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[End of "VOLUME THREE; TALES OF OLD JUDAEA"]------------------------------------------[Start of "VOLUME FOUR; LIFE OF JESUS"]
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THE WISE MEN AND THE STAR"When they saw the star,they rejoiced with exceeding great joy."
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ARRANGED AND EDITED BYREV. NEWTON MARSHALL HALL, D.D.MINISTER OF THE NORTH CHURCH, SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTSANDREV. IRVING FRANCIS WOOD, PH.D.PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE AND COMPARATIVE RELIGION AT SMITH COLLEGEAuthors of"The Early Days of Israel""Advanced Bible Studies" Etc.THE KING-RICHARDSON COMPANYSPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTSCHICAGO, CLEVELAND
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COPYRIGHT, 1906,COPYRIGHT, 1917,BY THE KING-RICHARDSON COMPANY,SPRINGFIELD, MASS.
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PREFACE.
In this volume is told the story of the life of Jesus as it moves on steadily through the gospels. The story shows a life not simply "good," but heroic. A life with a mighty purpose, nobly planned, splendidly carried out. It is a life which appeals to the love of the heroic in character that exists in every child's mind. The second part is simply a continuation of the first. The heroic spirit, the love of humanity which was in Jesus was communicated to his disciples. These disciples went forth "into all the world," to teach men the gospel of the "man of Nazareth." The adventures they had, the sufferings they endured, the victories they won, are recorded here.
The book aims especially to show the development of the heroic life of Jesus through its different stages. The text is a reproduction of the New Testament accounts, being drawn from all the Gospels. Here and there, as in the other volumes, a sentence or two of introduction and connection has been prefixed to certain sections, to furnish needed information. It is hoped that the book may in some measure help its readers, whether young or old, to see more clearly the beauty and the heroism which these stories portray.
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THE LIFE OF THE LORD JESUS.
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THE NATIVITY.By Lerolle.
"O blessed day which giv'st the eternal lieTo self, and sense, and all the brute within;Oh! come to us amid the war of life;To hall and hovel come! to all who toilIn senate, shop, or study! and to thoseIll-warmed and sorely tempted--Come to them, blest and blessing, Christmas Day!Tell them once more the tale of Bethlehem,The kneeling shepherds and the babe divine;And keep them men indeed, fair Christmas Day!"
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Palestine was a busy country in the days when the Lord Jesus lived in it. Hundreds of little villages were scattered all over its hills, with here and there a great town, where all day long crowds of people passed in and out the gates of the gray stone walls. Greatest of all the cities, loved by every Jew in the world, was Jerusalem, but more trade flowed in and out of some other cities. All over the country were roads running from city to city. He who traveled on a great road saw much of the world. There were the country people going into the city to sell fruit and firewood, merchants riding past on asses, patient pilgrims on the way to Jerusalem, trains of mules and long caravans of slow-moving camels loaded with the goods of distant countries, crossing Palestine to the ports of the Mediterranean Sea, and here and there a Roman officer hurrying past on some grave business of the empire. All this made the roads, even to a boy shut in by the hills of Galilee, a series of pictures that waked his imagination of the great world beyond the mountains. This was even more the case in Galilee, where Jesus lived when a boy, than it was in the southern part of the land, in Judaea. In Judaea nearly all the people were Jews, and very proud they{18}were of the fact. In Galilee many belonged to other nations, and the Judaeans looked down on Galilee and thought it was half heathen. But even in Galilee there were many earnest Jews, and it may be doubted if, after all, half-heathen Galilee was not a better place for a boy to grow up in than was proud Jerusalem. It is better for a boy to be able to sympathize with those who do not belong to his set, than to look down on other people because they are somehow different from him.
And then the schools and the churches! Every village in Palestine had them, and the school was in the church. The beginning of the training was at home. There is little doubt, however, that in the time of Jesus, Nazareth had a school, and that Jesus with the other boys was taught to read the Old Testament in Hebrew. The people no longer spoke the language in their homes, but it was always read in the services on the Sabbath, and the teaching of the schools was in it, as in the olden time the teaching of the schools in Europe was in Latin. On the Sabbath all the people came to these places of worship, which were called synagogues, and read the Old Testament and prayed to God and sometimes heard a sermon from some wise man who had something he wished to say to the people. Sometimes the man who preached was an old rabbi, who had thought about the great things of his religion for many years, until all the people had come to look with great respect on so wise and venerable a man. Sometimes it was a younger man, but with the fire of youth, and then when the people went home their hearts burned with a great{19}longing that their God would show himself to them in some wonderful deed of power. But the years passed on and the divine deed of power never came. So some of the people became disheartened and almost ceased to care what happened to their religion, except that if anyone insulted it, their anger burned up very quickly, and their hands reached for sticks and stones to throw at the man who dared to say a word against their faith. But others studied their old books with still more diligence, and strove so hard to keep all the laws they found, that almost no time was left to do anything else. Very much above the common people they felt themselves in their religious pride, and religious pride is the very worst pride in all the world. Such were the Pharisees, of whom the New Testament tells so much. But all over the country, both among the Pharisees and among the other people, were many patiently waiting and earnestly praying that God would show himself to his people.
How did they want God to show himself? In some great act of relief for the nation. During these years Rome ruled over all the lands of western Asia. Now the rule of Rome was the wisest and best rule that these lands had ever known. Sometimes a selfish or a cruel officer appeared, who cared for nothing but the money he could get from the people, or who turned his soldiers into the streets to kill and plunder as they pleased, but generally the Romans made good and just governors. But the Jews were not content. They remembered the time when kings of their own nation had ruled over them, and they dreamed{20}dreams of a glorious future when God would free them from all foreign power, and Jerusalem should rule the world. They were very sure that this would come sometime. God would not always let a heathen army keep the castle which overlooked his own temple in Jerusalem. They read in the prophets of the Old Testament about a Prince and a Saviour whom God would send some day. This Prince was called the Messiah, and the hope of his coming was the Messianic hope. Every generation hoped that he would come in their day. Year by year they said, "It must be before long. God cannot wait much longer." Some of them thought that Israel itself was not pure enough, and that this kept back the Messiah. "If Israel kept the law perfectly for one day," so they said, "the Messiah would come." Others thought that they ought not to sit still and do nothing, but should be brave and strike a blow for their own liberty. Such men were looking for a leader, but no leader had yet been found. So all the people, with their various ways of thinking, were looking and longing and waiting for the Messiah. Is it any wonder that, when Jesus began to teach and do cures, the people asked one another if this might not be the Messiah, and that they sometimes tried to make him a leader to free them from the Romans? To understand what the people thought of Jesus and how Jesus talked to the people, one must know how this hope of the Messiah was all the time in the people's minds. They were ever saying, "Is not this the Messiah?" Jesus was ever answering, "Not the Messiah you expect." They were ever asking him, "Will you now found the kingdom?"
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GATHERING TARES IN THE STONY FIELDS NEAR BETHEL.Copyright by Underwood & Underwood and used by special permission.
This would look like a very scanty harvest to eyes accustomed to fruitful fields. There are four species of tares in Palestine. The seeds are poisonous to man and to beasts, producing serious sickness and sometimes death. They are, however, harmless to fowls and are sold as food for poultry. It is customary to gather out the tares when the grain is nearly ready for harvest. Then the women and children go into the fields and carefully remove not only the tares but all the weeds as well.
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Jesus was ever replying, "The kingdom of God is not outward, with courts and armies and a great parade. It is inward, and means obeying the will of God." So Jesus lived in that busy world of his day, but few understood him. At last, because he would not be the kind of a Messiah they wanted, they crucified him. About forty years after this, the busy, proud people attempted to fight the Romans. They were defeated, and Jerusalem was taken. The temple was burned, the stone walls were thrown down, and the Jews were killed or sent away. So the story of Palestine and of its great hope ends very sadly for the Jews, who so looked and longed for their freedom. But we shall always love the land where the Lord Jesus lived and the people among whom he worked, because he loved them so much himself.
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Map of Palestine at the time of the New Testament.
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It came upon the midnight clear,That glorious song of old,From angels bending near the earthTo touch their harps of gold;Peace on the earth, good-will to men.From heaven's all-gracious King;The world in solemn stillness layTo hear the angels sing.Still through the cloven skies they come,With peaceful wings unfurled;And still their heavenly music floatsO'er all the weary world:Above its sad and lonely plainsThey bend on hovering wing.And ever o'er its Babel soundsThe blessed angels sing.O ye beneath life's crushing load,Whose forms are bending low,Who toil along the climbing wayWith painful steps and slow!Look now, for glad and golden hoursCome swiftly on the wing:Oh, rest beside the weary road,And hear the angels sing.For lo, the days are hastening on,By prophets seen of old,When with the ever-circling years,Shall come the time foretold,When the new heaven and earth shall ownThe Prince of Peace their King,And the whole world send back the songWhich now the angels sing.
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Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid.Star of the East, the horizon adorning,Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.Cold on His cradle the dew-drops are shining,Low lies His head with the beasts of the stall;Angels adore Him in slumber reclining,Maker, and Monarch, and Saviour of all.Say, shall we yield Him, in costly devotion,Odors of Edam, and offerings divine,Gems of the mountain, and pearls of the ocean,Myrrh from the forest, or gold from the mine?Vainly we offer each ample oblation;Vainly with gifts would His favor secure:Richer by far is the heart's adoration;Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid.Star of the East, the horizon adorning,Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.
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BETHLEHEM.From a picture owned by the Detroit Photograph Company, and used by its kind permission.
This picture shows the town, looking in from the Church of the Nativity.
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There came three kings, ere break of day,All on Epiphanie;Their gifts they bare all rich and rare,All, all, Lord Christ, for Thee:Gold, frankincense, and myrrh are there,Where is the King? O where? O where?The star shone brightly overhead,The air was calm and still,O'er Bethlehem fields its rays were shed,The dew lay on the hill:We see no throne, no palace fair,Where is the King? O where? O where?An old man knelt at a manger low,A Babe lay in the stall;The starlight played on the infant brow,Deep silence lay o'er all.A maiden bent o'er the Babe in prayer:--There is the King! O there! O there!
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Joy to the world, the Lord is come:Let earth receive her King;Let every heart prepare Him room,And heaven and nature sing.Joy to the earth, the Saviour reigns:Let men their songs employ;While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains,Repeat the sounding joy.No more let sins and sorrows grow,Nor thorns infest the ground:He comes to make His blessings flowFar as the curse is found.He rules the world with truth and grace,And makes the nations proveThe glories of His righteousness,And wonders of His love.
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BETHLEHEM.The large building to the left is the Church of the Nativity.
"See how far upon the Eastern roadThe star-led wizards haste with odours sweet.O run, present them with thy humle ode,And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,And join thy voices with the angel quireFrom out his secret altar touched with hallow'd fire."