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JLIFE OF JESUS OF -NAr/mamiVRYOUNG PEOPLE.

THE LIFE

JESUS OF NAZ ARETE

FOR YOUNG PEOPLE.

JOSEPH P. THOMPSON, D.D.,
m
LATE PASTOR OF THE BROADWAY TABERNACLE, NEW YORK.
Illustrate*! &g obex jFtftg lEngrafofnga,
ON STEEL AND WOOD,
BY THE MOST EMINENT ARTISTS OF FRANCE, INCLUDING DORE, LAFON,
AND OTHERS.
WITH MAPS PRINTED IN COLORS..
TO WHICH IS ADDED
AN APPENDIX,
GIVING THE LIVES OF THE APOSTLES.

NORWICH, CONN.:
HENRY BILL, PUBLISHER.
1879-
IALL XIQHTS RESERVED^

Copyright, 1878,
By HENRY BILL.

Franklin Press:
Electrotyped and Printed by
Rand, Avery, 6* Co.,
Boston.

Southern Palestine

Scale of Miles

Loilfjllude East 30 ' Try in Greenwich

EngraveatXi<reHBlyrorEer.J.P.Thonu>Hnn'B,'LirK of Je

Copyright, 187b, by Henry Bill

Copyright, 18TB, by Rtnry BiU

ABOUT YOUNG PEOPLE.

"But you must not call this a book for young people," said a Ger
man friend to whom I read these pages : " it is a book for me, for grown
up men and women ; though perhaps you have young people in America
who are forward enough to understand it. At any rate, you had better
say, for the young in years and the young in heart."
Now, I am far from pretending, that in the United States, or in
England, youth of twelve or fifteen are more advanced in general
knowledge than their fellows in Germany. In some things, commonly,
they do not know as much. But I believe that the training in the
Bible which children receive in good families in England, Scotland, and
the United States, and in the Sunday school as conducted in these
countries, puts them far in advance of French and German children in
knowledge of the Scriptures, and in ability to understand and to dis
cuss subjects that grow out of the stories and the doctrines of the
Bible. And, besides this, they come earlier to the habit of thinking,
talking, and judging of such subjects for themselves.
This is not a book for children, but for youth, — say in the years
from twelve to twenty; and such young persons do not need what is
called " children's talk," but language which is simple and clear, though
it may speak of things that are deep and sometimes a little hard to be
understood. For the mind, as well as for the body, youth is the grow-

ABOUT YOUNG PEOPLE.

ing time of life ; and mind as well as body needs its exercise, its gym
nastics, to bring it on in health and strength. There are some chapters
in this book simple enough for a child of ten years ; and there are
others that a youth of fifteen may have to read over two or three times
before he will find out all that they mean. This grows out of the sub
ject; and it could not well be otherwise. And I think a bright youth
would rather read a book that sets him thinking, and helps him for
ward, than one that is too simple and easy. He is glad and proud to be
treated as one who is able to think, who wishes to know, and who is
willing to study in order to learn. It is in this view that the charming
book, " The Bible for Young People," is written, which has been trans
lated into English from the Dutch of Dr. H. Ooort and Dr. I. Hooykass ;
simple in style, but sometimes deep in meaning, and calling, perhaps,
for the help of parents and teachers. This book, like that, may serve
for a useful study in the Bible-class and around the family table. A
guide who would lead others up to the best points of view should keep
a little before and above them. And the best book for the young is a
guide that leads them on higher and higher, making the way plain and
pleasant as they go. Above all, they nsed such a guide in religion.
How is it in other things ? I remember, that, when I was a boy of
fourteen, my teachers had already put me far on in French, in history,
and in physical science ; that in Latin I had read Cesar, Sallust, Virgil,
and Cicero, and, in Greek, Xenophon, and parts of Homer; that I had
studied algebra and geometry, logarithms and trigonometry; had calcu
lated eclipses of the sun and moon, had measured the height of steeples
and towers, and learned the uge of instruments of mathematics and of
physics: but I do not imagine that I was one whit brighter or more
advanced than the average boy of that age is to-day. I am sure that the
youth who is pursuing such studies at school can understand any thing

in this book if he will only try.

ABOUT YOUNG PEOPLE. XI
And why should he not try to master the life of the most wonderful
person who ever lived? — a life made up of all that is pure and noble
and true ; a life of good words and good deeds ; a life around which has
gathered so much of history, of geography, of manners and customs, of
poetry, of art, of government, of all that interests the student, and which
is the source of ideas and principles that concern every man in his own
higher life. The life of Jesus presents some difficulties in itself ; and
men who do not seem to have fairly understood it have made much
difficulty and controversy about it. Without entering into disputes upon
questions of fact or of doctrine, this book seeks to present the life as it
was, to make real whatever carries the evidence of being true; and it
is my hope, that all who read it will find in it such a view of Christ
the Teacher as shall satisfy their minds, and such a view of Christ
the Saviour as shall win their hearts, and bless their lives.
Berlin, Germany.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
P.4GE
THE SONG OF THE ANGELS.
Falling Stars — The Angel Vision neither a Dream nor a Fable — The
Shepherds could not have invented such Words — No Jew would
have thought of a Saviour for All Men alike  29
CHAPTER n.
BETHLEHEM AND THE MANGER.
Site of Bethlehem — Flocks kept in the Fields at Night — The Angels'
Song — The Inn and the Manger described — The Crowd at Bethlehem
—The Birth of Jesus  35
CHAPTER IH.
THE NAME JESUS.
The Name ready for the Babe — Nazareth described — Mary and Joseph —
The Annunciation — Mary's Modesty and Prudence confirm her Story
— Her Song — How the Visit of the Angel became known . . .43
CHAPTER IV.
THE PROPHECIES FULFILLED.
Handel's Messiah — The Flattery of Eastern Kings— The Prophet Isaiah
— The Hebrews never gave Divine Honors to a King — The Christ
Child promised, and Bethlehem foretold as his Birthplace — How
this Prophecy was fulfilled  53
CHAPTER V.
JESUS TAKEN TO THE TEMPLE.
A Baptism in Switzerland — How Mary looked and felt— From Bethle
hem to Jerusalem — Simeon's Blessing — Mary's Modesty and Faith —
The Sistine Madonna *,  69

XIV CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VI. PAGE
THE WISE MEN FROM THE EAST.
Where was the EastV — Who were the Magi? — Daniel and the Jews
at Babylon — New Stars — Periodical Stars — Kepler's Discovery —
God's Use of Nature in the Rainbow — The Star not a Miracle — Mat
thew only reports the Story of the Magi — Legends and Pictures of
the Wise Men — Their Tomb at Cologne — Moral of the Story . . 67

CHAPTER VII.
A CHAPTER OF WONDERS.
The Love of Wonders Natural, but often abused — Faith a Real Faculty
— Should be educated — Bible not a Book of Wonders — How to
know True Miracles — The Wonders of Jesus' Birth'were natural to
such a Character  82

CHAPTER VIII.
THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.
Egypt described — Character of Herod — His attempts to murder Jesus —
The Journey of Joseph and Mary— A Sketch of the Road — Legend
of the Tree and the Fountain  87

CHAPTER IX.
THE EARLY HOME OF JESUS.
Death of Herod — Division of Palestine — Reasons forgoing to Nazareth
—Joseph's Home— Scenery and History of Nazareth .... 94

CHAPTER X.
THE FAMILY OF JESUS.
Joseph — The Brothers and Sisters of Jesus — Their Early Want of Faith
— Mary, her Character and Life  103

CHAPTER XI.
JESUS AT SCHOOL.
Teaching in a Jewish Family — Proverbs about Schools — A Syrian School
• —Colleges in Judaea— What Paul studied— What Jesus learned —
The School of Nature — The School of Work — Trades among the

Jews ,

109

CONTENTS. XV

CHAPTER XII. PAGE
THE CHILD LOST AND FOUND.
Boys of Twelve taken to the Temple — Great Crowds at the Passover —
The Caravans — Mode of Travelling — How Jesus was lost — The
Search for Him — The Rabbis in the Temple — Mode of Teaching —
Boys as Pupils — Jesus and his Mother — His Heavenly Father —
Jesus goes Home to Nazareth  118

CHAPTER Xni.
THE BAPTISM OF JESUS.
The River Jordan — Baptism among the Jews — John the Baptist — His
Mode of Life — The Messiah expected — John's Modesty — Jesus bap
tized by John— The Holy Dove  131
CHAPTER XIV.
JESUS IN THE DESERT.
The Wilderness of Judea — How did Jesus fast ? — Was this a Miracle ?
The Jews' Notion of their Messiah — How Satan tempted Jesus —
The Pangs of Hunger — Shipwreck, Siege of Paris, Famine in Per
sia, Siege of Jerusalem — Jesus uses the Bible against Satan — He is
an Example for us — The Temptation to Show and Applause —
Tempting God — Presumption may sin against Providence — The '
Temptation of Ambition — View from the Mountain — The Promise of
Satan — The Triumph of Jesus — How Satan acted upon his Mind —
God helped Jesus as Jesus helps us. — Note: Examples of Long Ab
stinence; Possibility of living without Food for Ten, Twenty, Thirty,
Forty, and even Sixty Days  140

CHAPTER XV.
JESUS BEGINS HIS WORK.
He returns to John— John points him out as the "Lamb of God" — An
drew, Peter, and John follow Him — The Call of Philip and Nathan ael
— They set out for Galilee —How Jesus drew them to Himself . . 159
CHAPTER XVI.
HOW DID JESUS LOOK?
Did Luke paint his Portrait? — His Features as a Jew — Power of his
Eyes  17C

XVI CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XVII. PAGE
THE WEDDING SURPRISE.
Jesus was not a Hermit— The Essenes — Jesus lived in the World as he
found it — His Social Feeling— His Religion is Cheerful — A Jewish
Wedding — The Wine gives out — His Mother's Anxiety and Faith —
The Reply of Jesus— His Order to the Servants — The Surprise of the
Master and the Guests — Jesus a Friend to the Family . . . .173

CHAPTER XVHI.
THE WHIP.
Sacredness of the Temple — Form and Size of the Temple as rebuilt by
Herod— Traffic in the Court of the Gentiles — The Authority of a
Prophet — The Anger of Jesus — The People demand his Authority
— He predicts his Resurrection  183

CHAPTER XIX.
Christ's first pupil.
Description of Jerusalem — The Sanhedrim — The Pharisees — Nicodemus
— His Honest Search for Truth— Why he was puzzled — Jewish No
tion of the Kingdom of God — What it is to be born again . . .199
CHAPTER XX.
THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA.
Jerusalem after the Feast — Jesus retires to the Jordan — His Tribute to
John the Baptist — His Journey to Samaria — The Valley of Shechem
— Fountains and Rivulets — Jacob's Well — The Samaritans and
their Religion — The Dislike between them and the Jews— The
Woman of Samaria — The Water of Life— The True Worship — "I
am He" — Jesus teaches his Disciples to prepare for the Harvest —
Sbe Samaritans believe  209

CHAPTER XXI.
MOB AT NAZARETH.
Jesus goes again to Nazareth - Political Hopes of the Jews -The Syna
gogue and its Worship -His First Sermon -His Gracious Words -
He reproves their Vanity - The Excitement and Rage of the People
- The Fury of the Mob - How Jesus escape^ 225

CONTENTS. XVII

CHAPTER XXH. PA
HIS LIFE AT .CAPERNAUM.
Jesus leaves Nazareth— Goes to the Home of his Disciples — The Lake
and Plain of Gennesareth — Description of Capernaum — The Seat of
Messiah's Kingdom — How Teachers were supported — Jesus preaches
in Parables — His Discourse on the Bread of Life — His Social Life —
His Disciples — The Honor of Capernaum — Hatred of the Pharisees —
Unbelief of the People — Jesus leaves Capernaum — Its present Des
olation — Beauty of the Lake  !

CHAPTER XXHI.
SERMON ON THE MOUNT.
Jesus preached everywhere — Mount of Beatitudes — The Scene ; the
Benedictions — How the Blessing comes — An Unhappy Poverty and a
Blessed Poverty— The True Mourners — How Sorrow is Blessed —
Meekness not Weakness nor Cowardice, but the Gentleness of Love
— The Pangs of Hunger and Thirst; the True Hunger of the Soul —
Giving and receiving Kindness — Who are the Merciful ? — How
Heaven is found on Earth — Pure in Heart — What it is to see God —
Children of God — Why the World hates Peacemakers — The Bless
ing in Persecution  262

CHAPTER XXIV.
THE LORD'S PRAYER, AND THE GOLDEN RULE.
Harmony of Nature and the Bible — The Golden Rule approached by
Confucius, Hillel, and Plato — The Lord's Prayer for All Men — How
Prayer had been abused — Meaning and Beauty of the Lord's Prayer
— It covers all Human Needs — Right Living must go with Right
Praying — Unselfish Love — How God loves — The Golden Rule —
Against Human Nature; "Tit for Tat" — Sin to be condemned, but
the Sinner to be saved  283

CHAPTER XXV.
VISITS TO JERUSALEM.
Jerusalem under the Romans — People eager for a Deliverer — Contempt
of Romans for Jesus — Religious Pride and Fanaticism — False
Christs — Hatred of Scribes and Pharisees for Jesus — Attempts to
stone Him — The Mob raised against Him — "O Jerusalem!" . .296

XV1U CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXVI. PAGE
THE PARABLES OF JESUS.
Meaning and Use of Parables — His Discourses in John — Only Thirty
Parables given — Kingdom of Heaven his Theme — Parable of the
Sower — How the Kingdom maybe received — How it is rejected —
The Prodigal— Parables on Prayer — Words of Mercy and of Warn
ing  '  308
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE MIRACLES OF JESUS.
A Few only recorded — Reason should be used upon such Facts — Science
changes its Language — Laws of Nature not Original Powers, or
Causes — A Miracle may come from a Higher Sphere — Nature may
be in the Hands of a Spiritual Power — Vastness of the Universe —
May be Good Reasons why God should show his direct Power to Men
— The Miracles of Jesus agree with his Character — The Evangelists
were True Witnesses — Miracles upon Nature wrought directly by
the will of Jesus — Power of Spirit over Matter — Miracles on the
Bodies of Men — Power over Evil Spirits — Raising the Dead — His
Miracles were open and for Good Ends — Why Miracles are not con
tinued  322
CHAPTER XXVHI.
THE TRANSFIGURATION.
The Life of Jesus a Wonder greater than his Miracles — Moses and Elijah
wrought Miracles; but theirs was a Gift for the Time: the Power of
Jesus was in and of himself — The Transfiguration — Fault in Ra
phael's Picture — Not a Dream nor Vision — Reality of the Scene as
described — Its Moral Meaning — The Disciples were downcast at the
Thought of Jesus' Death — Jesus joined Two Natures # and Two
Worlds — The Transfiguration a Key to the Old Testament and to the
Future of the Church — It makes Heaven real as a Home — A View
of Mont Blanc and the Tarahtaise  337

CHAPTER XXIX.
THE FRIENDS OF JESUS.
From the Divine to the Human — Jesus as Healer, Consoler, Friend — His
own Need of Friends — Some of his Disciples were Rich — Bethany
described — Martha the Housekeeper, Mary the Learner ; their Charac
ters described — The Death of Lazarus — Jesus in the Family — His
Love for Woman  34.9

CONTENTS. XIX

CHAPTER XXX. PAGE
THE LAST JOURNEY.
Jesus widely known — His Patriotism — He visits Phoenicia and the
Countries East of Jordan — Cesarea Philippi; its Scenery, its History,
its People, its Temples and Palaces — Jesus predicts his Death — The
Plots against Him — Crowds follow Him — Strength and Tenderness
of his Preaching — His Moral Heroism — Worldly Ambition of his
Disciples — The Blind Men at Jericho — Zaccheus — Jesus arrives at
Bethany  366

CHAPTER XXXI.
HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST.
False Ideas of Honor and Greatness — The Greatness of Virtue — Human
Praises Fickle — The Crowds at Bethany to see Jesus and Lazarus —
Jesus as King — Excitability of Orientals — The Multitude spread
their Garments in the Way — Jesus weeps over Jerusalem — This Grief
a Sign of his Character and his Mission — His Entrance into the City
and the Temple — Hosannas of the Children — The Place of Wailing, 392

CHAPTER XXXH.
JESUS THE CHRIST.
The Last Week — Jesus deals in Rebukes and Warnings — He denounces
the Pharisees; answers the Herodians, Sadducees, and Lawyers —
Jesus the True Christ, the Son of God — The Greeks would see Jesus
— His Mission to the World to be fulfilled through his Death — The
Conflict and Triumph of his Soul — The Voice from Heaven — The
Word of Christ as Judge — The Destruction of Jerusalem, and the
Day of Judgment  410

CHAPTER XXXIH.
THE LAST SUPPER.
Preparations for the Passover — The Passover a Family Feast — The
Twelve were a Family to Jesus — He calls them "Friends" — Their
Defects and Merits — True Principles of Reform — Jesus' Doctrine of
Humanity nobler than Science or Democracy — Manhood not Egotism,
Brotherhood not Communism — He had Personal Preferences among
his Disciples — He uses Social Qualities for Moral Reforms — His Wis
dom as Philosopher and Reformer — Jesus founded an Aristocracy of
Character and a Democracy of Love — The French Convention, and
the Christian. Church — Jesus helps Men to rise — His Doctrine of

XX

CONTENTS.

Unity — The Supper as a Memorial — Jesus as the Saviour — We ob
serve Birth-days, not Death-days ; but his Death crowns his Life —
The Paschal Lamb and the Living Bread — How Jesus and his Disci
ples sat at the Table — He washes their Feet — The Traitor - The Last
Prayer and Promises of Jesus  429

CHAPTER XXXIV.
GETHSEMANE.
The Hymn after the Supper — The Sad and Silent Walk down to the
Kedron — The Mount of Olives and its Gardens — Jesus yearned for
Sympathy, yet needed Solitude — God his only Solace — His First
Prayer ; the Disciples sleeping — His Anguish was not Weakness nor
Fear — He would not escape when he might — His Self-Control — The
Assaults of Satan through Nervous Prostration — He excuses the
Weakness of his Disciples — His Prayer of Entreaty followed by Sub
mission and by Victory —The Coming of the Band — The Calmness
and Dignity of Jesus — Peter's Rashness — Jesus rests in his Divine
Consciousness, and yields to his Father's Will — Dismay of his Disci
ples ; their Sudden Panic — Proofs of the Narrative from Internal
Analysis — Contrasts of Gethsemane and the Cross — He suffered for
us, and taught us how to sorrow and how to submit . . . .452

CHAPTER XXXV.
THE JEWISH TRIAL.
The Haste of the Sanhedrim — Office of High Priest — Annas and Caia-
phas — Form of a Jewish House — The First Hearing before Caiaphas
— His Dignified Bearing — John at the Palace — Peter's Temptation
and Denial — Meeting of the Sanhedrim — The False Witnesses —
Jesus avows himself the Christ, and predicts that he shall come as
Judge— Was He not Divine? . -  i12

CHAPTER XXXVI.
PILATE AND HEROD.
Judea then governed by Pontins Pilate — His Character and Rule— Pilate
tries first to be just to Jesus; next, to get rid of the Case — Jesus
avows himself a King, his Kingdom " not of this World " — Pilate
acquits him, then sends him to Herod . 

CONTENTS. XXI

CHAPTER XXXVH. PAGE
JESUS, OR BARABBAS.
Pilate declares Jesus innocent, but lacks Courage to stand by the Right —
He vacillates, and so puts himself in the Power of the Mob — A
Choice between Jesus and Barabbas — Jesus is scourged, mocked by
Soldiers — " The Son of God " — The Mob demand his Death — " Let
Him be crucified!"  499

CHAPTER XXXVELT.
THE TRAITOR.
Remorse of Judas — He was not at first a Deceiver — His Worldly Hopes
disappointed — Yet he was shocked when Jesus was condemned —
His Testimony to the Innocence of his Master  512
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE LAST HOUR.
The Brutalities of a Crucifixion — Incidents of Pity — The Cup of Myrrh
— Form of the Cross — Jesus sinks under his — The Change from
Monday to Friday, from Triumph to Shame — The Wailing of the
Women — Jesus Calm, Tender, and Dignified — He is nailed to the
Cross — " Father, forgive them" — The Inscription — The Thieves at
his Side — His Mother and John — The Hour of Darkness — The Cry
of Anguish — It is finished  515

CHAPTER XL.
HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD.
Life and Death Natural and Universal — a Resurrection not a Probable
Event: still it is possible to God, and Moral Reasons may make it
Credible — In viewing such Evidence we should be cautious but not
cavilling — The Death of Jesus was a Wrong that required to be
righted — Jesus believed that he should rise — Was this an Illusion? —
His Resurrection was capable of being proved, if it really did take
place — The Death and Burial of Jesus settled as Facts — The Fright
of the Disciples made them forget his Promise — The Enemies of
Jesus watched his Body — Absurd Notion that his Disciples would
, steal it — The Women came to the Tomb — Fright and Grief of Mary
Magdalene — Coming of Peter and John — Mary and the Gardener —
The Story of the Guard; its Evident Falsity — The Walk to Emmaus
— A Scene in Spain in Times of Persecution — The Room at Jerusa
lem, with Jesus in the Midst — Jesus and Thomas — The Evidence

XXII CONTENTS.

PAGE
reviewed — The Witnesses not deceived nor deceivers — The Resur
rection not a Myth —The Fact, and nothing else, accounts for the
Narrative — The Incidents of Mary and Thomas carry the Evidence
of their own Truth  532

CHAPTER XII.
ONE LAST LOOK AND WORD.
Jesus revisits the Sea of Galilee, and Bethany — He retains his Human
Feelings — Earth and Heaven united — The Apostles at the Lake —
Peter and others go a-fishing — Their Fruitless Toil — A Stranger on
the Shore encourages them to try again — Their Net is filled — John
recognizes Jesus — Peter jumps overboard, and swims to Him ; the
Rest, bring the Net — A Meal is ready — Jesus questions Peter, and
probes him — Gives him his Commission, predicts his Death — Peter's
Curiosity about John — Jesus reproves it — Each Disciple must stand
in his own Lot  554

CHAPTER XLH.
IN THE HIGHEST.
The Ascension of Jesus a Necessary Sequel to his Resurrection — He could
not, like Lazarus, return to the Grave — Why He did not vanish
—Why He did not appear to the Sanhedrim — His Kingdom must rest
upon Moral Authority — Scene of the Ascension — The Kingdom
come  563

APPENDIX.
Preface  571
Introduction  573
Simon Peter  579
Andrew  601
James  605
John  608
Philip  614
Bartholomew -  618
Thomas  621
Matthew  625
James the Less  630
Jude  > ... 637
Simon Zelotes  641
Judas Iscariot  _ 643
Paul  647

LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS.

PAGE
Presentation Page  ix
Head of Christ  iv
Christ Blessing Little Children  Opposite 27
The Nativity  37
Nazareth  43
The Fountain at Nazareth  97
The Youth of Jesus  105
An Oriental School  Ill
Ths Annual Journey to Jerusalem  119
Jesus With the Doctors  125
John preaching in the Wilderness  133
Jesus in the Desert  141
The First Disciples  '. 165
The Marriage at Cana  177
The Temple at the Time of Christ  185
Market in the Court of the Gentiles  189
Jesus clearing the Temple  193
"Destroy this Temple, and in Three Days I will raise it up" . 197
The Pharisees  201
The Woman of Samaria  219
The Synagogue at Nazareth  227
They drag Jesus to the Brow of the Hill  233
The Maniac in the Tombs  245
The Woman who touched His Garment  249
He eats with Publicans and Sinners  253
i will make you flshers of men  257
xxiii

XXIV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE
Sermon on the Mount  263
The Widow who gave All that she had  289
Jesus stoned at Jerusalem  303
Jesus preaching from a Boat  311
He set a Little Child in the Midst of them  351
Jesus heals Mary Magdalene  355
Mary hath chosen the Good Part  359
She anoints the Feet of Jesus  363
Jesus goes before them to Jerusalem  367
Temple at Panias  371
The Pity of Jesus for Sinners  377
" Let him that is without sin cast the first stone."
Jesus and Little Children  381
Blind Bartimeus  385
Zaccheus  389
Jesus leaving Bethany  395
Entry into Jerusalem  .401
Children crying Hosanna  407
"Render unto Cesar the Things that are Cesar's" . . .415
" There shall not be left One Stone upon Another " . . .425
"Take, eat"  441
" One of you shall betray Me "  445
"Let this Cup pass from Me"  457
The Arrest  463
Jesus before Caiaphas  475
Peter at the Fire  479
Jesus mocked in the Court . .'  485
Jesus before Pilate  491
"Not this Man, but BarabbasI"  501
The Scourging  505
Jesus mocked by the Soldiers  509
Jesus bearing His Cross  517
They cast Lots for His Vesture  523
The Hour of Darkness  529
Map of City of Jerusalem  568

JESUS OF NAZARETH

His Life for Young People.

}BYXA3?0JS

SfOCTlETa E7 bcsry s:

A;^Mi Ixprtssly Po-r A. Xi! THOMPSON'S

JESUS OF NAZARETH.

CHAPTER I.
THE SONG OF THE ANGELS.

One night, when I was a child, my mother roused
me from sleep to show me a strange sight in the heavens,
— the stars falling from the sky. All the neighbors were
up, and at their windows or on the street, gazing with
wonder and fear at a spectacle, the like of which they had
never seen, and which nobody could account for. The
stars fell so thick and fast that it seemed as if the whole
sky was tumbling to the ground; and, as some of the
stars looked like balls of fire, many feared that the end
of the world had come, and that every thing would be
burnt up. But such a shower of meteors is no longer a
strange and startling sight: it may now be seen once or
twice every year.1 Astronomers have taught us that it
1 Usually in August ; sometimes also in November and in April.
29

30 JESUS OF NAZARETH.

has a natural cause ; and experience has shown that it
brings no evil to the earth or its inhabitants. Even a child
may look upon falling stars without fear, and with the same
delight with which he sees the northern lights flashing
through the sky.
Long, long ago, there was seen at dead of night a sight
in the heavens, more strange and startling than this of the
falling stars. It was then beheld for the first time, and
has never again been seen. No astronomer can explain it ;
no natural cause can account for it. But though it filled
those who witnessed it with awe and terror, so that " they
were sore afraid,"1 instead of a warning of coming evil,
it brought to them such a promise of peace and joy, as
never before nor since was uttered in the ears of men.
What they saw was not a shower of meteors dropping
silently through the air, and vanishing in the distant
darkness ; but living forms brighter than the brightest
stars, hovering right around them, and singing in won
drous strains this heavenly song : " Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men."*
This vision was no dream, fancy, or fable. It did not
appear to one or two persons lying in their beds, as the
forms of Christmas-trees, of birds, flowers, and angels,
sometimes come to children in their sleep. It did not come
as a fancy to the brain of a poet or a painter, like the
1 Luke ii. 9. 2 Luke ii. 14.

THE SONG OF THE ANGELS.

31

beautiful images which we so often find in songs and
pictures. It did not burst upon men suddenly awakened
out of sleep, and too bewildered to trust their own eyes and
ears. It came to shepherds who were accustomed to be
awake all night, watching their flocks in the field; to
men who could not easily be deceived or frightened by
any thing that might appear to them in the open air, — men
who were too simple-minded to make up such a story,
and who showed their honesty in going at once to Beth
lehem to find the child, and in telling all their townsmen
what they had seen and heard. To us this should no
longer seem so strange ; for the life of Jesus shows that
the birth of this most wondrous Person was worthy to
be so announced from heaven. But the story also carries
its own proof in the message that the shepherds brought.
The words which they reported from the angels were such
as these humble rustics could never have imagined, and
no human mind had ever conceived, — peace and good
will among all men throughout the whole world, through
the coming of a Saviour.
When we reflect that these men were Jews, who bore
no good-will to the Romans who then ruled over them,
who looked upon all foreign nations with contempt and
bigotry, and who expected that their Messiah would
come as a prince and a warrior, to give them independ
ence, and make them the ruling nation of the world, —

32 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
in one word, when we consider that these shepherds,
because of the narrow and ignorant circle in which they
moved, were so much the more likely to feel the bigotry
of their race and their religion, — we shall see how impossi
ble it was for them to have imagined words so sublime
as this promise of peace in all the earth, words so lovely
as these tidings of good-will toward men and of joy to all
people. It is easier to believe that angels brought the
tidings, than that the simple shepherds, or the plain writers
of the Gospels, made up such a song. The best hopes
of the world depend upon its being a message from heaven.
The words are a greater wonder than the way in which
they are said to have been given. The theme belongs
to heaven ; there is a ring to the words that is not of this
world: and it is only when we take their tidings to be
a promise from God, that we can make them real and true,
and can find in them that comfort and hope for mankind
that every one feels to be there.
Amid the sadness and sorrow that war, oppression, and
crime had brought upon the world, the heathen poets
had sighed for a golden age of peace and purity long ago
lost, with a vague hope that the stars would bring it
round again after thousands of years. But here is the
promise of the gospel age of "peace and good-will" to
begin at once, and to grow till it. shall reach all men,
and shall fill the earth. And with the promise of peace

THE SONG OF THE ANGELS. 33
was the means by which it should be brought about, —
through a Saviour bringing good-will and teaching good
will to all men. We feel that shepherds and fishermen
never made up thoughts and words so far above poets
and philosophers. They could not have dreamed a dream
so far above the Golden Age. They must have been
taught from heaven, by the song of angels. Heaven alone
could have foreseen that such universal peace and joy
should spring from the birth of a little child, then " lying
in a manger." Heaven alone could have breathed such
a blessing of good-will upon all the people of the earth.
At that time none but the Jews knew and worshipped
the true God ; and yet the Jews, so far from making their
knowledge of God a reason for loving their fellow-men
and carrying God's love to them all upon equal terms,
made this the rather a reason for separating themselves
from other people in pride and scorn, and almost in hatred.
But this song of the angels put into the mouths of these
plain, ignorant, Jewish shepherds, the idea that all men
should be brought to dwell together in peace and good
will, to the glory of one and the same God; and this
through the coming of the Saviour, not to set up the
Jews in a kingdom separate from other nations, and above
them, but to bring to all people alike the same "good
tidings of great joy." It was for this that "the angel
of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord

34

JESUS OF NAZARETH.

shone round about them." 1 It was for this that the
still air was stirred with that wondrous song, as " a
multitude of the heavenly host " swept down from the
skies to bless the earth, then back to heaven, to give
" Glory to God in the highest."
i Luke ii. 10, 11.

CHAPTER II.
BETHLEHEM AND THE MANGER.
Upon the map of Palestine, about six miles south of
Jerusalem, is Bethlehem ; known also as the " City of
David," because here the famous king and poet of Israel
was born. The town is built upon a long, narrow ridge,
which rises three hundred feet above the level of Jeru
salem. In the neighborhood are the great reservoirs made
by Solomon, to collect the water of the springs and the rain,
which was then conveyed to the capital by an aqueduct.
Though Jerusalem is so near, it is hidden from Bethlehem
by the hills ; but about half-way between the two cities
there is a fine view of both from the ridge crowned by the
convent of Mar Elias. We should not call Bethlehem any
thing more than a village : it has barely three thousand
inhabitants, and consists of but a few score of houses packed
closely together, somewhat in the form of a triangle, with
crooked, narrow streets ; the whole surrounded by a stone
wall, the circuit of which one could make on foot in less
than an hour. But there is a charm in the situation of
35

36 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
Bethlehem : standing alone, it commands such fine views of
the hills and valleys around, especially on the east, looking
toward the mountains that border upon the Dead Sea.
Here, below the terraced gardens of figs and vines that
wind around the hill, are fair open fields that slope away
to a lovely valley, which with its waving grain, and its
little groves of olives and pomegranates, wears the aspect
of an Oriental garden.
The farmers in Palestine do not, as in the United States,
live alone in houses wide apart ; for the roving bands of
robbers, and the frequency of wars in Eastern countries,
make it unsafe to live away from a settlement. But they
have their homes together in villages and towns, where at
night the wall or a guard gives protection ; and by day they
go out, often to a distance of miles, to till the ground. The
land is not divided off by fences into separate fields, but
stones are set up here and there as landmarks between one
man's property and another's. Hence there are no enclosed
pastures, as in New England, for sheep and cattle ; but these
are kept in the open fields, and must be watched over by
men and dogs, to keep them from straying, and to defend
them from robbers and beasts of prey. At night the sheep
are driven into a common fold within the walls of the town.
Each shepherd calls his own sheep by name, and " they know
his voice, and follow him ; " * but in mild weather they are
1 John x. 1-6.

BETHLEHEM AND THE MANGER. 37
kept out all night in the open air. Indeed, across the valley
from Bethlehem there is a grassy nook, or ledge, so sheltered,
that at this day shepherds stay out there with their flocks
all night in mid-winter ; and just so were the " shepherds
abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by
night," 1 when " the glory of the Lord shone round about
them," and the song of the angels rang through the air.
The traveller may chance to-day to see the shepherds
watching their flocks upon those sunny slopes, and to hear
them piping their simple melodies; and this may help to
make that midnight scene more real and present to his fancy.
But no music of earth can recall that heavenly strain which
was uttered once, and once only, for all people and all time ;
yet it seems to have wrapped the world around with the
warm, soft, living breath of divine love. It floated away to
the south, into the desert of Arabia, and breathed into the
law of Sinai the tones of love ; it floated away to the north,
to the mountain where Abraham led Isaac to be offered up,
and breathed over Golgotha the odor of a divine sacrifice ;
it floated eastward over the sea of death, and seemed to stir
even its drear and dismal waters with a breath of hope ; it
floated westward over land and sea, carrying to pagan and
barbarian nations, and to people yet unborn, the message of
good-will and peace. It came in the night, teaching that
God's love wakes and watches over our darkness, our dan-
1 Luke ii. 8.

38 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
gers, our sorrows, and our fears ; it came to shepherds, plain,
rough men in the humblest calling, teaching that God stoops
to the lowest, and can make the poor, the ignorant, the out-
hangers of human society, the witnesses and messengers of
his salvation to the world.
When the song had ceased, and the angels were gone
away from them into heaven, " the shepherds said one to
another, Let us go now over unto Bethlehem, and see this
thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made
known unto us. And they came with haste, and found
Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger."1 In
those days there were no hotels such as the traveller now
finds in every town, where by paying so much he can have
food and lodging, and the comforts of home ; but travellers
took with them their own provision and cooking-utensils,
and fodder for their beasts ; and at noon or night halted at a
caravansary built upon the roadside, or just within the gates
of a town. This caravansary was simply a court, or yard,
walled in on all sides, but open above, and having in the
middle a raised platform upon which travellers sat to take
their meals, and where also they made their beds at night.
This platform, which sometimes had an upper story, was
really the "inn ; " and round about it against the walls were
little sheds, or stalls, for unloading the goods of the travellers,
and for housing and feeding their beasts of burden. These
1 Luke ii. 15-17.

The Nativity.

BETHLEHEM AND THE MANGER.

41

stalls were furnished with cribs, or troughs, of stone or
plastered brick ; and from these mangers the cattle were fed.
At this particular time, Bethlehem was as much crowded as
a country village is at an agricultural fair. A census, or an
enrolment, of the whole Roman empire had been ordered by
the Emperor Augustus ; l and by Roman law women and chil
dren had to be enrolled, as well as men; while by Jewish
custom, in order to be duly registered and taxed, every one
had to go to the head city of his family or tribe. The two
customs appear in this case : for Joseph, being of the house
and lineage of David, went to the city of David ; and Mary
must also be enrolled, and of course at the home of her
ancestors. On reaching Bethlehem they found such a crowd,
that the houses of all their friends were full ; and the plat
form of the inn was so occupied, that they could have no
place : so Joseph and Mary took up their lodging in one of
the side-stalls ; and when the babe was born they laid him in
1 It appears from Roman authors (Tacitus, Annal. i. 11 ; Suetonius,
Octav. 28, 101) that three times during his reign, at intervals of twenty
years (a. tj. 726, 746, and 767), the Emperor Augustus ordered a census
of the whole people, and also that he prepared a statistical report of the
empire, including Judea as one of its provinces. There is good reason
also for believing that Quirinius was twice governor of Syria, and that
the first time would correspond with the second census ordered by the
emperor. Or, since it took a long time to complete a census, it may be
that the census begun under another was finished under Quirinius, and
so went by his name. (See in Zumpt's Cummenladones Epvjraplii-
cm.)

42 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
a manger as his cradle.1 Though they were poor, this was
not because of their poverty, but because all the room of
the inn was taken up before they came ; and no doubt the
manger was made sweet and clean for the little babe to lie
in ; and there he lay all nicely wrapped in the fresh white
clothes that had been prepared for him, when the shepherds,
as if they had borrowed the wings and the words of the
angels, came rushing in to hail him as " the Saviour, Christ
the Lord." 1 Luke ii. 1-5. ,

CHAPTER III.

THE NAME JESUS.

What shall be the baby's name ? is almost the first
question after a child is born. Sometimes this is settled at
once, by the child's taking the name of a parent or grand
parent, an uncle or aunt, almost as a matter of course. But
all the family names may have been used already for other
children, or none may seem good enough or pretty enough
for this new pet ; and so names from the Bible, from his
tory, from poetry, and all sorts of fancy names, are pro
posed, thought over, and talked over, until it seems as if
the poor little thing would at last have to go forth a name
less wanderer into the wide world. The Jews commonly
used single names; and, when they gave double or com
pound names, these were either to mark the son of such
and such a man, or the hope, the fear, the desire, or some
other strong feeling, of the parent or the child ; ©r some
great event of the time, or some pious feeling toward God.
But there was no trouble about naming this babe of Beth
lehem. 43

44 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
Mary his mother had his name all ready for him when
he came. And this was not a name that she had thought
of or made up, or that any of her friends had proposed;
but it had been given to her from heaven. Mary was a
modest, pious maiden, of a plain but good family, that
lived in the town of Nazareth, in the district of Galilee,
more than seventy miles away to the north of Bethlehem.
Nazareth was near the country of the Phoenicians, who were
idolaters, about half-way between the Sea of Tiberias and
the Mediterranean, and near the great routes of the cara
vans ; so that all sorts of people resorted to it in the way
of travel or of trade, and it came to have a rather bad
name. No doubt too much has been made of the few
hints about Nazareth in the New Testament. It was
neither the least important nor the worst town in Palestine ;
yet for some reason it is spoken of as if it was no credit
to any one to hail from such a place.1 But this might be
said of some towns at the West, and even in New England.
If Nazareth had a bad name abroad, it had also its good
people ; and such might be even the more known and hon
ored for the contrast of their goodness with the lack of
piety in others. It would seem that the gentle, decorous,
and devout manners of Mary had caused her to be
respected and beloved by all who knew her ; and we know
that at an early age she was betrothed to a most worthy
1 John i. 46 ; Acts xxiv. 5.

THE NAME JESUS.

47

and excellent man, Joseph by name, who was by trade a
carpenter. The fact that Joseph and Mary, and afterwards
their children, were so well known to their townsmen, is a
sign that Nazareth was a place of no great size. It seems
also to have had only one synagogue.1
The goodness and purity that we love and admire upon
earth are loved also in heaven ; and Mary, who was by her
family a descendant of David the great king of Israel,
and by her training and character was a child of God, was
chosen of Gocl to-be the mother of the long-promised
Saviour of the world. One day, when she had gone alone
for her devotions, she was startled by a strange, bright figure
at her side, — so bright, so beautiful, appearing so suddenly
but so gently, it must be an angel. She had often read in
her Jewish Bible of angels coming with messages from God ;
but she had never seen an angel, nor dreamed of one com
ing to her ; and now she trembled from head to foot, and
was so agitated that she could not speak. But the angel
spoke gently and kindly to her, told her not to be afraid,
and then announced that she should become the mother of
that wondrous child of whose coming she had so often read
in the prophecies of the Bible ; and that this child would
not be the son of Joseph, whom she was expecting to
marry, but a special gift from God ; having no father upon
earth, but sent to show to all men the love of his Father
1 Matt. xiii. 54-58 ; Mark vi. 1-6.

48 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
in heaven. As a sign of this, the child was to be called
Jesus, — the Saviour.1
When Mary reported to Joseph this wonderful visit and
promise of the angel, he was at first a good deal troubled ;
but there came to him also in a dream an angel, who con
firmed all that Mary had told him. And Joseph loved and
trusted Mary so much, that he at once took her under his
protection as his espoused wife, and was ready to receive
and care for this heaven-born child as if it were his own,
and to appear before the world as the father of Jesus.2
Now, if Mary had been a person of a weak or vain mind,
— if she had made up this story, or had been deceived by
her own fancy, — she would have told the neighbors of the
wonderful visitor that had come to her, and the wonderful
promise he had brought her from heaven, and so have made
herself an object of curiosity, of admiration, and of envy;
as one who had seen an angel, and was to receive the
Christ-child. So, nowadays, a vain or weak young girl professes to
have seen the Virgin, and gets fame a'nd fortune from pil
grimages to the place of her vision. But Mary was humble,
modest, discreet, and true ; and so far from publishing this
wonder in the village, or even whispering it in confidence
to her friends, she told it to no one in Nazareth excepting
Joseph, who had a right to be informed of it, and to whom
1 Luke i. 26-28. 2 Matt. i. 18-25.

THE NAME JESUS. 49

she had pledged herself in all the confidence of love. By
marrying her at once, Joseph showed the most perfect trust
in her vision, and the most tender care for her good name.
We see in him a devout piety, and a true and manly love.
Mary trusted in him also as she had already trusted in God ;
and she guarded herself from reproach, first, by telling
Joseph all that had happened, and, next, by keeping it all
from the gossiping neighbors. Yet her heart craved rest
after such an excitement, and also the sympathy of a
woman's heart in her sacred secret ; and so, leaving home for
a while, she went away on a long journey to a secluded village
in the hill-country of Judah, to visit her cousin Elisabeth,
and get her pious and motherly sympathy and counsel.
Most heartily did this good dame welcome her young kins
woman ; and before Mary could begin to tell her wondrous
story, and the sacred errand upon which she had come, she
hailed her with joy and with reverence as the mother of the
Lord. At such a greeting, Mary broke forth into a song of praise,
thanksgiving, and hope, in which the modesty of the virgin
is blended with the tenderness of the mother, and the humil
ity and reverence of the saint. " My soul doth magnify the
Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For
he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden ; for,
behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For He that is mighty hath done to me great things ; and

50 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
holy is his name. And his mercy is on them that fear him,
from generation to generation. He hath showed strength
with his arm ; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination
of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their
seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the
hungry with good things ; and the rich he hath sent empty
away. He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance
of his mercy ; as he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and
to his seed forever." 1 This song, and the whole story of
Mary's visit, with her account of the coming of the angel,
were probably written out at the time by Zacharias and
Elisabeth, and afterwards given to the disciples of Jesus.
Mary herself lived with the disciples after the death of
Jesus, and no doubt then talked over the incidents of his
birth and childhood. But at the first these wonders were
confined to a small circle of the nearest relatives and friends ;
and neither at the time, nor afterwards, did Mary use them
to get any notice or praise for herself. She was neither an
enthusiastic girl, nor a dreamy nun ; but all that we read
of her in the Gospels shows her to have been a woman
of sober mind, and of good sense and feeling. She told her
story with simple truth ; and in her song, while she speaks of
the great blessing that had come to her, she does not boast
herself, but praises God for his grace to the poor and the
lowly. How differently do that story and song from the lips
1 Luke i. 39-56.

THE NAME JESUS. 51

of Mary read from the old fables of the heathen, and from the
fables that have since been made up about the Virgin herself !
Famous poems and romances have been written upon the
legend or the fancy of a king's wooing a peasant-maid, and
raising her to the palace and the throne, to become the
mother of princes. The heathen have their fables also, of
women who were wooed by the gods in disguise. But these
run into common love-stories or earthly schemes, whereas a
holy atmosphere surrounds this wonder in the life of Mary.
Her joy was not that she should become a goddess, a saint,
or a queen ; nor her son, a prince, a poet, a philosopher, or in
any way a man of earthly riches or renown : but that she
should be the mother of the "Son of God,"1 and that he
should bring the mercy of God to the hearts of men as their
Saviour. " Thou shalt call his name Jesus : for he shall save
his people from their sins." 2 And so when the child from
heaven came, and was laid in his strange crib beside the
cattle in the stall, though his parents had no title to bestow
upon him, and none of all the crowd in the inn cared for
them or their babe, and none of the thousand descendants
of the family of David then gathered at Bethlehem had a
thought of him as their promised leader and restorer, yet his
name was already known in heaven. It was on the lips of
angels: they had told it to Mary and Joseph, they had
taught it to the shepherds in their song; and his joyful
1 Luke i. 35. 2 Matt. i. 21.

52 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
mother, having no voice or choice of her own, could only
repeat, " His name is Jesus, for so he was named by the
angel before he was born." x And the name which was first
given from heaven has become above every name on
earth. 1 Luke ii. 21.

CHAPTER IV.
THE PR0PHECD3S FULFILLED.
Have you ever heard Handel's oratorio of " The Messiah"?
If not, do not fail to improve the first good opportunity of
hearing the most wonderful chorus ever composed. If you
have already heard it, the bare mention of it will cause it at
once to resound in your ear ; not the " Grand Hallelujah
Chorus," majestic, soulful, sublime, as this is, but the chorus
that announces the birth of the Christ-child, in which the
musical expression phrases every sentiment of the prophet so
perfectly, that the very instruments speak the words, and
seem to quiver with the emotions of wonder, joy, and adora
tion, to which they give utterance as from some living, breath
ing soul within them, that inspires and sways them all alike
and all together. First, in softest notes of wonder, as in
the hush of expectation, voice after voice, instrument after
instrument, takes up the strain, like a lullaby of angels over
the manger, " Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is
given ; " next, like spray leaping up, comes the refrain, " And
the government shall be upon his shoulder ; " then, overtak-
53

54 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
ing one another in this round of joy, all voices and instru
ments give in unison the choral, " And his name shall be
called " — but now a pause, as though heaven and earth
stood silent to hear ; then the whole chorus gathering itself
into one mighty voice, and trumpets, stringed instruments,
drums, cymbals, and the organ, uttering the same notes as
with the very syllables of human speech, together ring out
the names, " Wonderful ! Counsellor ! " till all the waves of
sound rise and roll in majestic unison, " The mighty God !
The everlasting Father ! " then die away, gently murmuring,
" The Prince of peace." For no other birth could such a
song have been framed ; to no other child could such titles
have been given.'
Seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, the
prophet Isaiah proclaimed that this wonderful child should
be born. It was no uncommon thing for the priests,
diviners, and poets who surrounded an Eastern king, to
flatter him with high-sounding titles, and even to ascribe
to him divine names and honors. Thus the great kings of
Egypt, Persia, and Assyria were addressed as sons of the
gods, sometimes as themselves gods, often as the sun in
the heaven, as the light of the world, as the source of all
good to their people, as a terror to their enemies, as sacred
and immortal.1 And in the same way the birth of a prince,
1 See, for instance, the inscription of Pianchi Mer-Amon, in
" Records of the Past," vol. ii. p. 81 ; and the Poem to Eamses II.,

THE PROPHECIES FULFILLED. 55
the heir to the throne, was made the occasion of extrava
gant verses, greetings, and predictions. But the prophet
Isaiah was not a courtier. He lived at Jerusalem under
four successive kings of Judah ; but his life was spent
in rebuking sin, and in warning kings and people of the
judgments of God. He did not spare even good King
Hezekiah, but threatened him with war upon his city, his
kingdom, and his family.1 Yet, through all these warnings
and woes, Isaiah kept up the promise and hope of a com
ing deliverer. But who and where was that deliverer ?
A century after Isaiah's death, the kingdom of Judah
was destroyed, as he had said it should be ; and it has
never since been restored. Isaiah wrote also of the return
of the Jews from Babylon to their native land, through
the favor of Cyrus the Persian king; but the blessings
that he promised from that return were more spiritual
than temporal ; and though he sometimes praises Cyrus by
name, and calls him a shepherd anointed by the Lord,2 he
does not once name Cyrus, nor in any way allude to him,
by any such titles or honors as the Wonderful, the mighty
God. It was never the custom of the Jews to ascribe
divine names and honors to their kings : this sort of flattery,
so common with other nations, in their eyes was blasphemy.
given by Maspero in his volume, Du Genre Epistolaire chez les Anciens
Egypliens, p. 103.
1 Isa. xxxix. 6, 7. a Isa. xliv. 28, xlv. 1.

56 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
Much less would a Hebrew prophet give such names to a
heathen prince, even though he should be an instrument
of God for restoring the Jews to Jerusalem. Much as the
Jews praised Cyrus for this, they could not look upon him
as the wonderful child that Isaiah had promised. Their
true deliverer was to be of their own race, and of the
house of David. Hence these words of Isaiah could point
only to their Messiah ; and they were thus quoted by Jewish
rabbis long before Jesus was born. Through the transla
tion of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, made about three
hundred years before Christ, these words were familiar to
the many Jews living out of Palestine who spoke the
Greek tongue ; and so the whole Jewish nation were con
tinually looking for the appearing of this wondrous child ;
for since the prophecy was written there had not been
born any one to whom such a description could apply,
nor, indeed, any heir to the throne of David.
This child, though born of an earthly family, should yet
be the Lord of heaven and earth. The Hebrews called one
the " father " of that which he had made, or which he
possessed ; and this child is called the " Father of eter
nity," because from eternity he had lived the life of God.
But, though clothed with the power of that life as " the
mighty God," he should come into the world as the
" Prince of peace ; " and the song of the angels at Bethle
hem was the echo of the voice of the prophet, " Peace on
earth, good-will toward men."

THE PROPHECIES FULFILLED. 57
And not only the child himself was pointed out by
prophecy, and named in heaven, so long before he came, but
the place of his birth was expressly foretold by Micah:
" And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the
least among the princes of Juda ; for out of thee shall
come a Governor that shall rule my people Israel." x
And it was in Bethlehem, seven hundred years after this
saying, that Jesus, was born. Yet the circumstances that
led to his being born in Bethlehem were such as no human
mind could have foreseen. When this prophecy was
written, the Jews were still an independent nation, having
kings and laws of their own. They had soon after lost
their kingdom ; and, though a remnant had come back from
captivity, they had lived for ages under the Persians, the
Greeks, and the Syrians : then, though the Maccabees had
made a good fight for independence, yet years before Jesus .
was born the Jews had been conquered by the Romans ;
and they were now ruled by a foreign king appointed from
Rome. A Roman emperor had ordered a census to be
taken ; and for this purpose — since the Jewish custom was
that every one should be enrolled at the place of his family
— Joseph and Mary had to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem.2
And thus a series of events that came to pass through
another nation, which had hardly begun to exist when the
prophet Micah wrote ; events so distant, so many, and so
1 Mic. v. 2. « See in chap. ii. p. 12.

58 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
various, that nobody could have been so powerful as to
produce them, so wise as to anticipate them, or so lucky
as to guess them ; events which no one connected with
Jesus had any concern in bringing about ; events which the
Roman government certainly did not plan with any knowl
edge of this prophecy, or any thought of the Jewish
Messiah, and which the Jews did not plan at all, — these
events- of a natural human history fulfilled an utterance of
prophecy that had stood upon record for seven hundred
years

CHAPTER V.
JESUS TAKEN TO THE TEMPLE.
One Sunday morning I went into a queer old church in
one of the most secluded valleys of Switzerland, and, taking
a seat upon a rough bench that served for a pew, waited
for the service to open. It was a lovely day; and as I
looked out upon the grand old mountains whose snowy
peaks seemed like pillars of alabaster holding up the blue
arch of the sky, upon the forests that skirted their sides
with green far up toward the glistening snow, upon the
flowers that hung like a bright fringe around the base of the
mountains, upon the great glacier that blocked up one side
of the valley with its huge ribs of ice, from under which
trickled a bright crystal stream, and upon the golden sun
shine that threw its glory over all, I thought at first that
there was no need of a church in such a place, where God
had built so splendid a temple with his own hands. But in
a moment I felt that this was the very place for a church to
stand, as a sign that men did think of God in the midst of
his works, and acknowledge him as the Creator and Lord
59

60 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
of all. And so these humble villagers had thought, who
built their church at the very top of the valley, far above
their houses and shops, that it might draw them away from
work and noise and care, into its quiet and holy rest.
How beautifully the church-bell sounded, and the echoes
that came back from the mountains, and the organ as it
struck the chords for the opening hymn, which all the
people, men, women, and children, began at once to sing !
But just at this moment a rustling at the church-door
attracted me ; and I saw a procession coming in, made up
of fathers and mothers bringing in their arms their babes to
be baptized. These poor peasant-women were very plainly
dressed. They wore coarse linsey gowns and clumsy wooden
shoes ; but they looked so neat and tidy in their snow-white
caps and pinafores, and seemed so trustful and happy, as
each in turn handed her babe to the minister, that it
brought tears to my eyes to see a piety so simple and so
loving ; and I remembered, too, that He who "by his
strength setteth fast the mountains " watches over the lambs
and the sparrows, and takes little children in his arms to
bless them. Just like these peasant-women of the Swiss
valley, just so simple and lowly in her dress, so simple and
lowly in her ways, and yet so sweet and hopeful in her trust
and joy, was the peasant-girl of Nazareth, as, with all a
mother's holy gratitude and love, she went up the mountain
at Jerusalem to offer her babe in the temple.

JESUS TAKEN TO THE TEMPLE. 61
By a law of the Jewish religion it was the duty of Mary,
forty days after the birth of her son, to consecrate him thus
openly to the Lord, and also to present herself to the priest
with an offering of thanksgiving; and though she knew that
Jesus was already consecrated by the name which the angel
had provided him before he was born, and by the wondrous
song of the heavenly host on the night of his birth, she did
not feel that this could excuse her from that offering of
herself with her child which the law required as an act
of her own faith and love. Indeed, these things made her
desire the more to show her thankfulness and joy at the
gift of such a son. And yet so modest was she, so
humble and believing, that, in taking Jesus to the temple,
she said nothing of these wonders, did not boast of him as
a marvellous child, but went in the most simple and quiet
way, with such a little offering as she could afford.
A walk of two hours across the hills from Bethlehem
would bring them to Jerusalem ; and, in their circumstances
of poverty, Joseph would be likely to go on foot ; while the
little donkey with which they probably came from Nazareth
to Bethlehem would carry the mother and child. On the
way, they passed the fields where Ruth the ancestor of
Mary, like herself poor and a stranger, gleaned the ears of
corn, and won the heart of Boaz ; and the hill where Rachel
died just as she came in sight of her new home, and where
Jacob buried her with such sorrowing love. A little farther

62

JESUS OF NAZARETH.

on, they came in sight of the twin mountains upon which
Jerusalem was built, and on top of these the walls and
towers of the city ; the marble pillars and gilded gates and
cornices of the temple shining behind the whole. Mary had
seen the city and temple before, and had felt the pride and
joy with which every Jew looked upon the holy place ; but
never did the city seem so splendid, the temple so sacred, as
on this day when she was carrying all the treasure of a
mother's love up to the house of the Lord.
The temple was open to rich and poor alike; and the
priests were ready to serve all who came with their offerings.
So Mary was not ashamed to let it be seen that she was
poor, and could afford to bring only two little pigeons,
instead of a lamb and a turtle-dove, for her thank-offering ;
but in her heart she gave all that she had, and more than
any queen could give, in bringing to God the child which
had come to her with such signs from heaven, and such
promises to the world. With no pride in the honor that
God had put upon her, and claiming no notice nor
favor for the child, she would have been content with
making the offering of a mother's piety, and receiving the
blessing of the priest. But, though Mary could hide deep in
her heart all her own thoughts and hopes and wishes for
her child, she could not hide from the world its Saviour.
The last of the prophets had foretold that the Lord " should
suddenly come to his temple ; " 1 and now the spirit of
1 Mai. iii. 1.

JESUS TAKEN TO THE TEMPLE. 63
prophecy awoke within the temple to announce that the
Lord had come.
There was living in Jerusalem a pious old priest who had
set his heart upon seeing the Saviour ; for, from what Daniel
and other prophets had written, he believed the Messiah
must soon appear.. This good old Simeon prayed and
"waited for the consolation of Israel;" and at last God
promised him that he " should not see death until he had
seen the Lord's Christ."1 Just at this moment he came into
the temple, and was moved by the Spirit of the Lord to take
Jesus in his arms ; and, as he lifted him up to bless him, he
broke forth into a song of praise over him as " the Saviour
that God had prepared for all nations, — a fight for the
Gentiles, and the glory of Israel."2 It was a beautiful
sight, — this old man in such rapture over the babe, that
he was willing to die, now that he had looked upon his
face. Indeed, it was as if the angels had left the smile of
heaven upon Jesus, and Simeon had caught it, as he said,
" Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace ; for
mine eyes have seen thy salvation." 3
These words of Simeon filled Joseph and Mary with new
wonder and joy ; for they seemed to give a definite meaning
to all the strange things that had already happened concern
ing the child. Perhaps in their hearts they began now to
think of him as a king, perhaps also to dream of the
1 Luke ii. 25-27. 2 Luke ii. 25-33. » Luke ii. 29, 30.

64 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
honor he would bring to his parents. But Simeon could
see farther into the future than they, and he better under
stood the spiritual meaning of the prophecies ; and, lest
Mary should be too much lifted up with hope and pride, he
went on to say, that sorrows as well as joys would come to
her through her boy ; that his appearing would show who
among the Jews were men of true piety ; that many would
refuse to receive him as the promised Messiah, and because
of his humble birth and his holy doctrine would speak
against him, and hate him ; and that at last the trials and
sorrows that Jesus must suffer would pierce through his
mother's heart like a sword.1 Alas, alas ! how true this
proved when his mother saw him thrust out of the syna
gogue at Nazareth, threatened with stoning at Jerusalem,
and at last beaten by a mob, and hung up on the cross!
But it was not meant that Mary should go away sad ; and
while Simeon was giving these warnings along with his bless
ing, a prophetess named Anna, a widow eighty-four years
old, who lived in the temple, came in, and began to speak
the praises of the child, not to his parents alone, but to
bystanders, and to proclaim aloud that he was the promised
Saviour. Had Joseph and Mary chosen to remain, they could soon
have gathered a crowd around their child, and have gained
much notice for him and for themselves, by telling the story
1 Luke ii. 34, 35.

JESUS TAKEN TO THE TEMPLE. 65
of his birth. But they felt too deeply the honor they had
received from God to desire to use this for the praises of
men : all was to them too real, too solemn, too blessed, to be
trifled with for vanity or gain :. and so, having finished the
errand that brought them to Jerusalem, they left the temple
and all these chances of worldly fame, and went quietly
back to their humble lodgings at Bethlehem. But there, as
we shall see, the child Jesus was to receive even greater
tokens of honor, through the coming of the wise men to
worship him, with their gifts. •
As Mary turned to go down the steps of the temple with
the consecrated child in her arms, we may well imagine that
she had in her eyes that wonderful look which Raphael has
given her in the picture of the Sistine Madonna, in the
gallery at Dresden, which is known all over the world by
copies, engravings, and photographs. She saw nothing of
the splendors of the temple, its shining walls of marble,
its glittering gates of brass, of silver, and of gold, its
rows of lofty pillars carved with branches and flowers, and
that wondrous golden vine twined over the great porch,
with clusters of jewels sparkling under its leaves ; she saw
nothing of the palaces and gardens that lay at her feet across
the ravine from the temple-gate ; nothing of the aqueducts
and fountains, the thousand cupolas like tents upon the
house-tops, the gateways and towers of the city, that made
Jerusalem "the joy of the whole land;" she saw nothing

JESUS OF NAZARETH.

even of the beauty of the earth and the sky, the " moun
tains round about the city," that seemed to roll away in
billows westward to the sea, southward to the desert, east-
ward to the Jordan ; the green mount of Olivet overlooking
the temple, the valley of the Kedron blossoming below;
nothing of the earthly, nothing of the human, did Mary see,
as with a face subdued with awe, tender with love, beaming
with hope, she came forth from the sanctuary where she had
given her child to God : but, as she looked toward Bethle
hem, she seemed to step upon the clouds, and to be sur
rounded with a choir of cherubs greeting the cherub in her
arms. Yet, at this moment of her heavenly exaltation, the
pang of a mother's grief passed over her; and her eyes
melted at the thought of the sword that should smite his
head, and pierce her soul. But in the same instant there
shone from the eyes of the child a light as from heaven,
chasing all pain and sorrow and sin away, — a bow of mercy
and of peace springing out of an infinite love, reaching over
the world and time, to end in an infinite joy.

CHAPTER VI.
THE WISE MEN FROM THE EAST.
To the people of Europe and of America, the land where
Jesus was born is itself " the East; " but at the time of his
birth the countries of Asia lying beyond Jordan, especially
of the Assyrians and the Chaldeans, were "the East" to
the Jews who lived in Palestine. A vast and dreary desert
lay between the Jordan and the Euphrates. Across that
desert their fathers had been carried as captives; in that
East, "by the rivers of Babylon," Ezekiel, Daniel, and
others of their great prophets, had lived ; and there many
Jews had remained as settlers when the body of the nation
returned to their own land.
The people of the East were much given to the study of
the stars. Over their broad plains the heavens are stretched
as an immense arch, visible upon every side ; and through
their clear atmosphere the stars shine with a wonderful
brightness and beauty. Their " wise men " observed all
the changes of the heavens ; made a record of eclipses, and
of the conjunctions of the planets ; and they imagined that
67

68 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
they could read, in the signs in the sky, the fortunes of men
and of nations. They had formed a system of astrology, by
means of which they professed to be able to predict or to
explain public events, such as war or peace, famine or
plenty, the birth or death of a prince ; and they were con
sulted for the interpretation of dreams and omens, as well
as for the explanation of any strange appearances in the
natural world.
In the Book of Daniel, we find the Magi connected with
the court, and employed by the king as counsellors in affairs
of state. They were believed to be in communication with
the world of spirits, and to have a knowledge of the future.
King Nebuchadnezzar even called upon them to bring to his
remembrance a dream that he had forgotten ; and such faith
had he in their power over the unseen world, that he sup
posed they were trifling with him, when they told him
that no one could do what he required, except the gods.1
In Persia and Chaldea the Magi were an order of priests ;
among the Phenicians, also, the high-priest was called " first
Magus ;2 and the word is said to mean " the wise one," with
special reference to spiritual knowledge or inspiration.
Like the priests of ancient Egypt, these Magi of Persia
veiled under their sacred character the mysteries of science,
and the wisdom of the past. They had charge of the edu
cation of the princes, and hence had great influence over
1 Dan. ii. 1-13. 2 Movers Phon. ii. 1, 335.

THE WISE MEN FROM THE EAST. 69
the king after he came to the throne ; and they were often
men of true learning, as well as of sincere faith in their
religion. But how came such men to be interested in looking up
the new-born king of the Jews, who were a foreign people,
and who had no longer any political power of their own ?
Going back to the time of Daniel, we find, that, after he had
told Nebuchadnezzar his dream, the king made him " chief
of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon," and
"master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and
soothsayers." 1 Of course the sayings of Daniel concerning
the coming of the " Son of man" as " Messiah the Prince,"
and the .kingdom which the God of heaven would set up,
" never to be destroyed," 2 were known to the Magi of his
day ; and the wonderful events of his life and times, the
story of Daniel in the lions' den, and of Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego in the fiery furnace, and of the return of the
Jews to Palestine by the decree of Cyrus, would be handed
down in the school of the wise men along with these pre
dictions of a king to arise out of Israel.
Besides, a large colony of Jews, after the yoke of their
captivity was broken, chose to remain in the region of
Babylon, instead of returning with the mass of the nation
to the land of their fathers. These kept up their religion,
and their faith in the Messiah ; and, as many of them rose
1 Dan. ii. 48, v. 11. 2 Dan. vjj. i3; ^4. ;x_ 25-27.

70 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
to wealth and influence, they must have attracted the atten
tion of their neighbors to that promise of a coming king,
which was read in their synagogues every sabbath day, and
which held them together so strongly as a people.
At all events, for some cause or other, there seems to have
been, throughout the East, a wide-spread belief, that, at
about the time of the birth of Jesus, there should go forth
from Judea the conquerors of the world. Whether this
expectation was an offshoot from the Jewish faith in a
Messiah, or was one of those popular beliefs that spring up,
one knows not how, and that move whole nations with a
common hope or fear, we have no means of determining ;
but the fact that such a notion prevailed, gives a natural
explanation of the coming of these wise men of the East
to Jerusalem, to search for the new-born king of the Jews.
By their calling they were upon the lookout for any person
or event that might promise to make a stir in the world ;
through their study of Daniel's dates and predictions, which
were kept among their learned books, they had come to
expect, at about this time, the appearing of some wonder
ful person in Judea ; and perhaps they themselves were so
far believers in the God of the Hebrews, and in their sacred
Scriptures, that, in seeking the king of the Jews, they were
moved by a personal faith, as well as by their love of
wonders. What started them upon the 'journey was the
appearing of a new star, which they looked upon as a sign

THE WISE MEN FROM THE EAST. 71
of some great event, and in their fancy made it the herald
of this promised king. The account of the star given by
Matthew is the story of the wise men, — what they saw and
believed : " We have seen his star in the east, and are come
to worship him." l And their seeing the star again, on the
way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, must also have been
reported by the wise men themselves : " The star which
they saw in the east went before them, till it came and
stood over where the young child was." 2 What, then, was
this strange star ? Where did it come from ? What did it
mean ? Was it a new star created on purpose to guide these
wise men to the birthplace of Jesus, which shone only so
long as they were seeking him, and vanished from the sky
as soon as they had found him ? No such thing is said or
implied in the story ; and we are not at liberty to suppose
a miracle where none is stated nor required : hence we must
read this story, so to speak, with the eyes of the wise men,
and through their habits and beliefs.
Astronomers have long observed that several of the fixed
stars at times grow so bright as to appear like new, strange
objects in the sky, and then grow so pale as almost to fade
away. "One of the most remarkable of these periodic
stars is often termed Mira, or the wonderful star. This star
retains its greatest brightness for about fourteen days, being
then usually equal to a star of the second magnitude. It
1 Matt. ii. 2. 2 Matt. ii. 9.

72 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
then decreases, and in about two months ceases to be visible
to the naked eye. After remaining thus invisible for six or
seven months, it re-appears, and increases gradually for two
months, when it recovers its maximum splendor." J And
besides these changes in the brightness or the apparent size,
and also in the color, of well-known stars, we have accounts
of temporary stars, new stars never before seen, which sud
denly came to light, and, after remaining a while in the same
position, " have died away, and left no trace behind."2 Such
stars have been remarkable for color and for brightness.
The Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe, has given a minute
account of such a star, which he saw for the first time on
the 11th of November, 1572. " Raising my eyes as usual,
during one of my walks, to the well-known vault of heaven,
I observed with indescribable astonishment, near the zenith,
in Cassiopeia, a radiant fixed star, of a magnitude never
before seen. In my amazement, I doubted the evidence of
my senses. However, to convince myself that it was no
illusion, and to have the testimony of others, I summoned
my assistants from the laboratory, and inquired of them,
and of all the people that passed by, if they also observed
the star that had thus suddenly burst forth. I subsequently
heard that, in Germany, wagoners and other common
people first called the attention of astronomers to this great
1 Loomis's Astronomy, p. 290.
2 Loomis, Kecent Progress of Astronomy, p. 171.

THE WISE MEN FROM THE EAST. 73
phenomenon in the heavens. For splendor this new star
was only comparable to Venus when nearest to the earth.
Those gifted with keen sight could, when the air was clear,
discern the new star in the daytime, and even at noon. At
night, when the sky was overcast so that all other stars
were hidden, it was often visible through the clouds, if
they were not very dense. In December, 1572, its bril
liancy began to diminish, and the star gradually resembled
Jupiter; but by January, 1573, it had become less bright
than that planet. Through the year 1573 it grew less and
less distinct ; and in March, 1574, the new star disappeared,
after having shone seventeen months. This star went
through several changes of color. During the first two
months it was white ; then it turned yellow ; afterwards, in
the spring of 1573, it was red ; and in May of that year it
became white again, and so remained as long as it was
visible." The great German astronomer, Kepler, has made one
of these stars famous by the fine description that he gave
of its coming and going. To his pious feeling the sight of
this star suggested the star seen by the wise men in the east.
On the 17th October, 1604, Kepler first saw a new star,
which shone with a pure white light, and was brighter even
1 For a full account and list of these new, or temporary stars, see
Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. iii. sect. 4, and Bruhn's Atlas der Astronomie.
Besides the two noted by Tycho Brahe and Kepler, the most important
on record are B.C. 134, A.D. 389, 945, 1006, and 1264.

74 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
than the planets Mars and Jupiter, which were visible at the
same time ; but, as it was watched from time to time, its
light was seen to be unsteady, and to change its color from
white to yellow, then to crimson, and then to a pale dull
shade, all the while growing less and less distinct, until
finally it went out in darkness. It was seen for the last
time in October, 1605, then very small and dim. But in
1848 an astronomer in London1 saw, in the same place where
Kepler had observed his star, a strange star, which at first
flashed with a reddish light, and, after going through many
changes in color and brightness, disappeared early in 1850.
This may have been a return of the same star after more
than two hundred years ; or a new star may have chanced to
appear in about the same place with that which Kepler saw.
The season in which he observed this strange star was noted
for many wonderful and beautiful signs in the sky. The
two great planets, Jupiter and Saturn, had come so near
together that their rays seemed to blend with a brightness
like the blazing-out of a new sun ; and a little later the
planet Mars came so near to this circle that all three shone
together, a trinity of glory, as if about to merge into a
simple star. And, just when the eyes of astronomers were
fixed upon these rare and brilliant signs, in the same quarter
of the heavens came this new and wondrous star. As Kepler
describes it, " Like a king, coming in triumphal pomp, who
i Mr. Hind.

THE WISE MEN FROM THE EAST. 75
sends his heralds before to station his court in their places,
that all may do him honor, so this star, coming after these
wondrous signs, chose for itself a place near the path of the
sun, as if it would receive the salutations of all the planets."
By a careful calculation, Kepler found, that, in the year in
which it is now supposed that Jesus was born,1 Jupiter and
Saturn came into conjunction, passing each other three times
in seven months : first, in May ; the second time, about the
beginning of October, when they kept company for several
days with a splendor that must have drawn all eyes to
observe them ; and again early in December. The Magi in
the East, who were always watching the skies, must have
been excited by these strange signs to expect some great
event ; the time was near for the birth of that wonderful
king described by Daniel ; and if then, as in the time of
Kepler, a new star suddenly appeared in the vicinity of these
planets, shining brighter than them all, they must have
taken that for the birth-star of the king, and would naturally
1 Many scholars now agree in fixing the birth of Jesus in the year of
Rome 747, or B.C. 7 ; i.e., in the seventh year before the common date of
the Christian era. See Dr. A. W. Zumpt's learned treatise, Das Geburts-
jahr Christi. For the astronomical signs of the year B.C. 7, see Kepler,
De Jesu Christi vero Anno Natalitio ; Ideler, Handbuch der Chronologie,
ii. 406, and Lehrbuch der Chronologie, p. 428; also Pritchard, Memoirs
of Royal Astronomical Society, vol. xxv. Prof. Pritchard agrees with
Ideler as to the fact of three conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn from
May to December, B.C. 7 ; but he opposes the notion that this phenom
enon was the star of the Magi.

76 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
have believed that it pointed toward the place where he was.
And so, with their belief in signs and wonders, they rose up,
and travelled from the East many hundred miles to find in
Judea the birthplace of the deliverer of the world. All this
was natural, and yet it fell in with a wonderful Providence.
We know that God chose the rainbow as a sign of his
mercy, after the flood. Those beautiful colors were not then
for the first time painted upon the sky. Ever since the sun
first shone upon falling drops of rain, it had turned each
drop into a prism through which the rays of pure white
light glittered like gems of red, orange, yellow, green, blue,
indigo, and violet. It is the very nature of light to produce
this brilliant array of colors when it passes in a certain way
through a globule of glass or of water ; and so the rainbow
was not created at the flood, nor on purpose to be a sign that
there should never be another such deluge. But after those
long, long weeks of rain, in which the waters had risen
above the houses, above the trees, above the hills, drowning
men and cattle, destroying all the people of the land except
the family in the ark, and for forty days there had been
nothing to be seen but roaring waves, and dark and dreary
clouds, when at length the sun broke out again, and lighted
up the valleys and the trees as they began to appear, and
turned the last dark cloud, as it was dropping its last shower,
into a great banner of light flying its splendid streamers
across the sky, — it seemed as though a new world had been

THE WISE MEN FROM THE EAST. 77
created, and God had " set the bow in the heavens " as a
sign of hope, a promise of mercy.
And so, though the star that appeared to the Magi might
have shone with the same brilliancy had Jesus not been born,
yet its coming was so timed to his advent, that these watch
ers of the skies, whose imagination saw the events of human
life pictured in the stars, might well have taken it for a sign,
and used it as a guide. The wonders of God's works in
nature chime in with the wonders of his ways in providence
and grace ; so —
" Happy stars, timing with things below,
Beat to the noiseless music of the night."
And as that new star stepped into the circle of the planets
so quietly that it did not disturb their motions, nor change
their courses, so that new Life from heaven, that should be
the guide of all after-ages, came into the circle of our
earthly life so gently, so humbly, that men would have
known no more of its advent than did the cattle in the
stall, had not the angels sung the birth of the Saviour in a
song the stars might listen to, had not the star shone over
his manger with the brightness of an angel.
Of course I would not pretend to say that this meeting
of the planets, described by Kepler, was the real sign in the
heavens that led the Eastern astrologers to set out upon
their search for the unknown king of the Jews. The date

78 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
of the birth of Jesus is not positively settled ; and even this
wonderful appearance of the planets may not have answered
at every point to what is said about the star at Bethlehem.
But it does show us how a strange but natural phenome
non in the sky may have started up men who believed in
heavenly signs, and who were looking out for something
new. Matthew did not see the star ; he does not speak of it
as a miracle ; and we do not need to make up a miracle, to
explain the coming of the wise men.1 If a meeting of the
planets, such as Kepler describes, gave the appearance of a
star of strange brightness ; or if, in reality, a new, tempo
rary star then drew the notice of the wise men, — it would
accord with what astronomy teaches, that this sign in the
heavens should for weeks or months have been lost to their
view, and that they should have caught sight of it again,
after they reached Jerusalem, seeming to hang directly over
Bethlehem. They were told to go to Bethlehem ; and, to
their faith in heavenly signs, the star served both as a wit
ness and as a guide. Another conjunction of the same
planets could have caused this effect ; or, they may have seen
the star first as a morning star, and again as an evening star
in another quarter.2 In any case, we must remember that
Matthew does not give this as a wonder that God had
created, but only reports the story of the astrologers.
1 See chap, vii., on Wonders.
2 In 827 two Arabian astronomers observed at Babylon a new star,
whose light equalled that of the moon in her quarters.

THE WISE MEN FROM THE EAST. 79
The visit of the wise men to Bethlehem has given rise
to many fables and poems, and has been represented in
pictures and in sculpture by some of the greatest artists of
the world. As three kinds of gifts are mentioned, — " gold,
frankincense, and myrrh," — the number three has been
fixed upon for the Magi themselves ; and they are pictured
as kings coming with a great retinue of camels and of
servants carrying costly presents. These kings are made to
represent different countries, such as Arabia, Tarsus, Saba,
Ethiopia ; and among the gifts are sometimes pictured the
animals of these countries, — elephants, peacocks, parrots,
and the like, — as well as gold and jewels made into the
shape of a crown. The story goes, that the star resembled
a crimson cross ; that, when the kings knelt beside the man
ger, the babe reached out his hands over their heads, and
blessed them ; that Mary his mother gave them a linen band
in which Jesus had been wrapped ; that, on going away, they
found they could work miracles with this linen band ; that
they became preachers of the gospel, and went as missionaries
to the barbarians, and finally were put to death as martyrs ;
that their bones were gathered up, and taken to Cologne ;
and now, in the great cathedral of that city, may be seen a
silver case adorned with precious stones, in which are three
skeletons said to be those of these three kings, their skulls
crowned with diamonds, and their names written in rubies.
The most costly and beautiful works of art have thus been

80 JESUS OF NAZARETH.

gathered around the story of the wise men ; but how much
more beautiful and precious is the story as it is told in the
Gospel ! and how like the simple truth of history that story
reads, by the side of all the fables which have been invented
to adorn it ! Instead of kings from different parts of the
world, coming with a long train of servants, and making a
splendid show, Matthew tells us only of wise men who came
from the same country, and returned again to their home.
They came quietly, as men of science following a star, and
as priests and prophets seeking a new light in the world's
history. They went first to Jerusalem, as was natural,
expecting to find the new-born king at the capital, and in
the royal house ; they inquired at the palace, and of the
priests ; and, when at last they were sent to the little town
of Bethlehem, they had such faith in their own doctrine of
the stars, that they did not hesitate to lay their gifts before
a child who had no signs of a prince about him ; whose
parents were there upon a visit, and were so poor that
they could hardly provide shelter and comfort for their
babe. Then these wise men having obeyed thjeir own
belief in the stars, and having done their errand, went
quietly back to their own country.
Nothing more is said about them. The whole story of
their visit is told in three or four verses of the Gospel ; and
there is no attempt to make much of them or of their
coming. Matthew does nothing more than record the

THE WISE MEN FROM THE EAST. 81
incident as a fact. Yet, without knowing it, these Magi
were the heralds and prophets of the coming of the Gentile
world, with its treasures of science, of commerce, and of
wealth, unto the knowledge and the service of Christ.
" He came unto his own, and his own received him not." 1
The king of the Jews sought to destroy him in his cradle.
The priests and Pharisees despised and hated him, and were
not satisfied till they had taken his life. But the humble
shepherds acknowledged Jesus as the Saviour ; and the wise
men brought the homage of other nations to him as king
of the Jews. All Christian nations are their followers.
These Magi head the long procession of scholars, nobles,
princes, who have honored the name of Christ. By their
gifts, the products and the riches of the world were conse
crated to him, and gold and incense were redeemed from
mere merchandise, to show forth the praises of the Lord.
Yet these gifts have value only as the offering of love, the
homage of the heart. And to us who know who this
child of Bethlehem was, and what gifts of salvation he has
brought, all the wise and the good of the past are calling ;
the voices of the stars, the remembered prayers of departed
saints, that still linger as angel-voices in the air, are calling,
— that we also should follow the Day-Star that has risen
upon our hearts, and carry the offering of our love, the con
secration of our lives, to the feet of Jesus.
1 John i. 11.

CHAPTER VII.
A CHAPTER OF WONDERS.
There is in our minds a something that delights in
wonders. The wonders of science, the wonders told by
travellers, the wonders invented for story-books, have a
charm for youth, which does not wholly pass away with
riper years. This love of marvels may be abused ; and chil
dren are sometimes frightened, sometimes deceived, and
ignorant persons are imposed upon, by stories made up
on purpose to act upon their fancy or their fears. No
doubt there has been, and still is, as much deception prac
tised about religious wonders as about any thing else in
the line of fraud. But, for all that, this wonder-faith has its
good and proper uses ; and there is a something in the world
of reality about us, and in the region of possibility above
us, that answers to the power of imagining and of believing
within us. Just as the eye is formed for light, the ear for
sound, and every faculty for some corresponding use, so
this much-abused faculty of faith has its brighter and better
side. It is not only a part of our nature, but one of its

A CHAPTER OF WONDERS. 83
higher and nobler parts. How dull and tame, indeed,
would the world become if we were shut up to believing
only what we can see and touch, and could never rise, as
with the wings of a bird, into the region of spiritual life
and powers, and feel the reality of something above the
mere laws of the physical ! How mean would be our lives
stripped of such associations with the invisible, clogged by
the dull routine of sense, and never relieved by a single
flight of the soul from its dark nest within, to the free air
above ! Like every other faculty, faith must be educated ;
and especially it must be trained to distinguish between
wonders that are real and true, and wonders that are false,
— whether these are created by one's own fancy, or are
invented by evil and deceitful men.
The Bible has been said to be a book of wonders. But
it is not true that the Bible was written for the sake of
telling wonders, nor that it is made up chiefly of wonders,
nor that it uses wonders to work upon our imagination, or
to fill us with surprise. All the wonders told in the Bible
come in to illustrate some truth or duty concerning God or
our fellow-men ; to help us to conceive a higher state of
being, a better, holier life; and the moral lesson and the
wonders fit together like a costly pearl set round with dia
monds, — each is in its place. These wonders that surround
the birth of Christ are even so many diamonds : they make
the proper and becoming setting of such a life. They seem

84 JESUS OF NAZARETH.

natural to such a person as Jesus proved to be, and to the
purpose for which he came into the world.
In a later chapter I shall speak of the wonders that he
did, and of the subject of miracles at large.1 It is enough
here to say, that, when the object is worthy of God's acting
in what seems to us a strange and special way, then the
miracle itself becomes natural, reasonable, — just what
might be looked for in such a case. Not all wonders are
miracles; for a miracle is something so plainly against or
aside from the observed course of nature in the thing that
is done, that only a direct act of God could bring it to pass :
yet God may use also wonders in the world of nature to
call attention to some new word of truth, or act of love. It
is important to keep this fact in view for the right under
standing of the wonders recorded in the Bible, and for the
true significance of miracles as proofs of God's presence and
power. When we meet with something in the Bible that
seems to us marvellous, the first thing is to understand the
record, to make clear what the fact is that is recorded, and
to make certain the evidence of its being a fact. Then we
must receive the wonder as a fact, just as we receive many
facts in nature and in life that we are not able to account
for. This sort of faith reason itself requires of us. If
now we see that the event was clearly above and beyond
all natural causes, then we can only refer it to the direct
1 See chap, xxvii.

A CHAPTER OF WONDERS. 85
act of God. But we are not at liberty to make up a miracle
for the sake of explaining a mystery, where the Bible itself
does not, either in so many words or by clear construction,
point to a miracle. Some of the early Christians thought
they could increase the authority of the Gospels by adding
to them a great many legends of Christ and his mother ;
and in the second and third centuries new " Gospels " were
written, full of marvels about the infancy and childhood of
Jesus. But the true Gospels do not make a parade of mira
cles, nor so multiply wonders as to cheapen them. To keep
the wonders of the Bible in their true place, as apart from
and above all other wonders, we must not call every strange
thing a miracle, nor make wonders the chief object of the
book. The Author of nature often uses nature for moral
ends ; and some of the wonders of the Bible were clearly
God's higher teaching through the things that he hath
made. An instance of this was given in the last chapter.
It was no miracle, that a new star should be seen in the
heavens, nor that, to men accustomed to read signs and won
ders in the sky, this should seem to halt as a sign over a
certain spot in Judah ; but that its appearing at such a
time and place should serve to lead believing, waiting
watchers to the birthplace of the Saviour, was a use of won
ders and of the wonder-faith, appropriate and in the highest
sense natural to such an event. We cannot say that it was
a miracle for angels to shine forth in the night, and break

JESUS OF NAZARETH.

out into song ; for we do not know but the angels are in
the air, and might at any time, quite naturally, make them
selves visible. But such words as they sung — words that
no human ear had ever heard, no human lips had ever
spoken, no human mind had ever imagined — seem to
belong to angels, and to make the wonder natural in its
place. That Jesus should be born into the world without
an earthly father, was not only a wonder, but a miracle;
but when we study his life of love, his character of good
ness, his deeds of mercy and of power, and begin to feel
that this most wondrous man, so apart from and above all
other men, and yet so one with us all, " was none other
than the Son of God," then it ceases to be strange that he
should come into the world as no other man ever did, or
that an angel should come to tell this beforehand to Mary.
And, above all, when we consider what sin and suffering and
sorrow were in the world, it ceases to be a wonder, that God
should set all heaven a-singing, and all the stars a-chiming
to their song, to tell the glad news that a Saviour was born,
" who should save men from their sins."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.

Two hundred and fifty miles away to the south-west of
Bethlehem is a wonderful land, where the sun always shines,
and the earth is like a garden. Upon each side of this land
is a great desert, made up of mountains, rocks, stones, and
sand, with here and there an oasis of life and verdure, but
with no fields nor forests, no towns, villages, farms, nor fac
tories, to break the desolation. But this desert is broken in
two by that wonderful river, the Nile, which rises more than
two thousand miles back, in the great lakes and the snow
mountains of the heart of Africa, and which brings down
the rich, sweet water that supplies the whole land of Egypt,
and once a year covers it with the flood that makes it so
fresh and fertile. It was among the reeds that grew upon
the edge of this river, that the baby Moses was hidden by his
mother in the tiny ark of bulrushes, when the wicked king
had given orders that all the Hebrew boys in Egypt should
be put to death. And it was just such a cruel order of the
king of the Jews, to kill all the little children in Bethlehem,
87

JESUS OF NAZARETH.

that caused Joseph and Mary to hurry away with Jesus in
the night, and carry him to Egypt, which was now a place
of safety.
The coming of the wise men from the East to Jerusalem,
to inquire after the new-born king, made a great stir in the
temple and in the palace, and was, of course, brought to the
ears of Herod. This Herod was a man of a jealous and
cruel disposition ; and some of the crimes he committed were
so strange and violent, that he must have been subject to
fits of insanity. He began his reign with the slaughter of
all who had resisted his attempt to make himself king ; and,
after he gained his end, any one who chanced to displease
him, or who seemed to stand in the way of his ambition, he
would order to be put to death, sometimes sacrificing hun
dreds of his subjects in an outbreak of passion or of fear.
Even his own family did not escape these fits of fury ; and,
like Henry VIII. of England, he was a real " Blue-Beard."
His beautiful wife Mariamne, her grandfather, her two sons
Alexander and Aristobulus, and his eldest son Antipater,
who had long been his favorite, all in turn fell victims to
his rage ; and, just before he died, he caused many of the
nobles of the land to be shut up together, and then gave an
order that these should all he executed, so that at the time
of his death there should be a general mourning in the chief
families.1 1 For a full account of Herod, see Josephus, Antiquities, xv. and xvi.

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 89
This dreadful wretch was king when Jesus was born ;
and, as he had a great pride in keeping the kingdom
in his own family, he was much troubled at the coming of
the wise men to look up a child of whom Herod himself had
no knowledge, but who, according to their reading of the
prophets and of the stars, was born " to be the king of the
Jews." As is apt to be the case with men who commit
great crimes, Herod was very superstitious; and, though
before the world he acted as if he had no fear of God or
men, yet in his own conscience he was a great coward, and
. he was continually in dread of some punishment or calamity
about to fall upon him. It is said, that, after he had mur
dered his wife, he gave orders to his servants always to
speak of her as if she were yet alive, hoping in this way to
rid himself of the horror of his crime. Knowing well how
thoroughly the. Jews hated his cruel reign, and knowing
also the popular belief that the Messiah was soon to appear,
Herod was afraid that a conspiracy would be formed against
himself and his family, and that the new-born prince would
be set up as the heir to the throne of David. The Magi
being men of distinction in their own country, their coming
so far and with such costly gifts, to worship the strange
king, would bring the child into notice, and might raise a
party in his favor : so Herod determined to find out where
the child was, and to put him out of the way. But he hid
his cruel purpose under a pretence of piety, and tried to use
the Magi as his tools.

90 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
Gathering together the chief priests and the learned men
of the Jews, Herod insisted that they should tell him where
Christ should be born. They gave him for answer the
words of the prophet Micah : " And thou, Bethlehem, in the
land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Juda :
for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my
people Israel." x These words must have troubled him so
much the more; for if the child was already born, that
should be the Ruler of Israel, there could be no hope of the
kingdom remaining in his own family. To get rid of that
child was now his one desire ; and he could have no peace
till this was done. But Herod was cunning, as well as cruel ;
and without betraying his feelings to the priests, lest some
of them should be secret friends of the Messiah, he sent
privately for the Magi, and tried to find out all about the
star, and what they knew or thought about the new king.
Then, pretending that he also, wished to worship this won
derful child, he sent them to Bethlehem to search him out,
and told them to come back, and let him know where he was
to be found. This seemed a very natural request ; and, had
the Magi brought back word to Herod, he would at once
have caused the babe, and perhaps his parents also, to be
put to death. But God, who had sent Jesus into the world,
was watching over him ; and, as we have seen, the wise men
were " warned in a dream, that they should not return to
1 Mic. v. 2.

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 91
Herod ; " and so " they departed into their own country
another way." J
After waiting a while, and getting no news, Herod found
out that the Magi had gone home without coming back to
Jerusalem ; and this made him so angry that he determined
to destroy all the male children under two years old that
were in Bethlehem and the neighborhood. By this whole
sale murder, he thought he should make sure of killing the
little prince. Though Josephus does not speak of this order,
it agrees perfectly with what he has told us of Herod's char
acter; and, indeed, this might have seemed too small to
mention, in a life so full of terrible crimes.
Happily, in so' small a town as Bethlehem, the number of
such children was small. But it was large enough to fill the
place with " lamentation and weeping and great mourning ; "2
for all the neighbors who had no children of their own would
join in the grief of the parents whose little ones were butch
ered before their eyes.
But Herod was too late for his purpose of killing the
Christ-child ; for Joseph, having been warned in a dream of
the danger, was already far on the way to Egypt with Jesus
and his mother. It probably took him two weeks to make
the journey, trudging along by the side of a donkey upon
which Mary rode with the child in her arms. At first they
would travel rapidly, so as to get out of Palestine without
1 Matt. ii. 12. 2 Matt. ii. 18.

92 JESUS OF NAZARETH.

being pursued; but, once in the desert, they would feel safe.
The road led them directly south to Hebron, the same road
over which Abraham had travelled when he went to offer up
Isaac ; who was a type of this dear little lamb, now snatched
from death, but which should one day be seized, and hung up
on a cross with the mock title, " Jesus, the king of the Jews."
It was the same road by which Abraham, and afterwards
Jacob, went down into Egypt ; the same road along which
David had been hunted by the jealous and bloodthirsty Saul;
the same road over which Elijah hurried toward the desert,
as he fled from the wicked Ahab. And, no doubt, Joseph
and Mary thought of all the good men who had suffered trials
and sorrows along that very path, and by such memories
strengthened their faith in the loving care of God for the
child. On reaching Hebron, they would follow the edge of the
desert westward to Gaza, and then would strike through the
desert in a south-westerly course, to Egypt. Here they
would be likely to fall in with caravans ; for there were then
large colonies of Jews living in Egypt, and there was much
passing to and fro between them and their friends in Pales
tine. For their future safety, of course, Joseph and Mary
would keep to themselves the wonderful story of their child,
and the fact that they were fleeing from danger ; and they
could pass unnoticed and unquestioned among the numbers
of their countrymen in Egypt. It is very likely, too, that

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 93

they had friends who would receive them and care for them
in a strange land. How long they remained in Egypt, we are
not told, nor where they made their home. There is a
legend that they took up their abode near the city of On, a
little north of Cairo, where a very old sycamore-tree is still
pointed out as the spot where they first halted ; and it is
said that this tree, having been touched by the infant Jesus,
yielded a healing balsam, and a spring of perpetual water
opened at its side. Though we may not believe that any
such thing happened to the tree, or that the tree itself is
eighteen hundred years old, yet the story gives a beautiful
picture of the blessings that come to any land which receives
Christ into its bosom. Through the entering-in of his light
and love, Nature itself takes on new forms of beauty and
fruitfulness ; her very curse is turned to healing ; the forests
teem with the incense of praise, and the deserts bubble with
fountains of joy.

CHAPTER IX.

THE EARLY HOME OF JESUS.

Soon after Jesus was carried into Egypt, King Herod died.
But in those days there were no newspapers, mails, nor tele
graphs ; and Joseph, living in an obscure village in a strange
country, might not have known of this event for a long time,
had not an angel told him in a dream, that they were " dead
which sought the young child's life," at the same time saying
to him, " Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and
go into the land of Israel." x At first Joseph halted near the
boundary-line, and there waited for further news ; for, though
both his going to Egypt and his returning from Egypt were at
the command of God, he was to use his own judgment as to
times and ways, and not to depend upon dreams for every
thing. ¦ It appears that he intended to return to Bethlehem,
and make that his home. Mary would naturally wish to live
near the spot where her child was born, and where so many
wondrous things had befallen her. And this quiet, religious
Jewish town would seem much more suitable for bringing up
1 Matt. 19, 20.
91

THE EARLY HOME OF JESUS. 95
such a child than the mixed, half-pagan village of Nazareth.
She would feel at home in Bethlehem, for it was the home
of her ancestors and of family connections; and as Joseph
earned his living by his trade as carpenter, and lived in a
very simple way, it was easy for him to remove from one
town to another. Yet it did not seem prudent to go back to
Bethlehem until something was known of the character of
the new king.
The kingdom of Herod was divided, after his death,
between his three sons. One of these, Archelaus, had the
southern district of Palestine, viz., Judea ; the middle dis
trict, viz., Samaria, being about two-thirds of the whole
country; and, in addition to these, the region of Idumea,
lying east and south of the Dead Sea. Another son, Herod
Antipas, had the northern section of Palestine, or Galilee ;
and a region opposite to this, on the eastern side of Jordan,
called Perea. And Philip, the third son, had a large district
lying east of the Jordan, from the line of Lake Tiberias up
to Mount Hermon and the neighborhood of Damascus. Ar
chelaus, who ruled over Judea and Samaria, had much of
his father's jealous and cruel disposition ; and, as his right to
his dominion was disputed, the beginning of his government
was marked by violence and bloodshed. A rumor that the
child, whom the Magi came to worship as king of the Jews,
was yet alive, would of course have excited him to make a
new attempt to destroy the life of Jesus. Hearing this,

96 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
Joseph gave up the idea of returning to Bethlehem, but
"turned aside into the parts of Galilee,"1 where the milder
brother ruled. From Gaza he may have followed the coast
up towards Mount Carmel, and there have struck inland, or
have taken another of the great caravan routes through the
interior of the country ; or he may have avoided all cities
and public roads, and made his way quietly along the by
paths ; but at last he found himself safe in his old home at
Nazareth. This was probably like most of the houses to
be seen at Nazareth to-day, — a little square house of white
stone, built upon the side of the hill, having at most two or
three rooms, but with a flat or terraced roof, where in pleas
ant weather the family could sit together, and enjoy the
lovely gardens and groves of the valley.
This valley of Nazareth is hidden among the hills that
bound the northern edge of the great plain of Esdraelon.
These hills of all shapes and sizes, and dotted here and
there with trees and grain, swell out so as to form a pretty
little basin about one mile long by a quarter of a mile broad,
which is covered with fields of corn, gardens, and clumps of
olive-trees. To the north-west is a hill much higher than
the others, the side of which is marked by little ridges ; and
along these the houses stand in rows, one street above
another, so that the village seems to be climbing up the hill
upon which it is built. 1 Matt. i. 22.

1-3H W
o

5

THE EARLY HOME OF JESUS. 99
Down in the valley, upon an open space near the olive-
trees, at a few minutes' walk from the northern corner of
the village, is a beautiful spring, called " the Fountain of the
Virgin," to which the women come at all hours of the day
for water for their houses. No doubt Mary used often to
come to this fountain, with her water-jar upon her shoulders,
and her little boy at her side.
The fountain is the place at which the neighbors gather
to talk over the news ; and here Jesus played with other
children of the village, while their mothers were resting at
the spring. What childish pleasure he had in gathering the
flowers of the valley, and in roaming among the trees and
over the hills ! When he grew old enough to enjoy Nature
on a larger scale, he must often have gone to the top of the
hill over the town, which rises nearly five hundred feet
above the valley, for the lovely view of the sea, the moun
tains, and the plain, which now enchants the traveller like
a dream of Paradise. Before one lies the great plain of
Esdraelon, which stretches across the whole width of Pales
tine, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan ; and in spring
time, when the grass is bright with flowers, and the grain is
waving in the cultivated fields, this looks like a vast carpet
of green, varied with figures of the most gorgeous patterns,
laid down at the feet of the mountains ; while the forests of
oak, the groves of mock-orange, and the flowering shrubs
and bushes along the hillsides, are like a fringe woven

100 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
around its edges. Looking to the north of west, one sees
twenty miles distant the Bay of Akka ; and the " great sea "
beyond gleaming like a mirror, far, far away to where it
seems to join the sky. Jutting over this bay is Carmel,
rising right out of the Mediterranean, and stretching south
eastward for twelve miles, nearly in a straight line to the
hills of Samaria. Following this line along toward the
valley of the Jordan, the eye rests upon the " mountains of
Gilboa," 1 where Saul met his death ; upon the " little
Hermon," across which he went the night before, to see the
witch of Endor ; 2 a little to the north of this, and due east
from Nazareth, Tabor, its round top looking like the dome
of some great temple ; still farther to the north, the hills
that hide the Lake of Tiberias ; and then the loftier moun
tains of Safed, nearly three thousand feet high ; and " the
city set upon the hill," so bright and shining, that, in that
clear atmosphere, it can be seen for thirty miles; and,
above and behind all these, the great peak of Hermon, with
its snowy crown ten thousand feet above the sea. Such
was the picture which Jesus could see from the hill above
his home in Nazareth, either bright and glowing with the
morning sunshine, or shaded and tinted with the evening
twilight. The home of his childhood was also a school of his mind
and heart in the knowledge of nature, which appears in his
1 1 Sam. xxxi. 1. 2 i gam> XXTiii. 7 8.

THE EARLY HOME OF JESUS. 101
discourses and parables : in the birds and the lilies ; in the
fig-tree and the vineyard ; in the winds and clouds, and all
the signs of weather ; in the fields white for the harvest ; in
the thorns and tares; in the good ground and the wayside;
in the fountains and the sea. But it was not only Nature
that he learned to know. From these same hills there was
spread out before him the panorama of the history of Pales
tine, and of the kingdom of God upon earth. Across the
great plain of Esdraelon had passed the caravans from
Arabia to Tyre, and from Damascus to Egypt ; and among
these the Midianites who bought Joseph from his brethren,
and carried him away to the banks of the Nile. Beyond its
southern ridges lay the twin mountains of Ebal and Gerizim,
between which Joshua had gathered the children of Israel
to hear the words of the law, and to swear allegiance to
Jehovah. Over on that hill of Tabor, Deborah had rallied
the troops of Israel against Sisera, whom they defeated by
the River Kishon.
Yonder by the mountains of Gilboa, Gideon, with the
sword of the Lord and his handful of chosen men, had put
to flight the Midianites who had swarmed over from the
desert like locusts; and by those same mountains the
Philistines had defeated Saul. More than once the hosts
of the Assyrians and of the Egyptians had swept across
this plain in their marches against each other, or for the
conquest of Israel ; and in one of the battles of these foreign

102 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
powers the good King Josiah was slain. Along that coast,
where the old cities of the Phoenicians, Tyre and Sidon, once
stood in their glory, the floats of Hiram had passed, carrying
the cedars of Lebanon to build the temple of Solomon at
Jerusalem. Far up the plain was the site of Jezreel, where
the wicked King Ahab had built his palace ; and opposite
was Carmel, where Elijah had called down upon the priests
of Baal the fire of the Lord. So many chief events of the
history of Israel, as well as so much of the beauty and
grandeur of the land of Israel, were thus brought daily under
the eye of Jesus as he grew up in his home at Nazareth.
What a school for the mind and heart of the Great
Teacher !

CHAPTER X.

THE FAMILY OF JESUS.

Though Jesus had no earthly father, Joseph, who was
married to his mother, and who knew how this child had
been sent to her from heaven, loved him, and took care of
him, as if he had been his own son. He carried him to
Egypt, and there watched over his life ; and, when he came
back to Palestine, the good of the child was the one thing
he thought of in choosing his home. For the comfort of
Jesus and his mother, he would have returned to Bethlehem ;
but for their safety he settled down at Nazareth. Nothing is
said of him after this, except that, when Jesus was twelve
years old, he took him to Jerusalem to the great feast of the
passover; but we are told that Joseph was a "just man,"
upright, kind, and good. He was known in the village as
the carpenter ; and the neighbors looked upon Jesus as his
child, and spoke of him as " the son of Joseph," x and " the
carpenter's son."2 This shows us that the family lived at
Nazareth in a simple way, as plain working people ; and that
1 Luke iii. 23. 2 Matt. xiii. 55. 103

104 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
Joseph and Mary did not try to set themselves up among
the neighbors on account of their wonderful child, but kept
to themselves all that had happened to him, and waited to
see what would come of it. And as years went by, and
nothing seemed to come of it, and no new wonder appeared,
things settled down into a quiet family life ; and Jesus grew
up simply as a lovely, beautiful, and obedient boy, subject
to his parents, growing in knowledge as he grew in stature,
and growing, too, in favor with God and men.1
By and by other children were born into the family ; and
these, too, were gifts of God and angels of blessing, though
no one heard the angels singing when they came. These
brothers and sisters, who grew up with Jesus, knew no
difference between him and themselves ; and, though four
" brothers of our Lord " finally became his disciples, so far
were they from boasting of him, or putting him forward to
make a name for the family, that at first they were slow to
believe in him as the Messiah, and tried to hold him back
from his public labors.2
So real and natural was the human life of Jesus, so
different from the fables sometimes made up about wonderful
men, that until he appeared in public as a divine Teacher,
and a worker of miracles, his own brothers, much as they
loved and trusted him, had no idea that he was any thing
more than one of themselves.
1 Luke i. 39, 40, 52. « Mark iii. 21.

The Youth of Jesus.

THE FAMILY OF JESUS. 107

But in that family circle there was one who always hoped
and believed that some day Jesus would show that he was
quite different from the other children, and, indeed, from all
other men. Through all her fears for his life, through all
the trials of poverty, through all the years of waiting, his
mother kept hid in her heart the wonders of his birth,
and the things said of him by the angels and the prophets.
She was sure that something must come of all this ; and
she showed her confidence in him at Cana, where she was
ready beforehand to believe in any thing that he might say
or do.
Not only was Mary most favored and blessed among
women, in being the mother of the Lord; but she was a
woman of remarkable wisdom, and strength of character, as
well as of deep and humble piety. She knew how to keep
her heavenly secret from the curious and idle world ; how
to avoid the foolish gossip of the neighbors, and to preserve
the love and confidence of her friends ; how to feed her
faith upon the hidden promises of God, and to wait without
weariness or impatience for his time to fulfil them. She
guarded and tended the infant Jesus with the joy of a
mother's faith ; she waited for her Messiah with the patience
of a mother's hope ; she watched his words and works with
the pride of a mother's love ; and she followed him to the
cross with the courage and devotion that come only of a
mother's agony.

108 JESUS OF NAZARETH.

And Jesus upon the cross, having shown his divine pity in
forgiving his murderers, and his divine power and grace in
opening Paradise to the penitent thief, just as he began to
feel the horror of being forsaken by his Father, turned all
the love of his human heart upon his mother, and told his
best and dearest friend, the true and loving John, to take
her to his home, and be to her as a son.1
i John xix. 26, 27.

CHAPTER XI.

JESUS AT SCHOOL.

When he was six years old, Jesus was sent to school.
As soon as he could understand any thing, his mother,
in her own sweet, gentle way, had talked to him about
the love of God ; had told him the stories of Abraham
and Isaac, of Jacob and Joseph, of Moses and of Samuel ;
and had taught him to sing the Psalms of David. But,
from what we know of her prudence and patience, we
may well doubt whether she gave him any idea of what
the angel had told the shepherds about him when he
was born, and what Simeon had said of him when she
carried him to the temple. Mary was more inclined to
wait, and see what would come of these things, than
to talk about them ; and more willing to trust to God to
teach and lead her child, than to feed his mind and her
own with wonders. As Jesus grew older, Joseph taught
him the history of the Jews, and the meaning of the sac
rifices and the festivals, and other chief things in the
laws of Moses. By those laws all parents were required
109

HO JESUS OF NAZARETH.

to teach their children the commandments of God, and
to give them lessons from the Bible, not only on the
sabbath, but every day, at morning and evening. Even
when walking together, parents were to give their children
useful knowledge " by the way." x It came to be a saying
among the people, " Blessed is the son who has learned
from his father, and blessed is the father who has instructed
his son." 2
It was also the custom of all good Jews to send their
children to school, to learn what they could not so well
be taught at home. And it was a saying of their wise
men, that " The world is preserved by the breath of the
school-children ; " and, " A town in which there is no school
must perish." It is said, that, " eighty years before Christ,
schools flourished throughout the length and breadth of
the land." These schools were free, and were for all
alike. Education was taken up as a national work ; and
laws were passed fixing the location and the form of school-
buildings, the number of children to one teacher, the
age of pupils, and the duty of parents in preparing their
children for school, and in watching over their studies.
By much effort a law was passed making education com
pulsory ; but at first this law did not apply to Galilee : 3 yet
Galilee had its village-schools, which were open to all.
1 Deut. vi. 7. 2 Literary Remains of Emanuel Deutsch, p. 24.
8 Emanuel Deutsch : Literary Remains, pp. 23, 139, 140.

An Oriental School.

JESUS AT SCHOOL.

113

We know that Jesus could read and write ; and we may
well suppose, that, at the usual age, he was sent to school
with the other children of the village. This school at
Nazareth was not like the high schools in our great cities,
or the academies in our large towns and villages, where
children are taught a little of almost every thing; but
it was a sort of parish -school, kept by an officer of the
synagogue ; and the children were taught to read, to write,
and to cipher, and were made to learn by heart the Bible
history, and the Psalms that were used in public worship.
Besides this, they had lessons in the meaning of the sacred
law, and in the moral duties of life. In Judea there were
higher schools, in which languages, mathematics, astronomy,
history, natural history, grammar, law, and ethics were
studied ; but at Nazareth there was probably nothing more
than the village-school in its simplest form.
It would amuse children nowadays to see such a school
as that to which Jesus was sent. The teacher wore a
turban, and a long robe, or gown, fastened with a girdle
around his waist. He sat upon a cushion, with his legs
crossed under him, like a tailor sitting on his bench ; and
the children sat cross-legged in a circle, upon cushions
on the floor. They had no desks, but held their books,
or scrolls, in their hands; and whatever the teacher told
them they would repeat together after him at the top of
their voices. One can see just such schools now in Egypt
and Syria.

114 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
Besides these village-schools, and the graded schools
spoken of above, there were in the large cities schools,
or seminaries, called colleges, where the most learned
scribes and doctors gave lectures, and held discussions,
upon points of Jewish law and theology. It was in such
a school, at Jerusalem, that Paul was brought up "at the
feet of Gamaliel," one of the most famous among Jewish
teachers. But there is no reason to suppose that Jesus
ever went to any other than the little parish-school at
Nazareth. Indeed, when he began to preach, his towns
men wondered how he could know so much ; for he had
grown up among them as the son of a poor man, and had
never been away to study at any of the colleges in. the
cities. And once, when he was teaching in the temple
at Jerusalem, the Jews were so much astonished at his
wisdom, that they said, "How knoweth this man letters,
having never learned ? " By " letters," they meant not
simple reading or writing, but learning, or knowledge;
and, as they knew that Jesus had never been to school
to any of the great rabbis at Jerusalem, they wondered
how he was able to speak so wisely and so well. Paul
had studied both Greek and Hebrew learning ; : and he
sometimes quoted the sayings of poets and wise men
among the Greeks.2 But Jesus never speaks of any of
1 The Talmud shows, that, in the colleges, Coptic, Aramaic, Persian,
Median, and Latin were studied ; but Greek was the favorite language.
2 Acts xvii. 28.

JESUS AT SCHOOL. H5

the great teachers who had lived in other countries, and
never quotes from any book but the Old Testament, and
the comments which the Jewish rabbis had made upon
their law, — " the traditions of the elders." This fact is
important, as showing the sources of his knowledge. As
Jesus does quote from the standard books of Jewish his
tory, theology, and literature, it is fair to suppose, that,
like Paul, he would have quoted from the sages of other
nations had he been acquainted with their sayings, or
had he borrowed any thing of their words or their ideas.
Jesus left nothing of his own in a written form; and,
from his parables and discourses which have come down
to us, it is plain that he had nothing of what is called
book-learning, and did not get his wisdom from what
other men had said or written. Probably he had never
heard of Plato, much less of Confucius, though some of
his sayings resemble somewhat the sayings of those
philosophers. But, as we have already seen, Jesus could find in the
hills and valleys, in the trees and flowers, in the sea and
the sky, as these were spread out before him at Nazareth,
a great book in which to study the works of God, a
day-school and a night-school, which always gave him
new lessons of wisdom, of power, of beauty, and of love.
And there was another school at Nazareth to which Jesus
went, — the school of work. Among the Jews it was the

116 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
custom in every family, that the boys should learn a trade ;
and, indeed, parents were required to bring up their sons to
some kind of work. The Apostle Paul was a tent-maker;
and, during his long stay at Corinth, he earned his living
by working with his own hands. Among the chief Jewish
rabbis, their great teachers, one was known as " the shoe
maker," another as " the weaver," and another as " the
carpenter." As a matter of course, Jesus would be brought
up to the trade of his father Joseph ; and, in fact, he was
not only known as " the carpenter's son," but was himself
spoken of as "the carpenter." 1 His having a trade was no
disgrace among the Jews, nor was this in itself a mark of his
lowliness. But by thus living a life of poverty and of toil,
earning his daily bread, he learned how to sympathize with
the poor; and by his example he taught us how to turn
into a blessing the labor which sin had made a curse.
This was one of the ways in which Jesus was a Saviour.
He redeemed our common, every-day work from drudgery
and disgrace, by making it a service of his Father in heaven.
He was doing the will of his heavenly Father while working
in the shop of his earthly father, no less than when working
miracles of mercy, and preaching the gospel of salvation.
The thirty years which he spent so quietly at Nazareth were
as really a part of his heavenly mission as were the three
years of his public ministry. And to follow Christ, and serve
1 Mark ii. 3.

JESUS AT SCHOOL. 117

God, it is not necessary that we should have some great
thing to say or to do before the world ; but by being true
and kind and faithful and good, just where we are placed in
life, we can make our daily work a daily worship, the hum
blest home a temple for the service of God, and the hardest
life a school for training our souls for heaven. It was a
boast of the Jewish commonwealth, as it is a boast of
modern democracies, that " labor is honorable ; " but Jesus
has taught us that it is both sacred and blessed.

CHAPTER XII.
THE CHILD LOST AND FOUND.
The quiet home and school life of Jesus at Nazareth was
broken only by one incident of a public nature, which has
come down to us. Every Jew who was able to make the
journey was bound by the law to go to Jerusalem once a
year, to keep the festival of the Passover, which lasted seven
days. 1 When a boy was twelve years old, he was called a
" son of the law," and was expected to attend the great reli
gious festivals in company with his parents. So, too, at a
certain age the children of Roman citizens were clothed with
a garment of a certain form and color, — the toga praitexta, —
as a sign that they were free-born, and were members of the
Roman commonwealth. .
The parents of Jesus were strict in the duties of their reli
gion ; and hence " they went to Jerusalem every year at the
feast of the Passover." 2 And, when Jesus was twelve years
old, they took him with them. At such times Jerusalem was
crowded to excess : every family in the city opened its doors
1 Deut. xxvii. 7; Neb., viii. 9-12. 2 Luke ii. 41.
118

THE CHILD LOST AND FOUND. 121
not only to friends, but to strangers ; and yet, for want of
room in the houses, many visitors were obliged to sleep in
tents, so that the suburbs of the city had the appearance of
a great camp-meeting. The people from the country came
up to the feast in caravans ; all the neighbors in a village,
and sometimes all the inhabitants of a district, would arrange
to travel in one company, because this was so much safer and
cheaper than to go alone. They enlivened the way with the
songs of Zion, " turning the valley of Baca into a well." x
The greater part would go on foot ; others, upon asses, horses,
or camels, which were also used to carry the tents, baggage,
and provisions. Of course, such a large body would move
slowly, and could not go many miles in a day ; and it had to
march with something of the order< of an army. It is the
custom in the East, for a caravan to begin its journey about
noon, and to go only one or two hours — say four or five
miles — the first day ; halting early so as to make sure that
nothing is missing, and that every thing is in order for the
march. At the close of the feast, everybody was in a hurry to start
for home ; and Joseph and Mary joined a large caravan for
Galilee. As they were busy getting their things together,
they did not miss Jesus until they had started; and then they
supposed, of course, that he was somewhere in the caravan,
and they should find him at the end of the day's journey,
1 Ps. lxxxiv. 6.

122 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
which would so soon be over. Jesus was such a thoughtful,
gentle, and obedient boy, and there were so many relatives
and acquaintances from Nazareth in the party, that his
parents did not once think of any harm to him, until after a
couple of hours the caravan came to a halt, and they hunted
for him among their friends, and could not find him. There
was but one thing for them to do, and that was to hurry
back to Jerusalem ; and SO' they turned about with fear and
sorrow, searching for him along the wayside, in the streets
of the city, at the quarters they had just left, and wherever
they remembered to have taken him, or thought it possible
that he could have wandered. They asked everybody they
met, but no one had seen their boy ; they enlisted friends to
help them in their search, but nobody brought them any
tidings. The city was still very crowded ; the streets were
full of confusion and hurry from the breaking-up of the feast;
and every hour added to their fear that some evil had hap
pened to their child. Mary was so troubled that she could
neither eat nor sleep. She never before knew how much she
loved her boy. Could it be that the angels had forgotten
him, and would leave him to some dreadful fate ? Had he
been saved from the cruel Herod, by that long flight into
Egypt, only now to be crushed to death in the crowd, or to
be stolen by one of the robber bands that hung around the
city, and carried off where she should never hear of him
again ? Was this the " sword " that good old Simeon had

THE CHILD LOST AND FOUND. 123
told her should pierce her soul ? Ah, how sudden was the
stroke, and how sharp the pain !
Two days were passed in this terrible suspense. The
boy was lost, and no trace of him could be found. ' The
friends with whom he had staid in Jerusalem supposed
that he had started with his parents. He had told no one
where he was going ; and he had not come back to eat or
sleep at their house. There were no such arrangements in
Jerusalem as now exist in large cities, for finding lost chil
dren by the help of the newspapers and the police ; and
every moment of delay made it less and less likely that they
should get any tidings of the boy. But through all the
weary hours there was something deep in Mary's heart that
told her she should find him, that he had been sent into the
world for some great good, and no evil should befall him ;
and, though broken down with sorrow, she kept on seeking.
But where was Jesus all this while ? Searching for his
parents ? Or, learning that they had started for home, was
he. trying to find; some new party with which to go to Naz
areth? Or was he wandering about to see the strange
sights of the city, so filled with a child's wonder that he did
not realize he was alone and lost? No. It was not
carelessness, nor curiosity, that had kept him back, but the
love of knowledge. For he had found a new school, where
he could go and sit by the hour, and hear wise men talk,
and ask questions for himself. Around the temple, in what

124 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
was called the outer court, were cloisters open on the inner
side, but roofed over for protection against the weather.
These cloisters were divided into halls of various sizes ; and
here the great Jewish rabbis, or teachers, would give instruc
tion to all who chose to hear. The mode of teaching was
much like that which Socrates used with the youth of
Athens. The teacher would give a short lecture upon some
subject, and then ask questions about it, or answer the
questions that were put to him. Sometimes he would begin
by asking a question ; and this would lead to a conversation
or discussion in which all present might take part. Here a
scholar could sit a whole day, talking with one teacher and
another ; and, in the warm weather, could even sleep in
the porch over night, as people in Palestine were accus
tomed in summer to sleep in the open air.1 There was
nothing strange in a boy twelve years old being among
the learners at these meetings in the temple-porch, and
nothing forward in his asking questions. Indeed, a teacher
would be very likely to put questions to a bright-looking
boy standing by, to find out how much he had learned at
home and at school. From the dialogues of Plato, we learn
that Socrates often began his discussions of philosophy and
morals by asking questions of a youth. A boy brought up
according to the rules of the wise men was taught Bible
1 At Joppa, one warm night, my host sent me to sleep on the flat roof
of the house, as the most comfortable place.

Jesus with the Doctors.

THE CHILD LOST AND FOUND. 127
lessons and Jewish history at school from six years old to
ten ; then he began to study the books which the learned
doctors had written upon the Jewish law. At twelve he
was thought to be old enough to come to the temple-service,
and take part in the duties of a Jew, and also to study the
hard questions which were discussed by the rabbis. And
there was Jesus in the temple, sitting in the midst of these
great teachers of the law, " hearing them, and asking them
questions." 1 He was just at that age when a well-bred and
well-behaved boy is neither too forward nor too bashful, —
gentle and respectful in his manners, but eager to learn, and
pleased at being talked to by persons to whom he looks up
as so much older and wiser than himself.
The answers which Jesus gave to the questions of the
rabbis were so wise and deep that all that heard him were
astonished at his understanding. By degrees quite a crowd
drew together to the hall where this conversation was going
on, and stood waiting to see whether the young stranger
would not be puzzled by some hard questions, or to hear
what bright questions he would next put to the rabbis.
Just at this moment his parents, tired and sad with their
fruitless search, came in at that side of the temple, and,
seeing the crowd, went up, and found their boy. " They
were amazed ; " for they had no thought of finding him in
the temple, but had come in hope of meeting some friend
1 Luke ii. 46.

128 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
who had seen him, and to pray that God would guide them
to their lost child. His mother did not stop to take in what
was going on. around her, nor to feel a pride in the admira
tion of others for her son : she took no notice of the crowd
of strangers, or of the learned doctors. All the grief that
for two days had been swelling in her heart now burst
forth in a cry of reproof, which yet was not anger, but the
anguish of love. Her sorrow must have vent before she
could give place to' her sutlden joy. " Son," she said, " why
hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I
have sought thee sorrowing." 1
Now, Jesus had no thought of neglecting his parents. He
had not disobeyed them, nor run away from them : only he
had been so fascinated with talking with these learned men,
that' he had not thought of home nor of any thing else.
A Jewish boy was brought up to reverence his teachers. It
was a saying, " You should revere the teacher even more
than your father. Your father only brought you into this
world: the teacher shows the way into the next." But,
besides this thirst for knowledge, a new, strange feeling had
begun to stir within his soul, drawing him toward God as
his Father, whom above all others he must love, obey,
and serve. What he had learned from his mother's lips and
in his infant prayers, what had seemed to him so near in
God's talking with Abraham and Moses, what he had so
1 Luke ii. 40.

THE CHILD LOST AND FOUND. 129
often thought and dreamed about with a childish wonder, as
he sat upon the hill-top at Nazareth, or strolled alone in the
woods, now came to him as real, — that he was " the Son of
God," and must follow the voice of his Father in heaven.
He had been taught at home to look upon Joseph as his
father ; and his mother had just said, " Thy father and I
have sought thee : " but he felt a drawing of his heart
toward God, so near, so close, that he spoke of God as his
real, his only father ; and the consciousness of this relation
with heaven must guide and rule his life on earth. What
God delights in is truth and love and goodness among men ;
and, young as he was, Jesus felt that he must be doing in
the world that which God delights in, must make a begin
ning by speaking of and seeking after holy things in his
Father's house, "must be about his Father's business." l
Since the wonders at Bethlehem, so long a time had
passed in the quiet, every-day life at Nazareth, that the
parents of Jesus could not understand the full, deep mean
ing of what he now said. But it was not said for the
purpose of throwing off their authority. There was no
pride in the heart of this loving hoy, who had been so
admired by the rabbis. Our Father in heaven has taught
us to love and honor him in loving and honoring our earthly
.parents. And so Jesus at once left the new school in the
temple, that had so much charmed him, and the people who
1 Luke ii. 49.

130 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
were so ready to praise him, and went back to the little
home at Nazareth with his parents, and there " was subject
unto them," 1 living with them in all the loving devotion of
a child. Yet all the while his soul grew with the conscious
ness of his new life, so that every one remarked how he
increased in wisdom and in grace as he grew in years.
Mary forgot nothing that happened to Jesus, and nothing
that was said to her about him. She kept all in her heart ;
but, now that her wonder and hope were so awakened by
this scene in the temple, she must keep on waiting in silent
faith. The divine life had blossomed in her son : she must
wait almost twenty years for the perfect fruit.
1 Luke ii. 51.

CHAPTER XIII.
THE BAPTISM OF JESUS.
FAR-up in the north-eastern corner of the Holy Land, fed
by the snows on the summit of the great Mount Hermon,
and by rivulets and fountains from all sides of the valleys
round about, rises the famous river of the Bible, the Jordan,
which makes its way through marshes, lakes, and gorges of
the mountains, till it is lost in the Dead Sea. The river is
winding and full of rapids, so that it cannot be -used by
boats ; and though in some parts its valley is rich and pro
ductive, in others it is wild and barren, or the banks are
lined with cane-brakes which are the home of beasts of
prey. But though of no use for commerce, and now but
little used for agriculture, the Jordan is celebrated as a
sacred river. To the Jews it marked the boundary between
the desert and the promised land ; and to the Christian it
is a sign of the river of death, that divides him from his
heavenly home. Abraham and Jacob crossed the Jordan in
their pilgrimages ; Joshua and Elijah divided its stream by a
miracle ; in its waters Jesus was baptized ; and its chief lake
131

132 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
was the scene of many of his discourses and of his mighty
works. But how came Jesus to be baptized in this river, or to be
baptized at all at the age of thirty, when in his infancy he
had been consecrated to God by all the forms required in
the law ? The Jews had certain ceremonies in which water
was sprinkled upon persons or things as a sign of religious
cleansing. Thus, when the Levites were set apart to their
office, the " water of purifying " was sprinkled upon them,
to make them clean.1
So, when one had touched a dead body, he was regarded
as unclean, or unfit to take part in the sacrifices, until he was
sprinkled with "the water of separation," which was also
called "a purification for sin."2 In later times the scribes
and Pharisees added very much to these uses of water for
sacred ceremonies. They gave a religious meaning to the
washing of cups and pots, of brazen vessels, and of tables,
or the couches upon which they reclined at their meals ; 3
and they insisted that foreigners who embraced the Jewish
religion should be baptized. It seems also to have been
a custom for a great prophet or a reformer to baptize his
followers as a sign that they received his teachings, and
meant to put away their sins and begin a new life. Such a
1 Num. viii. 7. This was literally called "sin-water;" that is,
water used as a sign of washing away sin, and thus making fit for the
sacred office of Levite.
2 Num. xix. 9, 13, 17, 18. s Mark vii.. 4, 8.

waKm

'i <

John preaching in the Wilderness.

THE BAPTISM OF JESUS. 135
prophet and reformer was John the Baptist, whose father
was a priest by the name of Zacharias, and whose mother
was Elisabeth, the cousin of Mary the mother of Jesus.
This John had been brought up very strictly according to
the sect of the Nazarites, who never tasted wine nor strong
drink, never had their hair cut, and never mingled in the
pleasures of social life.1 He was born in a village of Judea,
upon the border of the wilderness ; and he seems to have
grown up a good deal like a hermit, spending much of his
time in the desert, in meditation and prayer.2 This wilder
ness was not a great waste of sand, but a region of rocks
and mountains, lying along the western side of the Dead
Sea, where there was too little soil and water for farming ;
but good pasture was to be found at certain seasons in the
valleys. There were few villages or settlements in this
region ; but the number of people employed in taking care
of flocks was large enough to cause quite a stir in the land
when John first appeared among them as a prophet; and
their reports of his preaching reached Jerusalem, and drew
crowds from the city to hear him. John had the dress and
the manners of one of the old prophets. He wore a long
robe woven of camel's hair, which was fastened about his
waist with a girdle of leather ; and he lived upon the honey
which he gathered from the hives of wild bees in the rocks
and trees, and upon locusts such as at this day are cooked
and eaten by the Arabs in the same region.
1 Num. vi. 2 Lute i. 80.

136 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
At that time there was a general feeling that the Messiah
was soon to appear; and as it was also predicted that a
prophet like Elijah should go before him, when John began
to preach that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, and
to call upon the people to repent, his bold and earnest
manner, and his strong and faithful words, led many to
believe that he was the prophet Elijah come again from
heaven : indeed, not a few imagined that he must be the
Christ. But John himself told the people that Christ was
yet to come, that he would soon appear, and would search
their hearts and lives, even as the wind sweeps over the
threshing-floor, and sifts out the straw from the wheat;
even as the fire burns up the chaff when the wind has thus
blown it away.1
The Jews were hoping for a Messiah who should be a
great king and warrior, who should drive the Romans out
of the land, and make their own nation free and rich and
powerful : but John taught that Christ would come to cast
out the sins of the people, and to set up the kingdom of
heaven in their hearts ; to search for the true friends of
God, who by their faith and piety showed themselves the
children of Abraham ; and that they must prepare for his
coming by repenting of their sins, and leading good lives,
honest, true, faithful, and kind to the poor.2 Preaching in
this manner, John went from place to place, until he came to
1 Matt. iii. 11, 12. 2 Mark i. 4.

THE BAPTISM OF JESUS. 137
the River Jordan at a point not far from the city of Jericho.
Great crowds had followed him all along the way, and new
people came also from the eastern side of Jordan ; for at this
point the river was so shallow that it could commonly be
crossed on foot by a ford. Here many confessed their sins,
and were baptized. But though John had gathered such a
multitude of disciples, and was looked up to as a reformer,
he did not once attempt to turn the popular excitement to
his own account, but refused the titles and honors that the
people were ready to bestow upon him, saying, " There
cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose
shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I indeed
have baptized you with water; but he shall baptize you
with the Holy Ghost." 1 It was the duty of a servant, when
a guest arrived at the door of the house, to take off his
sandals, and wipe off the dust from his feet ; but such was
the reverence of John for the Messiah, that he felt himself
unworthy even to touch his sacred person in the humblest
task of a servant.
After preaching in Judea, and baptizing at the lower
ford, John crossed the Jordan, and went up toward Galilee,
in the neighborhood of the ford where Jacob had passed
over the river with his family. At this point, Jesus came
to him to be baptized. Though John and Jesus were
cousins, they had lived far apart, each in his own quiet
1 Mark i; 7, 8.

138 JESUS OF NAZARETH.

way, and, it would seem, had never before met ; or, if John
had already met Jesus personally, he had not seen in him
any thing that answered to his own notion of the Messiah.
Yet doubtless his mother had told him of the wonderful
things that had happened to the mother of Jesus before and
after his birth ; and now, when he saw his cousin approach
ing, the feeling that this was indeed the Messiah became
so clear and strong, that John at first declined to baptize
him ; desiring, rather, to receive a blessing from Jesus.
But Jesus was careful to comply with all good religious
customs ; and, since the baptism of John was the mark of
a holy reformation, he insisted upon being baptized as an
open sign of consecration to his new work. As Jesus went
up out of the river, a dove that seemed to come from the
very depths of heaven hovered over him, and alighted upon
his head ; and John, who stood wondering at this beautiful
sight, heard a voice from heaven, saying, "This is my
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." 1 And then he
perceived that the Holy Ghost had chosen this gentle bird
as a sign of his own peace and purity and grace that
should consecrate the head of Jesus, and fill his ministry
with the presence and power of the Spirit of God.
After such a sign, John felt sure that Jesus was the
promised Messiah; but the words in which he declared
this must have sounded strangely to the crowds that he
1 Matt. iii. 17; Mark i. 10, 11; Luke iii. 21, 22; John i. 32.

THE BAPTISM OF JESUS.

139

had warned to make ready for the kingdom of heaven.
Here was the Messiah of the prophets ; here was the son of
David, anointed by the Holy Ghost; here was the Lord
from heaven in the likeness of the Son of man, as Daniel
and Ezekiel had seen him in their visions ; here was the
Son of God. All this was now clear to John. Yet, in
pointing out Jesus as the Christ, he did not say, " This is
the conqueror who shall deliver Israel;" "This is the
king who shall restore the throne of David : " but, in words
as gentle as the voice of the dove, this stern prophet of the
wilderness now said, " Behold the Lamb of God, which
taketh away the sin of the world ! " x Like the promise of
the angel to Mary, like the announcement of the angels to
the shepherds, like the prophecy of Simeon in the temple,
these words of John marked Jesus as the Saviour of the
world, the Saviour through the sacrifice of himself, even
as the lamb was daily sacrificed in the temple. John could
rebuke sin ; but Jesus would redeem from sin. John could
say, " Repent, and flee from the wrath to come : " Jesus
would say, " Believe, and be saved." And the most gentle
creatures that God has made, the dove and the lamb, were
the symbols of that ministry of mercy that should draw a
sinful world into the kingdom of love, which is the kingdom
of heaven. i John i. 29.

CHAPTER XIV.

JESUS IN THE DESERT.

Jesus was about to go forth into the world as the
teacher of truth ; but, to know the reality of • truth, one
must have wrestled with doubt. Jesus was to lead men to
faith in God ; but, to know the strength of faith, one must
have known the weakness of fear. Jesus was to recover
men from sin ; but, to know the power of virtue, one must
have felt the power of temptation. And just such a trial
of his own faith in the word and the Spirit of God, and of
his power to resist evil, came to Jesus before he appeared
in public as the Messiah. That divine Spirit, which at
his baptism had consecrated him as the Son of God, now
moved him to go into the wilderness, and stay there alone
until God should show him how to begin his work.
The same wild, broken, thinly-peopled country which
forms " the wilderness of Judea," on the western side of
the Dead Sea, extends north of Jericho, along the valley
of the Jordan, and is there marked by barren and rugged
mountains of white limestone. One of these, north-west
140

Jesus in the Desert.

JESUS IN THE DESERT. 143

of Jericho, to the left of the road in going down from Jeru
salem, a steep mountain which rises some fifteen hundred
feet above the plain, has been fixed upon by some as the
place to which Jesus now went ; and, in reference to his fast
of forty days, it is called Quarantania. Of course we cannot
know the very spot in the wilderness at which this scene ' of
his life took place ; but it was certainly in that lone and
dreary region along the valley of the Lower Jordan. Mark
says that he was " with the wild beasts ; " in a place remote
from the dwellings of men, and where the wildness and
loneliness of nature were broken only by the roaring of
beasts of prey. Here he was exposed to physical perils
and fears, without the comfort of human sympathy. As
he heard the beasts prowling around the cave in which he
slept, he must have known that most painful feeling of
loneliness and danger by night.
Yet Jesus was so absorbed with spiritual things, so taken
up with prayer and with thoughts of God and of his new
work, that he was not lonesome, and hardly felt the want
of natural food. There are cases on record of persons who
have gone for more than forty days without eating or
drinking ; l and we know that a great sorrow or a great joy,
or any strong excitement of the nerves, will cause one to
forget his bodily wants. Indeed, we hardly know the full
power of will or spirit over the body, either to subdue or
1 See note at the end of this chapter.

144 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
to sustain it. It was certainly possible for Jesus to have
been so lifted up and strengthened by his spiritual feelings
and desires, that through all these days he literally " did
eat nothing." 1 But the story does not require us to take
this literally ; for it is said of John that " he came neither
eating nor drinking : " 2 he did not depend, like other men,
upon regular food, but "lived upon locusts and wild honey "
that he picked up in the wilderness. And so this fasting
of Jesus may mean only that he lived without regular
and sufficient food, picking up such roots and berries as he
might find in the wilderness, never tasting bread or meat
for forty days.3 This would answer to the idea of fasting
as often given in the Bible, and to the word used by Mat
thew. But, if we take Luke's words to mean that he really
did eat nothing at all, then we may fall back upon the
power of the spirit, when in a state of ecstasy, to hold in
check the appetites of the body, so that these hardly come
into mind.
It is, of course, easy to say that this fasting of Jesus was
a miracle ; that he was kept alive without food, by the
special power of God. But the Evangelists do not speak of
the fasting as a miracle ; and why should we ? Here is a
case for the caution given in Chapter VII., — not to invent a
miracle to explain a difficulty, when the Bible itself does
1 Luke iv. 2. 2 Matt. xi. 18.
8 Forty is often used in the Bible as a round number ; as we now say
" a dozen," or " twenty."

JESUS IN THE DESERT. 145
not present the fact as supernatural. This would tend to
lessen the authority of real miracles, when the Bible does set
these before us to command our faith. Now, the Bible gives
us good reasons for not supposing that the fasting of Jesus
was a miracle. Matthew and Mark say that " angels minis
tered unto him ; " but this was not till after he had fasted
for forty days, and had resisted the Tempter alone, and in
the faintness of his hunger. The Apostle Paul teaches that
" in all things " Jesus was " made like unto his brethren,
that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest," —
might have a real and tender sympathy with us ; " for in
that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to
succor them that are tempted." x Now, Jesus was not like
us, did not feel as we do, did not suffer as we do, if in his
temptation he was all the while kept up by miraculous
power. We have no such power given nor promised to us
to resist hunger, or any other form of trial or suffering ; and
therefore what Jesus did by miracle could give no example
nor aid to us who cannot hope for miracles in our behalf.
If this scene in the wilderness was all a miracle, we could
look upon it with wonder and reverence ; but we could not
look to it for help and strength. But we can look to the
Spirit of God to help us to overcome weakness, temptation,
and evil ; and if, in his great temptation, Jesus is set before
us truly, as a man fighting with the Devil by this same help
i Heb. ii. 17, 18.

146 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
of the Spirit of God, then we can look to him for sympathy
and aid. And this, again, is what Paul teaches : "for we
have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the
feeling of our infirmities ; but was in all points tempted like
as we are, yet without sin." 1 At the first, the mind of Jesus
was so filled with what he was to do in the world, and with
the feeling that he was the Son of God, that even "the want
of bodily food was forgotten, as in a dream, when the spirit
seems to move and act without the body. The warmth of
the climate in the dry season made it safe for him to sleep
in the open air : yet he had no bed but the naked rock, or
the hard floor of some mountain cave, with a stone for his
pillow. After thirty years of waiting in his humble home, Jesus
felt that the time had come for him to show himself as the
teacher and the Saviour of the world. We remember, that,
at the age of twelve, the feeling that he was the Son of
God was so strong in him that he then wanted to " be about
his Father's business." From that time he had lived quietly
in Joseph's shop and at Mary's side, waiting for the day
when he should begin in public the great work for which
he knew he had been sent into the world ; but, now that the
Spirit had declared him to be " the Son of God," he felt that
he must enter in earnest upon his Father's business, and
make it his meat and his drink to do the will of Him that
i Heb. iv. 15.

JESUS IN THE DESERT. 147
sent him.1 But how to begin was the question. We have
seen what a fever the people were in about the Messiah ;
how they were running after John the Baptist, expecting
that he would turn out to be the Christ ; and we know that
the Jews were ready for any leader who should promise to
drive out the Romans from their country, and to set up the
kingdom of Israel.
To raise the old flag of Judah as the true heir to the
throne of David ; to take advantage of the restless feeling
of the times ; to bring forward the signs and wonders of
his birth and calling, and the prophecies of his kingdom ;
to draw a crowd of followers, to drill them in the wilder
ness, and then lead them up to take Jerusalem from the
Romans, — all this would have been just what the people
were looking for, and would have liked, in their Messiah ;
and this might have been done suddenly with some show
of success. No doubt Jesus thought of this while school
ing himself in the desert to the slow and patient work of
founding a kingdom of truth and love by preaching and
by suffering. The very air was full of suggestions and
occasions for one who felt himself to be the Messiah to
make himself king. And, while every thing was ripe for
such a move, the Devil tried to tempt Jesus to make a bold
stroke for the favor of the people, by showing off his power
as " the Son of God." 1 John iv. 34.

148 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
First the Tempter assailed him through hunger, which,
after so many days of suspense, now suddenly seized upon
him with terrible pangs. Men who have suffered hunger in
the desert, or by shipwreck, or in times of famine, say that
the craving after food is as if some living creature was
gnawing at the stomach ; and at last this makes the sufferer
as fierce as a tiger to devour any thing that may come in
his way. In the siege of Paris, in 1871, dogs, cats, rats,
were eaten by the starving people ; in the famine in Persia,
in 1872, not only these, but toads and serpents, and even
corpses, were devoured ; and, in the siege of Jerusalem under
Titus, it is said that mothers ate the dead bodies of their
children. As Jesus, famishing for bread, hunted among
the rocks for something to stay the craving of his stomach,
or, fainting from weakness, lay down upon the bare ground,
ready to die of hunger, the Tempter put these thoughts into
his head : " Are you not the Son of God ? Have you not
felt this since you were twelve years old? And, on the
day of your baptism, did not a voice from heaven declare
this to you and John ? Why should the Son of God die
of hunger ? Has he not power over every thing in the
world? Can he not work a miracle to save his life? Or
is there, after all, a mistake ? How easy it would be to
prove what has been said! If thou be the Son of God,
command that these stones be made bread." Thus did
Satan work upon the feelings of Jesus, as he lay there
weak, weary, suffering, helpless with hunger.

JESUS IN THE DESERT. 149
But, if Jesus was the Son of God, he had come into the
world to live as a man, and to show men how to live ; and
the first duty of a son was obedience to his father. He
remembered how it is written in the Scriptures, " Man shall
not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth
out of the mouth of God." To make food for himself by
working a miracle, would be to distrust the providence of
God in caring for him as a weak and needy man. Other
men could not turn stones into bread to save themselves
from starving ; and, if he would be the teacher and leader
of men, then as a man Jesus must stand in his lot, and
show an example of patience under suffering. Besides, to
satisfy our bodily wants, is not the chief thing for which
we should live. The wants of the mind and of the soul
are far higher and nobler ; and though the body must be
rightly cared for, and kept in health, and we must eat and
drink and sleep if we would be in the best condition to
think, or even to pray, yet we must learn to subdue, the
most pressing wants of nature to what seems to be our duty
to God, and so make it our meat and drink to do the will
of our Father in heaven. Thus Jesus taught us that to
suffer hunger, and meekly to wait for God to send relief,
v looking to our Father to give us our daily bread, was far
better than to set up our own pride or self-will in relieving
ourselves without looking to God, and by a selfish use of
means and powers given for quite another purpose.

150 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
The Tempter now put it into the mind of Jesus to show
himself as the Son of God by making a display of his
power before the crowds who were always gathered around
the temple at Jerusalem. The people were expecting their
Messiah to appear in some strange and startling way, and
were looking for " a sign from heaven." What if he should
go and plant himself upon the highest point of the
temple, — where he must soon draw the notice of crowds
in the courts of the building and in the streets of .the city,
— and then, while all were gazing, should suddenly sail
down among them through the air! Had not God said,
"He shall give his angels charge concerning thee; and in
their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou
dash thy foot against a stone " ? J and could he not trust
such a promise in the very act of showing the people that
the Son of God had come to set up his kingdom ? What
a sensation such an appearance would make ! How imme
diate would be its effect in rallying the people around the
standard of their new king ! Yes : but this would be a
kingdom of outward show, not of inward spiritual power ;
men would run after Jesus with proud huzzas, instead of
following him with humble hearts ; they would be looking
after wonders, instead of mending their ways. God had
not sent him to set up such a kingdom ; and though he
could trust God to protect him in any danger, to deliver
1 Ps. xci. 11, 12.

JESUS IN THE DESERT. 151
him in any trouble, it was also written, " Thou shalt not
tempt the Lord thy God." 1 We may not presume upon
God's taking care of us when we rush into danger without
cause, or for the sake of showing how far we can venture
upon providence. A bridge built by the laws that God
has written in nature will bear a railway train safe across
the chasm of Niagara ; but, if Blondin chooses blindfold to
drive a wheelbarrow across on a single wire, he must not
look for the hand of God to lead him, and keep him from
tumbling into the abyss. We can trust God to take care
of us in doing whatever he fairly requires us to do, though
this be to stand in a furnace of fire, or to lie down in a
den of lions ; but we may not take upon ourselves to violate
the laws of God, even for making a show of our confidence
in him, and then expect him to reach forth his hand, and
save us from the consequences of our temerity. So Jesus
taught us to do nothing rashly, even in God's name ; but to
seek to do God's will in God's own way. It is the golden
motto of faith, Thou shalt always trust, but never tempt, the
Lord thy Grod.
It takes hard knocks to drive the Dev.il away. He had
kept back his best card ; and, though twice repelled, he grew
the more presumptuous, or perhaps the more desperate.
From the higher points of the wilderness in which Jesus
then was, he could look eastward toward the seat of those
1 Deut. vi. 16.

152 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
great empires, which under the names of Assyria, Babylon,
Parthians, and Medes, had filled so large a space in the
history of the world ; southward, where Arabia and Egypt,
by letters, science, wealth, and dominion, had made them
selves a lasting name ; westward, where the land of Pales
tine, then a province of Rome, would remind him how that
empire was stretching its all-conquering, all-grasping arms
across every sea, to every land. And now there came to
him the thought of a world-wide empire, more vast and
splendid than Alexander had dreamed of owning, and had
died in winning. But here Satan unmasked his character
and purpose. Himself the god of ambition, the ambitious
must serve him ; himself the god of this world, those who
seek worldly power and grandeur must pay homage to him ;
and, as the vision of " all the kingdoms of the world and
the glory of them " passed before the imagination of Jesus,
Satan said, " All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt
fall down and worship me." L Jesus saw that such thoughts
were of the Devil ; though his own eye or imagination was
the screen on which they were painted, the drawing, the
coloring, were from the hand of the Tempter. To possess
such an empire, to wield such power, to have such a name !
Ah, but this would be to abandon the very kingdom of
God which he had been sent to establish. Filled with holy
anger, Jesus turned upon the Tempter, and said, " Get thee
iMatt. iv. 9.

JESUS IN THE DESERT. 153
hence, Satan ; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord
thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." And the Devil
left him.
How the Devil came and went, Jesus did not tell his
disciples, when he gave them the story of his temptation ;
or at least the Evangelists are silent about it.
The Bible teaches that there is a real, living spirit of
evil, of vast powers of mischief, called Satan, the Devil, the
Tempter, the "Father of lies." It represents him as able to
act upon the minds of men, by suggesting thoughts and
imaginations, and inciting feelings and desires. But though
the Bible speaks of Satan as a personal spirit, thus acting in
some way upon the human spirit, it does not describe him as
having any shape visible to men. No such appearance is
spoken of here ; and we are left to suppose that Satan acted
upon the mind of Jesus, just as he acts upon other men,
through physical longings and necessities, through visions,
imaginations, fancies, hopes, and fears. As was said above,
it is this that makes the temptation of such value as a lesson
to us ; for in these three temptations, addressed to the bodily
appetites and desires, to the pride of display, and to the
love of power, Jesus was " in all points tempted like as we
are, yet without sin ; " l and hence he is able to help us
when we are tempted, by his example, his sympathy, his
spirit of grace and truth. 1 Heb. iv. 15.

154 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
Weak and faint as he was with fasting, this inward
struggle must have left Jesus weaker and fainter still. But
he had struggled and prevailed as a man, as all men must
struggle and prevail, by prayer and by the word of God ;
and this conflict and victory brought him to so high a frame
of pious feeling, that to his spiritual vision the air was now
filled with angels who came to minister to him,1 — not,
indeed, with earthly food, such as the ravens had brought
to Elijah in that same wilderness, but with such assurances
of his Father's love and approval, as were to his soul the
bread of heaven, and the water of life. Thus comforted
and strengthened he returned to the outer world, to eat and
drink, to teach and work, to go freely among men in all
conditions of temptation and of sin, that he might impart
to them the inner life of faith, and turn them " from the
power of Satan unto God."
Note on Living without Food. — That in certain forms of
disease, and especially of nervous disease, life may be sustained
for a long period without the taking of nourishment, is well known
to every physician. But how long a healthy person can endure
without nourishment of an}r kind, is an unsettled question, depend
ing upon age, race, constitution, and custom. Hippocrates fixed
the outside limit at seven days ; but this is contradicted by many
well-established facts.
On the 8th October, 1835, a man was buried in a coal-mine,
1 Matt. iv. 11.

JESUS IN THE DESERT. 155
at Kilgramie in Ayrshire, and on the twenty-third day after was
got out alive, though during this time he had had no nourishment,
with the exception of a little water, and less than half an ounce
of tobacco. He died, however, in some days after the rescue.
In July, 1825, an artillery-man deserted from Coblenz ; and for
forty-four days he prolonged his life in the woods upon whortle
berries alone. He was found in a very reduced state, and taken to
the hospital, where he was soon restored.1
Death usually ensues much earlier where hunger and thirst act
together. The pain of thirst is sooner felt, and thirst seizes more
strongly upon the whole organism ; so that one who takes a little
water can endure abstinence from solid food much longer than one
who suffers hunger and thirst together. Seven men who were
floating for seventeen days upon an ice-flake in the open sea kept
themselves alive upon nothing but melted sea-ice, and were at last
rescued by the inhabitants of the island of Bornholm.2 Cases are
not infrequent in which healthy men have survived ten, twelve, or
fourteen days without nourishment of any sort ; 3 but there are
also a few cases, well established, of such endurance for a. much
longer period.
A Corsican prisoner by the name of Antomo Viterbi, who was
condemned for murder, resolved to starve himself to death before
1 See Sehmidt's Jahrbiicher, 1836, No. 10, B. XH. H, I, p. 58, for
these two cases.
2 Hiifeland: Journ.' d. pr. Heilk., March, 1811, p. 116. See also in
Henke's Zeitschrift fur die Staatsatzeneikuode, 1-837, p. 358 ; article by
Dr. E. Miinchmeyer of Liineburg.
v 8 Griffith : London Med. Joum. vol. xliii.

156 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
. the day set for his execution. From the 2d of December until the
20th, when he died, he took no food whatever. Occasionally he
would wet his mouth ; and twice (on the tenth and the thirteenth
day) he was so overcome by the torments of thirst that he drank
a little water; but, with these slight exceptions, he endured
with unconquerable fortitude the pangs of hunger and thirst for
eighteen days.1
In 1831 a Frenchman by the name of Granien, who was
condemned to be executed at Toulouse, starved himself to death
in prison. Neither persuasion, nor threatening, nor force, could
bring him to take food of any kind, though from time to time he
would take a little water. In this state he lived sixty-three days.2
A woman eighty years old, in the Julius Hospital at Wiirzburg,
for five weeks would take nothing but water, and died at last in
the sixth week.*
A young man, who had resolved to starve himself to death,
lived for twenty-four days without food, taking nothing but about
two quarts of water daily.
As a rule, persons who are laboring under some mental
disturbance with which the body sympathizes can hold out longer
without sustenance than one in a healthy condition of body and
mind. A remarkable case is reported by the General-surgeon Gerlach
of Koenigsberg, of a musketeer, Jerome Tuskewitz by name, who
1 Medical Jurisprudence, by Paris and Foublanque, vol. ii. 69-73.
London, 1823.
2 Henke's Lehrb. d. gericht Med., 482.
8 Huf eland's Journ. , 17 vol. 2.

JESUS IN THE DESERT. 157

cut off the index-finger and two joints of the forefinger of his
right hand in order to escape military duty. He was believed
to be a little out of his head. While in the hospital, he was
so filled with the terror of punishment after his recovery, that he
resolved to starve himself to death. Two or three times he was
persuaded to take nourishment by the assurance that he should
not be punished ; but his fear came back, and at last he persisted
in starving himself until, he died. He was in the hospital four
months ; and during this time there were only twenty-four clays
on which he took any food ; and finally he went for thirty days
without nourishment.1
In 1824 a man living on the Rhine, in Germany, attempted to
cure a disease of the eyes by protracted fasting. For forty-seven
days he took no kind of solid food ; for four weeks of this period
he took only pure water, with the exception of four cups of weak
tea without milk.2 For other cases, consult the following
authorities upon hunger : —
De Fame; Dissertatio: JEmilius Nehmer, 1846. Archives
generates de Medecine, t. xxvii. Two cases of suicide by starv
ing : one died on the sixtieth, the other on the sixty-third day.
Henke: Zeitschrift fur die Staatsarzeneikunde. Traite de
Medecine Legale, par F. J. Fodere, vol. ii. Paris., 1813.
Lehrbuch der juristischen Medicin, von Orfila, uebersetzt von
Dr. Gust. Knipp. 2 Band. Leipzig, 1849.
Reynolds : Discourse upon Prodigious Abstinence. London,
1 Essays of Edinburg: see M.v. p. 11.
2 Dessen and Von Grafe's Journal, vol. xxi. part 3.

158 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
1669. See Bibliotheque raisonnee de I'Europe, 1747, vol. xxxix.
p. 248.
Haller: Physiolog., B. vi.
Percival: Med. Essays, vol. ii. 1790.
Egron: Considerations sur 1' Abstinence ; Theses de Paris,
1815, No. 22. Pourcy : L' Abstinence de 1809, No. 285. Theses,
1818, No. 84. Savigny : Observation sur les Effects de la Faim ;
Naufrage de la Meduse.
Hufeland's Journal, 1819, B. xlviii, No. 3, p. 95.
Piorry : De 1' Abstinence, Arch, de Med. 1830. Collard de Mar-
tigny : Recherches and Journ. de Physiolog. de Magendie, B.S.S.
152-210.

CHAPTER XV.
JESUS BEGINS HIS "WORK.
While Jesus was in the desert, John continued preaching
and baptizing at the Jordan, and was still attended by a
crowd of followers. Between the Jordan and Jerusalem,
and all the country round about, people kept coming and
going in a constant stream. Of course the greater part
returned to their homes soon after being baptized ; but some
remained with John, to hear what more he had to say about
the new kingdom, and thinking that, after all, he might turn
out to be the Christ. To these disciples he made known all
that he knew about Jesus, and so prepared them to follow
him as the real Christ, as soon as he should appear. John
must have wondered where Jesus had gone after his baptism,
and why he hid himself so long ; for it is not likely that
any one knew where he was during those forty days : yet
John himself had spent so much time in solitude, that he
could well understand how Jesus might love to be alone in
prayer before beginning to preach. Besides, John already
had such a reverence for Jesus that he did not for a moment
159

160 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
question any of his doings, as " the Son of God." The
first thing that Jesus did, after his victory over Satan, was
to go and look up John where he had left him, on the other
side of the river ; but he went so quietly that no one noticed
him, Until John pointed him out to a few of his own disci
ples. What had happened to him iii the desert he kept as
a secret of his own heart, until in after-days he confided it
to his chosen friends, as a token of his sympathy with men
in their temptations ; but John was already taught to look
upon him as the Saviour of men from their sins. Jesus had
found a home in the neighborhood; and every day he might
be seen walking to and fro on the bank of the river, watch
ing the people who came to John, and no doubt feeling
compassion for them as they caught at every word or act
that seemed to promise them a part in the kingdom of the
Messiah : yet he said nothing, did nothing, to draw attention
to himself, but waited for the first gentle opportunity of
revealing his own grace and truth.
One day, as he was thus walking, two of John's disciples,
hearing their master speak the praises of Jesus, followed him
along the bank of the river, intending to find out where he
lived : as the custom then was, by thus following him to his
home, they would show their desire to become his disciples.
Hearing their footsteps, Jesus turned, and said to them,
" What seek ye ? " Though their hearts were full of the
hope that he would make himself known as the Messiah,

JESUS BEGINS HIS "WORK. 161
they kept back the feeling that was uppermost, and, in a
modest and respectful way, inquired of Jesus where he
lived, calling him rabbi, or master, and thus acknowledging
him as a teacher or a prophet. Jesus at once invited them
to go with him to the house ; and there they spent the whole
day, listening to the first lessons of truth given by the Son
of God. One of these two was the brother of that Simon
who became so prominent among the disciples of Christ ;
and this Andrew showed at the very first his loving and
confiding character by running to look up his brother, telling
him, "We have found the Christ,"1 and bringing him to
Jesus. Upon seeing Simon, Jesus gave him the name of
Cephas, or Peter, — " the rock," — by which he was always
afterwards known. The third disciple was, no doubt,
John, the writer of the Gospel, who modestly withholds his
name. What passed between those four plain men, in that little
stone hut near the Jordan, no one- of them has told us;
though there was the beginning of that kingdom which
Christ came to establish, — the first gathering of that com
pany of believers in Jesus, which, under the name of the
Church, was destined to fill the whole world with the glory
of its Lord. Four men — three of them fishermen from
the Lake of Tiberias, and their leader a carpenter from the
despised town of Nazareth — there talked together of John
1 John i. 41. i

162 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
and his baptism, of the " kingdom of heaven " which he had
declared to be " at hand," of the " way of the Lord " which
was now to be "made ready." But eager as these first
recruits were to enlist for their new leader, and under his
banner to rally their countrymen to the kingdom of the
Messiah, Jesus did not announce himself as the Christ, nor
give out any proclamation or promise, such as the Jews
were looking for from their king. His first object was to
attract men to himself, to his own person, through his life
and teaching; and, so fully did he impress himself upon
these early followers by the talk of that first day, that
John, Andrew, and Peter continued with him to the day of
his death, and then became the faithful apostles of his gospel.
For the opening of his ministry, Jesus did not choose
Jerusalem, which was nearat hand, nor the crowded scene
where John was baptizing, though by coming out as the
Messiah he could soon have made a great stir in either place ;
but he went back quietly to the remote northern district
of Galilee, where his own home lay at Nazareth. Just as
he was starting, he secured two other disciples, thus increas
ing the number to five. Philip was a townsman of Andrew
and Peter ; and, as soon as he had an invitation from Jesus
to join the party, he followed him, with the full belief that
in this son of Joseph he had found "him of whom Moses in
the law, and the prophets, did write." 1
1 John i. 45.

JESUS BEGINS HIS "WORK. 163
Before starting, he hurried to find his friend Nathanael,
and urged him to go along. But Nathanael was slow to
admit that a man who had spent his whole life in a place that
bore so bad a name as Nazareth, and who came from a family
so obscure, could be the subject of those great and glorious
prophecies. With doubt and astonishment he exclaimed,
" Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth ? " l Philip
gave him the best possible answer, " Come and see : " do
not judge before you know ; and do not suffer your preju
dice against the place to keep you from inquiring, and
satisfying yourself with your own eyes concerning this
wondrous person.
Nathanael was a candid man, and had the reputation of
great honesty and sincerity. As he drew near with Philip,
Jesus said, " Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no
guile." Astonished at hearing his own character thus
described by a stranger, Nathanael asked, " Whence knowest
thou me ? " Jesus answered, " Before that Philip called
thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee." Here
was another startling fact. This stranger not only knew all
about him, but knew just where he had been, and what he
was doing. And now this cautious but candid man, seeing
that he was read through and through, felt that Philip
was right in saying that this was the Christ, and himself
went even further, and confessed that such powers and
1 John i. 46.

164 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
wonders showed a divine presence in Jesus. " Rabbi," he
said, " thou art the Son of God ; thou art the King of
Israel." To such a faith, Jesus at once promised far greater
wonders : " Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye
shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and
descending upon the Son of man." 1
It shows how strong an impression Jesus had already
made upon these followers, that they received without sur
prise this announcement of the glory of his mission, and of
the interest that Heaven would show in his person. When
two of these five saw the heaven opened above him on the
mount, when again these saw the angels come to succor him
in the garden, and finally when they all beheld him ascend
from Bethany into the open heaven, they could remember
these words, and measure their meaning. Yet for us also it
remains true, as Luther has said, that " when Christ became
man, and had entered on his ministerial office, and begun to
preach, then was the heaven opened, and remains open, and
has from that time — since the baptism of Christ in the
Jordan — never been shut, and never will be shut, although
we do not see it with our bodily eyes."
How much Nathanael meant by calling him the " Son of
God," we cannot tell ; for this was a title given by the Jews
to their Messiah, as one sent from God, without always
meaning that he was divine. Jesus said nothing about this ;
1 John i. 51.

Thb Fibst Disciples.

JESUS BEGINS HIS "WORK. 167
did not refuse the title, quietly accepted it ; but he chose to
make himself one with us by calling himself, from the very
first, " the Son of man.'' And here was the beginning of
that kingdom of heaven which the prophets had foretold
with such pictures of glory, and John had announced with
such a stirring call to repent. Here was the appearing of
the Christ, the Saviour, the Son of David, the Son of man,
the Son of God ; and such the homage and the following
which he drew to himself, — six plain, poor men, one
known as the carpenter, and five fishermen, — setting out
on foot for a journey of seventy miles to a country village
that every Jew, even these fishermen themselves, despised,
there to begin a work that all the ages since have not been
able to measure or exhaust.
But how was it that Jesus drew these first, disciples to
him so easily? He did not offer them riches or honors ; for
he had not these to give. He did not hold out the promise
of a kingdom in which they should have the chief places ;
and he had nothing of this sort to show. Besides, John had
not pointed him out as a king who had come to conquer,
but as a Lamb that was to take away the sins of the world.
There was nothing in the outward condition or prospects
of Jesus to tempt men to follow him in the hope of gain
ing any thing, either for their purses, their power, or their
pride. But, on the other hand, these men were not idlers, who

168 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
were ready to run after any new thing that might come
along, or to take up with a strange leader in religion or in
politics. They were men who earned their living by hard
work, and had no time to waste in running after novelties ;
and, as their lives afterwards show us, they were men of
good common-sense and of honest feeling.
From what they said about Jesus to one another, it is
plain they were full of the notion, then so common in
Judea, that the Messiah was soon to appear. With this
feeling they had come with the crowd to see and hear John
the Baptist; and their pious feelings were so deep and
strong that they had staid with John to learn more fully his
doctrine of the Messiah. Now, John had been brought up
by his parents in the belief that his cousin Jesus would some
day show himself to be the Christ ; and this belief was made
certain to him by what took place at the baptism of Jesus.
All this he had talked over with these disciples. And so,
with their eager expectation of the Messiah, their confidence
in John led them to take Jesus as their teacher as soon as
he was pointed out. Jesus did not attempt to take the
place of John, to set him aside, and to claim his disciples.
He made no kind of display ; but, as was before said, he
sought to win men one by one to his person, to attach them
to himself, and not to gather a party by the offer of tempt
ing rewards. And by what we learn of Jesus afterwards as
a teacher, from his words that have come down to us, we

JESUS BEGINS HIS "WORK. 169
can well believe that what he said to these disciples in that
long day's talk in the house together, and his whole manner
of receiving them, must have attracted them to himself as
the very centre and source of the wisdom, truth, and love
which he had come to proclaim.

CHAPTER XVI.
HOW" DID JESUS LOOK?
But above all this, and as giving tone to all that Jesus
said and did, there must have been in his countenance a
beauty and dignity, a grace and majesty, that gave the
impression of something extraordinary, if not supernatural,
in his person and character. No picture of Christ, no
description even of his personal appearance, has come down
to us from any one who had looked upon his face. There
is a story that Luke was a painter, as well as a physician,
and that he took a portrait of Jesus, which was copied and
handed down, and became the model head of Christian art.
But f here is no evidence that Luke ever made a picture of
his Master ; and nowhere in his Gospel does he give so much
as a hint of his personal appearance. It would be impossible
to combine in one portrait and one expression all the various
traits that we find in the character of Jesus : yet we may
form some idea of him if we set before us the most perfect
type of the pure Jewish race as it then was in Syria, — a
man of medium height, finely proportioned, his figure well
170

HOW DID JESUS LOOK? 171

developed by physical labor and by life in the open air, the
hands and feet, however, small and graceful ; his complexion
light and clear ; the forehead broad and high, and projecting
with lines of strength and beauty ; the profile oval ; the nose
slightly aquiline ; the eyes a liquid blue ; the mouth small
and gently curved ; the lips thin, and playing with smiles or
with sympathy, but easily compressed to firmness ; the hair
auburn, inclining toward a golden hue, especially in the
beard, which was full and flowing.
But the character of his face lay in its expression, which
combined in a wondrous degree, beauty and majesty,
sympathy and strength, tenderness and dignity. There
was something marvellous in his eyes, that fascinated little
children, and drew them to his arms without fear ; that
caused the poor, the sick, the sorrowing, to look to him with
confidence as a friend ; that led even the worst of sinners to
trust in his compassion ; and yet that caused the Pharisees
to quail under his anger, the mob to make way for him to
pass through unharmed, the soldiers to fall to the ground
before him in Gethsemane, Peter to tremble and weep with
shame and remorse, and the penitent thief to believe on him
as the Lord of Paradise. Those blue eyes, as clear and
gentle as the sky of his native Syria, as deep and tranquil
as the lake he so much loved, yet, like the sky, capable of
sudden flashes of lightning, like the lake, of sudden bursts
of storm ; eyes welling over with sympathy at every sight

172 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
of human sorrow, glistening with pity for the ignorant and
the erring, beaming with grace for the poor, for the weak,
for the penitent, but with a lurking indignation for the
covetous and the proud ; eyes that, through all changes of
expression, from their inmost depth steadily reflected the
awful yet attractive purity of a holy love, — these eyes were
the visible, speaking Christ, the person and the power of the
Son of man, in which they who were pure in heart might
even see God..

CHAPTER XVII.

THE WEDDING SURPRISE.

The disciples of Jesus had faith enough to follow him ;
though they must have wondered that he went to Nazareth
rather than to Jerusalem, and took them to a carpenter's
shop instead of the synagogue or the temple. They had
seen and heard enough to lead them to expect a great deal
more. From what John had told them, and what Jesus had
said and done, they believed they had found the Christ;
but what next ? Where were his signs from heaven ?
Where was his kingdom ? If Jesus had taken them into
the desert, and proposed to set up a convent on the spot
where he had conquered Satan, and there to gather an
order of hermits, or a school of prophets, in support of his
doctrine and cause, these men, who had left their work and
their homes to follow John the Baptist, would not have
hesitated to follow him. Indeed, this would have seemed to
them like the return of the prophet Elijah, for which the
Jews were looking ; and they had an example of this sort
of religious reform in the Essenes, who had their convents
in the desert north-west of the Dead Sea. 173

174 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
The idea of this really pious brotherhood was, that holi
ness was to be gained by being very strict in keeping the
law, by devoting one's self entirely to the service of God,
by giving up marriage, family life, and the business of the
world, and going into the desert to spend one's days in
fasting and prayer. They lived in communities, having all
property and all labor in common. They dressed alike, and
lived very simply. When they went abroad, it was for
works of kindness to the sick and the poor. But Jesus did
not join the Essenes. He had just spent forty days alone
in the wilderness in communion with God ; but this was to
prepare himself for going among men as their Teacher and
Helper, and not to teach men to follow him into the desert.
If he had set up a monastery, a place to which men must go
in order to live pious lives, how slowly must his religion
have spread in the world ! how few could have . complied
with this condition ! and, just as far as men became Chris
tians, human life would have come to a standstill ; family,
home, business, every thing, being given up in order to
be religious. But Jesus had quite another doctrine- and
purpose for his religion. He would carry its spirit into
the family, the school, the shop, the counting-room, the
exchange ; and would make the world better by teaching
men how to live better in the world as it is. And so while
his disciples were looking for him to start for Jerusalem,
and there to set up his kingdom, he took them with him to

THE WEDDING SURPRISE. 175
a marriage ; and there at a wedding-party, in the midst of
a gay company, he manifested himself as the Christ. This
was as much a surprise to his disciples as to the other
guests. But what a lovely view it gives us of the character
of Jesus, and of the nature of his religion, that he made his
first appearance as the great Prophet at this social festival,
and used his wondrous power in making the entertainment
pass off as pleasantly as possible !
Whoever he may have been as the Son of God, he began
his ministry as a man full of all human sympathies ; and,
whatever of sadness and sorrow may have weighed upon
him through the sins of the world, he would counteract this
not by separating himself and his followers from the world,
but by carrying his presence and his religion into the family
and society with a cheerful tone and a living power. Far
from separating religion from happiness, or making happi
ness consist only in direct acts of religion, Jesus enjoyed
the happiness of others, entered into their feelings, and
added to their pleasures by his gifts.
Just over the hills to 'the north of Nazareth, about seven
miles distant, was the little village of Cana, where the
mother of Jesus had relatives ; and it was at their house
that Jesus first came out openly as the Messiah. There was
a wedding in the family ; and Mary was sent for to assist in
entertaining the company. The servants all knew her, and
took their orders from her as from the mistress of the house.

176 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
Jesus was invited to the wedding, and also his disciples who
had followed him home to Nazareth. A Jewish wedding
was a time of great rejoicing to all the friends and neighbors
of the parties. The bridegroom and his friends, with music,
torches, and flowers, led the bride from her father's house to
the house of the groom or his father, where feasting and
merry-making went on sometimes for several days. At the
principal supper some person of note among the guests sat
at the head of the company, and presided over the feast. In
the entrance of the house, or at the lower end of the dining-
hall, there were always large jars filled with water for
washing the hands of the guests, and for other ceremonies
that the Jews went through with before eating. It is likely
that these relatives of Mary were poor ; for their marriage-
feast appears to have lasted only one day, and the wine gave
out before the supper was over. Mary was told of this, and
was anxious to save her friends the mortification of having
the guests discover it. She came and told Jesus, plainly
supposing that he could do something to avoid this trouble.
This feeling on her part was the natural expression of that
faith which she had nursed in secret for thirty years. She
knew that at his baptism the Spirit had declared him to be
the Son of God ; she knew that he had been in the desert
to make ready for his work ; she had seen his disciples, and
heard what they had to say about him and his kingdom ;
and her lifelong faith in him as the child of so many won-

THE "WEDDING SURPRISE. 179
ders and promises, and of such piety and devotion, rose to
the sublime conviction that he could do all things. Perhaps
she betrayed too much eagerness as a mother to have Jesus
show himself to be something wonderful ; perhaps she even
seemed to dictate her wishes as the will of Providence : for
some reason Jesus restrained her with a tone of dignity,
though using the same respectful and serious address with
which he afterwards gave his parting word from the cross.
As in the temple, he felt once more that even the wishes
and commands of an earthly parent must give place to the
will of his Father in heaven. Then he was eager to begin
his Father's work : now he did not feel that the time was
ripe for him to act out his heavenly calling ; and he would
not do this for curiosity, nor at the bidding of any one else.
But his mother was possessed with the feeling that he
would show himself to be the Son of God ; and though she
did not further press him to what her heart so longed for,
yet, believing in him with all her heart, she told the servants
to do whatever he might say to them. A while after, Jesus
told them to " fill the water-pots with water ; and they filled
them up to the brim." J Thus, far, all was natural. It was
natural that Mary should have great expectations from such
a son; natural that she should seek to draw him out;
natural that the servants should acknowledge her authority,
and obey her command ; natural that, when told to do so,
1 John ii. 7.

180 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
they should fill the empty water-jars as full as they could
hold. These waiting-men certainly had no connection with
Jesus : they were not his disciples, not even his servants.
They filled the jars this time, precisely as they had .filled
them a hundred times before, — with water brought from
the fountain where all the neighbors went for their supply.
But now came a marvellous surprise. At the command of
Jesus, these same servants drew off cups from the jars, into
which they had just poured water ; and, behold, it was wine !
They took this to the head of the table, not saying where
they had got it ; and he, on tasting it, found it such good
wine, that he sent for the bridegroom, and praised him for its
excellence. It was the custom to serve the best wines first,
and to follow these with wines of a poorer sort ; but, so fine
was the flavor of this, that the president of the feast said,
" Thou hast kept the good wine until now." The bride
groom was as much surprised at the compliment as his guest
was at the wine. He had just now been in trouble because
the wine was giving out, and had no idea where this new
supply had come from. Of course, in a few moments it was
noised about how the water had been turned into wine ; and
everybody was filled with wonder. Jesus had " manifested
forth his glory. " l Yes, indeed; and such glory ! — the power
of spirit over matter, of his personal will over all created
things. On that point there could be no mistake. He had
1 Johnii. 11.

THE "WEDDING SURPRISE. 181
not touched the jars, had put nothing into them, had not
been near them, had not even first tasted what the servants
drew from them. To make wine, grapes must be grown with
care, must ripen in the sun, must be gathered and pressed ;
then the juice must ferment, and be allowed to settle,
and grow clear and pure. But what thus requires months
of care and work and skill, was here done in an instant, —
done by a mere thought, an act of will, without so much as
the moving of a hand. Between such a cause and such an
effect there could be no natural connection. This was a
power above all known natural causes and operations, a
power above mere human reach, a power which could come
only from God. Yet to Jesus this was just as easy and
natural as for his mother to speak to him, as for the servants
to put the water into the jars. It was in and of his nature
to perform such wonders ; it was simply • the forth-putting
of his spirit. But the doing of such things showed him to
be the person that the angels had promised at his birth, —
Emmanuel, God with us.
Yet in this very act of divinity he linked himself most
tenderly with our human nature; and, however we may
wonder and adore before this manifestation of the glory of
Jesus, we will not forget that he made it in the bosom of
the family, and at the marriage-feast. The glory of God
came to hallow and enrich the joys of men : the Son of God
is still the Son of Mary, and goes from house to house as a

182 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
guest and a friend. And if we will but fill ourselves with
his Spirit, so as to feel his presence, he will be the guest of
every feast, the joy of every home, will turn the most com
mon wants of the household into occasions of his power and
grace, will manifest himself in the bread we break and the
cup we drink, and will throw around the most tender and
lovely scenes of earth the blessing and the glory of heaven.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE WHIP.

This scene of peace and love was followed by one of
commotion and anger. Jesus, who just now appeared as
the guest and friend participating in the innocent gayeties
of life, is seen in the temple laying the whip upon the
shoulders of those about him, and driving men and beasts
out of the courts. This made a great stir, and came near
raising a mob. Why did he do so ? And how could he do
so without being seized by the guardians of the temple, or
resisted by the men whom he handled so roughly ?
The temple at Jerusalem was " the house of the Lord,"
the sacred place of worship for the whole Jewish nation.
The main building was too sacred even for the Jews them
selves to enter. In the central part of it a room thirty feet
square was the " Holy of Holies," which none but the high
priest could approach, and he only once a year. Here were
once kept the ark and the tables of the covenant, the golden
censer, the golden pot of manna, and "Aaron's rod that
budded ; " 1 here, too, was the mercy-seat with the cherubim
1 Heb. ix. 4. 183

184 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
of glory; and in front of all was the "veil," or curtain,
which was torn into two parts by the earthquake at the time
of Christ's crucifixion. Before the Holy of Holies was the
Holy Place, sixty feet by thirty, where stood the altar of
incense, the table of show-bread, and the golden candlestick.
In front of this, again, was a porch fifteen feet in depth,
much wider and higher than the temple, and the entrance
to which was by a magnificent portal hung with richly
embroidered curtains, over which was a golden vine with
clusters of jewels in the form of grapes. Against the main
building, on the north and south sides, were three stories
of chambers for the priests, and for materials used in
worship. But the roof of the temple rose above these in
the centre, and was adorned with rows of golden spikes.
Before the porch, and running all around the main building,
was a wide court paved with smooth stones. This was the
court of the Israelites ; but it was divided into two parts by
a balustrade ; and the inner part, next to the temple proper,
was for the priests alone. The sides of this court were
lined with porches and halls. In this was the altar for the
burnt offerings, and the laver and other vessels and utensils
for the use of the priests in the sacrifices. All around the
balustrade the Jewish men could stand for worship ; but
women were not allowed to come up the steps to this plat
form. Upon a lower terrace, separated by another balus
trade, was a second court upon all sides of the building, to

The Tempt.k at the Time of Chiust.

the whip. 187

which women were admitted. Here also were halls and
porches for various uses. Below this again, and separated
by another wall, was a wider area, called the Court of the
Gentiles. Here upon all four sides, against the outer walls,
were great colonnades, which were divided into halls for
the Levites and the rabbis. So, in entering the temple, one
would first pass through a gate in the high outside wall, and
cross the covered porch to the first, or outer court, — the
"Court of the Gentiles," — which was open to the sky.
Crossing this, he would come to a high balustrade and a
flight of steps, by the side of which was a warning that no
Gentile should go farther, under penalty of death. Passing
up these steps, he would come to the second court, where
Jewish women, as well as men, were allowed to stand.
Going through another balustrade, and up a second flight of
steps, he would come to the third and fourth courts, really
one area, at the same level, but divided by a low balustrade
into the Court of the Israelites for men alone, and the Court
of the Priests. Crossing this inner court, — the place of the
sacrifices, — he came at last to the sacred building itself ;
first the porch, then the Holy Place, and finally the Holy of
Holies. Such was the building as it stood in the time of Christ, —
a series of terraces, or platforms, rising in all at least forty
feet above the summit of Mount Moriah, from the highest
point of which the temple, built of marble and adorned

188 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
with gold, lifted itself above all its walls, courts, gates, and
porticos, so as to be visible from all parts of the city, and to
catch the eye from almost every point of approach to Jerusa
lem. Every Jew was trained from infancy to look upon the
temple with sacred awe, and to make at least one pilgrimage
every year to this house of the Lord. From all parts of
the land of Palestine, and from all parts of the world where
Jews were living, the tribes came up to their holy city, sing
ing on the way, " Let us go into the house of the Lord.
Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem ! They
shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and
prosperity within thy palaces ! Because of the house of the
Lord our God, I will seek thy good." 1 To cherish this idea
of the sacredness of the temple was most important, not
only for the religious sentiment of the people, but for
keeping alive their national feeling as Jews, especially as
they were scattered among other nations. Nevertheless the
convenience of the worshippers had been allowed to
encroach upon the sacredness of the sanctuary. For the
sacrifices which the law required, sheep, oxen, and doves
must be provided ; and the officers of the temple insisted
that the temple-tax should be paid in the old-fashioned
Jewish shekel, which was no longer coined, and was seldom
to be had in the shops or the markets. Of course people
from the country, who had only Roman money, and those
1 Ps. cxxii.

(6. jism.sc.

Mabket in the Coubt of the Gentiles.

THE "WHIP. 191

coming from Egypt and Asia, who had various foreign coins,
must go to a broker, and buy the Jewish coin with which to
pay their dues. To save time and trouble to strangers, and
also as a source of revenue to the temple, at the great
festivals a market, or fair, was opened in the Court of the
Gentiles ; and here sheep, oxen, and doves were offered for
sale; and money-changers sat at little tables ready to
exchange shekels of the proper stamp and weight for other
kinds of money. This traffic had grown up by degrees.
The buyers were accommodated ; the sellers were sure of
selling quickly and at a good profit ; and the priests got a
good rent for the stalls. No doubt many would argue that
such- business was proper within the temple-walls, because
it was limited to articles used in the temple-worship ; and,
besides, was only allowed in the Court of the Gentiles,
which was hardly considered sacred by the Jews, since
people of other races might enter it. Yet, if this part of the
temple-enclosure should be turned into a market, the Jews
themselves would soon cease to regard the upper courts, or
even the Holy Place, with reverence. The noise of trade,
the lowing of the cattle, the chattering of buyers and sellers,
would rise above the voices of prayer and praise, and would
scatter all feelings of devotion. Children would think of
the place as quite as much of a market as a temple ; and
strangers who were allowed to trade within the walls would
look upon the Jews as caring more for trade than for

192

JESUS OF NAZARETH.

religion. Now, as we learn from the Old Testament, from
the earliest times the prophets were accustomed to use their
authority in the name of the Lord, to reform any abuses in
religion, and to purify the place or the forms of worship
from corruptions. Thus the kings Hezekiah and Josiah,
stirred up by the prophets, cleansed and purified the house
of the Lord. Jeremiah, speaking in the name of the Lord,
asks with indignation, " Is this house, which ye have called
by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?"1
And Ezekiel warns the ministers of the sanctuary to cleanse
it of all abominations.2
Jesus now stood forth as a prophet, speaking in the name
of God ; and, as the people were looking for their Messiah,
this sudden and decided way of clearing the temple would
lead many to ask if this was not the Christ.
Nobody would venture to defend this traffic in the temple :
every one knew at least that it was wrong. And as one
bold, earnest man can sometimes put to shame a crowd who
are bent upon some act of wickedness, and can rule the
passions of a mob by appealing to conscience or to fear, we
can understand how the act, the words, and the manner of
Jesus may have filled these profaners of the temple with the
fear of a judgment from God, and have caused them to
hurry themselves and their goods outside of the temple-gate.
A sort of panic seized them ; and there was no one to take
1 Jer. vii. 11. 2 j^k, xiiv. Q_nm

THE WHIP. 195

their part. As yet Jesus had not wrought miracles in Jeru
salem; but the report of his miracle at Cana had been
spread abroad ; and this was enough to create a feeling of
awe as he stood there with the scourge of justice in his
hand, to purify the place that every Jew knew ought to be
kept holy. But above all this was that majesty of look in
the eyes of Jesus, which was spoken of in Chapter XVI.,
as a source of his sudden and wondrous power over men.
It was his eye, more than his whip, that made the profaners
of the temple quail before him. As he drove out the cattle
with his whip, their owners fled from his look. The by
standers felt a majesty and power in his presence that gave
a divine authority to his words, " Take these hence : make
not my Father's house an house of merchandise." 1
After the first surprise was over, some gathered courage
enough to demand proof of his authority ; or perhaps, having
heard a rumor of his miracle, the3r were curious to see one
for themselves : so they said, " What sign showest thou unto
us, seeing that thou doest these things?" But as Jesus
never would work wonders just to meet the demands of
the curious, or the doubts of the sceptical, so now he
answered them not by a miracle, but by a prophecy:
" Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
To win the favor of the Jews, that odious tyrant, Herod
the Great, had enlarged and rebuilt the temple upon a scale
1 John ii. 16.

196 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
of magnificence that exceeded the glory of Solomon. The
main building was finished by Herod ; but additions to it
were made by his successors, so that it was nearly fifty
years before the work was fairly done. The Jews, thinking
only of the huge walls and columns before them, thought
Jesus must be either trifling or mad, to offer to build the
temple in three days. Even the disciples, who could doubt
nothing that he might say, were not able to give any mean
ing to these mysterious words. But when, three days after
his crucifixion, he rose from the dead, they remembered that
he had said this unto them.1
Thus did Jesus ennoble the human body : first sanctify
ing it by making it a divine abode, the earthly house of the
Son of God ; and next glorifying it by redeeming it from
the grave, and himself returning to the presence of his
Father in the likeness of the Son of man ; a body free
from any defect of nature, and any stain of sin ; a body in
which dwelt all the fulness of God ; a body feeling every
touch and sympathy of our human pains and griefs, yet
which even the wounds of the nails and the spear could not
mar, nor death destroy; the true apotheosis of man, for
which the poetry and art of the Old World, and the science
of the New, have labored, — man no more of the earth
earthy, the temple of the Father, the perfected, enfranchised,
glorified Son of God. 1 John ii. 22.

CHAPTER XIX.
Christ's first pupil.
It would not take long for all Jerusalem to hear of the
uproar at the temple, — how a strange prophet from Galilee
had driven out buyers and sellers, sheep and oxen, and
nobody had dared to oppose him; for, though there was
no such thing as a newspaper to report the scene, news
spread very quickly from mouth to mouth in a city so
closely built as Jerusalem, where the houses were crowded
together in narrow streets, and every house was filled with
occupants from the ground to the roof. As the temple
stood upon a hill facing the greater part of the town, any
commotion there would attract the notice of multitudes;
and an outcry on Mount Moriah could be heard across the
ravine, upon Zion and Acra, where most of the houses were.
Besides, everybody went to the temple, not only for worship,
but to meet friends, and hear the news. And at this time
the city was full of strangers who had come to the great
feast, who spent their time mostly at the temple, and who
would themselves be among the buyers of animals for
199

200 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
sacrifice, and would wish to change money for their taxes.
So the report of what Jesus had said or done would spread
like wild-fire through the city; and everybody would be
running to the temple to catch a sight of the bold stranger.
The excitement caused by this act of authority in the
temple was heightened by acts of wonder performed in the
next following days ; for, though Jesus refused to give
the Jews " a sign " for his doing what their law and their
own consciences taught them was right, he did afterwards,
in the most quiet and natural way, do wonders for the sick,
the lame, the blind, as he met these in his walks through
the streets, or as they were brought to him by their friends.
John tells us that " many believed in his name, when they
saw the miracles which he did." * How many, or what
these were, John does not say ; but, from what we know of
the miracles of Jesus, we may be sure that these first won
ders were for doing good, and not for showing power or
getting a name. He would not speak to the eyes nor the
fancy of men by signs, but to their hearts and their faith by
living truth. And so when people who had seen or heard
of his miracles crowded around him, and called him the
Christ, and said they were ready to follow him as their king,
he knew them too well to commit himself to them, or to
make himself the leader of such a party of enthusiastic but
visionary followers. 1 John ii. 23.

The Pharisees.

Christ's first pupil. 203

What sort of followers he wished, what kind of a king
dom he meant to set up, he made plain to a pupil who came
to him for the first lesson in the new faith. This pupil was
himself a "master in Israel:" he belonged to the san
hedrim, or council of seventy, the supreme court of the
Jews for religious affairs, which had control over all the
synagogues in Palestine, which regulated matters of faith
and worship, and ordered the punishment of heretics,
idolaters, and apostates. It was this same body that at last
brought Jesus to trial, and after his death had Peter and
John put in prison ; and that sent Saul of Tarsus to search
the synagogues for Christians, and bring them to punish
ment.1 A member of this grand council was required to
know perfectly the law of Moses, and all the rules and
doctrines which had grown up around it, all the traditions
of the elders, and the customs of the synagogues. Hence
the people looked up to every such rabbi as a teacher and
an authority in every thing relating to religion. As a matter
of course, such men were apt to be proud of their wisdom,
and overbearing toward the people. They made a show of
their prayers and piety; they loved "to sit in Moses'
seat," and pretended to speak with his authority, just as
nowadays the pope calls himself the successor of Peter,
and claims that the doctrines and laws which he gives forth
have the authority of God. But among the seventy mem-
1 Acts is. 1, 2.

204 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
bers of the grand council were some truly honorable and
pious men, who used their office for the good of the people,
and honestly sought to know and teach the truth. Such a
one was Joseph of Arimathea, who refused to join in the
outcry against Jesus, and who, after his crucifixion, begged
his body, and laid it in his own new tomb. And such a
one, too, was Nicodemus. Once, when the sanhedrim sent
officers to arrest Jesus, Nicodemus stood up for him, and
said, " Doth our law judge any man before it hear him, and
know what he doe th ?" J This shows a candid mind, will
ing to know the truth, and wishing to see fair play. And
after the crucifixion he also went to the grave of Jesus with
costly spices to anoint and embalm the body of him whom
his colleagues had first condemned by Jewish law, and then
had persuaded the Roman governor to put to death.2 It
was natural enough that such an honest soul should see in
the miracles of Jesus a proof that " God was with him,"
and should wish to know him and to learn from him as " a
teacher come from God." But wishing to keep his influence
over the people, and knowing how easy it would be to make
enemies at a time when the whole city was full of rumors,
parties, and prejudices, he went to Jesus by night, intending
first to satisfy himself before doing any thing that should
1 John vii. 50.
2 John xix. 39. The Roman government had taken away from the
sanhedrim the power of capital punishment. Jesus was- put to death
after the Roman custom.

Christ's first pupil. 205
commit him as a disciple. It was no small thing, however,
for such a man to make up his mind to go even in this
quiet, private way, and ask to be taught by a stranger
who was already despised as a Nazarene, and hated as a
reformer. Of course we have only a brief report of what passed
between Jesus and Nicodemus. One or the other of them
must afterwards have told it to John, — most likely Nicode
mus, when, after the death of Jesus, he joined his disciples,
— and John has given only the main points of this most
interesting talk. To understand what Jesus said of being
" born again," we must keep in mind that the Jews looked
upon their commonwealth, or, as we should now say, their
church, as the kingdom of God, and upon membership in
that as necessary to getting to heaven. All who were not
born Jews were heathen, and as such were shut out from
the kingdom of heaven; but a heathen might become a
member of that kingdom by giving up his idols, and
embracing the faith and the worship of the Jews.
In the temple at Jerusalem, there was a court to which
such "proselytes" could be admitted. Owing to the great
change in their ideas and beliefs, and also in their lives and
habits, produced by this change of religion, they were said
to be new creatures, or new-born. They were compared to
a slave who had been set free, and adopted as a child. We
use this very expression nowadays to describe one who has

206 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
given up bad habits to lead a better life. When a prodigal,
a profane swearer, a drunkard, a thief, is reformed, we say,
" He is a new man." As a sign of this great change, it was
a custom of the Jews to baptize heathen whom they
received as proselytes to their faith ; and thus they were
"born of water" into the "kingdom of heaven;" from
being servants of the Devil, they became children of God.
All this was perfectly familiar to Nicodemus, so that the
words of Jesus need not have puzzled him. But, just
because such words were so familiar, it puzzled him the
more to guess what Jesus could mean by insisting that he,
and every one, must be " born again " in order to enter the
kingdom of God. Nicodemus had the idea, that to be of
the seed of Abraham, was also to be a son of God; that to
belong to the commonwealth- of Israel, was to be in the
kingdom of God : just as being born in America makes one
an American, no matter what may be his name, his race,
his color, or his manner of life. He was born a Jew, — born
within the kingdom of God. He had risen to be a " master
in Israel." And the idea that he should now be baptized like
any heathen, and become a new man, in order to enter that
kingdom, seemed as strange and absurd as that he should
actually be born over again as a little child.
But Jesus taught him that only they are God's true
children who in their hearts love him and do his will, that
the real kingdom was first of all in one's own soul. When

CHRIST'S FIRST PUPIL. 207

we learn to govern all our thoughts, our feelings, our
wishes, our aims, by the spirit of truth, of kindness and
good- will; when we keep down all bad passions, all evil
words, all wicked thoughts, all wrong desires, and only wish
and try to do what is right and good, — then " the kingdom
of heaven " is begun in our hearts. We have the same spirit
which makes the angels holy and blessed. Now, the wish to
please God, the desire to obey him in all things, to take his
will instead of our own, to do every thing that God would
have us do, and nothing that God would not have us do, —
this one spirit of loving obedience to God includes all the
rest, — truth, kindness, good-will, purity of thought, of
feeling, of conduct ; and hence this heavenly spirit is also
called the kingdom of God. God rules in the heart as its
king. But this spirit of love to God and man was first
shown to us in its perfection by Jesus. In every act of his
life he did the will of his Father in heaven ; and in all his
words and acts towards men he showed the most perfect
love and good-will. Thus it was that by his preaching and
his life he brought again to selfish and sinful men that king
dom of God which was set up at first in Paradise. And
since it is through Christ that we are brought back from sin
to holiness, from selfishness to love, this new feeling of
gentle and holy love in our hearts is also called the king
dom of Christ. When we love Jesus as our Saviour, obey
him as our Teacher, serve him as our Master, then the

208 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
kingdom of the Messiah, the kingdom of God, the kingdom
of heaven, is begun in our hearts.
Children are like their parents in looks, in tones, in man
ners, in ideas, in temperament, in character. So when we
have taken the will of God to rule us, and the word of God
to be our guide ; when we seek to please God in our doings,
strive to become like God in our character, — then we are
called " the children of God," we are " born again." And
since this great change of giving up our selfish wills, and
taking God into our hearts as king, comes from the Spirit of
God acting upon our minds, we are said to be " born of the
Spirit." To put away evil thoughts, passions, desires, habits,
and to fill the mind and heart with what is pure, lovely, and
good, is to make the inner man, or soul, clean, as the outer
man, or body, is made clean by water ; and hence to be bap
tized is a sign of this inner cleansing of the mind. And so
it is, that on giving up selfish and sinful thoughts and ways,
and in place of these taking into our hearts the pure love
of God and good-will toward men, we are " born of water
and of the Spirit " as the children of God, and enter into
the kingdom of heaven. Thus the lesson of Jesus to Nico
demus, though simple enough for a little child, was deeper
and broader than all the wisdom of the world. The greatest
masters of science and philosophy must still come to Jesus
in the spirit of a little child, to be born anew of his love.

CHAPTER XX.
THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA.
The bustle and confusion of the feast were over. The great
camp of pilgrims outside the city-walls was broken up ; and
the crowds that for days had filled the streets and the temple
were now scattered over the neighboring hills, moving home
ward in slow caravans, singing the "songs of Zion," and
telling of what they had seen and heard in the city. The
strange prophet from Galilee, who had driven the traders out
of the temple, and had done so many wonders, was the talk
of everybody ; and thousands of tongues carried the name of
Jesus over the land, if not as rapidly, yet as widely, as if
there had been daily papers and a telegraph to report his
sayings and doings. Jerusalem itself had settled down into
its every-day life ; the Roman soldiers, relieved from the care
of half a million strangers, were lounging about the forts
and the guard-houses ; the priests went through the daily
round of prayers and sacrifices with only a handful of
worshippers ; the hangers-on at the city-gates and the
porches of the temple whiled away their time in disputing
209

210 JESUS OF NAZARETH.

over rumors of the Messiah ; the cattle-dealers and money
changers sneaked back into the Court of the Gentiles, their
fear of Jesus being turned to hatred ; and the Pharisees,
with all their pretended zeal for holy things, winked at this
abuse of the temple, because they wished to raise a party
against Jesus, whose influence over the people they both
hated and feared.
Meantime, Jesus had gone into the country on the borders
of the Jordan, a region already sacred as the scene of his
baptism, of his temptation, and of the first calling of his
disciples. He could not now, as then, go with his disciples
alone ; but a great many from Jerusalem and the neighbor
ing places, excited by what they had seen and heard of him,
followed him on his journey ; and many strangers also
delayed going- home from the Passover, from curiosity to
learn whether this might not turn out to be the Christ. All
who confessed their belief in his doctrine of " the king
dom of God," and their willingness to lead a new life, were
baptized in this new faith ; and, so many were there, that it
was even said that " Jesus made and baptized more disciples
than John." 1 John himself was still baptizing at a place
called Salim,2 farther up the valley of the Jordan ; and some
of his disciples, who had not followed Jesus, tried to stir
up rivalry by reporting that all men were running after
Jesus. But John was too great for jealousy, too noble for
1 John iv. 1. 2 John iii. 23.

THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA. 211
rivalry, too humble for ambition, too true and good a servant
to seek for himself the honor that he knew to belong to his
Master ; and, as he had already proclaimed Jesus to be the
Son of God, he said again, " I am not the Christ ; but I am
sent before him. Now that he is come, my joy is complete.
He must increase, but I must decrease." x Jesus afterwards
paid a tribute to John, in which he gave him higher praise
than ever fell from his lips concerning any other man. " He
was a burning and a shining light ;" 2 " Among those that
are born of women, there is not a greater prophet than John
the Baptist."3
Though teaching and baptizing at points so near, Jesus and
John did not meet at this time ; and, indeed, they never met
again. The Pharisees kept spies upon them, and would
have been glad to get rid of them both, though they did not
quite dare to molest either. But, soon after, John was cast
into prison by Herod, who at last was betrayed by Herodias
and her daughter into putting him to death. These signs of
trouble caused Jesus to quit Judea; for, though he was
ready at any moment to lay down his life for men, he was
not willing to throw it away before he had finished his
ministry of truth and love, and had gathered the materials
of his church. Besides, he wished to begin his public
teaching in his native Galilee ; and so, accompanied by the
little band of disciples, he set out for his home.
1 John iii. 38-31. , 2 John v. 35. « Luke vii. 28.

212 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
They journeyed on foot, supplying their daily wants from
the little means which some of them had saved from fishing,
and he from his earnings at his father's trade. From the
banks of the Jordan, they went up one of the rocky ravines
that slant off toward the north-east, till they struck the
great highway of travel from Jerusalem to Samaria. Here
they came upon a broad and beautiful plain, like a Western
prairie, without ridge, break, or fence, covered with ripening
grain and brilliant flowers, but, unlike a prairie, dotted also
with clumps of olive-trees, and bounded on all sides by
ranges of hills and mountains. A walk of three or four
hours across this plain of Miikhna brought them to its
north-western corner, where the loveliest valley of all Pales
tine opens into it, between the famous mountains Gerizim
and Ebal, known as the mountains of blessing and of
cursing.1 Ebal, a steep, rocky ridge, bare of trees and vege
tation, with frowning precipices twelve hundred feet high,
looks as desolate and forbidding as if all the curses had
fallen upon it. But the valley seems to have caught and
kept all the blessing. Fountains gushing forth upon every
side, purling brooks, fields of grass, gardens of vegetables,
orchards of fruit-trees, groves of olives and mulberries, the
whole enlivened wfth the music of birds, and decked with
the most wondrous hues of blue, purple, and violet in the
air and the sky, make this secluded vale a very paradise
of beauty and of peace.
1 Deut. xi. 29, xxvii. 11; Josh. xxiv. 1.

THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA. 213
This was the first view that Abram had of the land of
promise ; and here he built his first altar to the Lord.1 This
was the spot that Jacob chose for his home when he returned
from Haran with his .familv and his cattle ; here he bought
a piece of land which he gave afterwards to his son Joseph ; 2
and here Joseph was brought up from Egypt to be buried.8
Into this same valley Joshua led the people ; and having
ranged them in opposite ranks, six tribes on each side, he
made them swear obedience to the law of God, while the
Levites repeated each commandment, and the mountains
echoed its blessing and its curse. And now the long-
promised Seed of Abraham,* the Star of Jacob,5 the true
Leader and Saviour of Israel,6 came into this home of the
patriarchs, this resting-place of the warriors, with the gospel
of blessing and peace, taking away the curse, and giving the
water of fife. But he came as a tired, hungry man, sharing
the common wants and pains of our every-day life, and thus
putting himself in sympathy with those whom he came to
save, as if in personal need of their sympathy and help.
The little party had started early, and had walked many
weary miles ; and it was already high noon, hot and sultry,
as they rounded the base of Mount Gerizim, and came down
upon the valley of Shechem. But the town was a good two
miles farther, stretching, its white walls in the sun on a
1 Gen. xii. 6. * Gen. xxxiii. 19 ; John iv. 5. « Josh. xxiv. 32.
4 Gal. iii. 16. 6 Num. xxiv. 17. e Heb. iv. 8, 9.

214 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
ridge at the top of the valley ; and so, sending his disciples
on to buy food, Jesus turned aside to the right, and sat down
to rest under the shade of a mulberry-tree by the side of
Jacob's well. This well was dug by the patriarch himself,
in order that he might have plenty of water, on his own
premises, for his great herds of cattle ; for in Palestine,
where in the long dry season the streams and fountains run
low and sometimes fail, a well is often held as private
property ; and, though there were so many rills and springs
in the valley of Shechem, Jacob may have had none upon
his own land, or at least he would wish the further security
of a good well of his own ; and so, by boring through the
rocky soil to a great depth,1 he struck a bed of water that
never since has failed ; for, after almost four thousand years,
the thirsty travellers of to-day, Jews, Samaritans, Christians,
and Mohammedans, all alike cherishing the name of the
patriarch, can say, " Our father Jacob drank of this well
himself, and his children, and his cattle."
At the time of the story, the well was in the keeping of
the Samaritans, who made Shechem the headquarters of
their tribe. These were the descendants of the common
people of Assj'ria, who were sent to occupy the country after
the Israelites had been carried off captive to Babylon ; and,
though they kept up some notions and customs of their old
idol-worship, they had so far adopted the religion of the
1 I found the well about seventy feet deep.

THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA. 215
Jews, that they kept the law of Moses as sacred, and had
built a temple on the top of Gerizim, to the God of the
patriarch.1 They even claimed that this temple was more
holy than that at Jerusalem ; and, like the Jews, they were
looking for a Messiah who should come as the great Teacher
and Saviour. But between the Jews and the Samaritans
there was a deep and lasting hatred. The Jews despised the
Samaritans, because they were a foreign race, or, at best, a
mixture of foreigners with the poor Israelitish peasants who
had escaped going into captivity ; and* also because they did
not acknowledge the later prophets, as well as Moses, for
teachers and guides. And the Samaritans hated the Jews
for despising them, and for refusing their help in rebuilding
Jerusalem and the temple after the captivity.2 Though
they did not object to trading together, — for business
commonly gets the better of national grudges and of
religious scruples, — and though they often had to pass
through each other's territory, yet Jews and Samaritans
had as little to do with one another as possible, and were
ready at any time to pick a quarrel. It was to the chief
city and sanctuary of these jealous and rival neighbors that
our little company of Jewish travellers had come, as they
were returning from their own capital and temple, after the
feast of the Passover.
Jacob's well was too distant from the town to be much
1 2 Kings xvii. 24-34. 2 Ezra iv. 2-6.

216 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
frequented : yet women from the neighboring hamlets, and
laborers in the fields near by, made use of it ; and now
and then one would come all the way from Shechem,
to get a jar of the cool, clear water which had been blessed
by the patriarch. So it happened, that, soon after Jesus had
taken his seat at the well-side, a Samaritan woman, who
perhaps was on her way home from her morning's work in
the fields, stopped at the well to fill her water-pot. So little
was the well used, that there was no common bucket there ;
and the stranger, who had nothing to draw with, begged of
her a drink of water.
Now, the woman, perceiving that he was a Jew, could not
help expressing her surprise that he should be willing to ask
a favor of a Samaritan. For how could she imagine that
this tired, thirsty traveller had come to do away the antipa
thies of race and the disputes of religion, through the spirit
of humanity and the ministry of love ; and that this simple
request for a drink of water, from one brought up to hate
her nation, was itself a token of the new gospel of peace and
love? Instead of taking up her taunt about Jews and
Samaritans, Jesus mildly answered, " If thou knewest the
gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to
drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have
given thee living water." J
These words were a puzzle. What water could the stranger
. 1 John iv. 10.

THE "WOMAN OF SAMARIA. 217

mean? Not out of the well; for it is deep, and he has
nothing to draw with, and could not even get a drink for
himself. Does he perhaps know of some better fountain ? or
has he power, like Moses, to make water gush out of the
rock ? Is he greater than our father Jacob, who gave us
this well ? Could there be any better water than this ? and
what is the living water that the stranger speaks of ? It
did not help her puzzle when Jesus went on to say, " Who
soever drinketh of this water shall thirst again ; but whoso
ever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never
thirst ; but the water that I shall give him shall be in
him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life."1
As water satisfies thirst, so what Jesus had to give — the
truth, the grace, the love, of his Father — would quench
those longings of the soul for good, which often burn like
the thirst of fever ; and would supply motives, feelings,
hopes, consolations, joys, that, like a spring bubbling up
within the soul, should be a source of life and satisfaction
that could never be exhausted. This water more than
satisfies thirst: it prevents it, and suppresses the longing
after happiness by a fulness of peace that leaves nothing to
be desired. When once the soul is rightly opened toward
God, and draws its life from his Spirit, it does not need to
go hunting the world for happiness, seeking it in nature, in
science, in art, in money, in pleasures, in fashion, in change,
i John iv. 13, 14.

218 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
and crying, " Who will show me any good ? " but it has its
blessedness within, and is so full of the spirit of good, that
it sees good in every thing, gets good from every thing, and
does good to all. This is the fountain within, that never
fails. All this, so easy for us now to understand as the meaning
of Christ's words, and so true and beautiful to those who
have felt it, was more and more a mystery to the woman at
the well ; and she could only stammer out, " Sir, give me
this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw."
Glad enough would she be to get such a relief from care and
work, from trouble and pain, as would come from never
feeling thirst- again ! But the true relief must be inward,
and the living water could spring up in the soul only
through faith ; and so it was necessary to open her eyes in
some way to the wants of her soul, and to inspire confidence
in Jesus as a spiritual teacher. Puzzled as she was about
this " living water," she had begun to see something in the
stranger's look and manner, as well as in his words, that
marked him for no common man, and made her so eager to
listen, that she set down her water-pot, and quite forgot her
errand at the well. Pausing in the conversation, Jesus now
told her to go and call her husband. This seemed to her
simply as if he wanted a witness before telling the secret of
the living water. But she soon found that it was a way of
getting at the secrets of her life, and showing her how much

The Woman of Samaeia.

THE "WOMAN OF SAMARIA. 221
she needed an inward spiritual peace ; for, when she turned
aside the question, Jesus showed her that he knew how
irregular her life had been, and how evil it then was.
Startled that a perfect stranger could thus read her char
acter, and filled with awe at his solemn and searching
manner, she exclaimed, "Sir, I perceive that thou art a
prophet." But it is not pleasant to talk over our faults ; and so,
turning off from the facts of her own life, which troubled
her conscience, she asked his opinion on a dispute about
holy places between the Jews and the Samaritans. " Our
fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say that in
Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship."1
And now this woman, blindly feeling after the true religion,
has stumbled upon the very question that Jesus had come to
solve, — How weak, erring, sinful men can approach God
with worship, and find him a Father? Altars, temples,
sacred places, had their uses in days of ignorance, but now
had had their day, and were not worth contending about.
The spirit, not the place, makes the worship; and a holy
heart will make all places holy. For God is spirit: he is
not a form, an image, shut up in a temple, not a body con-
, fined to some one. sacred spot. His nature, his essence, is
spirit. He is a being of thought and feeling ; and we must
worship him with thought and feeling, with the homage of
1 John iv. 19.

222 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
our spirits, with the love of our hearts. He is a Father ;
and we must come to him with the spirit of children, full
of gentleness, love, obedience, reverence : then, it does not
matter whether we are on the mountain, or in the temple.
God sees the heart ; he looks through all forms and places ;
he knows who worship him in spirit and in truth, with a
true spiritual feeling of dependence, of gratitude, of love,
and with a true spiritual desire to be holy. This doctrine
of God as spirit, first taught to the Jews, is now to go forth
as the salvation of the world, till men shall worship the
Father as children of one family, the children of light, of
truth, and of love.
This sublime doctrine of Jesus concerning God first fell
upon the ears of a solitary, sinful woman of a race that the
Jews despised and shunned. It woke in her mind all that
she had heard of a great prophet that should come from
heaven, — the Messiah, the Christ, who should tell all things.
And, while she was thus musing, Jesus said to her, " I that
speak unto thee am he." J He had not given that name to
the Pharisees when they demanded his authority for cleans
ing the temple ; he had not told it to Nicodemus when he
called him "a teacher come from God ; " he had not used it
as his title or as a sign of faith when the multitudes were
baptized by his disciples ; he had not even breathed it into
the ear of the disciples themselves. He chose the most
1 John iv. 26.

THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA. 223
simple, silent way of making known himself, his doctrine,
his salvation. He came to do away with the prejudice of
race ; and he revealed his Father first to a Samaritan. He
came to do away with forms and superstitions ; and he, a
Jew, fresh from Jerusalem and from the temple, here,
beneath the open sky, and beside the holy mountain of the
Samaritans, proclaimed God " the Father of all human
spirits." He came to take away the degradation of woman ;
and it was to a woman who was almost an outcast that he
first revealed himself as the Christ. He came to save
sinners; and to this erring, sinful stranger he offered the
water of life. The disciples, coming up at this moment,
were amazed to find him talking with the woman ; for,
though women were much more respected among the Jews
than by other Eastern nations, the sacred mysteries of
religion were thought to be above their reach ; and by some
of the rabbis it was even forbidden to teach the law to a
woman.1 But the disciples had learned to revere Jesus too
much to ask him why he preached to such a hearer.
Indeed, he began to preach to them in a way that showed
them to be as much below him in spiritual things as they
could suppose the Samaritan to be. They had left him
weary, and faint for food : they had hurried back with pro
vision. They found him teaching ; and, when they urged
1 " He who instructs his daughter in the law is as one who plays the
fool." Tract Solz ; see in Tholuck, John.

224 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
him to eat, he gave the strange answer, " I have meat to eat
that ye know not of."
As, in giving Living water to the woman, he had forgotten
his own thirst, so, in his eagerness to proclaim the gospel, he
forgot his hunger, and was so strengthened and sustained by
spiritual thoughts and feelings that he could say, " My meat
is to do the will of Him that sent me." Pointing to the
fields where the grain was slowly ripening, he commanded
his disciples to begin their work as reapers in the harvest
of souls. Already this was before them ; for the excited
woman, running to the city, had told everybody of the won
derful stranger, asking, "Is not this the Christ?" and now
she was hurrying back, with the whole town after her, eager
to hear and judge for themselves. And, so gracious and
wonderful were the words of Jesus, that these Samaritans be
lieved upon this Jewish stranger, and said, " This is indeed
the Christ, the Saviour of the world." Yes, indeed, the
Saviour, at once all-sympathizing and all-suffering, coming
so near to us by sharing our weakness, bringing us so near
to himself by giving us his strength ; now, weary, hungry,
thirsty, sending his disciples for food, and craving drink of
a stranger; and yet having within him strength and life
for the whole sinking, dying race of men. What divine love
and grace sit upon the brow of the weary, fainting man !
What human weakness and sympathy convey " the gift of
God!"

CHAPTER XXI.
THE MOB AT NAZARETH.
At Shechem Jesus performed no miracles : yet many of
the Samaritans, simply upon hearing him talk, believed in
him, and acknowledged him to be the Christ. But the
Pharisees at Jerusalem, and the Jews everywhere, demanded
" a sign," insisted that he should work miracles ; and even
then they would not believe. The trouble with the Jews
was, that a fixed political idea had pretty much taken the
place of religion, and — as we must constantly keep in mind
in the story of Jesus' life — their hopes and wishes for the
Messiah were, that he would come as a king, and drive the
Romans out of the country, and set up the Jewish throne
again, with such splendor as it had in the days of Solomon.1
1 Dr. Schauffler once said to me in Constantinople, " The Greeks are
the least hopeful of all the races we have to deal with : the great' obsta
cle to their conversion is Constantinople.'' He meant that the Greeks
still dream of their old empire of Byzantium, and hope one day to win
Constantinople from the Turks. But for this they must depend upon
Russia ; and, since Russia is the head of the Greek Church, they must
remain true to their church. This political hope has become a chief
225

226 JESUS OF NAZARETH.

And so, because Jesus came of a poor family, and went
about on foot, and did not try to get up an insurrection, nor
to raise an army, and preached that they should repent, and
lead holy lives, they were slow to hear his doctrine about
the " kingdom of heaven." A strong and showy kingdom
on earth, with Jerusalem as its capital, would have suited
them much better. The Jews had turned all the prophecies
of their Bible into this political channel, and had covered
the simple spiritual teaching of their law with all sorts of
traditions that took the life out of it.1 But the Samaritans
had none of these political hopes for themselves, and no
such worldly notions about the Christ who was to come.
They looked for him as a great and perfect teacher ; and so
their hearts were more open to the words: of Jesus, and he,
though a Jew, found more favor with them than with his
own countrymen. This was soon shown at Nazareth.
Not long after his visit at Shechem, Jesus returned to the
home of his childhood. On the way he stopped at Cana,
article of their religious faith. Just so it was with the Jews in the
time of Christ. They looked for a Messiah to restore the kingdom to
Israel. 1 It was natural that around the laws that were written in the Penta
teuch, there should grow up a body of customs, interpretations, and
decisions, which came to be looked upon as a part of the divine law
itself. These were known as the " Oral Law ; " and many scribes set
these commentaries above the statute-law itself. Hence Jesus said, " Ye
have made the commandment of God of none effect by your traditions "
(Matt. xv. 6).

¦Jetrrfiflrpt/fiAMP-

The Synagogue at Nazareth

THE MOB AT NAZARETH. 229
where he had performed his first miracle, — turning water
into wine. While he was there, a nobleman who lived at
Capernaum, about sixteen miles distant, whose son was very
ill, came to Jesus to beg that he would go and heal him ; for
he had heard of the miracles that Jesus had wrought at
Jerusalem. After testing a while the nobleman's faith, Jesus
told him, that, if he would go home, he should find his son
cured. Trusting in the word and the power of Jesus, the
nobleman hastened home. On the way his servants met him
with the good news that his child was well ; and he found
that he began to recover at the very time when Jesus had
said that he would live. The news of this wonder, as well
as of all the wonders he had done in Jerusalem, went before
him to Nazareth ; and, when he reached his home, the
people expected great things of their townsman.
The very next sabbath gave everybody an opportunity to
hear the teaching of Jesus. Though the temple of Jerusa
lem was the chief place of worship for the whole nation,' and
the only place for sacrifices, every town had a synagogue,
where on the sabbath day prayers were offered, and the
books of Moses and the prophets were read. At the upper
end of the synagogue, which always faced toward Jerusalem,
were raised seats for the scribes and Pharisees, the rulers,
and other chief men. In front of these was a platform with
a little desk, or pulpit, at which the minister stood to read
the prayers and the Scriptures. The books of the law and

230 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
of the prophets were divided into sections ; and one of each
was read every sabbath, and then explained by the reader
or some other capable person. The chief minister, or reader,
had assistants who could take his place in his absence, or
could assist in the services when he was present. Some
times the minister would call upon others who had a good
name for wisdom or piety, or upon distinguished strangers,
to come up to the platform, and read. And so it was that
Jesus was singled out ; and, after the law had been read,
was invited to read the lesson from the prophets. The
lesson for the day was exactly what he would wish to say
about the work that he had now begun as a new prophet, or
teacher : " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he
hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath
sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to
the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind ; to set at
liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year
of the Lord." l The book was written upon parchment, in
the form of a roll, tied around with ribbons ; so, when Jesus
had finished reading, he rolled this up again, and handed it
to the minister to put back into its place. It was the cus
tom for teachers to sit while giving instruction ; and Jesus
took his seat, and began to speak upon the words that he
had read. All eyes were fastened upon him ; there was a
breathless stillness in the house ; and, as he went on to show
1 Isa. lxi. 1.

THE MOB AT NAZARETH. 231
how these sayings should now come to pass, everybody was
filled with wonder and admiration at his tender and gracious
words. What he said at the beginning is not reported ; but,
from all that we do know of his preaching, we may suppose
that he spoke of comfort for the sorrowing, of mercy for the
penitent, of deliverance for the oppressed, of help for the
needy, of light for the ignorant, of peace for the troubled ;
and promised such blessings as these to all who should truly
love and trust and serve his Father in heaven. This was
good news indeed : it put new life and meaning into words
that from childhood every one had heard read in the syna
gogue ; and it kindled a hope that the kingdom of the
Messiah might even come in their day. But, though their
hearts were stirred for a moment by these spiritual feelings,
their minds began to yield to doubts ; and their very wonder
that Joseph's son should speak in such a way gave place to
the question, by what right he should make such promises.
" So, then," they began to say in their hearts, "if he is able
to talk in this way, and if he takes it upon him to make
such promises, let him show us one proof that he is right ;
let him do such wonders here as we have heard of his doing
in other places. Let him give like honor to his own city."
Though no one said this aloud, Jesus knew what they
were all thinking of; and he resolved to see how far
they would accept the plain spiritual meaning of their
own Bible, and would obey the truth that spoke directly to

232 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
their souls, and which no miracle could make more true or
plain. He had set before them the true kingdom of God,
and they had shown that they felt his words. He had told
them of grace, mercy, peace, salvation ; and now he would
know whether, like the Samaritans, they really wished and
prized such gifts of heaven, or had only a curiosity to see
him do some strange thing. This he had a right to demand
of the people of Nazareth. He had been brought up among
them : they knew all about his life and character from
childhood. They needed no testimony concerning himself;
and they were able to judge in their own minds and hearts
of the truth of what he said. They had already praised his
"gracious words;" but he knew well enough that they
wished him to flatter their pride, to set them above their
neighbors, and to display his power for the honor of their
city. What he had said was wonderful ; and if only he would
do wonders, so as to draw the whole country to Nazareth to
see and hear their great Teacher and Prophet, they would
be ready to claim him as the Christ. Now, Jesus wanted no
such fame and no such followers. He wanted to draw men
to his Father for the love of truth and goodness, to draw
their hearts away from sin, to make their lives better, nobler,
purer ; and to draw them to himself because he taught them
to be just and true and good. But he knew how such
teaching had always been rejected by his countrymen ; how

?5 a
si

THE MOB AT NAZARETH. 235
proud they were to be called the people of God, yet how
unwilling to live as the children of God ; how they boasted
of Abraham as their father, read the law of Moses, and
sang the songs of David, yet had beaten and killed the
prophets. And so, instead of doing wonders for them, he
reminded them that " no prophet is accepted in his own
country ; " and that God had often sent special blessings to
those who were not of Israel, as to the widow of Sarepta1
and to Naaman the Syrian.2 At these words the whole
assembly started up in a rage. A moment before, they had
not words enough to praise Jesus; they felt proud of
Joseph's son, and were looking to the great honor he should
bring to the town ; but instead of humoring their fancies,
and showing them signs from heaven, he had openly
slighted his townsmen, and had offered to do for outsiders,
and even for heathen, what he would not do for them.
It takes but little to kindle a mob to fury when once the
fire is started. Nobody stopped to think of the synagogue,
or of the sabbath ; nobody spoke up for the good life of
Jesus among them ; nobody remembered the good words he
had just spoken ; nobody thought of his right to be heard
and judged by the law. They were filled with rage : they
rushed upon him, and dragged him out of the synagogue ;
the crowd pushing, shouting, yelling, cursing, drove him
through the streets and out of the city, till they came to
the edge of the hill.
1 1 Kings xvii. 9. 2 2 Kings v.

236 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
At Rome, it was the custom to throw certain criminals
from a steep side of the hill upon which the Capitol was
built, that they might be dashed to pieces on the rocks
below. The Jews appear to have had a like custom ; and
the mob at once took up the idea of getting rid of Jesus in
this way. But, as a mob acts without reason, some little
thing may turn it from its purpose as quickly as it was
started at the first ; or some sudden fear, pity, remorse, or
even a whim, may cause it at the last moment to halt, to
change about, or to disperse as easily as it ran together ;
and when a mob begins to waver, or its leaders show signs
of hesitation, its power has gone by. At such a moment,
coolness and firmness may save a man from sudden violence ;
and a decided word or look may put to shame those who
were crying out for his life. Mirabeau, the idol of the
people, the master of the assembly, the saviour of France,
awoke one morning to see the avenues leading from his
house to the Hall of Deputies filled with angry crowds, who
were hooting his name as a traitor, and threatening to hang
him on a tree. Against the entreaties of his friends, he
went out among them, saying, " I shall return triumphant, or
piecemeal ; " and he so awed the mob by his bearing that he
passed through them unharmed.
The consul Marius, once the idol of Rome, when in the
fall of his fortunes, an exile and outlaw, he was dragged
with a rope around his neck to be beheaded, saved his life

THE MOB AT NAZARETH. 237
by fixing his eye upon the executioner, and saying, " Slave !
dost thou dare to kill Marius ? " The soldier who had just
volunteered to kill him threw down his sword, and fled ; and
Marius lived to be again loaded with honors by his country
men. Napoleon, on landing in France from Elba, disarmed the
troops sent to oppose him, by simply showing himself as
their old emperor.
It need cause no surprise, that the story of that fierce mob
at Nazareth ends with the simple statement that " Jesus,
passing through the midst of them, went his way." The
majesty that shone in his countenance, so full of innocence,
of truth, and of grace, the light that could flash from his eye
such rebukes of passion and wrong, tamed the fury of his
enemies so that they opened a way for him, and let him pass
unharmed.

CHAPTER XXII.
HIS LIFE AT CAPERNAUM.
The mob at Nazareth was a turning-point in the life of
Jesus. His heart was set upon doing good to everybody,
and first of all to his countrymen. He had a strange power
over nature, over diseases, over devils ; and this power he
was ready to use for healing and blessing his fellow-men, but
never for showing off wonders to make a name or party for
himself. He had a knowledge of truth and of God, so deep,
so full, so pure, that its light would banish error and sin,
and would show the way of life ; and this knowledge he was
ready to give to every man who was willing to believe and
obey the truth. But he would not set himself up as a
prophet for the vanity of any sect or place or people. Now,
his works at Jerusalem had roused the jealousy of the rulers
and the Pharisees ; and his words at Nazareth had roused the
fury of the mob. His first attempts at doing good by heal
ing and by teaching had brought his own life in danger : he
had been warned from the capital, he had been driven from
his home. " He came unto his own, and his own received
238

HIS LIFE AT CAPERNAUM. 239
him not."1 Where, then, should he go to preach his gospel?
Where should he do his works of mercy ? There were
three or four disciples who already loved him better than his
own brothers ; and the most natural thought was, to go to
the home of these friends, who, poor as they were, were
ready to give him all they had in the world. Probably on
quitting Samaria, after they had crossed the great plain of
Esdraelon, and had come as far as Cana together, where
Jesus turned aside to the home of his parents, Peter,
Andrew, Philip, and Nathanael kept on a day's journey
farther to Bethsaida, where they lived, to look after their
fishing. The nobleman whose son he had just healed lived
within a mile or two of Bethsaida ; and, as he could count
upon him also as a friend, he went directly to Capernaum,
and, as it proved, made this for more than two years his
home, where he gathered his disciples, delivered many of
his parables and discourses, and performed many of his
mighty works.
A walk of a few hours north-east from Nazareth would
bring Jesus to the shore of Gennesareth, the loveliest lake
of Palestine, which lies in a deep basin among the hills, and
is thirteen miles long by six miles in breadth at its widest
part. As compared with the English lakes, with the lakes
of Zurich, Luzerne, Geneva, or Wallenstadt, in Switzerland,
or with Lake George, Winnipisiogee, or Moosehead, in the
i John i. 11.

240 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
United States, Gennesareth as it now appears would not be
striking either for grandeur or for beauty. The hills on the
eastern side, and also on the lower half of the western, are
steep and rough, forming a rocky wall from eight hundred
to one thousand feet high, with a strip of beach between this
and the water ; but toward the upper end of the lake, on
the western side, the hills are more gentle and sloping, and
set back farther from the water, leaving a margin of beau
tiful and fertile plains, one of which is three miles long by
more than a mile in breadth, and once had the same name
with the lake. Nowadays this plain of Gennesareth is
covered with the ruins of a row of towns that then lined the
shore so closely as to form almost one continuous settlement,
and which stretched on even to the head of the lake where
the Jordan enters it. The few poor natives who yet live
upon the plain do little to keep up its old fertility ; but the
splendid ' crops of grain from the little patches that are cul
tivated, the luxuriant grass and flowers, and even the very
weeds, show how rich the soil is by nature, and how favor
able the climate ; so that we can almost share the ecstasy of
Josephus, who looked upon it as a second Garden of Eden.
Here is his picture of this fairy plain. " Extending along
the Lake of Gennesareth, and bearing also its name, lies a
tract of country admirable both for its natural properties and
its beauty. Such is the fertility of the soil, that it rejects no
plant ; and accordingly all are here cultivated by the hus-

¦HIS LIFE AT CAPERNAUM. 241
bandman. For so genial is the air that it suits every variety.
The walnut, which delights beyond other trees in a wintry
climate, grows luxuriantly where also is the palm-tree,
which is nourished by heat ; and near to these are figs and
olives, to which a milder atmosphere has been assigned.
One might style this an ambitious effort of Nature, doing
violence to herself in bringing together plants of discordant
habits ; and an amiable rivalry of the seasons, each, as it
were, asserting her right to the soil : for it not only possesses
the extraordinary virtue of nourishing fruits of opposite
climes, but also maintains a continual supply of them.
Thus it produces those most royal of all, the grape and
the fig, during ten months without intermission, while the
other varieties ripen the whole year through ; for, besides
being favored by the genial temperature of the air, it is
irrigated by a highly fertilizing spring called Capernaum by
the people of the country." *
This mixture of climates and of seasons is owing to the
fact that the lake lies in a gorge nearly six hundred feet
below the level of the Mediterranean ; and at times the rays
of the 'sun make it like a boiling caldron, while at other
times it is fanned by cool breezes from the snows of Mount
Lebanon. Besides, this was once a region of volcanoes.
The soil is a dark loam from rocks of basalt ; and toward
the southern end of the lake, on the west side, there are hot
1 Josephus: The Jewish War, iii. 8.

242 JESUS OP NAZARETH.
springs, which smell strongly of sulphur. Like all volcanic
soils, this- is naturally fertile; and along the shore are
springs that seem never to fail, and that make the land rich
with a tropical verdure. Indigo, melons, . grapes, wheat,
millet, grow in the fields; the lote, or nettle-tree, springs up
among the rocks; and palm-trees spread their leafy fans
above the garden-walls. The natural beauty of the lake
wats what Josephus described it, in the time of Christ ; and
its borders were then lined with a busy population, made up
of all classes and all nations. Near the hot springs the large
and showy city of Tiberias had lately been built ; and at the
head of the lake the city of Julias, on the eastern side of
the Jordan. These were places of fashionable resort much
frequented by Jews, and by foreigners of wealth and rank.
So long as Tiberias was the capital of Galilee, a large mixed
population crowded its walls, and the villas of noblemen
adorned its suburbs. And, in fact, the western shore of
Gennesareth was just then the most thickly-settled part
of Palestine, and had even a greater variety of people than
Jerusalem itself ; and Capernaum was its business centre.
Here were fishermen and sailors along the coast, traders
and artisans of all sorts in the towns, farmers and peasants
in the country round about. Here were merchants from
foreign nations passing to and fro ; the Arabian Gentiles
from east of the Jordan, and the Phoenician Gentiles
from the Mediterranean coast, mixing with the Jewish

HIS LIFE AT CAPERNAUM. 243
traffickers and money-changers. Here were Roman soldiers,
tax-gatherers, officers, and noblemen. Every grade and
mixture of society was to be found at Capernaum. It
was a place in which to preach the gospel to all peoples ;
and the door was already open. Here was a synagogue ;
but scribes and Pharisees were few, and in such an easy
going community they had much less influence than at
Jerusalem. Here, as everywhere, the Jews were looking
for their Messiah ; but as they were not mixed up with the
political and religious parties and strifes of Jerusalem, and
were more free and open in their opinions and ways, they
cared less about the Messiah as a king, and were more ready
to listen to the spiritual teaching of Jesus. Instead of seek
ing, by the lake-side, a place of seclusion where he could
be safe from persecution, Jesus went to Capernaum as a
busy hive of men and affairs, where he could preach to all
classes, each in its own way, — to the farmer, of the seed
and the tares, of the flowers and grass of the field, and
the birds of the air ; to the fisherman, of his net cast into
the sea ; to the centurion, of his servants ; to the merchant,
of his goodly pearls. Here he could always find hearers,
and, while busy in the work of teaching, could easily pro
vide the little he required for his own support. Thus the
district of Gennesareth, with its five or six villages, and
its neighboring lake and hills, became the seat of that
kingdom which Jerusalem and Nazareth had rejected. And

244 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
so an old saying of the prophet was fulfilled, " The land of
Zabulon and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the
sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles: the people
which sat in darkness saw great light ; and to them which
sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up."1
Thus far we have traced the life of Jesus step by step,
from one point to another, in the natural order of events and
changes. This was necessary in order to get clearly before
us the facts of his history, as these bring out his character
and work. But from his settlement at Capernaum, which
was called " his own city," it is not so much the places and
circumstances of his life, that will interest us, as the life
itself, — his teachings, his works, his followers, his enemies,
his sufferings, and his death.
Jesus had no relatives in Capernaum, and no house that
he could call his own. But he soon made friends ; and so
long as he remained in the city he never wanted for a home.
The Jews were taught to look up with respect to a teacher
of religion ; and, such was their reverence for the office of
a prophet, that they would gladly do any service for one
whom they supposed to be really sent from God. They
were accustomed by gifts of money, food, &o., to support
the scribes as teachers of the law ; and pupils, or disciples,
expected to provide for the personal wants of their masters ;
though some of the greatest rabbis among the Jews sup-
1 Isa. ix. 2.

n

»
8o

HIS LIFE AT CAPERNAUM.

247

ported themselves by a trade, just as Paul, while preaching
at Corinth, earned his living by working at his trade of tent-
making. As Jesus was now recognized as a public teacher,
and was even looked up to by some as a prophet, there were
many in Capernaum who would open their houses or their
purses to supply his necessities ; some, out of gratitude for
a favor done to a member of the family or to a friend, by
the healing power of Jesus; others, for the honor of receiv
ing such a guest; and others, like the plain, honest fishermen
who were the first to believe on Mm, for the love they had
for him, and the blessing they found in his society and in his
teachings. It was not long before he brought to Capernaum
the fame that his townsmen of Nazareth had wished for
themselves, but had lost by being too eager and too worldly
' in their wishes.
The people of Capernaum were not slow to profit by
the wonderful stranger who had come to make his home
among them. Whenever Jesus'appeared in public, a crowd
followed him to hear what he would say, and see what he
would do. If he went out to walk along the shore of the
lake, the people ran after him, and pressed upon him in such
numbers that he was often obliged to take refuge in a boat,
and to use this as a stand for preaching.1 It was in this
way that he delivered the parables of the sower, the tares,
the grain of mustard-seed, the leaven hidden in the meal,
1 Luke v. 1-4.

248 JESUS OF NAZARETH.'
the seed cast into the ground, and many other discourses
that are not reported even in outline.1 Sometimes, to
escape the crowd, and gain a little rest for himself, or an
opportunity to talk privately with his disciples, he would
cross the lake from Capernaum to the thinly-settled country
on the other side ; and it was in such excursions that he
performed the miracles of stilling the tempest, and of walk
ing upon the. sea.2 But the people would not suffer him to
be alone ; and, if they saw him go away in a boat, they
would quickly get together all the fishing-boats of the town,
and sail after him, or would run along the shore on foot to
meet him wherever he might land. Once, when he had
been hurried and driven by so many coming and going that
he had no time even to eat, he tried to get away with his
disciples to a desert place, to rest a while. He took a boat
privately, and sailed over to the north-eastern corner of the
lake, on the other side of the River Jordan. But he was
observed by some of the villagers, who spread the news;
and such crowds ran after him from all the towns along the
shore, that over five thousand were soon gathered to beg him
to preach to them, and to heal the sick.3 These were people
who were just ready to start in a caravan for the Passover at
Jerusalem ; and so they could easily be set in motion by the
chance of seeing and hearing the great prophet ; and Jesus,
» Matt. xiii. 1-37; Mark iv. 1-34. 2 Matt. viii. 18-27; xiv. 24-33.
8 Mark vi. 32-35.

The Woman who touched His Garment.

HIS LIFE AT CAPERNAUM. 251
weary and hungry as he was, gave hours to teaching and
healing them, and then provided bread to feed them before
sending them away.
During all his residence at Capernaum, he was accustomed
to teach on the sabbath in the synagogue ; and there he gave
his wonderful discourse upon the true bread, and eating his
flesh and drinking his blood.1 And it was at Capernaum
and in the neighborhood, that he performed the greater part
of the miracles which are recorded in the Gospel history.
Here he cured the blind and the dumb,2 those who had
palsy,8 and those who were lunatics, or were possessed of
devils.4 He cured Peter's wife's mother of a fever,5 and
a woman that for twelve years had an issue of blood, that
no doctor could remedy;6 he healed great numbers who
were sick of all sorts of diseases ; 7 and he brought back the
daughter of Jairus to life.8 The report of these miracles
spread so far that a great multitude came to him from
Galilee, and from Judea down as far as Jerusalem. And not
only did those of his own nation, who were always looking
for a Messiah, thus rush after this new teacher ; but from
the east of the Jordan, and from the coast of the
Mediterranean, came numbers who, though half Pagan in
their religion, yet had faith and hope enough to seek the
1 John vi. 26. * Mark ix. 27_34i 8 Matt_ ^ g_13; ^^ . ^^
1 Mark i. 21-34. * Mark i. 31. « Mark v. 25. ' Luke iv. 40
8 Mark v. 38-43.

252' JESUS OF NAZARETH.
great prophet of Israel.1 And, besides these miracles of
mercy for the direct benefit of the afflicted, he also per
formed here wonders upon nature, that manifested to his
disciples his power and majesty, and confirmed their faith
in him as the Son of God ; as, when he caused the fish to fill
their nets,2 and again caused a fish to bring up in its mouth
money to pay their taxes,3 and, above all, when he walked
to them upon the raging sea.4
But in this busy, hurried life, crowded and driven by the
cares and the wants of thousands from near and far, Jesus
still found time for that pleasant social intercourse in which
he delighted to show the friendliness of his own nature, and
the genial spirit of his religion. Thus one day we find him
at dinner in the house of Simon the Pharisee ; 6 and, another,
at a great feast given in his honor by Levi the publican ; 6
and again we read of his going from house to house as a
welcome guest.
From time to time, he made excursions from Capernaum
to neighboring towns and villages, preaching and healing as
he went. Three times he made a wide circuit through
Galilee, once crossing the border into the region of Tyre
and Sidon; and again he made an extensive tour on the
eastern side of the Jordan, and far up to the north.
When the weather would permit of his living and sleep-
1 Mark iii. 7-12. 2 Luke v. 1-7. 8 Matt. xvii. 24-27.
* Matt. xiv. 24-33. 6 Luke vii. 36. • Luke v. 29-32.

He eats with Publicans and Sinnebs.

HIS LIFE AT CAPERNAUM. 255
ing in the open air, he loved to slip away into the country
back of Capernaum, and in the solitude of the mountains
to rest, to meditate, and to pray. It was on his return from
one of his journeys in Galilee, which he always made on
foot, and while he had gone apart into a mountain with only
his twelve disciples, that the people, finding out where he
was, crowded about him in immense multitudes, and he
preached to them the Sermon on the Mount.1
In Capernaum he selected the persons who should be
the special preachers of his gospel, — the twelve who were
with him as a family,2 and whom he made his apostles, and
the seventy whom he sent two and two to prepare the way
in every city and place which he intended to visit in person.3
And thus it came to pass, that neither Bethlehem, the place
where the Son of David was born ; nor Nazareth, where he
was brought up as the carpenter's son ; nor Jerusalem, where
he was put. to death because he made himself the " Son of
God," and " the King of the Jews; " but a small fishing" and
trading town near the head of Lake Tiberias, busy enough
with its own affairs, and full of the stir of a mixed and
changing population, yet quite remote from the political
excitements and the religious strifes of the capital, — this
thriving, bustling, worldly seaport Capernaum was " exalted
to heaven " as the earthly centre of the kingdom of God,
the place where Jesus spent most of his active life, did most
1 Luke vi. 12-49 2 Matt. x. 1-42. 8 Luke x. 1-16.

256 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
of his mighty works, and uttered those discourses which,
more than any others, define his rules of life here, and the
way to life hereafter ; x the place where he announced himself
as the Saviour of the world, and appointed his messengers
to go forth in his name, proclaiming the kingdom of
heaven. What an earnest, active life was this of Jesus in
his two years at Capernaum ! How much was compressed
into it, of communion with his Father through the beauties
and glories of the natural world, and by special meditation
and prayer ; how much of thought and of wisdom in
instruction to the people ; how much of counsel and of
patience in training and guiding his disciples ! And how
much went out from that life ! — how much of sympathy for
the suffering and the sorrowing ; how much of benevolence
for the poor, the sick, the infirm ; how much of kindliness
for neighbors, for strangers, and for children ; how much
of light for the ignorant and the erring; how much of
truth for the inquiring and the believing; how much of love
for all sorts and conditions of men; how much of mercy
and of hope for a sinful world ; how much of power, of
glory, and of majesty for the Church that was to be !
But pride, bigotry, jealousy, could not let him alone. His
influence with the people stirred the envy of their religious
rulers; his plain dealing with formalism and hypocrisy
roused their rage. The leaders at Jerusalem, who claimed
1 The Sermon on the Mount, and the discourse on the bread of life.

I WILL MAKE YOU FiSHERS OF MEN.

HIS LIFE AT CAPERNAUM. 259
a supervision over all schools and synagogues, sent spies to
watch Jesus at Capernaum, and to report his sayings and
doings. When he healed a man who was sick of the palsy,
and at the same time forgave his sins, the scribes and Phari
sees charged him with blasphemy, a sin which by Jewish
law was to be punished with death. When he cast out
devils, while the common people marvelled, and said, " It
was never so seen in Israel," the Pharisees mocked, and
called this only a trick of the Devil himself.1 They tried to
raise a quarrel with him about the traditions of the elders,2
and in other ways to get some pretext for bringing him to
trial. And, what to his tender and loving spirit was far
keener than the hatred of the Pharisees, the common people,
who ran after him to see his miracles, and who at first
listened with wonder to his teaching, by degrees fell away
when they found how strict and searching were his
doctrines, how deep and spiritual his demands upon the
lives of his followers. The attempt to put his religion into
practice as a religion of self-sacrifice showed how many had
followed him " to eat of the loaves," to get some present
good for themselves or their friends ; and so when he saw
that few were led by his preaching to repent, and lead holy
lives, he said with bitter sorrow, " Thou, Capernaum, which
art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell;
for, if the mighty works which have been done in thee had
1 Matt. ix. 34. 2 Mark vii. 1-23.

260 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day."
And to-day the traveller stumbles upon a few heaps of
stones and rubbish lying here and there along the western
shore of Gennesareth, but, after all his searching, is left in
doubt where Capernaum was.1 Capernaum lives only in
remembrance as the city where Jesus dwelt ; but there was
no need of human monuments to keep him in remembrance
at that spot. He took possession of the gem of Palestine,
and wrought this into his life, and made it immortal. The
deep, clear blue of the lake still reflects the deep blue of
the sky, like a mirror of the truth that he brought from
heaven ; the air rises from its bosom soft and genial with
the peace that he breathed over it, or comes from the neigh
boring hills fresh and healing with his benedictions of
mercy ; the flowers along the shore are brilliant with the
beauty with which he clothed them, and fragrant with his
grace ; the very murmuring of the waters upon the pebbly
beach is musical with his words of love. The races and the
places among which he lived have passed away ; the fields
and the shores are forsaken and desolate; trade, fishing,
husbandry, synagogue, and citadel, all the industries and
occupations of life, the traces of war, and even the tokens
of history, have vanished. But Nature remains true to her
sacred trust, holds • this the most dear and hallowed spot
1 It is still in dispute whether Khan Minyeh or Tell Hum. See
Kobinson, Stanley, Thomson.

HIS LIFE AT CAPERNAUM. 261

of earth, — the scene of a divine love, lowly and self-
sacrificing, but as yet unstained by sorrow ; and by every
' voice of sea and air, of hill and sky, she utters the
name of Jesus.

CHAPTER XXIII.
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT.
Always ready to preach when any were ready to hear,
Jesus would preach just where he happened to find the
people ; whether this was in the porch of the temple at
Jerusalem, on the highway by Jericho, in the synagogue
when one was at hand and open, on the shore of the lake as
he was walking, or on the side of a hill where he had gone
to seek a little repose. He had no college to which pupils
must come to learn his doctrines, no church to which
men must go to hear his discourses ; but, as often as any
where, he preached in some chance spot and in the open air,
just because he had the people around him, and was moved
to do them good. It was in this simple, natural way that
he gave that wonderful sermon which no philosophy nor
eloquence has ever approached, and which, till the end of
time, shall serve as the text of the highest wisdom, virtue,
and piety for human life. The hills furnished his pulpit ;
the birds, the grass, the lilies, the fields, the trees, the rocks,
the thorns, the thistles, gave his illustrations.

Sebmon on the Mount.

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 265
A little south of the plain of Gennesareth, there is a
break in the hills that run around the border of the lake ;
and another plain sets off toward the south-west, at an
angle of which, about four miles distant, is a ridge some
forty feet high, ending in a broad platform with two knobs,
or horns, like the bow of a saddle. As approached from the
east, the highest of these horns is hardly seventy feet above
the table-land; but from the northern side it looks high
enough to be called a mountain ; so that this would give all
the features of the stpry of the " Sermon on the Mount."
On a mild, quiet evening, Jesus, wishing to be alone for
meditation, stole out of the city, and walked to this hill, and
there spent the whole night alone in prayer.1 But his
disciples found out where he had gone ; and early the next
morning they, and crowds of people after them, hurried out
to meet him. Seeing this eager multitude, Jesus first called
twelve of his disciples by name to come up to the point of
the hill where he was ; and there .he set them apart to be his
apostles, and gave them power to heal the sick, and to cast
out devils.2 Then, coming down with them from the horn
of the hill, he stood on the broad, level summit, where the
people pressed upon him with the sick of all sorts, whom
they had brought with them to be healed. These he cured
either by his word or by his touch. After this he began to
teach. But the crowd was too great for comfort ; and he
1 Luke vi. 12-19. 2 Mark iii. 13-15.

266 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
stepped back a little up the hillside, and took a seat where
everybody could see and hear.
Now all was still. Not a breath stirred the lake ; not a
sound broke the air. The hum of the city was too distant
to be heard ; and, indeed, the city had almost emptied itself
into the fields. The fishermen had left their nets on the
shore ; the farmers had quit their work in the plain ; even
the birds had ceased their morning song, and were quietly
nestling in groves, or picking up their food in the corn. As
Jesus looked over the plain below, the sun was kindling the
bright colors of the lily and the oleander against the gray
shadows of the olive and the deep green of the fig, and
weaving a thin mist of purple over the blue of the sea.
Away to the north the snowy top of Hermon was glittering
with the glory of the morning ; and, like the white walls
and towers of Safed to-day, the "city set upon a hill " was
shining from afar.
The first word that broke this silence seemed an echo of
the peace and the beauty of nature, a benediction from
heaven upon the scene, — Blessed ! Blessed ! Blessed ! seven
times repeated, as if the strain of the angels at the birth
of Jesus, " Peace on earth, good-will to men," were now
brought out with the full octave, covering the whole scale
of men's conditions, wants, desires, hopes, capacities, from
the depth of poverty, of hunger, of sorrow, and of sin, up
through comfort, possession, fulness, peace, to the height of

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 267
blessedness in seeing God as his children. Blessed, seven
times blessed! for all these blessings shall come to the same
gentle, loving, trusting soul, shall come to each and every
soul that lives in Me. A king at his coronation gives tokens
of his favor — offices, honors, titles — to a few selected
friends or favorites, to princes, generals, ministers ; while it is
enough for the common people, that they can have a holiday,
and see the show. But here was an inauguration-day, when
blessings were thrown about as freely as the air, as richly
as the sunlight. The kingdom of heaven was openly set up,
and was offered to the poor, the mourning, the meek, to the
hungry, the merciful, the pure, the peaceable, to every
man who had the true feeling and desire for it, then and
there to take it. And not then and there only, but now
and always and everywhere is this blessing offered to who
ever is in the right mind for receiving it : " Peace on earth
to men of good-will," — the kingdom of heaven to the poor
in spirit, the vision; of God to the pure in heart. The secret
of this is, that Jesus here taught men how to make themselves
blessed, simply by being and by doing that which they ought
to be and to do, — being that which every man can become,
doing that which every man can perform.
But, though this secret is so simple, it seems to most men
so strange, that it is seldom tried ; for the conditions and the
feelings which Jesus pronounced "blessed" are those that
are commonly looked upon as evil and wretched, and that

268 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
people would shun, or escape from, if possible. Who nowa
days thinks of praising poverty as a blessing, or wishes to
be poor for the sake of being happy ? There are those who
seem contented in the midst of poverty, cheerful and happy
though they are poor; but Jesus speaks of those who are
blessed in being poor, the very spring of whose blessedness
is in the fact that they are poor. "Poverty is quarrel
some," says a French proverb; and, in these times, the poor
are everywhere showing signs of discontent. They are
dissatisfied with their wages, dissatisfied with their homes,
dissatisfied with their lot in life, and too often angrily or
sulkily dissatisfied with Providence. Some are poor and
envious, others poor and proud ; and, instead of making the
best of their condition, these really make themselves worse
than their condition by their restlessness and discontent.
Others are poor and troubled, making their poverty a
greater care and burden by needless anxieties and fears ;
and some, again, are shiftless and dispirited, always in poor
spirits, but not poor in spirit, as Jesus meant when he said,
" Blessed are the poor."
The poverty of which he spoke may be felt by the rich
and the great, and must be felt by them if they would be
really blessed. The greatest king must have this feeling of
poverty, or he cannot have the kingdom of heaven. But
when one feels that not wealth, nor power, nor knowledge,
nor office, nor friends can make his soul truly rich, but,

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 269
whatever he possesses in the world without, he must have
within himself right thoughts and right feelings, and above
all must have the love of God, then, just because he is so
poor in spirit, he is ready to be made rich indeed. He
gives up looking to outward things for real good, gives up
his inward pride, vanity, and self-will ; feels that he needs
God to teach him, prays that God would teach him ; feels
that God must guide him, and wishes to have God rule him.
And so the kingdom of heaven — which is the love of God
dwelling in the heart, and thence the will of God ruling in
the mind and in the life — becomes the possession of the
spirit that just now felt itself to be poor and empty, and
in want of all things. " Blessed are the poor."
Men do not hunt after trouble and sorrow as blessings ;
young people never wish to mourn, nor to mix with mourn
ers, if they can help it ; and though afflictions are said to be
" angels in disguise," and to turn out blessings in the end,
we would rather see the angels at the first, and have the
good without the evil. Come what may of it afterwards,
sorrow is sorrow, and trouble is trouble ; and neither is to
be wished for in itself. There is no good in grief, simply as
grief; and when one mourns over his trials and losses, over
the loss of property, the loss of friends, the loss of office or
of home, as if these were his all, there is no blessing in
his mourning, and no good can come of it. Such grief may
wear itself out, but it takes no comfort. Men are right in

270 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
wishing to get rid of sorrow. Everybody was rushing to
Jesus to be cured of diseases, to be rid of pains and cares
and troubles. He took pity upon every sufferer, had a kind
word and a deed of mercy for every one ; but, just when all
were rejoicing in being free from the sorrows they had
brought with them, he said, " Blessed are they that
mourn ! " Yes ; but this mourning, like the poverty he
had spoken of, must be spiritual, — the sorrow of the heart
for sin and evil, the sighing of the heart after God. One
may have no outward cause of sorrow, and give no outward
signs of grief ; may have no losses, pains, disappointments,
troubles ; the course of his life may run smoothly and
pleasantly enough: yet if in his heart he has had sinful
thoughts and wishes, if he has lived selfishly, with no true
love . for God or men, then all the favors of his outward life
but make him the more pitiable, because of this ungrateful
and unlovely spirit. But when such a one comes to see
what his life has been, sees how like a prodigal he has lived,
and, filled with shame and compunction, comes sorrowing to
his Father, to confess his sin, then shall he be blessed
indeed, — blessed not only with the forgiveness of his sins,
but with the love and joy of his Father. And when once
his heart has found this peace in God, no matter what trials
and troubles come from without, he shall always be com
forted. " Blessed are they that mourn."
It goes against the grain of most men, to bear a wrong

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 271
without resenting it, to be quiet under insult, patient under
injustice or injury. Boys early learn to give angry words
and blows, and think it manly to fight ; and even girls are
ready to answer back with spirit when they feel offended.
Almost everybody looks upon meekness as only another
name for weakness. Well, it is mean to be cowardly, never
to stand up for honor, for truth, for right, for justice, never
to speak up against a wrong, never to resist an evil person or
an evil act. Jesus himself showed spirit when with a
whip he drove out the traders from the temple ; when
with anger he rebuked the Pharisees in the synagogue ;
when before the mob, before the soldiers, before Pilate,
he gave his reproofs and warnings, not fearing for his
life. Yet Jesus said, " Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth." Meekness, not malice nor might,
is the true source of power against enemies, the true way
to a lasting dominion over men. And what is this feeling,
this habit, this disposition, so opposite to the common feel
ing and conduct of men, which Jesus so praised and
blessed? Not a mere quiet, silent manner; for this may
come of pride or of stupidity, or may hide malice or revenge.
Not timidity, nor chicken-heartedness in running from
danger, or in avoiding or bearing provocation ; for this
may come only from the nerves, or may show a lack of
true principle, and regard for any thing. It is not simply a
soft address; for this may show only a simpleton. And

272 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
certainly it is not a condescending way toward other people ;
for that is a sign of pride. True meekness is the gentleness
of spirit and of manners that grows out of the habit of
governing all one's feelings and actions toward others by the
law of love. It comes from a word that means to bend, to
make soft, or pliable ; and when we soften our self-will, and
bend this to the will of God, when we cease to make our
selves of the first importance in every thing, and to measure
everybody arid every thing by what they may be worth to
us, or may do for us, then we shall not be likely to feel envy,
jealousy, revenge, nor any sort of evil and unruly passion.
We may hate wrong, and yet pity the wrong-doer ; we may
oppose and rebuke injustice, and yet be patient under
injuries done to ourselves. They who have this spirit, said
Jesus, " shall inherit the earth." Having learned to rule
their own feelings, nothing can disturb them so as to make
them really unhappy. Proud, vain, envious, quarrelsome
people are never happy : they are always afraid lest some
body will not notice them, or will tread on their toes, or
shove them aside. But the meek, instead of pushing them
selves forward, wait patiently for their turn; and, in the
mean time, are at ease in their own minds, trusting in God
to do what is best for them. And, by conquering them
selves, they conquer the world also ; their meekness disarms
their enemies, or wears them out. Proud and passionate
people are always getting into quarrels ; angry words pro-

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 273
voke angry feelings in reply. But the men who are slow to
speak, and slow to wrath, who neither use threats, nor fear
them, who stand quietly and firmly for the right, but do no
wrong; the men who are patient and long-suffering and
kind, who show that they care more for truth and right than
for their own ease and safety, and that they know how to
love even their enemies, — these men at the last get the
victory in the world for their principles and ideas. So it
has come to pass, that the martyrs of Christianity and of
liberty inherit the earth through the power of their teach
ing and example, while their persecutors are forgotten or
unknown. It is not Nero, but Paul ; not Cgesar, but Jesus,
— who live in the thoughts and the hearts of mankind.
" Blessed are the meek."
It is well to be hungry when a good meal is spread
before one, and to be thirsty when there is a fresh, cool
spring at hand. But to be hungry, and have no bread, to
be thirsty, and have not a drop of water, is one of the worst
forms of pining and of torture. There is no stronger
appeal to sympathy than the story that one is perishing of
hunger or thirst. How harrowing is the fate of persons lost
in the desert, or shipwrecked and left without provision in
the middle of the ocean, in an open boat ! But Jesus said,
"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst," — that have
within their souls a desire as longing, as burning, as con
suming, as are the sensations of hunger and thirst to the
body.

274 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
Yet the soul may torture itself with hungering and
thirsting for nought. How many hunger and thirst for
gold, for fame, for power, who never gain their desire, but
all their lives long carry this fever in their veins ! How
often, too, the getting of wealth, of office^ of honor, inflames
the passion so much the more, and makes the fire burn and
rage till it eats up all that is good and noble in the man !
But this for which Jesus tells us to hunger and thirst is sure
to come at last through the very strength and fever of the
desire, and sure to fill and satisfy the soul. The earnest
longing to know the right, to be right, to do right, — this
God will answer with the fulness of his own truth and
love. And, when the principle of living right has been
formed within the soul, then by its own nature it grows and
increases more and more, and fills the whole being with
light, with truth, with goodness, and with joy. " Blessed
are they that hunger and thirst."
.From inward feelings Jesus passed to outward acts, when,
in the fifth benediction, he said, " Blessed are the merciful."
And here he did not run so contrary to the common
thoughts and feelings of men as he had seemed to do when
he spoke of the poor; the mourning, the meek, the hungry,
as blessed ; since every one feels that it is good to be kind,
and is ready to praise kindness in others, though he may
practise it but little himself. And almost every one has
known times when he was glad to receive kindness, perhaps

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 275
to seek for mercy. But, in order to get the blessing of
which Jesus speaks, we must form the habit of being
merciful, and must practise kindness in daily life, toward
all whom we can benefit by a kind word or a good action.
Some have by nature more tenderness, more sympathy, more
generosity, than others : they are easily moved to pity, or
they give by impulse. Yet tears that flow so easily, and
money that is so freely given, do not always prove a really
kind heart ; for persons of this sort may give money to
get rid of misery that annoys them, or in answer to a strong
appeal, when they would never go to seek the suffering,
and when perhaps, in another mood, they would turn away
a needy person without looking into his case. But a truly
kind heart will seek to do good from the spirit of love to
God and to men ; will have kind feelings, kind words, kind
looks, even where there is nothing that it can do for others.
It will never be harsh to a debtor, nor cruel to an enemy ;
it will have pity for the criminal, and will succor the poor ;
and its kindness will not be measured by the nation, the
color, the religion, the condition, of the sufferer, but will
flow out to all who are in need of sympathy and help : and
this because the heart itself delights in kindness. Such a
one is like Jesus, who " went about doing good ; " and to
such he said, " Blessed are the merciful." The feeling itself
is blessed ; and thus every act of kindness brings its own
reward. Indeed, it is one of the best remedies for sorrows

276 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
and troubles of our own, to try to help others in trouble.
And this feeling keeps our hearts in sympathy with our
Father in heaven, who doeth good to all. It is a spirit that
he delights in, and will reward with his blessing here, and
with the joy of heaven.
But those who win these blessings of Jesus — the
humble, the penitent, the meek, the righteous, the merciful
— need not wait for the future world to find their heaven.
By such inward piety and such outward charity, Jesus
taught men to make and keep their heaven within their own
souls. " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God." To see God is the perfect bliss of heaven : it is to
be where his presence is made real, is felt, is shared ; where
his glory is the light of the soul, and his goodness is its joy.
It is to see our Father, and to partake of the blessedness
of his being and his love : "they shall see his face.". But
as one can see the sun in a clear lake, and enjoy his beauty
and glory, and thus see heaven spread out beneath him,
when the eyes could not bear to gaze upon the sun in the
sky, so if the heart is full of right thoughts and good
feelings, of pure and holy love, God is reflected in it, and
the light and love, the glory and the peace, of heaven are
there. " He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and
God in him."
The heart is the seat of all moral feelings. When the
heart has sorrow for sin, God comes to it with the grace of

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 277

forgiveness; when the heart is sore with troubles, God
comes with the grace of consolation; when the heart is
meek and patient, God comes to it with the grace of his
approval ; when the heart is hungering and thirsting for
righteousness, God comes to it with the grace of his fulness ;
when the heart is loving and kind toward others, God
comes to it with his own love and bounty ; and, when the
heart loves what is pure and holy, then it becomes so like
God, that he really dwells within it as his home : and so
the pure in heart see God, know God, have God. Such a
heart sees God in nature as a living, loving presence ; sees
God in the Bible as a breathing, speaking spirit ; sees God
in the events of every day as a kind and faithful Father;
sees God in itself as the nearest, dearest friend, having the
same desires and the same loves. " Blessed are the pure."
Now, when the heart is thus filled with God, when it is
all truth and goodness and love and purity within, then it
breathes upon all around it the spirit of peace and good
will, and so wins the added benediction, " Blessed are the
peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."
A son is like his father ; and he whose heart is pure shows
that he is a child of the pure and holy God. A son has
free access to his father, and shares his thoughts and feel
ings ; and so the heart that delights only in what is true
and right and good has the freest communion of thought
and feeling with God. A son lives in his father's house,

278 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
under his love and care ; and the heart that is so filled with
pure and loving thoughts of God finds God's love in every
thing, and in this sweet thought lives with God as in his
own heaven. The son is heir of all that his father owns ;
and so this heart, made rich with the presence of God, feels
itself the possessor of all the good and beautiful things that
God has made. More than a servant, though it is an
honor to serve such a King ; more than a friend, though
" Friend " was the most tender, confiding name that Jesus
gave to his disciples : the child of God, — and this in the
meaning of the full-grown son, who has all the love and
confidence, all the dignity and privilege, all the possession
and power, that belong to the son.
This is the blessing of the " peacemakers." And who are
they ? Not the men who merely wish peace for themselves,
and for the sake of quiet keep out of the way when the
poor are to be defended, the oppressed delivered, when any
wrong is to be put down, any evil set aside, any good gained
by pain and toil and trouble ; not such selfish, easy-natured
lovers of peace as these ; not the compromisers, who, for
the sake of peace, give up all right, all principle, all duty ;
not mere go-betweens, who quite as often are mischief-
makers : but souls that are first pure and undefiled within,
and being all unselfish in their own thoughts and desires,
free from envy, jealousy, covetousness, deceit, are peaceful
toward all men, and seek to make peace between others by

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 279
doing, by helping, by securing, what is just and true and
good. "Blessed are the peacemakers."
And yet the world that does not love God, the world
that put to death the Son of peace, hates such peace
makers, and gives them no rest. The world would be let
alone in its own ways, would have no opposition to its
wickedness, no dispute over its opinions, and no strife
against its injustice and wrongs : such a peace it would
like well enough. But the men who insist that things
shall be set right as the only means of peace, the men who
would carry peace to the injured, the suffering, the
oppressed, by securing justice in and from the world, —
these peacemakers the world hates as darkness hates light,
as evil hates good. And so, when Jesus had closed his
round of benedictions, he reminded his disciples that these
blessings were spiritual in their nature and effects, — bless
ings for the inner life, — and that the very causes that
would secure inward peace would provoke opposition and
persecution from without. When about to be borne from
his disciples, and to suffer upon the cross, he said, " If the
world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated
you. The servant is not greater than his lord : if they have
persecuted me, they will also persecute you." 1
The life of a simple, earnest Christian is a rebuke to the
sins and follies of the world; and, besides, the Christian
1 John xv. 18, 20.

280 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
seeks directly to reform the lives of others, and to bring
everybody to his own standard. But such protest and
rebuke, if they do not produce reform, provoke ridicule and
hostility ; and the history of Christianity shows how true
was this warning of Jesus to his disciples, that in winning
his blessing they would gain also the hatred of the world.
But at the same time he taught them that this very hatred
should be a token and a means of greater blessing.
" Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness'
sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." To be hated
and injured because they do right, — this is a sign that they
are children of God. The wider the world separates from
them, the nearer they are to the kingdom of heaven.
" Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute
you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely,
for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is
your reward in heaven." If by love for Christ, and zeal
in his cause, we bring upon ourselves the hatred and perse
cution of the world, we thus make ourselves one with
Jesus in what he taught and what he is ; and he will make
us one with himself in that kingdom of blessedness which
is his own.
To take in the whole meaning of these benedictions, we
must again remind ourselves how the people who first heard
them were all talking about the kingdom of God and the
kingdom of heaven, and looking to see this set up in their

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 281
day and in their own land. But the kingdom they were
looking for was still an earthly kingdom, — a conquering
Messiah heading victorious legions, striking terror by his
name and his deeds, clothed, like Moses and Elijah, with
the power of God. Their sacred books told them how God
had drowned the Egyptians in the Red Sea, had smitten the
Assyrians with blindness, had driven out the Philistines
from the land. And now this Prophet with his wondrous
powers might surely become their leader and king. The
nation was ripe for throwing off the Roman yoke. But,
instead of war and victory, Jesus talked of peace and
persecution ; instead of offices and honors, he talked of
trials and sorrows ; instead of pride, he talked of purit3r,
of blessings within the soul, and of reward in heaven. He
showed how far they were from the true spirit and life of
that kingdom, and from the possession of its blessings and
rewards; that even their religion had become a form, a
burden, an abuse ; that they had lost the meaning of the
commandments, and by traditions had set up false and evil
rules and practices about marriage and divorce, about oaths
and anger and reyenge ; that the people which should have
been " the salt of the earth," to purify and save the heathen.
world, had so lost the purity and power of its own religion,
that it had been cast out from among the nations, and was
now " trodden under foot " by the pagan Romans ; that
the light of God's word, which should shine like the city

282 JESUS OF NAZARETH.

that glittered before them on the hillside, was now dim and
hidden, like " a candle under a bushel ; " and that the true
way of getting back the light and power they had lost, and
of setting up the kingdom of heaven, was not by boasting,
like the Pharisees, of being the children of Abraham, nor
by rebelling against their Roman master, but by obeying the
spirit of the law in their hearts and lives ; not by making a
show of fasting and praying and giving, but by having
within them right feelings and aims, true love to God and
love to men. This love would be the true life, the true
religion, the true kingdom of heaven ; and by acting toward
all men with the spirit of kindness and good-will, and seek
ing to make everybody as good and as happy as is possible
to men in this earthly life, they would be truly the children
of God, and perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. The
rule of unselfish love is the blessedness of heaven.

CHAPTER XXIV.
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE GOLDEN RULE.
How to pray, and how to trust ; how to love, and how to
give, — these are lessons that everybody needs to learn, and
that make up almost the whole idea of religion and of life
as taught by Jesus. These lessons, as he taught them, are
so simple, that it seems as if anybody might have thought
of them ; and they sound so easy, that it seems as if every
body might live up to them. Yet, to the people who heard
him, these were new and strange lessons ; and, though now
so familiar in word, how hard we find it to carry out the
rules of Jesus in our lives ! In one sense, his words were
not new, and need not have seemed strange. The same
great truths of praying, trusting, loving, doing, lie. open in
nature and in the Bible. That God is in heaven, — the most
high and glorious and blessed place that poetry can imagine ;
that God is holy and just and good ; that God takes care
of us, and of every living thing ; that God will help us in
our troubles, will hear us when we pray, will save us by his
mercy ; that God is to be worshipped as King and Lord
283

284 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
over all the earth, and yet that he can be spoken to as a
father, — all this we read in the Old Testament, the Bible
of the Jews ; and many of these thoughts and feelings we
find in the sacred books of other nations, and in the writ
ings of such wise and good men as Socrates, Plato, Cicero,
Marcus Aurelius, and others who knew nothing of the teach
ings of Christ. That we should be just and kind and forgiv
ing, and that it is better to do good than to do evil, was also
taught by some of the pagan philosophers ; and Confucius,
the great Chinese teacher, who lived more than five hundred
years before Christ, came very near the idea of the Golden
Rule. He put it into the negative form : " What I do not
wish men to do to me, I also wish not to do to men." l The
famous Jewish teacher Rabbi Hillel, who was president of
a chief academy in Jerusalem at the time when Jesus was
born, had also hit upon this negative form of the same
precept : " Do not unto another what thou wouldest not
have another do unto. thee. This is the whole law: the
rest is mere commentary." Hillel said also, " Do not judge
thy neighbor until thou hast stood in his place." 2
Speaking of dealings between man and man, Plato said,
"The principle of them is very simple: Thou shalt not
touch that which is mine, if thou canst help, or remove the
least thing which belongs to me without my consent ; and
1 " The Chinese Classics ; " by James Legge, D.D., vol. i. p. 79.
2 Deutsch on the Talmud, p. 31.

THE LORD'S PRAYER, AND THE GOLDEN RULE. 285
may I, being of sound mind, do to others as I would that
they should do to me."1
That the wise and good of all lands should approach the
same moral ideas, is what we ought to expect ; for God is
one, and truth is one, and nature is one, and the human
heart is one in its wants and its fears, in its loves and
its hopes ; and all true and good things stand together, the
same in their essence and in their end. But the true and
good things found in the sacred books of the old pagan
world, and in the sayings of pagan philosophers, are buried
and lost in the many things that we now see to be weak
and foolish and false : religion lost its simple character ;
prayer was made a form or a display, and alms-giving a
show ; and wise and good rules of life were contradicted
by much that was wrong and evil. Now, in the lessons of
Jesus, all is true, and all is good, with no mixture of weak
ness or of mistake; and the wisest, purest thoughts ever
spoken, and the best rules ever given, are put together in
a few simple words ; made clear to everybody, made beauti
ful as the birds and the flowers, and sweet and blessed as
the song of angels. So it does not matter at all, whether
the things that he said had ever been said before, or not :
in the way in which he said them, they were as new and
fresh as if a voice had then, for the first time, spoken out
of heaven. As we know "from the story of his early life,
1 The Laws, B. XI., Jowett's translation ; Dialogues, vol. iv. p. 424.

286 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
and from the evidence of his sayings themselves, he had
never learned any thing from the philosophers of other
lands ; he was so far original in the matter of his teaching ;
and, in the manner of it, " he spake as never man spake ; "
he spoke as one whose soul was identified with truth, who
was truth itself; and he spoke truths full of life to the
souls of all men, in all times. The people who heard him
were astonished, for "he taught them as one having author
ity;" and we feel in his words the voice of God.
The prayer which Jesus taught his disciples eighteen
hundred years ago answers for us to-day, and for every man
who has any sort of belief in God, whether he is a Jew, a
Christian, a Mohammedan, or a Pagan. There is not one
word in it that belongs to any one religious sect, or to any
one race or country ; but it speaks the wants, the feelings,
the wishes, the hopes, of all human souls alike ; and in these
few simple words, that any child can learn, are given all
the chief things that men need for their earthly and. their
spiritual good. In those days men of all religions made a
show of praying in public places, and with long forms ; and
they were accustomed to say over and over the same words,
and to cry aloud, as if they thought, for this, God would be
more likely to hear them ; and so prayer was made either a
task to be gone over, or a form to be run through with, or
a performance to please the doer, and make him appear
pious to his neighbors. But Jesus taught us, that true

THE LORD'S PRAYER, AND THE GOLDEN RULE. 287

prayer is the soul speaking to God as a child speaks to his
father; that prayer is always best when it is simplest;
and that when we are alone, by fixing our minds and hearts
upon God and his goodness, we can bring him near. For
God is not in the church nor in the temple, not in any
sacred place where we must go to find him, but is in heaven,
which is everywhere above the earth ; so that, wherever we
are, we can feel that he knows us, sees us, hears us, and
can speak to him as our Father. Now, because God is our
Father, we should love him and honor him, and should
hallow his name ; and, if we love God, we shall wish and
pray that his will may be done in our hearts and lives, and
by everybody in the world ; that so his kingdom may come
in earth as in heaven. All prayer begins in honoring God.
But the very feeling that causes us to honor and obey
him enables us to trust him also. As the son of the
greatest monarch knows that his father, though he has the
affairs of his kingdom and even of the whole world to think
of, yet will not forget him, but will provide for his food and
clothing, his education and his pleasure, so we can be sure
that our Father, who rules the world, thinks upon us as his
children, and loves to make us happy. He would have us
trust him, so as to have no care nor trouble about what
shall come to us to-morrow, but leave all care in his hands.
He feeds the birds, he clothes the lilies ; and we his children
should not be worried about what we shall eat, or what we

288 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
shall wear, but should ask him every day, as our Father, to
give us our daily bread ; and, if we make this a real prayer,
we shall go about our work for the day cheerfully and hope
fully, believing that God will bless and prosper us. And,
in thus trusting our earthly wants to God's blessing upon
our industry, we can give our hearts to the higher welfare
of our spiritual and immortal natures, — can " seek first the
kingdom of God," and "lay up for ourselves treasures in
heaven." Having this in view, we should pray most earnestly for
spiritual good, to be freed from sin, and to be kept from
temptation and evil. But just here Jesus teaches us that,
to pray rightly, we must also feel and act aright. If we pray
to God to forgive our sins, we must be ready to forgive
those who wrong and injure us. If we really wish to
become like our Father in heaven, and, by doing his will,
to make heaven in our hearts, then we should pray and
seek to be kept from the power of evil, and from all
temptations that might lead us to evil thoughts, to evil
feelings, or to evil acts. And for such help as this, the help
of God's own Spirit, giving strength to our spirits, we can
pray with the highest confidence. For God wishes us to be
pure, and true, and wholly good; and if earthly parents
wish to see their children well and safe and happy, and will
do all in their power to secure to them such good gifts, how
much more shall our Father which is in heaven give good
things to them that ask him !

The Widow who gave All that she had.

THE LORD'S PRAYER, AND THE GOLDEN RULE. 291
But to pray rightly we must live rightly ; and the same
feelings of love and trust toward our heavenly Father that
lead us truly to pray will lead us to act toward our fellow-
men with feelings of good-will. So Jesus, at the same time
that he taught us how to pray and how to trust, taught
us how to live and how to give. Give with a free heart,
but with a quiet hand ; give privately, when this is possible ;
and never give for show, or to get glory from man, even
when for the sake of example, or to help a public object,
you give openly. Never boast of your charity: do not
let even the left hand know what the right hand doeth. To
be sure, money given to the poor would do them as much
good, as mere money, if, like the Pharisees, we should have
a trumpet sounded before the church-door, or at the street-
corner, to gather beggars to receive our alms. But what
money buys is not all the good that comes of giving : every
act of kindness to another should bless our own hearts with
the warmth of love ; and this it will do, if we give, not
from pride nor for praise, but from real love and sympathy ;
and, besides, when we give with real kindness, our looks
and words, the very tones of our voices, will do good, as
well as the gifts we bestow. Indeed, the act we do may
help only some bodily want of the poor, but the manner of
doing this may cheer and bless the heart ; and thus we may
soften and refine the feelings of others, and make their
lives smooth and cheerful.

292 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
To know how to give, we must learn how to love ; for, by
kind words and feelings, we can give to others a share of
whatever good thing we carry in our own hearts. But how
to love ? At first that seems so easy ! for children grow up
to love their parents and one another, and love seems to be a
feeling of nature that comes of itself. But Jesus says, " If
ye love them which love you, what thank have ye ? and,
if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank
have ye ? " If we would know the full blessing of love,
if we would be like our Father in heaven by loving as God
loves, we must go far beyond that natural feeling which
prompts us to love those who love us ; we must love our
enemies, and be ready to forgive them, and to do them good ;
if we do not forgive others, we cannot pray to be forgiven;
we must be kind to the evil and the unthankful; and though
we dislike their characters, reprove their faults, and shun
their ways, we must wish them good and not evil, and try
to do good to them as often as we have the opportunity ;
we must even bless them who curse us, and pray for those
who seek to do us wrong ; we must be gentle and patient
under injuries, and never allow the feeling of hatred or
of revenge ; we must remember that our Father in heaven
maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and
sendeth rain on the just and the unjust ; and by this kind,
even, and universal love we must strive to become perfect
even as our Father in heaven is perfect. All this makes

THE LORD'S PRAYER, AND THE GOLDEN RULE. 293
love far from the easy thing it appeared at first ; but at the
same time it makes it the most lovely thing we can imagine.
And Jesus has given a very easy rule for learning and prac
tising this perfect, this heavenly love : As ye would that
MEN SHOULD DO TO YOU, DO YE ALSO TO THEM LIKE
WISE. " Tit for tat " is the rule that human nature loves to
practise. Children begin with this in their little quarrels ;
grown-up men, and even nations, carry it out in their dis
putes ; and the Jews went so far as to make this a rule of
their religion, — " An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
tooth." " Served him right," we are apt to say, when a quarrel
some boy or man " gets as good as he gave." But Jesus
taught us not to do to others as they do to us, but as we
would like to have them do to us. If they are in poverty,
trouble, sorrow, we should put ourselves in their place, and
feel and act toward them as we should wish them to feel and
act toward us. If others injure us by word or deed, instead
of flying into a passion, and retorting in the same way, we
should set an example of patience, of mildness, of dignity,
of magnanimity. " Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right
cheek, turn to him the other also ; forgive, and ye shall be
forgiven." And, even when others are wholly in the wrong,
we should be more disposed to pity than to blame, and
should take into account their circumstances, their tempta-

294 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
tions, their necessities, their weaknesses. "Judge not, and ye
shall not be judged; condemn not, and ye shall not be
condemned ; forgive, and ye shall be forgiven."
By this broad rule of love, Jesus did not intend to abolish
law, to do away with penalty, to give free range to the
wicked to do as they please, without reproof or punishment.
That would be to set vice above virtue, and to put it in the
power of sin and evil to rule the world without resist
ance. No one ever condemned sin more strongly than did
Jesus ; no one ever pronounced more terrible rebukes, nor
threatened more terrible woes to evil-doers. The very
purity of love for what is true and good made him a burn
ing fire toward all falsehood and evil. More than once we
are told that he looked upon the Pharisees with anger ; and
how solemnly he warned them of " the damnation of hell." '
But, in such warnings and rebukes, Jesus showed his love
of truth, of purity, of goodness, and the yearning of his
heart to turn men away from sin, that they might be saved.
Never, never did he show anger at any wrong done to
himself ; never, never did he threaten his persecutors ; with
his dying breath, upon the cross, he prayed for his mur
derers, " Father, forgive them: they know not what they do."
And if we are filled with the love of Jesus, if we make his
" Sermon on the Mount " the rule of our lives, though we
shall hate all wrong and sin, and shall feel that wrong-doers
1 Matt, xxiii. 33.

THE LORD'S PRAYER, AND THE GOLDEN RULE. 295
should be punished, and that love itself must be just, yet
we shall pity the transgressor, and show kindness to the
evil-doer. Though love must and will honor the law that
God himself has given for the praise of the good, and for
the punishment of the evil, yet as the law of our own lives,
to govern all our thoughts and feelings and actions toward
others, we should bind upon our hearts —
THE GOLDEN RULE,

CHAPTER XXV.
VISITS TO JERUSALEM. — A KEY TO HIS FATE.
The quiet home life of Jesus at Capernaum was varied
by visits to Jerusalem, where he came in contact with
excited crowds, and often found or made more enemies
than friends. Jerusalem was then the hotbed of religious
fanaticism and of political disturbance. The Jews had put
up with the oppression of Herod the Great, because, with
all his crimes and extortions, he had humored them in their
religion, and had rebuilt their temple. They contrived to
have Archelaus banished by the Roman emperor, since, with
the wickedness of his father Herod, he had not his wit for
managing the people. But though they thus got rid of a
tyrant, and of a hated family of kings, the Jews only
brought themselves more completely under the power of the
Romans. Herod the Great had been set up as a king by
a Roman army, and had kept himself in power by means
of costly presents to the Roman emperor, and by building
cities and temples in his honor ; but as he called himself a
Jew (though he was descended from an old Pagan family
296

VISITS TO JERUSALEM. — A KEY TO HIS FATE. 297
of Edom), and kept up the Jewish worship on a splendid
scale, the people did not then feel that they were under
the direct yoke of the Roman empire. Now, however, by
asking the Romans to deliver them from the son of Herod,
they had put themselves completely into the hands of this
foreign Pagan power ; and, like the frogs in the fable, they
had got " King Stork " to come among them to devour them.
Though they had known cruelties and oppressions before,
these had been offset by certain privileges; and, under all the
foreign rulers whose rod they had felt in the course of five
hundred years, they had still kept up the spirit of national
life, and some forms and signs of their old independence.
But now Roman soldiers were quartered upon every town,
and tax-gatherers of the Roman government swarmed over
the land ; every Jew had to have his name registered at a
Roman tax-office, and to give an account of his property : so
that the people felt in the keenest way that they were under
their heathen masters. We read continually, in the Gospels,
of the " centurion" and the "publican," the representatives
of Roman might and of Roman greed.
The Roman governor took away from the sanhedrim its
old right of punishing religious offences by death ; and the
high priest could not hold office nor officiate in public with
out his consent. As a rule, the Romans treated the Jews
with severity and contempt. They ridiculed their religion,
and sometimes set up images, and had Pagan festivals, in

298 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
places which the Jews held sacred. What Tacitus, the
Roman historian, has written of the rites and ceremonies
of the Jews, charging them with silly customs and immoral
habits, shows how they were generally looked upon by the
Romans.1 But poor, weak, crushed, hated, as they were, the
Jews kept true to the forms of their religion. In old times
it was their national sin to copy the ways of their heathen
neighbors ; and for this they were often punished by being
brought under the power of a Pagan government. But
since their return from captivity in Babylon they had never
fallen into idolatry ; and though their religion had lost much
of its simplicity and purity, and was burdened with forms,
rules, and customs not found in the early times, they felt,
nevertheless, that they were more strict and true in the faith
than their fathers had been ; and, the more they were hum
bled in their political condition, the more they rose in spirit
ual pride as the one only people of the one only God. They
felt it was a sin for such a people to serve another people,
and these the worshippers of false gods. They read in their
prophets the promises of the "kingdom of Israel," "the
kingdom of God," ruling in power and glory over all
nations, having " dominion from sea to sea, and as long as
the sun and the moon should endure." The signs foretold
by Daniel seemed to be taking place before their eyes. It
must be that the Messiah was soon to come ; and he would
1 Tacitus, History, book v. chap. 5.

VISITS TO JERUSALEM. — A KEY TO HIS FATE. 299
set them free, and put all enemies under their feet. Who
ever would preach up their law, preach up their pride,
preach up the kingdom of God, and at the same time
promise them victory, independence, and power as a nation,
would get their ears, would draw them after him* would
raise them to such a fever that they were ready to receive
him as the Christ, and to crown him as a king. Thus,
shortly after the birth of Jesus, a native of Galilee by the
name of Judas raised a large body of armed men to resist
the census which the Roman emperor had ordered. He
promised his followers to restore the " kingdom of God," as
this was established by Moses, and urged them, as the
people of God, to refuse to submit to any human power.
One of his sons gave himself out as the Messiah. Again,
some years after the death of Jesus, a famous Theudas
pretended to be sent to deliver the people, and led
thousands to follow him to the Jordan by promising that
he would make the- river divide before him, as had been
done by Joshua and again by Elijah.1 Indeed, in those
days, fanatics and impostors were continually setting them
selves up for the Messiah, and promising to drive out the
Romans ; and the people, though often deceived, were
always on the lookout for their deliverer. Now, by his
miracles, Jesus at times raised the feeling that he would be
this expected deliverer of the nation; so that they were
1 Josephus.

300 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
ready even " by force to make him king." 1 But, though he
did preach up the law, he charged them with breaking it,
and needing repentance, and reformation of life. Though
he preached the kingdom of God, he made this so pure and
spiritual and holy that none could enter it without being
born again. And hence many hated him with all the
intensity of that pride and patriotism that led them to
look for a political king and saviour. Their very longing
for such a Messiah re-acted against him as the preacher of
meekness, of holiness, and of love. The fierce opposition
of religious and political parties was roused against him
when he went to Jerusalem. Religious teachers hated
Jesus because they saw that his words stirred the hearts of
the people, and drew multitudes after him, and that every
word told against the scribes and Pharisees, and tended to
break their power. Much as different teachers and different
schools may have quarrelled among themselves, they all
agreed in opposing this new teacher, who accused them of
changing the laws of Moses, and " making the word of God
of no effect." 2 Political leaders hated Jesus because, when
he was popular enough to have made himself king, he
did nothing to open the way to their ambition, but even
denounced them as false guides and oppressors. Now, every
leader had his party, and could stir up a tumult against
Jesus by charging him with being an enemy of the nation j
1 John vi. 15. 2 Mark. vii. 13.

VISITS TO JERUSALEM. — A KEY TO HIS FATE. 301
and the very people who at first followed him, in the hope
that he was the Messiah, would turn against him when they
found that he did nothing for their party or their cause, but
gave them reproofs and warnings instead of promises and
rewards. This state of things shows why it was, that, whenever he
went to Jerusalem, Jesus was in some way attacked by the
priests and Pharisees or by the people, until at last the san
hedrim ventured to seize him, and then stirred up a mob to
cry that he must be crucified. At the pool of Bethesda, he
healed a poor man who for thirty-eight years had not been
able to walk. The news of this miracle drew crowds
together to seek after Jesus ; and yet we are told that
" they sought to slay him." 1 The reason given is, that " he
had done these things on the sabbath day." Now, God
surely had never given a rule for keeping the sabbath that
would make it unlawful upon that day to heal a sick man,
or to pull a drowning man or beast out of the water. But
the " Doctors of. the Law " had made a great many hard and
foolish rules about the sabbath; and it was by enforcing
such rules as a necessary part of religion, that they kept
their control over the ignorant and superstitious people.
So when Jesus broke through their rules, and drew to him
self the wonder and praise of the people, the "doctors" took
alarm. They saw that his teaching and example, attended
1 John v. 16.

302 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
with such wonders, would soon break down their power ;
and seeing that they could not hinder his works, nor silence
his voice, they determined to put him out of the way.
This hatred of Jesus by the leaders of schools and parties
in Jerusalem was still more marked when they heard that
the people were already talking about him as the Christ,
and were saying, " When Christ cometh, will he do more
miracles than these which this man hath done ? " x The
Pharisees and chief priests now sent officers to take him;
but the honest soldiers heard him preaching to the people,
and were so much struck with what he said, that they did
not dare to touch him. Afterwards, going openly into the
temple, he there uttered the most wonderful and lovely
sayings about "the light of the world," the " freedom of the
truth," the " love of his Father," the victory over death ;
but, at the same time, reproved the people for their sins and
their unbelief, and for this they began to abuse him. They
called him a Samaritan, as a name of contempt; they
said, " Thou hast a devil," and so mocked at all he said and
did as the effect of magic or of a wicked demon. At last
the mob spirit was fairly roused ; and " they took up stones
to cast at him," 2 so that Jesus was obliged to escape for his
life. This was at the feast of tabernacles in the fall, when
Jerusalem was crowded with strangers.
The same thing happened to him again the following
1 John vii. 31. 2 John viii. 59.

VISITS TO JERUSALEM. — A KEY TO HIS FATE. 305
winter, at the feast of the dedication of the temple. Now,
as before, Jesus showed his character by works of love, and
by words of love. These excited the wonder and raised the
hopes of the people ; but, at the same time, they roused the
jealousy of the Pharisees. He gave sight to a man who"
had been blind from his birth. No such wonder had been
done in Jerusalem, and the whole city was full of it. But,
the more the people ran after Jesus, the more their rulers
feared him and hated him. The Pharisees brought up the
old charge : he had broken the sabbath day ; and therefore he
must be " a sinner," and, so far from being the Son of
God, must have an evil spirit, a " devil," within him.
Jesus answered them by his beautiful parable of the good
shepherd, who was ready to give his life for the sheep.1
But the people only quarrelled over his words, first among
themselves and then with him. At last they charged him
with blasphemy, in " making himself God ; " and they took
up stones again to stone him. For a while he kept them in
check by defending from their own Bible his right to call
himself the Son of God ; but " they thought again to take
him ; " and, seeing that his life could not be safe in Jerusa
lem, he made his escape, and went away to a retired place
beyond the River Jordan.3 Here we must anticipate in a
few words what belongs to later chapters ; since it is only
by understanding the religious jealousies and the political
1 John x. 1-18. 2 John x. 22-40.

306 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
plottings of Jerusalem that we get the key to the fate of
Jesus. While he was on the other side of Jordan, Martha and
Mary sent him word that their brother Lazarus, whom he
so deeply loved, was sick; and Jesus came back as far as
Bethany, to perform the greatest of Ills' miracles, in raising
Lazarus from the dead. The news of this ran like wildfire,
and brought crowds from Jerusalem out to Bethany to see
for themselves the unheard-of wonder of a dead man who
had risen from the grave, and was again alive. Indeed,
messengers had hurried to the city, only two hours distant,
to warn the Pharisees that the new prophet had come back
again, and that everybody was ready to believe on him.
The great sanhedrim was now called together ; and the
chief priests and Pharisees, who had so often tried to get
Jesus put out of the way by a mob or by an assassin, took
advantage of the fickleness of the people ; and by spreading
a rumor, that, if Jesus was allowed to go on, the Romans
would come to destroy the nation, they got the ignorant
multitude upon their side, and made it so unsafe for Jesus
to appear in public, that he once more retreated into the
wilderness on the eastern side of Jordan, and did not again
show himself in Jerusalem until he came to meet his death.
No wonder that from the depth of his soul he cried, " O
Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! thou that killest the prophets, and
stonest them which are sent unto thee ! how often would I

VISITS TO JERUSALEM. — A KEY TO HIS FATE. 307
have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth
her chickens under her wings, and ye would not ! " x Prob
ably in no other city of Palestine would he have met such a
fate ; but, in the ferment of Jerusalem in those days, it could
not be otherwise than that such teachings and warnings should
provoke the cry, " Let him be crucified ! " One has only to
recall scenes in Paris during the Revolution of 1790 and the
Commune of 1871, to realize that such violence was an out
break of human nature, and not a special crime of the Jews.
That they felt themselves to be sincere, they showed when
Pilate wished them to let him go, by crying out, " His blood
be upon us and on our children." 2
i Matt, xxiii. 37. * Matt, xxvii. 25.

CHAPTER XXVI.
THE PARABLES OF JESUS.
Every child has read ^Esop's Fables, and has learned
from them some wise and good lessons which he will
remember as long as he lives. At first he was taken with
the idea of beasts, birds, fishes, insects, trees, talking to one
another, and having the same ideas and feelings, the same
wishes, hopes, pleasures, fears, that he found in himself. In
growing older he has learned that animals and plants do not
talk, nor show the same signs of moral feeling with men ;
but he still remembers the moral of the fable, and remem
bers it all the better from having first learned it in that way.
Indeed, he sometimes finds that the fable has a deeper
meaning than he used to see in it when a child, and contains
more wisdom than a book of philosophy. In the same way,
a proverb will be remembered and quoted long after a ser
mon is forgotten.
For this reason Jesus made much use of parables and
proverbs in teaching his doctrines of the kingdom of heaven
and the way of life. The truths he taught were broad and
308

THE PARABLES OF JESUS. 309
deep as any thing in the old philosophies ; and sometimes,
as in the Sermon on the Mount, and in discourses reported
by John, he spoke as a philosopher ; and, though his words
were clear, their meaning was so full and vast that no mind
has yet been able to exhaust the contents of some of his
sayings.1 But he loved rather to speak in parables. By so
doing he fixed the attention of his hearers, and helped them
to remember what he said ; he set them to thinking and
studying ; for his parables were often like a seed which was
sown in their minds, and in part hidden, until it should
grow and show a much larger meaning than at first ; and,
besides, he taught them in this way to look upon what was
1 The marked difference in style between the discourses of Jesus,
reported by John, and those given by the other evangelists, has led
some to doubt whether the fourth Gospel was really written by the
apostle whose name it bears, and to ascribe it to some Christian philoso
pher of a later day, who put into the mouth of Jesus himself the doc
trines that had grown up around his life and teaching. But the Jesus
whom John describes does not differ from the Jesus in the other Gospels
more widely than Socrates, as he appears in Plato's Dialogues, differs
from Socrates in Xenophon's narrative ; and in the Sermon on the
Mount and in some of the parables there are sayings as deep and full as
any thing given by John. We know, too, that Jesus often talked to
his disciples apart from the people, and then went deeper into the
mysteries of his life and doctrines. No one evangelist professes to give
all that Jesus said and did. Each would naturally give prominence to
what most impressed his own mind, and would report this in his own
way. Now, the style of John in his epistles shows that his mind and
heart would have seized upon just such sayings of Jesus as his Gospel
contains.

310 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
passing around them in nature and in the world as always
teaching some moral lesson, some higher truth of the king
dom of God. Thus he linked together his own age with
future times, through truths that grow more and more from
one generation to another ; and he linked the natural world
to the spiritual by analogies full of beauty and of life.
Of all the parables that Jesus spoke, only thirty are pre
served in the Gospels. Many of these have not more than
two or three lines ; and, in some cases, two or three words
contain the whole lesson of the parable. Yet even two or
three words, like " the pearl of great price," the " leaven
in the meal," the " treasure in the field," the " grain of
mustard-seed," x give a lesson that we can apply to so many
things, and in so many ways, that we can repeat it every day,
as long as we live, without using up its wisdom, or tiring
of its simple beauty.
Most of the parables of Jesus refer to the " kingdom
of heaven;" for this was the great subject of which he
talked, and about which the minds of his hearers were busy.
The first of the parables, as recorded by Matthew, — the
parable of the sower, — was a picture of the way in which
his own preaching and the preaching of his apostles was
likely to be received ; the way, in fact, in which the gospel
is received by different classes to this day. As we have
seen in the sketch of his life at Capernaum, his Sermon on
1 Matt. xiii.

.Tksus preaching from a Boat.

THE PARABLES OF JESUS. 313
the Mount, and his teachings and miracles in the town, had
made such a stir, that he could not go out without a crowd
gathering around him, who were ready enough to be his
disciples, if they could be sure that he was the Messiah,
and would set up the kingdom of heaven.' Jesus felt that
the time had come to sift such hearers by testing their real
interest in him and his doctrine ; so one morning, when
even a greater crowd than usual pressed around him as he
was standing on the shore of the Lake of Galilee, he stepped
into a boat, and pushed out a little way from the land.
Looking over the eager multitude, his eye would rest upon
the rich plain of Gennesareth, and the rounded hills in the
background, from which the towns along the shore drew
their supplies of fruit and grain ; and perhaps, at that very
moment, he could see in the distance a sower scattering the
seed for a new crop. No fences divided the fields, nor even
separated the grain from the beaten paths, over which foot-
passengers and beasts of burden made their way to and
from the lake. The sower could not stop to plant each
separate grain of wheat securely in a furrow prepared for
it, — to pluck up the thorns, to throw away the stones, to
break up the fallow ground : he must scatter the seed
broadcast over the ploughed field, let it fall where it would ;
and some would fall by the wayside, and be eaten up by
the birds ; some would drop into stony places, to sprout and
wither ; some would be choked by thorns ; and some would

314 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
fall into good ground, and yield a good crop.1 So is it every-
where : in the world of nature and of grace, —
" God scatters love on every side
Freely among his children all ;
And always hearts are lying open wide,
Wherein some grains may fall."
But though truth and love, like the sunshine and the rain,
are dropping from the skies for all alike, our hearts may
catch no good if they are hard and selfish ; or the best gifts
of God may be choked within us by our worldly wishes
and unholy feelings. It is not enough that the good seed
is sown, or that a good share of it falls to us.
God, whose hand of love is everywhere, is not the only
sower. The enemy, the Evil One, is always busy sowing
tares in our hearts and in the world; trying to mix evil
with good, and to make every good beginning turn out
badly. The sower of the good seed cannot give his time
to watching tares : he warns us to be watchful, to keep out
the evil, and to cherish the good.2 At the same time, we
must take care not to spoil the good by trying to. make it
grow too fast, or yield too much ; if we pull up the plant
every day, to see how the roots grow, we shall soon bring it
to an end. When the good seed is planted in us, we must
let it grow quietly and naturally ; and, though at first it
1 Matt. xiii. 1-9. * Matt. xiii. 24-30.

THE PARABLES OF JESUS.

315

seems no bigger than a grain of mustard-seed, it will by
and by branch out with beautiful flowering twigs, the home
of singing birds.1
To make life a success, to give a real dignity and worth
to our living in the world, we must set truth before every
thing in our hearts, and must obey truth above every thing
in our actions. We often hear it asked, " What is such a
man worth ? " and the answer is, " He is worth so many
millions." Yet, with all his millions, the man himself may
be worth little or nothing to the world. Like the rich fool,
just when he thinks he has all he needs, and " has much
goods laid up for many years," his soul may be summoned
empty and naked before God, with not one good thing to
show for all it has had.2 What has he added to the real
value of life, either by his ideas, his principles, his feelings,
or his actions? This must show how much he is really
worth, whether he is truly " rich towards God ; " and every
man may make himself worth just as much as there is in
him of capacity for good. To gain that value, we must be
willing to part with every other. As the wise man had said,
" Buy the truth, and sell it not," ? so Jesus taught us to give
up every thing else,— riches, honors, pleasures, — to get the
hidden treasure of wisdom, the priceless pearl of truth.4
And, rightly to possess the truth, it is not enough that we
1 Mark iv. 26-34. « Luke vii. 16-21.
8 Prov. xxiii. 23. * Matt. xiii. 44-46.

316 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
accept it with the understanding, nor even that we acknowl
edge it with the heart: we must incorporate it with our very
self, so that it shall move all our springs of thought, of feel
ing, and of action, and, like the leaven in the meal, shall
work itself into every atom of our being.1 We cannot mix
truth and error, good and evil, any more than we can " put
new cloth in an old garment," or " new wine in old bottles."2
"I am the truth," said Jesus; for truth was his very life;
and that life, through which the truth of God continually
shone, was the light of the world.
The first series of parables taught, in many forms, how
"the kingdom of heaven" should be received into the
heart, and there be nourished as a growth and a life. But
what if one had neglected this heavenly wisdom, had
failed to profit by the voice of truth planted in his con
science, had suffered his heart to be filled with the spirit
of this world, and his life to be wasted upon low and selfish
aims ? Then other parables show how God's love is greater
than our folly, his grace greater than our sin. Like the
woman who sweeps the house, and searches it, to find a lost
piece of silver ; like the shepherd who leaves his whole
flock, and goes up and down the wilderness seeking the one
lost sheep, — so God turns aside from the blessed society of
angels, to seek the lost children of men. And though the
prodigal had abused his father's love, and turned his back
1 Matt. xiii. 33. 2 Luke v. 36-39.

THE PARABLES OF JESUS. 317
upon his father's house, and had sunk himself to the lowest
company ; yet in his want and wretchedness, when all have
forsaken him, and his very vices in which he rioted have
turned him out of doors among the swine, his father longs
for him, pities him, welcomes his return, strips off his rags,
kisses away his tears, presses him to his heart.1
If we feel ourselves weak to break away from evil, if our
hearts are heavy with doubts and fears, then Jesus has set
before us the blessedness of prayer as a help for every
need ; if, with the publican, our simple, heartfelt cry is, " God
be merciful to me a sinner," 2 the answer of mercy is ready
beforehand ; if like the widow, alone and helpless, we beg
to be delivered from trials, griefs, and enemies, the righteous
Judge will hear and help ; s if, like the traveller at mid
night, we come hungry and weary, we shall have bread and
shelter.4 Greater far than all human patience, sympathy,
compassion, is the love of our heavenly Father. " If a son
shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give
him a stone ? Or, if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him
a serpent ? Or, if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a
scorpion ? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good
gifts unto your children, how much more shall your
heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask
him ! " 6 Even though we should seem to be utterly for-
1 Luke xv. 1-32. " Luke xviii. 13. « Luke xviii. 2-8.
4 Luke xi. 5-8. « Luke xi. 11-13.

318 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
gotten and forsaken, and like Lazarus should lie at the rich
man's gate, and be licked by the dogs ; yet, if through all
we cling to God as our portion, we shall find at last his
angels ready to carry us to Abraham's bosom.1 Great as
may be our patience under the seeming delays of Provi
dence, God's patience is greater far under the delays and
provocations of our sins. The son who proudly said, "I
will not," yet afterwards repented and went ; the laborers
who, after standing all day idle, came at last at the eleventh
hour, — received commendation and reward unmixed with
any word of reproof. So freely, so largely, does God give
of that grace which is altogether his own.2
Yet mingled with these parables of love and tenderness
were others of warning against despising mercies and
abusing grace. Not what we receive, but what we do and
are, determines our character : that " which goeth out of a
man defileth him." 3 The kingdom of God is set before us
as a rich and abundant feast ; all things are ready, and the
invitation is free and urgent. But if we slight the gener
osity of the host, and make weak and frivolous excuses for
staying away, we shall find at last the opportunity lost;
and those whom we may have thought beneath us in point
of privilege — the very heathen — coming from the east and
from the west, from the north and from the south, to sit
down in the kingdom of God.4 Yes, if those who are
1 Luke xvi. 22. s Matt. xx. 1-16.
8 Matt. xv. 10-20. * Luke xiii. 28, 29, xiv. 16-24.

THE PARABLES OF JESUS. 319
invited to the marriage of the king's son treat the messen
gers with contempt and violence, they may even be pun
ished as rebels.1 Such blessings as Jesus brings in the
gospel cannot be treated lightly. The fact of having them
makes us responsible for using them. It is true of all
privileges and advantages, — our birth, our natural talents,
our education, our property, our position, — that "to whom
much is given, of him much shall be required." 2 So is it
with the spiritual blessing of the gospel. The householder
who has planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about,
and digged a wine-press in it, and built a tower; in one
word, who has done every thing to bring forward the vines,
and protect them from injury, — has a right to look for a good
crop of fruit, and may justly be angry with the husbandmen
if, after all, they seize the vineyard as their own, and use the
fruit for themselves, or foolishly waste it. He would even
do right to cut them off from privileges they had so badly
abused, and to give the vineyard to others.3 The fig-tree,
which for years has been tended with care, may at last be
cut down, if it yields no fruit.4
The good we so freely receive, we must as freely share.
The favor that God shows to us, we must show to our
fellows. If in the greatness of his compassion the Lord has
forgiven us ten thousand talents, we must not be hard upon
1 Matt. xxii. 1-14. 2 Luke xii. 48.
8 Matt. xxi. 33-46. * Luke xiii. 6-9.

320 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
a fellow-creature for a debt of a hundred pence, but from
our hearts must forgive every one his brother's trespasses,1
must forgive him over and over again, even " until seventy
times seven." 2
The things of this life, committed to our trust, we must
so use in deeds of good-will to others, that even the
" mammon of unrighteousness," that is commonly the foe
of piety, shall be turned into a friend to plead for us by the
good use to which we have put it ; 3 and yet, when we have
done all, we must remember that we are only stewards, and
be ready to say, " We are unprofitable servants : we have
done that which was our duty to do." 4 God's mercy to us
should move us to gratitude to him, and to pity for others ;
the sense of our sinfulness and ill-desert will move us to
pour forth our gratitude, like precious ointment, at the
feet of Jesus. He who has had much forgiven will love
much.5 And the sense of our own need and nothingness
will prompt us to pity and relieve all who are in any trouble
or distress, without regard to outward differences or condi
tions. Like the Good Samaritan, we shall look upon every
man as a neighbor, and pity and help every sufferer as a
brother.6 The blessings conferred upon us, the gifts in
trusted to us, summon us to watchful fidelity in view of
our final account. The " pounds," the " talent," put into
1 Matt, xviii. 21-35. 2 Matt, xviii. 21-35. « Luke xvi. 1-13.
4 Luke xvii. 7-10. 8 Luke vii. 40-50. 6 Luke x. 24-37.

THE PARABLES OF JESUS. 321

our hands, are not simply to be kept from rust and waste :
they are to be improved in the service of the Master, and
kept in readiness for his coming. His rebuke for neglect and
abuse will be as sharp and severe as his reward of faithfulness
will be rich and free. We have only to be true to our trust,
and we shall enter in to the joy of our Lord.1 But we must
" occupy till he come ; " 2 and like the wise virgins, with
our lamps fed and trimmed, must watch and hope, always
in readiness ; " for we know neither the day nor the hour
when the Son of man cometh." 3
The circle of parables, that began with sowing the good seed
of the kingdom, with the promise of a hundred-fold fruitful
ness to every good and willing heart, closed with the rewards
and honors of the faithful use of the gospel, to be realized by
the " blessed of the Father " in the glory of the heavenly
state. Yet death, that must determine the final coming of
the kingdom, shall also discriminate as to its true heirs and
possessors. " For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net
that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind : which,
when it was full, they drew to the shore, and sat down, and
gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So
shall it be at the end of the world : the angels shall come
forth, and sever the wicked from among the just." 4 Well
might Jesus say to us, as he said to the first hearers of these
parables, " Have ye understood all these things ? " B
1 Matt. xxv. 14-30. 2 Luke xix. 12-27. 8 Matt. xxv. 1-14.
4 Matt. xiii. 47-49. * Matt. xiii. 51.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE MIRACLES OF JESUS.

As with the parables of Jesus, so with his miracles, — a
small part only of these wonderful works was put on record
by the evangelists. Again and again they tell us that he
did many mighty works, and " healed all manner of sickness
and all manner of disease among the people ; " 2 and, in the
warmth of his admiration of the life of his Lord, John says,
" There are also many other things which Jesus did, the
which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that
even the world itself could not contain the books that
should be written." 2 Yet it is not the number of miracles
that Jesus did, but their reality as facts, their nature, their
meaning, their object, that give character to his life and
works. One real miracle, such as his own resurrection,
would be enough to confirm him as the Son of God. The
question is one of fact.
The laws of nature are so fixed and uniform that it is
hard for us to believe in the reality of any event that seems
1 Matt. iv. 23. 2 John xxi. 25.
322

THE MIRACLES OF JESUS. 323
counter to the regular course of things as we have known
it. Experience leads us to doubt whether such an event is
even possible ; and reason demands that the report of it
should be investigated with unusual care. But to say that
an event counter to what we have hitherto observed to be
the course of nature is impossible, and therefore not worth
investigating, is unfair to our own reason, and to the
character of trustworthy witnesses, and is itself counter to
the spirit of true science. We do not know enough of
nature, much less of the universe of which physical nature is
only a lower platform, to affirm that nothing can ever take
place, nor has ever taken place, contrary to, or even aside
from, what we have observed to be the course of things in
the material world. We do not know the whole of nature,
— as, for instance, what lies between us and the fixed stars,
or what is beyond those stars in infinite space ; what forms,
what forces, are there ; or what is the constitution and
condition of the interior of the earth on which we live.
Science has often changed, and is still changing, its views
upon such points, which have been for ages the study of
man. What we call " laws of nature " are not original
powers, not first and independent causes, but only the
regular course and method by which certain events are ob
served to come to pass. One set of causes or conditions has
always been observed to produce the same event, or, at least,
to be followed by the same event ; and this we name the law

324 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
of nature in that case : as, that fire will burn wood or flesh ;
that a stick or a stone thrown into the air will not fly like a
bird, but will fall to the ground. But what we call the law
in this case may not be the real power that brings the event
to pass. This may lie far back of any thing that we can see
or trace ; and the cause that stands next before the event
may be only the last in a long chain of causes or conditions
preceding the event, each of which stands connected with
the result, and goes to make up the law. Every one of these
causes may be in turn a sequence, a fact that follows some
other fact ; and the so-called law may be nothing more than
a string of sequences whose starting-point we do not know.
What we trace in nature are these rows of secondary
causes ; but there always remains something behind, that we
do not get hold of. From time to time, science brings to
light secondary causes that we had not before observed,
or gives new forms, new names, new functions, to causes
already known ; so that we are still learning nature, and are
sometimes obliged to give up old notions of laws and causes,
for some new principle or mode of action. Geology, magnet
ism, light, heat, sound, the diseases of the human body, give
many examples of the changes which science has produced
in our mode of conceiving of nature and its laws. No
doubt other changes are yet to come ; for science — as, for
instance, in the deep-sea dredgings — is always searching
after something new ; and, behind every new fact that it

THE MIRACLES OF JESUS. 325
discovers, starts up again the question, " Why or how is
this? or what and where is the starting-point of all?"
And to that question we find no answer in Nature or
her laws. How much has our knowledge of the universe
expanded since the invention of the telescope ! how much
it has increased, and is increasing, since the use of spectrum
analysis ! And what vast discoveries may yet lie beyond !
He, then, who says that this or that is impossible, because
it seems contrary to what we already know of nature, may
show only his own ignorance or conceit. True, the event
that he would so cavalierly thrust aside may be " wondrous
strange." And therefore, as a stranger, give it welcome.
" There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Nature has a circumference too vast for our vision ; and
therefore what we call a miracle, or supernatural, may be
only some higher plane of Nature, that for a moment crosses
our plane of vision, — as, century by century, Venus makes
the transit of our sun, or as a comet, roaming here and there
in space by its own laws, once in ages flames across our
sky. Like the comet, like the transit, the miracle, though
so seldom as to be " wondrous strange," may be but a
natural contact of the heavenly sphere with the earthly.
Or who can pretend to know enough of Nature to say
that all her visible laws and effects do not lie in the grasp

326 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
of a spiritual power, which, without violence to the consti
tution of things, may put forth some extra movement for
an extraordinary end? He who should deny this to be
possible would only show that his mental horizon is too
narrow to admit a conception of the universe so vast and
sublime. Such a. philosopher is the real fetich worshipper,
who makes that material thing, called Nature, his only God.
That which he can see and touch, can weigh and analyze,
is the cause of all, — even of himself.
How much higher is the conception of a Power lying
back of all things, the. Cause of causes ! how much more
honorable to the human spirit to suppose a spirit over
Nature, with which man has affinity !
The last carriage in a railway-train is drawn by the chain
that links it to the carriage before it. But that chain is
not the motive power ; this lies in the locomotive far in
advance ; yet it is not in the nature of the locomotive,
but in the steam that causes the engine to move ; and the
steam is provided by the engineer, whose intelligence so
uses the nature of fire and of water ; and though the loco
motive moves on a fixed track, within the iron rails that
mark its course, the engineer, by touching a valve, can
increase or retard its speed, can guide it by his will. Thus,
though Nature moves in the grooves provided in its own
laws, the invisible hand may know how to touch its springs
without violence, and even to halt it for a moment without

THE MIRACLES OF JESUS. 327
regard to stations or the time-table. What if at this point
the king is to come on board ? The strange halt arrests the
attention of everybody ; all heads are out at the windows ;
and, as the puffing of the engine and the rattling of the
train have ceased, one hears the music that announces who
has come, and why the halt was made.. So the hum of
Nature may have been for a moment stilled, the train of her
events arrested without violence, that men might see and
hear, might feel and know, the coming of the Prince of
peace, announced with hosannas.
In such a case, the end would justify the means. If the
object of a miracle were something trivial, unworthy, vain,
mean, immoral, we might refuse even to look into the case.
But when the alleged wonder stands connected with a life
and character sublimely good, and with a purpose to bless,
reform, and save mankind, then is the motive great enough
to justify it ; the occasion is worthy of such an attestation ;
and the wonder, instead of being the central figure, the
show to attract the gaze of men, is simply the herald, the
trumpeter, to announce that the king has come. -So in
the person of Jesus, whose life, teaching, motive, character,
purpose, and results all combine to set him and his actions
so far above the common level of our humanity that Renan
at last says, " This sublime person must even in a sense
be called divine," — in the person and life of Jesus, the
presumption against miracles is counterbalanced by the

328 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
circumstances of the case ; and his wondrous works are
open to evidence like any other facts. To say that a miracle
is impossible, is to beg the question ; for the very point is
one of fact, whether such things were really done by him.
To say that a miracle is contrary to experience, is again to
beg the question; for our experience does not cover the
whole history of mankind ; and here in the Gospels are
witnesses who testify that these events took place before
their eyes. Now, these witnesses show by the simple,
straightforward style of their story, that they were honest
and sincere, men of plain common-sense, who themselves
were slow to believe the greatest of the miracles, — the
resurrection of Jesus from the dead. They tell the story
of their own cowardice and wavering and unbelief with
an honesty that commands our confidence. They do not
use the miracles for effect : the greater part of them they
do not even record. They had nothing to gain — no money,
no fame, no power — by proclaiming these wonders : on the
contrary, they put their own lives in danger by declaring
such facts. They were made better men, and they sought
to make others better by faith in Jesus. A great lawyer
has said he " would like to cross-question these witnesses ; "
but he forgets that they endured the questioning of the
cross, and gave their lives to prove that Jesus had done
these things, and that they had seen him alive after his
crucifixion.

THE MIRACLES OF JESUS. 329
From the reality of these works of Jesus as facts, we
come back to their meaning and value. The proof of a
power in Jesus, that does not belong to men, was as strong
in his raising Lazarus from the dead, as if he had stood in
the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and called forth the dead from all
the tombs that line its sides. The fact of his own resurrec
tion will be discussed in a later chapter ; our purpose here
is to group the miracles, as we have already grouped the
parables, into a single lesson. To get a true idea of these
works of Jesus, we must bring them together, and arrange
them in classes, and see when and how they were done, and
with what motive and end.
One class of his miracles relates to nature, — the physical
world, together with animal and vegetable life. By his
word he stilled the tempest on the Sea of Galilee, just as the
courageous and experienced fishermen who manned the boat
gave up all for lost.1 Again as the disciples were toiling
and rowing at midnight, in one of those sudden and violent
tempests for which this lake is noted, Jesus came to them
walking upon the sea ; and, when Peter tried to go to him,
Jesus saved him from sinking ; 2 at Cana of Galilee, Jesus
changed water into wine ; 3 twice he multiplied the loaves
and fishes so that once four thousand, and again five
1 Matt. viii. 23-27 ; Mark iv. 36-41 ; Luke viii. 22-25.
2 Matt. xiv. 22-33; Mark vi. 45-56 ; John vi. 18-21.
8 John ii. 1-12.

330 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
thousand men, were fed.1 On the way from Bethany to
Jerusalem, Jesus cursed a fig-tree, and it withered away.2
Now, all these cases, so different in their form and circum
stances, agree in this, — that material things were acted
upon directly by the will of Jesus, in a way entirely
different from the laws of nature. There is no power of
nature by which water could be turned into wine ; there is
no power of nature by which loaves of bread could be mul
tiplied in the hands of men who were breaking and distrib
uting them : yet both these marvels took place without any
visible act of Jesus capable of producing such results.
That the power of gravity should be suspended, so that a
man could walk upon the sea instead of sinking, and could
lift up another man who was sinking at his side, shows that
a law of nature, which is uniform and universal, was brought
under some higher power. There could be no natural
connection between the word of a man, and the withering of
a tree that was covered with fresh foliage. . Hence all these
miracles agree in showing the power of spirit over matter,
to change its forms, its qualities, its relations, without
using any of the laws or processes of nature, and even by
setting these laws aside : in one word, we here see effects
of a power like that put forth in creation. But who is able
1 Matt. xiv. 15-21, xv. 32-39 ; Mark vi. 30-46, viii. 1-9 ; Luke ix.
10-17 ; John vi. 1-14.
2 Matt. xxi. 18-22 ; Mark xi. 12-14, 20-26.

THE MIRACLES OF JESUS. 331
to prove that spirit in its highest manifestation does not
possess such power over matter ?
In the suprising draught of fishes twice repeated, and in
the catching of a fish with a piece of money in its mouth,
the wonder was in knowing at the moment where to direct
the disciples to throw in the net, or in so controlling the
movements of the fish as to bring them within the net
at the very moment. In either case this, though differing
from a direct act of creative power, was a something
beyond the common range of human power and skill.1
Another and a larger series of the miracles of Jesus was
performed upon the bodies of men : indeed, we are left to
infer that by far the greater part of his wonderful works
was wrought for the relief of human suffering. Though
the number of miracles left on record is small, they cover
such a variety of cases as to show the control of Jesus
over every form of human sickness and infirmity and over
death itself. Six cases are recorded of his giving sight to
blind men ; and in one of these the man had been born
blind.2 One instance is given of curing a deaf and dumb
person ; 3 two, of healing the palsy ; 4 one, of the dropsy ; 5
three, of other long and hopeless infirmities ; 6 two, at least,
1 Luke v. 1-11 ; John xxi. 1 ; Matt. xvii. 24-27.
2 Matt." ix. 27-31. xx. 29-34; Mark vii. 31-35, viii. 22-26, x. 46-52 ;
Luke xviii. 35-43 ; John ix. 1-41.
8 Mark vii. 31-37. i Matt. viii. 5-13, ix. 1-8. « Luke xiv. 1-6.
6 Matt. ix. 20-22 ; Luke xiii. 10-17 ; John v. 1-14.

332 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
of healing that loathsome and incurable disease, the
leprosy ; : and three, of curing persons who were given
over by their friends as in the last stages of mortal sick
ness.2 That strange infirmity, partly mental, partly physical,
which the Jews ascribed to the possession of demons or
devils, called forth in a marked degree the compassion and
the power of Jesus. This possession seems to have affected
the brain and other organs of the body, in ways quite
beyond the control of the sufferer, and beyond the skill of
physicians. In two of the cases recorded, the victim was
dumb, or blind and dumb.3 In the other four cases, the
sufferer showed violent and frightful symptoms of insanity.4
But in all these cases there was something that distin
guished them from common cases of infirmity, of insanity,
or other disease, — a something which led the people to say
of the sufferer, "He hath a devil." Jesus treated these
uniformly as cases of this strange sort of possession ; and
it was looked upon as a most wonderful sign of his power,
that he could cast out devils. * And such indeed it was ; for
this showed his power to reach not only over all physical
nature, but over the hidden world of spirits.
But, of all the wonders performed by Jesus, the most
1 Matt. viii. 1-4 ; Luke xvii. 11-19.
2 Matt. viii. 14-17 ; Luke viii. 43, 44 ; John iv. 46-54.
8 Matt. ix. 32-34, xii. 22-37.
4 Matt. viii. 28-34, xv. 21-28, xvii. 14-21 ; Mark i. 23-28.

THE MIRACLES OF JESUS. 333

astounding was the raising the dead. Not to speak here of
his own resurrection (which will be the subject of a later
chapter), three times he brought back others from death to
life. In the first case, the daughter of Jairus was dead
before he reached the house, and had been so long dead
that friends and neighbors had gathered together, and were
lamenting her loss, weeping and wailing greatly. When
Jesus said, "She is. not dead, but sleepeth," they were angry
with him for trifling with their grief, knowing that she
was dead ; but, in the presence of her parents and three of
his disciples, he took her by the hand, and called upon her
to arise; and "straightway she arose and walked."1
In the second case, the people of Nain were carrying a
dead man to the burial-place outside of the city. The young
man was well known ; and great sympathy was felt for his
widowed mother, who had now lost her only son. Jesus
halted the bier, and called upon the young man to arise ;
and "he that was dead sat up, and began to speak."2 In
the third case, Lazarus had been dead four days ; and
his body, bound in grave-clothes, was lying in the tomb,
which was covered with a stone. Jesus had the stone
rolled away; and then he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus,
come forth;" and he that was dead came forth.3 Now,
in all these cases, nothing was seen or heard but the
simple word of Jesus calling upon the dead person to arise ;
1 Mark v. 22-43. 2 Luke vii. 11-15. 8 John xi. 1-46.

334 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
and in each case the effect was instantaneous. As soon as
Jesus spoke, the dead person arose in perfect life and health.
But there is no power in nature, and no agency known to
man, for putting life into a dead body ; nor can we imagine
any connection between a word spoken by a man, and an
effect so astounding- It was the will of Jesus that pos
sessed this marvellous power, a power entirely above and
apart from all the laws and forces of nature as known and
observed by men, — the power of spirit over matter, the
power of God himself in the creation of life.
Looking closely at the miracles of Jesus, we find that
they were all performed openly. They were not like the
wonders which Mohammed reported that he had seen or done
in the night, with none present to witness them ; not like
the marvels that spiritists perform in darkened rooms or
closed cabinets or behind screens : but these wonders were
done openly, in the light of day, in the presence of many
witnesses, without any previous notice or preparation,
and without any air of secrecy or mystery. The miracles
of Jesus were such as men's senses could perceive and
take notice of: men who had known a blind man, a
lame man, a paralytic, could see that he was cured ; those
who had seen a dead man could see if he was alive again.
There was no possible mistake about such miracles : they
were widely talked about, and they were put upon record
by eye-witnesses, while thousands who had seen them were

THE MIRACLES OF JESUS. 335

yet living. These miracles were performed during a period
of three or four years ; and in the presence of enemies, as
well as friends. They were never done for show, nor for
any personal advantage, but always either for a benevolent
purpose, or for some high moral lesson. Never were they
mere displays of power ; and yet these mighty works do
show forth the divine power of Jesus ; they agree perfectly
with his character and his doctrines ; they seem natural to
such a person ; and they are written in the story of his life
that we " might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God, and that believing we might have life through his
name." 1
We are apt to say, " If I could only see a miracle, I
would believe." But we deceive ourselves in this. Many,
many, saw the miracles of Jesus, and did not believe. Had
miracles been continued, they would soon have become mere
commonplace events. I, for instance, can remember the
first railroad, the first telegraph, the first steamship across
the Atlantic, the laying of the first Atlantic cable ; and
each in turn was looked upon as so great a wonder that it
was celebrated with flags and cannon, with banquets and
holidays. But, to the child of to-day, the railroad and the
steamship seem to have existed always ; and telegraph-poles
are as natural as the trees along the roadside. Had miracles
continued, they would have become a law of events in
1 John xx. 31.

336 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
connection with the Christian faith ; and nobody would have
paid attention to them. If it were usual for the dead to
rise, we should not go to the graveyard to witness the
fact, but should await their return at home as from any other
journey. Hence Jesus did not cheapen miracles, did not
make them common ; used them only to show his love for
men, and to prove that he came from God. The last and
greatest miracle, his rising from the dead, establishes all the
rest. To Him who rose from the dead, it was a small
thing to make water into wine, to heal diseases, to walk
upon the sea. Yet of this, the greatest of miracles, he said
to the doubting Thomas, " Blessed are they that have not
seen, and yet have believed." The standing evidence of
Christianity, the proof that it came from God, is in the life
of Jesus and in his words.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE TRANSFIGURATION.
Great were the wonders that Jesus did; but the greatest
wonder is what Jesus himself was. His miracles served, so
to speak, to introduce him to men in his proper personality ;
yet, on the other hand, his person and character, his heart
and life, shone through his miracles, and caused these to
appear in their real nature and worth. When we read how
this man had absolute power over the physical creation ; how
at a word and look, yes, at the simple will of Jesus without
any outward act, the blind were made to see, the deaf to
hear, the dumb to speak, the lame to walk ; how the sea
grew calm, how bread was multiplied, water was turned
to wine, the fig-tree was blasted, lepers were cleansed, devils
were cast out, the dead were raised, — when we begin to
realize all this, we feel that Jesus was more than man,
or, if man, was filled with the power of God. Yet when
we look more closely, we feel that these wonders were
not of themselves the strongest point in the life of Jesus,
and that even in the miracles there is a deeper ground
337

338 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
of admiration than their supernatural power. Such power
over nature and man was not peculiar to Jesus. In the
ten plagues of Egypt, in dividing the Red Sea, in drawing
water from a rock, in healing a death-plague by the
brazen serpent, Moses showed the same control over physi
cal bodies and agencies as did Jesus. Elijah ascended
bodily to heaven ; and Elisha healed the leprosy, and raised
the dead. Peter healed a lame man at the gate of the
temple, and restored Dorcas to life ; and the sick and those
vexed with unclean spirits were brought to the disciples and
were healed.1 But these prophets and apostles never did
wonders in their own name, nor by their own power ; but
every wonder was a distinct act of divine power working in
and through them as its instruments. It was a gift for the
time ; and they never pretended that it made them divine.
But in Jesus all such acts were normal and personal ; the
power was in and of himself, — a part of his being. Men
saw this in his eyes ; they felt this in his tones ; they recog
nized this in the way in which he performed wonders,
without invoking any power outside of himself. Even at
the grave of Lazarus, he said, " i" am the resurrection and
the life ; " and then by his own will he commanded the dead
man to come forth.2
The use which Jesus made of miraculous power showed
behind this a moral power and a personal goodness greater
1 Acts ix. 32-42. 2 John xi. 25.

THE TRANSFIGURATION. 339
than the miracle. Conscious of illimitable power, he was
perfectly unselfish in the use of it. He never used it merely
as power nor for fame, and never, never for gain. He who
could multiply the loaves for five thousand men refused to
create bread for himself in the wilderness; he who had
control over the kingdoms of nature, of death, and of hell,
refused to be made a king by the crowd who adored his
power. Even the few miracles of judgment and destruction
which he wrought were not to strike terror for his name,
but to teach a moral lesson ; x and the great bulk of his
miracles was for direct objects of benevolence. In these he
showed a deep and tender sympathy for the sufferers ; he
"had compassion" upon those whom he helped. He wept
with Martha and Mary, even as he was about to give back
their brother from the grave. But, the more he put himself
in sympathy with men, the more did they feel him to be
above them. The intimacy which his disciples had with
him for three years increased their reverence for him as a
higher being. They saw that his mighty works before the
people were but the quiet acting of his own nature, the
revelation of his spiritual life. And so the feeling dawned
upon his disciples that this was the Christ, the Son of God.
This feeling grew to conviction in the minds of three of
the disciples, who witnessed a scene that belongs to Jesus
alone, and yet seems to have been only another natural
i Mark v. 11-17, xi. 20-26.

340 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
expression of his true inner nature. Copies, engravings,
and photographs have made every child familiar with
Raphael's picture of the transfiguration, so wonderful in the
expression of the countenance of Jesus, in the buoyancy of
his figure in the cloud, and in the blending of the divine
with the human through the scene of glory on the top of
the mountain, and the scene of suffering and compassion at
its base. Yet the transfiguration as described by the evan
gelists was something more lofty and more glorious far
than " the transfiguration " as painted by Raphael. As a
symbol of the whole life and work of Jesus, the combining
of heavenly glory, human misery, and healing mercy upon
the same canvas, makes Raphael's picture truly marvellous
as a work of art ; but for the actual scene it looks too much
as if Jesus in the cloud were set up on exhibition with a
gaping crowd below. Now, in fact, the scene had no
witnesses but the three disciples whom Jesus took with him
"up into a high mountain apart by themselves."1 This soli
tariness is a feature of its majesty ; and the narrative, as
coming from these eye-witnesses, is so sublime in its
simplicity that to touch it is to mar it.
For this was not a dream, like Jacob's, where the fancy is
at liberty to weave a ladder from earth to heaven, and to
play about it with troops of angels. The disciples had
been asleep ; 2 but what they describe took place afterwards.
1 Mark ix. 2. 2 Luke ix. 32.

THE TRANSFIGURATION. 341

Perhaps the sudden light woke them ; and " when they were
awake they saw his glory." J There was Jesus transfigured
before them, his face shining like the sun, and his raiment
white as the light,2 and glistering as snow.3 At his side
were two men talking with him, who were made known to
them as Moses and Elias.4 Peter, who always was forward
to say something, as soon as the first amazement was over,
in an ecstasy of joy at such glory and such company, said to
Jesus, " Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us make
three tabernacles : one for thee, and one for Moses, and one
for Elias." But, while he was speaking, a tent such as was
never wrought by human hands — a cloud of glory — cov
ered them ; and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, " This
is my beloved Son : hear him." Overcome with fear, the
disciples fell on their faces, and saw and heard no more till
" Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not
afraid." His dear, familiar voice re-assured them, and
they lifted up their eyes; but the cloud had vanished.
Moses and Elias were gone ; and they saw no man save
Jesus alone.5
In the whole scene, though the supernatural is blended
with the natural, and heaven is brought down to earth, the
connection of reality is never for one moment lost. At
every point Jesus is still known to the disciples ; though
1 Luke ix. 32. 2 Matt. xvii. 2. " Mark ix. 3.
4 Luke ix. 29. 6 Matt. xvii. 1-9.

342 JESUS OF NAZARETH.

" the fashion of his countenance is altered " by the bright
ness that beams from it, they never lose sight of him, nor
mistake him for an angel. At the very height of the
splendor, Peter addresses him as Master ; and when the
cloud has vanished Jesus is there alone, looking just as he
did when he had walked up the mountain with them. The
person of Jesus was the link that bound heaven and earth
together. Both worlds were alike natural to him; Moses
and Elias no more strangers than Peter, James, and John ;
the white and glittering raiment no more strange than his
common peasant's dress ; and the voice that spoke from the
cloud, and filled the disciples with terror, was just as real
as the gentle tones of Jesus himself. Years after, Peter, in
a letter to all believers, put this again on record, as he had
before given it to Mark for his Gospel. " We have not
followed cunningly devised fables when we made known to
you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but
were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from
God the Father honor and glory when there came such a
voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which
came from heaven we heard when we were with him in the
holy mount." 1
The real wonder of this scene lies in its moral meaning ;
and it must be interpreted by the time and the circum-
i 2 Pet. i. 16-18.

THE TRANSFIGURATION. 343
stances in which it took place. Just as the disciples seemed
to have broken through the mystery of their Master's being,
and to have found him more than man, Jesus threw around
himself another mystery too strange to be understood, too
sad to be believed. Peter, speaking for the rest, had said,
" Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God ; " and
Jesus not only admitted that he was the Christ, but said
this had been directly revealed to Peter by his Father in
heaven.1 No doubt the disciples now began to look forward
to his setting up the kingdom of Israel with the power and
splendor predicted by Ezekiel and Isaiah ; 2 but, as far as
ever from talking about earthly power and kingly glory, this
"Son of the living God " began to speak of himself as the
" Son of man," and to teach his disciples that he " must
suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the
chief priests and scribes, and be killed." 3 This was a great
shock to their feelings and their hopes. True, Jesus always
added that on the third day he " should rise again." 4 But
either the disciples did not understand his meaning, or the
thought that their Lord and King should suffer and die so
oppressed them with disappointment and sadness that their
hearts sank within them. So strong was this feeling in Peter
that he broke out in a passionate remonstrance, " Be it far
from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee,"6 but Jesus so
i Matt. xvi. 16-18. • 2 Isa. ix., xi., xl. ; Ezek. xxxvi., xxxvii.
8 Mark viii. 31. 4 Mark viii. 32. 6 Matt. xvi. 22.

344 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
much the more gave to his disciples the sad and earnest view
of his life and his service, " If any man will come after me,
let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me."1
Yet, along with the solemn warning that they should lose
their lives for his sake, he foretold that " the Son of man
shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels ; and
then he shall reward every man according to his works." 2
With such words and thoughts as familiar to us as any thing
in the life of Jesus, and so clearly explained by all that
followed, it is hard to realize how they puzzled and dis
tressed that little band of disciples. Every thing seemed'
to be involved in mystery and contradiction: on the one
hand, power to raise the dead ; on the other, a weakness that
would submit to suffer and to die : on the one hand, " the
keys of the kingdom of heaven " given to the disciples ; on
the other, the warning that they must " take up the cross,"
and be ready to lose their lives for their Master : on the one
hand, he shall be killed ; on the other, he shall rise again :
on the one hand, " the Son of God," on the other, " the
Son of man." While they were yet -puzzling over these
strange and conflicting sayings, Jesus took the three disci
ples up into the mountain, and was transfigured before them.
Then they saw how in him two natures, two beings, were
united : how, in a moment, he could pass into the heavenly
state, and shine with the brightness of the sun, and in the
1 Matt. xvi. 24. 2 Matt. xvi. 27.

THE TRANSFIGURATION. 345
next moment be standing at their side with the familiar
face of every day ; how the messengers of heaven came to
honor and to serve him, and yet talked of his going to Jeru
salem to die; how the voice of the infinite and invisible
Father could startle them saying, " This is my beloved Son :
hear him," and in the next moment the familiar tones of
Jesus could comfort them, saying, "Arise, and be not afraid."
Thus the transfiguration was the key to the mysteries that
had gathered about the life of Jesus, and that now over
shadowed it with the gloom of death. Midway between
the lowliness of the manger and the cross rose this mount
of light and glory to interpret and illumine both.
And, while the transfiguration thus mediated between
the divine and the human in the person of Christ, it set him
forth as the Mediator between the Old Testament and the
New. With him were disciples who were also chosen to be
the apostles of his gospel ; and to this company, which rep
resented the Church of Christ, came Moses the lawgiver,
and Elias the prophet, to show that their teachings and
promises now centred in the Son of God, whom all must hear
and obey. Elias had been carried up to heaven in a chariot
of fire : and Moses had disappeared from men upon the top
of Nebo : nothing of the pain or the weakness of death
was associated with their memory. They were numbered
with the immortals ; but here they appeared in the likeness
of men, so that they became known to the disciples as Moses

346 JESUS OF NAZARETH.

and Elias ; they had the most lively and tender interest in
the coming death of Jesus. And thus they showed how the
past and the future in faith and in service, how saints in
heaven and believers on earth, how the whole kingdom of
God above and below, in time and for eternity, formed one
sublime and perfect whole about the person and the work
of Jesus.
As this wondrous vision was the key to the nature and
the mission of Jesus, revealing the union of the divine with
the human, so does it present Jesus himself as the key
to the higher life that is enshrined within our own mortality.
The faith that joins us to the life of Christ shall enable us
to share his glory also : we shall be like him, for we shall
see him as he is. The Son of God and the Son of man,
equally at home in heaven and on earth, passing and
repassing from one world to the other, making heaven real
to us as the home of his Father, and making this world dear
to saints in heaven as the scene of his own life and death,
Jesus takes away from us our natural nervous dread of the
unseen, and helps us to see in death itself a transfiguration
by which the soul passes into a cloud only to shine with
the brightness of the sun. And if at the last our sensitive
natures should feel a shudder of dread at the very, glory
that overshadows them, if we have obeyed the voice of
the Son of God, then, too, shall the voice of the Son of
man, full of human sympathy, re-assure us, saying, " Arise :
be not afraid."

THE TRANSFIGURATION. 347
Once, among the Alps, I seemed to see this heavenly
vision, almost to hear this heavenly voice. Starting with
the dawn for the summit of the Col des Fours, I had seen
the great white dome of Mont Blanc lit up by the rising
sun, while all the world beside still lay in shadow ; and, as I
stood at a level with the Col de la Seigne, this ridge cut off
every thing but that dome, which seemed spread out above
it like a pavilion for angels, — so high, so pure, so glister
ing, so glorious ! I could not bear to turn away from
the fascination of the view ; it seemed but a step to that
pavilion of light, and from that but another step into the
clear blue heaven above.
When I reached the top of the pass, and turned toward
the opposite side, there lay before me one sea of cloud, in
which the highest peaks of the Tarantaise were swimming
like islands of snow trimmed with borders of green. Far
as the eye could reach, the clouds were rolling like billows,
and breaking like spray upon the mountain tops. I stood
between two heavens, — the heaven of blue above, so
bright, so wide, so dear ; the heaven of cloud beneath, so
vast, so deep, so dark, hiding the earth in its folds, yet on
its surface flashing as with the brightness of a thousand
suns. At length the mist rose up and covered me, so that I
was wrapped in darkness. I could no longer see my way,
could hardly see the ground on which I stood. I only knew
there was a precipice near by, and an abyss of gloom below ;

348 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
and " I feared as I entered into the cloud." Suddenly the
sun, which had never ceased to shine, turned his whole
brightness direct on me, not scattering the cloud, but
making this luminous with a light too dazzling for the eye.
I seemed compassed about with glory ; and from that glory
came a voice speaking what no man can utter, to the won
dering, waiting soul. I went on my way.rejoicing, and was
no more afraid.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE FRIENDS OF JESUS.

Yes, this "Son of God" was indeed the " Son of man,"
— so human in his sympathy and love, in all that is noblest,
finest, best in humanity, as no other man has ever been.
Not for effect upon their senses or their imagination, nor
to inspire their homage for himself, but for their assurance
under present grief and their consolation after his death,
had Jesus given his disciples the vision of his divine glory
upon the mount. And, when the vision was over, he would
not suffer the witnesses to make a sensation by reporting
it; but " he charged them that they should tell no man what
things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from
the dead." x And he whom all men should hear and obey
as the Son of God, the prophet greater than Elias, the law
giver greater than Moses, came down from the splendor of
his Father's presence, from hearing his Father's voice,
to plunge again into the sorrows and miseries of men, to
listen to the cry of a poor stranger for mercy on his son,
1 Mark ix. 9. 349

350 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
" Lord, I believe : help thou mine unbelief," and to cast
out a demon from his wretched lunatic boy.1 And the next
we read of him, he is giving his disciples a lesson of
humility by setting before them a little child as their
teacher and example.2
Now, this gentle, loving man, who was the friend of every
body, himself had need of friends; and he found friends,
though they were few, and most of them could do little
more than give him their love. But not all his disciples
were poor. Matthew the tax-gatherer was rich enough to
have a house of his own, and to give a "great feast" in
honor of Jesus ; 3 and, among the women whom he had
" healed of evil spirits and infirmities," some who followed
him in his journeys were able to " minister to him of their
substance." 4 Among these was Mary Magdalene, who had
means freely to show her gratitude, and could lavish a costly
box of ointment upon the head of her deliverer; and
Joanna, whose husband held a lucrative post as the steward
of King Herod. Some men of wealth and influence, such as
Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea, were also friendly to
Jesus ; and, though they were kept back by caution from
joining his disciples at the first, they did come out openly
upon his side when there was the greatest risk in doing so.6
The spices that embalmed his body, the linen in which it
1 Mark ix. 14-29. 2 Mark ix. 33-37. 8 Luke v. 29.
4 Luke viii. 2, 3. 6 John vii. 50 ; xix. 38-42.

He set a Little Child in the Midst of them.

THE FRIENDS OF JESUS. 353
was wrapped, the new sepulchre in which it was laid, were
all provided by these rich and noble friends.
But there was one family, consisting of a brother and two
sisters, in which Jesus had truly a home, — his favorite
resort for rest and refreshment during his visits to Jeru
salem. Facing the city from the east, and rising some two
hundred feet above its level, is the Mount of Olives, between
which and the Temple Mount is the narrow and steep ravine
of the Kedron, through which, in the rainy season, the brook
•still flows. From the summit of the Mount of Olives, in
going to the east, one descends at first into a sort of basin,
then mounts a second ridge more or less wooded, and from
this descends again into another hollow, or plateau, which
is planted with oaks, olives, almonds, and pomegranates.
Here the path over the summit falls into the broader path
or road which winds over the southern shoulder of the
mountain, and now drops suddenly down the steep descent
to Jericho. From this high plateau one looks into the deep
valley of the Jordan, and over to the mountains of Moab,
which stand like a rampart on the other side. Here, on the
verge of desolation, the very outpost of human habitations,
overhanging the dreary wilderness of Judea, yet snugly
sheltered from the northern and western winds, and feeling
the tropical warmth of the valley below, was perched the
village of Bethany, — once embosomed in palm-trees, and
hence called " the House of Dates." And here it was that

354 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
Jesus loved to go after he had been teaching in the temple,
had been disputing with the scribes and Pharisees, or per
haps had met a rough and angry mob. The first mention
of Bethany introduces us to the two sisters of the family,
— Martha the housekeeper, and Mary the learner. " He
entered into a certain village ; and a certain woman, named
Martha, received him into her house. And she had a sister
called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his
word." J The elder of these sisters was an active, bustling,
earnest woman, whose pride was in her housekeeping and
her hospitality. She was what nowadays would be called
" a strong character," having a will and a way of her own,
and wishing to have those around her conform to her
notions of what was proper. But this natural temperament
shows itself in a devotion to Jesus no less real and sincere
than that of her more quiet and docile sister. At a time
when there was much dissension about Jesus, when the
scribes and Pharisees were stirring up the people against
him, and to be upon his side was far from popular, then
Martha gladly opened her house, and served him with the
best that she had, — served him so eagerly as to be almost
officious, thrusting her household cares upon the notice
of her guest, and yet honoring him no less than did the
sister who sat at his feet, and looked up into his eyes that
she might catch his every word into her soul. With her
1 Luke x. 38, 39.

-¦M ¦on ¦
3

THE FRIENDS OF JESUS. 357
whole soul, Martha sought to comfort and refresh the body
of her much-loved guest ; while Mary's love forgot that he
had a body, in her eagerness to feed her own soul from his
lips. With such a servant and such a disciple, Jesus found
that little cottage at Bethany a welcome home ; and the
master of the house shared his confidence and affection.
"Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." The
message of the sisters, " Lord, he whom thou lovest is sick,"
shows how Jesus had taken this family to his heart ; and,
when he stood weeping and groaning by the grave of
Lazarus, even the neighbors said, " Behold how he loved
him!" The death of Lazarus brought out the love of Jesus in all
its strength and tenderness, and also brought out again the
traits of the two sisters as strongly as when Jesus first
visited at their house. The moment Lazarus seemed in
danger, his sisters hurried a messenger to Jesus, feeling sure
that he would save their brother's life. And when all
was over, and Lazarus was in his grave, though Jesus
came too late for their help, both showed the same confi
dence in his power and love, the same faith mingling
with their grief; and, as each met him in turn, her heart
told all its love, and all its trust, and all its loss, in the
cry, " Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not
died ! " Yet, even in this common sorrow, Martha is
Martha, and Mary is Mary. They were sitting together

358 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
in the house, with friends who had come from Jeru
salem to comfort them, when word was brought that
Jesus was coming. As soon as she heard this, Martha
sprang up, and hurried out to meet him before he had
entered the town. There she began at once to give her
belief of what Jesus could have done, and even yet could
do, talking in her quick, positive way of the resurrection,
as if she knew all that Jesus could tell her. Yet she
declared her belief in him as " the Christ, the Son of God."
Martha was not wanting in the religious spirit ; she was not
at all worldly ; her faith was as strong as Mary's ; perhaps
she went beyond Mary in the feeling that it was not too
late for Jesus to help them. But her temperament pushed
her forward ; and even when they stood at the grave, and
Jesus, groaning in himself, said, " Take ye away the stone,"
she could not help meddling, and remonstrating against
opening the tomb after four days.
Mary, always meek and pensive, when she heard that
Jesus was coming, " sat still in the house." Her heart was
too full for such a meeting ; and she could only wait in
reverent silence till Jesus should appear. But, when Jesus
sent for her, she hastened to him, and, with one cry from her
bursting heart, she fell down at his feet, and wept. At the
grave she has nothing to say.; but when all the excitement
of that wondrous day is over, and she is sitting again at
evening in the house with Lazarus beside her, and Jesus
before her, — \

V' '^zfyrsTTp/ziz.

E JIIIPHi, I[ . ..

Mary hath chosen thb Good Part.

THE FRIENDS OF JESUS. 361
" Her eyes are homes of silent prayer;
Nor other thought her mind admits,
But ' he was dead, and there he sits,
And He that brought him back is there.7
Then one deep love doth supersede
All other, when her ardent gaze
Roves from the living brother's face,
And rests upon the Life indeed."
Some time after, we are once more admitted to this family
circle at Bethany, when a supper was made for Jesus and
his disciples. And here, again, while Lazarus sat at the
table, "Martha served," looking after the comfort of the
guests; but Mary, overflowing with gratitude to her
brother's Saviour and her own, having provided a box of
the most fragrant and precious ointment, forgetting every
one in her love for him, stole gently behind the couch
where Jesus was reclining at the table, and, kneeling before
them all, " anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet
with her hair." 1 In this little circle of domestic quiet
and affection, Jesus spent the last evenings of his life;
going in the morning to Jerusalem, there teaching, warning,
prophesying, and toward evening taking the lovely walk
over the Kedron and the Mount of Olives to this home of
peace. Here he could rest from toil and care ; could hide
1 John xii. 1-3.

362 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
himself from the malice of his enemies ; could brace himself
in the fresh, free air of the mountains ; could commune in
solitude with Nature and with his Father ; and, looking out
over the wilderness of his temptation, could gather
strength for his coming conflicts by the memory of his vic
tory there.
We could never have felt how human, how loving, how
with and of ourselves, Jesus was, had we not seen him in
the bosom of the family of Bethany, seeking and finding
the sheltering love of an earthly home. And we should have
missed the purest, fondest link that binds him to our nature,
that marks him as man complete in his humanity, had we
not seen him needing and receiving the gentle, holy,
devoted love and trust of woman. Without this Jesus
would have seemed to us more like an angel than a man ; or,
at least, like some being apart and distinct from our race,
too lofty for us to comprehend him, too distant for us to
know him. But, with the Mary at Bethlehem, and the Mary
at Bethany, and the Marys at the cross and at the sepulchre,
his life begins and closes with what to every earthly life at
its beginning and its ending is nearest and dearest, — the
sacred passion of woman's love.
Yet while he is thus identified with us in his need and
his experience of earthly friendships, he has taught us that
they who are nearest to him in the service of his Father are
nearest to him also in the ties of love. These are his

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THE FRIENDS OF JESUS. 365
family; "for whosoever shall do the will of my Father
which is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister
and mother." x 1 Matt. xii. 50.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE LAST JOURNEY.

For three years Jesus had now been before the public as
a teacher ; and his name was known in every village and
every home of Palestine. He had gone over a good part of
the land on foot with his disciples, and wherever he halted
had talked of the kingdom of heaven, either in the syna
gogue or by the wayside, so that thousands upon thousands
had seen his face and heard his voice. Besides these
preaching-tours in the country, he had gone to Jerusalem
once or twice a year at the great festivals, and at such times
had been seen and heard by the throngs then gathered from
all parts of Palestine, and from other lands, wherever the
Jews were scattered abroad. By birth a Jew, Jesus was in
heart and life a patriot ; and he gave his time and labors
first of all and most of all to his countrymen, seeking to
reform their religion and their lives, and so to save them
from the judgments that sooner or later come upon nations
that forsake truth, justice, and virtue. "O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that
366

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a« H

THE LAST JOURNEY. 369
are sent unto thee ! how often would I have gathered thy
children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her
wings, and ye would not ! " The earnestness of his warn
ings showed the tenderness of his love.
Only twice did Jesus go over the borders of the land
of Israel, and this, to teach his disciples that, though his
mission was first to the Jews, his gospel was for man, and
should be preached to all nations alike. Once he went into
the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, the land of the Phoenicians,
who were idolaters , and while there he heard the cry of a
poor Pagan mother for "the crumbs from the Master's
table , " he healed her daughter, and taught that faith had
the same power, and love had the same pity, for the heathen
and the Jew..
Again, he went into the region of Cesarea Philippi, by
Mount Hermon, away to the north of Lake Tiberias, where
was a mixed population of Phoenicians, Syrians, Greeks, and
Jews. Here was a world in miniature, — a type of his work,
— so many races and religions to be subdued to one brother
hood and one faith; so much of the splendor of art, of
luxury, and of power, to array the kingdom of Mammon
against the kingdom of God ; and yet, around and above all
this, so much of beauty, of bounty, and of grandeur in
nature, to comfort his soul with the love and the majesty
of his Father. It was in this region, as we have seen, —
probably upon one of the summits of Mount Hermon,

370 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
— that Jesus was transfigured ; and it was on one of
these neighboring plains, after his disciples had tried
in vain to cast out a devil, that he cured the lunatic
boy ; and then, pointing to Hermon, said to them, " If
ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed," if your spirit
has the tiniest hold upon the power of God, like that of a
little child upon the arm of his father, " ye shall say unto
this mountain," this mighty mass of earth and rock, of
forest and snow, that lifts itself ten thousand feet above the
sea, " ye shall say to this, Remove hence to yonder place ;
and it shall remove ; and nothing shall be impossible unto
you." These sublime scenes of nature, suggesting the fresh,
living, unwasted power of God, were made more sublime by
this association with the faith, the grace, and .the glory of
the Son of man. Indeed, the chief interest, to us, of the
region of Cesarea Philippi, lies in the fact that Jesus was
there. But we will try to look upon it with his eyes.
From the westward ridge of the great Hermon, two wild,
deep gorges that seem to cleave the mountain to its base,
one opening to the north, the other to the south, come out
upon a broad, fertile terrace, here built by nature between
the mountain and the plain ; and, at the north-eastern edge
of this, a third ravine forms an angle where a bold cliff of
limestone stands up like a natural fortress. From a dark
cavern at the base of this cliff, a volume of pure and spark
ling water gushes forth, and, tumbling swiftly down the

. B
:»• i
-*» JS

THE LAST JOURNEY. 373
rocky ravine, goes to join other streams that form the River
Jordan. Hardly any point in Syria combines so many fea
tures of beauty within so small a compass, — the well-
watered terrace with its carpet of green, kept fresh by the
dews of Hermon ; the groves of olives and of terebinths,
the clusters of hawthorn and myrtle, the bright oleanders
set round with wreaths of ferns, the deep, wild ravines, the
rushing waters filling the air with the music of their fall ;
in the foreground, a broad plain checkered with clumps of
trees and fields of grain, and threaded with silvery streams ;
in the background, the giant summits that rise from five
thousand to eight thousand feet above the terrace, the
lower ridges clothed with forests, the great central dome
capped with snow. Here, among these groves and grottos,
the Phoenicians had set up the worship of Baal ; here, at this
very cave of the fountain, the Greeks built a temple to Pan,
the god of the woods and streams, and named the place
Panium, or Panias. Here Herod the Great had his first
capital, when he was governor of this part of Syria, before
he made himself master of Jerusalem ; and here he built a
fine marble temple in honor of the Emperor Augustus.
When the kingdom of Herod was divided, his son Philip
had the region north-east of Lake Tiberias as his portion,
and he made Panias his capital, but changed its name to
Cesarea in honor of the emperor ; and then added his own
name, Cesarea Philippi, to distinguish this from the city of

374 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
Cesarea on the seacoast. After the death of Philip, its
name was changed to JVeronias, as a compliment to Nero ;
then it passed into Cesarea Panias ; and now for a long time
it has been known only as Banias. This bit of history and
geography comes in here to witness how fully the Gospels
are to be depended on for truth and accuracy even in little
things. In the three thousand years since Panias was built,
there was but one single period of fifty years in which it
was called Cesarea Philippi, and it gave this name to a
district. The life of Jesus fell within this period ; and
Matthew and Mark, in describing one of his preaching-tours,
speak of his going to Cesarea Philippi, using for Panias the
name which had been given only thirty years before, and
which twenty years later had ceased to be used.
In the region of that famous and splendid capital of the
north, Jesus proclaimed to men of mixed nations and beliefs
his gospel as the word of truth and the way of life. There,
too, he told his disciples how they must suffer and die,
while at the same time he declared that Peter's confession
of him as " the Christ, the Son of God," should be the rock
on which his church should stand till the end of time.1
Yes ; he must suffer and die. To this strange end this
ministry of truth and love at last must come. The rulers,
finding they could make nothing of Jesus for themselves,
were fully set against him ; and his preaching maddened
i Matt. xvi. 18.

THE LAST JOURNEY. 875
them more and more. Among the people many followed
him with a sort of blind faith, because of the wonders he
did, just ,as a crowd will always run after any thing new
and strange ; some clung to him with a true and earnest
faith in his words ; while perhaps the greater number were
in a state of uncertainty, now ready to think that this doer
of wonders must be the Christ, and again vexed that he did
not show himself as their king, and help them in their
troubles. The raising of Lazarus brought matters to a
crisis. We should think that such a miracle must have led
all who heard of it to believe on Jesus ; and it did increase
the number both of true believers and of curious followers.
But it roused his enemies to a furious hatred ; for they saw
that their day was over if Jesus should draw the people by
such works as these. "If we let him alone," said they, "all
men will believe on him ; " 1 and from that day " they took
counsel together to put him to death."
At first Jesus shunned them. Not that he feared to die :
he expected to be put to death, and was ready to deliver
himself whenever his time should come; but he had yet
other things to say to his disciples and to the people ; above
all, to instruct his friends as to the meaning of his death,
and the coming of his kingdom. And so he left for a while
these stormy scenes at Jerusalem, and betook himself to the
north, skirting the wilderness that borders upon the Jordan.
1 John xi. 48-53.

376 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
He no longer had a home. Nazareth had cast him out, and
he had turned away in discouragement from Capernaum.
He had not where to lay his head. But, as he journeyed, a
quiet little city of Ephraim, east of Bethel, about sixteen
miles from the capital, seems to have offered him rest and
safety; and "there he continued with his disciples."1
But his enemies would soon track him to this retreat; and
so he again crossed the Jordan to " the region beyond," or
Perea, the ancient Gilead, the home of the tribes of Reuben
and Dan. This fine rolling country, now occupied only by
roving Bedouins, was then well peopled with towns and
villages, the ruins of which are still to be seen. It was
famous for its forests,'its herds, and its flocks, and afforded
the best pasture -land of Palestine. In this rural region,
Jesus escaped from the jealousies and conspiracies of the
metropolis ; but he was now a character of too much noto
riety to escape from the people, even had he wished to do
so. " Great multitudes followed him ; and, as he was wont,
he taught them again." 2 Indeed, he made such a mission
ary tour in Perea, as he had made before in Galilee ; and
went " through the cities and villages, teaching, and jour
neying toward Jerusalem."8 Just at this time, too, the
caravans were starting for the passover; and Jesus was
attended by eager, listening crowds all along the way. To
this last preaching tour, we owe many of his most beautiful
1 John xi. 54. 2 Matt. xix. 1, 2 ; Mark x. 1. » Luke xiii. 22.

The Pity of Jesus for Sinneks.

THE LAST JOURNEY. 379
parables, but especially the deeper insight into his life and
death which he gave to his disciples, when he took them
apart for more personal instruction.
The tone of his preaching was both tender and severe, as
from a man who felt how in his own person the truth and
grace of his Father had been slighted and abused, who
knew the great crime that the religious teachers of the
nation were then plotting against him, who knew the woes
that must come upon the people for their sins, who felt for
them the anguish and the dread of the judgment of the
last day, and who in his yearning for their salvation was
ready to sacrifice his life. How full of this tender yearning
is the parable of the prodigal son, the parable of the great
supper, the parable of the praying widow, and that of the
humble publican ! How in these parables the soul of Jesus
melts with compassion for the poor, the maimed, the lame,
the blind, the hungry and homeless in the streets and lanes
of the city ; for the widow and the fatherless, neglected and
wronged ; for the sinner, humbled, penitent, praying, return
ing ! How his soul yearns over the rich, noble, and amiable
young man who seems to have every thing, yet lacks one
thing, and will not do that one thing which would bring
heaven to his soul here, and would find him " treasure in
heaven " x hereafter. How compassionately he lays his
hands on the woman bowed with infirmity, and takes the
1 Mark x. 17-22.

380 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
part of the poor and suffering against the proud and scorn
ful 1 How gently, lovingly, he takes little children in his
arms, vexed that his own disciples had pushed back the
mothers with their babes ! — for Jesus could show anger
against meanness and injustice done to the weak and the
innocent. Yet how tender is he of the faults of his disci
ples toward himself, teaching by his example to forgive
seven times in a day ; 1 and how considerate and generous
to those who even at the eleventh hour would enter upon
his service ! 2
Such are the strains of tender, melting love that are
wafted to us from beyond the Jordan, as Jesus journeys
toward Jerusalem, the "Man of Sorrows," bearing upon
himself our sicknesses and infirmities. With this tender
ness come also notes of severity, — reproof and warning in
the parable of Dives and Lazarus, in the picture of the
coming of the Son of man, and of the last judgment :
" Strive to enter in at the strait gate ; " 8 " Many that are
first shall be last, and the last first ; " " One shall be taken,
and the other left." Yet this very earnestness of warning
shows the intensity of love ; and, through all, we hear the
deep, solemn, pathetic undertone of wailing over the fate of
his enemies : " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the
prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee ! " and
1 Luke xvii. 3, 4. a Matt. xx. 9-16.
8 Luke* xiii. 24 ; Matt. xix. 30 ; Luke xvii. 34.

i- •S!*XKr,r*i,MMe-

Jesus and Little Children.

THE LAST JOURNEY. 383
 / 
now at the last moment he would save her, and " would
gather her children together," though for this he should
stretch out his arms upon the cross. That cross was con
stantly before him ; and, apart from any sacrificial purpose or
redemptive power in his cross, the moral heroism with which
he went forward to meet it . lifts him as far above all other
heroes and martyrs of the race, as the cross itself is lifted
above all other symbols of a sublime ideal triumphing in
death. Knowing what shall befall him at Jerusalem ; fore
seeing all the shameful, brutal aggravations of his sufferings
and death, — how he shall be betrayed by one of his disci
ples unto the chief priests and the scribes; how these
religious teachers and leaders of God's chosen people shall
condemn him, as the Son of God, to death ; how this sacred
tribunal of his own nation shall deliver him to the Gentiles,
to a Pagan governor and his insolent foreign guard ; how
they shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall spit
upon him, and shall kill him, — knowing and feeling the
shame and the pain of this great agony, he calmly tells it
all to his disciples, not to relieve his sorrow, but to comfort
theirs. " Thou wilt feel all, that thou mayest pity all !
So to the end, though now of mortal pangs
Made heir, — with unaverted eye
Thou meetest all the storm."
Yet in the moment of a heroism so self-denying, so

384 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
sublime, his own disciples step in to wrest some selfish
worldly advantage from his very sacrifice. Passing over the
sorrows to come upon him, they seize upon the assurance
that he shall rise again ; and, coupling this with their old
notions of the Messiah, James and John put up their
mother to ask for them the first places of honor in his
triumph : " Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one
at thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy king
dom."1 All the pity and all the patience of Jesus came out in
his reply. He will not suffer their mean ambition to be
rebuked by the meaner jealousy of their brethren; but,
gently reminding . them of the cup of sorrow and the bap^
tism of suffering, he seeks once more to lift them out of the
sordidness of the flesh into the purity of the spirit, out of
the greed of selfishness into the glory of sacrifice : " Who
soever will be great among you, let him be your minister ;
and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your
servant : even as the Son of man came not to be minis
tered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for
many." 2
He came to minister ; and as he goes onward to meet his
own cross, though the thronging multitudes would make
his way a triumphal march, he is at the call of everybody's
need, bearing everybody's cross, healing, comforting, minis-
1 Matt. xx. 21. a Matt. xx. 26-28.

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Blind Bartimeus.
THE LAST JOURNEY. 387

tering. He passes by none because they are poor, friendless,
and unknown : all the more does he minister to such as can
not minister to him nor to themselves. Just without the
gate of Jericho, two blind men are sitting by the wayside,
begging alms of the passers-by. They hear the unwonted
tumult, the tramp of a thousand feet, the shouting of a
thousand voices, the crowds from the city hurrying out to
meet the crowds from the fords of the river, — all eager to
hear or see what Jesus may say or do. The sound draws
nearer, grows more distinct ; the quickened ears of the
blind men hear that Jesus is passing by; and they cry,
"Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou Son of David!" But
crowds have no pity: every man is pushing for himself,
wishes every thing for himself, and hates to have any thing
come in the way of his seeing or getting whatever is to be
seen or had ; and so the multitude tell the blind men to be
still, push them aside, angry that they will not hold their
peace ; but they cry and cry the more, till above all the
tramping and the shouting rings that piercing wail, —
" Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us ! " No man cares
for them ; no man offers to lead them. But Jesus stands
still, and calls them. Springing up, they stagger forward,
reaching out their arms to feel or make a way through the
crowd, lifting up their sightless balls to where the voice of
mercy is, " What will ye that I shall do unto you ? " This
Son of David, who might make himself king, puts himself

388 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
at their bidding, as the servant of all. " Lord, that our
eyes may be opened," is the cry of their yet blind but
earnest faith ; and Jesus " has compassion on them, touches
their eyes; and immediately their eyes receive sight." He,
whom these bands of excited men would make their chief,
shuts his ears to their huzzas, but hears the cry of human
need, and stops to minister to blind, ragged beggars on the
wayside. A little farther on, near the -town, a sycamore-tree spread
its wide, thick branches across the way, just as one sees this
same tree in Palestine before every village, by the fountain,
or at a fork of the road. As Jesus passes under the tree, he
looks up, and sees a man lodged in its branches, eagerly
watching his approach. This man is no beggar, and he
utters no cry. A tax-gatherer, he has made himself rich by
serving the oppressors of his nation, and by cheating his
countrymen. He is as much despised as any beggar, and is
more to be pitied than the blind men who sit at the city gate
for alms; for his soul is blind and beggared. He is "a pub
lican and a sinner." But to-day his conscience is awake, and
he feels the stirring of a new faith and life within him. Not
ashamed to face the crowd who might hoot him down, in
his eagerness to see Jesus, he climbs the tree, because he is
little of stature. Jesus, ever ready to seize upon the first
sign of penitence or faith, says to him, " Zaccheus, make
haste, and come down; for to-day I must abide at thy

jsMTiray et'U

Zaccheus.

THE LAST JOURNEY. 391
house." And now the fickle crowd are ready to murmur
against their chief, because he will accept the hospitality of
such a sinner ; but "the Son of man is come to seek and to.
save that which was lost." More precious than sight to the
eye is salvation to the soul. The rich sinner repents, makes
fourfold restoration, gives half of what remains to the poor,
and rejoices that salvation has come to his house.
With these conspicuous examples of healing mercy and
of saving grace as types of his mission, Jesus warns his
followers that no such kingdom of God as they are looking
for is about to appear ; that he is to be taken from them,
but they shall remain in trust as his servants ; that faith is
the key to position in his kingdom, and fidelity the key to
its rewards. And so, with death distinctly before him, but
scattering life along his way, " he goes before, ascending up
to Jerusalem." From the heights of Bethany, Lazarus,
Martha, and Mary watch far down the hill the coming of
their friend and Lord, their hearts bounding with joy that
they are so soon to welcome him ; then sinking with dread,
lest they should welcome him to danger, perhaps to
death.

CHAPTER XXXI.
HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST.
Sometimes it is given to a man to be thought worthy of
the highest places of honor and of power, to have his name
coupled with distinctions that most men covet, to have
these thrust upon him by the voice of the people ; and yet
to show his greatness by declining office and fame, and
giving himself to a simple, patient life of goodness. But it
is in the nature of men, and especially in the fickle multi
tude, to resent the magnanimity that refuses to be honored
in their way. Are not thrones, titles, riches, power, fame,
the highest prizes the world has to bestow ? And is not the
offer of these, the suggestion of them even, the highest
compliment that men can render to one whom they admire
and follow ? If, then, he cares nothing for these things, he
wounds their pride ; and if he not only thrusts aside the
honors they would force upon him, but at the same time
tells them he has higher and better things to give than they
have to offer, that they yet need to learn of him the first
ideas of honor, riches, power, then he wounds also their

HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST. 393
vanity, he turns their love to hate, their huzzas to hootings.
When the people praise a leader, they flatter themselves in
choosing him or in having him ; they cover themselves
with the odor of the incense that they burn to their idol ;
and they will soon dethrone an idol who will not regard
their homage, nor accept their offerings, much more if he
shall reprove his worshippers.
This trait of human nature is the key to the strange,
sudden contrasts in the treatment of Jesus, that were
crowded into the last six days of his life. It was the scene
in the synagogue at Nazareth, repeated on the scale of the
whole nation, and coming to the tragic end of which that
had failed. It was the story of Capernaum over again,
when, after he had fed five thousand from a few loaves and
fishes, the people were ready to " take him by force, and
make him a king ; " but when he took himself away, and
then came back and reproved them for seeking the loaves,
and pointed to himself as the true bread of heaven, they
demanded " a sign ; " they sneered at him as Joseph's son ;
they turned back, and walked no more with him. It was the
contrast of his whole life, accordingly as he seemed to meet
or to thwart, the notions of the people as to what he was,
or should become. A king they wanted, and a king must
Jesus be.
On the morning after the arrival of Jesus at Bethany, the
whole town was astir, and the road to Jerusalem was alive
with people.

394 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
" From every house the neighbors met;
The streets were filled with joyful sound;
A solemn gladness even crowned
The. purple brows of Olivet."
Though it was yet six days before the Passover, many
caravans from the country had already arrived for the feast ;
and the crowd promised to be greater than usual, because
everybody would be eager to see and hear the prophet who
a few months before, at the festivals of the tabernacles and
the dedication,1 had done so many wonders, and had raised
such a tumult that his life was in danger. At every new
arrival the first question was, " Where is Jesus ? " and, as
he had not yet been seen in the temple, there was a lively
discussion as to the chances of his coming at all. " What
think ye, that he will not come to the feast ? "
But, though he should not appear, Lazarus might be seen ;
and he was almost as great a wonder as Jesus himself. The
caravans coming up from the Jordan halted by Bethany, to
catch a sight of the "man who had been raised from the
dead. Crowds came over every day from Jerusalem for the
same purpose; and it was evident that the people cared
1 The Feast of Tabernacles occurred after all the fruits had been
gathered in ; corresponding with our October. The Feast of Dedication
was in mid-winter; the Passover was in April or May, just before the
first harvesting; the Pentecost in June, after the corn-harvest and before
the vintage.

Jesus leaving Bethany.

HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST. 397
more about the Nazarene and his doings than for all the
scribes and doctors of the temple. This so enraged the
chief priests that " they consulted that they might put
Lazarus also to death ; because that by reason of him many
of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus." 1
As soon as it was known in Jerusalem that Jesus was at
the house of Lazarus, the whole city poured out to meet
him. Down the side of the temple-hill, across the bed of
the Kedron, up the side of Olivet, swarmed the people,
running, shouting, singing, — men, women, and children
pressing on to Bethany. But on the way they met the
surges of another crowd ; for Jesus had already started for
the city, with all Bethany, and the eastern caravans behind
him. At this moment the disciples brought up an ass's colt ;
and, spreading their garments over its back, they seated
Jesus upon it to lead him to Jerusalem in triumph. For
now, at the last, Jesus would appear as the Messiah, the
King of the Jews. He would show the people that they
had not "read the prophets in vain, had not looked in vain
for a deliverer ; he would fulfil in his own person the predic
tion of their scriptures, and would then fulfil in a far higher
sense their own expectation of a Saviour. Yielding to their
enthusiasm, seizing upon the time and the circumstances
which would make his action most conspicuous, significant,
and memorable, he would make a public entry into the capi-
1 John. xii. 9-11.

398 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
tal, like a prince going to be crowned ; and by this symbol
he would say . to the daughter of Zion, " Behold, thy King
cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt,
the foal of an ass." 1 But in the very height of this popular
enthusiasm, in this supreme moment of apparent royalty
and victory, he would show the grandeur of his kingdom
by refusing to use his power upon his enemies, by bearing
only symbols of meekness and peace, and speaking only
words of gentleness and sorrow.
There was nothing degrading in his riding upon an ass,
which was a common beast of travel in Palestine. Abra
ham and Jacob had travelled in this way. In the time of
the judges, the governors of Israel rode " on white asses,"
and the young princes had each an ass's colt.2 It would
not have been unbecoming for Jesus, even as a king, to
have made his entry into Jerusalem upon such a beast,
especially as the procession was extemporized and on foot ;
but he sent for the ass's colt, and rode it, as a sign of the
simplicity and the peaceableness of his kingdom. He came
not as the conqueror with worldly pomp and display, but as
the Saviour, meek and lowly of heart. But the people
would have him king, whether he would, or no.
The Orientals have a touch of fanaticism in their nature.
These sedate, solemn-looking men, who move about so leis
urely in their long .robes and turbans, and seem too stupid
1 Zech. ix. 9. 2 Judg. v. 10, xii. 14.

HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST. 399
for any excitement, can be worked up to a frenzy, especially
when a strong religious impulse seizes on them. Then their
loud outcries, their violent gestures, their noisy excesses of
every sort, would make a Western crowd appear quite tame.
So on this morning upon the Mount of Olives the multi
tudes gave loose to the wildest excitement, caused both by
religious fervor and by political hopes. At last, at last!
they had their Messiah. He had cast out devils, had raised
the dead, and could do any thing. He was not afraid of the
Pharisees ; for, though he knew they were seeking his life, he
was going openly to Jerusalem. And he was willing now
to go as a king, to ride before the people, and let them
honor and praise him. No doubt at Jerusalem he would do
some wondrous sign. God was with him, and would help
him ; he would declare himself the Messiah, would take the
throne of David ; and the kingdom of God should immedi
ately appear.1 Fired with such feelings, wrought up to the
highest pitch of enthusiasm for their nation and their
religion now to be delivered, a great multitude ran before
Jesus, and spread their garments in the way as a carpet for
him to ride over. Others leaped up to the palm-trees that
lined the road, and stripped them of their branches, and laid
these in the way ; and, as with one voice, the thousands
upon thousands made the hills and woods ring with the
shout, " Hosanna to the Son of David ! Blessed is he that
1 Luke xix. 11.

400 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
cometh in the name of the Lord ! Blessed is the King
of Israel, that cometh in the name of the Lord ! Hosanna
in the highest ! "
In vain did the Pharisees try to hush this cry ; and, when
they appealed to Jesus to rebuke his disciples, he answered,
" I tell you, that, if these should hold their peace, the stones
would immediately cry out." Yes, there he was, the King
indeed ! king of nature, king of the Jews, king of the
world, king of life ; and every thing was ready to serve him,
and do him homage, — the brute creation, the trees of the
field, the voices of children, the shouts of the people, —
every thing save proud, envious, selfish human hearts.
Yet, that there were such hearts, moved him not to anger,
but to infinite pity. Just as the Pharisees struck in their
discord upon the hosannas of the people, Jesus turned that
angle on the shoulder of Olivet, where the whole city burst
upon the view, with indescribable splendor; temple, palaces,
walls, towers, gates, gardens, the joy of the earth, lying at
one's feet. The view was familiar to Jesus ; he had seen it
as often as he had passed to and from Bethany. But now
he halts to behold the city ; and the multitude hush their
cries, and crowd nearer to hear. From that point, a hundred
years before, the Roman general Pompey, coming up from
Jericho, had looked exultingly upon Jerusalem as his prize.
On that point, thirty years later, the Roman general Titus
planted a legion to guard the road to Jericho, and to

HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST. 403
batter the walls of the city and the temple. But no
move of strategy, no thought of conquest, was in the
mind of the Messiah-king as he stood rapt in the entran
cing beauty of the view. His eyes filled with tenderness,
they overflowed with tears ; and, for the hosannas that had
just now pealed about him, he broke out in the lamenta
tion, "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy
day, the things which belong unto thy peace ! but now they
are hid from thine eyes." Then, foreseeing the day when
the Roman legions should stand where he stood, he added,
" For the days shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall
cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep
thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the
ground, and thy children within thee ; and they shall not
leave in thee one stone upon another : because thou knowest
not the time of thy visitation." l No fiction could have
invented such a scene. There is a story, that, after his
victory at Chseroneia, Philip of Macedon burst into tears at
the slaughter he had caused of the brave Thebans ; and that
Alexander the Great, on returning to Persepolis, wept when
he looked upon the ruin he had brought upon that capital.
But in both instances the conqueror was himself the agent
of the destruction that he lamented ; and his feeling was a
not unnatural reaction, mixed perhaps with remorse. But
when Jesus beheld the city, and wept over it, there was no
1 Luke xix. 42-44.

404 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
visible cause of sorrow. The temple and the capital stood
in their glory, never before so proudly beautiful. The
Romans, indeed, were in possession ; but the Jews had their
homes and their religion free, and there were no signs of
war in the sky. His sorrow could spring from no word or
act of his own. His one thought for his countrymen had
been to do them good ; his one longing for the city was to
save it. Refusing to disturb its peace by making himself
king, refusing to turn the excitement of the populace to his
own advantage, seeing already, in the background of the
picture before him, his own cross lifted up, and the same
people crying " Crucify him," he wept, not for himself and
for his sorrows, but for Jerusalem, its sins and its woes. In
this act Jesus stands alone in history; and by the very
strength of his sympathy for a sinful, suffering race, he fifts
himself so high above our human experiences that we are
compelled to say these tears were none other than a
divine compassion. We should never have understood
their meaning, but for two events that show us what was in
the mind of Jesus himself* — his own crucifixion, and the
destruction of the city. Except for these, his weeping
would have seemed a weakness or a mystery ; for the
emotion which Jesus showed in looking upon Jerusalem was
altogether different from what any other man would have
felt, or have thought of, at the moment when all the people
were running after him, when the capital was wild with the

HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST. 405
rumor that he was coming as its king, and the air was ring
ing with hosannas to his name. It is not in human nature
in such circumstances not to feel a thrill of pride, of hope, or
of joy, or some measure of self-complacency. But Jesus
wept. It was not a city in ruins that he then looked upon ;
it was no present danger that so moved him : but to his
prophetic eye were visible the days that in the next genera
tion should come upon the capital, — the horrors of the
siege, the army encompassing the city, the mounds heaped
up for the assault, the famine and pestilence within the
gates, the rush of soldiers trampling down the people,
the burning of the temple, the razing of the walls and the
houses even with the ground ; and, as he foresaw this
dreadful end, he wept that his blinded, infatuated, apostate
countrymen would not suffer him to save them by bringing
them back to God. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! If thou
hadst known ! "
Not one of the spectators, not one, even, of his own disci
ples, understood the meaning of those tears, of that lament.
They had halted long enough to see and hear this strange
outburst; but they were too eager to crown their king, to
heed the warning of the prophet ; and taking up again the
cry, "Hosanna," the procession swept down the slope of
Olivet, past the tombs of the prophets, across the bed of the
Kedron, under the shadow of the temple walls, up the steep
side of Moriah, swelling its numbers at every step, until, as

406 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
it passed through the eastern gate, " all the city was moved,
saying, Who is this?" This is Jesus, the Prophet of
Nazareth of Galilee ; no longer a name of reproach : the
good thing has come out of Nazareth. Hosanna, thy King
cometh! With these swarming crowds, Jesus passed into
the temple. The sick, the lame, the blind, were quick to
hear that this man of wonders, this friend of the poor and
the suffering, had come again; and from all parts of the
town they hurried to the temple, or were carried there, and
he healed them. These wonderful things that he did raised
still higher the enthusiasm of the people ; the courts and
corridors, rang with his praises ; and, in the very cloisters
where as a boy he had sat with the doctors, were children
crying, " Hosanna to the Son of David ! " Again the angry
priests and scribes broke in with their reproofs ; but Jesus
said to them, " Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings
Thou hast perfected praise."
Soon after, leaving the temple, he withdrew from the
excitements of the day, and went quietly back to Bethany
to have an evening in his beloved home.
To-day one may follow in his steps, and, from the same
spot where Jesus halted to look upon Jerusalem, may see the
enchanting picture of the city ; but it is no more the Jerusa
lem of the Jews. The Turk is master there ; and upon the
site of the temple stands the sacred mosque of the Moham
medans. There are no traces of the ancient building; but

Children crying Hosanna.

HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST. 409
a few old stones in a side wall mark its foundations; and
there the pious Jews go every week to weep over the fall of
their temple, and to pray for the coming of their Messiah.
It is a sad and hopeless scene. O Jerusalem, if in that day
thou hadst known the things of thy peace ! Yet the very
blindness and madness that brought on the destruction of
city and temple gave to the world Calvary and its Saviour ;
and over that once sacred spot, now turned to wailing, meet
the waves of song that roll around the redeemed world,
Blessed is he that came in the name of the Lord !
Hosanna in the Highest !

CHAPTER XXXII.

JESUS THE CHRIST.

By his public entry into Jerusalem, Jesus had signified
that he was the Messiah. To his own disciples he had made
himself fully known by his answer to Peter's confession,
" Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." x And
now, by accepting from the multitude the titles " Son of
David " and " King of Israel," and refusing to rebuke them
for these cries, he had allowed himself to be proclaimed
before all Jerusalem as the Christ. As King of Israel, as
the Christ of prophecy, he had entered the city of David, the
house of the Lord ; he had preached his gospel, and finished
his work : but his kingdom was not of this world ; and, with
his character and mission thus clearly unveiled, he was now
ready to die. His entry took place on Monday, amid the
hosannas of the people ; and, before noon of Friday, he was
hung up on the "cross, amid the jeers of the mob. Never
Was so much compressed into one human life, as in these last
days of the life of Jesus, — so much of truth, of testimony,
1 Matt. xvi. 16.
410

JESUS THE CHRIST. 411

of warning to all who had ears to hear ; so much of counsel
and of sympathy in the intimacy of friends ; so much of
compassion and of help for the needy ; so much of pity and
of promise for his disciples; so much of love for enemies,
and of sacrifice for all ; so much of loneliness and of deser
tion from man and God ; so much of agony and shame in
suffering, and of majesty and triumph in death.
Spending his nights at Bethany, he went every morning
over the Mount of Olives to the city, and gave the day
to the temple, preaching to the people, whose number
increased as the Passover drew near, and whose excitement
grew more and more intense under his stern and burning
words. For the ministry that opened with benedictions
and entreaties closed with rebukes and threatenings. His
first miracle used his power over nature to further a social
festival, — a miracle of creation, to cheer and bless : his last
miracle used his power over nature for a symbol of the
favored but fated people in whom his ministry had come to
no fruit, — a miracle of destruction, withering the barren
fig-tree from the roots.
This parable in action was followed by a series of para
bles, in which the central thought is always the rejection of
himself and his grace by the Jews, and their rejection in
turn by his Father, through the overthrow of their city,
their temple, and their nation, and in the severer judgments
of the last great day. In these parables, the Jewish people,

412 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
with their national pride and their religious formalism, are
compared to the son who was full of promises, but never
did his father's will ; and are told that the lowest of the
heathen who repent of sin " shall go into the kingdom of
God before them."1 They are compared to husbandmen,
who, being in charge of the choicest vineyard, killed the heir,
and were themselves destroyed by the lord of the vineyard ; 2
they are compared to favored guests invited to the marriage
of the king's son, who not only refuse to come, but stir up
insurrection against the king, and compel him to discard and
punish them, while the wedding is furnished with guests
from the beggars of the highways.3 These parables cut at
the root of their national pride and of their self-righteous
ness, and turn their very hopes of the Messiah as king
into so many accusations for rejecting the Messiah as Sav
iour. Such preaching must have one of two effects : either
it must open their eyes, humble their hearts, bring them to
confess their error, and turn from their sins ; or it must
stiffen their pride, rouse their national jealousy, and stir up
hatred against their reprover.
But more decisive than this faithful dealing with the
people was the boldness with which Jesus denounced the
scribes and Pharisees. At first they tried to suppress his
teaching, demanding, " By what authority doest thou these
things ? and who gave thee that authority ? " i But Jesus
1 Matt. xxi. 28-32. a Matt. xxi. 33-41.
8 Matt. xxii. 1-10. * Matt. xxi. 23.

JESUS THE CHRIST. 413

baffled them by insisting that they should first tell him
whether the baptism of John was from heaven, or of men.
They could not say " From heaven ; " for Jesus would ask,
" Why, then, did ye not believe him ? " They could not
say, " Of men ; " for they feared the people, who held John
as a prophet. So Jesus refused to give his authority. His
works and his words were authority enough; and he
silenced them.
Defeated on this side, the scribes and Pharisees tried " to
catch him in his talk." In their eagerness to make out a
case against him, the parties who were commonly quarrelling
with each other came together, and agreed upon a plan of
attack. First came the Herodians,1 of a political party who
held that it was best to keep peace with the Romans by
owning their authority, and yielding to their demands.
These asked him, " Is it lawful to give tribute unto Csesar,
or not?" If Jesus had said "No," the Herodians would have
denounced him to the Roman governor as preaching up sedi
tion ; but, if he had said " Yes," the Pharisees would have
1 The Herodians were so called from King Herod the Great. The
strict Jews held that no one had a right to rule over them who was not
a Jew by birth and in religion. Now, Herod was by birth an Idumsean,
and at heart was more a Pagan than a Jew; but he had made himself
master of Judea, and by courting f avpr at Rome had obtained the title
of king. In this state of things, some leading Jews were disposed to
separate government from religion, and to support Herod's authority
and the Roman emperor, for the sake of worldly advantages. Even for
a long time after the death of Herod, such Jews were called Herodians,

414 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
stirred up the people against him as willing to surrender the
Jewish nation to its enemies. Calling for a penny, Jesus
showed them, that, by using money stamped with the head
of the emperor, they acknowledged his authority; but at
the same time he upheld the authority of Jehovah, saying,
" Render to Caesar the things that are Csesar's, and to God
the things that are God's." l So these crafty politicians
were put down.
Next the Sadducees,2 who held that there is no resurrec
tion, tried to catch him by supposing the case of a woman
who had been married seven times, and asking whose wife
she should be in the resurrection.' But Jesus answered,
" When they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry,
nor are given in marriage ; but are as the angels which are
in heaven ; " and then he showed how their own Scriptures
assume a life after death, and speak of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob as still living with God. So the sceptical Sadducees
were put down ; and both the common people and scribes
who were standing by took sides with Jesus.
At last one of the ablest scribes,3 or lawyers, was moved
1 Mark xii. 13-17.
2 The Sadducees were a school or sect of reformers and freethinkers
that arose about two hundred years before Christ, as the followers of a
famous teacher named Zadoic. They began with trying to purify the
national religion, by opposing many traditions and ceremonies ; but
they ended in rejecting some of the chief doctrines, such as the provi
dence of God, the existence of the soul, and the life after death.
8 There had always been, among the Levites, men whose special

"Render unto Cesar the Things that are Csbar's."

JESUS THE CHRIST. 417

to ask him, " Which is the great commandment of the
law ? " The teachers of the law were constantly disputing
on this point; some insisting upon sacrifices as of the first
importance, others upon tithes or ceremonies. But Jesus
could not be drawn into such controversies ; and his answer
took hold so deeply upon the reason, the heart, and the con
science, upon the very nature of God, of men, and religion,
that "no man after that durst ask him any question."
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy
strength: this is the first commandment. And the second
is like, namely, this : Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
There is none other commandment greater than these."1
Jesus now turned the tables upon his enemies ; and, as
the Pharisees "- were gathered around him, he asked them a
studies in the sacred law gained for them the title of " the learned."
But, in the time of Ezra, a school was formed for training such students;
and these gradually rose into an order of teachers, who were looked up to
by the people as an authority upon questions of doctrine and of prac
tice. The scribes made commentaries upon the law; and by degrees they
came to be divided among themselves, and, like schools of theology
nowadays, to dispute about the meaning or the importance of the
doctrines which they derived from their sacred scriptures.
1 Mark xii. 28-34.
2 The Pharisees might be called the Ritualists of their day. In the
third century before Christ, there was, among the Jews, a revival of that
old spirit of piety that had kept them separate from other nations, as
the special people of God. This devout feeling, a certain party sought
to perpetuate by making piety consist in a strict observance of the letter

418 JESUS OF NAZARETH.

question that put them to confusion before the people:
"What think ye of Christ? whose son is he?" They
answered at once, "The son of David." — "How, then,"
said Jesus, " doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The
Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand till I
make thine enemies thy footstool?" The Jews regarded
the One Hundred and Tenth Psalm as a prophecy of the
Messiah. He is there pictured as a king subduing kings
and nations, and the hosts of whose followers are as multi
plied, as fresh, and as brilliant as the dew of the morning.
At the same time he is a priest, yet not of a changeable
human priesthood, but " a priest forever after the order of
Melchizedek," who stands forth alone in his royal and
priestly dignity, with no mention of his birth or his death,
of ancestors or successors ; the type of an eternal priesthood.
But the Psalmist pictures his royal priest, his consecrated
Lord, as sitting at the right hand of God, and sharing the
power and dignity of the Most High ; and since the Jews
were so jealous for the name of Jehovah that they made it
blasphemy, — a sin punished by death, — to give to a man
the titles, the place, the honor, of God, therefore David in
calling Christ his Lord, and seating him upon the throne of
of the law, as to the forms of worship, sacrifices, prayers, alms, &c. ;
but what at first was a real spirit of religious fervor came to be with
many a mere formalism, an outward show. Jesus did not hesitate to
call the Pharisees hypocrites, for making so much show of religion
when they had so little of its spirit.

JESUS THE CHRIST. 419

Jehovah, made him the Son of God, the sharer of divine
majesty and glory. Far, far above the earthly throne of
David was the Christ before whom David bowed in homage
as his Lord. This divine sonship did Jesus tacitly claim for
himself in his question to the Pharisees ; and " no man was
able to answer him a word;"1 but "the common people
heard him gladly." 2 He now openly spoke of himself to his
disciples as the Christ: "one is your Master, even Christ;"3
and, after his explanation of the prophecies concerning
Christ, there can be no doubt of his meaning that he, the
Son of man, was the Son of God. It was God his Father
who had sent him into the world, who had commanded him
what he should speak,4 and who always heard his prayer.
Standing forth now as the Christ, in the audience of all
the people, he uttered warnings against the scribes and
Pharisees, their pride, their greed, their vanity, their
oppression, their hypocrisy. Then he denounced them to
their faces as hypocrites, " which devour widows' houses,
and for a pretence make long prayers, and who shut up the
kingdom of heaven against men; as blind guides, which
strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel ; as whited sepulchres,
that outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within are
full of hypocrisy and iniquity." He charges them with the
blood of the prophets, with the purpose of persecuting and
killing his disciples, and warns them of the "damnation"
1 Matt. xxii. 46. 2 Mark xii. 37. 8 Matt, xxiii. 9. 4 John xii. 49.

420 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
that shall come upon them. Yet, in all these terrible accusa
tions and warnings, there was nothing of personal bitterness,
nothing of resentment for their treatment of himself. For
after these searching, burning words comes again the lamen
tation, " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the
prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto ' thee ! how
often would I have gathered thy children together, even as
a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye
would not ! " ! The crisis was approaching ; it must come.
If such preaching shut up the people either to confessing
Jesus as the Saviour sent from God, or to rejecting him as
the disturber of their peace, it drove the Pharisees to a
fiercer determination to get rid of him altogether. It was
plain that he or they must go down. How could they hope
for respect for their authoritjr and teachings, if they suffered
him to denounce them as blind, false, selfish, cruel, a "gen
eration of vipers " ? 3 Every day they were plotting how to
put him out of the way.. Jesus knew their purpose, was
prepared for it, and now began to prepare his disciples for
the end which was just at hand.
Two of the twelve, Andrew and Philip, told him that
some Greeks who had embraced the Jewish faith were
anxious to see him. At this late day his disciples were still
Jews to their hearts' core, looked upon their Master as the
Saviour and King of Israel, and could hardly think it proper
1 Matt, xxiii. 37-38. 2 Matt, xxiii. 33.

JESUS THE CHRIST. 421
to present to him men of a foreign race, who were born
Pagans, and now were only proselytes. But to the mind of
Jesus the desire of these Greeks to see him foreshadowed
the coming of the whole Gentile world to his kingdom.
This could not be, however, so long as he remained in the
body, and as a Jew, known only to his countrymen, and fol
lowed only by a few of them. To bring the world to him,
he must first give his life for the world. Rejected by the
Jews, and hung upon the cross, the meaning of his life and
work would then be known and read of all men, and the
Son of man should indeed be glorified. Before the life that
was in him could exert its quickening, saving power, it
must be set free from the earthly shell that surrounded it.
" Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground, and die,
it abideth alone ; but, if it die, it bringeth forth much
fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it ; and he
that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life
eternal." 1 So said Jesus, now that he was called once more
to choose between the worldly popularity that might lift
him to a throne, and the self-sacrifice that should bring him
a spiritual seed. To save his life by serving the whim of the
people, would be to throw away his life as a power of good.
To hate even the thought of saving his life by abandoning
his work, to sacrifice his fife to his work, would be to keep
his name and work forever alive in the hearts and the lives
1 John xii. 24, 25.

422 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
of men. With this high devotion to truth and God, he
calls upon his servants to follow him even to death ; then,
rising into the sublime consciousness that he is the Son
of God, he adds, " Where I am, there shall also my servant
be. If any man serve me, him will my Father honor." x
He does not hesitate to say that heaven is for him and his
followers, and to pledge the Father to honor those who
serve Jesus as serving God himself.
But this vision of spiritual and heavenly glory does not
lift him above the weakness of his human nature. The very
refinement and spirituality of his feelings render the nerves
of his body the more keenly sensitive to pain. The finest,
noblest natures suffer most. And the shrinking of his
nervous organism from the anguish of the cross causes him
to exclaim, "Now is my soul troubled." The old conflict of
the wilderness between the flesh and the spirit is renewed ;
and, "What shall I say? Father, save me from this'
hour : " so pleads the man within him, the human, that
shrinks from torture and death. " But for this cause came
I to this hour ; " my whole life has been shaped toward
this end ; " Father, glorify thy name : " so answers the
Christ within him, the Son of God, to his Father's will.2
A sound breaks from the clear heaven. The people star
tled say, some, "It thundered.;" others, "An angel spake
to him;"3 but to his quickened ears it was a voice from
i John xii. 26. 2 John xii. 27. 8 John xii. 29.

JESUS THE CHRIST. 423
heaven, saying, " I have glorified my name, and will glorify
it again." 1 The Christ now rises to his throne, and
takes the dominion of the world. "Now is the judgment
of this world ; now shall the prince of this world be cast
out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw
all men unto me, " 2 — victory and dominion through the
cross. He declares himself the light of the world; he
identifies himself with God. " He that seeth me seeth him
that sent me." But in all this there is no fanaticism. He
feels the ground he stands upon. It is a great and serene
soul speaking from the inmost depths of truth. His late
severity vanishes ; the deep undertone of compassion is
heard once more : " If any man hear my words, and believe
not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world,
but to save the world. He that rejecteih me, and receiveth
not my words, hath one that judgeth him. The word that
I have spoken, the same shall judge him at the last day." 3
Man is bound to obey the truth. Wherever he disregards
truth, or swerves from it, in physics, in morals, in society,
he must suffer the penalty in the very laws of his being.
Truth is certain ; truth is unchanging ; truth is living ;
truth is eternal. We can never get rid of a truth that we
have once known. The fact of meeting it brings the obliga
tion to regard it. And if Jesus spake not of himself, but
spake the truth of God, then his word must guide and save
i John xii. 28. » John xii. 31, 32. » John xii. 47, 48.

424 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
the soul, or will judge and condemn it. Leaving his word
as light and judge, Jesus closed his public ministry, and
went out, and departed from the temple.
As they were leaving, his disciples called his attention to
the size and splendor of the buildings ; to which Jesus an
swered, " There shall not be left here one stone upon another
that shall not be thrown down." x They were on their way
to Bethany ; and, when they reached the summit of the
Mount of Olives, they sat down to rest, with the city lying
at their feet. The discourses and parables of Jesus in the
temple had impressed the ,disciples with an unwonted awe.
His terrible warnings and denunciations were now upper
most in their thoughts ; and, supposing the day of judgment
to be. at hand, they came to the Master saying, "Tell us
when shall these things be ? and what shall be the sign of
thy coming, and of the end of the world ? " 2 Jesus gave
them in outline a panorama of events that should follow
his crucifixion until the destruction of Jerusalem, — wars,
commotions, famines, pestilences, earthquakes in divers
places, fearful sights, and great signs from heaven. They
themselves should be persecuted, imprisoned, some of them
put to death. At last Jerusalem should be compassed with
armies ; its inhabitants should fall by the edge of the sword,
or be led away captive, and the city trodden down of the
Gentiles. As this destruction would come suddenly, the
1 Matt. xxiv. 1, 2. s Matt. xxiv. 3.

'There shall not be left One Stone upon Another."

JESUS THE CHRIST. 427

disciples should take heed, watch, and pray, that they may
flee in season. Like wise virgins, they must have their
lamps filled and trimmed ; like faithful servants, must be
ready to account for their talents. Three days before, from
that very spot Jesus had wept over the doomed city ; now
he has only to warn his disciples to escape its fate. Then
he rode into the city as Christ the King ; now he sits above
it as Christ the Sovereign and the Judge. There is some
thing terrible in the majesty that here invests this meek and
patient man, this loving and suffering Saviour. He came to
his own, and his own received him not. Henceforth men can
be divided into but two classes : they who receive him, and
they who reject him, — his friends, and his enemies. And
such also shall be the separation of the world at the last
great day. As Christ is the central point of human history,
the dividing and decisive test of human character, so shall
he be the central figure in the judgment, the point of separ
ation for eternity. " When the Son of man shall come in
his glory and all the holy angels with him, then shall he
sit upon the throne of his glory; and before him shall be
gathered all nations ; and he shall separate them one from
another as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats ; and
he shall set the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on the
left; " and the test by which they shall be divided is their
treatment of himself in the persons of the poor, the sick,
the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger, the prisoner.

428 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
And so through all the majesty of 'Christ the Judge still
beams the mercy of Jesus the Saviour.1
At that very time the chief priests, the scribes, and the
elders of the people, were in conclave at the palace of
Caiaphas the high priest, contriving how they might take
Jesus by craft, and put him to death, without causing an
uproar among the people. Jesus and the disciples went on
to Bethany for the night, the last night he should spend
there. Forgetting his dangers and sorrows, he was once
more the guest among friends. It was at this supper that
Mary filled the house with the odor of the ointment that
she poured over his feet. " She is come beforehand," said
Jesus, " to anoint my body for the burying." 2 And Judas
Iscariot, who had sneered at the waste, slunk away from
that scene of love, and went and sold himself for thirty
0
pieces of silver, to betray his Lord to the chief priests in
the absence of the multitude.
1 Matt. xxv. 8 Mark xiv. 1-9.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE LAST SUPPER.

It was now Thursday, which was " the first day of un
leavened bread, when they killed the passover." : By noon
of that day all labor would cease, and all leaven would
be put away; before sundown the paschal lamb would be
killed ; and after sunset, which by the Jews' reckoning was
the beginning of Friday, the lamb would be eaten with
bitter herbs and unleavened bread. It was a great point,
with Jews from the country, to eat the Passover within the
gates of Jerusalem ; and people who had houses in the city
did their utmost to provide accommodations for guests, even
though these were not relatives or friends. Early on
Thursday morning, Jesus sent Peter and John over from
Bethany to make arrangements for the Passover at the
house of a friend in the city,' who had a large upper room
furnished and prepared.2 Toward evening Jesus went over
to Jerusalem with the rest of the disciples. 3
At the first the Passover was a family feast. Every
1 Mark xiv. 12. 2 Luke xxii. 8-13. 8 Mark xiv. 16, 17.
429

430 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
family had its own lamb ; or, where families were too small
to provide and use an entire lamb, two or three neighbors
were allowed to join together in the feast. At first, too,
every lamb was killed at home, and its blood was sprinkled
on the lintels and doorposts of the house. But at this time
it was quite usual for men alone to observe the supper,
coming together in companies of twenty or more without
regard to family connections; though women were not
excluded if they wished to partake of the lamb. The lamb
was killed at the temple, where its blood was sprinkled on
the altar ; then it was taken home to be roasted whole, care
being taken that not a bone should be broken.1
The twelve disciples of Jesus were to him as a family.
For three years they had hardly been separated from him,
except when sent upon preaching-tours ; and in the last few
months they had been with him in all his journeys. Now
in these last days, the thicker the shadows of death gath
ered around him, the closer did Jesus cling to his disciples.
There was, indeed, little in them to lean upon, — in fact,
nothing of what this world reckons a support. Position,
wealth, influence, power, learning — these they had not.
Capacity for great ideas . and great undertakings they had
not shown. They had failed to understand their Master's
teachings, or to take hold of the true idea of his mission
and work. But, with one exception, he knew them to be
1 Exod. xii. 46.

THE LAST SUPPER. 431
true ; and the very simplicity of their devotion, based as this
was upon strong common-sense, recommended them to him
as men to be chosen and trusted. Under all their mistakes
and weaknesses, were the elements of a strong, true charac
ter ; and, as the end drew near, Jesus confided to them his
inmost thoughts and feelings, his purposes and hopes, until
at last he shared with them the sacred intimacy of his soul
with God : " Henceforth I call you not servants ; for the
servant knoweth not what his lord doeth : but I have called
you friends ; for all things that I have heard of my Father I
have made known unto you." 1 It was with these feelings
that he gathered the twelve around him as his own family
at the paschal feast ; his last hours upon earth he would
spend in the sacred privacy of friendship. Very significant
is the language in which John describes this : " When Jesus
knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of
this world unto the Father, having loved his own which
were in the world, he loved them unto the end." 2 These
words, and the acts that go along with them, show the heart
of Jesus in its human tenderness, and the mind of Jesus in
its divine wisdom. How tenderly human to love on more
and more to the end ! how divinely wise to use the pro-
foundest feelings of human nature for the furtherance of a
kingdom which could prosper only in and through the
hearts of men !
1 John xv. 15. 2 John xiii. 1.

432 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
Among the most powerful agencies in human action are
the social instinct, elective affinity, or. the class instinct,
corporate unity, and memorial expression. These instincts,
tendencies, attributes, — term them what we will, — are
undying properties of human nature ; and Jesus showed his
marvellous wisdom as a reformer, in that he did not run
counter to these in his arrangements for his church, but
utilized them all in subjection to, and in harmony with, his
great ideas of love and of holiness. By his doctrines of the
worth of the soul, and of the personal relations of man with
God, he gave to man, as man, a position far higher than any
philosophy or religion of antiquity had given him, and
higher even than modern science and modern democracy
have yet attained ; but he never proposed to set up each
man for himself as his own chief end and good, living like
a mystic in some hidden personal relation with God. On
the contrary, his doctrine of the worth of the individual ran
into the doctrine of brotherhood. As, in respect to com
mon wants and helps, every man is a neighbor, so, in respect
to spiritual wants and hopes, every man is a brother. " One
is your Father which is in heaven ; and one is your Master,
even Christ ; and all ye are brethren." Instead of crucify
ing the social instinct through spiritual pride, Jesus sought
to ennoble this instinct, and bring it to perfection in Chris
tian communion and brotherhood.
But, on the other hand, he did not run this idea of brother-

THE LAST SUPPER. 433

hood into communism : his doctrine of liberty, equality,
fraternity, was not that of a community of goods, of " share
and share alike " in all places of honor and authority, in
all possessions of talent or property. While he taught that
all are children of one Father, that souls are of equal value
before God, and that it is the duty of every one to. love his
neighbor as himself, to desire the good of others, and seek to
promote this as he would his own, he also taught the liberty
of every man to choose his associates, and to fraternize
with his own circle of friends. From among all his disci
ples and followers, "he chose twelve that they should be
with him." These twelve he kept about him as his compan
ions ; he told them many things that he did not tell to
others ; he " loved them to the end ; " he brought these
twelve together by themselves to share with him his last
supper ; he spoke to them the most tender, endearing words,
repeating, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen
you." J Here was the principle of selection, of adoption, of
preference, though all other disciples were alike the objects
of the Master's love.
But Jesus carried this selection still further ; and, among
these twelve who were chosen from the rest, he had favor
ites and confidants. At the raising of Jairus's daughter, he
left all the disciples outside of the house save Peter, James,
and John. These three he took with the father and the
1 John xv. 16.

434 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
mother of the maiden into the room where she lay dead.
Again, when he went up into the mountain to be transfig
ured, he took with him only Peter, James, and John ; and,
on coming down, he made them promise not to tell their
brother disciples what they had seen, till he should have
risen from the dead. He sent Peter and John to Jeru
salem to prepare the Passover; and at the last, when
he went to Gethsemane, he left the body of the disciples
near the entrance of the garden, and took Peter, James, and
John within, desiring that the three who had seen him in
his glory should be near him in his agony; always these
three, and only these three. Here was an elective affinity
shown by Jesus within the little circle of his chosen disci
ples ; a choice within a choice. And he carried his personal
preference still further ; within this little inner circle of loved
companionship, he had yet a nearer love, a choice among the
three. Peter he took in confidence in matters of energy and
prominence, — built upon him as a rock ; but John he took
to be nearest his heart. He was known among the brother
hood as " the disciple whom Jesus loved ; " at the supper he
was " lying on Jesus' breast ; " he was the only one who
stood by the Lord through all the last scenes ; and from the
cross, " when Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple standing
by whom he loved, he said unto his mother, Woman, behold
thy son ; and, to the disciple, Behold thy mother." * From
1 John xix. 26, 27.

THE LAST SUPPER. 435

all his followers, he singled out one for the most tender,
sacred offices of human affection and of Christian fidelity.
The love of Jesus did not waste itself in a vague sentiment
over humanity ; but while it was broad enough and deep
enough to take in the whole human family in all nations and
all generations, a love for men that would save the world,
at the same time it sought out the individual and the par
ticular. The wide-flowing stream had its sunny isles, its
quiet nooks, its rippling eddies, for childhood, for home, for
friendship, for chosen company. Jesus would root out all
selfish loves ; he would realize the brotherhood of humanity,
would institute a world-wide charity, would swallow up
pride, bigotry, jealousy, hatred, war, revenge, in the love of
our neighbor. But he did not attempt to suppress those
instincts that God has planted in our nature, that point us
to the family, to friendship, to some sacred union of per
sonal choice, as a motive and a means to our highest
welfare. He did not seek to reform and save society by
destroying the very sentiments and properties in the nature
of man that fit him to be a social being. He used these
same elements of power for building up his own kingdom
of love. In this Jesus showed himself the greatest of
social philosophers, the wisest of reformers. If we follow
his example, we shall love and seek the good of all men,
shall have no personal aims nor ends against the welfare of
others ; but we may have our chosen circle of companions,
our private set of confidants, our bosom friend.

436 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
In using the principle of elective affinity, Jesus went still
further in the direction of the class instinct. The French
convention of 1793 put forth, as the highest law of human
society, the maxim that the " liberty of each citizen ends
where the liberty of another citizen begins." This was the
last outcome of those " saviours of society " in the eighteenth
century, who led the revolution, the throes of which Europe
still feels. Much as they did for humanity, they left to
France a century of vibration between anarchy and despot
ism. To carry out their theory of liberty, they set aside
every order, distinction, class, privilege, that had before
existed in Church or State, and sought to produce a dead
level of citizenship. These leaders were, for the most part,
haters of Christianity. Now, Jesus, as a reformer of society,
was also a leveller : his doctrine was for man, against all the
barriers of caste, of nation, of race; and for the common
people, against the scribes and Pharisees. But where the
liberty of another begins he makes our duty also begin, to
seek his best good. Yet, at the same time, he created an
order, an aristocracy, which in its claims is more lofty, and
in its conditions more absolute and select, than any that ever
existed on the face of the earth. This class, divided from
all the rest of mankind by a new birth and a holy character,
are known as the elect of God, his children, the heirs of
heaven ; they, and they alone, are in the kingdom of God on.
earth ; they, and they alone, shall possess heaven hereafter.

THE LAST SUPPER. 437

Between them and all others, the separation here is as wide
as holiness from sin ; and hereafter there will be a " great
gulf fixed." Never was so high, so sweeping, so lasting a
claim as this, set up on behalf of any order of men; an
aristocracy of heaven established on earth. But this order,
or society, has these three peculiarities, — first, that it is
spiritual in its tokens and its rewards ; second, that any one
can enter it by changing his life and character to conform
to its conditions ; and, third, that, once within its pale, all its
members are equal. The most towering aristocracy from
without, it is the most level democracy within. By its spirit
ual nature it can go anywhere, among all people, in all lands.
By its superior claims it sweeps away all earthly distinctions,
— thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, — as things
of nought. By its free spirit it attracts every one who
wishes to become all that it is possible to be in character.
Jesus thus appeals to one of the strongest of human instincts,
— the desire to rise, — and by the purest and noblest ambi
tion leads on the perfection of humanity. It matters not
how low one is in birth or station, how poor in means and
qualities : " to as many as receive him, he gives power to
become the sons of God ; which are born not of blood, nor
of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."
The social instinct and the elective attraction, so powerful
in human nature, find expression in various modes of corpo
rate unity ; and this tendency to society in action, as well as

438 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
in feeling, Jesus took advantage of in forming his church.
But in this, as in every thing, he refined upon a human
quality, and gave it the highest spiritual impulse and direc
tion. For the unity which he established was not one of
modes and forms, but of faith and love. The supper that
he commanded his disciples to observe, and the rules he
gave for offending brethren, imply and require some kind of
association ; but the sign of Christian fellowship should be
" that ye love one another ; " and the unity of the Church,
a spiritual accord through union in Christ and with the
Father ; " as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they
also may be one in us : I in them, and thou in me, that they
may be made perfect in one ; that the world may know that
thou hast sent me." There can be no body of Christ except
where there is the spirit of Christ. The union of believers
with Christ is so near and full that it is described as a par
ticipation of his very life ; " I am the vine, ye are the
branches : he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same
bringeth forth much fruit ; for without me ye can do noth
ing." Here is the law of union, or incorporation, in its
highest form: not mere outward association, but inner
unity ; not creeds and modes, but life and fruit.
Yet there is one outward token of this inward unity that
Jesus himself appointed, — the communion of saints; and,
in so doing, he took advantage of the fondness there is in
man for memorials. By the memorial supper, he would

THE LAST SUPPER. 439

gather his disciples around his table in remembrance of
himself. The form of this remembrance is so simple that
it can be everywhere observed. Had he required a pilgrim
age to his tomb, or proposed a memorial at Jerusalem, the
great body of mankind must have been cut off from any
share in it. But this memorial, in the simplicity of its form,
is universal. Yet, while the most simple, it is at the same
time the most striking of memorials.
The thoughts thus far gathered from the scene of the last
supper are all from the human side, showing the wisdom of
Jesus as a reformer, in using for high spiritual ends the
broad, deep, underlying, universal instincts and tendencies
of human nature. But, in this last hour with his disciples,
we see him not only as teacher and reformer, but as Saviour.
Not truths mainly, but a life ; and not the life in itself, but
his life as interpreted by his death, — is what is set forth to
be remembered in the Lord's Supper. It is common with us
to observe the birthdays, not the death-days, of those we
love ; and when death has been connected with an act of
violence, or some special sadness, we shrink from recalling
the details. A friend gave me, as a sacred memorial, a
scrap of the lining of the box in which Mr. Lincoln was
sitting at the moment when the bullet of the assassin made
him a martyr. The fragment is stained with his blood ;
but I keep it hidden out of sight, and prize infinitely more
the staff he was accustomed to use, sent me as a keepsake,

440 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
the signature of his hand to a measure of peace and good
will, and the picture of himself as reading the proclamation
of emancipation. It is the living man, his face, his form,
his words, his deeds, we love to commemorate. But Jesus
arranged, that, to the end of time, his followers should com
memorate his death ; and not only so, but the very manner
of his death, — that they should break the bread to remind
them how his body was broken, that they should drink the
cup to remind them how his blood was shed. And it has
come to pass, that what we should shrink from in itself —
the symbol of blood — has become the most sacred memorial
observed by men. To see why this is so, we must go deeper
into the meaning of the supper, as explained by the talk
and the prayer, of Jesus at the time, and by what took place
directly afterwards in Gethsemane and on Calvary.
When John the Baptist first pointed out Jesus to his
disciples, he said, " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh
away the sin of the world." 1 In his discourse in the syna
gogue at Capernaum, Jesus said, " I am the living bread
which eame down from heaven. If any man eat of this
bread, he shall live forever ; and the bread that I will give
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his
blood, ye have no fife in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and
drinketh my blood hath eternal life." 2 Now, all these say-
1 John i. 29. 2 John vi. 51-53.

THE LAST SUPPER. 443

ings were explained by the paschal meal, of which Jesus
then partook for the last time, and by the memorial supper
which' he appointed at the same time. The whole evening
was pervaded with the thought of his going away; the
shadow of death was in the chamber. When the meal was
ready, the lamb was placed upon a little table in the centre,
with bread and wine ; and around this in a circle was a row
of cushions, or couches, upon which the guests reclined
while eating. Thus the face of each guest was toward the
table, and his feet were stretched outwards behind the
cushion on which he leaned.
This custom made it easy for Mary, at the supper in
Bethany, to slip behind Jesus as he reclined at the table,
and to anoint his feet. At the Lord's Supper there were
no servants. All ate from a common dish, or there was a
dish for every group of three or four ; and each guest took
his portion with his fingers or with a piece of bread. Some
times one would hand to another a morsel from the dish.
So Judas dipped his hand into the same dish with Jesus ;
and afterwards Jesus dipped a sop, and gave it to him. As
Jesus was reclining upon one hand, according to the
custom, and eating with the other, John, whose cushion was
next his, reclining from the other side could lean his head
upon Jesus' bosom. Thus they sat around the lamb whose
blood had been sprinkled on the altar as a token of the
safety and deliverance of the people of God. And here was

444 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
the Lamb of God, whose blood should be shed for the sin
of the world. Jesus said unto them, " With desire I have
desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer. For I
say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof" until it be
fulfilled in the kingdom of God." The offering of a lamb
as a type of redemption should cease when the redemption
itself unto the kingdom of God should be perfected through
his own suffering. In token of this, he now renewed their
appointment as his apostles, saying, " He that receiveth
whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth
me receiveth him that sent me." And, again, " Ye are they
which have continued with me in my temptations ; and I
appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed
unto me." But for the last time to repress the elation of a
worldly ambition, and to purge their eyes of all earthly
vanities, he gave them the most touching lesson of humility
ever put by a master to his disciples. " He riseth from sup
per, and laid aside his garments, and took a towel, and girded
himself. After that, he poureth water into a basin, and
began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the
towel wherewith he was girded. Then he said unto them,
Know ye what I have done to you ? Ye call me Master and
Lord; and ye say well, for so I am. If I, then, your Lord
and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash
one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that
ye should do as I have done to you." : Next came that
1 John xiii. 1-17.

?

THE LAST SUPPER. 447

moment of terrible suspense when Jesus said, " One of you
which eateth with me shall betray me ; " 1 and even Judas,
stunned by this revelation of his crime, sought to hide
himself by asking, " Master, is it I ? " Under show of
buying something for the feast, or giving to the poor, Judas
now slipped away just after the paschal meal was ended.
Jesus went on to tell the rest how near was the hour of his
suffering. "All ye shall be offended because of me this
night ; for it is written, I will smite the Shepherd, and the
sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad." He warns the
over-confident Peter that he shall deny him thrice. The
scene is fast converging to a tragedy, too painfully earnest,
too intensely solemn, for human endurance. After three
years of such intimacy as Jesus has had with his disciples,
he is to die by violence ; one of them shall betray him, all
shall desert him, and the very boldest shall deny him. But
in the midst of all Jesus is calm : more than this ; he is full
of tenderness and pity for his disciples, full oi counsel and
of consolation. Taking the bread, and blessing it, he gives
it to them, saying, " Take, eat : this is my body." After
ward, taking the cup, he gives thanks, and passes it to them,
saying, " Drink ye all of it ; for this is my blood of the new
testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."
As the blood of the lamb had ratified the old covenant of
the Passover, so should his blood, the blood of the Lamb of
1 John xiii. 21.

448 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
God, ratify the new covenant to be commemorated by the
Lord's Supper. And, while the disciples listen in silent
wonder, Jesus goes on to say, " Greater love hath no man
than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
But why or how should he lay down his life for them?
Had they all been prisoners, or proscribed, he might have
volunteered to ransom them by yielding up his life. But
the disciples were in no personal danger, if only Jesus
would take himself out of the way. For their safety it was
not at all necessary that he should die. He had only to
quit the country, or to go and live quietly in Galilee, and
no one would molest these poor, unknown disciples. There
was no earthly benefit that he could secure to them by
laying down his life for them. Why, then, should he,
against their tears and entreaties, insist upon dying, and
make this the supreme token of his love ? Ah, this is not
alone the Master about to become the martyr. Something
more than human speaks in Jesus, of something more than
common dying. He unveils his higher nature. "I am
the way and the truth and the life ; no man cometh unto
the Father but by me. He that hath seen me hath seen the
Father. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it."
He is going away, but he will come again ; he shall die, but
he will rise from the dead. Afterward he will return to his
Father ; then he will send the Comforter, the Spirit of truth.
He himself has overcome the world, and even in the agony

THE LAST SUPPER. 449

of death he shall overcome the prince of this world : there
fore his disciples should not be troubled, but be of good
cheer. He goes to prepare a place for them in his Father's
house. They shall pray to him, and shall pray to the
Father in his name. Then he himself prays for them,
speaking to God as closely, as tenderly, as confidently, as a
son to his father. He has nothing to ask for himself. He
has eternal life to bestow. In this supreme gift he associ
ates himself with God. " This is life eternal, that they
might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ
whom thou hast sent." He is in God, and God in him.
"No more in the world," he plants himself serenely upon the
love with which the Father loved him before the foundation
of the world, and says, " 0 Father, glorify thou me with
thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before
the world was."
What manner of person is he who on the eve of death
so acts, so speaks, so prays ? Was Jesus an enthusiast, a
.visionary ? But in vain do we look for enthusiasm in his
teachings, his actions, his fife ; and in these last moments
there is a sustained dignity, an ineffable calmness, a divine
consciousness, that breathes over the whole scene his own
peace. Never had there been such a parting. As we sit in
that upper chamber, we feel around us such majesty, such
truth, such holiness, such love, that we would fain antici
pate the cry of the centurion at the cross, " Truly this was

450 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
the Son of God." This was the fitting sequel of such a life
as we have traced in these pages, the rounding-up of such
a character. We linger silently, tenderly, adoringly, in that
upper chamber : Jesus the Saviour is there. We go back
again and again to hear those last precious promises, and to
feel the loving embrace of that last prayer : "Neither pray
I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe
on me through their word; that they all may be one."
We feel that there was the turning-point of our human
ity, — his sacrifice and our redemption. This do in remem
brance of Thee ! Ah, what could ever cause us to forget
thee? All Christendom, humanity itself, has become the
memorial of Jesus. " The world itself is changed, and is
no more the same that it was ; it has never been the same
since Jesus left it. The air is charged with heavenly odors ;
and a kind of celestial consciousness, a sense of other
worlds, is wafted on us in its breath. It were easier to
untwist all the beams of light in the sky, separating and
expunging one of the colors, than to get the character of
Jesus, which is the real gospel, out of the world. Look ye
hither, all ye blinded and fallen of mankind : a better nature
is among you ; a pure heart out of some pure world is come
into your prison, and walks it with you. Do you require of
us to show who he is, and definitely to expound his person ?
We may not be able. Enough to know that he is not of us,
— some strange being out of nature, and above it, whose

THE LAST SUPPER. 451
name is Wonderful. Enough that sin has never touched his
hallowed nature, and that he is a friend. In him dawns a
hope, — purity has not come into our world except to purify.
Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the
world ! Light breaks in ; peace settles on the air. Lo, the
prison walls are giving way ! Rise, let us go ! " :
1 Bushnell: Nature and the Supernatural, pp. 331, 332.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

GETHSEMANE.

The moon was shining brightly as Jesus and the eleven
disciples (for one had deserted their little band) went out
at the eastern gate of the city, and took the winding path
down to the Kedron, as if to follow the familiar way to
Bethany. The friend who had provided them a room for
the supper could not accommodate them for the night, and
none of them had homes in Jerusalem ; it was late for going
to Bethany ; but they might sleep in some of the camps
around the city, or, at that dry season, could lie with safety
in the open air. The disciples had not inquired where they
were going; for they had learned to follow their Master
trusting, and not asking. But Jesus knew that, to him at
least, the night would bring no sleep. Before quitting the
chamber, they had joined in chanting the Hallelujah Psalms
(Ps. cxv.-cxviii.) ; and he had sung, " The sorrows of
death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon
me ; I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the
name of the Lord: O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my
452

gethsemane. 453
soul ! x . . . I will praise thee ; for thou hast heard me, and
art become my salvation. The stone which the builders
refused is become the head of the corner. . . . Blessed be he
that cometh in the name of the Lord. . . . Bind the sacri
fice with cords unto the horns of the altar. Thou art my
God, and I will praise thee : thou art my God, I will
exalt thee. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good,
for his mercy endureth forever."2 In this Psalm he had
poured forth all the conflicting emotions of grief, conflict,
agony, submission, trust, consolation, hope, triumph, joy,
which now agitated his soul. As the paschal supper was
itself a type of the sacrifice and the redemption which he
was about to fulfil, so the songs that had clustered around
the feast, and that to the common Jew were simply a part
of the ceremony, to him were like a funeral march to attend
him to the cross. Bach, Graun, Mozart, Liszt, and other
great composers, have sought to represent the last hours
of Christ in music that is the very pathos of woe, the
sublimity of sacrifice, the ecstasy of heaven ; but no mass
nor passion music . can approach the tenderness, the sweet
ness, the sacred joy, of those old Psalms of the temple
as sung by Jesus for his own death and burial.
We may well believe that this little company were sad and
silent on the way down the hill to the Kedron : it was like
walking through the valley of the shadow of death. The
i Ps. cxvi. 3, i. 2 Ps. cxviii. 21-29.

454 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
disciples had not understood the full meaning of the Lord
in his discourse and his prayer ; nor did they realize that his
death was so near at hand. But he had spoken of going
away, of their seeing him no more, and of their being hated
in his name ; and this was enough to fill them with sadden
ing thoughts. The thoughts of Jesus reached farther and
deeper. He knew for what purpose Judas had gone out
from the supper, and what his enemies were at that moment
plotting against him ; he felt himself already forsaken by
the disciples to whom he had just spoken of the tenderness
of his love, and there was no friend on earth who could
share his sorrows ; he felt already the burden of his cross
and the pains of death ; and, more than all, he felt already
rising in his soul the conflict that he must renew with
Satan, who, having failed to turn him at the threshold of
his work, would seek to thwart him at its close. Many
a one who is great in thinking, and great in action, is
not great to suffer ; and the prince of this world, who, after
the temptation in the wilderness, had left Jesus "for a
season," now made a desperate attempt to assail him
through his fears. This last trial would show the world
how perfect Jesus was in submission to the will of God,
under every form of temptation. " The prince of this
world cometh, and hath nothing in me ; but that the world
may know that I love the Father." 1
1 John xiv. 31.

GETHSEMANE. 455

The Mount of Olives was dotted here and there with
clumps of olive and fig trees, some standing along the high
way, others enclosed as gardens, though there were few
houses near. To one of these gardens, just across the
Kedron, Jesus had been accustomed to resort as a quiet and
shady retreat for meditation and prayer ; and, as they
reached the gate, he took the disciples in with him, but,
wishing to be alone, he said to them, " Sit ye here, while I
go and pray yonder." 1 He had just prayed with them and
for them in the chamber : now he would pray for himself, —
would pour out his soul, in direct, earnest pleading with
God, who only could help him. But though he must " tread
the wine-press alone,"2 alone must bear the bitter agony of
this conflict with death and hell, his heart yearned after the
sense of sympathy and support, which the nearness of
friends would give him ; and, as he advanced deeper into the
shades of the garden, he took with him Peter and James,
and John, the disciple whom he loved always to have about
his person. Yet even these might not intrude within the
sacred spot where he must suffer and struggle and pray and
triumph for himself alone. Has not every one known some
thing of this inner conflict, when his heart so yearned for
sympathy that he would beg those near him not to go away,
and yet so longed for a silent hour of his soul with God,
that he would say to his dearest friend, " Leave me a while
1 Matt. xxvi. 36. 2 Isa. lxiii. 3.

456 JESUS OF NAZARETH.

alone " ? So closely did the life of Jesus harmonize with
ours in the most tender and sacred of human experiences.
At first he took the three! disciples who were with him on
the mount, as though he would have the witnesses of his
glory to cheer him in his sorrow ; but, as they passed from
the moonlight into the thicker shade, the shadows seemed
to thicken also about his soul. " He began to be sorrowful
and very heavy ; " and, as his anguish deepened, the pres
ence of friends who could not share it only aggravated the
pains of death with the thought of parting from. them.
There is a holy of holies where each soul must enter alone
into the presence of God, when death draws aside the veil.
God pity any soul which in that hour still looks to human
companionship for its solace and support !
The love of Jesus would draw his chosen friends nearer
to him at the dread moment of parting ; but his agony,
intensified by that very love, would keep him aloof. " Then
saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even
unto death : tarry ye here, and watch with me. And he
went a little farther (about a stone's throw1), and fell on his
face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let
this cup pass from me : nevertheless, not as I will, but as
thou wilt." These words fell upon the ears of the disciples,
and were afterwards quickened in their remembrance by the
scenes which gave them such a deep significance, and by the
1 Luke xxii. 41.

'Let this Cup pass from Me."

GETHSEMANE. 459

resurrection, which made it so clear who he was that in
the garden had bowed himself to drink the cup ; but, just
as this cry of anguish broke upon their ears, their eyes,
overborne with the sorrows of the evening, closed in
slumber. His first season of prayer brought Jesus no palpable relief.
The cup was still before him ; " the pains of hell gat hold
upon him ; " there was no voice of release from heaven ;
and, though from the first he bowed his will to the will of
his Father, his heart shrank from the bitterness and woe
that were pressed to his lips. His grief yearned for a
word, a look, from his disciples ; and his love, too, drew him
again to their side, — just as the mother goes back again and
again to her child, after she has said her last Good-night.
" He cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep,
and saith unto Peter, What ! could ye not watch with me
one hour?" But this seeming reproof of their neglect grew
out of anxiety for their condition ; and Jesus merged his
own sorrow in pity for the dangers and trials of those he
loved. " Watch and pray, that ye enter not into tempta
tion : the spirit indeed, is willing, but the flesh is weak."
Whatever may have caused the anguish of his soul, have
cast him trembling upon the ground, have wrung from him
the imploring cry, "Take away this cup from me," the words
and the manner of Jesus with his disciples, in the intervals
. of his own agony, betray neither weakness nor fear in the

460 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
" Man of Sorrows " now left so utterly alone. Had timidity
moved him to such " strong crying and tears," 1 he would
have made his escape without waiting to pray. A few
hours would have placed him beyond Jordan, out of. the
reach of his enemies ; and he could have saved his life
simply by keeping away from Jerusalem. But the thought
of fleeing or of hiding did not enter his mind. What he
prayed for was either deliverance by his Father's own hand,
or strength to suffer and endure. That one or the other
would be granted him, he never doubted for an instant.
He saw clearly that his hour was come; but he also had
come to this hour, bringing it upon himself by his faith
fulness to truth and to God. He knew that his enemies
would seize him ; but the heroism with which he had faced
them in the temple, and rebuked them before the crowd, had
not forsaken him now that he was solitary and alone. He
knew that his friends would be scattered like sheep, but, as
the Good Shepherd, he would be smitten in their stead. He
did not flinch from any thing that was before him, through
common weakness and fear. Through all the pathos of his
grief, his sorrow never loses the dignity of self-control.
But he was once more in the furnace of temptation. The
very purity, nobleness, and delicacy of his nature made him
the more sensitive to pain, to the stings of sorrow, the
slights of men, the scoffs of sin ; and Satan had now set
1 Heb.

GETHSEMANE. 461

upon him through nerves overstrained by the excitements
and conflicts of the past six days, and by the tender confi
dences of the past few hours with his disciples. From the
spiritual exaltation of his last discourse and prayer, he came
to the sudden realization of treachery, desertion, shame,
ingratitude, suffering ; and the reaction upon such a frame
plunged him into the terrors of a despondency in which the
dread of being forsaken of his Father overshadowed him, and
cast him upon his face. Nothing less than this can be meant
by the words, "he began to be sore amazed," — filled with
consternation, in a tremor of anguish, — " and to be very
heavy " with a weight of despondency that almost crushed
out his life, " exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." This
" horror of great darkness " is the fiercest temptation with
which Satan can assail the soul ; but through it all Jesus
clings, without faltering, to the will of his Father. He asks
but to know that the cup is from God, and that God will not
take it away. Then, hushing his own conflict not yet
finished, and stilling his sorrow, he gently excuses the fail
ings of his disciples : " the spirit is willing, but the flesh is
weak ; " he bids them overcome temptation, as he himself
is doing, by watching and prayer. He who could so repress
his own anguish, pause in his own conflict, be silent about
himself, and with such tender compassion care for those
who had neglected to care for him, may have been shaken,
bruised, burdened, crushed, but was not weak.

462 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
Thus roused from slumber, the disciples, moved both by
shame and by fear, made an effort to keep awake ; but their
eyes grew heavy again just as their ears caught these
entreating tones, " O my Father, if this cup may not pass
from me except I drink it, thy will be done." Already the
Son of man had conquered the fierceness of his anguish.
At first he had prayed that if possible the cup might be
taken away; but now submission has surmounted sorrow,
and he accepts the cup, if this be the will- of his Father.
How long he lay thus prostrate under the sharpness of his
pain, we are not told. His disciples had not come near to
seek the meaning of this long, strange conflict. But Jesus
could not forget them ; he felt that they needed his counsel,
his comfort, his grace. Coming out from the grove, he
found them asleep again ; for their eyes were heavy. They
started up bewildered, and " knew not what to answer him."
A third time the same prayer broke upon the ear of night,
and this time kept the disciples wakeful. The trial of Jesus
had spent itself ; but his soul, in its victory over the flesh,
had wrought him to such a pitch of agony that the blood
oozed like sweat through his pores. The watch-hour was
over. His disciples might sleep now, if they could; for
their Master would lay upon them no further burden for
himself. But how could they sleep when he said, " The hour
is come : the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sin
ners " ? Startled and all awake they spring to their feet to

The Arrest.

GETHSEMANE. 465

surround him as he says, " Rise, let us be going : behold, he
is at hand that doth betray me."
At this moment the noise of feet and of voices was heard
in front of the garden. Judas knew that Jesus was in the
habit of resorting to this spot ; and, rightly guessing that he
would go there after the supper, had urged the chief priests
and Pharisees to take advantage of the night and of this
secluded spot, to seize his Master without the risk of raising
a mob. So now a band of soldiers and officers, with lanterns
and torches and weapons, came hurrying up to take Jesus
by surprise. But what was their surprise when he stepped
calmly forward, and said, " Whom seek ye ? " When they
answered, " Jesus of Nazareth," he replied at once, " I am
he." At the same time Judas rushed up to him, and said,
" Hail, Master ! " and kissed him ; for this was the signal by
which he had arranged to make Jesus known to the officers.
It was not needed. Jesus had made himself known ; but
he stamped forever the baseness of the traitor, when he
turned, and said to him, " Judas, betrayest thou the Son
of man with a kiss ? " The whole majesty of Jesus centred
in the look with which he gave this reproof, and awaited the
agents of the traitor; and as with the mob at Nazareth, and
once in the temple, that look smote the soldiers with awe,
so that " they went backward, and fell to the ground." By
this strange power he might even now have saved his life,
if that had been his purpose ; but, as he would not escape

466 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
from his foes by flight, neither would he subdue them by
supernatural power. Having conquered Satan by prayer,
and subjected his own will to the will of his Father, this
Man of Sorrows, who just now lay wrestling and groaning
upon the ground, stands forth with an ineffable calmness,
King of the world, King of death. To the soldiers who
have not yet staggered back to their feet, he says again,
" Whom seek ye ? " and when they say, " Jesus of Naza
reth," he answers, "I have told you that I am he: if,
therefore, ye seek me, let these go their way," the same
unselfish love always thinking of others, caring for his
disciples, and surrendering himself on condition that they
should go free. This concern for them they answered with
an impulse of courage that would risk their lives in his
defence, " Lord, shall we smite with the sword ? " and,
before Jesus could answer, Peter had dealt about him with
his sword, and had struck a servant of the high priest, and
cut off his ear. But Jesus would have no violence in his
cause : he would conquer by suffering. He said to Peter,
" Put up thy sword into the sheath : the cup which my
Father hath given me, shall I not drink it ? " And, to show
the impotence and presumption of such a way of serving
him, he added, " Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to
my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve
legions of angels?" The same divine consciousness that
stirred within him as a "boy in the temple, that gave him

GETHSEMANE. 467

strength in the wilderness, that moved him to raise Lazarus
from the dead, that enabled him to speak to the rulers and
Pharisees as King and Judge, — this feeling of a union with
God, so close and sure that it gave him command of heav
enly powers, now led him to assert his majesty as the Mes
siah in the very act of surrendering himself a prisoner.
That such power and majesty are his, he shows by healing
with a touch the servant whom Peter had wounded ; and
how sublime does he appear in forbearing to use this super
natural power to defend himself, and at the same time using
it in an act of mercy to an enemy who had come to do him
violence ! All this while the soldiers were too bewildered to
seize him. But with a lofty innocence Jesus turned to the
crowd of armed men who had come like cowards in the
night, and now stood like cowards around him, and said,
" Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves
to take me ? I was daily with you in the temple teaching,
and ye took me not ; but this is your hour and the power of
darkness." And so he yielded himself up not to them, but
to the fate that his Father had appointed for him. At this
" all the disciples forsook him, and fled." They were not
cowards, for they were just now ready to fight for him ; but
here was the sudden and final collapse of their hopes of
Jesus as the Christ. Not all his teachings and warnings,
not his frequent talk of dying, not even the supper by
which he had told them to remember his body broken and

468 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
his blood shed, had sufficed to wean them from the notion
that he would show himself the Son of God, confound his
enemies, and possess his throne. He still talked of angels
at his command, still showed his miraculous power, yet
allowed himself to be taken to what would be certain death.
This confounded them ; all earthly hopes sank ; and, before
the power of spiritual ideas could rally in their stead, the
instinct of saving life seized them like a panic, and they ran
away. A young man, probably a friend of Jesus from a neighbor
ing house, startled from his sleep, had run out in his night
dress to see what was passing : being laid hold of by the
crowd, he tore himself away from his garment, and ran to
hide. In all the confusion and terror of the scene, — swords,
staves, lanterns, blows, outcries, — Jesus alone was calm.
Deserted by everybody, he went with the soldiers to face
the men who were sworn to take his life.
This scene in Gethsemane vouches for its own reality.
Such a representation of Jesus could never have been
invented by his disciples. In making up a story, they would
have sought to present their Master as a hero, and according
to their own notions of what the Messiah should be. But
their enemies would seize upon this agony in the garden as
a sign of weakness, as a proof that a man who would thus
suffer and groan in view of death was no true Christ, no
worthy King of Israel ; and, besides, the story throws such

GETHSEMANE. 469

discredit upon the disciples themselves that nothing short of
the highest truth and honesty could have induced them to
tell it. They would never have made up any thing of the
sort. Such a story, at once so minute and real in the par
ticulars of the sleeping of the disciples, the coming of the
soldiers, the attempt to fight, the running away, the seizing
of the young man, and his escape, and at the same time so
wide of any motive for invention in the words and acts
attributed to Jesus, — must have come from witnesses who
reported what they had seen and heard.
The impression that this scene now makes upon us is
quite other than that which it would have made if gotten
up as a legend upon the Jews of that time. As has been
said already, we get no impression of weakness in looking
upon Jesus prostrate in the garden : the scene is in keeping
with his life and character, and each sheds light upon the
other. Without this we should have missed the feeling of
brotherhood with us in sorrow, that now makes Jesus one
with us ; but with this scene we realize how much keener,
sorer, than any sorrow known to us, was that he suffered
through that sacrifice of himself for man, by which he put
himself in our place.
In reading this story, there are two facts that should
never be separated. The first is, that there was no physical
pain and no visible danger that aroused his amazing agony.
Afterwards we see him under torture, his forehead pierced

470 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
with thorns, his back torn with stripes, his knees fainting
under the cross, his hands and feet nailed to the tree, and all
this amid scoffs and jeers, spitting and cursing, and every
form of insult ; but, though thus wounded in body and in
spirit, he utters no cry of pain, and no prayer for relief.
But here in the garden, where there is no visible cause of
pain, and no enemy to be seen, where his disciples are at
hand, and he is praying to his Father, he bursts into such an
agony that the grove resounds with his groanings, and the
blood oozes from his body. What can this mean ? The
second fact is, that he does not attempt to escape from a
danger that is near and visible. A great soul may flee from
personal danger without the reproach of weakness or fear ;
as Moses fled from Pharaoh, as Elijah fled from Ahaz, as
Joseph and Mary fled from Herod. This was to save a life
from present peril for a future good.
But Jesus would not flee. Whatever the suffering was
that so racked him in the garden, it was suffering that he
chose to endure. What was that suffering ? what could it
have been but the fulfilment of his own saying, when he set
up the memorial of his death ? — " This is my body which
is broken for you ; this is my blood of the new testament,
which is shed for many for the remission of sins."
And, while thus suffering and sorrowing for us, Jesus has
set before us the dignity of sorrow, and the strength of sub
mission. It is no more a sin in us than it was a sin in him,

GETHSEMANE. 471

to feel the pangs of grief, and to long and pray to be freed
from them. Not only can we have a will that seeks and
urges all possible ways of deliverance from suffering; but
the having such a will is what gives reality to suffering, and
meaning to submission. We have a will for the possible,
but hold this in deference to the will of God ; and here is
the dignity of sorrow. We have a will ; but for that which
is not possible we merge our will in the will of God. All
the chords of human grief are gathered up into that one
throb of agony that vibrates in unison with every suffering,
sorrowing spirit, — " O my Father, if it be possible let this
cup pass from me ; " and all the virtue of submission, by
which the divine spirit enters into the human with strength
and consolation, is uttered in that gentle sigh of resignation,
" Not my will, but thine, be done."

CHAPTER XXXV.
THE JEWISH TRIAL.
That judges should be up and ready to hold court before
daybreak, is matter of surprise even in a hot climate, where
the work of the day must be done chiefly in the early hours
of the morning. But in the case of Jesus this was part of
the plot for his arrest and condemnation. Members of the
supreme court had bargained with Judas to betray Jesus
into their hands ; they knew he had gone with soldiers to
hunt for his Master ; and they were in readiness to hurry
through the form of a trial, before the affair should be
noised abroad. Their whole proceeding was as cowardly as
it was unjust. They did not dare to have Jesus put to
death privately ; for the hosannas of the people were yet
ringing in their ears, and they could not count upon popular
sympathy in a secret act of violence. To win over the pop
ulace to their side, they must go through the forms of law,
and accuse Jesus of crimes against religion that would rouse
the fanaticism of the Jews ; and, to obtain from the Roman
governor an order for his crucifixion, they must also accuse
172

THE JEWISH TRIAL. 473
him of some capital offence against the state. Besides, they
were such sticklers for the law, — or at least for their version
of it, — that they must satisfy their consciences even while
plotting murder in their hearts. But to carry their point
they must take the people by surprise, and get the trial well
under way before there was a chance for re-action. So the
members of the sanhedrim were up before the cock-crowing,
ready for a notice from the high priest that Jesus was in
his power.
The office of high priest, once so dignified and sacred,
— an office for life and hereditary, — had come to be a polit
ical prize, and even a matter of bargain and sale. Since all
political power had been taken from the Jews, they looked
to the high priest as the head around which their national
feeling could rally. Because of the influence which this
feeling gave him, the high priest was courted by the civil
power, and in turn was sometimes willing to become a tool
of the government for the sake of his place. Thus King
Herod set aside one and another high priest to make room
for some new favorite who would better serve his purposes ;
and he once appointed to this office a youth of seventeen.
Hence it came to pass, that, in addition to the ruling high
priest, there might be in Jerusalem one or more who had
formerly held the office, but for some cause had been set
aside ; and at the time of our story, though Caiaphas was the
high priest, his father-in-law Annas, who had filled the office,

474 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
was still alive ; and, as a compliment to his age and standing,
the captors of Jesus led him to Annas first, who caused him
to be bound, and then sent to Caiaphas ; who, at that strange
hour, held a preliminary examination in his own house, and
then summoned the sanhedrim to meet at daybreak. This
house was built after the fashion of the East, in the form
of a quadrangle around a court which was open to the sky.
On the side next the street was a heavy door, or gate, and
an arch leading into the court : this was the " porch,"
or entrance. The rooms were built around the four sides
of the court, with lattices or windows looking out upon it,
or sometimes entirely open to it, so that one had but to go
up a step or two from the court to a ceiled chamber which,
on the court side, was all open to the light and air. In this
case awnings were used as a protection against sun and rain.
In summer, the court was made bright with fountains and
flowers ; and in winter a fire was kindled there for guests on
entering and servants in waiting. As Jesus was brought in,
the high priest was seated in a salon, or hall, on the ground-
floor adjoining the court ; the servants were up and stirring,
and had spread a fire of coals in the court near this hall, to
keep off the chill of the night air.
In the hope of drawing from him some statement or
admission by which to accuse him before the sanhedrim, the
high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his
doctrine. But Jesus answered by referring to his public

n
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"O
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THE JEWISH TRIAL. 477
teachings, which were known to everybody in Jerusalem ;
" I spake openly to the world ; I ever taught in the syna
gogue and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort ;
and in secret have I said nothing. Why askest thou me ?
Ask them which heard me what I have said unto them :
behold, they know what I said." This answer was fair
and reasonable. Jesus was not bound to accuse himself :
there was no use of explaining his doctrine to a judge who
was bent upon condemning him ; and it was for the high
priest to say upon what ground he had had him arrested.
Jesus had no secret plans nor teachings ; he was in no con
spiracy against the chief priests or the rulers. Whatever he'
had to say about them, he had said openly and to their faces.
But, just and proper as this answer was, no sooner had Jesus
spoken than " one of the officers which stood by struck him
with the palm of his hand, saying, Answerest thou the high
priest so ? " This was simply an outrage ; and it shows how
far removed was the tribunal at which Jesus then stood,
from a true court of justice, which should always protect a
prisoner from rudeness and insult. Jesus bore the insult
meekly, but stood on his rights: "If I have spoken evil,
bear witness of the evil ; but, if well, why smitest thou
me?" All this is reported by John, who was an eye-witness of
what passed in the house of Caiaphas. He and Peter had
soon recovered from their fright in the garden. They had

478 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
not run far when their love for their Master brought them
to a standstill; and, seeing they were not pursued, they
turned about and followed Jesus, though at a halting pace
and "afar off." It so happened that John " was known to
the high priest," and hence he. was allowed to go in to the
palace with the guard ; for no one could enter except by
permission of the servant who sat by the wicket in the
porch. Peter therefore stood at the door without ; but John
presently went and spoke to the maid that kept the door,
and brought Peter in with him. Peter sat down with the
servants to warm himself at the fire, while John went
into the hall where the examination of Jesus was going
on. After a while, one of the maid-servants of the house,
peering into Peter's face, recognized him as a man she had
somewhere seen with Jesus, and charged him with being
one of his disciples. Peter denied this stoutly, and
pretended not to know what she was talking about. But,
feeling uneasy, he moved away from the fire, and went and
stood in the porch. At this moment the cock crew ; but
Peter was too much taken up with his danger to notice it.
Several persons were standing around in the porch; and
pretty soon another maid pointed him out, and said openly,
" This fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth." Poor Peter,
having begun to lie, was driven to deny again, and this
time with an oath. To get rid of his questioner, he sneaked
back again to the fire. But by this time everybody had

Peter at the Fire.

THE JEWISH TRIAL.' 481
noticed him ; and, as this company of soldiers and servants
were idly waiting for further orders, it was quite a pastime
to watch the words and actions of the stranger. For a
while they let him alone ; and Peter, to make himself appear
at ease, took part in the talk around the fire. But in so
doing he roused their suspicions again by his accent and
dialect, which marked him as a Galilean. This made the
bystanders so confident that several said to him, " Surely
thou also art one of them ; for thy speech bewrayeth thee."
It was getting decidedly hot for Peter ; all his courage had
oozed out of him, since a man always makes himself a
coward when he takes refuge in a lie ; and when a kinsman
of the man whose ear Peter had cut off came up and said,
" Did I not see thee in the garden with him ? " he " began
to curse and to swear, saying, " I know not the man." The
hall being open to the court, this loud talking was heard by
Jesus ; "and the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter; " and
at that instant the cock crew again. That look ! that
sound ! It was like the day of doom. There stood Jesus
before his accusers, meek and patient under insult, calm
and fearless in face of death. And here was he who had
boasted, " Though all men shall be offended because of
thee, yet will I never be offended ; " " Lord, I am ready
to go with thee, both into prison and to death ; " " Though
I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee." Here
he was cowering before the maid, moving from the fire

482 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
to the porch, and the porch to the fire, trying to escape
observation, and afraid to admit that he had ever seen Jesus.
There stood his Master bearing witness for the truth ; and
here was he lying and denying. That look of reproof and
pity brought him to himself ; and the crowing cock sharp
ened the pang that Jesus had warned him of all that he had
now done. Overwhelmed with shame and anguish, he
hurried out into the street, and, wrapping his face in his
mantle, "wept bitterly," bitterly bewailing his weakness
and sin, and grieving, oh, how bitterly ! that he could not go
to Jesus, and fall at his fept, and confess his shame. Alas
for us when those whom we have injured are beyond hear
ing our confession, witnessing our repentance, speaking our
forgiveness! But this sin of Peter proved his salvation.
For the assertion of self-confidence, we find in him after
wards the endurance of faith ; for the impulse of enthu
siasm, the glow of love that made him more than willing
to go to prison and to death for the name of Jesus.
It was now daybreak. Caiaphas had already sent messen
gers to summon the sanhedrim ; and as soon as the elders,
the chief priests, and the scribes were assembled, Jesus was
led before this supreme council to be tried by Jewish law.
That law required at least two witnesses to a crime the
penalty of which was death. The enemies of Jesus had
trumped up many accusations against him, and witness after
witness was called ; but no two of them agreed, or the thing

THE JEWISH TRIAL. 483
charged was not serious enough to make out a case ; and, for
reasons already given, the judges, though wishing to condemn
Jesus, felt bound to keep to the letter of the law. At last
two witnesses were found who testified that he had said, " I
am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in
three days." To the Jews the temple was so sacred, that to
speak lightly of it, or threaten to injure it, was blasphemy ;
and this was a sin to be punished by death. But even these
witnesses told different stories ; and the high priest tried to
get Jesus to say something that the council could lay hold
of to condemn him. Jesus, however, would make no reply
to such witnesses; for he knew that his judges knew he
had spoken these words at the very time when he had
shown his zeal for the temple as a holy place by turning out
the market-men and the money-changers.1 Determined to
find him guilty, the high priest said to him, " I adjure thee
by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the
' Christ, the Son of God." Jesus answered, " Thou hast said,"
— meaning "Thou sayest truly," or, "I am He;" and,
though they would not now believe nor accept in evidence
the truths he had spoken and the works he had done, yet
the time should come when they must see him as their King
and Judge. " I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the
1 John ii. 19. It is an incidental proof of the genuineness of
John's Gospel, that he alone gives the time and place of the saying of
Jesus that was brought against him by the false witnesses, and which
Matthew and Mark there report.

484 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming
in theclouds of heaven."
At these words the high priest rent his clothes in token
of his horror at such " blasphemy." And blasphemy indeed
it was if Jesus was nothing but a common man. The high
priest looked for a Christ who should come from heaven as
the Son of God ; and Jesus declared himself to be all that
Caiaphas meant by that title, and also to have at his disposal
the power and glory of heaven. This was the same thing
for which they once took up stones to stone him, — because,
" being man, he made himself God." And here in the most
solemn circumstances, when he knew that his life was at
stake, and when he might have saved' himself by explaining
away his words, and rejecting the'sense his enemies had put
upon them, Jesus did nevertheless with perfect clearness
and calmness accept the title of the Christ, declare himself
to be the Son of God, and his place to be the right hand of
the power of God. As the " Son of David " he had entered
Jerusalem in triumph; as the "Son of God" he would die
upon the cross ; as the " Son of man " he would come again
in the clouds of heaven, — in each and all '*the Christ." At
these words the whole council cried out, " He is guilty of
death ; " and, so far as it lay in their power, he was con
demned. The servants and soldiers were quick in taking up the
feelings of the council toward their prisoner. It was rare

¦a

ao s

THE JEWISH TRIAL. 487
sport for them, that this weak and helpless man should be
the Christ ; and they took > the vilest ways to show their
contempt. They spit in his face ; they blindfolded him, and
then struck him, and said, "Prophesy unto us, thou Christ:
who is he that smote thee ? " So far from interfering, the
judges encouraged this abuse ; for they wanted to rouse the
spirit of the mob to justify their own action. But not a
word, not a cry, not a murmur, did they draw from their
victim. " He was led as a lamb to the slaughter ; and, as a
sheep before her shearers is dumb, so opened he not his
mouth." 1 1 Isa. liii. 7.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

PILATE AND HEROD.

Two points the sanhedrim had already gained : they had
found a pretext for condemning Jesus according to Jewish
law ; and they had roused against him the hatred and con
tempt of the low fellows in their service. But, since they
no longer had power to inflict the penalty of death, they
must prevail on the Roman governor to order him to be
crucified, and must hurry up the case before a re-action
should seize upon the people. So they bound their prisoner,
and dragged him to the castle of the governor, where he
had also his hall of judgment.
At this point the story gives a curious example how the
most wicked passions and intentions can be mixed with
religious forms and scruples. At the time of the Passover
the Jews were required to keep themselves from every thing
that their religion regarded as unclean. Now, the Roman
governor was a heathen; and to go into a heathen court
would unfit them for the Passover : So they sent in the pris
oner for whose blood they thirsted ; but they themselves
488 '

PILATE AND HEROD. 489
went not into the judgment-hall, lest they should be defiled.
For nearly thirty years, or since Archelaus had been set
aside, Judea had been governed by a procurator sent from
Rome ; and at this time the office was held by Pontius Pilate,
who had held the place for several years. Pilate was ambi
tious, and fond of popularity ; but, in trying to keep in favor
at Rome, he had made himself very unpopular with the
Jews. He had trampled on their religious feelings by set
ting up in Jerusalem the image of the emperor, and by
taking for common uses some of the sacred treasures of the
temple ; and more than once he had almost raised an insur
rection, and then had put down the mob by severe and even
cruel measures. The Jews hated him, yet they were will
ing to use him as a tool. Many were the complaints of his
injustice that they had sent to Rome ; but now they sought
to persuade him to an act of injustice by appealing both to
his ambition and his fear, since, like all time-serving men,
Pilate was timid. Yet as a Roman he was trained to respect
the law; and when Jesus was brought before him in such
haste and with such clamor, though this was by the Jewish
court itself, he insisted upon proceeding according to law
and evidence. So he came out of the judgment-hall, and
said to the members of the council, " What accusation bring
ye against this man ? " l The sanhedrim thought they could
take the governor by storm, that their coming to him in a
1 John xviii. 29-31.

490 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
body, bringing for sentence a prisoner whom they had con
demned, would be taken as sufficient: so they answered,
" If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered
him up to thee." Pilate, supposing that this was one of
their religious quarrels in which he did not care to meddle,
said, " Take ye him, and judge him according to your law."
They had so many disputes about questions of their law
which he could not understand, that he was glad to get, rid
of the case by allowing them to do as they pleased, since he
knew they would not dare to harm the life of their
prisoner. But his life was what they were after ; and they
answered, " It is not lawful for us to put any man to death."
When they spoke of Jesus as deserving death, Pilate
thought the case might be more serious than he had sup
posed ; and the Jews, knowing that the governor would not
condemn a prisoner for an offence toward their religion,
trumped up against Jesus political charges, which, if true,
would make him criminal in the eye of the state. So they
began to accuse him of sedition, saying, " We found this
fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute
to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ, a king." Now,
Pilate knew well enough that in their hearts they hated
Caesar and his taxes, and longed for nothing so much as their
Messiah to deliver them. But, though he knew their hypoc
risy, he wished to pacify them ; since, at the Passover, the
city was crowded with the more zealous and fanatical Jews,

Jasus befoiie/ Pilate.

PILATE AND HEROD. 493
and it was difficult to keep the peace when their religious
passions were aroused. Every riot at Jerusalem told at
Rome against the governor; and as Pilate had his own
interests much at heart, he knew how to be compromising
as well as cruel: so now he wished either to get rid of
this case,- or to make the best of it for himself.
The conversation just reported took place upon the open
pavement before the judgment-hall. Pilate now went into
the hall where he had left the prisoner bound, and asked
Jesus, " Art thou the King of the Jews ? " The answer of
Jesus showed that he knew Pilate had been put up to this
question ; l and Pilate replied in a way that showed he had
no political charge against his prisoner, " Thine own nation
and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me." But
they had brought vague charges without proof ; and Pilate
would not assume the guilt of his prisoner, nor condemn
Jesus unheard. So, in the' hope of getting some facts to go
upon, he said to him, " What hast thou done ? " The an
swer of Jesus was directly to the point of the charge -against
him, and is one of the most remarkable of his sayings as to
his life and mission. He at once avowed himself a king,
and disavowed the charge of setting himself up against the
civil government. " My kingdom is not of this world : if
my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants
fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews ; but now is
1 John xviii. 35.

494 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
my kingdom not from hence." He has " a kingdom." He
is therefore more than a teacher, a prophet, a reformer : he
is- a king, he has authority, he has servants, he gives laws,
he claims to be obeyed, and to have the power of giving
rewards and punishments. In one word, he is the Messiah,
the Christ promised in the Old Testament as the King of the
Jews. And this kingdom he has already set up in the
world. He has been preaching of the kingdom of heaven ;
he has promised its rewards to his followers ; he has
declared that he shall come again as king, in power and
glory, to judge the world. 1 And now that the Jewish
council has condemned him to death for blasphemy in
saying that he was the Christ, and Pilate is called upon to
ratify the sentence and order his execution, he does not
complain that on this point he has been misquoted or mis
understood, does not disclaim the title of " Christ, a king,"
but openly and solemnly avows it, and talks about "my
kingdom " and " my servants," as any king might do. But
this kingdom, though in the world, was not of the worldly
sort ; though in spirit and principles against the world, it
was not a fighting kingdom making war upon existing
governments, nor plotting their overthrow. In the case
brought before Pilate, the offence or wrong did not lie with
Jesus in calling himself a king, but with his accusers, in
perverting his teachings about his kingdom, and charging
1 Matt. xxv. 31-46.

PILATE AND HEROD. 495
him with stirring up the nation to revolt against Caesar.
This he denies. He has no intentions against the govern
ment, no officers, no army, no treasury, nothing of nor for
this world ; but, for all that, he is a king. Pilate is a good
deal mystified by the reply and the bearing of the prisoner.
Such a notion of a king and a kingdom had never occurred
to him. So he asked Jesus again, " Art thou a king, then? "
With all the calmness and dignity that these words could
convey, Jesus answered, " Thou sayest that I am a king,"
— a king thou callest me, and a king I am. Not one iota
does he abate from the force and meaning of that title.
But he will not leave his judge in any doubt of his meaning ;
and he adds, " To this end was I born, and for this cause
came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the
truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice."
There is a sphere of spiritual things in which truth is as
certain and as absolute as are facts in the sphere of science.
In that sphere Jesus, who knew truth as God knows it, who
spoke the truth of God, and whose life was truth itself, was
king, and had a right to demand that men should hear his
voice. Pilate was in part puzzled, in part startled, by these
words. Perhaps he saw in his prisoner an innocent enthu
siast who was possessed with the harmless notion that he
was a king ; perhaps he was awed by the look and manner of
Jesus, that had so often caused men to tremble at his word ;
perhaps he was pricked in his conscience by the question

496 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
whether he cared enough for truth to be willing to do justice
to his prisoner : and, so musing, he said aloud, " What is
truth ? " and went out again to the Jews, and saith unto
them, "I find in him no fault."
The chief priests and elders began to clamor against Jesus
with all sorts of accusations, to all which he made no reply.
His silence caused Pilate to wonder still more at the
demeanor of the prisoner. After what Jesus had said to
him of the nature of his kingdom, and of his own spirit.
and intentions as a king, no doubt the charge of sedition
sounded to the governor absurd and malicious ; hence it
seemed strange to him, that the prisoner did not clear him
self by a word. But, though urged _ again and again to
speak, he yet answered nothing. Jesus knew the temper of
his accusers. They had seized him by stealth and without
cause ; they would be satisfied with nothing but his life ;
for this they had brought false charges ; and, should he
answer one lie, they would bring up another: and so he
threw it upon the conscience of the governor to do him
justice. Seeing how the case stood, Pilate said to the chief
priests, in hearing of the crowd of people now gathered
round, " I find no fault in this man." Maddened at the
thought of losing their victim, the priests shouted in fierce
tones and with violent gestures, " He stirs up the people
against Caesar, from Galilee to Jerusalem." At the mention
of Galilee, Pilate thought he saw his way out of the diffi-

PILATE AND HEROD. 497
culty. His own jurisdiction did not reach northward
beyond the limits of Samaria, — Herod Antipas, son of
Herod the Great, being the ruler of Galilee ; and it so hap
pened that Herod was at the time in Jerusalem. There
had been a dispute between Pilate and Herod, which had
made them enemies ; and Pilate thought he could make a
friendly advance to Herod by an open mark of respect for
his authority over one of his own subjects, and at the same
time could get rid of an unwelcome prisoner. So he sent
Jesus to Herod ; but, though he gained Herod's friendship,
the prisoner came back on his hands.
Herod was glad enough to have Jesus brought before him,
and to sit in state with his guard, with such a prisoner at his
bar ; but he had no notion of acting the part of a judge.
Ever since his murder of John the Baptist, Herod had been
troubled with reports about Jesus and his wonderful works.
At first he feared that he was John the Baptist risen from
the dead;1 but at last, with a mixture of superstition and
vanity, he was eager to see this famous prophet, to hear what
his doctrines were, and especially to see some miracle done
by him. Now, he thought, this wish could be gratified : so
he attempted to draw Jesus out by many questions; "but he
answered him nothing."2 The chief priests and scribes
were determined not to lose their victim through any change
of his judges, or any halting in their action. At last they
1 Matt. xiv. 1, 2. 2 Luke xxiii. 8-10.

498 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
had him in their power ; they had condemned him as worthy
of death ; and they had no notion of allowing him to be
sent off to Galilee. So they ran after the guard to Herod's
palace, and there began to aecuse Jesus in the most violent
terms. Herod saw that he could make nothing out of the
case. Jesus showed no fear of his authority, no wish for
his favor, no disposition to gratify him with a show of
wonders : so, setting him down for an enthusiast, Herod
began to make sport of him; and his officers and soldiers
were quick to follow his example. Jesus was accused of
making himself a king : so they put on him one of their
own showy cloaks to make fun of his royalty, and with
mocking cheers and salutations sent him back to Pilate.

CHAPTER XXXVII.
JESUS, OR BARABBAS.
Though Pilate was pleased that he had made Herod his
friend, he did not at all thank him for sending back his
prisoner. Still he could now fortify himself by Herod's
opinion ; and so he resolved to do the prisoner justice by
setting him free. Accordingly he summoned again the san
hedrim, — and by this time a great crowd had gathered to
watch the proceedings, — and gave his. decision, that openly
in their presence he had examined Jesus upon the charge
which they had brought against him, of stirring up the
people to revolt, " but had found no fault " in him ; and that
Herod also had examined him, but had found nothing that
called for the sentence of death which the sanhedrim
demanded. Thus in the most public and formal manner, by
the chief authority of the Roman Government in Judea,
after an open and searching examination, Jesus was pro
nounced innocent of any political offence that called for
punishment by the civil power. Had there been the least
evidence that he was stirring up rebellion, or making the

500 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
people discontented with Roman rule, Pilate and Herod
would have made capital for themselves at headquarters by
inflicting upon him the sentence of death. But he was
acquitted on this very charge. Hence all attempts to
explain away the crucifixion of Jesus, as due to political or
state charges, fall to the ground.
It was the duty of Pilate, having pronounced Jesus inno
cent, to set him free, and protect him against any violence
from the mob. He saw clearly where the right of the
matter lay ; and he wished as a judge to do his duty by the
prisoner, for he was satisfied that the charges against him
had been trumped up 'by malice. But at the same time he
was anxious for the favor of the Jews ; and to appease them
he offered to sacrifice his prisoner to their hate so far as
to chastise him before releasing him. This was a gross
injustice ; and, so far from relieving Pilate from his dilemma,
it led him on to the fatal step that he wished to avoid.
Seeing that Pilate was vacillating, the crowd grew more
violent in its outcries, demanding that Jesus should be sen
tenced. The governor, who was fast losing the character of
the judge in that of the politician, now thought of another
expedient for saving the prisoner. In some way, — perhaps
as a concession to the national feeling of the Jews on the
part of their conquerors, — the custom had grown up of
releasing to the people at the Passover any prisoner whom
they should choose. The governor thought to take advan-

o H

JESUS, OR BARABBAS. 503
tage of this custom for releasing Jesus ; and, to make sure of
his point, he set up by contrast a notorious criminal named
Barabbas. The sanhedrim had accused Jesus of stirring up
the people to sedition ; and for this they demanded that he
should be put to death. Well, if they really wished to show
their loyalty by making sedition a capital crime, here was
Barabbas already condemned to die for the crime of which
Jesus was proved innocent ; for there was no doubt that
Barabbas had made an insurrection, and had committed
robbery and murder in the fray. By setting up this man in
contrast with the meek and inoffensive Jesus, Pilate thought
to shame the crowd into some sense of justice and humanity :
so he asked them, " Whom will ye that I release unto you ?
Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?" To give the
formality of law to the release of a prisoner, Pilate now
sat down on the judgment-seat. At this moment he was
startled by a message from his wife, that she had been much
troubled about Jesus in a dream, and begging her husband
to " have nothing to do with that just man." But he had
already gone too far. By taking the populace into his
counsels, he had committed himself to be bound by their
wishes: in offering to scourge a prisoner whom he had
declared innocent, he had tampered with the spirit that
thirsted for the prisoner's blood. Prompted by the chief
priests, the mob now began to cry out for the release
of Barabbas. " But what, then," asked Pilate, " shall I do

504 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
with Jesus, whom ye call the King of the Jews ? " Startled
and shocked by the maddening cry, " Crucify him, crucify
him ! " Pilate strove again and again to pacify them, saying,
" Why, what evil hath he done ? I have found no cause of
death in him." Unhappy man ! to what a pass he had
brought himself by once wavering from his duty ! Here he
was interceding with a mob for the life of a prisoner whom
he had found innocent, and was bound to release and
protect. As often as he put in a plea that Jesus might be
spared, the cry went up the more fiercely, " Crucify him,
crucify him ! " till the tumult was growing dangerous. At
last, in a fit of weakness, he sought to shift the responsibility
from himself to them. "He took water, and washed his
hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the
blood of this just person: see ye to it." With one voice the
people cried, " His blood be on us and on our children ; "
and, to pacify them, he set Barabbas free, and delivered
Jesus to be scourged. This brutal and needless torture of
one condemned to be crucified was quite common under
Roman law. The prisoner was made fast with cords to a
frame or post ; his back was' stripped bare ; and he was
beaten with knotted thongs till he was ready to faint, and
even to die, through pain and loss of blood. So Jesus was
scourged before the jeering crowd. Then, with his back torn
and bleeding, he was given over to the soldiers for their
rough sport. They gathered all their comrades around Jesus,

The Scourging.

JESUS, OR BARABBAS. 507
stripped off the rest of his clothing, and put on him a scarlet
robe ; they platted a crown of thorns, and put this upon his
head ; they put a reed in his right hand ; and, having thus
arrayed him in mock royalty, they bowed the knee before
him, and mocked him, saying, " Hail, King of the Jews ! "
When they had given vent to their ridicule, they let loose
their malice : they smote him with their hands ; they spit
upon him ; they took the reed that they had given him as a
sceptre, and struck him with it on the head. Pilate was so
moved at these cruelties that he interfered, and appealed to
the compassion of the people, saying, " Behold the man ! "
But he could not chain up the tiger that he had loosed.
Louder and fiercer came the cry, " Crucify him, crucify
him ! " — " But I find no fault in him," said Pilate. " We too
have a law," they cried ; though you do not allow us to
punish, we can judge and condemn ; " and by our law he
ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God."
That title roused again the superstitious fears of Pilate ; and
he led Jesus apart to learn of him whence he came. But
Jesus, who was still smarting under the injustice of Pilate,
would have nothing to say to a judge who had thrice pro
nounced him innocent, and then had ordered him to be
scourged. His dignified silence under falsehood, wrong,
cruelty, insult, was itself a testimony to his character ; but
Pilate, fearing that his authority should be slighted if the
bystanders saw how the prisoner refused to answer him,

608 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
tried to threaten Jesus by a show of his power. " Speakest
thou not to me ? Knowest thou not that I have power to
crucify thee, and have power to release thee ? " Now the
prisoner spoke ; the abuse of his person, the threat of his life,
could not move him ; he would endure in silence all manner
of injustice and evil against himself : but the power of life
and death was in the hands of his Father ; and this boast of
Pilate was an insult to the divine majesty, that Jesus felt
called to rebuke. Just as in the garden he had surrendered
himself not to the Roman legion, but to the will of his
Father, who could have sent legions of angels to deliver
him, so now he should be put to death through his volun
tary obedience to that same divine will that had ruled his
life. " Thou couldest have no power at all against me,
except it were given thee from above: therefore he that
delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin." The chief
priests and scribes had means of judging the true mission of
Jesus, which Pilate as a Gentile could not possess: their
guilt was greater than his, which was simply that of in
justice to a prisoner whom he did not know. This appeal
at once to the conscience of Pilate as guilty of an unjust
judgment, and to the source to which he was responsible
for his power and the use of it, attended as it was by the
majestic look of the Son of God, so awed the weak-princi
pled governor that he sought by all means to recover Jesus
from the enemies to whom he had surrendered him. But

&

JESUS, OR BARABBAS. 511
the Jews thwarted his wish by appealing on the other side to
his love of place and power : " If thou let this man go, thou
art not Caesar's friend. Whosoever maketh himself a king
speaketh against Caesar." The hypocrites ! as Pilate knew
them to be, — at that moment longing for nothing so much
as a Messiah who should break the yoke of Rome, yet
demanding that Jesus should be put to death upon the
charge of sedition they had trumped up against him ! The
crisis could no longer be delayed : Pilate must either yield
to the mob, or risk their hatred being used to oust him from
office for screening a rebel. For a few moments the conflict
waxed fiercer and fiercer between his reluctance and their
rage, his sense of justice and his love of power ; the more
furious their outcries, the more feeble his remonstrance : —
" Behold your king."
" Away with him, away with him ! Crucify him ! "
" Shall I crucify your king? "
" We have no king but Caesar. Away ! away ! Crucify ! "
Then Pilate delivered Jesus unto them to be crucified.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE TRAITOR.

The order to crucify Jesus, that filled the Pharisees with
triumph, and gave a brutal sport to the soldiers and the
mob, struck one of the bystanders with terror and despair.
The bribe that Judas had taken for betraying his Lord now
burnt his hands, burnt into his soul : he loathed the sight
of it, loathed the thought of it, felt the guilt and shame of
it ; must get rid of it, if so be he can cancel his crime, and
save its victim. One can hardly believe that money alone
tempted Judas to betray Jesus ; for covetous as he was, and
accustomed to pilfer from the little store that the apostles
had for their purchases and charities, thirty shekels, or
twenty dollars, seems too paltry a motive to such a crime :
though some disciples nowadays will do very mean things
for very small gains ! Judas may have joined Jesus at the
first from mixed motives of religious enthusiasm and worldly
gain, with a zeal for the Messiah's kingdom, and a belief
that Jesus would prove to be the nation's hope, in which
event it would be a good thing to have been among his
812

THE TRAITOR. 513

earliest adherents. He so far won the confidence of the
little band that he was made its treasurer, and kept the bag.
But as time rolled by, and Jesus made no demonstration
toward a kingdom, but lived on in poverty, and grew more
severe in his teachings, Judas was so disappointed as to his
Master's character and purposes, and as to his own ambitious
hopes, and moreover was so piqued at the personal reproofs
of Jesus, and the preference shown to Peter, James, and
John, that he resolved to break from what he felt to be
a losing concern, and to bring matters to a head by a direct
issue between Jesus and the sanhedrim. At the same time
he would gratify his covetousness by a little gain. Still he
could not rid himself of anxiety for the result of his
scheme : so he hovered round the trial to see how things
would turn. The abuse and cruelty to which Jesus was
subjected, and his meekness and patience under injury, had
told already on the traitor's heart. None knew better than
he how perfectly innocent Jesus was of all that was charged
against him ; and, when he saw that he was condemned, the
shame of his own share in the transaction seized him so
strongly that he hurried to rescue his Master, if possible, by
proclaiming the innocence of Jesus, confessing his own sin,
and paying back the bribe ; at least, he hoped thus to rid
himself of a responsibility which had begun to torment him.
" He brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief
priests and elders, saying, I have sinned in that I have

514 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
betrayed innocent blood." But the priests cared nothing
for guilt or innocence, for Judas or Jesus. They had used
Judas as a tool, and, having gained their object, were ready
to throw him away in contempt. " What is that to us ?
see thou to that." This answer drove the poor wretch to
despair. " He cast down the pieces of silver in the temple,
and departed, and went and hanged himself."
But the sanctimonious Pharisees, however much they
might pollute their souls with the passion of murder, would
not pollute the treasury with the price of blood. So they ,
bought with it a "potter's field to bury strangers in ; " but
the common people, knowing the story, called it "Aceldama,
the Field of Blood."

CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE LAST HOUR.
The cross was ready. Crucifixion being a common mode
of punishment with the Romans, and especially for slaves
and the worst class of criminals, the instrument was
always at hand, in charge of officers of the law. Upon this
day three thieves were to be crucified; but the chief of
them, Barabbas, had been set free by the choice of the
people, and his cross was ready for Jesus. Modern govern
ments that retain capital punishment endeavor to make the
scene of execution solemn and dignified, rather than revolt
ing and terrible. While inflicting justice upon the criminal,
they guard him from outrage and cruelty : the gallows is the
symbol of law in a sad but sacred act of duty, not of
passion let loose for revenge. But among the Romans the
criminal sentenced to the cross was given over to the sport
of the executioners and the mob. The cross was set up on
elevated ground, or by the side of a public road ; and the
abuse that the rabble might pour upon him on the way, and
the reviling of passers-by as he hung upon the tree, were
515

516 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
part of the shame and suffering of this dreadful punishment.
Still the roughest natures have freaks of compassion ; and,
when Roman law had delivered a criminal to this death
of ignominy and torture, it did not interfere with acts of
pity or of kindness to which bystanders might be moved
in his behalf. " In Jerusalem there was a society of ladies
which provided a beverage of mixed myrrh and vinegar,
that, like an opiate, benumbed the man when he was being
carried to execution." 1 As in modern times, a jailer or
executioner sometimes shows marked humanity and gentle
ness in his treatment of a prisoner, so among the Romans
there might be a centurion whose feelings would be tender
and considerate toward the criminal he was guarding upon
the cross. The soldiers had mocked Jesus with the purple
robe, the reed in his right hand, the crown of thorns upou
his brow. Now they stripped off the robe, and put his own
clothes on him ; they took away the reed, but left the crown
of thorns, the drops of blood trickling from his brow upon
his_breast ; and so they led him out to crucify him.
It was the custom for the condemned to carry his cross
upon his shoulder, from the prison or the place of judgment
to the place of crucifixion. The cross, however, was not so
high nor so heavy as it is made to appear in the representa
tions of art. The upright post was some twelve or fifteen
feet high, the feet of the victim resting upon a bracket at a
1 Deutsch, The Talmud, p. 38.

a

THE LAST HOUR. 519

little distance above the ground. The transverse piece was
sometimes fastened at the top of the post, in the form of the
letter T, in which case he hung with his arms stretched
almost perpendicularly above him ; sometimes it was in
serted into the post at some distance below the top, in
which case the arms were stretched out laterally. The
carrying of the cross was meant to aggravate the punish
ment of the victim, both as a mark of disgrace, and by
reminding him along the way of the pain he must soon
suffer. The two thieves, with their coarse and blunted
natures, would care little for this; but to the sensitive
frame of Jesus every step was as the driving of a nail, a
fresh indignity to his gentle and holy soul.
But so the procession starts, — three men each bearing his
cross, each surrounded with a guard of soldiers, and with a
great crowd of people running together from all parts of the
city ; for the streets are astir with strangers on their way to
the temple, and the news of the arrest and condemnation of
Jesus has already spread to every quarter. It is half an
hour from the governor's palace near the temple to the place
of crucifixion outside the city gate ; and every foot of the
way, and every house along the route, is filled with specta
tors. For this is no ordinary execution. The two thieves
get hardly a moment's notice, and hence escape much of the
abuse and petty torture they would have suffered from a
common rabble. The crowd is bent upon seeing Jesus ; but

520 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
with what various emotions and cries do they press upon
him ! In that " great company of people " are many who
the other day were shouting, "Hosanna to the King of
Israel," but who are now mocking and hooting at the king
crowned with thorns. Some who waved palm-branches
over his head now try to get near enough to smite him with
their staves. It is only Friday : yet the uproar of shame is
as great as was the uproar of triumph on Monday, when he
came in at the opposite gate of the city. But this stirring
of the people is as welcome and hopeful to priests and
Pharisees as that was hateful and ominous. But other cries
mingle with these shouts of derision. In the crowd are
some in whom the sense of justice is strong enough to cry
out against this outrage to an innocent man ; others there are
who remember his words of truth and kindness, or still have
a strange awe of him as indeed the Christ ; and many are
there whom he has healed of their infirmities, or whose
friends he has recovered from disease and death. These
force their way up to the very cross with wailing and lamen
tation ; and even that rough crowd gives way to the women
who press forward with bitter cries ; for was ever a soldier
void of pity for a woman in distress ? But here, as at the
moment of his arrest, Jesus alone maintains his composure.
This man seemingly so weak and helpless, about to die, his
flesh still quivering with the gory stripes, his brow bleeding
afresh with the puncture of the thorns, his body too weak to

THE LAST HOUR. 521

drag any longer the weight of the cross, now looks about
him with the compassion of the Saviour, with the majesty
of the judge, with the sweet and tender dignity of self-
forgetting love, and says, " Daughters of Jerusalem, weep
not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.
For behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall
say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare,
and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin
to say to the mountains, Fall on us ; and to the hills, Cover
us. For, if they do these things in a green tree, what shall
be done in a dry ? " He who would have been to Jerusalem
the green, fruitful tree of life and salvation, Jerusalem in
her priests and rulers has thus set upon to hew down and
destroy. What, then, shall be the fate of Jerusalem herself,
when as a dry, withered tree she shall be cast out to be
trodden under foot, and burnt ? Alas for the women who
shall be alive at that clay to witness its woes for themselves
and their children ! His heart forgets its own griefs in pity
for theirs. At the moment when he is about to be lifted up
as a sacrifice for the world's redemption, he pronounces the
fate of Jerusalem fixed and sealed. Once more the prophet
speaks ; but the compassion of the Saviour rises above the
severity of the Judge.
It was while he was thus speaking that Jesus was relieved
of the burden of his cross. It is no wonder that a moment
before he had sunk under its weight. For twelve hours, —

522 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
since the supper, with his disciples, — he had not tasted
food ; for thirty hours he had had no sleep. In that time he
had taken leave of the dear family at Bethany ; had gone
through the trying scene of parting with his disciples in
anticipation at the last supper ; had endured the agony of
Gethsemane ; had been seized and dragged about by sol
diers; had undergone three trials; had been buffeted,
mocked, spit upon, tortured, his back with stripes, his br®w
with thorns ; and all the while his spirit weighed down with
the thought that men could so abuse the truth and love
of God. That he sank under the cross, was a witness how
tenderly human was the frame that bore this divine spirit of
sacrifice. It was near the city gate that Jesus fell ; and, touched
with pity, the soldiers, instead of compelling him to drag
the burden farther, took advantage of a stout countryman
coming in at the gate, and laid the cross upon his shoulders,
" that he might bear it after Jesus." That service of com
pulsion, perhaps of painful drudgery, has made Simon the
Cyrenian immortal in legend, in art, and in song.
But the procession has come to a halt. There, just with
out the gate, where all passing in and out can see the spec
tacle, is the place of public execution, made so ghastly by
the frequent horrors of crucifixion, that the people call it
" The place of a skull." Here the three crosses are laid
down ; and, before the condemned are nailed to them,, the

I  HHOHU,

They cast Lots fob His Vesture.

THE LAST HOUR. 525

cup of vinegar and myrrh is mercifully offered to each. But
Jesus will not drink of it, since the cup of bitterness and
death that his Father has given him must be drunk with a
conscience clear, willing, and patient to the end. The
soldiers now strip him naked, and stretch him upon the
cross, placing his body on the wooden pin, or rest, provided
for its support. They drive a nail through each hand, bind
the feet with a cord, and fasten both with one nail to the
wood, then lift up the cross, and drop it into its place with
a shock that makes the whole frame quiver with agony.
But no groan nor sigh escapes the lips of Jesus. They
part for a moment in that prayer which is wreathed about
the cross in a perpetual incense of mercy, " Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do."
The clothing of the condemned was a perquisite of the
soldiers; and four soldiers were stationed at the foot of
each cross as a guard. As soon as the cross was planted, the
soldiers began to look out for their rewards. The under
clothes of Jesus they divided into four parts of about equal
value ; and then they cast lots for the outside garment,
which was a long mantle woven throughout without a
seam. It was common to nail up at the top of the cross the
offence for which the criminal was executed. But Pilate,
who had thrice declared Jesus innocent, prepared as the
accusation to be set up over his head the simple statement,
Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. This

526 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. His Jewish
persecutors, fearing lest they should in fact be condemned
by the very form of his sentence, hastened to Pilate, and
begged him to change the title to, "He said, I am King
of the Jews." But, though the governor had yielded to the
temptation of popularity, at heart he remained true to his
first convictions ; and he answered, " What I have written,
I have written;" and so a heathen ruler certified to all
generations that the crucified Nazarene was the Christ.
Crowds were coming and going along the highway ; and
these railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, " Ah,
thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three
days ! save thyself, and come down from the cross." The
chief priests, who should have set an example of decency and
moderation, and whose religious office should have taught
them compassion even for the worst criminal, were there
mocking him, saying, " He saved others : himself he cannot
save. Let Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the
cross, that we may see and believe." For three hours does
Jesus hang there in silence, hearing these taunts and revil-
ings, his life slowly ebbing away under the tortures of his
body and the griefs of his soul. At noon the soldiers take
their rude meal of coarse bread and sour wine ; and, catching
the spirit of the Jews, they join in the mockery, and hold up
their cups to him, saying, " If thou be the King of the Jews,
save thyself." And, as if it were not enough that the com-

THE LAST HOUR. 527

mon people, the officers of religion, and the officers of law,
pour out their abuse upon him, one of the very thieves on
the cross at his side begins to rail at him, saying, " If thou
be Christ, save thyself and us." But neither the ignominy
of the cross, nor the filthy jests and sneers of the mob, nor
the blood oozing from his forehead, can obscure that majesty
of look in Jesus which again and again had ' smitten his
enemies with an awe of his presence ; and the other male
factor, noting that look and remembering the prayer of
forgiveness, is so subdued with the sense of something in
his fellow-sufferer which is not of earth, that he rebukes his
comrade, saying, " Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art
in the same condemnation? and we indeed justly, for we
receive the due reward of our deeds ; but this man hath done
nothing amiss." Then, turning from penitence and con
fession to faith and adoration, he cries to Jesus, " Lord,
remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." With
a voice full of heavenly love and the consciousness of
almighty power, Jesus answers, " Verily I say unto thee,
To-clay shalt thou be with me in paradise."
There is a love that no sorrows can quench, no cruelties
intimidate, no force restrain ; and so the mother of Jesus is
by the cross. She is attended by her sister, by Mary Mag
dalene, and by " the disciple whom he loved." And He who
has just declared his sovereignty over the future world, has
accepted the homage of the penitent thief, and promised

528 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
him a place in paradise, now thrills with the tenderest of
human sympathies, fixes his loving gaze upon mother and
friend, and says to her, Behold thy son; and, to him, Behold
thy mother. Fulfilling this precious testament of love,
"from that hour that disciple took her to his own home."
It is high noon, but the sun has ceased to mark the hour.
A darkness such as history sometimes records as veiling
heaven and earth, and terrifying the animal creation, is
spread over all the land. The mob is hushed; for three
hours the soldiers watch in silence and in fear. Then a cry
almost of despair breaks the gloom : it is the cry of a soul
that feels itself compassed about with the darkness of death
and of hell, — " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me ! " He is in the death-agony of thirst. Some, half mock
ing, pretend that he is calling for Elias ; but a soldier, more
compassionate, reaches to him a sponge dipped in vinegar.
He moistens his lips ; the darkness vanishes ; with clear con
sciousness he says, " It is finished : " then with a last cry of
faith and victory, " Father, into thy hands I commend my
spirit," he bows his head, and gives up the ghost.
The earth quakes, splitting the rocks, and rending the
veil of the temple. Smitten with awe, the centurion cries,
" Truly this man was the Son of God." Yes ! all signs
attest him now. The Roman governor certifies his king
ship ; the Roman soldier owns his divinity ; the dying thief
worships him as Lord; and Jesus, with arms outstretched

«o

b

THE LAST HOUR. 531

upon the cross, dispenses pardon to enemies, paradise to
penitents ; links himself to earth through love of his mother,
and to heaven through faith in his Father. All that he
came to be and to do is finished on the cross.
To us there is a significance in the very instrument
of his death. Had Jesus been stoned as were prophets
of old, as Stephen was by the mob; had he been burnt
at the stake as martyrs have been burnt in his name ;
had he been beheaded as was John the Baptist, — we should
have remembered his dying, and perhaps have commemo
rated the day of his death, but could have had no visible
symbol of his suffering. But he was crucified ; and the
cross was peculiarly a Roman instrument of punishment ;
and, as the Romans in that time reserved to themselves the
death penalty in Judea, the very letter of prophecy was ful
filled in the manner of his dying, in that he was "lifted up."
But this Roman mode of punishment passed away with the
Roman power ; and now for ages in the wide world nowhere
has the cross been used for the execution of a criminal.
Long has it ceased to have these common associations of
crime and shame ; and now, separated from all other instru
ments of torture and of punishment, it stands before the
world exalted and glorified, its outstretched arms a symbol
of divine love in sacrifice reaching forth to embrace the
world it would redeem.

CHAPTER XL.

HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD.

That a man should rise from the dead, is the greatest of
wonders. The beginning of life would perhaps be to us as
great a wonder, if we could witness that ; yet we are so
familiar with the fact of life through natural laws, and the
fact of death from natural causes, that we seldom think of
any thing wonderful in either. But when life has ceased,
and death ensued, we know of no natural force or cause that
could nullify death and restore life in the same body. If we
were told that such a thing had taken place, — that a dead
man had come to life again, — we should receive the state
ment with great caution ; should assume that the person
was not really dead, but in a stupor or trance, or that the
witnesses were deceived through their senses or their imagi
nation. The course of experience, and the nature of the
case, are so strongly against the probability of one's rising
from the dead, that we are ready to say with Thomas,
" Except I see it with my own eyes, I will not believe."
But we forget that, in that case, we should expect others to
532-

HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD. 533
believe upon our testimony; we forget that the thing itself
could not be repeated so as to satisfy everybody's doubts,
and that there must come a point where such a fact, just
like any other, must be taken upon testimony without
requiring the evidence of our own senses. However strong
may be our feeling against the probability of one's rising
from the dead, we must admit the possibility of such an
event by the direct power of God. If, now, a reason should
appear for such a miracle ; if it should be put forth to
confirm some truth most needful, some promise most helpful
to men, and this a truth, a promise, to which God only could
give certainty, — then this moral reason for faith in God
himself would prepare the' way for believing in the outward
wonder as from God. The moral reason could not, indeed,
prove the miracle as a fact ; but, by bringing it into harmony
with other facts showing God's love to man, this moral basis
for a special act of God's power would so far remove the
improbability of the miracle as to open the way for our be
lieving it upon such testimony as we accept for any strange
event. Now, Jesus came to teach the eternal life of the
soul, and the way of salvation for sinners through the grace
of God. The truth he taught, the promise he gave, of such
unspeakable value to men, were such as only God could
make known with entire certainty. Hence we can at least
feel or imagine, that, if ever such a thing as rising from the
dead could be, it was most proper, and exactly in place, in

534 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
connection with the life and death of Jesus. When we set
vividly before us his person, his character, his teachings, his
acts ; when we look at this one solitary example of perfect
truth, perfect wisdom, perfect goodness, whose whole being
was to bless and save ; when we consider the infinite moment
of his message to men, — we feel not only that his dying on
the cross was an outrage and a crime, but that it was some
how an incongruity that he should die at all, that his per
fect life should be marred by the touch of death.1 Had
Jesus resolved himself into pure spirit, and risen to the skies,
or had he gone up to heaven in clouds of glory, we should
have felt that the triumph which poets and painters picture
for heroes and martyrs after death was proper to him with
out dying. Hence, when we read that he rose from the
dead, there is a congruity between such an outward wonder,
and the moral wonder of his life, that makes the fact credi
ble. Indeed, the miracle, that seems to disturb the harmony
1 Death, as the goingrout of animal life, belongs to the course of
nature; and in this sense it maybe said to be as inseparable from an
organic body as is the notion of birth or growth. But death as a human
experience, with all that it means to a creature of such affections, hopes,
desires, imaginings, as man, is represented in the Bible as an indignity
put upon man, — a brand of degradation because of sin (Gen. iii. 3, 19;
Eom. v. 12). Hence, when at length a man appeared who lived without
sin, it seems not fitting that he should die like other men. In such a
case, the course of nature was against the higher reason of things, and
required to be reversed, to restore the harmony of truth, goodness, and
life. We feel such a death to be a wrong that must be righted.

HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD. 535
of nature, restores the harmony of a life so rudely broken
by the cross, and reveals the higher harmony of the spirit-
world, where truth, purity, love, live on unhurt of evil,
untouched by decay.
Jesus had promised to rise from the dead. Again and
again he told his disciples that he should be crucified, and
should rise on the third day ; and, in his tender discourse at
the last supper, he comforted them with the assurance that
in " a little while" they should see him again. He also made
the proof of his mission hang upon his rising in three days.1
Nothing is clearer than that Jesus himself was possessed
with the idea that he should rise from the dead. If he did
not rise, then for years he lived and acted under an illusion,
and such an illusion as in any other person we should call
the fancy of a crazed brain. If this were indeed a fancy,
an illusion, how much would it take away from the moral
force of his teachings and character ! But it is simply im
possible to reconcile with his wisdom, his clearness, his
calmness, his dignity, his majesty ; in one word, to recon
cile with himself as man and as teacher, — the notion that
he spent his life under an illusion.
If Jesus did indeed rise from the dead, the fact was one
that could be attested beyond a possibility of mistake ; for
it must have come under the senses of those who were
familiar with his person. It could be made just as clear
i John ii. 19.

536 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
as any fact of history or of physical science, that rests
upon the evidence of the senses. Now, the narrative
of the resurrection in the Gospels is so simple, straight
forward, and clear, that it carries within itself the marks of
truth. The witnesses were capable of knowing the facts ;
they had no motive for making up the story ; their whole
after-course was shaped by the fact that Jesus had risen ;
and they were ready to stake their lives upon having seen
him alive after his crucifixion. That Jesus was dead, there
could be no doubt. That fact was settled by the officers of
the law before his body was taken down from the cross. It
was quite usual to break the legs of a criminal on the cross,
in order to hasten his death, and put an end to his misery.
The Jews, not willing to have these bodies hanging before
the city gate on the high sabbath of the Passover, obtained
from Pilate an order that their legs should be broken, and
they should be taken down from the cross. The soldiers
broke the legs of the two thieves; but, when they came to
Jesus, they saw that he was dead already : so they did not
break his legs ; but, to make all sure, one of the soldiers
pierced his side with a spear, and forthwith there came out
blood and water. Pilate also satisfied himself from the
centurion that Jesus was dead, before he commanded the
body to be delivered to Joseph of Arimathea.1 This
1 A good witness for the historical fact of the death of Jesus is the
Roman historian Tacitus, who was so careful and conscientious in look-

HE. ROSE FROM THE DEAD. 537
Joseph was a man of wealth and distinction, a member of
the Great Council, who had opposed its sentence against
Jesus, being at heart one of his disciples. Danger gives
some men courage ; and both Joseph and Nicodemus, who
had kept back their faith in Jesus for fear of the Jews,
came openly forward to honor him after his death. Joseph
owned a garden near the place of crucifixion ; and there he
had just had a new tomb hewn out of the living rock, in
which no one had yet been laid. Having prepared the body
in the usual way, with linen and spices, he laid it in the
sepulchre, closed the door with a great stone, and went
home. The shock of the death of Jesus had driven from the
minds of his disciples his promise that he would rise again.
Indeed, they do not seem at any time to have taken in that
idea in its real significance, nor to have rested their faith
and hope upon it under the trial of parting ; and hence,
ing up facts for his "Annals." He had the strong prejudices of a Pagan
philosopher against Christians and their faith ; hence his testimony to
the facts that Christ was crucified, and that his religion immediately
after began to spread, has greater weight than if he were a partisan. In
B. xv. chap. 44, of the " Annals," Tacitus narrates that Nero falsely
charged the guilt of setting fire to Eome to ' ' the persons commonly
called Christians; " then he adds, " Christus, the founder of that name,
was put to death as a criminal by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea,
in the reign of Tiberius. But the pernicious superstition, repressed for
a time, broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief
originated, but through the city of Kome also."

538 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
instead of staying near the tomb, and watching for some
strange event, they thought only of the dead body, and
went away, and prepared spices and ointments for that. But,
trained in the strictness of the Jewish sabbath, they did not
go on that day to the sepulchre even for the purpose of
embalming the body, but " rested the sabbath-day according
to the commandment." Meanwhile the body of Jesus was
under the watch of his enemies. Recalling his saying that
after three days he would rise again, the chief priests and
Pharisees thought his disciples might " come by night, and
steal him away, and say to the people, He is risen from the
dead," and so make them more trouble than he had caused
them in his life. This was a most absurd notion. It was
then the full moon ; the nights were as bright as day ; the
city was crowded with people within and without; the tomb
was near the city wall, and not far from the highway ; the
only access was by the door, which was closed by a great
stone ; it would have been difficult to open this and carry off
the body without being seen, and almost impossible to hide
the body beyond discovery. The disciples were most of
them strangers in Jerusalem, and could not count upon any
one in power to share with them the risk of such a mad
attempt, nor to shield them in case of failure. They would
know that to be caught at it would cost them their lives ;
and the poor fellows were too much frightened by what had
been done to their Lord to do any thing that could bring

HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD. 539
them into notice as his followers. The next we hear of
them, they were gathered in a private room, under cover of
the night, and with the doors shut, for fear of the Jews.
But, though the taking away of the body by the disciples
was not to be thought of, Pilate gave the chief priests a
guard of soldiers, and told them to make the sepulchre as
sure as they could. Now, the mouth of the tomb was
tightly closed by a huge stone slab that fitted to it
like a door. The priests stretched a cord, or band, across
this door of stone, and sealed it to the rock on either side.
This would not close the tomb any more firmly ; but the seal
was official, and to break this was a crime that even thieves
would shrink from. A watch was then set around the
tomb ; and thus the body of Jesus was completely in the
power and keeping of his enemies.
Already, on quitting the sepulchre, Mary Magdalene,
Mary the mother of James, Joanna, and Salome had brought
sweet spices with which to anoint the body. But evening
overtook them before they could return to the garden ; and,
as that evening brought the sabbath, they postponed their
visit to the morning of the first day. Though they rested
even from this work of piety, they slept little, but kept
together their vigils of grief and love. As soon as the sun
set on Saturday, and the sabbath was ended, they made
ready their spices and linen ; and very early in the morning,
when it was yet dark, they hastened to the sepulchre which

540 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
they reached as it began to dawn. On the way, they won
dered if, at that early hour, any one could be found to roll
away the stone from the door; for of course they knew
nothing of the sealing and the guard. To their amazement
the women found the stone rolled away. At this, Mary
Magdalene took a sudden fright. The thought that Jesus
had risen did not once enter her mind : somebody had taken
away her Lord ; but who had done this, or where they had
laid him, she could not imagine ; and, distracted with fear,
she ran to look up Peter and John, and tell them the sad
news. No sooner had she gone than the other women went
into the sepulchre, but started back with terror at what they
saw ; for the body of Jesus was not there, but on one side
was what appeared to be a young man clothed in a long
white robe. It was not yet daylight ; and the brightness of
his garment was a startling contrast to the darkness of the
tomb. A new tremor seized them when this stranger spoke,
and said, " Fear not, for I know that ye seek Jesus which
was crucified. He is not here ; for he is risen, as he said.
Come, see the place where the Lord lay." He then
reminded them of the saying of Jesus, that he should rise
again the third day, and told them to hasten to tell the
disciples he was risen. Convulsed with fear and joy, the
women ran to find the disciples, and on the way were met
by Jesus himself, who halted them, saying, " All hail ! "
They fell trembling at his feet, and worshipped him. " Then

HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD. 541

said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid. Go tell my brethren
that they go into Galilee, and there they shall see me."
Meantime Peter and John had hurried back with Mary
Magdalene; and John, outrunning them, came first to the
sepulchre, and stooping down looked in, but did not enter
till Peter coming up led the way, when John followed.
They noticed, what the women in their haste and fear had
overlooked, that the linen in which Jesus had been wrapped,
and the napkin that was about his head, were lying there
carefully folded, each in its place. This was a sign that the
body had not been hastily snatched away either by enemies
or by friends ; and now began to dawn upon them the mean
ing of his saying, " that he must rise from the dead." But
this dim faith took as yet no definite shape. It was no use
searching for Jesus, nor expecting him : they had not met
the women who had already seen him ; they could only
wonder and wait ; and in this frame they went away to their
own home.
But Mary could not be satisfied. In running for Peter
and John she had missed seeing the angel, and missed seeing
Jesus when he met the other women. To her the sepulchre
was the one dear sacred spot of earth where last she had
seen her Lord. Her one thought was, He was laid in this
tomb, and the great stone was set in the door; now the
stone is rolled away, and he is not there. And so, when all
the rest were gone, Mary still stood at the side of the sepul-

542 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
chre weeping. She had not yet had courage to step within
the tomb : the place where Jesus had lain seemed too sacred
for her to tread upon ; and she shrank also from the further
shock of seeing and feeling that he was not there. She
could only stay and weep till some one should come who
could tell her where they had laid him. At length, stooping
down and looking into the sepulchre, she saw two angels in
white, sitting, the one at the head and the other at the feet,
where the body of Jesus had lain. At their question,
" Woman, why weepest thou ? " her grief breaks out afresh :
" They have taken away my Lord ; " but, before they can
tell her that he is risen, she is aware of some one standing
behind her, and turning sees a person whom in that uncer
tain light, and with her eyes blinded with tears, she takes to
be the gardener. He repeats the question, " Woman, why
weepest thou ? " and she, thinking that the gardener can
certainly relieve her anguish and suspense, says to him with
eager sobs, " Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me
where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away." The
voice she knows best, loves best, speaks her name, " Mary."
She turns, springs, would fall into his arms, wild with
wonder and joy, as she cries, " Rabboni ! " But Jesus saith
to her, "Touch me not; fori am not yet ascended to my
Father. But go to my brethren, and say to them, I ascend
unto my Father and your Father, to my God and your
God." He has vanished ; and now, with tears of joy, she

HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD. 543

goes to the house where she knows she shall find a company
of disciples. They are still mourning and weeping over their
Master's death ; and so deep and despairing is their sorrow,
that, when Mary breaks in upon them with the glowing
news " that she had seen the Lord," they will not believe.
her ; and her words seem to them as idle tales.
But the rumor of the resurrection, which the friends of
Jesus thus discredited, was spreading among his enemies, and
was likely to get abroad through the town. Much as the
sanhedrim tried to hush it up, the story of the watch
reached even the ears of the disciples. The soldiers set to
guard the tomb neither saw nor heard any thing to report till
after midnight. Then a shock like an earthquake startled
them ; and one " whose countenance was like lightning, and
his raiment white as snow," coming from heaven, rolled
back the stone from the door. At sight of him, the keepers
shook with terror, "and became as dead men." When
they recovered, the tomb was open, and the body of Jesus
gone. Their first thought now was for their own safety ;
since if any of the sanhedrim should come, and find the
body missing, the guard must answer for it with their lives.
So they went at once to the chief priests, and told every
thing just as it happened. The seventy were hurried to
gether ; and to save their credit with the people, and get rid
of a troublesome excitement, they bribed the soldiers to say,
" His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we

544 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
slept." It took much money to buy over the guard, since
it was death for a Roman soldier to sleep at his post ; but
the sanhedrim agreed to make it all right with Pilate, " so
they took the money, and did as they were taught." Many
Jews believed this story at the time ; and some have been
weak enough to revive it in our day in order to explain away
the resurrection. But it carries its falsehood on its face. If
the disciples had stolen the body, the sanhedrim could have
had them arrested, and by exposing the trick have crushed
out Christianity as an imposture. They would have asked
nothing better to justify themselves, and confound the fol
lowers of Jesus. Yet, with all judicial means at their
disposal, they made no attempt to bring the disciples to con
viction, disgrace, and punishment for such a fraud. Not
long after, Peter and John declared to the sanhedrim in
the boldest manner that Jesus of Nazareth, whom they
crucified, God had raised from the dead.1 The council tried
by threats and promises to silence the apostles ; but why
did it not turn upon them, and charge them with having
stolen the body of Jesus, and then punish them for fraud
and falsehood ? That story served the purpose of an hour,
but was too weak an invention to be revived as a means of
silencing men who declared that they had seen Jesus alive
again after he was crucified.
During that first day there was much discussion among
1 Acts iv. 10.

HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD. 545
the disciples over the report brought by the women and
Peter and John from the sepulchre. Not many of them
had ventured to visit the tomb for themselves ; for the fate
of Jesus warned them not to risk their lives by appearing
openly as his followers. But the fact was clear, that the
tomb had been opened, and the body of Jesus was no longer
there. Toward evening, two of the disciples were walking
from Jerusalem to Emmaus, and earnestly discussing the
events of the day. On the road, a stranger joined them ;
and drawing out the subject of their conversation, about
which they were still doubting and wondering, he explained
to them the spiritual meaning of the Old Testament prophe
cies concerning Christ, and showed how it accorded with
the true idea of the Messiah, that he should " suffer these
things, and enter into glory." As the stranger talked, the
hearts of the disciples warmed toward him, till they were
aglow with curiosity and wonder and with the fire of devo
tion ; and, on reaching their home, they urged him to tarry
with them for the night. The table was soon spread ; and,
as their guest " sat at meat with them, he took bread, and
blessed it, and brake it, and gave to them." The scales
dropped from their eyes ; they understood why their hearts
had so burned on the way : it was Jesus who had talked
with them, Jesus who sat at their side. But he had van
ished out of their sight. Rising up in haste, they returned
to Jerusalem, and found the disciples gathered together, and

546 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
listening with eager joy to Peter, who was telling them that
he, too, had seen the Lord. Most of them who had doubted
the story of the women were already yielding to conviction,
and saying, " The Lord is risen indeed."
Yet they did not venture to give utterance to their joy in
songs or loud exclamations ; for they were surrounded with
enemies, and the shadow of the cross 'was still upon them.
Once in the South of Spain, on the evening of the first day
of the week, I went to just such a meeting of a few humble
men and women who had renounced the Roman Catholic
Church for the simple faith of the gospel. In that little
circle were some who had been imprisoned, exiled, threat
ened with death; among them the father and mother of
Matamoras, who had just died, in exile, of his persecutions
suffered in Spain. The house in which the meeting was
held was closed and darkened; the disciples came after
nightfall, one by one so as not to attract notice, and gained
admittance by a secret signal. When all were assembled,
they talked and prayed in low voices, but did not dare to
sing lest they should be overheard and betrayed. Thus
shut in from the knowledge of the world and from the
hatred of priests and persecutors, how sweet, tender, and
precious was their communion with their Lord, whose pres
ence they felt though they had not seen ! I fancied myself
in that room in Jerusalem, with the cross still fresh in view,
" when the doors were shut where the disciples were assem-

HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD. 547
bled, for fear of the Jews." But to them it was given to see
the Lord. A few moments before, the door was opened to
the disciples from Emmaus, who gave the concerted signal ;
then all was made fast again by the porter. And there, with
out knocking, without opening, " stood Jesus himself in the
midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you."
But they were terrified beyond measure ; even those who had
already seen him during the day were affrighted at this mys
terious entrance into the room, and "supposed that they had
seen a spirit." To calm their minds, Jesus showed them his
hands, his feet, and his side, marked with the wounds of the
cross, and asked them even to handle him, and make sure
that he had flesh and bones. And now for very joy they
could not believe their eyes, but stood motionless in wonder.
Not till he called for meat, and " did eat before them," did
they recover from their fright so as to realize that their Lord
was indeed among them, and to listen to his words. Then
he made clear to their understanding the teachings of
the Old Testament concerning Christ; and how by his
sufferings and death he " had fulfilled all things written in
the law of Moses, and in the prophets and in the Psalms."
And, having thus opened the kingdom of heaven through
the forgiveness of sins, he commanded them to " go into all
the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."
While waiting in Jerusalem for the power that Jesus had
promised them "from on high," the disciples were often

548 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
consulting about their future plans and hopes; and they
met statedly on the first day of the week. At their next
meeting, Thomas, who had been absent from the first, was
with them; and, Jesus appearing as before, the doubter,
confuted by his own words, believed with eyes, lips, heart,
confessing Jesus his Lord and his God.
The appearances of Jesus at the Sea of Tiberias, at a
mountain in Galilee, and at Bethany, to be treated in the
following chapters, complete the record of the ways in
which " he showed himself alive after his passion." That,
in view of the life and character of Jesus, it was credible
that he should rise from the dead, and that the fact of his
resurrection would be peculiarly capable of proof, has been
shown at the beginning of this chapter ; and now, on review
ing the evidence, it is plain that the fact as stated, and this
alone, can satisfactorily account for the story and its effects.
If Jesus did indeed rise, the witnesses to the fact could
not have been deceived. They knew him intimately ; they
were numerous, and were on the quick to test the reality ;
they saw him often, and under a great variety of conditions,
during a period of forty days. As they could not have been
deceived, neither could they have been deceivers. They
had no motive for making up such a story. If false, their
detection was sure : they could be made to produce the
body, or tell what had become of it, or be punished for their
deception. They had nothing to gain, but every thing to

HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD. 549
lose, by inventing a story that Jesus had risen. He had
been crucified on the charges of blasphemy and sedition ;
and for them to avow themselves his disciples would be to
provoke his fate as accomplices. There was nothing in the
world to tempt men to start such a report ; yet we find these
men giving their whole lives to declaring the fact that Jesus
rose from the dead, saying they were witnesses to the fact,
and suffering imprisonment, torture, death, rather than take
back that testimony. And the use they made of the . resur
rection was to persuade men to forsake their sins, and lead
holy lives. The witnesses sought for themselves neither
money, power, office, nor fame, but were ready to die for
their word. Such is not the manner of impostors.
The notion that the story of the resurrection was a myth,
— not at first in the Gospels, but which grew up in later
times to throw a halo about the death of Christ, — will not
bear the test of the narrative. For here we have, from
beginning to end, internal evidence of this being a true
story, and freshly recorded at the time. When we reflect
that the disciples were Jews, and that, up to the arrest of
Jesus, they clung to the notion that he would somehow
show himself a king, we can understand how little impres
sion his allusions to his rising again would have been made
on their minds, and how completely their hopes were clashed
by his crucifixion. They did not once think of watching
the tomb, nor of going to see if he had risen. They

550 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
thought too much of their own safety to hang about the
sepulchre ; they were too full of grief to remember promises.
And when some did go to the tomb, not to seek the living
Jesus, but to embalm his dead body, they could not believe
that he had risen ; and, after they had seen him, others would
not believe their story. Now, all this, which goes to dis
credit the faith and love of the disciples, accredits the story.
It does credit to their honesty as narrators of fact, and has
nothing of the air of a myth. So of all the sayings and
doings of Jesus. They are in perfect keeping with his char
acter. He does not show himself off as a wonder, and does
not make weak, vague, or mysterious communications,
such as legends ascribe to persons said to appear from the
spirit world ; but, having satisfied his disciples that he is
their Lord, he gives them- plain, clear, earnest spiritual
instruction about his own person and work, and their duty.
Every thing in the story comports with a record of facts.
But two scenes in particular show it to be real, — the
heart-broken Mary, the boasting, swaggering Thomas. Mary
following the body to the tomb to see where it was laid,
going early to anoint it,. in her fright at the open door, run
ning to tell the disciples that the body had been taken away,
coming back to weep at the sepulchre, entreating the gar
dener to help her find her Lord ; and then that moment so
simple and so dignified, so tender and so sublime, the
ecstasy of a human joy, the calmness of a divine majesty, —

HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD. 551
all this witnesses for its own truth. Only on the supposi
tion that Jesus had risen, and stood by Mary's side, can we
account for that scene which has never been attained to by
poetry or art, and which was never invented by man, —
" Mary," " Rabboni."
Then, Thomas ! who, like Peter, had said, " Let us go and
die with him, " x like Peter ready to assert himself, now
putting his own senses, his own doubts, his own reason,
above the testimony of all his brethren, and in the violence
of self-will proposing to subject the wounded body of his
Lord to a degrading test. How true, alas, is this to nature !
and how true does one feel the narrative to be, as it shows
Thomas overwhelmed with shame at his own words,
rebounding from the extravagance of doubt to the ecstasy
of faith and adoration ! Ah ! who would not kneel by his
side, to catch the breath of that wondrous benediction,
"Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have
believed"? Two collateral proofs establish the place of the resurrec
tion in history. At the crucifixion we find the disciples
disheartened, wavering, hiding away ; their king crucified,
themselves in fear of the Jews. A few days later we find
them boldly proclaiming themselves believers in Jesus as the
Christ, and preaching the most spiritual views of his person,
his teachings, his death, and his kingdom. Something
1 John xi. 16.

552 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
momentous must have happened to cause this great change
in their inner views and feelings and their outward de
meanor. Now, the resurrection, which they proclaim as a
fact, does account for this change ; and nothing else can.
Again : a few months later we find a man of liberal cul
ture, but of intense Jewish prejudices ; a man of extraor
dinary powers of reasoning, and of marked sincerity of
character ; a man of strong ambition, and who had the finest
prospects that could then open to a Jew, — we find this
Saul of Tarsus, who had volunteered to persecute the new
faith, suddenly embracing it, relinquishing all worldly
honors and hopes, and devoting himself to preaching the
cross, with a firmness, an earnestness, a persistency, a moral
heroism, almost beyond parallel. Now, this man was a
trained logician, and had an honest love of truth. He
wrote a letter to the Corinthians, the genuineness of which
has not been denied, and could not be questioned, since the
epistle is quoted as his by the earliest fathers. In that
epistle Paul declares that Jesus rose from the dead, that he
was seen of Cephas, of James, of all the apostles, and of
above five hundred brethren at once ; and then he adds, " of
whom the greater part remain unto this present." 1 Paul
knew these witnesses. Cephas, or Peter, he knew inti
mately ; James and the other apostles he had conferred
with at Jerusalem, about his own work. Many of the five
1 1 Cor. xv. 6.

HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD. 553

hundred were personally known to him ; he knew their
character, had tested their evidence, and was ready to stake
his existence upon the fact that Christ died, was buried, and
rose again the third day. That a man of such breadth,
keenness, candor, and honesty, made this examination of
eye-witnesses, and came to this conviction, gave up every
thing for his belief, lived in it, died for it, — this almost
judicial investigation and decision at the time sweeps away
the qualms of modern doubters, and thrills our inmost being
with Paul's triumphant strain, " Now is Christ risen from
the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept."

CHAPTER XLI.
ONE LAST LOOK AND WORD,
Before finally quitting the earth, the risen Lord would
visit once more the two spots that had been to him most
dear, — Galilee and Bethany. One more look at the lake,
one more look at the home, and he will return to the glory
he had with his Father "before the world was." x At both
places, too, he would once more converse with his disciples
amid scenes endeared by so many memories of his earthly life.
In sending out his messengers for the first preaching of his
gospel, Jesus had instructed them to " shake off the dust
from their feet " at places that should reject the message,
" for a testimony against them ; " 2 yet he lingers upon the
earth that had rejected and crucified him, presses it lovingly
with those sacred feet that had been pierced with nails, and
thus blends the most tender and beautiful of human affec
tions with the grace and mercy that his resurrection had
attested as divine. The more he shows himself the man,
the more we see in him the God. Earth is no longer so
1 John xvii. 5. 2 Matt. x. 14.
554

ONE LAST LOOK AND WORD. 555
remote nor estranged from heaven as to cut off communica
tion between the two. Jesus was born as helpless as any
babe, and he died seemingly as helpless as any man ; but
the Christ who has risen from the grave, and is capable at
will of appearing as man or vanishing as a spirit, belongs to
a sphere above the earth ; and he it is who now pauses to
look with human eyes, memories, and loves upon the
favorite spots of earth before he takes up his final abode
in heaven.
He had appointed a general gathering of his disciples at
a mountain in a secluded part of Galilee, where he after
wards " was seen of above five hundred at once ; " x and, in
view of this meeting, the apostles had gone as far as the
lake, where most of them had their homes. They were too
poor to be idle ; and, as a party of them (seven in all) were
standing one evening on the shore, Peter said, " I go
a-fishing;" whereupon they all decided to go with him,
and, getting into a vessel, pushed out into the lake. There
they lay all night long casting and drawing their net, but'
caught nothing. As day began to break, they despaired of
any luck, and were about to set in for the shore, when,
looking thither, they saw in the gray dawn some one stand
ing, and watching their movements. Hailing them, he asked
what they had caught; and, when they answered "Nothing,"
he said, " Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye
J Matt, xxviii. 16; 1 Cor. xv. 6.

556 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
shall find." The stranger might be some old fisherman who
thought he knew the lake and its fish better than they, and,
like his craft, was ready with his advice. At any rate,
there could be no harm in trying again : so they cast their
net as he told them ; and now " they were not able to draw
it for the multitude of fishes."
There is an instinct in love, that is quicker than reason ;
and " that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is
the Lord." John felt the presence where Peter saw only
the wonder ; but, at that hint, Peter girt his coat about him,
and leaped into the sea. Here is Peter again, with his old
impulsiveness of temperament ; only this is not the impetu
osity of pride nor of zeal, but of love. He does not now ask
to walk upon the sea, as a sign that this is Jesus indeed ; but,
trusting to his sturdy arms, he goes plashing through the
water, and runs dripping up the beach. But the other
disciples are not far behind him. Getting into the boat,.
they drag the net after them to the shore, where Peter runs
to help them ; and, all tugging together, they draw the net
to land, and find it " full of great fishes, an hundred and
fifty and three." Great was their surprise, that, " for all
there were so many, yet was not the net broken ; " but they
were speechless with amazement when, on turning rounds
they saw on the shore " a fire of coals, and fish laid thereon,.
and bread," and heard themselves called to come and
eat. " And none of the disciples durst ask, Who art thou ?

ONE LAST LOOK AND WORD. 557

knowing that it was the Lord." Hungry as they were,
they would not even touch the food ; but Jesus, drawing
nearer, took bread and fish, and distributed with his own
hands. The meal over, the Lord turned to Simon Peter, and said,
" Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these ? "
Once Peter was forward to say, " Though all men shall be
offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended;"
and just now he had jumped into the sea, leaving the rest
to follow in the boat, as though he were more eager than
they to greet the Lord. But now he drops the tone of
boasting ; he makes no comparison of himself with others ;
the very question of Jesus is probing his heart. Yes, he
has been vain, weak, impulsive, more confident than trust
ful ; but it was the generosity of love that prompted his
self-assertion ; and, though in a sudden moment of bewilder
ment and anguish he did forsake his Master, even then he
did not abandon his love. That love drew from him bitter
tears ; that love drew him after the cross, and early to the
sepulchre ; and now with the humility of one who has
fallen, but also the full consciousness that because of this
fall he knows his heart better than before, he appeals to
Jesus: "Yea, Lord: thou knowest that I love thee."
"Jesus said to him, Feed my lambs." He has no praises
nor honors to bestow for the profession of love. Love must
be shown by service, by work and sacrifice. And to this

558 JESUS OF NAZARETH. .
forward and fiery disciple Jesus assigns a task that calls for
meekness and gentleness, — the quiet, patient work of
caring for the lambs, giving instruction, counsel, guidance,
to the young disciples of the flock.
A second time Jesus asks, " Simon, son of Jonas, lovest
thou me?" A second time the disciple feels the probe ; and
now it goes still deeper ; for Jesus does not ask whether
Peter has a greater love than the rest, but whether he really
loves at all. In the same tone of humility and reverence,
and with the same consciousness of sincerity, Peter answers,
" Yea, Lord : thou knowest that I love thee." Again he
receives the command, "Feed my sheep." And now the
third time comes the searching question, "Simon, son of
Jonas, lovest thou me ? " Alas, poor Peter ! Was ever a
soul put to such a testing ? Not a word of doubt or reproof
is spoken, not one allusion to what he had said and done
on that eventful night. But his eyes are swimming, his heart
is breaking ; for with this third question he is again in the
court of the high priest's palace, he is cursing and denying,
he hears the crowing cock ; he sees Jesus buffeted, scourged,
mocked, bleeding, dying, and himself afar off with the oath
of denial blistering his lips even while his Lord prays,
"Father, forgive them." Yet in the depth of his heart he
does love, he did love even then ; and, bitterly as he wept
for his sudden sin, he is more grieved that Jesus should
seem to doubt him still. This three times asking cuts

ONE LAST LOOK AND WORD. 559
him deeper than any censure. What can he say ? What
shall he do ? Ah ! he is deafing now with no mere human
master ; his risen Lord can search the heart : and so from
the depths of his own consciousness he throws himself
upon the consciousness of Jesus, " Lord, thou knowest all
things: thou knowest that I love thee." And yet there
comes no word of assurance, no token that it is enough :
only the same command, Let love, then, do its task, —
" Feed my sheep."
But here was an assurance stronger than words could
have given. This command was a trust ; and, since the
kingdom of Christ could advance only by knowledge and
truth, the trust of feeding and guiding his disciples was the
highest mark of confidence and honor. How touchingly
Peter reminds us of this in his epistles to believers, where
he says, " Ye were as sheep going astray, but are now
returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls ; " l
and to the " elders " he says, " Feed the flock of God, not
as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to
the flock; and, when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye
shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." 2
Thus Peter came to know and prize the honor that the
Lord had conferred upon him in intrusting to him the care
of the lambs, the feeding of the sheep.
At this moment too, in the tone of the third question, the
i 1 Pet. i. 25. a 1 Pet. v. 1-4.

560 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
heart of Jesus had responded to the heart of Peter. Jesus
had put his question in a word that signifies such high and
sacred love as men render to God ; and Peter had answered
by a word that expresses the warmth of human affection.
But, in the third question, our Lord takes this word out of
Peter's mouth, as though he would open again his heart as
a man, to answer to the yearning, burning, yet grieving,
breaking heart of his disciple. Recognizing thus the sin
cerity of Peter's love, the Lord predicts to what this love
will bring him, — the loss of liberty, the loss of life.
" When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and
walkedst whither thou wouldest ; but, when thou shalt be
old, thou shalt stretch forth thine hands, and another
shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not."
Yes, he too should be stretched upon the cross. "And,
when Jesus had spoken this, he saith to Peter, Follow
me." Let love prove itself by obedience and by sacrifice.
The disciple who would follow Jesus in his triumph and
to his glory must follow him in his own way. As the
resurrection gives to his followers no exemption from
dying, neither does his glory procure them exemption from
suffering. In the spirit of labor and of sacrifice, they must
follow Jesus as he was on earth, if they would be with
Jesus where he is in the glory of his Father.
It is not possible in a moment to change one's tempera
ment, nor even by the severest discipline to conquer all its

ONE LAST LOOK AND WORD. 561
tendencies. So Peter's old impulse to have his say about
every thing seizes upon him as he sees John also following ;
and he said to Jesus, " Lord, and what shall this man do ? "
But, though Jesus would impart every thing to faith, he
never yielded any thing to curiosity.
A poor widow, born a heathen, yearning for a word of
mercy, begging even for the crumbs from the Master's table,
could win a miracle of healing as a reward of her faith;
but not the clamor of the people, the official demand of the
Pharisees, nor the authority of Herod, could extort from
him a sign. So here Jesus taught Peter that we should
rather study to know and do the will of God, than speculate
about his providence : direct, present, personal obedience to
Christ, rather than curious inquiry as to details of his
kingdom, is the mark of devotion to that kingdom, as
well as to Christ himself. Peter had been told that love
meant service and sacrifice; and the life of toil and the
death of pain before him were then illumined and ennobled
by the summons, " Follow me." But Peter must know
what service and what fate were appointed to John. The
Master answered, " If I will that he tarry till I come, what
is that to thee ?" and, to shut off all such inquiry, he added
with emphasis, " Follow thou me." In the service of Christ,
it is the duty of each and every one to stand in his own
place, there to live and to die with a loving, patient, obedi
ent heart ; for allegiance to the Master is personal, and must

562 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
be rendered by each for himself, apart from the circum
stances or position, the performances or the failures, of
others. The notion went out among the disciples, that John
should not die. But Jesus had said, "If I will that he tarry
till I come ; " and, to the believer, death is only a coming of
the Lord to set free his spirit, that it may be with Christ in
his glory.

CHAPTER XLII.
IN THE HIGHEST.
Now that Jesus had risen from the dead, his ascent to
heaven in an open and visible manner was a simple neces
sity to the moral value of his resurrection, and to the final
impression of his life, his teaching, and his death. To have
fallen again under the power of death, and have been again
laid in the grave, — as must have happened to Lazarus, —
in the case of Jesus would have made of the resurrection a
mere dramatic show of power, without moral significance.
When Jesus raised Lazarus he showed his power over the
physical laws, processes, and effects involved in death and
decay. But Jesus rose from the dead to make known his
power over death itself, — in all its fears, its pains, its possi
bilities, in its forebodings equally with its effects, in those
moral and spiritual associations and issues of which the
physical event is only a type. The resurrection of Lazarus
was declarative : the resurrection of Jesus was redemptive,
attesting his own words in- that grand prophetic hope of
humanity, " I am the resurrection and the life : he that
563

564 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live ; " !
" Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal
life ; and I will raise him up at the last day."2 Had even
his body then sunk back into the arms of death, how weak
had seemed that promise, how vain that hope !
If, on the other hand, Jesus had simply vanished from
among his disciples, the impression of his 'resurrection might
in time have vanished also. Again and again had he
appeared to them suddenly in his familiar form, then disap
peared as suddenly, they knew not how. Where he was in
the intervals, they could not guess, they dared not ask. If
his last disappearance had been after this fashion, they
would long have watched and waited for his coming again,
would slowly have given him up ; and then, not knowing
how to trace nor where to place him, they might have fallen
to doubting whether his appearances were not apparitions
merely, without substantial identity. But Jesus joined their
last view of him on earth with his return to heaven as a
palpable reality.
After the scene at the lake, he had met his disciples at a
mountain in Galilee, and had there given the apostles their
final commission, saying, " All power is given unto me in
heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost ; and, lo, I am with you alway, even
1 John xi. 25. 2 John vi. 54.

TN THE HIGHEST. 565

unto the end of the world." 1 But, for this commission,
they should receive a special power from on high ; and for
this they must return to Jerusalem, and there await the
baptism of the Holy Spirit.
For the period of forty days after his passion had Jesus
thus at intervals " showed himself alive to his disciples by
many infalfible proofs, speaking of the things pertaining
to the kingdom of God." 2 At length, one morning when
the eleven were together, Jesus being with them, they asked
him, "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the king
dom to Israel ? " Their old Jewish hope of a conquering
and reigning Messiah, crushed by the death of their Master,
was revived by his resurrection. Now they fully believed
in Jesus as the Christ ; but they would not understand his
ways. How well it would have suited them if he had gone
and shown himself to the sanhedrim and to Pilate as alive
from the dead, and, in the surprise and terror of his enemies,
had proclaimed his kingdom! But this sacred seal of his
mission was not for a show to sceptics. For a moment he
would have been to them a wonder and a terror ; but soon
they would have said again, " He hath a devil." His king
dom was the kingdom of truth ; and truth must rest upon
moral conviction. The resurrection had answered its end
in convincing and confirming the disciples ; the fact was
made sure by sufficient witnesses • but it was not the fact,
1 Matt, xxviii. 18, 19. 2 Acts i. 3.

566 JESUS OF NAZARETH.
but the spiritual truth that this fact taught and certified,
which was to be preached. There could be no gain in Jesus'
remaining upon earth to show himself to strangers: since.
the fact of his death and his identity would have to be
established in each case; and then he would be only a
wonder among men. There would have been no gain in his
setting up a kingdom of earthly power : since it matters
little for the real good of human society how the forms of
government or the persons of rulers may change, so long as
the hearts of men — the seat of evil — remain unchanged.
" It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which
the Father hath put into his own power." Leave the man
agement of the kingdom to Him who rules. Show your
faith in the kingdom, and your love for it, by proclaiming
the truth in which it rests, by which it rules. " Ye shall
be witnesses for me."
As this conversation began, they had set out upon the old
familiar walk over the Mount of Olives. This little party of
twelve men, thus quietly walking, would attract no special
attention; and they went on like any wayfarers, till they
had turned the shoulder of the mountain where the little
village of Bethany came in sight, and Jerusalem was lost to
view. On that side the mountain was quite bare of culture
and of dwellings, save where the little village of date-trees
nestled in its sheltered nook. At this point Jesus halted ;
and he who had been walking and talking with the apostles,

IN THE HIGHEST. 567

as he had so often done just there in the week before his
death, now lifted up his hands, and blessed them. " And,
even as he blessed them, he was parted from them, and taken
up; and a cloud received him out of their sight." The song
of his birth once more wraps the earth in the folds of
heaven, — here the benediction, there the glory. With
hands uplifted he blesses the disciples, leaves to men peace
and good-will, and then goes up to God in the highest.'
Long do the disciples stand looking steadfastly, wistfully,
toward heaven as he goes up ; when suddenly two angels are
beside them, who say, " Why stand ye gazing up into
heaven ? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into
heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go
into heaven." They returned to Jerusalem with great joy,
and went forth, and preached everywhere.
From that hour the most momentous fact in history, —
the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth, — the most potent
means of moral reform, the most mighty influence of spirit
ual experience, began to work in human society, transform
ing that society, purifying and ennobling it, till at length
Christianity has become its own witness; itself greater
than all its miracles, the wonder of the ages, attesting
Jesus as the Son of God, and his word as the power of an
endless life.

£ngrnvea expressly for Eev. J~.F.Tboinp8on'e"LiFa or Jjtsus."

Copyright^ IB7S, £y Henry Sill

APPENDIX.

The Lives of the Apostles.

PREFACE.

Those who are interested in the life and teachings of the
Saviour will naturally desire to know something of the men whom
he chose to be his personal attendants during the period of his
public ministry, and to whom he committed the work of preaching
his gospel and instituting his church in the world. The publisher
of Dr. Thompson's " Life of Jesus of Nazareth for Young
People," desiring to add to that excellent work an appendix
containing the lives of the apostles, requested the undersigned to
compile and edit the same. In compliance with that request, the
following sketches have been prepared, and are now submitted to
the public. The work was found to be more difficult than was
anticipated, because of the scantiness of materials furnished in the
New Testament, the uncertainty of nuury of the ancient traditions,"
and the conflicting views of eminent writers on several important
questions. The compiler has endeavored to make these biog
raphies as complete as possible, and to present on all doubtful
points the latest and most generally received conclusions. Among
the works which have been consulted in the preparation of these
sketches, to some of which the compiler is largely indebted, may
be mentioned those of Smith, Ayre, Kitto, Watson, Pressense;
Lange, Hanna, Farrar, Geikie, and Fleetwood. It is hoped that
these biographies of the chosen apostles of Jesus ma}' be received
with favor by au intelligent public, and prove interesting and in-
571

572 PBEPACE.
structive to those who may read them in connection with the life
of their Divine Master ; and, if the reader shall derive as much
profit from the perusal of the work as the compiler has found in its
preparation, his largest wish will be realized. N. G. Lippitt.
Nobwich, Conn.

INTRODUCTION TO THE LIVES OF THE
APOSTLES.

The term "apostle" signifies a messenger, or one sent forth;
and was the official designation of the twelve whom our Lord
selected from among his disciples, " that they should be with him,
and that he might send them forth to preach." The word has also
a higher meaning, and has been used to denote an envoy, or
ambassador, who represents the authority by which he is com
missioned. The Saviour intimated to the twelve very clearly, both
in his intercessory prayer in the passover chamber, and in his
address at the first meeting after his resurrection, that they were
sent forth by him, as he was sent forth by the Father. He gave
them power to work miracles, that they might furnish evidence of
their divine authority, and thus be fully qualified for their mission.
They seem to have had three distinct calls : the first, to become
disciples ; the second, to serve as evangelists ; and the third, to
the apostolic office. The number twelve was doubtless adopted
with reference to the twelve tribes of Israel, to whom they were
primarily sent with the message of salvation. They were to
continue with Jesus during the period of his public ministry, that
573

574 OTTRODTJCTION.

they might witness his life and works, and listen to his discourses,
that so they might be prepared to give an intelligent testimony to
gospel facts, and a clear presentation of gospel doctrines. The
apostolic office did not, however, attain its full proportions until
after the ascension of Jesus ; for not till then was the record
testimony completed, and the promised endowment of spiritual
power bestowed.
Two very interesting facts, in connection with the choice of the
twelve, are mentioned by the evangelists. The first is, that it
followed the awakening of his sympathy by the sight of the
fainting multitude. We are told that " he was moved with
compassion," — words used more than once to describe his
benevolent interest in fallen humanity, and which not only indicate
his feelings on this occasion, but furnish the key that unlocks the
whole nrystery of his mission of poverty, toil, and suffering.
Beholding the morally destitute condition of the world, he said,
"The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few : pray ye
therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers
into his harvest." And then, in order to lay the foundation of a
church and ministry which should work for the salvation of men,
down to the end of time, he appointed his twelve apostles, giving
their divine commission and qualification. Jesus has the deepest
interest in this work : he alone can supply the men suited to its
accomplishment, and he will give the men in answer to the prayer
of his Church.
The second fact is, that the previous night was spent in prayer.
We are told that " he went out into a mountain to pray," and

INTKODTJCTION. 575

continued all night in prayer to God. There is something
deeply affecting in the account of Christ's nights of prayer, —
the loneUness and stillness of the scene, the stars of the Eastern
heaven raining their lustre out of the heights of blue, and the
Saviour kneeling on the damp earth, that from communion with
his Father he may gain strength for the morrow's work. All the
prominent events of his life were attended and hallowed by prayer ;
and it was especially fitting that an event so vitally connected with
the perpetuity of his kingdom and the conversion of the world
should be introduced and sanctified by prayer.
Who and what were the men whom Jesus called to the apostolic
office and work? Must we not necessarily infer that they were
the right men for the place ? If not, it must be for one of the
three following reasons, — first, that he was ignorant of the kind
of agency best suited to the work ; or, second, that he was igno
rant of the capabilities of the men he appointed ; or, third, that
there were no others of a better class who came within the reach
of his choice. But we -cannot accept either of these hypotheses
for a moment : for Jesus understood the nature of the work, and
the qualifications requisite for its accomplishment ; he knew what
was in man, and could not therefore be deceived in those whom he
selected ; and he had at his command all men of all classes. It is
a very common opinion, that the chosen disciples were men of the
poorest class, of very inferior abilities, arid entirely destitute of
intellectual culture, and that the selection was thus made in order
to exalt the divine wisdom and power. But these views are all
mistaken. They were men from the respectable middling class,

576 INTRODUCTION.
possessed of good natural abilities, and favored with a fair com
mon and religious education, as the writings of several of them
abundantly testify. . Nor is it necessary to disparage their ability
or culture in order to exalt the divine grace ; for the work of sav
ing men, aside from the energy imparted by the Holy Ghost, is
equally above the reach of the highest intellectual attainments.
They were the right men for the work, — men of good natural abili
ties, of respectable social position, and of competent education ;
men who were unperverted by the absurd traditions and prejudices
of the Pharisaic aristocracy, and therefore prepared to give their
hearty sympathy to the doctrines and mission of Jesus ; men of
the people, who could readily gain access to the masses, and carry
their convictions and sympathies ; just the men, when endued with
the Holy Ghost, to bear the gospel to the nations, and lay broad
and deep the foundation of Christ's Church for the ages.
If we carefully study the history of the early Church, we shall
find three somewhat distinct periods of apostolic agency. During
the first period the centre is Jerusalem, where the mother Church
grew up under the supervision of the apostles, the only mission
abroad being that to Samaria, where Jesus himself had sown the
seed of the gospel. The centre of the second period is Antioch,
where a large church, consisting of both Jews and Gentiles, had
been gathered, and the chief figure is that of the apostle Paul.
The third period is marked by the almost entire disappearance of
the original apostles from the sacred narrative, and by the widely
extended and powerful agency of the great apostle of the Gentiles.
A blessed and enduring work was that wrought for the world by

INTRODUCTION. 577

these apostles. Being dead they yet live. Their voices, hushed
to silence, have sent their echoes down the ages, so that they
speak to us to-day. Their influence, like the circling waves from
the pebble thrown into the placid lake, has been constantly widen-
intf, and will continue to extend until it shall strike the shore of
eternity, and its full results be seen in the revelations of the last
day.

THE
LIVES OF THE APOSTLES.

SIMON PETER.
In each of the lists of Christ's chosen twelve which are found
in the Gospels, the name of this apostle stands first. His pre
eminence, as thus indicated, was not, however, that of official posi
tion or authorhy, but rather that which would readily be conceded
to a man of his alertness, clearness, and vigor of thought, and of
his promptness, boldness, and energy, both in speech and action.
His ardent temperament, combined with his executive ability,
especially qualified him to be the master-spirit of the apostolic
brotherhood. The nobility of his character and life after he
became fully confirmed as a follower of Jesus, and the blessed and
enduring work which he wrought for humanity as a laborer in the
Master's vinej'ard, entitle him to a high place on the roll of the
world's moral heroes and benefactors. Scanty and incomplete as
is his biography, it is full of instruction and interest, and will
amply repay the most careful study.
His original name was Simon, signifying "hearing" or "hear
ing with acceptance; " but Jesus, at their first interview, called
him Cephas, a word which means a " stone or rock," and of which
the name Peter is the equivalent. He was a native of Bethsaida,
a town in Galilee, not far from Capernaum, on the western shore
of the Sea of Gennesaret. The date of his birth is not known
579

580 SIMON PETER.

but it is supposed to have been about ten years previous to that of
Christ. Of his father we know nothing except that his name was
Jonas, and that he was by occupation a fisherman. Simon fol
lowed the business of his father, and, with his brother Andrew, was
a partner of James and John the sons of Zebedee, who had hired
servants. The apostle did not live, as a mere laboring-man, in a hut by
the seaside, but first at Bethsaida, and afterwards in a house at
Capernaum, belonging to himself or his mother-in-law, which must
have been rather a large one, since he received in it not only our
Lord and his fellow-disciples, but multitudes who were attracted
by the miracles and preaching of Jesus. It is not probable that
he and his brother were wholly uneducated. The statement in
Acts iv. 13, that " the council perceived they [i.e., Peter and John]
were unlearned and ignorant men," is not incompatible with this
assumption. The translation of the passage in the common version
is said by competent critics to be rather exaggerated, the word
rendered " unlearned " being nearly equivalent to " laymen ; " that
is, men of ordinary education, as contrasted with those who had
been specially trained in the schools of the rabbis. His recorded
discourses, and especially his epistles, indicate not only intellectual
ability, but considerable ruclimental knowledge, which was probably
extended afterward as the need was felt. That he was an affec
tionate husband, married in early life to a wife who accompanied
him in his apostolic journeys, are facts inferred from Scripture ;
while very ancient traditions, recorded by Clement of Alexandria
and by other early but less trustworthy writers, inform us that her
name was Perpetua, that she bore a daughter and perhaps other
children, and suffered martyrdom as a Christian.
Simon's introduction to Jesus, and his first call as a disciple, are
recorded somewhat minutely by John, in the first chapter of his

SIMON PETER. 581

Gospel. His brother Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist,
and was present when he pointed to Jesus, and said, " Behold the
Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world." Andrew,
with another disciple, whose name is not mentioned, but who was
probably John the brother of James, then sought the acquaintance
of Jesus, and were kindly welcomed by him. But, not content to
enjoy the privilege of fellowship with Jesus alone, Andrew went
immediately in search of his brother Simon. Having found him, he
addressed to him those words, so full of interest to the mind and
heart of the Jew, " We have found the Messias." And then, hav
ing given this testimony, and exercising a brother's power over a
brother's heart, "he brought him to Jesus." It was upon this
occasion that Jesus gave him the name Cephas, or Peter. After
having spent the day with Jesus, the two brothers took their leave
of him, and returned to their ordinary occupation of fishing.
This first call led to no immediate change in Peter's external posi
tion. He and his fellow-disciples looked henceforth upon our Lord
as their teacher, but were not commanded to follow him as regular
disciples. The second call is recorded by the other three Evangel
ists ; the narrative of Luke being apparently supplementary to the
brief, and, so to speak, official accounts, given by Matthew and
Mark. It took place on the Sea of Galilee, near Capernaum,
where the four disciples, Peter and Andrew, James and John, were
fishing. Peter and Andrew were first called. Our Lord then en
tered Simon Peter's boat, and addressed the multitude on the shore.
As soon as he had concluded his discourse, he directed Peter to row
farther from the shore, and cast his net into the sea ; to which he
replied that they had labored during the night, which was the
proper time for fishing, and had taken nothing, implying that there
could then be but a slight prospect of success. Yet, in obedience
to his Master's command, he let down his net ; when, to the aston-

582 SIMON PETER.

ishment both of himself and of his companions, he found that it
was full. Amazed at this miraculous draught of fishes, and con
scious of his unworthiness of fellowship with one so evidently pos
sessed of supernatural wisdom and power, he fell prostrate at the
feet of Jesus, confessing with deep humility his sinfulness, and
earnestly deprecating what he feared might be the result of such
contact with the divine. But Jesus kindly removed his fears, as
suring him that this miracle was wrought to confirm his faith, and
to indicate to him the nobler employment of saving men to which
he was called. Immediately after that call, our Lord went to the
house of Peter, where he wrought the miracle of healing on Peter's
wife's mother. Some time was passed afterwards in attendance
upon our Lord's public ministrations in Galilee, Decapolis, Perea,
and Judea. The special designation of Peter and his eleven fel
low-disciples took place some time afterwards, when they were
set apart as our Lord's immediate attendants (see Matt. x.
2-4; Mark iii. 13-19, the most detailed account; Luke vi. 13).
They appear then first to have received formally the name of
apostles ; and from that time Simon bore publicly, and, as it would
seem, all but exclusively, the name Peter, which had hitherto been
used rather as a characteristic appellation than as a proper name.
Soon after this election, the blessed Jesus, attended by Peter
and the two sons of Zebedee, followed Jairus, a ruler of the syna
gogue, to his house, in order to restore his daughter, an only
child, who laj- at the point of death ; but before their arrival a
messenger arrived with the news that the damsel was dead, and
therefore it was unnecessary for our Saviour to give himself any
further trouble. But our blessed Saviour bade the ruler not
despair ; for, if he believed, his daughter should yet be restored
to her former health. And accordingly, on his arrival, he took
the maid by the hand, and with the power of a word recalled her

SIMON PETER. 583

fleeting spirit, which had quitted its earthly tabernacle, and re
stored her again to life and health.
We have no further account of St. Peter in particular till the
night after our Saviour's miraculously feeding the multitude in the
wilderness. Jesus had ordered his disciples to take ship, and pass
over to the other side, while he sent the multitude away. But, a
Adolent storm arising, they were in great danger of their lives,
when their Master came unto them, walking on the surface of the
boisterous billows with the same ease as if it had been dry-
ground. At his approach the disciples were greatly terrified, sup
posing they had seen a spirit. But their compassionate Master
soon dispelled their fears, by telling them it was he himself, and
therefore they had no reason to be terrified.
Peter, who was always remarkable for bold resolutions, desired
his Master to give him leave to come to him on the water ; and, on
obtaining permission, he left the ship, and walked on the sea to
meet his Saviour. But when he heard the deep roar around him,
and the waves increase, he began to be afraid ; and, as his faith
declined, his body sunk in the water, so that, in the greatest
agony, he called for assistance to Him who was able to save. Nor
was his cry in vain : the compassionate Redeemer of mankind
stretched out his hand, and again placed him on the surface of the
water, with this gentle reproof: " O thou of little faith, where
fore didst thou doubt? " And no sooner had the blessed Jesus
entered into the ship, than the winds ceased, the waves subsided,
and the ship was at the land whither they were going. A miracle
of this kind could not fail of astonishing the disciples, and con
vincing them of the divinity of his mission : accordingly they drew
near, and worshipped him, with this confession: "Of a truth
thou art the Son of God."
The next day our blessed Saviour entered the sj-nagogue of Ca-

584 SIMON PETER.

pernaum, and, from the miracle of the loaves, took occasion to dis
course concerning himself as the true manna, and the bread which
came down from heaven, opening to them the more subhme and
spiritual mysteries of the gospel ; on which, a great part of the
audience, who expected he was going to erect a temporal ldngdom,
and re-establish the throne of David in Jerusalem, offended at his
representing his dominion as entirely spiritual, departed from him,
and came no more to hear his discourses. Jesus, on beholding
this defection, turned himself towards his disciples, and asked
them whether they also would go away ; to which Peter replied,
" Lord, whither shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life."
To whom should we apply -for life and salvation? " Thou art the
way, the truth, and the life."
The inhabitants of Judea, who beheld with astonishment the
miracles wrought by the blessed Jesus, had formed many conjec
tures concerning him. Our great Redeemer was not ignorant of
this, but, being willing to hear what account his disciples would
give of the various opinions of the people, asked them what the
world said concerning him. To which they replied, that some
took him for John the Baptist risen from the dead ; some thought
him to be Elias ; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the old prophets.
He asked them what they themselves thought of him ; to which
Peter, in the name of the rest, answered, " Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God."
This full and comprehensive declaration of Peter satisfied the
inquhy of our blessed Saviour, who answered, " Blessed art thou,
Simon Bar-jona ; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto
thee, but my Father which is in heaven." That is, this faith
which thou hast now confessed is not human, or built upon the
testimonj- of men, but upon the knowledge which I was sent from
God to reveal unto the world: therefore I say also unto thee,

SIMON PETER. 585

" That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." It was as the
mouthpiece of the whole that Peter replied, " Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God" (Matt. xvi. 16). The title Peter
then gave his Master implied that he believed him to be a divine
person. Peter might not, perhaps, apprehend as yet the full sig
nificance of this ; but he had reached a belief higher than the
current notions of the age : he had some glimpse of the cardinal
truth to be in time fully proved, though not to be proclaimed just
yet, that Jesus was the only-begotten of the Father. Hence the
peculiar force of our Lord's reply, " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-
jona ; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my
Father which is in heaven " (17). It was heavenly teaching, no
doubt, which imparted to him such a mystery. The succeeding
words of Christ (18, 19) are very remarkable, and have provoked
keen controversy.
Various expositions have been given of the declaration, " Thou
art Peter ; and upon this rock I will build my church ; ' ' but two
only need be noticed here. It is maintained b}r some, that Peter
was the rock on which the Church was to be built ; and that the
promise was fulfilled when on the day of Pentecost he first
preached Jesus the crucified, "both Lord and Christ " (Acts ii.
36) , exercising the authoritj' of the ke3_s which had been intrusted
to him, and opening to the people the door of salvation by faith in
the Saviour. There is a propriety, it is readily admitted, in this
interpretation ; and it agrees well with other passages of Scripture
in which apostles are spoken of as foundations of the Church
(Eph. ii. 20; Rev. xxi. 14). If this interpretation be admitted,
it gives no countenance to any supremacy of Peter, still less to
the claim of such supremacy as descending in a single line of
bishops, presumed successors of Peter in a particular see. For

586 SIMON PETER.

this apostle spoke in the name and with the accordance of his fel
lows, to whom in general the question had been addressed : they,
equally with him, are termed foundations ; and to them too, not
derived through Peter, the power of the keys was as largely given
(John xx. 21-23) .
But there is an interpretation of the words in question, perhaps
more satisfactory. Putting aside, as scarcely to be defended, the
view that Christ in saying " upon this rock " pointed to or meant
himself in contrast with Peter, we may advert to the peculiar
character, above noticed, of Peter's confession. It was the an
nouncement of the most glorious truth of the gospel. Made in
good faith, as revealed by the heavenly Father to the apostle, it
showed that he was upon the rock. He was now Peter indeed,
exhibiting that personal characteristic in the view of which Christ
had long before given him the name. And well, therefore, on this
might the Lord say, " Thou art Peter," the firm maintainer of
fundamental truth; and on this rock, this immutable truth, a
Church should be built, against which the gates of hell could not
prevail. It was the dignity of the Lord's person which gave effect
to his work, and security to those that believed in him. Had he
been merely a man, the gates of the unseen world would not have
unclosed at his bidding : it was because he was the Son of God,
that, as Peter himself proclaimed on the day of Pentecost, "it
was not possible that he should be holden of" death (Acts ii. 24).
It was rather, then, from this great ground-doctrine, that the
Church grew, than that it rested on Peter as a foundation. This
view is adopted by a large number of able expositors.
The disciples had no idea that their Master was to suffer death
for the sins of the world : on the contrary, they considered him as
immortal, having imbibed the opinion of the scribes and Phari
sees, that " Christ abideth forever ; " so that when the blessed

SIMON PETER. 587

Jesus told them of the sufferings he must undergo at Jerusalem,
what affronts and indignities he must suffer, and be at last put to
death, with all the acts of torture and disgrace, by a sentence of
the Jewish Sanhedrim, Peter, who could not endure the thoughts
of his Master's suffering even the least punishment, much less
those cruelties he had mentioned, and at last death itself, inter
rupted him very unseasonably, and said, "Be it far from thee,
Lord: this shall not be unto thee." He considered these suffer
ings as inconsistent with the character of the great Messiah, who
he expected would restore the splendor of the throne of David his
father, and reduce all the kingdoms of the earth to his obedience.
But our blessed Saviour, who came down from heaven to give his
life a ransom for the sins of the world, and who valued the re
demption of mankind infinitely more than his own ease and safety,
highly resented this speech of St. Peter, and accordingly returned
this sharp reproof: "Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an
offence to me." Thy pernicious counsel, in seeking to oppose the
design for which I purposely left the courts of heaven, is offensive ;
and thou " savorest not the things of God, but those that be of
men." Some time after, the great Redeemer, being to receive a speci
men of his future glorification, took with him three of his most
intimate apostles, Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and went up
into a very high mountain ; and, while he was praj-ing, he was trans
figured before them, darting such lustre from his face as exceeded
the meridian rays of the sun in brightness ; and such beams, of
light issued from his garments as exceeded the light of the clear
est day, — a sensible representation of that state when " the just
shall walk in white robes, and shine as the sun in the kingdom of
their Father." During this heavenly scene, the great prophets,
Moses and Elias, appeared in all the brightness and majesty of a

588 SIMON PETER.

glorified state, familiarly conversing with him, and discoursing of
the death and sufferings he was shortly to undergo, and his ascension
to the heavenly regions of bliss and happiness.
In the mean time Peter and the two apostles were fallen asleep,
but, on their waking, were strangely surprised to see their Lord sur
rounded with so much glory, and those two great persons conversing
with him. They, however, remained silent till those visitants from
the courts of heaven were going to depart, when Peter, in a rapture
and ecstasy of mind, addressed himself to his Master, declaring
their infinite pleasure and delight in being favored with this glorious
spectacle, and desired his leave to erect three tabernacles, — one
for him, one for Moses, and one for Elias. But, while he was
speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed those two great prophets ;
and a voice came from it, uttering these remarkable words : " This
is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear j'e him."
On which the apostles were seized with the utmost consternation,
and fell upon their faces to the ground ; but Jesus, touching them,
bade them dismiss their fears, and look up with confidence. They
immediately obeyed, but saw their Master only.
After this heavenly scene our blessed Lord travelled through
Galilee ; and, at his return to Capernaum, the tax-gatherers came to
Peter, and asked him whether his Master paid tribute. When our
blessed Saviour was informed of this demand, rather than give
offence, he wrought a miracle to pay it. Our great Redeemer
was now going for the last time to Jerusalem, and he ordered two of
his disciples — probably Peter and John — to fetch him an ass, that
he might enter the city on it, as had been foretold. The disciples
obeyed their Master, and brought the ass to Jesus, who, being
mounted thereon, entered the city amidst the hosannas of a nu
merous multitude, with palm-branches in their hands, proclaiming
at once both the majesty of a prince and the triumph of a Saviour.

SIMON PETER. 589

From Jerusalem the blessed Jesus proceeded to Bethany, and
thence sent two of his disciples, Peter and John, to make prepara
tions for his celebrating the passover. Every thing being ready,
our blessed Saviour and his apostles entered the house, and sat
down to table. But their great Master, who often taught them by
example as well as precept, arose from his seat, laid aside his upper
garment, took the towel, and, pouring water into a basin, began to
wash his disciples' feet, to teach them humility and charity by his
own example. But, on his coming to Peter, he would by no means
admit his Master to perform so mean and condescending an office.
What ! the Son of God stoop to wash the feet of a sinful mortal !
— a thought which shocked the apostle, who strenuously declared,
' ' Thou shalt never wash my feet. ' ' But the blessed Jesus told him,
that if he washed him not, he could have no part with him ; inti
mating that this action was mystical, and signified the remission of
sins, and the purifying virtue of the Spirit of the Most High, to be
poured out upon all true Christians. This answer sufficiently re
moved the scruples of Peter, who cried out, "Lord, not my feet
only, but also my hands and my head." Wash me in every part,
rather than let me lose my portion in thee.
The blessed Jesus, having set them this pattern of humility,
began to reflect on his approaching sufferings, and on the person
who should betray him into the hands of wicked and cruel men ;
telling them that not a stranger or an enemy, but one of his friends,
one of his apostles, and even one of them who then sat at table
with him, would betray him. This declaration exceedingly affected
them all in general, and Peter in particular, who made signs to St.
John to ask him particularly who it was. Jesus complied with
this request, and gave them to understand that it was Judas
Iscariot. Our great Redeemer now began the institution of his supper,

590 SIMON PETER.

that great and solemn institution which he resolved to leave behind
him, to be constantly celebrated in his Church as a standing monu
ment of his love in dying for mankind ; telling them, at the same
time, that he himself was now going to leave them, and that
"whither he went thejr could not come." Peter, not well under
standing what he meant, asked him whither he was going ; to which
our great Redeemer replied, that he was going to that place whither
he could not now, but should hereafter, follow him, intimating the
martyrdom he was to suffer for his Master's religion.
Peter answered that he wras ready now to follow him, even if it
required him to lay down his life. This confident presumption was
not at all agreeable to the blessed Jesus, who told him he had
promised great things, but would be so far from performing them,
that, before the cock crew, he would thrice deny his Master.
Supper being now ended, they sung a hymn, and departed to the
Mount of Olives, where Jesus again put them in mind how greatly
the things he was going to suffer would offend them ; to which
Peter replied, that, though all men should be offended because of
him, yet he himself would never be offended.
How far will an indiscreet zeal and affection transport even
a good man into vanity and presumption ! Peter questions the
fidelity of others, but never doubts his own, though his Lord had
just before reproved him for his self-sufficiency. This confidence
of Peter inspired the rest of the apostles with courage, so that
they declared their constant and unshaken adherence to their
Master. They now repaired to the garden of Gethsemane ; and, leaving
the rest of the apostles near the entrance, our blessed Saviour,
taking with him Peter, James, and John, retired into the most
solitarj- parts of the garden, to enter on the preparatory scene of
the great tragedy that was now approaching. Here the blessed

SIMON PETER. 591

Jesus labored under the bitterest agony that ever human nature
suffered, during which he prayed with the utmost fervency to his
Father, " offering up prayers and supplications with strong crying
and tears ; and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood fall
ing down to the ground." While our blessed Redeemer was thus
interceding with the Almighty, his three disciples were fallen asleep,
though he had made three several visits to them, and, calling to
Peter, asked him if he could not watch one hour with him, advis
ing them all to watch and pray, that the}- might not enter into
temptation ; adding, " The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is
weak." While he was discoursing with them, a band of soldiers from the
chief priests and elders, preceded by the traitor Judas to conduct
and direct them, rushed into the garden, and seized the great
High Priest of our profession. Peter, whose ungovernable zeal
would admit of no restraint, drew his sword, and, without the least
order from his Master, struck at one of the persons who seemed to
be remarkably busy in binding Jesus, and cut off his right ear.
This wild and unwarrantable zeal was very offensive to his Master,
who rebuked Peter, and entreated the patience of the soldiers
while he miraculously healed the wound. But now the fidelity of
the apostles, which thej- had urged with so much confidence, was
put to the trial. They saw their Master in the hands of a rude
and inconsiderate band of men ; and therefore should have exerted
their power to release him, or at least have been the companions of
his sufferings, and endeavored, by every kind, endearing action, to
have lessened his grief. But, alas ! instead of assisting or com
forting their Master, they all forsook him, and fled.
The soldiers who had bound Jesus led him awaj', and delivered
him to the chief priests and elders, who carried him from one tri
bunal to another, — first to Annas, and then to Caiaphas, where the

592 SIMON PETER.

Jewish Sanhedrim were assembled, in order to try and condemn
him. In the mean time, Peter, who had followed the other disciples in
their flight, recovered his spirits, and returned to seek his Master,
and, seeing him led towards the high priest's hall, followed at a
distance to know the event ; but, on his coming to the door, was
refused admittance, till one of the disciples, who was acquainted
there, came out, and prevailed upon the servant who kept the door
to let him in. Peter, being admitted, repaired to the fire burning
in the middle of the hall, around which the officers and servants
were standing, and mingled with them as though he might be an
indifferent spectator. Then occurred his sad and shameful fall ;
for he who had been furnished with such convincing evidences of
the divinity of Jesus, who had so frankly and positively avowed
his belief that he was the Son of God, who had proclaimed so
boldly his determination to stand by him at all hazards, and who
had been so solemnly warned of his danger and weakness, thrice
denied his Lord and Master. For such a sin, by such a man, no
valid apology can be offered ; and yet, by a careful consideration of
his previous views and expectations, we may discover how he was
led to its commission.
Passing strange it was to Peter, after making the acknowledg
ment which was so approved, to hear Christ speak of approaching
degradation, suffering, and death. All this was in his view simply
impossible ; and therefore we are told he hastily exclaimed, " This
shall not be unto thee." His exclamation drew down on him a
severe rebuke (Matt. xvi. 21-23). We may conceive the aston
ished perplexity into which he must have been thrown ; and we
have therein a clew to some of the apostle's subsequent inconsist
encies. The stronger his faith in his Master's dignity, the less
could he imagine that drear eclipse which was to come upon the

SIMON PETER. 593

Sun of righteousness ; and it was this very faith, when afterwards,
as.it seemed, so utterly deceived, that made him deny Christ.
Perhaps, had his expectations been less high, he might have held
on through those last doleful hours.
We may see the working of Peter's mind in his various obser
vations and questions. Thus, on the mount of transfiguration, he
proposed to pitch tabernacles, — the headquarters of the splendid
kingdom he supposed just about to be inaugurated (xvii. 4).
Then he would not at first allow his Master to demean himself by
washing his feet (John xiii. 8) . His unquiet curiosity about the
traitor, and his puzzled inquiries, "Whither goest thou?" and
"Lord, why cannot I follow thee now?" (23, 24, 36, 37) indicate
what was passing within. He felt that a crisis was at hand. And,
when the Lord spoke of bivying a sword (Luke xxii. 36), then
doubtless his hopes were high ; and, as the band of officers
approached, the long period of suspense was over. He was the
first to strike a blow. What cared he now for the authority of the
priests ? His Master would presently blaze forth in the refulgence
of divine might, and the rulers of the world must sink before him.
Then it was, when the meek Victim made no resistance, and was
actually led off a prisoner, — then came that vast revulsion, and
Peter seemed to wake from a flattering dream. So, then, it has
been all a delusion ! Instead of wielding heavenly power, Jesus
cannot deliver himself from a party of peace-officers. I have been
somehow deceived. It was this, the crushing of all his high-raised
hopes, the disappointment of his faith, and not mere cowardice,
that made Peter shrink. He thought he had no longer any cause
to' contend for. And, though curiosity and lingering affection for
the defeated one carried him to see the end, yet it was no more as
a disciple, but just as a spectator, that he pressed into the high
priest's palace. He did not belong to Jesus: he could have

594 SIMON PETER.

nothing to do with a man who had trifled with his honest attach
ment. Why should he involve himself in danger for such a one ?
Hence the repeated denials, not caused by fear alone, but by
mortified affection ; the strength of his denials corresponding to
the greatness of his former expectations. But, when the Lord
turned and looked upon him, then he felt it was with an omniscient
eye. He who stood to be judged could read his heart, and was
pointing to his prophetic word just then fulfilled. And the
apostle's mind misgave him. Though a dark cloud hung over the
Son of man, he might be, after all, the Master and the Lord ; and,
in an agony of shame and self-upbraiding and love and sorrow, —
for all that has been said does not excuse, it but explains his
conduct, — Peter went out, and wept bitterly.
The three denials are differently recorded by the different
evangelists. But if all the details are laid together, and it is
borne in mind that not merely three definite expressions, but a
torrent of hasty words were uttered on both sides, the independent
narratives will be found by no means contradictory. As to the
first denial, all is plain. Peter was in the hall or court of the
palace, warming himself by the fire, when he was taxed by the
porteress, who came up to him, with being of Jesus' company.
He denied, and retreated from the fire to the porch or vestibule,
and the cock crew ; but the anxious apostle did uot heed it. Next
he was lingering in the porch ; but his movements had attracted
notice : so several persons charged him — the porteress again (now
probably returned to the door), another maid, a male servant —
according to the first three evangelists. We should naturally
expect this : several in such a group would be sure to speak at
once ; and this is just what St. John, who was present, reports,
" They said." Then as to the third denial a while after: Peter,
perhaps, as thinking the danger over, had returned to the fire : but

SIMON PETER. 595

his provincial accent betrayed him to the bystanders as a Galilean ;
and a kinsman of Malchus, whose ear he had cut off, identified
him as one of those he had seen with Jesus in the garden. The
words of his reply are differently reported ; but, as St. Matthew
tells us he " began to curse and to swear," it is obvious that he
did not just utter a single sentence, but denied with repeated
asseverations. It was then that the cock crew again ; and the
Lord cast his sad warning look upon Peter, and he went out, and
wept bitterly.
Of St. Peter at the crucifixion, and during the following day,
we read nothing. On the resurrection morning he ran with John
to the sepulchre (John xx. 2-10) ; and the Lord, in the course of
that day, vouchsafed to appear to him (Luke xxiv. 34 ; 1 Cor. xv.
5) ; and with the rest of the disciples he repeatedly saw the risen
Saviour. One occasion was when he had returned to his old occu
pation of fishing on the Sea of Galilee ; and Jesus questioned him
of his love to him, and in touching terms gave him charge to feed
Ms sheep, and told him that he should follow him to death (John
xxi.) . Peter's mind was clear enough then : he saw it all, that
Jesus was alive, the Son of God forevermore.
After the ascension we find him taking his old place as spokes
man of the apostles. He proposed the election of another in the
place of Judas (Acts i. 15-25). He specially addressed the multi
tude that crowded round the apostles on the day of Pentecost (ii.
14-40) , and was indeed the central figure of the first part of the
Acts of the Apostles, which describes the planting and extension
of the Church among the Jews by his ministry. The experience
he had gained he turned to profit. He had learned his own weak
ness, and his Master's power ; and it was one of the marvels of
the age — a problem not to be solved unless the gospel doctrine
were true — that the impulsive, vacillating, inquisitive fisherman,

596 SIMON PETER.

in six or seven short weeks, was so changed in character and de
portment, into the grave and learned teacher, that, with logical
argument and masterly application of the ancient scriptures, he
boldly confronted and confounded the leading councillors and pro
found doctors of the nation (iii. 12-26, iv. 1-20, v. 29-42).
The rest of Peter's history, as we find it in scripture, can be but
lightly sketched. He was incessantly engaged in preaching Christ ;
and many miracles were wrought by his hand. When Samaria
had received the gospel, he was sent thither with John, where he
rebuked Simon Magus ; and he passed through various other dis
tricts, the Lord blessing his labors (viii. 14-25, ix. 32-43).
There was then a special crisis of the Church. God had deter
mined, according to ancient prophecy-, to make the Gentiles fellow-
heirs with Israel of the promise ; and by means of Peter the
door should be set open. But the apostles did not as yet under
stand the largeness of Messiah's kingdom. And Peter must be
taught by a symbolical vision that he was not to call any thing
common or unclean. Accordingly he was instructed to go with
the messengers of Cornelius, the devout centurion ; and, while he
was speaking to him and his company, the Holy Ghost fell upon
them. Then they were of course admitted to Christian baptism.
But the Church at Jerusalem at first censured Peter for what he
had done ; and, when he had recounted the matter, in utter wonder
they exclaimed, " Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted re
pentance unto life " (x., xi. 1-18). Peter was afterwards impris
oned by Herod Agrippa, and, the night before his intended execu
tion, miraculously delivered in answer to the prayers of the Church
(xii. 1-17). He was also subsequently present at a council of
apostles and elders (xv. 7-11).
We read no more of Peter in the Acts. A few scattered hints
of him may be gleaned from the Epistles. For the rest of his life

SIMON PETER. 597

we are left to tradition. Ecclesiastical story, however, tells us
that he left Jerusalem early, founded and presided over the church
at Antioch ; that subsequently he went to Rome, where he once
more met and confounded Simon Magus ; and that he was bishop
many years of the imperial city. He visited the East again, and
planted many churches in the West ; and at length he was martyred
with Paul at Rome, under Nero, being crucified with his head
downwards. That he was martyred, we maybe sure, and by the same kind of
death as his Lord suffered (John xxi. 18, 19). That this occurred
at Rome is highly probable. Several of the early writers — such as
Tertullian, Dionysius of Corinth, Caius the Roman presbyter,
and others — report it ; some of them mentioning memorials of the
fact, which, they say, were existing in their times. And, though
some of these authors were credulous, and their statements not
always to be relied on, yet, if Peter had suffered in any other city,
we may feel certain that the church of that city would have claimed
honor as the scene of the martj-rdom of so eminent an apostle.
But a long residence at Antioch or Rome cannot be made to fit
in with the New Testament accounts of Peter. Neither can he
have been the founder of the churches there. For Paul, three
years after his conversion, found Peter at Jerusalem (Gal. i. 18 :
comp. Acts ix. 26-28) . Somewhat later, when tidings came of
the success of the gospel at Antioch, not Peter, but Barnabas, was
sent thither, who soon associated Paul with him ; and when, after
a year's sojourn there, the two went to Jerusalem, . there was
Peter: for it was just at the time of Herod's rage against the
disciples (xi. 19-30, xii. 1). Again, fourteen years after Paul's
conversion, he was at Jerusalem with Barnabas (Gal. ii. 1). This
must have been at the time of the council (Acts xv. 2-4) ; at
which Peter was present, though, it may be observed, he did not

598 SIMON PETER.

preside. It was at this meeting that James, Peter, and John
agreed to direct their ministrations chiefly to the Jews ; while Paul
and Barnabas went to the heathen (Gal. ii. 7-9) . It is inconceiva
ble that Peter would just after betake himself to Rome, where the
church was for a long time almost exclusively Gentile; for, on
Paul's subsequent arrival there, the Jews seem scarcely to have
heard the gospel (Acts xxviii. 17-29). Besides, soon after the
council. Peter must have gone to Antioch (Gal. ii. 11-13), proba
bly at the time marked in Acts xv. 35, before Paul and Barnabas
separated. Then further: when Paul wrote his Epistle to the
Romans on his way to Jerusalem, lodging with Gaius at Corinth
(Rom. xv. 25, xvi. 23 : comp. Acts xx. 2, 3 ; 1 Cor. i. 14), he
does not name Peter to them. Years later, when Paul was carried
a prisoner thither, there is no mention of welcome from Peter ;
nor is there any reference to Peter in any letters written from
Rome. Certainly, too much stress ought not to be laid upon silence ;
but, from Peter's own Epistle (1 Pet. v. 13), the probability is that
he had not at that time quitted the East. And how could Paul at
a still later period have spoken as he did (2 Tim. iv. 6, 16, 17),
had Peter been at hand ?
The conclusion, then, is a probable one, that, though Peter suffered
at Rome near upon the time of Paul's martyrdom in the Neronian
persecution, yet it could not have been till at or after the close of
Paul's life that Peter reached the metropolis. The date of his
martjTdom is variously placed. Possibly it was about 67 or 68 A.D.
There are two Epistles in the canon of scripture which bear the
name of the apostle Peter, and which furnish ample internal evi
dence that he was their author. It has also been stated that Mark
wrote his Gospel under the teaching of Peter, or that he embodied
in that Gospel the substance of the apostle's oral instructions.
If we consider Peter as a man, there seems to have been a nat-

SIMON PETER. 599

ural eagerness predominant in his temper, which animated his soul
to the most bold, and sometimes rash, undertakings. It was this,
in a great measure, that prompted him to be so very forward to
speak, and to return answers sometimes before he well considered
them. It was this that made him expose his person to the most
imminent dangers, promise those great things in behalf of his Mas
ter, resolutely draw his sword in his quarrel against a whole band
of soldiers, and wound a servant of the high priest ; nay, he had,
in all probability, attempted greater things, had not the Lord re
strained his impetuosity, and given a seasonable check to his dis
position. If we consider him as a disciple of the blessed Jesus, we
shall find him exemplary in the great duties of religion. His hu
mility and lowliness of mind were remarkable. With what a com
passionate earnestness, on the conviction of a miracle, did he beg
our blessed Saviour to depart from him, thinking it unworthy the
Son of God to come near so vile a sinner ! When the great Re
deemer of mankind, by that amazing condescension, stooped so
low as to wash the feet of his disciples, Peter could not be per
suaded to admit his performing it, thinking it highly improper that
so great a person should submit to such a servile office towards a
person so mean as himself;, nor could he be induced to admit of
it, till his great Master threatened to deprive him of his favor.
When Cornelius the Roman centurion, heightened in his opinion of
him by an immediate command from the Almighty concerning him,
would have treated him with more than ordinary marks of esteem
and veneration, he was so far from accepting them, that he de
clared he was nothing more than a mortal like himself. His love
and zeal for his Master were remarkable : he thought he could
never express either at too high a rate, venturing on the greatest
perils, and exposing his life to the most imminent dangers. His
forwardness to own his Master for the Messiah and Son of the

600 SIMON PETER.

Most High was remarkably great ; and it was this that drew from
his Lord that honorable encomium, " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-
jona." But his courage and constancy in confessing Christ, even
before his most inveterate enemies, was still greater after he had
recovered himself from his fall. How plainly does he tell the Jews
that they were the murderers and crucifiers of the Lord of glory !
nay, with what an undaunted courage, with what a heroic greatness
of soul did he tell the very Sanhedrim who had sentenced and
condemned him, that they were guilty of his death, and that they
had no other way of escaping the vengeance of the Almighty but
by the merits of that very Jesus whom they had crucified and put
to death !
Lastly, if we consider him as an apostle, as pastor, or shepherd
of the souls of men, we shall find him faithful and diligent in his
office, zealously endeavoring to instruct the ignorant, reduce the
erroneous, strengthen the weak, confirm the strong, reclaim the
vicious, and turn the children of men into the paths of righteous
ness. He never omitted anj- opportunity of preaching to the peo
ple, and spreading the glad tidings of the gospel among the human
race ; and so powerful were his discourses, that he converted mul
titudes at one time. How many painful journeys and dangerous
voj-ages did he undertake ! With what unconquerable patience did
he endure the greatest trials, surmount every difficulty, and remove
every opposition, that he might plant the gospel of his beloved
Master, never refusing even to lay down his life to promote it!
Nor was he only assiduous to perform these duties himself: he was
also careful to animate others to do the like, earnestly pressing and
persuading the pastors and governors of the Church to feed the
flock of God, to labor freely for the good of the souls of men, and
not undertake those offices to acquire advantages to themselves ;
beseeching them to treat the flock committed to their care with len-

ANDREW. 601

ity and gentleness, and to be themselve3 shining examples of piety
and religion, — the surest method of rendering their ministry suc
cessful. And, because it was impossible for him to be always present
to teach and warn the children of men, he endeavored by letters to
imprint on their minds the practice of what they had been taught, —
a method, he tells us, he was resolved to pursue as long as he con
tinued an inhabitant of this world; "thinking it meet, while he
was in this tabernacle, to stir them up, bj' putting them in mind
of these things," that so they might be able, after his decease, to
have them always in remembrance.
Thus lived, thus died, Simon Peter, called to be an apostle of
Jesus Christ, and at length to offer up his life in ratification of the
doctrines he had delivered, and the faith he had maintained and
propagated. ANDREW.
In the catalogue of the twelve apostles, as given by Matthew
and Luke, the name of Andrew stands second. He was a native
of Bethsaida, a son of Jonas, and a brother of Simon Peter.
Whether he was older or younger than his brother is not certainly
known; but the general opinion is, that he was the younger. He
was brought up at his father's trade, and was a fisherman of the
Sea of Gennesaret till Jesus called him to be a fisher of men. He
was probably the first disciple received by our blessed Saviour.
The evangelists give us but a very small amount of information
concerning him, and record only a very few incidents of his life.
We learn that he was a follower of John the Baptist until, on the
banks of the Jordan, Christ appeared, and John pointed him out
as " the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world."
From that hour he left the ministry of John, and became a fol
lower of the Messiah. We learn that, no sooner did he attach

602 ANDREW.

himself to Christ, than he sought a close intimacy with him.
"Where dwellest thou?" said he to Jesus. On the answer,
"Come and see," being given, he, with another of John's dis
ciples, went to the home of Jesus, and abode that day. He found
his brother Simon, and brought him to Jesus, saying, " We have
found the Messias." As Jesus " walked by the Sea of Galilee,"
and beheld him and his brother Simon " casting their nets into the
sea," he called them, and commanded them to follow him. He
was present at the feeding of the five thousand, and said, in an
swer to the question of .our Saviour, — "Whence shall we buy
bread that these may eat? " — " There is a lad here, which hath
five barley loaves and two small fishes ; but what are they among
so many? " In connection with Philip, he introduced to Jesus cer
tain Greeks who desired to see him. With Peter, James, and John,
he asked of Jesus concerning the destruction of the temple, " Tell
us when shall these things be ? and what shall be the sign when all
these things shall be fulfilled ? ' ' Such is the substance of the
information which the evangelists give us of Andrew.
The sum of our knowledge of his character and life is very
small : the record is exceedingly broken and scant}-. And yet the
simple fact that he brought his brother Simon to Jesus invests his
life with the deepest interest, and crowns his name with the most
enduring honor.
When he had found Jesus for himself, he went immediately in
quest of his brother. " He first findeth his own brother Simon."
This was evidently no merely accidental meeting, but rather the
result of careful and diligent search. Andrew had found the
Christ. His soul had been thrilled by new and living truths ; his
heart had been made to glow with strange joys and hopes ; and
now he yearns for his brother's welfare, so that he cannot rest
until he has found him, and brought him to Jesus. He knocks at

ANDREW. 603

the door of every cottage where Simon was accustomed to visit ;
he hastens to the beach, and looks in every direction over the
waters of Gennesaret for his brother's boat, and continues the
search until his brother is found. There is a thoughtfulness in
Andrew's efforts for Simon, which reveal his true regard for his
brother, and his earnest desire to win him to Jesus.
Having found his brother, he then told him of Jesus. He said,
"We have found the Messias." How much this announcement
would convey to the mind of a Jew ! " The Messias," the long-
promised deliverer, the anointed of the Father, the burden of in
spired prophecy, the theme of holy song, the consolation and hope
of Israel. Andrew was a true witness for Jesus, and doubtless
gave a clear, warm, and winning testimony in his behalf.
Nor was he satisfied with merely finding his brother, and telling
him the story of what he had seen and heard. He desired that
Simon might enjoy the same personal acquaintance and intimacy
with the Saviour with which he had been favored; and so- "he
brought him to Jesus. " He gave him a kind and urgent invita
tion, exerted a brother's power over a brother's heart, accompanied
his brother to the Saviour's presence, and then gave him an intro
duction to Jesus.
What a service Andrew rendered to his brother in that act ! His
soul was translated into a new world ; and he became a new man
in Christ Je'sus. The whole tendency and current of his life took
a new direction ; and his immortal destiny in the world to come
was changed. What blessings crowned his earthly career ! what
consolations brightened the closing scene ! What fadeless honors
encircle his name ! what immortal joys are his in heaven !
What a service was that which Andrew rendered to the disci
ples of the early days in that act ! The introduction into their
circle of such a nature as Simon's — so warm, so frank, so bold,

604 ANDREW.

and so deeply inspired with Christian sentiment — must have been
a great blessing to that little band. How much Peter did to defend
their cause against its enemies, to inspire their souls with courage,
to win others to their fellowship, and to build them up on their
most holy faith !
What a service, too, did Andrew render to the world ! It was
this brother whom he brought to Jesus who preached the sermon
on the day of Pentecost which won three thousand souls to Christ ;
who proclaimed the message of the gospel in the house of Corner
bus,, and opened the door of salvation to the Gentiles ; and who
wrote those letters, so full of stirring thought and quickening
power, which have come down through the centuries to us, and
which will be read by the light of the millennial morning. And
all this must be referred to this one simple act of Andrew, — the
bringing of his brother to Jesus. Reader, art thou a disciple of
Jesus? " Go, and do thou likewise."
After the resurrection of Jesus we find Andrew enumerated with
the rest of the eleven, who were waiting at Jerusalem in prayer
and supplication for the promised gift of the Holy Ghost ; and
then we hear no more of him.
Tradition has, however, been busy with his later history ; and
from it we learn, that, after the ascension of Jesus, he was ap
pointed to preach in Scythia and the neighboring countries. We are
told that he travelled over Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly, Achaia,
and Epirus, preaching the gospel, and propagating the religion of
Jesus. At last he came to Patrse, a city of Achaia, where he gave
his last testimony for "the truth as it is in Jesus," and sealed it
with his blood. Endeavoring to convert the pro-consul to the
faith, he so stirred up the enmity and rage of that official that he
caused him to be scourged, and then put to death. We are told
by one of. the fathers that he was crucified on a tree ; but the com-

JAMES. 605

monly received tradition is, that he was crucified on a cross formed
like the letter X, which has hence been called " St. Andrew's
cross." His body, having been taken down from the cross, was decently
and honorably interred by Maximilia, a lady of great quality
and estate, and who, Nicephorus tells us, was wife to the pro
consul.¦ Constantine the Great afterwards removed his body to Constan
tinople, and buried it in the great church he had built to the honor
of the apostles ; but this structure having been taken down some
hundred years after, in order to rebuild it, by Justinian the em
peror, the body of St. Andrew was found in a wooden coffin, and
again deposited in its proper place. JAMES.
Third in the apostolic list given by Matthew appears the name
of James, surnamed the Greater, or the Elder, to distinguish him
from another apostle bearing the same name. He was a son of
Zebedee and Salome, and a brother of John the Evangelist. Zeb
edee was a fisherman, plying his trade on the Sea of Galilee, and
was therefore, doubtless, a resident in one of the towns or villages
close upon the margin of that lake. According to an old tradition,
he lived at Japhia, a little to the south of Nazareth : but this place
must have been too far from the water ; and it is therefore more
probable that Zebedee, with his two sons, James and John, be
longed to Bethsaida, which, we are told, was the town of Andrew
and Peter, their partners. It appears that the father was a man of
some property ; for, besides his sons, he employed hired laborers in
his fishery. It is probable that John was one of the two disciples
of the Baptist to whom Jesus was pointed out as the " Lamb of
God that taketh away the sin of the world; " but of James we.

606 JAMES.

first hear during our Lord's Galilean ministry, when he was called
with his brother to a personal attendance upon Christ.
Zebedee was out on the Sea of Galilee with his two sons, James
and John, and some boatmen. Pie was engaged in his customary
occupation of fishing ; and near him was another boat belonging to
Simon and Andrew, with whom he and his sons were in partner
ship. Finding themselves unsuccessful, the occupants of both
boats came ashore, and began to wash their nets. At this time the
new Teacher appeared upon the beach. At his call they left all,
and became at once and forever his disciples, hereafter to catch
men. From this time we lose sight of James until about a year
afterwards, when Jesus formally commenced the framework of his
Church by choosing the twelve apostles, among whom were James
and John.
In the list of the apostles given us by St. Mark, and in the
book of Acts, his name occurs next to that of Simon Peter ; in the
Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke it comes third. It is worthy
of notice that, with one exception, the name of James is put before
that of John, and that John is twice described as " the brother of
James." This would appear to imply that at this time James,
either from age or character, took a higher position than his
brother. It would seem to have been at the time of the appoint
ment of the twelve apostles that the name of Boanerges was given
to the sons of Zebedee. The " Sons of Thunder!' had a burning'
and impetuous spirit, which twice exhibits itself in its unchastened
form. The first occasion on which this natural disposition mani
fests itself in James and his brother is at the commencement
of our Lord's last journey to Jerusalem in the year 30. He was
passing through Samaria, and " sent messengers before his face"
into a certain village, " to make ready for him," — i.e., in all prob?
ability to announce him as the Messiah. The Samaritans, with

JAMES. 6.07

their old jealousy strong upon them, refused to receive him ; and,
in their exasperation, James and John entreated their Master to
follow the example of Elijah, and call down fire to consume them.
The other occasion was that on which they asked Jesus to grant
that they might sit — the one on his right hand, and the other on
his left — in his kingdom; professing, in reply to his question,
their ability to drink of his cup, and to be baptized with his
baptism. It was on the last journey to Jerusalem that Salome, their
mother (the sons joining in the petition) , asked for the first place in
Messiah's kingdom for James and John. It is possible that there
was some jealousy, specially in Salome's mind, of the sons of
Jonas, the late neighbors and partners of her own children. Be
this as it may, the expression of the wish called out the indignation
of the other ten apostles ; and the ambitious thought had a mild
rebuke from the Lord himself.
Peter and Andrew, James and John, are always named first of
the apostles, and seem generally to have taken the lead ; and three
of them — Peter, James, and John — alone accompanied our Lord
on some special occasions. They alone were witnesses of the
glory of the transfiguration scene, of the raising of the daughter
of Jairus from the dead, and of the agony in the garden of Geth-
semane on the evening previous to the crucifixion.
Some days after Christ's resurrection, James went with his
brother to fish in the Sea of Galilee, where he saw his blessed
Master. He was present at the ascension of Jesus, and was also
among the number who tarried in Jerusalem, waiting for the prom
ised baptism of the Holy Ghost. He is less prominent in sacred
history after the passion than his brother John ; but that he was
considered a leader among the disciples is evident from his being
the first who was seized by Herod. He is said to have preached

608 JOHN.
to all the dispersed tribes of Israel ; but the only authority for this
report is that of unsupported tradition. He is the only one of the
twelve, excepting Judas the traitor, of whose death scripture his
tory gives us any definite information. He was slain "with the
sword" by the command of Herod Agrippa, King of the Jews,
and grandson of Herod the Great, about the the time of the pass- '
over, A.D. 44. Clemens Alexandrinus tells us, that, as he was led
to the place of execution, the officer that guarded him to the tribu
nal, or rather his accuser, having been converted by that remarka
ble courage and constancy shown bjr the apostle at the time of his
trial, repented of what he had done, came and fell down at the
apostle's feet, and heartily begged pardon for what he had said
against him. The holy man, after ' recovering from the surprise,
tenderly embraced him. "Peace," said he, "my son! peace be
unto thee, and pardon of thy faults ! " Upon which the officer
publicly declared himself a Christian ; and both were beheaded at
the same time. Thus fell the great apostle St. James, being the
first who gained the crown, and taking cheerfully that cup of
which he had long since told his Lord he was ready to drink.
JOHN.
Among the chosen twelve we find no one whose character is
more attractive, whose life is more interesting, and whose writings
are more instructive and inspiring, than St. John's. His was a
large, loving, earnest nature ; and his long life was full of divine
beauty and power. His mind seems to have had in it much of the
woman's constitution, — retiring rather than demonstrative, recep
tive rather than originative, intuitive rather than logical, gentle
and loving. After he became the disciple of Jesus, love was the
atmosphere of his soul. All his thoughts were generated in the
region of love. Every sentence he wrote was with a pen dipped in

JOHN. 609
the fountain of love. He was the apostle of love. Deep, fervent,
and abiding was his love to the Saviour, — a love which was fully
reciprocated ; for he was " the disciple whom- Jesus loved." And
yet there seems to be no reason for giving, him the feminine ap
pearance so common in works of Christian art ; for there was an
intensity, an energy, and a heroism in his nature, whiqh were truly
manly. We learn from the Gospels that he was the son of Zebedee and
Salome, and that the residence of the family was in Galilee, at
some place near the Sea of Gennesaret, probably Bethsaida. He
had a brother James, who was an apostle of Jesus, but whether
older or younger the evangelists do not state. It is, however, gen
erally supposed that John was the younger, and that, when he was
called to be a follower of Christ, he was about twenty-five years of
age. That the family was in easy, if not affluent, temporal circum
stances, and occupied a respectable social position, is inferred
from the following facts, which are gleaned from the sacred record :
Zebedee, the father, employed hired laborers in his business as a
fisherman ; Salome, the mother, was one of the band of women
who ministered unto the Lord of their substance ; and John him
self possessed a home, and was able to provide for the mother of
Jesus, and had also some personal acquaintance and influence with
Caiaphas the high priest. The father is mentioned only once in
the narrative, though the two brothers are frequently spoken of as
" the sons of Zebedee." Of the mother we know but little more.
The title given her, " the mother of Zebedee' s children," and her
prominence, as compared with her husband, render it probable that
she outlived him, and that hers was the influence which chiefly
guided and moulded John's earlier years.
The circumstances of the apostle's young life Supplied most of
the conditions of a noble character. He doubtless inherited a

610 JOHN.
good bodily organization, which, by his surroundings and employ-
ments, would be healthfully and vigorously developed and ma
tured. His early impressions from nature would be deep and large.
In the scenery with which he was familiar, nature appeared in
some of her most lovely and majestic forms, and in the rustle of
lofty trees, the howl of stormy winds, and the roar of dashing bil
lows, spoke strange and stirring poetry to his heart. Up to the
age of six, he, like other Jewish children, would be taught by his
parents at home, and then sent to one of the public schools, which,
in the period after the captivity, had been established in every
town and important village in Judea and Galilee. It is proba
ble, also, that, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, some of the
doctors who had been trained at Jerusalem had established higher
schools, which the lad might have attended at the age of six
teen, and thus become fitted for the life-work which, in the provi
dence of God, lay before him. His religious training, too, was
undoubtedly favorable to future greatness. His mother was a
religious woman ; and her services to Jesus reveal, not only her
generous, self-sacrificing, and heroic spirit, but her devotion, also,
to his religion. Her teaching and influence doubtless gave form
to the character and direction to the life of the son. And then,
too, before he knew Jesus, he had attended the ministry of John
the Baptist ; and his young heart was prepared by the awakening
truth which he heard for the serene and sanctifying ministry of
Jesus of Nazareth.
John was probably one of those disciples of the Baptist, who,
hearing his remarkable testimony to Jesus, followed the new
teacher to his residence, and abode with him the rest of the day.
Then was made on the mind of the susceptible son of Zebedee an
impression never to be effaced. He doubtless accompanied Jesus
to Galilee, and was one of the party present at the marriage at

JOHN. 611
Cana. And, when Jesus again visited Judea, the little band who
had attached themselves to him attended his steps, and passed with
him on his return in the way from Jerusalem through Samaria. It
is difficult to trace chronologically the course of events ; but most
probably, when, after his Judean ministry, our Lord was again in
Galilee, rejected at Nazareth, and removing to Capernaum, John
and his brother, like Peter and Andrew, resumed their ordinary
occupation. And it was when so engaged that they received the
special call to be continually with Jesus, which was supplemented
by their appointment as apostles. Afterwards we find John one of
the especially favored three who witnessed the Lord's shining
glory and his agonizing grief, and before whom, apart from the
rest, his most wonderful works were performed. John it was who
was sent with Peter to prepare the last supper ; and John, the dis
ciple whom Jesus loved, reclined next him at the meal, and, at
Peter's hasty nod, put the question, — most likely in a whisper, —
" Lord, who is it that shall betray thee? "
We get from several incidental notices a clear perception of
John's character. Tenderly attached to the person of his Master,
he was of aspiring and impetuous temper. More refined, perhaps,
in his conceptions than some of the other disciples, he yet did not
fully apprehend the extent and grandeur of Messiah's kingdom.
Anxious for the Lord's honor, he would have had it vindicated by
supernatural judgments, and limited with formal restrictions.
Christ had marked this temper when, at the call to the apostleship,
he had designated James and John "the sons of thunder," and had
sometimes to moderate their ambition by a rebuke, while their
brethren occasionally resented their forwardness. A lesson is read
us how the finest qualities in fallen man prompt many a worldly
and sinful thought ; and how, on the other hand, directed and con
trolled by divine grace, thej- shine with increased lustre. John

612 JOHN.
was an apt scholar. He drank in of his Master's spirit; and we
see in his writings how his more ardent imaginations were softened
and interpenetrated by divine love. He had a capacity for the
lofty and the sublime ; and he found food for his high-reaching
desires in contemplating the majesty, the holiness, the unutterable
mercy, of the exalted Saviour.
A few more particulars are recorded of this apostle in scripture;
He stood by the Lord's cross ; and to him was committed the care
of the Virgin. He was to be a son to her, and to comfort her in
that bitter grief, in which, as she had long before been told, the
sword would pierce her soul. In all probability he removed her at
once to his residence ; but he must himself have returned to the
awful scene, as he witnessed the piercing of the Redeemer's side
after he had expired. On the news of the resurrection he ran
with Peter to the tomb, outstripped him, looked in, but with rev
erent amazement did not enter till Peter had gone in. Then went
John in, too, and believed (xx. 2-8) . He was present on the mem
orable morning when Jesus appeared by the side of the lake Gen
nesaret. His quick eye first recognized the Lord ; though Peter,
with characteristic vehemence, plunged into the water to reach him
first. And then it was that the mysterious words were uttered
which led so many of the disciples to believe that John should
never die. After the ascension he was frequently Peter's compan
ion, with whom he was sent by the apostles to Samaria.
John probably did not quit Palestine so long as the Virgin
Mother lived. He did not, it seems, always reside in the capital.
It is rather likely that he took her to his Galilean home. For he
was not at Jerusalem when Saul was brought to the apostles; and,
when he was there subsequently, it would seem to have been on
occasion of the meeting of the council.
That John went into Asia Minor after the death of St. Paul,

JOHN. 613
and, residing at Ephesus, superintended the churches which had
been planted in that region ; that he had to contend against the
doctrines and designs of arrogant and erroneous teachers ; and
that he was banished by one of the Roman emperors to the lonely
island of Patmos, where he wrote the Apocalypse, — there can be
but little doubt. We may safely conclude, too, that he died, in
extreme old age, a natural death ; and that Ignatius and Polycarp
were his personal disciples.
There are many legends of the old age of St. John, partly based
upon fact, and partly ideal, which the early Christians loved to
repeat, and which have come down through the centuries to us.
They thought of his life as charmed, so that neither poison nor
violence could affect it. They told how he pursued a lost convert
whom he had committed to the charge of a bishop in Asia Minor,
and, finding him at length in the mountain retreat of a band of
robbers, won him by loving and earnest entreaty, and brought him
back to the fold of Christ ; how, like the Jewish high priest, he
wore upon his head a plate of gold inscribed with "Holiness to the
Lord ; " how, with something of the spirit of earlier days, he flew
from the bath in which Cerinthus the heretic was, lest it should fall
upon him ; how in his feebleness he was borne by the young men
into the gatherings of the Christians, and, when no longer able to
preach, said, as if echoing the farewell words of Jesus, "Little
children, love one another ; " and how, when asked why he always
repeated these same words, he replied, "Because this is the Lord's
command ; and, if this is done, all is clone."
The greatest instance of our apostle's care for the souls of men
is the writings he left to posterity. The first of which in time,
though placed last in the sacred canon, is his Apocalypse, or Book
of Revelation, which he wrote during his banishment to the isle
of Patmos. Next to the Apocalypse, in order of time, are his

614 PHILIP.
three Epistles, — the first of which is catholic, calculated for all
times and places, containing the most excellent rules for the con
duct of a Christian life, pressing to holiness and pureness of man
ners, and not to be satisfied with a naked and empty profession of
religion, not to be led away with the crafty insinuations of se
ducers, and cautioning men against the poisonous principles and
practices of the Gnostics. The apostle here, according to his usual
modesty, conceals his name ; it being of more consequence to a
wise man what is said than he who saj-s it. It appears from St.
Augustine that this Epistle was anciently inscribed to the Par-
thians, because in all probability St. John preached the gospel in
Parthia. The other two Epistles are but short, and directed to
particular persons, — the one to a ladj- of great quality ; the other
to the charitable and hospitable Gaius, the kindest and most cour
teous entertainer of all indigent Christians.
His wonderful Gospel was written last of all, — probably near the
close of the first century. His purpose in writing it is thus stated
in his' own words : ' ' that 3re might believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, and that, believing, ye might have life
through his name." His general design seems to have been to
prove the divinity of Christ, supply important events which had
been omitted by the other evangelists, and refute the heresies
which were becoming prevalent. PHILIP.
Two persons bearing the name Philip are prominently mentioned
in the New Testament : one was Philip the Apostle ; and the other,
Philip the Evangelist, who was one of the seven deacons chosen
by the early Church. Some writers of scripture biography seem to
have blended the two, especially in relating the traditions of their
later history.

PHILIP. 615
Philip the Apostle was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and
Peter, and apparently was among the Galilean peasants of that
district who flocked to hear the preaching of the Baptist. The
manner in which St. John speaks of him, the repetition by him of
the self-same words with which Andrew had brought to Peter the
good news that the Christ had at last appeared, all indicate a pre
vious friendship with the sons of Jonas and of Zebedee, and a con
sequent participation in their Messianic hopes. The close union
of the two in John vi. and xii. suggests that he may have owed to
Andrew the first tidings that the hope had been fulfilled. The
statement that Jesus found him (John i. 43) implies a previous
seeking. To him first in the whole circle of the disciples were
spoken the words so full of meaning: "Follow me." As soon
as he has learned to know his Master, he is eager to communicate
his discovery to another, who had also shared the same expecta
tions. He speaks to Nathanael, probably on his arrival in Cana,
as though they had not seldom communed together, of the intima
tions of a better time, of a divine kingdom, which they found in
their sacred books. In the lists of the twelve apostles, in the
Synoptic Gospels, his name is as uniformly at the head of the
second group of four, as the name of Peter is at that of the first ;
and the facts recorded by St. John give the reason of this priority.
Philip apparently was among the first company of disciples who
were with the Lord at the commencement of his ministiy, at the
marriage of 'Cana, and on his first appearance as a prophet in Jeru
salem. When John was cast into prison, and the work of declar
ing the glad tidings of the kingdom required a new company of
preachers, we may believe that he, like his companions and friends,
received a new call to a more constant discipleship. When the
twelve were specialty set apart for their office, he was numbered
among them. The first three Gospels tell us nothing more of him

616 PHILIP.

individually. St. John, with his characteristic fulness of per
sonal reminiscences, records a few significant utterances and
incidents. One of these is found in connection with the Saviour's miracle
of feeding the five thousand on the shore of Gennesaret. Look
ing with compassion on the hungry, fainting throng, Jesus asked
Philip, " Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat? " The
evangelist adds, " And this he said to prove him ; for he himself
knew what he would do." Jesus has no difficulty in the case him
self; but has Philip learned, from the words he has heard and the
works he has seen, the lesson of his Master's divine sufficiency?
He is now to be tested on this point. His answer, " Two hundred
pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them that every one of
them may take a little," shows that he was looking at the human
need and difficulty rather than the divine fulness and power, and
that he did not yet comprehend the nature and relations of "the
man Christ Jesus."
Another of these incidents is found in connection with John's
account of Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem during the
passion week. Among those who came up to Jerusalem to wor
ship at the feast of the passover were some Gentile proselytes to
Judaism, who sought an interview with Jesus. The events and
words of those days must have brought strange thoughts to the
minds of these men, who were worshippers of the one true God '
by personal conviction, and not because of the faith of their ances
tors. Wondering what these things meant, and perhaps half
grasping the truth that the middle wall of partition between Jew
and Gentile would ere long be broken down, they apply to Philip,
whose Greek name probably indicates some acquaintance with
Greek culture, saying, " Sir, we would see Jesus." Philip does
not, however, give them the desired, introduction himself, but finds

PHHIP. 617
Andrew, who was in a position of greater intimacy with the
Saviour ; and both together go, and tell Jesus.
The other is found in the account of Christ's discourse with his
disciples in the passover chamber at Jerusalem. He had been
preparing their minds for his departure by assuring them that his
love for them would continue ; that ample provision would be made
for their support and comfort ; that mansions would be prepared
for them in the Father's house on high ; and that his union with
the Father was so real and vital, that he who had seen him had
seen the Father also. Philip, thinking doubtless of a revelation of
glory like that which Moses saw, or that which the favored three
beheld on the holy mount, said, " Show us the Father, and it
sufnceth us." Jesus gently reproved his want of spiritual discern
ment, and then re-assured him of his essential oneness with the
Father, citing his miraculous works as furnishing sufficient proof
thereof. Do not Christ's words to Philip speak to all Christian
teachers, thinkers, and speakers? Is it not possible even now
that men may be in the closest apparent nearness to Christ, and
yet have never learned the spiritual significance of his words, or
comprehended the saving purpose of his mission to earth ?
No other fact connected with the name of Philip is recorded in
the Gospels. He is among the company of disciples at Jerusalem
after the ascension, and on the day of Pentecost. After this, all
is uncertain and apocryphal.
The traditions concerning him say that he labored in Phrygia,
Greece, Parthia, and Scythia ; that his preaching was attended
with great power ; that he wrought many miracles ; and that he
gained numerous converts, whom he baptized into the faith, and
organized into churches. By some of the fathers we are told that,
having borne witness for Christ in his life, he fell asleep, and went
to his reward without passing through the gate of martyrdom ;

618 BARTHOLOMEW.

while others say that he suffered a violent and cruel death at the
hands of the enemies of the gospel at Hierapolis in Pkrygia.
All this, however, and much more that is reported of him, is un
certain, as we have no means of verifying any of these various and
conflicting traditions. BARTHOLOMEW.
Bartholomew was one of the twelve apostles chosen by our
Lord. His name occurs in the apostolic catalogues given bj- the
evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke ; but is not mentioned at
all in the Gospel by St. John. Under this name, the onlj- informa
tion given of him is, that he was called to be an apostle, and sent
out with the others to preach the gospel ; and that he was present
with the other apostles in the pentecostal chamber in Jerusalem
after the ascension of Jesus. Inasmuch as the name itself is not
so properly a name as a patronymic, or family surname, like Bar-
jona or Bartimeus, and signifies son of Tholmai, the question
whether it is not probable that he appears in sacred history under
some other appellation has very naturally arisen. It is now very
generally conceded by the best authorities that he is the same
person as Nathanael, who is mentioned in St. John's Gospel.
Although it is not well to accept conjecture or inference as sub
stantial proof, yet the following considerations furnish at least
strong presumptive evidence of the identity of Bartholomew and
Nathanael : Several of the apostles had more than one name, — as
Simon, Peter ; Matthew, Levi ; Thomas, Didymus, &c. In each
of the first three Gospels Bartholomew is mentioned in connection
with Philip, and Nathanael is not named at all; while, in the
fourth, Nathanael is mentioned as having been brought to Jesus
by Philip, and Bartholomew is not named at all. All the other
disciples named in the first chapter of John became apostles ; so

BARTHOLOMEW. 619

that it is hardly probable that one who received such a commenda
tion from Jesus, and who made such a full confession that he was
the Son of God as did Nathanael, should be omitted from the
number. In John's enumeration of those to whom JeSus appeared
at the Sea of Tiberias after his resurrection, Nathanael is named
with others who were all apostles, taking precedence of the sons
of Zebedee. And, further, he was not one of the candidates
proposed for the place of Judas the traitor, an omission hardly
probable if he had not been already an apostle.
Taking it, then, for granted that Nathanael is the proper name,
and Bartholomew the surname, and that the two designate the same
person, we learn that this apostle was a native of Cana of Gali
lee, — a village about nine miles north of Nazareth. He appears
to have been a pious Jew, who, like Simeon and others, was wait
ing for the appearance of the promised Messiah. From the fact
that Philip, after having been called to follow Jesus himself, imme
diately sought Nathanael in order to tell him the joj-ful news of
Messiah's appearance and invite him to the Saviour, it has been
inferred that they were previously personal friends. On finding
him, Philip said, "We have found him of whom Moses in the
law and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of
Joseph; " that is, we have found the long-promised, the earnestly
desired Messiah. But Bethlehem of Judea, the town of David,
was to be the Messiah's birthplace ; while Nazareth was not even
mentioned in the prophetic scriptures, and, besides, was an insig
nificant place of ill repute, as we may imagine it well deserved to
be when we think of the manner in which its inhabitants afterward
treated Jesus. It is not strange, therefore, that Nathanael asked
with evident surprise, " Can any good thing come out of Naza
reth?" Philip's reply to this question, " Come and see," reveal
ing as it does the fulness of his own conviction, indicates the best

620 BARTHOLOMEW.

means for the removal of an honest prejudice. Nathanael was a
sincere and earnest seeker after truth, willing that his prejudice
should be dispelled by evidence ; and he therefore accepted his
friend's invitation, and accompanied him to Jesus. The Saviour
looked upon him as he was coming, and, reading the simplicity and
sincerity of his heart, said, " Behold an Israelite indeed," in whom
is no guile." Here is a genuine and candid truth-seeker, — a man
who is true to the name Israel, and in whom there is nothing of the
Jacob. The words came as a revelation to Nathanael, indicating
that he stood in the presence of One who, though they had never
met before, knew his whole history and his whole heart. Won-
deringly he asked, " Whence knowest thou me? " To which Jesus
replied, referring doubtless to the place in which he had just pre
viously been engaged in earnest prevailing prayer, " Before that
Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee."
In a moment his prejudice is gone ; his faith sees in the man before
him the promised Messiah; and he utters the noble confession,
" Rabbi,- thou art the Son of God ; thou art the King of Israel."
Jesus commends his faith, and, referring doubtless to the revela
tions made to Jacob at Bethel, assures him that afterward he
should " see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and
descending upon the Son of man," — a promise fulfilled in the
divine manifestations given to Jesus at various times, and espe
cially in the ascension scene at Olivet.
We find Nathanael mentioned by John as being one of a small
company of disciples to whom Jesus appeared at the Sea of Tibe
rias after his resurrection, having probably been a sharer in their
night of fruitless toil, a witness of the wonderful draught of fishes
on the following morning, and a participant in the feast and inter
view on the shore. St. Luke mentions him in the Acts of the
Apostles, under the name of Bartholomew, as being among those

THOMAS. 621

who waited in Jerusalem for the coming of the promised Com
forter. We find no further reference to him in the New Testament ; and
other particulars which have been given respecting his life and
labors are uncertain. Calmet refers to a tradition representing
him as the bridegroom at the marriage in Cana of Galilee ; and
one of the fathers supposes that he was the disciple who was with
Cleopas, on the way to Emmaus, on the day of Christ's resurrec
tion. An early tradition informs us that he propagated the Chris
tian faith as far as India, and also in the more northern and
western parts of Asia. In confirmation of this tradition we are
told that a copy of Matthew's Gospel in the Hebrew language was
subsequently found in India, having been left there by this apostle.
We are also told that he finally suffered martyrdom, and cheerfully
sealed his testimony to the truth of the gospel with his blood.
THOMAS.
Evangelical history furnishes no information with respect to
either the kindred or country of Thomas. It may, however, be
regarded as certain that he was a Jew ; and as very probable, not
withstanding the traditions to the contrary, that he was a native of
Galilee. He was one of the twelve whom our Lord selected as his
apostles. He is also called Didymus, a Greek term, which — like
his Hebrew name, Thomas — signifies twin. In the first three lists
of the apostles he is mentioned in connection with Matthew, and in
the last with Philip. All that we know of him is derived from the
Gospel of St. John ; and this amounts to three traits, which, how
ever, so exactly agree together, that, slight as they are, they place
his character before us with a precision which belongs to no other
of the twelve apostles, except Peter, John, and Judas Iscariot.
This character is that of a man slow to believe, seeing all the diffi-

622 THOMAS.

culties of a case, subject to despondency, viewing things on the
darker side, and yet full of ardent love of his Master. The first
trait is his speech when our Lord determined to face the dangers
that awaited him in Judea on his journey to Bethany. Thomas
said to his fellow-disciples, " Let us also go, that we may die with
him" (John xi. 16). The second was his speech during the last
supper. ' ' Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither
thou goest ; and how can we know the way ? " (xiv. 5) . It was the
prosaic, incredulous doubt as to moving a step in the unseen future,
and yet an eager inquiry to know how this step was to be taken.
The third was after the resurrection. He was absent — possibly
by accident, perhaps characteristically — from the first assembly
when Jesus had appeared. The others told him what they had
seen. He broke forth into an exclamation, the terms of which
convey to us at once the vehemence of his doubt, and at the same
time the vivid picture that his mind retained of his Master's form
as he had last seen him lifeless on the cross (John xx. 25). On
the eighth day he was with them at their gathering, perhaps in
expectation of a recurrence of the visit of the previous week;
and Jesus stood amongst them. He uttered the same salutation,
" Peace be unto you ; " and then turning to Thomas, as if this had
been the special object of his appearance, uttered the words which
convey as strongly the sense of condemnation and tender reproof
as those of Thomas had shown the sense of hesitation and doubt.
The effect on Thomas is immediate. The conviction produced by
the removal of his doubt became deeper and stronger than that of
any of the other apostles. The words in which he expressed his
belief contain a far higher assertion of his Master's divine nature
than is contained in an}- other expression used b}' apostolic lips :
" My Lord and my God." The answer of our Lord sums up the
moral of the whole narrative : " Because thou hast seen me, thou

THOMAS. 623

hast believed ; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have
believed" (xx. 29).
He has generally been characterized as the " doubting disciple "
on account of his slowness to believe in the unseen and spiritual ;
while some have called him the rationalist of the apostolic band,
because he was unwilling to admit the reality of the supernatural
on the testimony of others, unless it was confirmed by tangible
evidence coming within the sphere of his own personal knowledge.
It may, however, be said of him, that, if the tendency of his mind
was towards scepticism or slowness of faith, he was at least sin
cere and honest. His unbelief differs in many important respects
from the prevalent scepticism of the world. It was negative, not
positive ; intellectual, not moral ; ingenuous, not unfair ; convinci-
ble, not obstinate : and Christ's kind and merciful treatment of it
furnishes for our imitation an example of the way in which to treat
an honest sceptic. His doubting, also, served to bring out more
clearly and conclusively the proof of our Lord's resurrection ; thus
confirming and establishing the fact for all time.
In the New Testament we hear of Thomas only twice again, —
once on the Sea of Galilee with the seven disciples, where he is
ranked next after Peter ; and again in the assemblage of the apos
tles in Jerusalem after Christ's ascension.
The earlier traditions, as believed in the fourth century, tell us,
that, after receiving the pentecostal baptism of the Holy Ghost,
Thomas, like the other apostles, labored at first in various parts of
Judea ; and, after the dispersion of the Christian Church in Jeru
salem, he went to Parthia and Persia preaching the gospel, and was
finally buried at Edessa.
During his preaching in Persia, he is said to have met with
the Magi, or wise men, who had taken that long journey at
our Saviour's birth to worship him, whom he baptized, and

624 THOMAS.

took with him as his companions and assistants in propagating the
gospel. Later traditions carry him farther east, and give the following
account of his subsequent labors, and of his martyrdom and
burial. Leaving Persia, he travelled into Ethiopia, preaching the glad
tidings of the gospel, healing the sick, and working other mira
cles, to prove he had his commission from on high ; and, after trav
elling through these countries, he entered India.
When the Portuguese first visited these countries, after their dis
covery of a passage by the Cape of Good Hope, they received the
following particulars, partly from constant and uncontroverted tra
ditions, preserved by the Christians in those parts ; namely, that
Thomas came first to Socotora, an island in the Arabian Sea, and
thence to Cranganor, where, having converted many from the error
of their ways, he travelled farther into the East ; and, having suc
cessfully preached the gospel, returned back to the kingdom of
Coromandel, where, at Meliapur, the metropolis of the kingdom,
not far from the mouth of the Ganges, he began to erect a place
for divine worship, till prohibited by the idolatrous priests and
Sagamo, prince of that country. But, after performing several
miracles, the work was suffered to proceed ; and Sagamo himself
embraced the Christian faith, whose example was soon followed by
great numbers of his friends and subjects.
This remarkable success alarmed the Brahmins, who plainly per
ceived that their religion would soon be extirpated, unless some
method could be found of putting a stop to the progress of Chris
tianity, and therefore resolved to put the apostle to death. At a
small distance from the city was a tomb, whither Thomas often re
tired for private devotion. Hither the Brahmins and their armed
followers pursued him ; and, while he w-as at prayer, they first shot

MATTHEW. 625

at him a shower of darts : after which, one of the priests ran him
through with a lance.
His body was taken up by his disciples, and buried in the church
he had lately erected, which was afterwards improved into a fabric
of great magnificence.
Chrysostom says that Thomas, who at first was the weakest and
most incredulous of all the apostles, became, through Christ's con
descending to satisfy his scruples and the power of the divine
grace, the most active and invincible of them all ; travelling over
most parts of the world, and living without fear in the midst of
barbarous nations, through the efficacy of that Almighty arm
which can give power to the faint, and to them that have no might,
and thus make the weakest vessels to perform acts of the greatest
difficulty and moment.
MATTHEW.
In each of the lists of Christ's apostles furnished by the evan
gelists, we find the name of Matthew.. In several places he is
called Levi, a name which may have been given him by our Lord,
as Peter was given to Simon, or which he may have taken of his
own accord. Its signification, God-given, rendered it a very suit
able name for one with whom old things had passed away, and all
things had become new, and who desired to give an expression of
his gratitude to God for a blessing so satisfying and precious.
He was the son of Alpheus, — not, however, the Alpheus who is
named as the father of James the Less, but another Alpheus, con
cerning whom nothing is known. As his name is coupled with
that of Thomas in all the lists in the Gospels, — and as the name
Thomas, as well as Didymus, its equivalent, signifies twin, — some
authors have supposed that Matthew was a twin-brother of Thom
as. He was a native of Galilee ; but it is not known in what part

626 MATTHEW.

of that province he was born, or to what tribe of the people of
Israel he belonged. His residence was Capernaum, — a city sit
uated on the western shore of the Lake of Gennesaret, and on the
great highway from Damascus to the Mediterranean. Though now
its site is a scene of utter ruin and desolation, yet in the clays of
Christ it was a populous and flourishing place. Though a Jew, he
was a publican, or tax-gatherer, under the Romans. His position
was probably only a subordinate one. He was not one of the large
farmers of the Roman revenues, who, like Zaccheus, were usually
persons of rank and wealth, but a sub-official who collected the
customs at the gates of cities, at seaport towns, or at great public
thoroughfares. He seems to have pursued his occupation on the
shore of Gennesaret, having his toll-house near the lake. His
position doubtless afforded an opportunity of securing for himself
a competence, if not of amassing wealth; and that he availed
himself of his facilities for this purpose is evident from his ability
to provide a great feast for his friends after he had been called to
follow Jesus.
His office was a very unpopular one, and extremely odious to
the Jews, who keenly felt the degradation of having to pay taxes
to the Roman government. Perhaps tax-gatherers are the most
unpopular officials in any community ; but they become especially
odious when they have to collect levies made by a foreign con
queror, and more odious still when extortion and oppression are
employed in accomplishing their work. The publicans were re
garded with detestation as the basest and most notorious sinners ;
and it was considered almost the lowest degradation to associate
with them. We are told that it was a common proverb among the
Jews, " Take not a wife out of that family in which there is a pub
lican ; for they are all publicans," —that is, they are all thieves,
robbers, and notorious sinners. The common estimate of the

MATTHEW. 627

class is indicated by- the direction which Jesus gave wdth reference
to the offender with whom neither private reproof nor the admoni
tion of the Church could prevail : " Let him be to thee as a hea
then man and as a publican."
Our blessed Saviour, having cured a person long afflicted with
the palsy, retired out of Capernaum to walk by the sea-side,
where he taught the people that flocked after him. Here he saw
Matthew sitting in his office, and called him to follow him. The
man was rich, had a large and profitable employment, was a wise
and prudent person, and doubtless understood what would be his
loss to comply with the call of Jesus. He was not ignorant that
he must exchange wealth for poverty, a custom-house for a prison,
and rich and powerful masters for a poor and despised Saviour.
But he overlooked all these considerations, left all his interest and
relations, to become our Lord's disciple, and embrace a more spir
itual way of living.
The readiness with which he obeyed the call suggests the infer
ence that he had not only heard of Jesus from others, but that he
had personally seen him and listened to his words as he taught in
the synagogue at Capernaum ; so that the good seed of the king
dom had ahead}r been sown in his heart.
Soon after his call, Matthew made an entertainment at his house,
at which Jesus and some of his disciples were guests, as were also
many of the publicans and others. Matthew mentions this feast
in his Gospel, but does not, like Luke, characterize it as " a great
feast ; " nor does he, like Luke, inform us that the feast was " in
his own house," but simply says it was "in the house." Real
hospitality never talks of its great feasts : it is only the pretentious
and shallow that boasts of its own doings. True merit is always
modest. The Pharisee's, who sought all opportunities of raising objec-

628 MATTHEW.

tions against the doctrine of the blessed Jesus, took this oppor
tunity of suggesting to his disciples that it was highly unbecoming
so pure and holy a person as their Master pretended himself to be
to converse so familiarly with the worst of men, — with publicans
and sinners, — persons infamous to a proverb. But he presently
replied to them that these were the sick, and therefore needed the
physician ; that his company was of most consequence where the
souls of men most required it ; that God preferred works of mercy
and charity, especially in doing good to the souls of men, infinitely
above all ritual observances ; and that the principal design of his
coming into the world was not to call the righteous (or those who,
like themselves, vainly pretend to be so) , but sinners, — humble,
self-convinced sinners, — to repentance.
After Matthew's election to the apostolate, he continued with
the rest till the ascension of his great and beloved Master ; but the
evangelical writers have recorded nothing particular concerning
him during that period.
The traditions which are found in the writings of the Christian
fathers of the eariy centuries tell us, that, for the first eight years
after the ascension of Jesus, Matthew preached the gospel in dif
ferent parts of Judea ; and that afterwards he left Palestine, and
labored in various places for the conversion of the Gentile world.
We are especially told that he visited Ethiopia, and that he suf
fered martyrdom in one of its cities, though others suppose that
he died a natural death.
His Gospel was probably written in Palestine, about the year
A.D. 37, and was the earliest of the Four Gospels. His object
was to place before his countrymen a narrative of the words and
actions of Jesus, whom he exhibits specially as the Messiah for
whom the nation looked. The diction is Hebraistic, the style
plain and perspicuous. The teaching of our Lord is made very

MATTHEW. 629

prominent in this Gospel, — so much so that the record of Christ's
actions is commonly subservient to the fuller exhibition of his in
structions ; but, through the whole, we observe the development
of the twofold title of the first verse, " Son of David," " Son
of Abraham."
It is no mere fancy to discover a certain relationship between
St. Matthew's original occupation and his mode of arranging his
materials. He had been a man of business, engaged in accounts ;
and from such a one we might expect careful grouping and orderly
combination. Hence he appears sometimes to disregard exact
chronological sequence ; at least the order of events differs much
in St. Matthew from the order of St. Mark and of St. Luke. He
has gathered into groups the discourses of our Lord and the
attending circumstances (Matt, v., vi., vii.). He has put together
a collection of miracles (viii., ix.), and has arranged the parables
with such consummate wisdom that each in the place in which it
is set adds force and clearness to the rest (xiii.). There are
many particulars, too, untouched by the other evangelists, which
are delivered with special effectiveness by St. Matthew ; as, for
instance, the consolatory promise of Jesus, "Lo, I am with you
alway, even unto the end of the world," with which his Gospel
concludes. In the case of Matthew we have a remarkable illustration of the
power of religion to effect, in the heart and life of man, a radical
and enduring change. Before Jesus found him at the receipt of
custom, and said innto him, " Follow me," he was in love with
the world, and wholly engrossed with temporal pursuits. But,
notwithstanding this, as soon as he heard the call of Jesus, he
abandoned, without the least scruple or hesitation, all his riches ;
nay, he not only renounced his lucrative trade, but ran the greatest
hazard of displeasing the masters who employed him by quitting

630 JAMES THE LESS.

their service without giving them the least notice, and leaving his
accounts in apparent confusion. Had our blessed Saviour ap
peared as a secular prince, clothed with temporal power and
authority, it would have been no wonder for him to have gone
over to his service ; but when he appeared under all the circum
stances of poverty and lowliness, when he seemed to promise his
followers nothing outwardly but privation .and suffering in this life,
and to propose no other rewards than the invisible encouragements
of another world, his change appears truly wonderful and surpris
ing : but divine grace can subdue all opposition.
His contempt of the world appeared in his exemplary temper
ance and abstemiousness from all delights and pleasures ; naj-,
even from the ordinary conveniences and accommodations of it.
He was lowly and modest in his own opinion, always preferring
others to himself ; for whereas the other evangelists, in describing
the apostles by pairs, constantly place him before Thomas, he
modestly places him before himself. The rest of the evangelists
are careful to mention the honor of his apostleship, but speak of
his former sordid, dishonest, and disgraceful course of life only
under the name of Levi ; while he himself sets it down, with all
the circumstances, under his own proper and common name,
" Matthew the publican," a conduct which at once commends the
prudence and candor of the apostle, and suggests to us this useful
reflection, that the greatest sinners are not excluded from divine
grace ; nor can any, if penitent, have just reason to despair, when
publicans and sinners find mercy at the throne of grace.

JAMES THE LESS.
Among the apostles of our Lord there were two who bore the
name of James. One was the son of Zebedee, and the brother

JAMES THE LESS. 631

of John, who was put to death by Herod. The other was the son
of Alpheus, who was distinguished as James the Less, not on
account of any inferiority of position, but probably in allusion to
his stature. Concerning this last James there are several difficult
questions, as whether he was the same with James the Lord's
brother, whether it was he that appears in the later chapters of
the Acts to have been prominent in the church of Jerusalem,
whether he wrote the epistle which bears the name of James, and
whether the so-called ' brethren ' of Jesus were his brethren really,
or his cousins.
It may be convenient to examine the last-named question first.
It is freely admitted that some of the reasons for believing that
these persons were literally our Lord's brethren are of con
siderable weight. Thus it is the natural inference we should draw
from the scornful words of the people of Nazareth ; who, after
listening to one of the discourses of Jesus in their synagogue,
said, "Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called
Mary? and his brethren, James and Simon and Judas? and his
sisters, are they not all with us? Whence, then, hath this man
all these things ? ' ' Further, these brethren appear to be usually
with Mary, the Lord's mother, as if living with her; they are
also distinguished from the twelve in the account of those who
gathered in Jerusalem after the ascension, as given in the first
chapter of Acts ; and above all they are said, after the apostles
were chosen, not to have believed in him. These facts, how.ever,
admit of explanation. For we know that the word " brother " is
used very commonly in Scripture in a large signification. And
Mary the mother of James and Joses (the very names which the
"brethren" bore) may well be taken as identical with " Mary the
wife of Cleophas " or Alpheus, who was the Virgin's sister. It is
not an unnatural supposition, that, the father (of whose doings we

632 JAMES THE LESS.

hear nothing) being dead, the widowed mother with her children,
formed one family with Mary the mother of Jesus — also, most
probably, now a widow. Still further, our Lord upon the cross
committed his mother to the apostle John, who "/ram that hour
took her unto his own home." It is almost inconceivable, that, if
she had sons and daughters at home, she' should be taken from
them to the house of another, even though that other was the
beloved disciple of Jesus. It is alleged, indeed, 'that it was
because they did not believe ; but this is a very unsatisfactory
reason. At all events, they believed a few days afterwards ; and
perhaps too great stress is laid on this. For what does the state
ment of their not believing amount to? Was their unbelief so
much greater than the wavering which John the Baptist evinced
when he sent to put the question to Jesus, whether he was really
the Messiah? or than the unbelief which our Lord was continually
reproving in his apostles ? It must have been near akin to that
distorted persuasion of the nature of the Lord's kingdom which
made the twelve utterly discredit his words when he told them of
the death he should die, and obstinately refuse to receive the testi
mony that he was risen. Consequently they were perplexed (as
also his mother was) when the report came that he was beside
himself, so that they came out to get hold of him to satisfy them
selves ; and they could not understand why he seemed unwilling
to go to the feast of tabernacles at Jerusalem, where of course
they expected Messiah's temporal kingdom to be established. It
might, indeed, disqualify those who were so faithless for the
apostleship ; and some of our Lord's brethren seem to be distin
guished from the apostles. But some might believe, and others
not, and it is allowed on all hands that all of them were not
apostles ; whereas, if words are to be taken in their plain mean
ing, one must have been an apostle. For we are told, in the

JAMES THE LESS. 633

Acts, that Barnabas brought Paul to the apostles in Jerusalem ;
whereas Paul himself declares, in his letter to the Galatians, that
the only apostles he saw on that occasion were Peter, and James
the Lord's brother. And we can hardly believe that the writer of
the Acts would have asserted that Paul was brought to the
apostles, if Peter were the only apostle he saw. We cannot
follow out the discussion into all its detail ; but it is submitted,
with a full appreciation of the difficulties of the question, that
what has been alleged will tend to establish the fact that " James
the Lord's brother" was, strictly speaking, his cousin, and that
he was an apostle, and not one so called in the secondary sense,
but one of the twelve, that is, James the son of Alpheus. If it
be allowed that James the son of Mary, James the Lord's brother,
James the brother of Jude, was identical with James the son of
Alpheus, we can have but little difficulty in admitting further that
this is the James whom we find prominent in the church at Jerusa
lem, and who was the author of the canonical epistle.
But few incidents relating to him are recorded in the New
Testament. We learn, that, at some time during the forty days
which intervened between the resurrection and the ascension,
Jesus appeared to him ; that he resided at Jerusalem, and was
considered a pillar in the church when Paul first came there after
his conversion, to whom he gave the right hand of fellowship ;
that to him, especially, Peter sent the news of his miraculous
deliverance from prison, saying, " Go, show these things unto
James and to the brethren;" that he presided in the council
which was held at Jerusalem with reference to the requirements
which should be made of the Gentile converts, giving his vote
last; and that the result of the council, that the Jewish ritual
should not be imposed on the faithful who were converted from
heathenism, was formed from what he said.

634 JAMES THE LESS.

The following estimate of his character, and account of his life
and death, gathered from the writings of the fathers, is generally
accepted as worthy of credit.
He performed every part of his duty with, all possible care and
industrj-, omitting no particular necessary to be observed by a dili
gent and faithful guide of souls ; strengthening the weak, instruct
ing the ignorant, reducing the erroneous, reproving the obstinate,
and, by the constancy of his sermons, conquering the stubbornness
of that perverse and refractory generation he had to deal with,
many of the nobler and richer sort being persuaded to embrace the
Christian faith.
But a person so careful, so successful in his charge, could not
fail of exciting the spite and malice of his enemies, a sort of men
of whom the apostle has given too true a character, that they
" please not God, and are contrary to all men." They were vexed
to see that Paul had escaped their hands by appealing unto Caesar,
and therefore turned their fury against James ; but, being unable to
effect their design under the government of Festus, they determined
to attempt it under the procuratorship of Albinus, his successor —
Ananias the younger, of the sect of the Sadducees, being high
priest. In order to this, a council was summoned, and the apostle
with others arraigned and condemned as violators of the law. But,
that the action might appear more plausible and popular, the scribes
and Pharisees, masters in the art of dissimulation, endeavored to
insnare him ; and, at their first coming, told him that they had all
placed the greatest confidence in him ; that the whole nation, as
well as they, gave him the title of a just man, and one that was no
respecter of persons ; that they therefore desired he would correct
the error and false opinion the people had conceived of Jesus, whom
they considered as the Messiah, and take this opportunity of the
universal confluence to the paschal solemnity, to set them right in

JAMES THE LESS. 635

their opinions in this particular ; and would go with them to the
top of the temple, where he might be seen and heard by all.
The apostle readily Consented, and, being advantageously placed
on a pinnacle of the temple, they addressed him in the following
manner : " Tell us — for we have all the reason in the world to be
lieve that the people are thus generally led away with the doctrine
of Jesus, who was crucified — tell us, what is this institution of the
crucified Jesus? " To which the apostle answered, with an audible
voice, "Why do you inquire of Jesus, the Son of man? He sits
in heaven, at the right hand of the Majesty on high, and will come
again in the clouds of heaven." The people below, hearing this,
glorified the blessed Jesus, and openly proclaimed, " Hosanna to
the Son of David ! "
The scribes and Pharisees now perceived that they had acted
foolishly ; that, instead of altering, they had confirmed the people
in their belief ; and that there was no way left but to despatch him
immediately, in order to warn others, by his sufferings, not to be
lieve in Jesus of Nazareth. Accordingly they suddenly cried out,
that James himself was seduced, and become an impostor ; and
they immediately threw him from the pinnacle on which he stood,
into the court below ; but, not being killed on the spot, he re
covered himself so far as to rise on his knees, and pray fervently
to Heaven for his murderers. But malice is too diabolical to be
pacified with kindness or satisfied with cruelty. Accordingly his
enemies, vexed that they had not fully accomplished their work,
poured a shower of stones upon him while he was imploring their
forgiveness at the throne of grace ; and one of them, dissatisfied
with this cruel treatment, put an end to his misery with a fuller's
club. Thus did this great and good man finish his course, in the
ninety-sixth year of his age, and about twenty-four years after our

636 JAMES THE LESS.

blessed Saviour's ascension into heaven. His death was lamented
by all good men, even by the sober and just persons among the
Jews themselves, who, it is said, imputed to his martyrdom
the calamities they soon after suffered from the hands of the
Romans. He was a man of exemplary piety and devotion, educated under
the strictest rules and institutions of religion. Prayer was his con
stant business and delight : he seemed, as it were, to have lived
upon >it, and continually to have his conversation in heaven ; and
he who has told us " that the prayer of a righteous man availeth
much ' ' found it so by his own experience. Nor was his charity
towards men less than his piety towards God : he did good to all,
watched diligently over the souls of men, and studied to advance
their eternal welfare. He was of a remarkably meek and humble
temper, honoring what was excellent in others, concealing what
was valuable in himself: neither the eminence of his relation to the
blessed Jesus, nor the dignity of the place he so worthily filled,
could induce him to entertain lofty thoughts of himself above the
rest of his brethren ; on the contrary, he strove to conceal whatever
might place him in a higher rank than the other disciples of the
Lord of glory. Though he was a relative to the Redeemer of man
kind, he styles himself only "the servant of our Lord Jesus
Christ" — not so much as mentioning his being an apostle. His
temperance was admirable, wholly abstaining from flesh, and
drinking neither wine nor strong drink. He lived, indeed, after the
strictest rules of the Nazarite order ; and as the mitre he wore on
his head evinced his priesthood, so his never shaving his head or
using any ointment, his habit and diet, and the great severity of
his life, showed him to belong to the Nazarite institution, to which
he was consecrated. In short, he was a man of so divine a tem
per, that he was at once the love and wonder of the age ; and,

Jude. 637
from the reputation of his holy and religious life, was styled James
the Just.
He wrote only one epistle, probably not long before his martyr
dom. He directed it to the Jewish converts, dispersed up and
down those Eastern countries, to comfort them under their suffer
ings, and confirm them against error. He saw a great degeneracy
and declension of manners coming on, and that the purity of the
Christian faith began to be undermined by the doctrines and prac
tices of the Gnostics, who, under pretence of zeal for the legal
rites, generally mixed themselves with the Jews ; he beheld liber
tinism flowing in apace, and the way to heaven apparently made
soft and easy hy men declaiming against good works, as useless and
unnecessary, and wresting the Scriptures to subserve the purposes
of their idle and corrupt affections : our apostle therefore recom
mends that faith which works by love, purifies the heart, and
brings forth obedience to the will of God, as the only faith which
will instrumentally save the soul from eternal death.
JUDE.
In the list of Christ's apostles given by Matthew, we find
"Lebbeus, whose surname was Thaddeus;" in Mark's list we
have " Thaddeus ; " and in Luke's, both in his Gospel and in the
Acts, we have " Judas, the brother of James ; " while John men
tions in his Gospel, " Judas, not Iscariot." That these several
names designate the same individual, is generally conceded by
those who have .carefully studied the subject, and whose opinions
are best entitled to acceptance. He was the son of Alpheus,
brother of James the Less, one of the kinsmen of Jesus who are
called the Lord's brethren, a chosen apostle of Christ, and author
of the epistle bearing his name. When and how he was called to
be a disciple and an apostle, we are not told ; but tradition informs

638 jude.
us that he had previously been a husbandman, and that he was
married and had children.
The only reference to him in scripture history, beyond the men
tion of his name in the different catalogues of the apostles, .occurs
in the Gospel of John, in the narrative of Christ's conversation
with the disciples in the passover-chamber at Jerusalem. Jesus
having promised to those who should manifest their love for him
by keeping his commandments, the bestowal of his love and a
manifestation of himself in return, was asked by Judas, "Lord,
how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the
world? " The word " manifest " probably suggested to the mind
of Judas the idea of a visible manifestation of divine glorj-, such
as was seen by Moses ; or a public display of worldly grandeur,
such as the Jews expected would attend the advent of Messiah.
He seems at a loss to understand what kind of a manifestation
that could be of which the world would know nothing. Or, if
he had a glimmering perception of Christ's real meaning, his
question indicates, that, like many at the present day, he was more
solicitous to understand the mode or philosophy of divine mani
festations, than to enjoy the blessedness of the spiritual reality.
Instead, therefore, of explaining the mode in which he would
manifest himself, Jesus repeated the essential condition of his
promise, saj-ing, " If a man love me, he will keep my words ; and
my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our
abode with him." In this reply, Jesus substitutes the coming and
abiding for the manifestation, thus intimating that it is more
important to have the indwelling of Christ than to understand its
philosophy, and that the disciple who hves in the spirit of loving
obedience will learn the nature of divine manifestations by enjoy
ing the spiritual presence and fellowship of his Saviour.
One of our modern commentators, in his preface to the epistle

jude. 639
of Jude, makes him identical with the " Judas surnamed Barsa-
bas," who was sent with Paul and Barnabas to Antioch by the
council at Jerusalem. But there is no evidence of this identity,
except that the proper name is the same ; while the difference in
surname, and the description of this Judas, preclude the supposi
tion. It would naturally be supposed, that, having been endowed with
the gift of power by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day
of Pentecost, he would preach the* gospel, confirming it with
miracles, at first among his own countrymen in their own land ;
and this, as tradition informs us, was actually the case. As his
life seems to have been prolonged, it is probable that he after
ward preached Jesus and the resurrection to both Jews and Gen
tiles in other lands ; and the writings of the fathers tell us that he
visited Syria, Idumea, Mesopotamia, and Arabia, proclaiming to
the people of those countries the message of salvation. Nicepho-
rus adds, that he came at last to Edessa, where Abagarus gov
erned, and where Thaddeus, one of the seventy, had already
sown the seeds of the gospel. Here he perfected what the other
had begun, and, having bj- his sermons and miracles established
the religion of Jesus, he died in peace ; but others say that he was
slain at Berytus, and honorably buried there. The writers of the
Latin Church are unanimous in declaring that he travelled into
Persia, where, after great success in his apostolic ministry for
many years, he was at last, for his freely and openly reproving the
superstitious rites and customs of the Magi, cruelty put to death.
An interesting story is related of his family by Eusebius, out
of Hegesippus. The emperor Domitian was alarmed by what he
had heard of Messiah's kingdom, and ordered some of the de
scendants of the house of David to be sought out and brought to
him. Those so presented to the emperor were the grandsons of

640 V JUDE.
Judas ; but the hardness of their hands, proving that they were but
ordinary peasants, and their description of the spiritual nature of
the new sovereignty, removed all apprehensions. They were let
go, and lived on, honored as the Lord's relatives, into the reign of
Trajan. St. Jude left only one epistle, which is placed the last of those
seven styled catholic, in the sacred canon. That this epistle was
penned by Jude, or Judas, who was one of the apostles* is here
adopted as, on the whole, the more probable opinion. It is pecu
liarly a catholic epistle, for no special community is specifically ad
dressed in it : it is therefore vain, to conjecture who were meant;
We can only say that there is a Jewish cast of thought ; so that
perhaps Jewish believers rather than Gentiles were in the author's
mind. The place and time of writing are equally uncertain. But,
as there is a remarkable similarity between this and Peter's second
epistle (and this may be concluded the earlier of the two) , we may
perhaps imagine that it was composed 63 or 64 A.D.
The design of it is to warn against unbelieving men, lieentious,
and mockers, who had crept into the Church ; though it is doubtful
whether any, as yet, occupied the place of teachers. The vile
character of such is shown, as well as their impending destruction,
by a reference to the fallen angels, to the people of Sodom and
Gomorrah, and to other presumptuous sinners of old time. The
faithful were not to be alarmed at such an outbreak of evil: they
had been apprised of its approach ; but they must themselves per
severe in faith and godliness, and seek to rescue others from the
snares of the ungodly. The authority of this, as of several others
of the catholic epistles, was not at first acknowledged ; nor was
Jude in the old Syriac translation. It is, however, cited by Ter
tullian as the work of Judas the apostle, and bj- many other of the
early fathers. There is now little question in regard; to it, , .

SIMON ZELOTES. . 641

SIMON ZELOTES.
Less is known of this apostle than of any other among the
twelve. Out of the four apostolic catalogues his name is not
mentioned in the New Testament, so that we have no scripture
account of his life or death. Matthew and Mark distinguish
him from Simon the son of Jonas by calling him Simon the
Canaanite, while Luke designates him as Simon Zelotes. The
best critical scholars tell us that the first is more properly Simon
the Kananite, and the other Simon the Zealot. It has been sup
posed that the name Canaanite was derived from Cana in Galilee,
and that it therefore indicates the place of his nativity ; and some
have even conjectured that he was the bridegroom at whose mar
riage Jesus wrought the miracle of turning water into wine. The
term, however, has no such reference, but is derived from Kana, a
word which signifies to be hot, to glow, to be zealous, and which
is the equivalent of Zelotes, the word employed by Luke. It was
an epithet used to distinguish him from the other Simon, which
represented his ardent and zealous spirit, and more especially his
previous connection with the Jewish sect or faction called Zealots.
Its members had bound themselves, as a sort of ecclesiastical
police, to see that the law was not broken, and were noted for
their fierce advocacy of the Mosaic ritual. The party originated
with Judas the Galilean, or Gaulonite, who headed an insurrection
in which he perished, and his followers were dispersed. After
ward they were somewhat conspicuous in Jewish affairs, under the
name of Zealots.
They took it upon themselves to execute punishment in ex
traordinary cases, with the connivance of both rulers and people,
until their zeal degenerated into lawless violence, and they became
the scourge of the nation, disturbing domestic peace and provok-

642 SIMON ZELOTES.

ing Roman aggression. They deemed the paying of tribute to the
Romans a violation of the theocratic principle that God alone was
the King of Israel, and were continually prompting the people to
throw off the Roman yoke and assert their natural liberty ; taking
care always to make the tumult and confusion which they pro
duced contribute to their own advantage. In the latter days of
the Jewish polity they were led by Eleazar, one of the descend
ants of Judas, and were no better than lawless brigands, carrying
everywhere devastation and death.
Assuming that Simon was a member of this party, we find in
him a remarkable instance of the transforming power of grace ;
for to none other of the twelve could the contrast between then
former and their new position be so vivid. How great the revolu
tion in thought and feeling and life which changed into a fol
lower of the humble arid peaceful Jesus a member of the fierce
party of the day ! — a party which was utterly fanatical in its Jewish
exclusiveness and bigotry, and which looked upon the presence of
the Roman power in the Holy Land as treason against God.
But, whatever Simon had been previously, we have no doubt
that after his conversion he was very zealous for the honor of his
Master, and considered all those who were enemies to Christ as
enemies to himself, however near they might be to him in any
natural relation. And as he was very exact in all the practical
duties of the Christian religion, so he showed a very serious and
pious indignation towards those who professed religion and a faith
in Christ with their mouths, but dishonored their sacred profession
by their irregular and vicious hves, as some of the first professing
Christians really did.
Simon continued in communion with the rest of the apostles and
disciples at Jerusalem, and at the feast of Pentecost received the
same miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, so that he was qualified,

JUDAS ISCARIOT. 643

with the rest of the brethren, for the apostolic office ; and, in prop
agating the gospel of the Son of God, we cannot doubt of his
exercising his gifts with the same zeal and fidelity, though in what
part of the world is uncertain. Some say he went into Egypt,
Cyrene, and Africa, preaching the gospel to the inhabitants of
those remote and barbarous countries ; and others add, that, after
he had passed through those burning wastes, he took ship, and
visited the frozen regions of the north, preaching the gospel to
the inhabitants of the western parts, and even in Britain, where,
having converted great multitudes,, and sustained the greatest
hardships and persecutions, he was at last crucified and buried,
but at what place is not known.
JUDAS ISCARIOT.
The last name in each of the lists of the twelve apostles, as
given by the Evangelists, is that of Judas Iseariot. In four pas
sages in the Gospel of John, we find him mentioned as the son of
Simon. The term Iseariot is applied to him to distinguish him
from Judas the brother of James ; and also, probably, to indicate
the place of his nativity. The general opinion of expositors is,
that the name is local, being the Greek form of Ish-Kerioth, sig
nifying a man of Kerioth. This is one of the towns mentioned in
the list of Joshua as having been assigned to the tribe of Judah.
Assuming the correctness of this interpretation, we have in Judas
the only one among the twelve who belonged to the tribe of Judah,
and was not a Galilean. And this may not have been without its
influence on his character and conduct, separating him, as it might
well tend to do, from the devoted loyalty of the others. We also
find, following his name, a statement of the fact that he was the
betrayer of his Lord, thus attaching to him a note of infamy in all
the catalogues of the twelve. Of the life of Judas, before the ap-

644 JUDAS ISCARIOT.

pearance of his name in the lists of the apostles, we know abso
lutely nothing. What that appearance implies, however, is, that
he had previously declared himself a disciple... He was drawn, as
the others were, b}r the preaching of the Baptist,; or his own Mes
sianic hopes,, or the " gracious words " of the new Teacher, to
leave his former life, and to obey the call of the Prophet of Naza
reth. The choice was not made, we must remember, without a
prevision of its issue. The germs of the evil, in all likelihood,
unfolded themselves gradually., The rules to which the twelve
were subject in their first journey sheltered him from the tempta
tion that would have been most dangerous to him. The new form
of life, of which we find the first traces in Luke viii. 3, brought
that temptation with it. As soon as the twelve were recognized
as a body, travelling hither and thither with their Master, receiving
money and other offerings, and re-distributing .what they received
to the poor, it became necessary. that some one. should .act as. the
steward and almoner of the small society; and this fell to Judas.
The Galilean or Judean peasant found himself . intrusted, with
larger sums of money than before, and with this there came covet
ousness, unfaithfulness, embezzlement. It was impossible after
this that he could feel at ease with One who asserted so clearly
and sharply the laws of faithfulness, duty, unselfishness.., The
narrative of Matt, xxvi., Mark xiv., places this history in close
connection with the fact of the betrayal. It leaves the motives of
the betraj-er to conjecture. The mere love of monej- may have
been strong enough to make him clutch at the bribe offered himu
Mingled with this there may have been some' feeling of. vindictive-
ness, a vague, confused desire to show that he had. power to stop
the career of the Teacher who had reproved him. There may
have -been the. thought, that, after all, the betrayal could do no
harm; that his Master would prove his innocence, or by some

JUDAS ISCARIOT. 645

supernatural manifestation effect his escape. Another motive has
been suggested of an entirely different kind, altering altogether
the character of the act. Not the love of money, nor revenge,
nor fear, nor disappointment, but polic}-, a subtle plan to force on
the hour of the triumph of the Messianic kingdom, the belief that
for this service he would receive as high a place as Peter or James
or John, — this it was that made him the traitor. Ingenious as this
hypothesis is, it fails for that very reason. Of the other motives
that have been assigned, we need not care to fix on any one, as
that which singly led him on. During the daj-s that intervened
•between the supper at Bethany and the paschal gathering, he ap
peared to have concealed his treachery. At the Last Supper he is
present, looking forward to the consummation of his guilt as draw
ing nearer every hour. Then come the sorrowful words which
showed him that his design was known, — "One of you shall
betray me." After this there comes on him that paroxysm and
insanity of guilt as of one whose human soul was possessed by
the Spirit of evil, — " Satan entered into him." He knows that
garden in which his Master and his companions had so often rest
ed after the weary work of the day. He comes, accompanied by
a band of officers and servants (John xviii. 3) , with the kiss which
was probably the usual salutation of the disciples. The words of
Jesus, calm and gentle as they were, showed that this was what
imbittered the treachery, and made the suffering it inflicted more
acute. What followed in the confusion of that night, the Gospels
do not record. The fever of the crime passed away. There came
back on him the recollection of the sinless righteousness of the
Master he had wronged. He repented, and his guilt and all that
had tempted him to it became hateful. He carried back the thirty
pieces of silver to the chief priests, and confessed his sin, hoping
perhaps that good might yet be done by this assertion, of Christ's

646 JUDAS ISCARIOT.

innocence. Their onty answer was to throw the responsibility
upon him ; and, casting down the money on the pavement of the
temple, he went and hanged himself. His death was made more
horrible to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, by the circumstance
recorded by St. Luke in the Acts ; but most awful of all is the
sentence which was more than once pronounced upon him by the
Lord, " Woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed !
It had been good for that man if he had not been born ; ' ' and
with which Peter dismisses his name from the apostles' list,
" from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his
own place." With a scrupulousness which is the most striking
example of religious formalism glossing over moral deformity, the
chief priests decided that the thirty silver pieces, as the price of
blood, must not be put back into the treasury ; so they purchased
with them the potter's field, without the city, as a burial-place for
strangers. It seems to be implied in the narrative that the field
thus purchased was also the place where Judas committed suicide,
and the double memorial of the scene and the price of blood was
preserved by its name, Aceldama, the field of blood.
Without entering into a discussion of the many difficulties which
environ the case of Judas, we will only add, in conclusion, that
the service which he unintentionally rendered to Christianity was
one of no small importance. Two facts will suffice to show the
value of this service. First, any suspicion of the moral purity
of the character and fife of Jesus would tend strongly to hinder
the work of his religion among men, and obstruct the progress of
his kingdom in the world. If infidelity, either in the age of the
apostles or in later times, could have had the slightest ground
for questioning the integrity, purity, benevolence, and piety of
Jesus, it would have availed itself of such a suspicion to justify
its opposition to the doctrines and morals of his gospel. Second,

paul. 647
the sincere and spontaneous testimony to the perfect rectitude of
Jesus, of one who proved to be his greatest enemy after enjoying
the same intimacy with him as his most devoted friends, would
remove all possible ground for sueh suspicion. Of the testimony
of the other disciples it might plausibly be said, that they were
either blinded by their feelings, or were in collusion to exalt their
Master. But when we find one who had been so closely intimate
with him becoming his foe and betrayer without bringing the
slightest allegation against him ; and when we find this traitor,
stung with such remorse as to make his life intolerable, instead of
justifying himself by some charge of wrong, exclaiming, in the
presence of his bitterest enemies, " I have sinned in that I have
betrayed the innocent blood," it seems impossible to have the
shadow of a suspicion of the perfect purity of Jesus.
With the confession of the traitor, " I have betrayed the inno
cent blood," and the declaration of the governor who ordered the
crucifixion, " I find no fault in this man," on the record, how can
infidelity lay its profane hand on the moral character of the
Saviour ?
Whatever, then, may be our speculations and reasonings respect
ing the relations of the traitor to Jesus, and his redeeming mis
sion, it must be admitted, that He who knew all things from the
beginning made no mistake in selecting Judas as one of his apos
tolic household. PAUL THE APOSTLE.
The most wonderful event found in the history of the early
Church, after the day of Pentecost, is the conversion of Saul of
Tarsus. Nor do we find, in the history of the centuries that have
followed, any event which will compare with it in Divine signifi
cance and power. It was wonderful that he should be converted

648 PAUL.
at all. If we consider his positive and intense nature, his He
brew training and prepossessions, his social and ecclesiastical
alliances, and his intolerant opposition to Christianity, we shall
be constrained to admit that his conversion was a marvel of grace.
His conversion was attended by wonderful circumstances. The
appearance of the glorified Jesus, as he was about to enter the
city of Damascus ; the light shining above the brightness of the
midday sun ; the voice from above rebuking his persecuting
frenzy ; the three days of blindness and fasting ; and the restora
tion of his sight, with the bestowal of the Holy Spirit, through
the ministry of Ananias, — constitute a series of wonders such as
never accompanied any other conversion. It was wonderful also
in its results; What a change was wrought in the character
and life of Saul ! What an example of saintly piety and of
quenchless love for sinners he has left the Church ! How abundant
the harvest of souls which he gathered for the heavenly garner !
What a tide of thought and power to move and bless the human
family did he send down the ages ! During the thirty years of his
ministry he projected the ideas of Jesus into the heart of the world
with a force that shattered old systems, and established every
where those organizations called " churches," which have been
multiplying ever since, and which are destined to work a moral
revolution in the world. Obliterate the influence of this man's
ministry and writings, and you sweep our Christian churches from
the earth, quench the moral lights of the age, and plunge the
world once more into pagan darkness and dissoluteness. His life-
work was one that the ages will bless, and that eternity will
celebrate. He was called to be an apostle, and specially commissioned to
preach the gospel to the Gentiles, by Jesus himself. He was evi
dently intended, by the great Head of the Church, to take the

paul. 649
place of Judas the traitor, and thus restore the original number of
twelve. It must be remembered that the choice of Matthias to
the apostolic office was made previous to the pentecostal baptism
of the Holy Ghost, and; in compliance with the suggestion of Peter,
who was characteristically impulsive and hasty. And the fact that
we hear nothing more of Matthias, and that Jesus himself called
Saul to the apostleship, indicates that the choice of the disciples
was not in harmony with the plans of the Master, and was there
fore set aside. In intellectual and spiritual power, in self-sacrifi
cing and untiring labor, and in abundant and enduring success,
Paul, though the last, was the very chiefest of the apostles.
. This eminent apostle, originally named Saul, was a Jew of pure
Hebrew descent, of the tribe of Benjamin, circumcised according
to the law when eight days old. He was born at Tarsus in
Cilicia, and was by birth a free Roman citizen. Possibly his
father or some ancestor had obtained the right for service per
formed or by purchase. He was taught, according to Jewish
custom, a manual employment, — that of tent-maker, i.e., the
manufacturing of goat's-hair cloth, commonly used for tents.
But he was early sent to Jerusalem, where he was trained under
the famous doctor of the law, Gamaliel. Of his family we know
nothing, save that he had a nephew, who detected a conspiracy
against his life.
The future apostle appears first in the New Testament history
after the ascension of our Lord, being then a j-oung man, we may
suppose about thirty. He was attached to the stricter sect of
Jews, " a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee ; " and naturally, being
very zealous for the. law, he set himself to oppose the Christian
doctrine. It has been questioned whether or no he was a member
of the , sanhedrim. There is some presumption that he was ; for
he. subsequently says, that when the saints were put to death he

650 PAUL.
" gave " his " voice against them." If one of the council, he must
have been a married man. But it is more probable, that, without
being an actual member, he was a trusted agent of the sanhedrim,
carrying out with excessive rigor the persecuting measures devised
under the authority of the rulers for extinguishing the religion of
Jesus. At the martyrdom of Stephen, Saul was present, the witnesses
having laid down their clothes at his feet. Exasperated, it would
seem, by Stephen's constancy-, Saul bestirred himself yet more
actively : he arrested men and women in their own houses ; he
had them beaten in the sj-nagogues ; and, though no other death
than that of Stephen is related in the histoiy, yet there must have
been cases in which capital punishment was inflicted. Saul was
not content with what he could do at Jerusalem. The violence
used had dispersed the infant church ; but, instead of extinguish
ing, it contributed to spread the gospel more widely. He
resolved, therefore, being armed with letters from the high priest,
to repair to Damascus, and there apprehend, and carr}- to Jerusa
lem, those whom he found professing the faith of Christ.
But a crisis was at hand. We may imagine the eagerness with
which the zealot pressed onwards to the Syrian city. Perhaps the
believers there knew not of their danger ; or perhaps it was
whispered among their circles, that he who had been so ruthless
in Judea was on his way to them. He was coming ; he was near ;
he was close upon the city-gate. He rode at the head of a com
pany. Escape was hopeless : resistance thej- might not offer.
It was at midday, and the sun was shining in his strength, when
suddenly a blinding light, more brilliant than the sun, burst forth ;
and Saul in terror fell to the earth, while a strange voice ad
dressed him in the Hebrew tongue, a glimpse of the speaker being
perhaps for a moment caught. The men of his party, too, saw

PAUL. 651
the light, and they heard the sound of speech, but understood not
what was said. Then thrilling words reached his ear : ' Saul,
Saul, why persecutest thou me ? ' In an agony of amazement, he
asked who it was that spoke. ' I am Jesus, whom thou perse
cutest.' It was true, then ! the Crucified One, against whom he
had been so mad, and whom, thinking to do God service, he had
reviled and blasphemed, was at the right hand of power. Oh,
wondrous fact ! Was ever truth so utterly confounding to man's
principles and prejudices as this? Jesus of Nazareth the Son
of God ! The glory passed away, and the voice was still. But,
blind and helpless, Saul was taken up, and carried into the city ;
and for three days he ate nothing. Perhaps in that time some
communications were made to his perturbed mind, for he prayed
for mercy ; some vision, peradventure, was shown to the inward
eye ; but those around could not instruct him nor console him,
till on the third day Ananias, a Christian, entered the house, —
it was in Straight Street, and belonged to one Judas, — and,
going up to the prostrate man, laid his hands on him, as he
had been divinely directed, and said, "Brother Saul, receive thy
sight." Then scales fell from the eyes that had been closed : he
sat up, he was baptized, he took meat and was strengthened;
and speedily he who had come to destroy the church at Damascus
preached the gospel there.
There hardly ever was so wonderful a revulsion of judgment.
How was it? What occasioned it? Was it a trick played upon
the persecutor by those he came to harass? Was it the weak
fancy of a fanatic? Or was it a tale devised to cover the resolu
tion previously taken of going over to the persecuted party?
None of these suppositions will account for the circumstances.
You cannot doubt the fact. For there are letters extant by the
man himself, the authenticity of which not even the most deter-

652 paul.
mined sceptic can object to, in which he refers to • the change
produced in him. It could notbe with the expectation of worldly
advantage. For the followers of Christ were as yet a small ,and
uninfluential body, unable to protect themselves from ; any -outrage
that bigotry and malice might plan against them ; and Saul
was already in high favor with the ruling party in Church and
State, all the rewards which usually allure ambitious men being
most surely in his grasp by pursuing his present career. And
he was not an unstable man. Had he through any pique
deserted the chief priests, we should assuredly have found him
vacillating and changing sides on subsequent occasions. It is
useless to say that he -was deceiyed by triok. And to imagine
that the vision was the figment of his own brain, or that he
magnified some ordinary natural phenomenon ¦ into a miraculous
interposition, would be to adopt a theory which a child might
refute. The character of Paul, as described in the Acts, and
to be gathered from his own writings, utterly destroys such a
notion. The idea that he who answered for himself before
Agrippa, and penned the Epistle to the Romans, was but a dreamy
enthusiast, is perfectly preposterous. There is but one sound
conclusion, then; It is, that, by the divine voice, Saul was taught
to recognize- in Jesus of Nazareth that Messiah for whom the
ancient seers had taught the nation to look forward; Some
minute philosophers, indeed, have amused themselves by picking
out discrepancies between the various accounts of this remarkable
event. On their principles any man's life and letters laid together
might be pronounced antagonistic, and every fact of most certain
history proved to be "unhistoric." These criticisms cannot be
elaborately investigated here : it needs but common sense, to
detect their worthlessness ; and such books as Paley's " Horse
Paulinae," and Blunt 's "Undesigned Coincidences," will satisfy

paul. 653
any reasonable mind of the harmony of all that the sacred writers
have recorded of St.; Paul. And, whenever through the course of
his life we have a difficulty, it is no other than what fuller
knowledge would enable us to solve. The narrative, therefore^
remains one of strong corroborative proof of Christianity.
The date of Saul's conversion is variously fixed. Some, as
Browne, place it as early as the beginning of 30 A.D. : Wieseler,
on the other hand, brings it down to 40 A.D. ; and others would
place it still later. But of this somewhat more below.
Divinely commissioned, Saul began to preach in the synagogues
of Damascus, for how long we do not know : it is in one place
said to be for ' many days.' But of course such a mighty revolu-
ton could not pass unnoticed; and the Jewish party in the city
determined to put an end to the new convert's zeal. They took
then- measures well ; and it was only by being let down over the
wall in a basket, that Saul escaped, the watch that was prepared
to arrest him at the city-gates. He retired into Arabia, unless
his sojourn there is to be assigned to the period immediately after
his conversion, for he returned from Arabia to Damaseus. At all
events, the time of preaching at Damascus, with the Arabian
visit, and possibly visits elsewhere, was in aU three years. It
was perhaps while in Arabia that the revelations, of 2 Cor. xii. 1-4
were vouchsafed.
And now he turned his face to the holy city. Three years, as
just observed, had elapsed since he left it the agent of the high
priest for persecution : he returned, persecuted himself, the preach
er of that faith he had so violently opposed. Little was known of
hun by the disciples whom he desired, to join. They saw him last
their haughty foe : they could . not think he was now their friend ;•
and they shrunk from him, as if he had some covert purpose to
insnare them. But Barnabas, it matters not how, was . acquainted

654 paul.
with him, and was aware of his story ; and so he brought him to
the apostles. Few of these were then in Jerusalem ; only Peter,
it would seem, and James. And Saul's stay was short, a single
fortnight. For there of course curiosity and opposition would be
roused ; and his life was not safe. Besides, he had a divine inti
mation that his mission was to be more specially to the Gentiles.
Accordingly the brethren hurried him away ; and he went by Cesa
rea to his birthplace, Tarsus.
We cannot suppose Saul idle whilst at Tarsus : he no doubt em
braced every opportunity of preaching Christ ; and perhaps, as his
worldly prospects were blighted by his conversion, he maintained
himself here, as we know he did elsewhere, by working at the craft
he had been taught. But a larger field of usefulness was being
prepared. The gospel had reached Antioch ; and the apostles at
Jerusalem had despatched Barnabas thither, who, delighted with
the opening prospect, went to Tarsus, and brought back Saul as
his fellow-laborer; and for a twelvemonth the two diligently
preached in that great city, where the name " Christian " was first
affixed to the disciples, then a word of reproach, afterwards most
glorious as pointing out the Master whom they rejoiced to serve.
The fruits of faithful teaching were soon apparent. On the predic
tion of Agabus that there would be a famine, the disciples at Anti
och raised a contribution for the relief of the Judean brethren, and
sent, as the bearers of ft, Barnabas and Saul. How long they con
tinued at Jerusalem, we do not know : probably it was no great
time. But it is likely that while they were there the martyrdom
of James, and the imprisonment of Peter, by Herod Agrippa oc
curred. Returning to Antioch, they took with them another helper,
John Mark, the nephew of Barnabas.
There were many distinguished teachers at Antioch ; and hitherto
Saul had ranked but as one of them, and probably not the fore-

paul. 655
most. His peculiar designation by the Lord himself was not un
known ; but it was not yet seen that he was to stand forth a burn
ing and a shining light, independent of men, at least the equal of
any of the great apostles and pillars at Jerusalem. But now the
Holy Ghost intimated that Barnabas and Saul must leave Antioch,
and deliver a testimony elsewhere. So the church fasted and
prayed ; and hands were laid upon them, not to communicate au
thority, but as a formal designation to this particular mission.
And they took John Mark with them, and sailed to Cyprus, Barna-
bas's own country. Hitherto it had been " Barnabas and Saul : "
now it is almost exclusively, "Paul and Barnabas." For Saul
among the Gentiles was Paul ; and he was the principal speaker.
In Cyprus he confounded before the proconsul a sorcerer called
Elymas ; and when they returned to the continent, where at Perga
John Mark left them, Paul preached at Antioch in Pisidia to the
Jews in their sj-nagogue ; and, as the}- contradicted and blas
phemed, the two apostles boldly uttered the ominous words, to
be ever afterwards the maxim of their work : "It was neces
sary that the word of God should first have been spoken to
you ; but, seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves un
worthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles." The
further incidents of the narrative, how they visited Iconium and
Lystra and Derbe ; how they were taken for gods at Lystra,
Barnabas with his grave aspect being called Jupiter, and Paul
with his fluent tongue being supposed to be Mercury ; how Paul
was stoned, and left for dead, but, supernaturally perhaps, was
restored to strength ; how through several provinces the Lord was
pleased to bless his message, and how churches were formed and
pastors ordained over them, — cannot be particularly noted here.
With glad hearts the apostolic missionaries returned to Antioch,
and told out to the rejoicing disciples there that God " had opened

656 paul.
the door of faith unto the Gentiles." For a while, then, they rested ,
at Antioch.
But there was fresh work for them. Men came down from Ju
dea, — Christians in profession, but deeply imbued with Jewish pre
judice, — and insisted on the necessity of circumcision for salva
tion. Paul and Barnabas opposed the dogma ; but so great was
the importance of the crisis, that it was deemed necessary to send
the question to Jerusalem for solemn consideration and resolution
by the apostles and elders there. Paul and Barnabas therefore,
with certain other delegates, journeyed into Judea ; and, if this visit
be the same with that he mentioned in Gal. ii. 1-10, a divine ad
monition was not wanting for it. Of Paul's more private commu
nications with James, Peter, and John, of the attitude he assumed
toward them in their harmonious arrangement, of his public ad
dress in the council, and his bold determination for Christian liberty
in refusing to have Titus circumcised, and of the decree adopt
ed, nothing can be here said. Paul and Barnabas returned with
thankful hearts to Antioch, proclaiming, as they went, the decision
arrived at at Jerusalem, which they read in full assembly to the
church at Antioch, gathered to receive them. They had been ac
companied by Judas and Silas, who were commissioned to confirm
the account of what had been resolved on; and one of these,
Silas, became afterwards the missionaiy companion of Paul.
For soon there was a disagreement between Paul and Barnabas ;
and we know not whether they met again. It was, therefore,
probably before this separation, that Peter paid a visit to Antioch;
For Barnabas was yet there at the time, and was influenced by
Peter's example to yield a point which would .seriously have com
promised the purity of Christian doctrine. But Paul maintained
his ground, and faithfully rebuked Peter for his vacillation ; and
meekly did the elder apostle seem to have borne the reproof.

paul. 657
. .' Paul's second missionary journey must be very briefly touched.
He had proposed it to Barnabas ; but, on account of a dispute
about John Mark, he took Silas as his companion. His course lay
through Syria and Cilicia, to Derbe and Lystra, where Timothy,
son of a Greek father and a Hebrew mother, joined the party ;
Paul having had him circumcised, that no reasonable offence might
be given to the Jews. Then, guided bj- the Divine Spirit, the apos
tle traversed Galatia, Phrvgia, and Mysia, to Troas. Here he had
a notable vision. Not yet had he proclaimed the gospel in Europe.
But a Macedonian seemed to cry for help. It was the Lord's sug
gestion. So from Troas the heralds of salvation crossed the sea
to Neapolis and Philippi ; and there the}' preached the word of
life. The conversion of Lydia, the cruel punishment inflicted by
the magistrates on Paul and Silas, and the jailer's baptism, fol
lowed. And herein Paul showed again his independent spirit.
He had been unjustly beaten, and yet he sang praises to God in
the prison at midnight. Persecution he gladly endured for Christ's
sake. But he felt it right to make the magistrates ashamed of
their conduct ; and they, so arbitraiy one day, had to come the
next crouching to the men they had abused. Then Paul and Silas
went through Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica and .Be*
rea; and, disturbances being stirred up, Paul was by the kind
care of the brethren hurried off alone to Athens. His address
there would of itself stamp him as no common man. From Athens
he repaired to Corinth, where Timothy, whom he had sent from
Athens to Thessalonica, and Silas, rejoined him. There he contin
ued a year and six months, founding and tending a noble church.
There, too, he wrote his earliest apostolic letter, the first to the
Thessalonians, and, no long time after, the second. Subsequently
he visited Ephesus ; but, being anxious to be at Jerusalem at an
approaching feast, probably Pentecost, his stay was short. From

658 paul.
Jerusalem, he went by Cesarea to Antioch. A brief record re
mains of the journey thus completed ; but vast were the results of
it. The apostle's faith and patience were sorely exercised ; yet
he ceased not from his labors. He cheered the churches he- had
previously founded ; he carried the banner of the cross to a fresh
continent ; he preached in licentious Corinth, in philosophic Athens,
in luxurious Ephesus ; and it was on this journey that Christian
bodies were gathered in so many cities, to whom afterwards those
inspired letters were directed which have ever since been so choice
a treasure of Christian doctrine. Labor indeed he did, and more
abundantly than other teachers.
• It might be thought that he would now take rest. Years must
be beginning to tell on him ; and the hardships he had endured
had perhaps enfeebled him. But Paul would not rest on earth.
Rest is in heaven. It was not long before he commenced his third
missionary journey. Passing through Galatia and Phrygia, he
came, as on his previous visit he had promised he would, to Ephe
sus. His Epistle to the Galatians was written after the visit just
referred to, possibly from Ephesus. And in the last-named great
city a marvellous work was accomplished. The deepest impres
sion was made upon multitudes. Special miracles were performed
bj' the hands of Paul ; and many converts gave the best proof of
their sincerity bj- publicly burning their valuable unlawful books.
The apostle's three-years sojourn at Ephesus was brought to a
close bj- the great tumult incited by Demetrius. But very likely in
this time he made short excursions elsewhere. Thus it is not im
probable that he then visited Corinth. It was from Ephesus that
the first Epistle to the Corinthians was written ; the second after
leaving Ephesus, when he had reached Macedonia. Thence he
visited Greece proper, and from Corinth wrote his letter to the
Romans : then, retracing his steps through Macedonia, he sailed

paul. 659
from Philippi to Troas. His preaching there, with the accident to
Eutychus, his voyage to Miletus, where the Ephesian elders met
him and received a most pathetic farewell, his further course till
he reached Cesarea, can be only alluded to here. In this last
journey much had been accomplished in both Europe and Asia.
The settlement of the church at Ephesus, a centre of religions in
fluence for the Asiatic districts, was most important ; abuses else
where were rectified ; and during this portion of the apostle's life
some of the most weighty of his letters, as above noted, were
penned. Again we maj- say he was in labors most abundant.
It was with mournful feelings that he ended this missionary tour.
He had told the Ephesians that they should see his face no more ;
and at Cesarea, in Philip the evangelist's house, Agabus from
Judea warned him that if he went to Jerusalem his arrest was cer
tain. Vainly did his company dissuade him with tears from pros
ecuting his journey. The apostle, feeling as a man, was deter
mined as a follower of Christ. " What mean ye to weep and to
break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also
to die at Jerusalem, for the name of the Lord Jesus." He went
up, therefore, to the city, and was received joyfully by the breth
ren, and lodged at the house of Mnason, an aged man of Cyprus,
who was of his company.
The predicted storm soon burst upon the apostle. He had,
upon the advice of James, joined in a legal ceremony, when, being
in the temple, a riot was suddenly raised, because it was fancied
that one of his Gentile associates with whom he had been seen
walking in the city had accompanied him into the holy house.
The entire population were at once in uproar ; and, had not the
Roman tribune hurried down with troops, Paul would have been
torn to pieces. As it was, he was with difficulty rescued, and
carried into the castle or tower of Antonia, from the steps of

660 PAUL.
which he was permitted to harangue the crowd. At first, as he
spoke in Hebrew or Syro-Chaldaic, he was listened to ; but as soon
as he related the divine command to him to go to the Gentiles,: the
tumult, recommenced, and the tribune, thinking him some dema
gogue, ordered him into the. castle to be scourged, that the truth
might be extracted from him. This, however, Paul prevented by
his claim of Roman citizenship ; which made the tribune tremble
for the length to which he had already gone. Still he detained
him, and the next daj- placed him before the Jewish i council. The
details of his behavior and treatment there, and how he was res
cued from the villanous plot to assassinate him, and seat, under a
guard to Cesarea, are full of interest; but they cannot be' given
here. The active missionary was now perforce stationary. For
two j-ears he was kept in custody by the governor Felix; and the
onty incidents recorded of the period relate to the court held when
the high priest and elders came down , to prosecute him with a
hired advocate, and the conversations he had with. Felix, whose
guilty conscience reproached him1 when Paul reasoned of right
eousness, temperance, and judgment to come. Yet the apostle
was not altogether secluded : his friends might have access to
him ; and doubtless his converse instructed and comforted many.
Festus, who succeeded Felix as governor, found Paul still a pris
oner. And, though so long a time had passed, the Jews were as
eager as ever to have him condemned ; and, on. Festus inquiring
whether he would go to Jerusalem for formal trial, he exercised
his right of appeal, and transferred his cause to the hearing of
the Roman emperor. Then followed his wonderful address before
Agrippa, so forcible, so truthful, so persuasive, that the governor
and the king agreed that but for the appeal, which removed Paul
from local jurisdiction, he might have been freed at once.
Long before this the apostle had expressed his intention of/

PAUL. 661
visiting Rome. He had thought of going thither at his own will ;
but he was to be carried as a prisoner to the imperial city. The
history of the voyage is given with great minuteness by Luke,
who was on board the vessel. The officer in command soon per
ceived that he had r no ordinary man under his charge ; and the
calmness and faith exhibited by the apostle not only served for
the preservation of the ship's company and passengers, whose
lives the Lord in vision told him he had given him, but have also
left a noble example for succeeding generations of the Church.
Cast on the island of Malta, at a spot which may yet be identified
(now called St. Paul's Bay) , he was the messenger of blessing to
the people there ; and ultimately he arrived in Rome, cheered by
the brotherty love of the Roman Christians who had gone far to
meet him. The Jews there had not been apprised by those in
Palestine of the charges against Paul. They heard him, therefore,
at first with less prejudice ; and to them, so far as they would
listen, and to the Gentiles, he was permitted to preach freely. For
after being reported to the captain of the guard, the celebrated
Burrus, he was allowed to hire a house, and live only under the
charge of a soldier. And this continued for two years.
At this period we lose the guidance of St. Luke ; arid Paul's
subsequent history is uncertain and disputed. During his enforced
stay at Rome he wrote letters to the Ephesian and Colossian
churches, and also to Philemon, and probably later, when he was
in stricter custody, to the Philippians. Moreover, if that to the
Hebrews is from his pen, it must have been composed during his
imprisonment. But then the question is, Was he ever released?
Ecclesiastical history, which cannot reasonably be doubted, records
his martyrdom at Rome. Did he return thither? or was his death
the close of this sirigle confinement? Able critics maintain both
sides of the alternative. But after the fullest' consideration, it

662 paul.
must be said that the evidence preponderates in favor of Paul's
release, of extended further labors, of a second apprehension, and
then of the martyr's crown.
We may in some measure trace his course. He visited Asia
and Greece, perhaps being at Ephesus more than once. He went
to Crete, where he left Titus, and intended to winter at Nicopolis.
He passed through Miletus, Troas, and Corinth, and had to lament
the defection of the Asiatic churches. At last he was in Rome
well-nigh alone, yet stoutly maintaining the faith, and expecting
soon his crown of righteousness.
Of his labors in the West we have less certain information, nor
can we tell where chronologically to place them, whether after or
before (though more probably the latter) those just referred to in
the East. But when Clement, his contemporary, declares that he
preached to the bound of the West, and other early writers dis
tinctly say that he visited Spain, we can hardly doubt the fact.
Some believe that he was in Britain. See Savile's " Introduction of
Christianity into Britain," 1861, and Morgan's " St. Paul in Brit
ain," 1861, two works, which, widely differing in many important
particulars, agree in maintaining that the apostle visited this island,
and supply generally the evidence on which that opinion is based.
Still, more cannot well be said than generally that such a. visit is
not impossible, and on particular parts of the history we must not
be confident.
Of the circumstances attending the death of the great apostle,
scarce any thing can be certainly known. We may- well believe
that it was a day of gladness to him. He who had long before
expressed ' a desire to depart, to be with Christ ; ' who had been
ever pressing ' towards the mark for the prize of the high calling
of God in Christ Jesus ; ' who was little moved by the hardships of
the contest, anxious only to finish his course with joy ; who, as the

paul. 663
•tedious night of storm was passing off, could fix his eye with tri
umphant hope on the near brilliance of everlasting day, — could
not have dreaded the conflict with the last enemy. ' The sting of
death is sin ; ' and his sin was blotted out by the blood of the
Lamb. Doubtless then he realized his own inspired exclamation,
" Thanks be to God, which giveth " me " the victory through our
Lord Jesus Christ."
His last imprisonment is traditionally said to have been very
different from the mild coercion of the former. No longer in his
own hired house, he is thought to have been confined in the Mam-
ertine dungeon. It still exists, comprising two large apartments
built of uncemented stones, one below the other. Into this last
(called the Tullianum, from the king Servius Tullus, by whom, as
the story goes, it was constructed) , accessible onty through a hole
in the floor of the upper chamber, a place characterized by ancient
historians as most foul and loathsome, the apostle was thrust.
No man had stood with him on his trial ; but he was not alone, for
his Lord was there. From this dungeon he was dragged to Aquae
Salvise, on the Ostian road, two miles beyond the limits of the
present city, and was there beheaded. Glorious martyr ! Doubt
less fresh strains of gratulation poured from heavenly harps when
Saul of Tarsus, a chief of sinners, a chief of saints, was borne
by angelic ministers into the everlasting presence, there to receive
his crown; and wondrous sweet — may fancy be allowed thus far?
— must have been the recognition of Stephen and Saul, the martyr
and the persecutor a martyr too, as, bound in the tie of indissoluble
love, they together adore the grace of Him who hath placed them
near his throne to behold his countenance forever.
Of St. Paul's personal appearance, tradition has preserved some
features. He is said to have been short of stature, of strongly-
marked Jewish type of countenance ; to have had a long face, with

664 paul.
high forehead, an aquiline nose, a clear complexion ; his beard
being long and thin, his head bald ; his eyes gray, beneath thickly-
overhanging eyebrows, with & cheerful and inviting expression,
easily showing the quick changes of his feelings. Probably his
body was disfigured by some lameness or distortion. But the
characteristics of his mind are of yet greater interest. Ardent in
disposition, with much tenderness of heart, he was fearless, deterr
mined, patient, courteous, and of honorable bearing, with clear
logical grasp of truth, which he could illustrate with commanding
eloquence ; and he united intellectual qualities of different kinds,
impulsive zeal with practical good sense and a singleness of puiv
pose, which, in any walk of life, would have insured distinction, —
how much more when all these natural endowments were sancti
fied and directed by the highest wisdom, even the guidance of
God's Spirit, to the highest end !
A meet vessel indeed — so made by divine grace — was this to
proclaim the everlasting gospel. And faithfully did he bear the
message. His lucid expositions of divine truth have always occu
pied a foremost place among the standards of Christian doctrine.
Some, indeed, have chosen to represent him as inconclusive and
vacillating; and some have dwelt upon the difference in type of
his teaching from that of other of the apostles. To the first
charge only a decided negative can be opposed ; and to the alleged
variation it must be said that different aspects of the same truth
may be presented without opposition, nay, that they must be pre
sented if we would apprehend the whole. There was but One
who could exhibit a complete picture, giving to every part its due
prominence, and leaving nothing to be supplied. What the Mas
ter has done by a single touch, the disciples could do only in con
junction and by repetitions, each illustrating a part or parts, which,
collected, form a perfect image. Doubtless those who learned

paul. 665
from them have often failed to combine their teachings ; and hence
there have been divisions, — one of Paul, another of ApoUos, and
another of Cephas. But this has been man's infirmity : it was
one Spirit that originally breathed in all of them his harmonious
gifts. None of the sacred writers has more thoroughly illustrated
the great Christian doctrine of the atonement than the apostle
Paul. The work and offices of Christ, justification by faith in
him, are prominent topics in his productions. And again and
again does he break off from the main thread of his discourse, to
dwell upon the exceeding great love of his Master and only
Saviour- His history and writings furnish a proof not to be gainsaid of
the truth of Christianity. If the facts of Paul's life be admitted
— and how can they be questioned? — it is clear that we have not
been deceived, but that Christ did indeed die for our sins, and rise
again for our justification.

INDEX.

INDEX.

Aceldama, the field of blood, 646.
^Esop's fables, 308.
Agabua, prediction of a famine by,
654; warns Paul of his approaching
arrest, 659.
Age, the golden, 32.
Agrippa, address of Paul before, 660.
Alexander the Great, 403.
Alps, scene upon the, 347.
Ananias baptizes Saul, 651.
Andrew visits Jesus, 159; a native of
Bethsaida, 601 ; engaged in the fish
ery, 601 j the first disciple, 601 ;
brings his brother Simon to Jesus,
602; introduces Greeks to Jesus,
602; at Jerusalem after the resur
rection, 604; traditions in relation
to his after life, 604; his crucifixion
and burial, 605.
Angel visits Mary, 47 ; appears to
Joseph in a dream, 94; speaks to
the women at the sepulchre, 540.
Angels, song of, 30, 37; minister to
Jesus in the desert, 154; at the sep-
ulchre„542.
Anger of Jesus, 183, 294.
Anguish of Jesus, 455, 528.
Anna the prophetess praises Jesus, 64.
Annas the high priest, 473.
Antioch, preaching of Paul and Bar
nabas at, 654.

Apocalypse, the, written at Patmos,
613.
Apostles, the twelve, relations of, to
Jesus, 430.
Aristocracy of church, 437.
Ascension, 566.
Augustus, Emperor, orders a census
of Judea, 41, note.

B.

Baptism in Switzerland, 60; among
the' Jews, 132; of the Levites, 132;
John's, 137.
Barabbas, 513.
Barnabas meets Paul at Jerusalem,
653; preaches at Antioch, 654; bears
contribution to Jerusalem in time
of famine, 654; goes to Cyprus with
Paul, 655; taken for Jupiter at Lys
tra, 655; returns to Antioch, 655;
opposes the dogma of circumcision,
656; disagreement with Paul, 656.
Bartholomew, probably identical with
Nathaniel, 618; is brought to Jesus
by Philip, 619; at the Sea of Tibe
rias, 620; traditions of his labors
and martyrdom, 621.
Beatitudes, 266.
Bethany, Lazarus raised from the
dead at, 316; description of, 353.
Bethesda, Pool of, 301. 669

670 INDEX.

Bethlehem, visit of shepherds to, 33;

body of St. Andrew to Constanti

known as the " City of David," 35;

nople, 605.

mentioned by Micah, 57, 90; chil

Constantinople the obstacle to the

dren of, destroyed by Herod, 91.

conversion of the Greeks, 225.

Bethsaida, 239.

Cornelius the centurion, 599.

Bible, the, » book of wonders, 83;

Courts of the temple, 187.

and nature, 283.

Cross, form of the, 516, 517; inscrip

Blanc, Mont, 347.

tion over, 525; exalted and glori

Blind men, 387.

fied, 531.

Boanerges, the " sons of thunder,"

Coromandel, kingdom of, St. Thomas

606.

erects a place of worship in, 624.

Born again, 205.

Crucifixion, a common mode of pun

Brahe, Tycho, new star of, 42.

ishment with the Romans, 515.

Brahmins kill St. Thomas, 625.

Cup in Gethsemane, 528.

Bread, living, 440.

Cyrus, the Persian king, praised by

Brotherhood, 432.

Isaiah, 55.

Burrus, the captain of the guard at

Borne, 661.

Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatu

D.

ral, 451, note.

Damascus, journey of Paul to, 650.
Daniel made chief of the Magi, 69;
c.
predicts the Messiah, 69.
Death belongs to the course of nature,.
Caiaphas, the high priest, 428; sum
534.
mons the sanhedrim, 482.
Dedication, feast of, 394, note.
Cana, marriage at, 175.
Democracy, the true, 437.
Capernaum, healing of nobleman's
Demons, 332.
son at, 229; people of, follow Jesus,
Desert of Judea, John preaches in,
242; scene of the greater part of the
135; Jesus in the, 140.
miracles, 251; the earthly centre of
Devil, the, tempts Jesus, 147; a per
the kingdom of God, 255; doubts in
sonal spirit, 153; sows tares, 314; in
relation to its site, 190.
Gethsemane, 454.
Caravansary for travellers, 38.
Didymus, surname of Thomas, 621.
Census, Roman, 41, 297.
Disciples, the first, 159; sent forth,
Cesarea Philippi, 369.
255; Jesus appears to, 547, 555.
Charity, true, 291.
Dives and Lazarus, parable of, 380.
Children of God, the, 267.
Divinity of Jesus, 483.
Christ announced, 37; Jesus, the, 412.
Dove, the, at baptism of Jesus, 138.
Christian brotherhood not commun
ism, 433.
Christs, false, 299.
E.
Chrysostom, opinion of, regarding St.
Thomas, 025.
Earthquake at the death of Christ,
Communion of saints, the, 438.
528.
Confucius and the Golden Bule, 284.
East, land of the, 67.
Constantine the Great removes the
Eastern houses, fashion of, 474.
INDEX.

671

Egypt, the land of, 87; flight of Joseph
into, 91; route of Joseph and Mary,
92; legends of Jesus in, 93.
Elective affinity shown by Jesus, 434.
Elias at transfiguration, 341.
Elisabeth, visit of Mary to, 49.
Elymas the sorcerer confounded by
Paul, 655.
Emmaus, the disciples talk with
Jesus on the way to, 545.
Ephraim, city of, 376.
Essenes, the, 173.
Evil One, the, t-usy sowing tares, 314.

Eables of the heathen, 51; of the Vir
gin, 21; of iEsop, 308.
Faith a higher faculty, 82, 83; should
be educated, 83.
Family, Jesus blessed, 272; of Christ,
430.
Famine, 148.
Farmers in Palestine, 36.
Fasting of Jesus, 143; remarkable
cases of, 154, note.
Fear, Jesus had no, 460.
Felix, governor of Cesarea, keeps
Paul in custody, 660.
Festus, Paul brought before, 660.
Food, note on living without, 154.
Forgiveness, 292.
Forty often used as a round number,
144, note.
French convention of 1793, 436.
Friends of Jesus, 350, 430.

G.
Galilee, district of, 44; Jesus journeys
to, 162; Cana of, 175; gathering of
the disciples at, 555.
Gennesareth, Lake, 239; plain of, fer-
1 tility of, 240.
Gethsemane, 455.

Give, how to, 291.
God a spirit, 221.
Golden age, 32.
Golden Eule, the, 284.
Good Shepherd, parable of the, 305.
Gospel, the Fourth, 309; genuineness
of, 483, note.
Galilee, Lake of, 313.
Greeks anxious to see Jesus, 418.
H.
Handel's oratorio of the Messiah, 53.
Harvest, 224.
Heart, the seat of the moral feelings,
276; the pure in, 277.
Heaven, kingdom of, preached by
John, 136; how found, 268.
Hebrew Bible translated into Greek,
56.
Hermon, Mount, 369.
Herod Antipas, dominion of, 95; ruler
of Galilee, 497.
Herod the Great, cruelty of, 88; super
stition of, 89; sends privately for
the Magi, 90; destroys the children
of Bethlehem, 91; death of, 94.
Herodians, the, 413.
Heroism of Jesus, 383.
Hezekiah, King, threatened by Isaiah,
55.
High priest, the office of, 473.
Hillel, Babbi, and the Golden Bule,
284.
Holy of holies, the, 183.
Home of Jesus, 94.
Honor, true and false, 392.
Hosannah in the highest, 409.
Hunger, pangs of. 148, 273.
Humanity, brotherhood of. 435.
Hymn after supper, 452.

Ignatius and Polycarp, disciples of
John the Evangelist, 613.

672

INDEX.

Isaiah, prophecy of, in relation to
Christ, 30; threatens King Heze-
Mah, 55; praises King Cyrus, 55;
Jesus expounds, 230.
Inn, an Oriental, 38.
Inscription on the cross, 525.

Jairus, daughter of, 333, 582.
James the apostle, surnamed the
Greater, 605; a fisherman by trade,
605; called by Jesus, 606; entreats
the Saviour to call down fire on
the Samaritans, 607; witnesses the
transfiguration, 342, 607; present at
the ascension of Jesus, 607; slain
by Herod Agrippa, 608.
James the Less, difficulties in rela
tion to his identity, 630, 631; proba
bly a cousin of Jesus, 633; a pillar
of the church in Jerusalem, 633;
presides over the council in refer
ence to Gentile converts, 633; esti
mate of his character from the writ
ings of the fathers, 634; scribes and
Pharisees try to insnare him, 634;
thrown from a pinnacle of the tem
ple, 635; prays for his murderers,
635; his charity, modesty, and tem
perance, 636; his Epistle, 637.
Jericho, gate of, 387.
Jerusalem, road from Bethlehem to,
61; at the Passover, 118, 199; city
described, 199; political state of,
296; destruction foretold by Jesus,
424; society of ladies in, 516.
Jesus, birth of, 41; naming of, 43;
taken to the temple, 62; birth of,
fixed by scholars, 75, note ; family
of, 103; sent to school, 109; did not
get his wisdom from other men,
115; brought up to be a carpenter,
116; goes to Jerusalem with his par
ents, 118; converses with the rabbis,
127; increasing in wisdom and in

grace, 130; baptized by John, 138;
moved to go into the wilderness,
140; fasting, 143; tempted by the
Devil, 147; goes to look up John,
160; invites Andrew and John to
his house, 161; conversation with
Peter, John, Andrew, and Nathan
iel, 163; personal appearance of, 170;
did not join the Essenes, 174; at
tends the wedding at Cana, 175;
turns the water into wine, 179;
drives the men and beasts from
the temple, 195; his first pupil, 203;
teaches Nicodemus concerning the
kingdom of God, 206; makes more
disciples than John, 210; at Jacob's
well, 214; talks with the woman of
Samaria, 216; performs no miracles
at Shechem, 225; heals nobleman's
son at Capernaum, 229; cast out of
the synagogue at Nazareth, 235;
makes a home at Capernaum, 244;
preaches the Sermon on the Mount,
262; visits to Jerusalem, 296; hated
by political and religious leaders,
300; heals a man at the Pool of Be-
thesda, 301; mobbed in Jerusalem,
302; gives sight to a blind man, 305;
raises Lazarus from the dead, 306;
makes use of parables, 308; mira-
cles of, 322; sympathy for sufferers,
339; transfiguration of, 341; friends
of, 350; grief of, at the death of
Lazarus, 358; journeys of, 366;
crosses the Jordan, 376; tone of his
preaching, 379; cures blind men,
387; speaks to Zaccheus, 388; es
corted in triumph to Jerusalem, 397;
weeps for the city, 403; public en
try, 410; preaches to the people, 411;
utters warnings against the scribes
and Pharisees, 311; Greeks desire
to see him, 420; foretells the de
struction of Jerusalem, 424; sends
Peter and John to make arrange
ments for the Passover, 431; love
of, for the disciples, 433; as a re-

INDEX.

673

former of society, 436; the last sup
per, 443; warns Peter, 447; promises
to send the Comforter, 448; goes
out of the city, 452; in Gethsemane,
455; prayer of, 456; excuses his dis
ciples for sleeping, 461; his bloody
sweat, 462; betrayed by Judas, 465;
rebukes Peter, 466; yields himself
up to his Father, 407; brought be
fore the high priest, 474; confesses
himself to be the Christ, 483 ; ad
judged guilty of death by the Coun
cil, 484; examined by Pilate, 493;
sent to Herod Antipas, 497; mocked
by the soldiers, 526; railed at by
the thief, 527; dies, 528; appears to
the women, 540, 541; walks with
the disciples to Emmaus, 545; ap
pears among the disciples at Jeru
salem, 547 ; seen by the disciples at
Galilee, 555; feeds the apostles, 556;
gives commands to Simon Peter,
556-558; commissions the apostle to
teach all nations, 564; ascends to
heaven, 566.
Jewish boy, reverence of, for his
teachers, 128.
Jewish rabbis, mode of teaching of,
124; converse with Jesus, 128.
Jewish wedding, description of, 176.
Jews alone knew and worshipped
the true God, 33; looking for the
Messiah, 56; their pride in the
temple, 62; remain in Babylon, 69;
schools among the, 110; taught their
boys trades, 116; baptism among
the, 132; their hatred of the Samar
itans, 215; their reverence for teach
ers and prophets, 244; true to the
forms of their religion, 298; forms
and scruples of, 488; their hatred of
Pontius Pilate, 489; clamor for the
death of Jesus, 504.
Joanna, 350, 539.
John Mark accompanies Paul and
Barnabas to Antioch, 654; to Cy
prus, 655.

John the Baptist, 135; baptizing in
the Jordan, 137; baptizes Jesus, 138;
prepares his disciples to follow
Christ, 159; baptizing at Salim, 210;
put to death by Herod, 211.
John the Evangelist, the apostle of
love, 609; his family in easy circum
stances, 609; his early training, 610;
probably a disciple of the Baptist,
610; witnesses the transfiguration,
342, 611; sent with Peter to prepare
the last supper, 611 ; in the Garden
of Gethsemane, 455; at the cross,
527, 612 ; receives the Virgin Mother,
612 ; at the sepulchre of Jesus, 541 ;
present at Gennesaret after the
resurrection, 612 ; goes to Asia Minor
after the death of Paul, 612; writes
the Apocalypse at Patmos, 613;
legends of his old age, 613; his
Epistles, 614; his Gospel, 614.
Joppa, 124.
Jordan, the, 131.
Joseph, husband of Mary, 41, 47;
flight of, to Egypt, 91; returns to
Nazareth, 96; his character, 103;
takes Jesus to Jerusalem, 118.
Joseph of Arimathea, 350, 536.
Josephus, account of Herod by, 88;
his description of Capernaum, 240.
Judas and Silas accompany Saul and
Barnabas, 656.
Judas Iseariot, the last in the list of
the apostles, 443, 643; meaning of
Iseariot, 643; chosen to be an
apostle, 644; the steward and al
moner of the little society, 644; be
trays Jesus, 465; motives for his
betrayal of Christ, 644; his repent
ance, 645; hangs himself, 514, 646;
difficulties in discussing the case,
646.
Jude, identity of, with Lebbeus, and
Judas the brother of James, 637; a
husbandman and married, 638; the
only reference to him in New Tes
tament history, 638; tradition in re-

674 INDEX.

lation to his preaching, 639; put to

Martha and Mary of Bethany, 354.

death in Persia, 639; story told of

Matthew the tax-gatherer, 350; some

his family, 639; his Epistle, 640;

times called Levi, 625; supposed by

doubts of its authenticity, 640.

some to be the brother of Thomas,

Jupiter and Saturn, conjunction of,
75.'

625; a native of Galilee, and resided

at Capernaum, 626; a Roman tax-

gatherer, 626; his business an un

K.

popular one, 626; called by Jesus,

627; gives an entertainment at his

house, 627; traditions of his labors

Kingdom, Herod's, 88, 373; of heaven,

and martyrdom, 628; arranges his

136, 161, 203, 226, 267, 308, 391, 398,

material in accordance with his

495.

original business, 629; his life an

Kedron, the, 452.

illustration of the power of religion,

Kepler, description of famous star by,

629.

73.

Matthias chosen to be an apostle, 649.

King of Jews, 400, 483, 493, 504.

Mary Magdalene, 350; at the cross,

527; at the sepulchre, 540; meets

Jesus, 542.
L.
Mary, sister of Martha, 358.
Mary the Virgin, family and character
Lamb of God, 139; paschal, 429.
of, 44, 45; visit of angel to, 47; her
Law of nature, 322.
piety and discretion, 48; visits Elis
Lawyers, 414.
abeth, 49; her song, 49; brings Jesus
Lazarus raised from the dead, 306, 358.
to the temple, 62; her modesty and
Levi the publican, 252. See Matthew.
humility, 62; her vision of sorrow
Life, success in, 315.
and joy, 66; accompanies Joseph to
Lincoln, President, memorial of, 329.
Egypt, 92; her life at Nazareth, 96;
Love, the law of, 222.
her wisdom, 107 ; grief at the loss of
Lord's Supper, the, 439.
Jesus, 128; at the wedding in Cana,
Lord's Prayer, the, 283.
175; at the cross, 527.
Luke, story of the portrait of Christ
Maximilia buries St. Andrew, 615.
by, 170.
Meekness, 271.
Memorial, the Lord's Supper a, 438.
Messiah, Jews' notion of, 31; Handel's
M.
oratorio of, 53; Daniel's prophecy
of, 69; general expectation of, 136;
Madonna, Sistine, 65.
John proclaims the, 139; Peter's
Magi, who were the? 68; excited by
confession, 374; enthusiasm of the
strange scenes in the skies, 75;
disciples regarding the, 398.
fables and poems relating to, 79;
Micah, prophecies of Christ, 57, 90.
heralds of the Gentile world, 51;
Mirabeau, anecdote of, 236.
tradition of their baptism by St.
Moses, laws for teaching, 109; miracles
Thomas, 623.
of, 338; on the mount, 341.
"Man of Sorrows," 380.
Miracles distinguished from wonders,'
Manger, babe in the, 38.
84; not to be invented, 85; natural
Marius, consul at Borne, 236.
to Jesus, 86; fasting not a, 144; at
Cana, 180; at Capernaum, 251; de
fined, 322; defended, 327; of Jesus,
why performed, 329; why suspend
ed, 335.
Mnason of Cyprus, at whose house
Paul lodged in Jerusalem, 569.
Mob at Nazareth, 235; at Jerusalem,
301.
Mohammed, miracles of, 334.
Money-changers in the temple, 191.
Mont Blanc, 347.
Mount, sermon on the, 265 ; of Olives,
361; excitement of the multitude
upon, 399.
Mourners, 269.

N.
Nain, widow of, 333.
Names, family, among the Jews, 43.
Napoleon, 237.
Nathanael called, 163. See Bartholo
mew.
Nature, laws of, fixed, 322; too vast
for our vision, 325.
Nazareth, town of, description of, 96;
school at, 113; Jesus cast out of the
synagogue at, 235.
Nebuchadnezzar, faith of, in the Magi,
68.
Neronias, 374.
Nicodemus goes to Jesus by night,
204; friendly to Jesus, 350; honors
Jesus after his death, 537.

Olives, Mount of, 353, 400, 455.
One hundred and tenth psalm a
prophecy of the Messiah, 418.
Oral law, the, 226, note.
Orientals, fanaticism of, 398.

Palestine, farmers in, 36.
Panias, 373, 374.
Parables, 243, 308, 411.
Parthians, St. John's first Epistle
originally inscribed to the, 614.
Passover, festival of the, 118; time of
the, 394; a family feast, 429.
Patmos, Isle of, St. John banished to,
613.
Patriotism of Jesus, 366.
Paul the Apostle, importance of his
conversion, 647; a free Roman citi
zen, 649; a tent-maker by trade, 649;
trained under Gamaliel, 649; his
family, 649; his first appearance in
New Testament history, 649; present
at the martyrdom of Stephen, 650;
persecutes the believers, 650; jour
neys to Damascus, 650; his vision,
651; baptized by Ananias, 651; cause
of his conversion, 651, 652; date of
his conversion, 653; preaches in
Damascus, 653; retires to Arabia,
653; returns to Jerusalem, 653; visits
Tarsus, 654; preaches at Antioch,
in company with Barnabas, 654;
sails to Cyprus, 655; confounds the
sorcerer Elymas, 655; visits Iconi-
um, Lystra, and Derbe, 655; taken
for Mercury, 655; stoned, 655;
preaches, and forms churches, 655;
returns to Antioch, 655; opposes the
dogma of circumcision, 600; goes to
Jerusalem, 056; refuses to have
Titus circumcised, 656; returns to
Antioch, accompanied by Barnabas,
Judas, and Silas, 656; disagreement
and separation between him and
Barnabas, 656; rebukes Peter, 656;
his second missionary journey ac
companied by Silas, 657; the con
version of Lydia, 657; baptism of the
jailer, 657; his address at Athens,
657; founds a church at Corinth,
657; Epistles to the Thessalonians,

676

INDEX.

657; visit to Ephesus, 657; at Jeru
salem, Cesarea, and Antioch, 658;
his third missionary journey, 658;
Epistle to the Galatians, 658; tumult
at Ephesus, incited by Demetrius,
658; the letter to the Romans, writ
ten from Corinth, 658; ends his
missionary tour, 659; Agabus warns
him of his approaching arrest, 659;
goes to Jerusalem, 659; his presence
causes an uproar in Jerusalem, 659;
carried into the castle of Antonia,
659; speaks to the multitude, 660;
claims his Roman citizenship, 660;
kept in custody by Felix, 660; his
address before Agrippa, 660; his
voyage to Rome, 661; shipwrecked
at Malta, 661 ; his arrival at Rome,
661 ; resides in Rome two years, 661 ;
writes his letters to the Ephesian,
Colossian, and Philippian churches,
and his Epistle to Philemon, 661;
uncertainty of his later history, 661;
his labors in the "West, 662; circum
stances attending his death, 662; his
personal appearance and the char
acteristics of his mind, 663, 664.
Peace, the song of, 30, 37.
Pentecost, Peter addresses the multi
tude at, 595.
Perpetua, wife of Simon Peter, 580.
Perea, the ancient Gilead, 376.
Peter, call of, 161 ; his wife's mother,
251; heals lame man, 338; significa
tion of name, 579; not wholly uned
ucated, 580; married in early life,
580; introduction to Jesus, 580; his
second call, 581; designated as an
apostle, 582; witnesses the restora
tion of Jairus' daughter, 582; walks
on the sea, 583; confesses that Jesus
is the Christ, 584; the rock upon
which the church was to be built,
585; reproved by Jesus, 587; present
at the transfiguration, 34, 587; pays
tribute, 588; his feet washed by
Jesus, 589; present at the institution

of the Lord's Supper, 589; in the
garden of Gethsemane, 455, 590;
smites off the ear of the high
priest's servant, 466, 591 ; denies his
Master, 478, 592; his repentance, 482,
594, 595; at the sepulchre, 541, 695;
the central figure in the first part of
the Acts of the Apostles, 595; goes
to Samaria, where he rebukes Simon
Magus, 596; visits Cornelius, 596;
censured by the church of Jeru
salem, 596; imprisoned by Herod
Agrippa, 596 ; traditions in relation
to, 597; martyred at Rome, 597, 598;
his Epistles, 598; as a man, 598; as
an apostle, 600.
Pharisees, 203, 238, 400; the ritualists
of their day, 417.
Philip the Apostle called, 162 ; blended
with Philip the Evangelist, 614; a
Galilean peasant, 615; brings Na
thanael to Jesus, 163, 615; his con
nection with the miracle of the
loaves and fishes, 616; Greeks ask
of him to see Jesus, 616; asks Jesus
to reveal the Father, 617; traditions
of his after life and death, 617,
618.
Philip the Evangelist, one of the
seven deacons, 614.
Philip of Macedon, anecdote of, 403.
Philip, son of Herod, 95.
Philippi, 369.
Phoenicia, 369.
Plato, dialogues of, 124; had Jesus
heard of? 116; his law of love, 284.
Polycarp a personal disciple of St.
John, 613.
Pompey the Roman general, 400.
Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea,
489; converses with Jesus, 493;
sends Jesus to Herod Antipas, 497;
receives message from his wife, 513;
delivers Jesus to be scourged, 514;
guards the sepulchre with soldiers,
539.
Poverty, 268.

INDEX.

677

Prayer, the Lord's, 286; abuses of,
286; for the disciples, 451.
Prodigal son, 316, 379.
Prophecy of Christ by Isaiah and
Micah, 56, 57.
Prophet, Jesus a, 221.
Proselytes, 205.

Q.
Quirinius, governor of Syria, 41, note.

K.
Rabbis as teachers, 113; Hillel, 284.
Rainbow the sign of mercy, 76.
Raphael's picture of the Sistine Ma
donna, 65; of the transfiguration,
340.
Reformer, Jesus as a, 435.
Religious service in Switzerland, 59.
Resurrection from the dead, the
greatest of wonders, 532; place of,
in history, 551.
Romans, hatred of, by Jews, 31; pow
er of, 296.
Ruth, ancestress of Mary, 61.
Rule, Golden, 284.

S.

Sabbath, keeping of the, 301.
Safed, 266.
Sadducees, the, 414.
Sagamo, prince of Coromandel, con
verted by St. Thomas, 624.
Saints, communion of, 438.
Salome at the sepulchre of Jesus, 539;
asks the first place in Messiah's
kingdom for her sons, 607.
Samaria, region of, 212; woman of,
216.
Samaritans, the, 214; hatred of the

Jews, 215; had no political hopes,
226.
Sanhedrim, the, 145; called together
upon the raising of Lazarus, 306;
Jesus before the, 473; attempt to
silence Peter and John, 544.
Satan, 152.
Saul of Tarsus, 551. See Paul.
Shechem, the headquarters of the
Samaritans, 214.
School-teacher of Judea, dress of, 115.
Schools in Judea, 110; at Nazareth,
113.
Scribes, the, 412.
Sepulchre, the, 537.
Sermon on the Mount, 262.
Shepherds, 33, 51; could not have
imagined the words of the angels,
31.
Simeon blesses Jesus, 63.
Simon Magus rebuked by Peter, 596,
597.
Simon the Cyrenian, 522.
Simon the Pharisee, 252.
Simon Zelotes, less known than any
of the twelve apostles, 641 ; his con
nection with the section of Zealots,
641; with the apostles at the feast
of Pentecost, 642; tradition of his
preaching, crucifixion, and burial in
Britain, 643.
Sistine Madonna, Raphael's picture
of, 65.
Socotora, island of, visited by St.
Thomas, 624.
Socrates as teacher, 38.
Soldiers arrest Jesus, 467.
Son of God, 358.
Son, the prodigal, 316, 379.
Sower, parable of the, 247.
Spain, Protestant meeting in, 546.
Spirit, God a, 221.
St. Andrew's cross, origin of, 605.
Stars, falling, 29; wise men of the
East study the, 67; temporary, 71;
Kepler's, 73; star of the Magi not a
miracle, 78.

678 INDEX.

Stephen, martyrdom of, 650.

Trial, the, of Jesus, 472.

Submission of Jesus, 454.

Tycho Brahe, 72.

Supper, the Lord's, 439.

Switzerland, baptism in, 59.

V.

Synagogue, description of, 229.

Virgin, the, fables relating to, 51.

Virgins, wise and foolish, 427.

T.

Virtue, greatness of, 392.

Tabernacles, feast of, 394, note.

W.

Tacitus, 536.

Tares, the, 314.

Tax-gatherers demand tribute of
"Wailing, place of, 277.
Jesus, 588.
"Washing of feet, 444.
Temple, Jesus taken to, 61; visits at
"Water of life, the, 199.
twelve years, 118; sits with the doc
"Well, Jacob's, 214.
tors in, 123; in the time of Christ,
"Wise men of the East study the stars,
183; sacredness of the, 188.
67; at Bethlehem, 79; legends re
Tempter, the, 150.
lating to, 79; their return, 80.
Theudas, a pretended deliverer, 299.
Witnesses, Jewish law required two,
Thieves on the cross, 527.
482.
Thirst, pangs of, 155, 163.
"Woman of Samaria,- 216; regard of
Thomas, called Didymus, signification
Jesus for, 362.
of name, 621 ; his general character,
"Wonders, delight of the mind in, 82;
621, 622; doubts the truth of the
true and false, 82; the Bible not a
resurrection, 532, 548, 551, 622; ten
book of, 83; distinguished from
derly reproved by Jesus, 622; at the
miracles, 84.
Sea of Galilee, 623; at Jerusalem
Worship, true, 221.
after the ascension, 623; preaches in
Parthia and Edessa, 623; visits
Ethiopia and India, 624; put to
z.
death by the Brahmins, 625.
Tiberias, city of, 242.
Zacharias writes the story of Mary's
" Tit for tat," 293.
visit, 50.
Titus, the Roman general, 400.
Zaccheus climbs a tree to see Jesus,
Transfiguration, Raphael's picture of
388.
the, 340; blending of the natural
Zadok, founder of the sect of Saddu
and supernatural in, 341; Peter,
cees, 414, note.
James, and John present at, 587.
Zealots, sect of, 641.
AGENTS WA N T E D.

The undersigned desires to employ an agent for each township in the United States and
Canada to introduce the great work of Rev. J. P. Thompson, D.D., late pastor of the
Broadway Tabernacle, New York; entitled

THE LI IFIE
ov
JESUS OF NAZARETH
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE.

The work contains about 700 octavo pages, printed from new electrotype plates on super
fine paper, and is illustrated with about 60 full-page engravings on steel and wood, and de
signed by the most celebrated artists of Paris, together with colored maps of the scenes
memorable in the life of our Saviour.
Experienced agents (male or female), school-teachers, sabbath-school teachers, young
men from the country, and retired clergymen, are usually successful, and are preferred as

In every community there are many unemployed persons who would make good agents,
and who would be glad to assist in the circulation of a book of the high character of this
work. If any agent of this book, or any subscriber to either of my publications, or any
clergyman or teacher, gives an applicant a
LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION
to the publisher, and the applicant succeeds in selling one hundred books, the person pro
curing the agent will be entitled to the sum of fifteen dollars, and the same will be paid on
application. Clergymen or others can in this way add largely to their income, do good to
their neighbors and friends, and have the satisfaction of assisting in the circulation of a book,
the influence of which will exist, perhaps, for many years.
Any one wishing an appointment as agent, or to obtain further information, can apply
immediately, naming territory desired, to the publisher,
HENRY BILL,
NORWICH, CONN.

JUST PUBLISHED.

The Life
OF
JESUS OF NAZARETH
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE.
By JOSEPH P. THOMPSON, D.D., late Pastor of the Broadway Tabemaole,
In New York.
Illustrated with about Sixty Full-page Engravings, some of which are by the most
eminent artists of France, including Dore~, Lafon, and others, on steel
and wood, with colored Maps of Palestine and Jerusalem.

This is not a work for children, but is adapted to the capacities and needs of our
Young People from twelve to twenty years of age, and is indeed suitable for any age. It
gives a consecutive and comprehensive account of the mission of Jesus to our world, em
bracing his wonderful advent, his life of unequalled purity and benevolence, his simple yet
sublime teachings, his marvellous works, his death on the cross, his resurrection on the
morning of the third day, and his ascension to heaven. All these incidents and topics arc
amply and skilfully illustrated by references to the scenery of the country, the history of the
times, the religions of the age, the manners and customs of the people, and the results of
critical study of the ancient manuscript copies of the Four Gospels. The work is thoroughly
evangelical in its spirit, and is well adapted by its clear and conclusive logic to guard the
minds of our young people against the plausible though fallacious rationalism and scepti
cism of the day.
Sunday-school teachers also will find it an invaluable work ; for it will furnish them such
clear statements of gospel facts and doctrines, such lucid explanations of the discourses and
parables of Christ, and such convincing arguments for the divine origin and authority of the
Christian religion, as will aid them materially in imparting instruction to their classes.
And even those who are more familiar with Christian literature will peruse this work with
interest and profit, and find in it information which it would cost them, much time and labor
to gather from the original sources. There is probably no life of Jesus so well adapted to
supply the need of all classes, and especially of our young people at the present time. A
copy of it should be placed beside the Bible in every family in our land.
This work will be printed from new electrotype plates, on superfine paper, and issued
complete in ONE LARGE OCTAVO VOLUME of nearly 700 pages.
For an agency apply immediately (naming territory desired) to the publisher,
HEITRY BILL, NORWICH, CONN.

NOTICES OF THE PRESS

DR. THOMPSON'S LIFE OF CHRIST FOR
YOUNG PEOPLE.

Boston Christian Era.

Dr. Thompson's German friend, of whom he writes in the preface, was right : this is a
book " for the young in years and the young in heart." It does not talk " down " to those
for whom it is written — youth from twelve to twenty — in that jargon known as " children's
talk," but uses simple, clear language, wherein it does not hesitate to put before them
thoughts that are sufficiently deep and hard to be understood to call forth mental exertion.
The mental exercise thus given to the youthful mind is' wholesome, and becomes, from a
very little use, quite attractive to bright boys and girls. It is a book to be studied as well as
read. It would be an admirable work for such family use during the long winter evenings
as would bring forth comment and interchange of thought. We can imagine how under the
guidance of a judicious mother or father it might be made the book which would attract
every evening the family around the table, eager to advance in its study and discussion.
"What a beneiicent result would it be, if all the members of a family should come forth from
their winter's reading master of the life of the most wonderful person who ever lived ! We
are sure that those who begin Dr. Thompson's clear, suggestive, entertaining book, will finish
its reading. It is so fresh and vigorous in its presentations of the life of Jesus as it was, that
the reader is impressed with the reality of his words and acts. The Bcenes, incidents, and
local coloring make it a realistic book. Through all these glows that light which draws to
Christ as a teacher of the intellect and a Saviour of the soul. The results of careful study
and research appear on almost every page. Information gathered from the geography of
Palestine, from the customs of the Jews, and from the reports of travellers and discoverers,
is made to contribute instruction and entertainment. The. story is the old story, but it is
so charmingly told as to absorb even the attention of the reader familiar with it. He lives
in Palestine, forms one of those who look upon Jesus, hears him talk, sees his mighty workB,
and, it may be, becomes so impressed with the truth as to say from the heart, "Verily this is
the Son of God, Jesus the Saviour." The volume is handsomely printed and bound, and is
admirably illustrated with over fifty full-page illustrations after designs by French artists.
At first sight they impress one strangely, so different are they from the conventional pictures
of Jesus and the scenes of his life. When studied, their truthful realism appears, and then
they vividly illustrate the text. We wish that the volume might be read by every youth in
the land. Chicago Advance-
Some HveB of Christ have been written chiefly for the scholars; many of them for what
maybe termed the average Christian reader; and of late a good many have been prepared
especially for children. The class of persons had in mind by the writer of this volume is
neither of the above mentioned, but the youth, say in the years from twelve to twenty. As
Dr. Thompson well remarks, such young persons do not need what is called " children's
talk; " and, while they demand language that is simple and clear, they are not repelled, but
rather attracted, by an occasional reference to things that are deep and sometimes a little
hard to be understood. They are at the age,, when, if at all bright, they enjoy exercise. A
bright youth, he says, would rather read a book that sets him thinking, and helps him for-
681

682 KOTICES OF THE PRESS.

ward, than one that is too simple and easy. He is glad and proud to be treated as one who
is able to think, who wishes to know, and who is willing to study in order to learn. " The
best book for the young is a guide that leads them on higher and higher, making the way
plain and pleasant as they go. Above all, they need such a guide in religion." At all events
the writer's aim is a good one, and his ideal is the right one for it.
The first thing to be said about Dr. Thompson's style is that it is always perfectly clear
and natural, manly and genial. His rhetoric is oftuner that of " understatement " than of
exaggeration. 'In fact, there is in his writing nothing of the latter. He has a wholesome
horror of any thing unreal, that has the appearance of being put on. For this reason he is
uncommonly free from cant. He treats his subject with evident warmth of love, admiration,
and devout adoration, — in short,- with an undertone of real enthusiasm; but he never has
the manners of an enthusiast. He never poses himself on stilts, or flourishes a flag to empha
size the statement of a truth. The most remarkable quality about the book is, that its narra
tions, its statements, its pictures, are realistic. And the same, by the way, is to be said of
the pictorial illustrations, of which there are over fifty. It is no romance that he is weaving.
Nobody will ever close the volume, saying, "That's moonshine." The sense of realne68 is
sometimes almost startling. He woulct be equally bold, that is, equally truthful, in seeking to
portray the life of Jesus as at once the most real in its humanness and most actual in its
divineness the world has ever seen. To do this properly requires a holy skilfulness that is
extremely rare. We would not like to have this life of our Lord and no other; but with
certain others we are extremely glad to get it, and especially because of the qualities just
mentioned. As to miracles, his treatment of them is excellent, well fitted to disarm preju
dice, and remove objections by anticipating the ground of them. Without going out of his
way to hunt for objections, he answers them quietly, fairly, conclusively. They cannot be
proved " impossible ; " their antecedent improbability cannot be shown; the moral uses of
them are obvious, and the historic testimony of them overwhelming. The story carries its
own proof in the nature of the message which it brings. Here is a good illustration which
he uses : Speaking of a railway train, how it is drawn and how it can be stopped, he says,
" Thus, though Nature moves in the grooves provided in its own laws, the invisible hand
may know how to touch its secret springs without violence, and even to halt it for a moment
without regard to stations or time-table. What if at this point the king was to come on
board? 'The strange halt arrests the attention of everybody; all heads are out at the win
dows; and, as the puffing engine and the rattling of the train has ceased, one hears the music
that announces who has come, and why the halt was made. So the hum of Nature may have
been for a moment stilled, the train of her events arrested without violence, that men might
see and hear, might feel and know, the coming of the Prince of peace announced with
hosannas. In such a case the end would justify the means." Referring to the credibility of
the witnesses, he remarks, " A great lawyer has said he 'would like to cross-question those
witnesses;' but he forgets that they endured the questioning of the cross, and gave their lives
to prove that Jesus had done these things, and that they had seen him alive after his cruci
fixion." On the whole, the book is admirably suited to the class of persons for whom it was
intended; it is therefore well suited to the average reader, whatever nis age.
San Francisco Bulletin.
The Rev. J. P. Thompson, formerly pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle Church in New
York, now of Berlin, Germany, has found time, amid many other studies and the manifold
hinderances of the life of one who is almost an invalid, to write the " Life of Jesus of Naza
reth for Young People." The volume is not for children, but for youth. In its exterior it is
a goodly volume, and its execution is superior. The page is ample, the margin wide, the
type beautiful, and the spacing of the lines generous. The book is well indexed, and has
a very full table of contents. It contains over fifty illustrations, which are excellent in
design and execution. A book of this class must appeal to the mind rather than to the eye
to find a reason for its appearance, and to establish a claim for itself upon our time, among
our books and in our regards. Presumptively, Dr. Thompson was fitted to write such a
book. He has always been a ready writer and a prolific author. Ho is orthodox in faith,
liberal in sentiment, sound in philosophy, broad in culture, deep in sympathy, devout in
spirit, poetical in imagination, genial in temperament, patient in research, a travelled man,
and an Oriental scholar. In the family, in the Sunday Bchool and Bible class, and as the
pastor of a church and congregation largely composed of young people, he had for years the
best of opportunities for acquainting himself with the difficulties and needs of young people
religiously, and in respect to the person, work, and life of Jesus of Nazareth. lie has
observed and examined through a lifetime, now becoming long. His style is simple in
structure, and lucid in order, and sufficiently ornate. Well read in biblical history, as well
as in classical and profane history, and versed in the sciences of ancient and modern times,
his command of instances is large, and his range of illustration wide. With so many personal
qualifications, and in the midst of the world's best libraries and authorities, it is not surprising
that he has achieved a great success, and given the youth of our land a book which they can
read with delight every year, till they cease to be young, and can almost repeat it from
memory. To aU the young we commend the work.

NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 683

Boston Traveller.
It can hardly be possible that the volume just published, entitled " Jesus of Nazareth : His
Life for Young People," will not gain a large circle of readers, and find its way into the libra
ries of very many young j>eoplo in America. It is, we do not venture much in saying, abso
lutely the best chronicle ot the life, labors, sufferings, and services of the Founder of our reli
gion and the Saviour of mankind, ever presented for young readers. The work is from the pen
of Joseph P. Thompson, D.D. Not only for youth, but for all ages, will the volume be found
of the deepest interest from its nature as a literary work. We should be unpardonably pre
sumptuous to speak of the main matter of the work — the life of Christ itself — as if our
readers were not familiar with so important a subject : it is of the method of presentation of
which we have to speak. Dr. Thompson has written in the purest style, and with a consum-
mately scholarly regard for the necessities of such a work. Not only the chronicle of the life
of Jesus, but the kindred topics by association, which are explained -aiKl discussed, the
histories of peoples, descriptions of places, detailed accounts of ceremonies and customs, are
all of the most complete interest; and no reader, young or old, can, we think, be but held
with complete attention by the current of the story. Even an unbeliever, a scoffer, would
find the volume thoroughly entertaining, and in all probability much more, since it would
act as a guide to belief. The life of our Saviour is given in detail, from the manger to the
* cross. The scenes described are painted with a master hand, and are of the most thoroughly
conscientious character. Dr. Thompson's notes and comments are of hardly second value to
the main work, and show not only the most extended research, but also care and fidelity in a
degree hardly excelled. The language of the chronicler is adapted to young readers from its
flow and grace ; but there is no lack of erudition : indeed the simplicity of the story is a noble
evidence of the author's scholarly taste and powers. The book abounds in full-bage illus
trations of the more important events in the life of Christ, from childhood unto death ; and
these illustrations will increase the interest of the younger reader. We commend to the atten
tion of parents and others this volume; for what could be more appropriate than it as a
Christmas gift? — the life of Him who gave the day and made its significance.
Boston Gazette.
" Jesus of Nazareth : His Life for Young People," by Joseph P. Thompson, D.D., is an ad
mirably written book, of which the style is so attractive, that, after the reader has read a few
pages, he finds it difficult to lay the volume down. It is particularly to be commended for the
manliness of its tone, and its entire freedom from cant. Dr. Thompson writes calmly, but
fervently ; and, though he manifests the deepest reverence for his subject, he never goes
out of his way to draw forced morals, or to urge transcendental lessons upon his readers.
The work abounds in interesting details regarding the manners, customs, characters, and
localities of the period covered by the story. Though not tinged by the radical theories of
the day, the work is liberal in thought, and broad in its teachings. Though written for young
people, — for whom its simplicity and its frankness peculiarly fit it, — older readers will derive
equal pleasure, profit, and instruction from its pages. The text is beautifully and copiously
assisted by illustrations of a high degree of merit, both in respect to drawing and engraving.
The book is a handsome one in every respect, and cannot well fail to achieve a wide and
lasting popularity. Philadelphia Press.
The Eev. Dr. Joseph P. Thompson, whose preface is dated Berlin, has first to be noticed,
from the importance of his subject, which is, " Jesus of Nazareth : His Life for Young Peo
ple," as he distinguishes it, "a book for youth, say in the years from twelve to twenty,
taking for granted that such readers are acquainted with the simple word of tod. 1 he jn ew
Testament has supplied the materials for this work, which is plain and practical to a degree.
It has over fifty illustrations, which, more than any other that we have yet seen, are truthful
in their representation of Christ and others under the fiery sun of Palestine, having their
heads covered. It has been rank absurdity hitherto to exhibit men, women, and children at
all seasons in the Holy Land with uncovered heads, as if inviting a sun-stroke.
Providence Journal.
Dr. Thompson's book is written for the old as well as the young. While it is adapted to
the yomhful understanding by its plain and simple st y e, is clear and connecte^ I na rrative
of the incidents in the miraculous life of the Saviour from his birth in the stable to his death
on the cross, it is full of interest for all readers. The eminent author has evidently had his
heart in his work and the volume, so fitly published at this time, will be valued for its
SMandramifufspiritJas well as.fo? i?s evidences of M^S*™^;™^
entering into disputes of fact or of doctrine, the book seeks to present the Me of Jesus as it
was, and to make real whatever bears the clear marks of truth.

illustrated. Although it aims to present a connected history of the Founder of Christianity
style suited to the instruction of the young, it by no means descends to "children's
talk," but rather demands from the youthful student the thought and intellectual effort

684 NOTICES OE THE PBESS.'
Buffalo Courier.
This is an octavo volume, handsomely printed and bound, as well as very effectively
frustrated. Although it aims to present a connect* " *'
in a style suited to the instruction of the young,
talk," but rather demands from the youthful stu<
which he is required to give to other studies. " There are some chapters," says the author,
*' simple enough for a child of ten years ; and there are others that a youth of fifteen may
have to read over two or three times before he will, find out all they mean." Referring to
the labor exacted of the young student by his secular school, Dr. Thompson pertinently
inquires : " And why should he not try to master the life of the most wonderful person who
ever lived? — a life made up of all that is pure and noble and true; a life of good words and
good deeds; a life around which has gathered so much of history, of geography, of manners
and customs, of poetry, of art, of government, of all that interests the student, and which is
the source of ideas and principles that concern every man in his own higher life." As to
the plan pursued in his work, the author further says : " Without entering into disputes
upon questions of fact or of doctrine, the book seeks to present the life of Jesus as it was ; to
make real whatever carries the evidence of being true ; and it is my hope, that all who read
it will find in it such a view of Christ the Teacher as shall satisfy their minds, and such a
view of Christ the Saviour as shall win their hearts and bless their lives."
It is not desired or expected, of course, that such a work as this shall take the place of
the New-Testament writings in the instruction of young or old in things divine. But by
the accessory facts of geography, topogi'aphy, and history which it brings to bear upon the
sacred narrative, it doubtless may have a valuable illustrative function, and tend to bring
within the reach of some minds a realization of the facts of the Gospels.
Portland (Me.) Transcript.
Dr. Thompson has written this book not for children, but for youth. He wisely eonsiders
that boys who are reading in Latin, Caesar, Cicero, and Virgil, and in Greek, Xenophon and
Homer, can surely understand and appreciate the study that he has made of the life of Jesus,
although he admits that in the subject itself "there are some difficulties, and much that requires
earnest thought and consideration. In his preface the author says, "There are some
chapters in this book simple enough for a child of ten years, and there are others that a
youth of fifteen would have to read over two or three times before he will find out all that
they mean. This grows out of the subject, and could not be otherwise. And I think a
bright youth would rather read a book that sets him thinking, and helps him forward, than
one that is too simple and easy. . . . And the best book for the young is a guide that leadB
them higher and higher, making the way plain and pleasant as they go." He adds, " And
why should he not try to master the life of the most wonderful person who ever lived? — a
life made up of all that is pure and noble and true; a life of good words and good deeds; a
life around which has gathered bo much of history, of geography, of manners and customs,
of poetry, of art, of government, of all that interests the student, and which is the source of
ideas and principles that concern every man in his own higher life." In the present volume,
Dr. Thompson has presented all these phases in an eloquent and interesting manner. The
work is not doctrinal in any narrow sense; and its author hopes that all who read it will find
in it such a view of Christ the Teacher as shall satisfy their minds, and such a view oi Christ
the Saviour as shall win their hearts and bless their lives. The volume is large and hand
some, with copious illustrations. Providence Press.
We agree with the German friend of the author of this volume, who, after examining it,
said, " You must not call this a book for young people : it is a book for me, for grown-up
men and women. At any rate, you had better say, for the young in years and the young in
heart." So the author compromised, and calls it a book for youth, — say, in age from twelve
to twenty. We add that it will benefit all, even those who have reached the age allotted,
threescore and ten years.
It is a biography of the great Nazarene, Jesus of Nazareth, in the order of birth, youth,
manhood, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, all the data furnished from the New
Testament, but written in plain, easy, pure, and touching language. The narrative contains
instructive lessons, flowing naturally from the events recorded in their order, and the whole
is devout and instructive reading- He was " the man Of sorrows, and acquainted with
grief; " " the chastisement of our peace was upon him ; " " He was led like a lamb to the
slaughter ; " and in this spirit this life is drawn. Taking the purity and simplicity of the lan
guage of the New Testament history as a model, we know of no book which approaches it so '
nearly as this volume in those particulars. Its learned author is a devout believer in Jesus,
" the Christ of God ; " and these pages bear internal evidence that the work carried his whole >
heart as well as his cultivated intellect and his deep research for years.
The publishers have clothed it in beauty in text and illustrations. There are between fifty
and sixty full-paged plates,. excellent in design and execution. A valuable index closes the .
volume. It is a rare gift-book for. a Christian pastor, teacher, or Mend.

NOTICES OP THE PRESS. 685

Boston Zion's Herald.
„ 5£.53?tj£.°j£f2 Clear anA?imJ?ie d'oti.on- and a gen'»l. fervent style, in his narrative. It is
a straightforward story of the fife of Jesus, occasionally interrupted by reflection and argu-
ment. In the chapter describing the miracles, much space is occupied by a reiteration of the
arguments supporting miracles ; and in several other chapters are to be found similar irrele
vances which serve to break the unity and interest of the narrative. But the thoughts of the
author only tend to strengthen the faith of the believer, and to help him resist the attacks of
free-thinkers upon the mission of Christ. The work follows the consecutive chronoloav of
the history. It begins with the song of the angels, and, presenting with all possible detail
the few accessible facts in the Saviour's life, it closes with the ascension. In a chapter
entitled, - How did Jesus look .'"the author gives us his ideal of the face which he believes
must have been the perfect Jewish type.
Boston Watchman and Reflector.
Another fine volume is " Jesus of Nazareth : His Life for Young People," by Dr. J P
Thompson. The author, so well known by his long and able ministry in Hew York, and his
most effective work in Germany in behalf of his country, is giving signal proof of his zeal
for Christ and his cause in the preparation now and then of a book which is suited to some
special religious want. The book before us is of this character. The narrative of Christ's
life is here told in a way which cannot fail to interest and stimulate the minds of the young
for whom it is written. It is thoughtful, suggestive, and inspiring. If we mistake not, the
book will prove to be fully as great a favorite with the old as with the young.
Cleveland Herald.
Dr. Thompson is an able Biblical scholar, and writes of the life of Jesus, the scenes in
which he lived, and the meaning of his story and his sayings, out of the fulness of knowl
edge acquired by years of patient study and tireless research. In successive chapters are
given the story of the Song of the Angels, a picture of Bethlehem and the Manger, and an
account of the selection of the name "Jesus " for the babe of Bethlehem, with a description
of Nazareth. In the chapters immediately following are described the Fulfilment of the
Prophecies, Jesus taken to the Temple, the Wise Men from the East, the Wonders of Jesus'
Birth, the Flight into Egypt, the Early Home and Family of Jesus, and his School Life, his
Loss, Recovery, and Baptism, his Life in the Desert, the Beginning of his Work, his Appear
ance, the Wedding Surprise, the Scenes in the Temple, Christ's First Pupil. Then there is
an account of the Woman of Samaria, the Mob at Nazareth, Jesus' Life at Capernaum, the
Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, and the Golden Rule, Visits to Jerusalem, the
Parables, Miracles, Transfiguration, Uie Friends, and the Last Journey of Christ. Hosanna
in the Highest, Jesus the Christ, the Last Supper, Gethsemane, the Jewish Trial, Pilate and
Herod, Jesus or Barabbas, the Traitor, the Last Hour, Rising from the Dead, One Last Look
and Word, and In the Highest, are the subjects of the remaining chapters of this excellent
work. The publishers have issued it in style befitting its character; the clearly-printed page,
characteristic illustrations, over fifty in number, tasteful binding, making the volume pleas
ant to the eye. New- York Graphic.
It is intended for youth from twelve to twenty, and the narrative is written in language
clear and simple, though speaking of things that are deep and sometimes a little hard to be
understood. I know not when I have perused a work of this kind that is really so perfectly
done and so satisfactory in its results. The name of the author is a full evidence of its
superiority over a score of other lives of Christ; and the successful grouping of Biblical
facts, and their harmonious alliance with the teachings of later research and exploration in
Bible lands, render the work unusually attractive. The full-page illustrations, of which
there is a genuine host, are the productions of French artists, and are remarkably effect
ive and faithful in their rendering of holy scenes. It should be understood that "Jesus of
Nazareth " is not for children, but for thoughtful young men and women. Older readers,
however, if I am not greatly mistaken, will find that it is a book largely suited to their
needs, if not, indeed, the book that has long been demanded.
Hartford Courant.
Dr. Thompson is eminently a popularizer, and in his treatment of the sacred story he has
so written it as to make it acceptable and connectedly intelligible to ordinary readers. It is
excellently done, and the book is alBo full of illustrations. References accompany the quota
tions, and the work aB a whole will be very welcome in many households. A. copious
index accompanies the volume, which enables the readers to turn at onee to any part wanted
for consultation.

686 NOTICES OF THE PRESS.

Albany Journal.
Although this Life of Christ was especially prepared for the young, it is not, as the author
says, made up of " children's talk," but is written in language which is simple and clear,
though it may speak of things that are deep and sometimes a little hard to understand. It is
a book whjch may be read with profit by old and young alike. Every fact in the life of the
Saviour is lucidly and impressively presented. Other writers of eminence have given their
best thoughts to the great theme, and have made a more conspicuous exhibition of their
learning and research, but no writer has presented his subject more attractively or in a spirit
more nearly akin to that of the Master. It is orthodox and devout throughout, and will be
found to be of real service to any earnest student of the Divine Word.
"Worcester (Mass.) Spy.
This is a handsome octavo, printed in the best style, and well supplied with full-page pic-
torial illustrations. It might be described as an elaborate biography of Jesus of Nazareth ;
but the materials are all taken from the Four GoBpels. It is their story of his life, written by
Dr. Thompson in his own way. The style is good, being sufficiently simple and clear. The
book is intended for young readers ; or, as Dr. Thompson says, for those " in the years from
twelve to twenty ; " but there is no " children's talk," no attempt to be childish in expression ;
and older persons will find it adapted to them. The history of Jesus given in this way may
awaken thought and interest where " common use " has dulled their activity ; and those who
read the story so presented will doubtless return again to the Gospels with renewed interest,
and a livelier spirit of inquiry. Levriston (Me.) Journal.
No man can write a true life of Christ, be it for young or for old, who is not himself a
. Christian. None but they who love him can appreciate him. No man can write an apprecia
tive life of Jesus unless he has spent much time in the lands where Jesus was born, lived,
labored, and died. To present a correct view of Christ, he must he made to appear to the
reader as treading the earth, a God among men. Oriental customs, habits of thought and
expression, and the religions of the East, must be comprehensively studied — not at arm's
length, but in object-lessons on the spot. Probably few Biblical scholars have been better
furnished by travel and investigation for presenting the sacred biography than has Dr.
Thompson. This fact is obvious, the moment one takes up the volume. There is no attempt
at dramatic effect, and no discursive arguments; but the narrative runs along quietly and natu
rally, absorbing the reader, so much does it seem like the story of a contemporary. It is called
a life of Christ for young people. By young people, Dr. Thompson tells us he means youth
from twelve to twenty. It is rather a life of Christ for all, in popular form. It does not dis
sipate the reader's interest with profitless speculations about the incarnation or the Trinity.
It woos us to Christ without insisting on our learning the author's catechism, or accepting his
creed, which he very properly keeps in reserve. So many biographers of Christ merely write
about themselves, and to bolster up their preconceived doctrines, that pure biography of Jesus
is hard to find. In this respect we think Dr. Thompson has erred less than most of his pre
decessors. He has produced a book which deserves a large circulation among the people,
young and old. New Haven Palladium.

The Rev. Dr. J. P. Thompson's story of the life of Christ has juBt appeal
"Jesus of Nazareth: His Life for Young People;" and we are inclined

I under the title
jlined to agree with the
author's German friend who claims that it is not only a book for young people, but for grown
up people as well. It certainly is a book for youth. The narrative is told simply and well.
There are over fifty full-page illustrations, which deserve especial notice for the reason that the
designer in representing Jesus and his companions has departed somewhat from the
conventional model. In them there is but very little to distinguish JesuB from his disciples
or from the other men with whom he iB represented. It is the man who stands before us,
and even the Jewish cast of countenance is strongly marked in him. The designer has been
careful to preserve the garments and the head-dresses of those days; and the crosses upon
which the Saviour and the thiev.es are hung are not constructed as a host of previous illus
trations have led ub to believe. The author says, " The cross was not so high nor so heavy
as it is made to appear in the representations of art. The upright post was some twelve or
fifteen feet high, the feet of the victim resting upon a bracket at a little distance above the
ground. The transverse piece was sometimes fastened at the top of the post, in the form of
the letter T, in which case he hung with his arms stretched almost perpendicularly above
him." It is this kind of cross which the designer has represented. The author quotes from
" The Talmud," by DeutBch, the late eminent scholar, to show that in Jerusalem there was a
society of ladies who provided a beverage of mixed myrrh and vinegar, that, like an opiate,
benumbed the man when he was being carried to execution. This Jesus refused, because he
chose to drink the cup his Father had given him, to the dregs. This book has been prepared
with a view to holiday uses, and is elegantly bound. It is hard to think of a better Christmas
gift.

NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 687
Chicago Tribune.
" The sweet story of old," that has been told over and over endlessly during the past eigh
teen hundred years, is here repeated afresh, witlrthe graphic force which characterizes Dr.
Thompson's delineations. The narrative is intended for young readers ranging in years
from twelve to twenty, and is invested with every attraction that the writer can draw irom
his unusually rich resources. Dr. Thompson's familiarity with Bible-lands enables him to
describe Oriental. scenes and manners with the vividness of an eye-witness; and this advan
tage, together with his intimate acquaintance with sacred lore, gives to his portrait of Jesus
much of the reality and impressiveness of life.
Boston Contributor.
We have rarely seen a book for the young more to our liking than this volume. The
story of our Saviour's life, sweet and instructive always, furnishes a fitting theme for Dr.
Thompson's devout and cultivated mind. The volume opens with the announcement of
Christ's coining by the angels, and closes with his departure for his Father's house. The
story is told in Dr. Thompson's own language, and is illustrated and enforced by the inex
haustible fund of incident and experience and observation which the author's extensive
travels and researches have placed at his command. So fresh and sweet and natural is it,
that it is next thing to a walk through beautiful Palestine, hand in hand with Jesus. In
addition to the life it records, it abounds in useful information and lessons which naturally
grow out of the subject. Young people will be captivated by it ; and, as for that matter, so
will their elders. It well deserves a place in every home in the land; and we hope our
readers will improve the first opportunity to secure this volume.
Hartford Churchman.
The artist has entered into the very heart and spirit of the holy history, and given what
seem to us to be the truest representations ever made of the different events in the life of
our Lord, as they might have appeared to eye-witnesses. His pictures are simply wonder
ful. Dr. Thompson has tried to trace the outlines of the Saviour's life in language of a simple
and clear kind. Boston Christian Register. /
The name of the author, and the excellent typographical style of the, book, will give it,
doubtless, a large circulation. It will go into all the Sunday-school libraries, of course, and
will do good there, in teaching the rational idea of Jesus and his work. It is certainly a
great advance upon the lives of Christ which were in use in the last generation ; and it is far
better reading for the young than the spasmodic romance, "The Prince of the House of
David," of which myriads of copies were circulated.
New- York Examiner and Chronicle.
Among books for youthful readers, in which the matter to be presented most decidedly
takes precedence of the manner of presentation, a high place must be assigned to a goodly
volume, of which we have received advance sheets, " Jesus of Nazareth : His Life for Young
People," by Joseph P. Thompson, D.D. Dr. Thompson, without argument or controversy,
sets before his readers as real, what the Gospels represent as real; and yields nothing to
those who have endeavored to evaporate the life of Jesus into legend. He has endeavored
so to treat his subject "that all who read it will find in it such a view of Christ the Teacher
as shall satisfy their minds, and such a view of Christ the Saviour as shall win their hearts
and bless their lives." The publisher has given the volume a tasteful typographical dress,
with numerous choice illustrations. Indianapolis Christian Monitor.
This larg« and elegant volume, bound in green and gold, beautifully and generously
illustrated, will prove a valuable addition to the library or the centre-table ; but still it is not
here that iU influence will most be felt. But in " mother's room," where the little ones gather
to learn lessons of life, it must become almost indispensable.
A contemporary days, " The author is a well-known American clergyman living in Berlin,
and is a frequent and valued contributor to our religious reviews on Eastern subjects. We
confess to being surprised at the clear, simple, delicate, and engaging manner in which Dr.
Thompson has repeated the story for young readers. He has put many parts of it in a new
light. He has explained the riddles, of which there are certainly some, to the childish com
prehension at least, in a most intelligible, refined manner. Unusually well acquainted with
Eastern places and customs, he has been able from this side to illustrate the narrative with
unusual felicity. A careful examination of his work satisfies us that it is entitled to very
high praise. The illustrations add greatly to the value of the work. They arc not the old
stock pictures, conventionally transmitted to us from the old masters, but fresh, original
designs, made after a study of the East as it is and always has been, reproducing the hie of
the scene as it most probably existed in the reality."

688 NOTICES OF THE PRESS.

Philadelphia Inquirer.
The hook under review is of considerable value. It is written in a lucid and straight'
forward fashion, and the reader is carefully instructed what opinion he ought to form abolit
this or that, and from what reasons. Yet the whole is conceived in a very temperate strain,
and it would be difficult, from reading it, to guess what particular phase of religious belief
the writer cherished. The letter-press is interspersed with very numerous illustrations of
a superior kind, and the mechanical part of the book has been executed with the greatest
finish and good taste, Chicago Owl.
The name of Dr. Thompson, as a felicitous writer and an eloquent and scholarly preacher,
is familiar to the American public. His health of late has been impaired ; and, resigning his
pastoral labors in New York, he has been residing in Berlin. During his residence abroad,
he haB written the " Life of Jesus," in a style adapted for youth, as he sayB, " from twelve
to twenty years of age." " But you must hot call this a book for young people," said a
German friend to the author: " it is a hook for me, for grown-up men and women." The
German friend was right; for what will suit youth of the ages indicated will suit the masses
of any community, though it have little interest to the scholar or Biblical critic. Dr. Thomp
son's style is simple, animated, and picturesque, and wholly free from the "goody" ta|k
which is the bane of most religious books. He treats his subject as a great historical
character, and in a legitimate historical method. The illustrations are numerous and
excellent, and are artistic and faithful representations of Jewish costumes and customs. The
Biblical illustrations with which the public are familiar have been made with little knowledge
of, or regard to, actual realism; and hence these pictures in Dr. Thompson's book may be
studied with interest and profit. Philadelphia Faith and Works.
The style of this work is admirable, and will attract both young and old as readers. I>r
Thompson draws a good distinction between the simplicity with which even deep subjects
may be presented to young minds, and the childish style which some writers find it necessary
to use in adapting themselves to this class of readers.
While the language is simple, the truths brought out are forcible, and the book not only
entertains, but Instructs and edifies. It is profusely illustrated, and has the additional
advantage of being printed in large, clear type.
Cincinnati Gazette.
" Jesus of Nazareth : His Life for Young People," by Joseph P. Thompspn, D.D., is in
tended for youth of from twelve to twenty years. It is not controversial, but amplifies and
connects the narrative of the Four Gospels, explaining historical, geographical; and social allu
sions, and endeavoring to give freshness to facts with which the majority of. the young are
already familiar. It is one of the most successful attempts of the kind. The text is illustrated
by a large number of engravings, and the general style of the book is all that good taste and
judicious expenditure could furnish. Boston Transcript.
This book, announced some time since, is a book for young people, not children; although
the larger portion of it might well be understood by children of ten or twelve. It is a life
of ChriBt, written without any attempt to discuss questions of fact or doctrine, but presenting
in simple narrative form the wonderful story of the Saviour of men; a paraphrase which
makes the story seem more real, and brings the reader into closer sympathy with the sacred
subject. The author, who spent some years in the Bible lands, giveB, as adjuncts to the
narrative, vivid pictures of the home life and customs of the people of that day. He traces
the life of Christ from infancy to boyhood, showB him to us a school-boy, then as the helper
of Joseph, then as the preacher and prophet, and finally as the great Teacher in Israel.
The story of the betrayal and crucifixion is told with a vividness and power that will impress
the youthful reader strongly. Although Dr. Thompson has neither added to nor taken
from the facts of the narrative as given in the New Testament, he has supplied many details
which are of inestimable value, as furnishing a key to certain portions of the text which
may seem obscure to young Scripture students. This volume is illustrated with nearly sixty
full-page engravings. St. Louis Christian.
This excellent contribution to our sacred literature modestly claims to he adapted to young
people^ No one can read it without pleasure and profit. Its style is free from metaphysical
deductions, which could but encumber the life of Jesus whoever might attempt to write it.
The author evinceB a familiarity with the places where the Master lived and acted, that makes
us feel that we are hearing the story related by one who knows it is true. The author does

.NOTICES OF THE PRESS. "689

not protrude himself before his hero, hut loses himself in that wonderful life of which he
writes. Many of the incidents of Christ's life are thus graphically set forth, without any
apparent effort to do it; and the leBBons of his ministry are frequently given so simply, that
the very lesson speaks its own commentary. Chicago Inter-Ocean.
We feel very certain that the volume before us will be eagerly sought after by parents and
teachers. The author's language is so simple and attractive as to arrest at once the attention
of young readerB. He tells Tub wonderful story just as if the little ones were seated round
his knee. The illustrations, of which there are ever so many, are certain to take the chil
dren's fancy ; and the book in every particular makes a very handsome volume.
New-York Evening Post.
Dr. Joseph P. Thompson's " Jesus of Nazareth : His Life for Young People," is, as its name
implies, a life of Christ intended especially for young people, not children, the author tells
us, but well-grown youth; and, to quote from the preface, "without entering into disputes
- upon questions of fact or of doctrine," the book " seeks to present the life as it was, to make
real whatever carries the evidence of being true:1* The author indulges the hope " that all
who read it will find in it such a view of Christ the Teacher as shall satisfy their minds, and
such a view of Christ the Saviour as shall win their hearts and bless their lives." The book
is beautifully printed and well illustrated. Hartford Churchman.
• This book is well calculated to arrest attention by its mere mechanical getting-up, every
thing about it is so exceptionally excellent. The broad margins and large type and clear
paper are luxuries. In these days, when our faith is assailed in so many quarters, it is well
to have the great facts of our holy religion popularized as Dr. Thompson has popularized
them. While for ourselves we sometimes shrink from a presentation which may seem too
familiar, there are many minds that can thus be approached with profit; and, if a devout
reverence is even maintained, as for the most part is the case, and is always the intention in
this last book, we should hail the success of works of this kind. So important a work as
this deserves a more discriminating notice than we can grant it here.
Boston New-England Journal of Education.
Another fine volume is " Jesus of Nazareth: His Life for Young Peopje," by Dr. J. P.
Thompson. The author, so well known by his long and able ministry in New York, and his
most effective work in Germany in behalf of his country, is giving signal proof of his zeal
for Christ and his cause in the preparation now and then of a book which is suited to some
special religious want. The book before us is of this character. The narrative of Christ's
life is here told in a way which cannot fail to interest and stimulate the minds of the young
for whom it is written. It is thoughtful, suggestive, and inspiring. If we mistake not, the
book will prove to be fully as great a favorite with the old as with the young.
The engravings are not the old stock pictures, conventionally transmitted to us from the
old masters, but fresh, original designs, made after a study of the East as it is and always
has been, reproducing the life of the scene as it most probably existed in reality.
New-York Evening Mail.
Where he excels is in the descriptions of the places connected with his story. These
descriptions are evidently the result of personal observation, and are singularly graphic and
picturesque. Most excellent, too, is the manner in which Jewish customs and manners are
interwoven with his narrative, bringing scenes before us with much vividness, and throwing
a bright light upon the text. The final scenes of the agony, the trial, and the crucifixion
are set forth with much simplicity, without any attempt at those high-wrought relations so
common on works of this kind. If the facts narrated with directness, perspicuity, and
literary art, make no impression on the minds and hearts of his readers, any comment on
them, or striving to draw a lesson from them, is a worse than useless impertinence. Dr.
Thompson is a practised and accomplished writer. His diction is elegant, and his style
remarkably good. His figures of speech are used with much force, and are generally in
admirable taste. Upon the whole, the reverend author is to be congratulated upon having
produced a work which will be extremely interesting, not only to the young people for whom
ft was intended, but even to older people, and which will be found most useful in some
respects as a guide in the Btudy of the sacred text.
The work will be a handsome gift-book, being beautifully printed and bound, with many
full-page illustrations, in which the artist has cleverly caught the spirit of the Jewish scenes
portrayed, filling up the details with careful attention to the place and time.

690 NOTICES OF THE PRESS.

Boston Daily News.
The public have been favored with many of the lives of our Saviour ; but this has been pre
pared more especially for young people; but its perusal convinces us that it is a book of
thrilling interest for grown-up men and women. Its style is attractive and winning, and will
do much to lead all to a due comprehension of the beauty and sublimity of the life of Christ.
No one can carefully read this book without rich rewards. It will blesB the life, and warm
the heart. The volume is beautifully illustrated and tastefully bound. Lovers of good books
will all buy this book. New- York Tribune.
A large volume, lavishly illustrated with pictures which reproduce Eastern costumes and cus.
toms, and are full of the true Oriental spirit. This is not a book for children, but for youth ;
say, in the years from ten to twenty. It is an attempt to give them clearer and fuller ideas of
the most wonderful life that ever was lived. On this work Dr. Thompson has bestowed long
and careful study. He has not entered upon questions of doctrine, but he has labored to
present the life as it was ; and he sends it forth in the hope " that all who read it will find in
it such a view of Christ the Teacher as shall satisfy their minds, and such a view of Christ
the Saviour as shall win their hearts and bless their lives."

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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