xii. 1-20; Lev. xxiii. 4–8, xxviii. 16—25; Deut. xvi. 1—8). The joyous festival lasted from the 14th to the 21st day of the month Nisan, the first month of the sacred year. The company were clad in their best apparel, yet as if about to set forth on a journey. Every act and every scene had an historical or religious meaning. The whole was a visible representation in act of the great fact on which rested the Hebrew commonwealth. Public worship was celebrated with great pomp. All the twentyfour courses of priests were engaged, and the grand choruses of the temple music were performed with sublime effect. Then, under the combined power of poetry, music, and song, did the Psalms found in the Bible come on the heart in their native grandeur; while the gay attire and glad devotion of the ten thousand worshippers, the clouds of incense, the robes of the priests and levites, the dignity and sacred awe around the highpriest as he moved to and fro in the solemnities, with the mitre, inscribed with the name of Israel, on his head, and on his breast the mysterious pectoral

Urim and Thummim, those oracular gems,

worn originally by Aaron, and which carry the thoughts back into the secret lore of Egyptian antiquity,-these sights and sounds, exhibited in an edifice constructed so as to give them the greatest effect, left on the mind, especially of the young, the most deeply-engraven and vivid impressions, and created the feeling that no people was so favoured as Israel before God and

man.

The festival has ended. On all sides is the bustle of preparation for departure. Parties form themselves. Groups are made. Parties and groups grow into caravans. Every one is intent on himself. Every one repairs to the well-known centre. At length a regretful adieu is bidden to the city, and again the face of the land streams with lines of pilgrims. They each seek their home with a deep consciousness that, in the midst of much varied enjoyment, they have discharged a great religious duty. Mary and Joseph join the caravan bound for Galilee. After having proceeded the short distance of the first day's journey, and when families were assembling for the evening meal, they find that Jesus is not in the company. How is this? How must Mary's fond heart have reproached her, as if in the general confusion she had been guilty of neglect! Where can he be? Some harm had befallen him.' She and Joseph hurried back to find their dear boy. The whole of the ensuing day did they spend in vain search. Where can he be?' The abodes of kinsfolk and acquaintance' were visited, but he was not found. At last, with a weak hope, they entered the sacred enclosure of the temple; and there they saw the wonderful child 'sittting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions'

L

(Luke ii. 41, seq.). Surprising fact, that at his age Jesus should be so engaged-a boy discoursing with the most learned rabbis of the land! His parents, though they had some idea of his high calling, could not help being somewhat grieved. With a true motherly feeling, Mary, in mixed gladness and displeasure, addressed to him gently reproachful words. Her son's reply, Knew ye not that I must be about my Father's business?' dimly revived her higher state of feeling, by reminding her of a loftier parentage and obligations superior to all others. Yet, knowing that his time was not yet come, and that meanwhile he owed full obedience to the home in which he had been placed by Providence, Jesus 'went down with them to Nazareth, and was subject unto them.'

The childhood shows the man,
As morning shows the day.

So did Jesus prove his readiness 'to fulfil all righteousness,' discharging now, as in his public ministry, the humble duties of earth and executing the high will of Almighty God, being attentive at once to the ordinary routine and the special demands of life. His perfection is left for us to love, reverence, and copy.

'His mother kept all these things in her heart.' And much was there for her to meditate on; much, and of very deep import. And as time passed on, these topics acquired fresh meaning and higher consequence; for she saw how great thoughts were growing in her son's mind, and how, with slow but sure steps, his consciousness of being the Messiah assumed a definite shape, and sank into his heart, and shaped his mind, and coloured his words. She saw the plant of God's right hand grow into a majestic tree. And she tendered and watered that plant till at last the time came.

A long interval there was between the return to Nazareth of which we have spoken, and the going forth thence of the Messiah to teach, suffer, and die. The time between his twelfth and the thirtieth year-the usual age for entering on an important office (Numbers iv. 3)—is left blank by the evangelists. What God has hidden, it becomes not us to try to disclose. Darkness has its lessons as well as light. When the Giver of Light retires behind a cloud, we should bow down and adore. The Sun of Righteousness is about to rise.

There are, however, two or three intimations in Scripture, the substance of which we may present before we pass on to the public life of Christ. Joseph was by trade a carpenter. To the same pursuit does Jesus appear to have been trained, for in Mark vi. 3 is found an implication to that effect: 'Is not this the carpenter? The question implies some disrepute. Yet was manual labour less disesteemed then than now; for it was not unusual for teachers among the Jews to pursue some trade, generally

that of their fathers, for the purpose of thereby procuring means of subsistence, seeing that they were not paid for their instructions.

The intimate acquaintance displayed by Jesus with the Hebrew Scriptures, and his skill in the then customary way of expounding them, show how diligent a student of them he was in the period of his preparation. When engaged in his Father's work, he appears to have had some peculiarity in his dress (John xix. 23), and was often saluted with the title of Rabbi. Yet is there no reason to conclude that the term belonged to him in its strict application. And evidence is not wanting to show that Jesus had not received a learned education or belonged to any learned class. It is his statement that his doctrine was not of men, but of God (John vii. 15, 16, viii. 28). The rabbis of the day were a separate order, of which no one could be a member except such as were formally introduced either by the head of the Sanhedrim or one of his deputies. The initiation marked them out as a recognised class of religious teachers, who accordingly wore a characteristic garb, had a seat of honour in the synagogue, and were appealed to for official instruction. Such a position was not held by Jesus. It would have been alien from the free spirit of his ministry. It would have filled and perverted his mind with human traditions and opinions. It would have prevented the development of his own nature, and hindered the growth in his soul of the Divine Word. It would have placed him on the side of the old, the corrupt, and the fading; whereas he was the divine fountain of fresh living truth. Not, then, as a rabbi did Jesus appear. His work lay not within the hard crust of Jewish ideas and aims. His purpose was not to reform a dying superstition, but, out of its decay, to develop a new and a universal religion. He came from God, not the Sanhedrim, in order, not to repair and renew, but to develop, quicken, and create. He came that we might have life, and that we might have it exceeding abundantly (John x. 10).

PART II.

EVENTS FROM THE OPENING OF CHRIST'S MISSION TO THE FIRST PASSOVER.

U. C 780 to end of March, 781.

CHAPTER I.

JESUS, NOW THIRTY YEARS OF AGE, ENTERS ON HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY, AND IS BAPTISED BY JOHN.

Probably in the summer of U. C. 780; A. D. 27.

WITH a deep consciousness of a high calling, furnished with a full and exact acquaintance with the Hebrew religion, endowed with lofty powers, of keen but well-regulated_sensibility, and fully resolved to obey God rather than man, Jesus went forth from his home at Nazareth, leaving all its calm deep pleasures for the noise, collisions, and conflicts of public life. What a troubled hour must that have been for his mother and himself when he quitted a home where he had so long dwelt in peace, and a neighbourhood on whose hills and in whose valleys he had so often held communion with God, and felt his soul expand to the full grandeur of his divinely-commissioned undertaking! Pure and noble was his determination. The more strongly did he wish to preserve it in its strength, and the more ready was he to receive confirmation in his enterprise. The presence of God in the soul welcomes attestations from every true word and every righteous act. Jesus resolved to make a public consecration of himself; but under whose auspices? The priests were formalists; the philosophers, sectaries; the learned were busied with words; the people were moving to and fro under the gusts of

impulse. One, however, had appeared in the land, having the spirit of the ancient prophets,-one who also seemed as if he was the predicted forerunner of the Christ. This was John, surnamed the Baptist, from the symbolical rite he administered, in imitation probably of the practice of baptising, as a token of purification, heathens who had renounced the impurities of idolatry, and confessed the holy religion of Moses and the prophets.

This person, who was a little older than Jesus, the son of the priest Zacharias and of that Elizabeth to whom Mary hastened on receiving the news which made her blessed among women,' had a short time before come forth in public, observing the most rigorous morality, in order to work a moral reform in the Jewish nation. From early youth, the wilderness of Judah had been his ordinary dwelling-place. Clad in coarse apparel, he lived on the barest nutriment, consisting for the most part of the spontaneous products of the desert, such as locusts and wild honey. He in many particulars resembled the Nazarites (separated), who, given to holy thoughts, led a secluded life, abstaining from all strong drinks and ornament of person or attire (Numb. vi.). The ascetic practices of the Nazarites had, in the monastic body termed Essenes, found full development in later and degenerate days; and now that the wickedness of the Jews was rapidly reaching its height, it naturally gave force and prominence to the extreme of self-denial and rigid mortification of the body in which many believed the sole remedy of sin was found. John, however, while he partook of much that characterised the Essenes, avoided also their follies, and made his efforts to bear mainly on producing that moral change without which he well knew all social reforms would be futile or temporary.

John's tone was decided; his teachings peculiar; his practice of baptising full of meaning. After the prophetic voice had been for centuries dumb, had God once more visited his people? And in what capacity had John come? Perhaps he was the long looked-for Messiah. The whole land of Judah was moved with a deep interest and lively curiosity. From all quarters people flocked to the Jordan, and received baptism at the hands of John. But baptism indicated a great religious change. Water was cleansing and nourishing, as are higher forms of spiritual truth. Besides, it was expected that the Messiah would practise baptism. And then, John's teachings were of a moral nature. He required a change of mind; for the burden of his speech was, 'Repent.' Anxious for information, his hearers put to John the question,Art thou the Christ?' 'No,' he at once and emphatically replied, I am but his herald. I, indeed, baptise you with water; but one cometh, the bands of whose sandals I am not worthy to unloose: he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Whose winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his floor; and will gather the