God is always giving. God gives to the trees their leaves and fruit. God gives to the earth the rain in summer to make the grass grow, and the snow in winter to cover the ground. God gives to the beasts and to the birds their food. God gives to us our homes and friends and all that makes us happy. God gives us the Bible to tell us how he loves us. God gives us sweet sleep at night. God gives us health to enjoy all his gifts. What has God given you to-day? Have you thanked him for it?
"Who giveth food to the hungry."
--Psalms 146:7.
"Who giveth to the beast his food."
--Psalms 147:9.
"So he giveth his beloved sleep."
--Psalms 127:2.
"He giveth snow like wool."
--Psalms 147:16.
"Give us this day our daily bread."
--Matthew 6:11.
"My peace I give unto you."
--John 14:27.
"Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all."
Jesus had many friends. Some of them were people whom he had healed. Some of them had heard him talk, and had learned to love him. Sometimes they stayed with him, day after day. Jesus loved his friends. Jesus told his friends about God. Jesus was so kind and loving to his friends that they could not help loving him. The friends of Jesus were called disciples. Disciple means learner. The disciples learned what Jesus had taught. Jesus picked out from his friends a few to be with him all the time. They were sometimes called disciples, too. Sometimes they were called apostles. Apostle means one who is sent. Jesus sent the apostles out to tell others about himself. There were twelve of the apostles. The names of three of them were Peter, James, and John.
BEAUTIFUL NAZARETH: OUTLOOK FROM HILLS ABOVE TOWN TO HISTORIC ESDRAELON Copyright by Underwood & Underwood and used by special permission.
After he began his active ministry Jesus had no home, but while he was a boy his home was in the town of Nazareth, beautifully situated among the hills of Galilee. A traveler there describes the town as it now is;--
"Almost in the center of this chain of hills there is a singular cleft in the limestone, forming the entrance to a little valley. As a traveler leaves the plain he will ride up a steep and narrow pathway, broidered with grass and flowers, through scenery which is neither colossal nor overwhelming, but infinitely beautiful and picturesque. Beneath him, on the right-hand side, the vale will gradually widen, until it becomes about a quarter of a mile in breadth. The basin of the valley is divided by hedges of cactus into little fields and gardens, which, about the fall of the spring rains, wear an aspect of indescribable calm, and glow with a tint of the richest green. Beside the narrow pathway, at no great distance apart from each other, are two wells, and the women who draw water there are more beautiful, and the ruddy, bright-eyed shepherd boys who sit or play by the well sides, in their gay-colored Oriental costume, are a happier, bolder, brighter-looking race than the traveler will have seen elsewhere. Gradually the valley opens into a little natural amphitheater of hills, supposed by some to be the crater of an extinct volcano; and there, clinging to the hollows of a hill, which rises to the height of some five hundred feet above it, lie, 'like a handful of pearls in a goblet of emerald,' the flat roofs and narrow streets of a little Eastern town. There is a small church; the massive buildings of a convent; the tall minaret of a mosque; a clear, abundant fountain; houses built of white stone, and gardens scattered among them, umbrageous with figs and olives, and rich with the white and scarlet blossoms of orange and pomegranate. In spring, at least, everything about the place looks indescribably bright and soft; doves murmur in the trees; the hoopoe flits about in ceaseless activity; the bright blue roller-bird, the commonest and loveliest bird of Palestine, flashes like a living sapphire over fields which are enameled with innumerable flowers."
