A Child's Life Of Christ. Stretton Hesba

one other way Jesus shared the common lot of boys. He had to take to a trade which was not likely to have been his choice. Whether as the eldest son of a large family, or the only son of a woman left a widow, he had to learn the trade of his supposed father. The little workshop, where neighbors could always drop in with their trifling gossip, or at work in their own houses, where they could grumble and find fault; this must have been irksome to him. The long, monotonous hours, the insignificant labor, the ceaseless buzz of chattering about him; we can understand how weary and worn his spirit must have felt as well as his body. If he could have been a shepherd, like Moses, the great lawgiver, and David, his own kingly ancestor, how far more fitting that would have seemed! How his courage and tenderness toward his flock would have been a type of what he would be in after life! The solitude would have been sweet to him, and the changing aspects of the seasons from year to year. In after life he often compared himself to a shepherd, but never once is there any reference to his uncongenial calling in the hot workshop of Nazareth, where the only advantage was that it did not separate him from his mother.

      Does a blameless life win favor among any people? There was one man in Galilee, one only in the wide world, who never needed to go up to Jerusalem to offer any sacrifice for sin. Neither sin-offering nor trespass-offering had this man to bring to the altar of God. The peace-offering he could eat in the courts of the temple as a type of happy communion with the unseen God, and of a complete surrender of himself to his will. But, let the people scan his conduct as closely as village neighbors can do, not one among them could say that Jesus, the son of Joseph, had need to carry up to Jerusalem an offering for any trespass. Did they love him the better for this? Did he find honor among them? Nay, not even in his father's house.

      CHAPTER VI. The First Passover,

      THERE is one incident, and only one, given to us of the early life of our Lord. It was the custom of his parents to go up to Jerusalem once a year, to the feast of the Passover. For the Jews living in Galilee it was a long journey; but the feast came at the finest time of the year for travelling, after the rains of winter, and before the dry heat of summer. It was a great yearly pilgrimage, in which troops from every village and town on the road came to swell the numbers as the pilgrims marched southward. Past the cornfields, where the grain was already forming in the ear; under the mountain slopes, clothed with silvery olive trees and the young green of the vines; across the babbling brooks, not yet dried by heat; through groves of sycamores and oak trees fresh in leaf, the long procession passed from town to town; sleeping safely in the open air by night, and journeying by pleasant stages in the day, until they reached Judaea; and, weary with the dusty road from Jericho to Jerusalem, shouted with joy when they turned a curve of the Mount of Olives, and saw the Holy City lying before them.

      Jesus was twelve years old when, probably, he first made this long yet joyous march up to Jerusalem. We can fancy the eager boy "going on before them," as he did many years later when he went up to his last Passover; hastening forward for that first glorious view of Jerusalem, which met his eye from Olives, the mount which was to be so closely associated with his afterlife. There stood the Holy City, with its marble palaces crowning the heights of Zion; and the still more magnificent temple on its own mount, bathed in the brilliant light of the spring sunshine. The white, wondrous beauty of his Father's house, with the trembling columns of smoke ever rising from its altars through the clear air to the blue heavens above, rose opposite to him. We know the hymn that his tremulous, joyous lips would sing, and that would be echoed by the procession following him as they too caught sight of the house of God, " How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God! " Thousands upon thousands of pilgrims had chanted that psalm before him; but never one like that boy of twelve, when his father's house was first seen by his happy eyes.

      Perhaps there was no hour of perfect happiness like that to Jesus again. Joseph was still alive, caring for him and protecting him. His mother, who could not but recall the strange events that had accompanied his birth, kept him at her side as they entered the temple, pointing out to him the splendor and the sacred symbols of the place. The silvery music of the temple service; the thunder of the amens of the vast congregations; the faint scent of incense wafted towards him; all fell upon the vivid, delicate senses of youth. And below these visible signs there was breaking upon him their deep, invisible, spiritual meaning; though not yet darkened with the shadow of that awful burden to be laid upon himself, when he, as the Lamb of God, was to take away the sins of the world. This was the time, perhaps, when " he was anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows " more than at any other season of his life.

      The temple had been rebuilt by Herod in the vain hope of winning popularity among his people. The outer walls formed a square of a thousand feet, with double or treble rows of aisles between ranks of marble pillars. These colonnades surrounded the first court, that of the Gentiles, into which foreigners might enter, though they were forbidden to go further upon pain of death. A flight of fifteen steps led from this court into that of the Women, a large space where the whole congregation of worshippers assembled, but beyond which women were not allowed to go, unless they had a sacrifice to offer. The next court had a small space railed off, called the Court of Israel; but the whole bore the name of the Court of the Priests, in which stood a great altar of unhewn stones forty-eight feet square, upon which three fires were kept burning continually, for the purpose of consuming the sacrifices. Beyond these courts stood the actual temple, containing the Holy Place, which was entered by none but a few priests, who were chosen by lot daily; and the Holiest of Holies, open only to the high-priest himself, and to him but once a year, on the great day of atonement.

      It was here, in the temple, that Jesus loved to be during his sojourn in Jerusalem; but the feast was soon ended, and his parents started homewards with the returning band of pilgrims. Probably Jesus set off with them from the place where they had lodged; and they, supposing him to be with some of his young companions, with his cousins perhaps, went a day's journey from Jerusalem. But when the night fell, and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance, he was nowhere to be found. A terrible night would that be for both of them, but especially for Mary, whose fears for him had been slumbering during the quiet years at Nazareth, but were not dead. Was it possible that anyone could have discovered their cherished secret, that this was the child whom the wise men had come so far to see, and for whom Herod had slain so many infants in Bethlehem? They turned back to Jerusalem seeking him in sorrow. It was the third day before they found him. Where he lived those three days we do not know. Why not "where the sparrow hath found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself?" It was in the temple that Joseph and Mary found him; in one of the public rooms or halls opening out of the court of the Gentiles, where the rabbis and those learned in the law were wont to assemble for teaching or argument. Jesus was in the midst of them asking questions, and answering those put to him by the astonished rabbis, who had not expected much understanding from this boy from Galilee. His parents themselves were amazed when they saw him there; and Mary, who seems to have had no difficulty in approaching him, spoke to him chidingly.

      "Son," she said, " why hast thou dealt thus with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing."

      The question fell upon him as the first dimness upon the glory and gladness of his sojourn in the temple. The poor home at Nazareth, his father Joseph, the carpenter's shop, the daily work, pressed back upon him in the place of the temple music, the prayer, the daily sacrifice. There they stood, his supposed father, weary with the long search, and his mother looking at him with sorrowful, reproaching eyes. He was ready to go back with them, but he could not go without a pang.

      " How is it that ye sought me? " he asked, sadly; " did you not know that I must be in my Father's house? "

      But he had not come to this earth to dwell in his Father's house; and he must leave it now, only to revisit it from time to time. "He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart."

      Eighteen more years, years of monotonous labor, did Jesus live in Nazareth. Changes came to his home as well as to others. Joseph died, and left his mother altogether dependent upon him. Galilee was still governed by Herod