jesus, followed by many disciples, both men and women, went out to visit the towns and villages lying westward of the hills which enclose the plain of Gennesaret. As he passed along his company grew in numbers, for everywhere had men heard of him, and those who had sick friends brought them out to the roadside that they might be healed. This day his journey was a long one, and he could not tarry by the way, except to work some such loving miracle. He was to rest in the little village of Nain that night ; a place he knew quite well, for it was only five miles from Nazareth, and probably he had some friends there. Much people had gathered around him when he trod the steep path up to Nain; but before they reached the gate another multitude appeared coming out as if to meet them, yet there was no shout of welcome; instead there were cries and wailings for one whom they were carrying forth to the tombs outside the village. Possibly Jesus knew both the young man who was dead and his mother. He hastened to her side, and said, " Weep not." Then he touched the bier,, and those who were carrying it stood still. What was the prophet about to do? He could heal any kind of sickness, but this was death, not sick- ness. It was a corpse bound up, and swathed with grave-clothes; the eyes forever blinded to the light, and the ears too deaf to be unloosed. An awful silence must have fallen upon the crowd ; and they heard a calm, quiet voice saying, " Young man, I say unto thee, Arise ! " He spoke simply, in a few words only; but the quiet voice pierced through all the sealed deafness of death, and the dead sat up, and began to speak. Then Jesus, perhaps with his own hands freeing him from the grave-clothes, gave him back to his mother. A thrill of fear ran through all the crowd, and as they thronged into Nam some said, "A great prophet is risen up among us," and others, "God has visited his people." It has been thought that here, at Nain, dwelt Simon the Pharisee, who now invited Jesus to his house to eat meat with him. He was not one of our Lord's enemies from Jerusalem, but merely a member of the sect, which was numerous throughout all Judsea and Galilee. He probably re- garded Jesus as a workingman from the neighboring village of Nazareth, though now considered a prophet by the people : and he did not offer to Ex^zxrX ^xxxxz^g-Sz-xx-xx- x^^x^^^ THE WONDERFUL LIFE. 69 him the courteous attentions he would have shown to a more honored guest. After his long and dusty walk Jesus sat down to Simon's table without the usual refreshment of having his feet washed, and his head, anointed with oil. But this slight, passed over by Jesus, was more than atoned for by a woman, who, coming in to see the supper with other townspeople, stood behind him at his feet, and began to wash them with her tears, and to wipe them with her long hair, kissing them again and again. Caring little who was watching her in her passion of repentance and love, she brought an alabaster box of precious ointment, and poured the costly contents upon the feet she had washed and kissed. Yet the prophet seemed to take no notice of her and her touch. But Simon, the host, said to himself, " This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him ; for she is a sinner." The sinful woman's unheeded touch was more conclusive against him than all his miracles were for him. Simon did not have her thrust from his house; but there was a secret satisfaction in his heart at finding out that Joseph's son after all was not prophet enough to know who she was. Did not Jesus know? Had he not felt every tear that had fallen upon his feet, and the touch of the trembling lips which dared not speak to him? He spoke a short, simple parable to Simon, and asked him a question, the answer to which condemned the self-righteous Pharisee. And then, turn- ing to the weeping woman, he said, " Thy sins, which are many, are for- given; thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.' Those who sat about him j| began then with their old murmur, " Who is this that forgiveth sins also?" But he gave them no sign this time. No sign could be greater than the miracle wrought that day. As Jesus himself said in one of his parables, " They will not be persuaded, no, not if one rise from the dead." CHAPTER X. Mighty Works. LEAVING Nain, Jesus, with a large number of followers, including the apostles, and certain women who ministered to them of their property, passed through all the villages of that neighborhood, gradually working their way back to Capernaum. It was some time during this f^^^^^^^^^^^4^^^^^^*^^^4^^^^»<^^<^^^AA4^^^<^^^^^^^^^^A^»<^^4^^*^^A ^»<*«2»4 > *5»^ > ^»4 > *5»^»*2» < i > *J > '^**5»4>*5»^*4 > 4 : '*5»^»4»«i»