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ears. Behold," said Jesus, "thou art made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee." The man departed and told the Pharisees who it was that had made him whole, thinking, no doubt, to bring praise and glory to his deliverer.

Possibly until now the presence of Jesus at this feast had not been known to the Pharisees. The last time he was in Jerusalem he had solemnly and emphatically claimed the temple as his Father's house, and had indirectly reproved them by assuming the authority to rid it of the scandals they had allowed to creep into it. Now they found him deliberately setting aside one of their most binding rules for keeping the Sabbath. John the Baptist, though both priest and prophet, had never ventured so far. Their religion. of rites and ceremonies, of traditions, of shows and shams, was in danger. With their religion, they firmly believed their place and nation would go, and Jerusalem and Judæa would become like the heathen cities and countries about them. It was time to put a stop to it. John the Baptist was in prison. What if Jesus of Nazareth could be slain quietly, so as not to disturb the common people, who heard him gladly?

Jesus then, forewarned, it may be, by a friend, found himself compelled to quit Jerusalem hastily, instead of sojourning there till the coming passover. He was now too well known in the streets of the city to escape notice. More than this, if he stayed until the Galileans came up to the feast, there would be constant danger of his followers coming into collision with the Pharisees. Riots in Jerusalem at the time of the feasts were not uncommon, and often ended in bloodshed. Not long before, Pilate had slain eighteen Galileans in some tumult in the temple courts; and there was every probability that some such calamity might occur again should any provocation arise.

Jesus, therefore, retreated from Jerusalem with a few friends who were with him. He had not yet chosen his band of twelve apostles, but John, the youngest and dearest of them all, was with him, for it is he alone who has given us this record of the first year of our Lord's ministry. Philip, also, we suppose to have been his disciple from the first, in obedience to the call, "Follow me;" for Jesus seems to have been particularly grieved with his dulness of mind, when he says to him, "Have I been so long time. with you, Philip, and yet hast thou not known me?" Moreover, when Jesus was next at Jerusalem for the passover, those Greeks who wished to see him came and spoke to Philip as being best known as the attendant of our Lord. Whether there were other disciples with him, or who they were,

we do not know. It was a little company that had lived together through eleven months, most of which had been spent on the banks of the Jordan, in a peaceful and happy seclusion, save for the multitudes that came to be taught the new doctrine, or to be healed of their afflictions. Now they were to be persecuted, to have spies lurking about them, to be asked treacherous questions, to have perjured witnesses ready to swear anything against them, and to feel from day to day that their enemies were powerful and irreconcilable. With a sad foresight of what must be the end, our Lord left Jerusalem and returned into Galilee.

JES

was not.

CHAPTER VI.

His Old Home.

ESUS came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. His aunt, Mary Cleophas, was still living there with her children, if his mother The old familiar home was the same, and the steep, narrow streets of the village in which he had played and worked. Coming down to it from the unfriendly city of Jerusalem, it seemed like a little nest of safety, lying amongst its pleasant hills. Here, at least, so his disciples might think, they would find repose and friendship; and the soreness of heart that must have followed the knowledge that the Jews sought to slay their Master would here be healed and forgotten.

The Sabbath had come round again; a week since he had given strength to the cripple. It was his custom to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath; and the congregation which met there had been familiar with him from his childhood, when he went with his supposed father, Joseph. The rabbi, or ruler, could not but have known him well. These rulers of the synagogue had a certain power of both trying and scourging heretics in the place itself. They could also excommunicate them, and lay a curse upon them; and Jesus knew that they would not be averse to exercising their power. But now he went to his accustomed place, looking round with a tender yearning of his heart towards them all; from those who sat conspicuously in the chief seats, to the hesitating, inquisitive villager, seldom seen in the congregation, who crept in at the door to see what was going on.

For all the people of Nazareth must have been filled with curiosity that day. Their townsman had become famous; and they longed to see him,

and to witness some miracle wrought by him. Almost all had spoken to him at one time or another; many had been brought up with him, and had been taught by the same schoolmaster. They had never thought of him as being different from themselves, except perhaps that no man could bring an evil word against him; a stupendous difference indeed, but not one that would win him much favor. Yet here he was among them again, after a year's absence or so, and throughout all the land, even in Jerusalem itself, he was everywhere known as the Prophet of Nazareth.

When the time came for the Scriptures to be read, Jesus, either called by the minister, or rising of his own accord, stood up to read. It must have been what all the congregation wished for. The low platform near the middle of the building was the best place for all to see him; their eyes were fastened upon him, and their satisfaction was still greater when he sat down to teach them from the words he had just read. They were astonished at the graciousness of his words and manner, and before he could say more than, "This day is this Scripture fulfilled," they began whispering to one another, "Is not this Joseph's son?"

There is nothing strange or unnatural in this conduct, nor indeed anything very blamable. It is precisely what would take place among ourselves now under the same circumstances. Jesus was grieved, though we cannot suppose him to have been disappointed. He knew they wanted to see him do something like what he had done in Capernaum. His sinless life had been neither a sign nor a wonder to them; so blind were they, and so hard of heart. But if he would do some astonishing work they would believe in him. "No prophet is accepted in his own country," he said, and leaving the verses he was about to explain to them, he went on to remind them that both Elijah and Elisha, their wonder-working prophets of olden times, had passed over Jewish sufferers to bestow their help on Gentiles. They could not miss seeing the application. If they rejected him, he would turn to the Gentiles.

A sudden and violent fury seized upon all who were in the synagogue. This threat came from the carpenter's son! They rose up with one accord to thrust him out of the village. As they passed along the streets the whole population would join them, and their madness growing stronger, they hurried him towards a precipice near the town, that they might cast him down headlong. But his brethren and disciples were there, and surely among the people of Nazareth he had some friends who would protect him from so shocking a death at the hands of his townsmen. He passed

through the angry crowd, and went his way over the green hills, which not long before had seemed to promise him rest and shelter from his bitter foes. He had been accused of breaking the Sabbath seven days ago; who was breaking the Sabbath now? The full time was come for all this formalism of worship to be swept away, and for Christ to proclaim himself Lord also of the Sabbath. Did Jesus linger on the brow of that eastern hill looking down upon the village which nestled at the foot of the cliff? So quiet it lay there, as if no tumult could ever enter into it. The little valley, green and fresh in the cool spring-time, was bright with flowers, like a garden amid the mountains. He had loved this narrow glen as only children can love the spot where they first grow conscious of the beauty of the world around them. Here his small hands had plucked his first lilies, more gorgeously apparelled than Solomon in all his glory. Here he had seen for the first time the red flush in the morning sky, and the rain-clouds rising out of the west, and had felt the south wind blow upon his face. Upon yonder housetops he had watched the sparrows building; and upon these mountains he had considered the ravens. The difference between now and then pressed heavily upon him; and as he wept over Jerusalem, he may have wept over Nazareth. No place on earth could be the same to him; and when he lost sight of it behind the brow of the hill, he went on sadly and sorrowfully towards Capernaum.

THOUGH

CHAPTER VII.
Capernaum.

HOUGH Galilee was somewhat larger than Judæa, it was in reality but a small province, not more than seventy miles in length, or thirty in breadth. This again was divided into Upper and Lower Galilee; the latter called Galilee of the Gentiles. The district in which Jesus worked most of his miracles, and went preaching from town to town, was very small indeed, a circuit of a few miles tending south and west of Capernaum, which for a short time now became his home. This part of Galilee is a lovely tountry, abounding in flowers and birds; and at his time it was thickly populated, with small towns or villages lying near one another, and farmhouses occupying every favorable situation. The lake or sea of Galilee is about thirteen miles long, six broad, and all the western shore was fringed. with villages and hamlets. Nowhere could Jesus have met with a more

busy stir of life. Not only Jews dwelt in this region, but many Gentiles of all nations, especially the Roman and Greek. His ministry in Judæa, if the Pharisees had suffered him to remain in Judæa, would not have been so widely beneficial as in this province, where the people were less in bondage to Jewish customs and ritualism.

It is at this point that Matthew, Mark, and Luke alike begin the history of our Lord's work. What we have so far read has been recorded for us in John's gospel alone, with the exception of the visit to Nazareth, which we learn from Luke. Jesus had already some friends and believers in Capernaum. There was the nobleman whose son he had healed several weeks before. There were Andrew and Peter, to whom he had been pointed out by John the Baptist as the Lamb of God. It was quickly noised abroad that Jesus of Nazareth was come to the town, and multitudes flocked together, though it was no holy day, to hear the words he had to teach them from God. They found him upon the shore of the lake, and in order that all might see and hear him, he entered into a boat belonging to Peter, and asked him to push out a little from the bank. It was early in the morning. of the day after he had been thrust out of his own village; and now, sitting in the boat with a great multitude of eager listeners pressing down to the water's edge, he spoke to them the gracious words which the people of Nazareth would not hear.

The sermon was soon over, for the listeners were working men, and had their trades to follow. Jesus then bade Peter to put out into the deep. waters, and let down his net for a draught. Peter, who must have heard of the miracles Jesus wrought, though he had never seen one, seems to have obeyed without expecting much success. But the net enclosed so many fishes that it began to break, and his own boat, as well as that belonging to his partners, John and James, became dangerously full. No sooner had Peter reached the shore, where Jesus was still standing, than, terrified at his supernatural power, he fell at his feet, crying, " Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." "Follow me," answered Jesus, "and I will make you fishers of men." Andrew and Peter immediately forsook all to attach themselves closely to Jesus; and the same morning John and James left their father Zebedee for the same purpose.

The next Sabbath day, which was probably not a weekly but a legal Sabbath, coming earlier than the end of the week, Jesus entered the synagogue at Capernaum with his band of followers, four of whom were well known in the town. The synagogue here was a much larger and more

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