MINISTRY OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.
When Jesus had grown to be a young man, there came a minister through the country about Jordan, preaching to the people that they repent and be baptized. Some thought he was the Christ for whom they had been waiting. But he said to them: “I baptize you with water, but there is coming one, so much mightier than I, that I am not even worthy to untie his shoes [this was the work of the lowest servant]; He will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. He will make clean the hearts of his people. He will gather them in as wheat is gathered into the garner. But the wicked will be like chaff which is burned up, with a fire that cannot be put out.” Many other solemn things, also, this minister preached to the people. A man named Herod, ruler over part of the country, was angry with John because he had been reproved for many sins, among them marrying a woman whom he had no right to marry; and he put John in prison. But before that happened, one day, when John had been preaching and baptizing many people, Jesus came, and asked to be baptized also; and as he was praying, a wonderful thing happened. The Holy Ghost came down out of heaven in the form of a dove, and rested on Jesus, and a voice out of heaven said: “Thou art my beloved son; in thee I am well pleased.”
JESUS AT NAZARETH.
We find Jesus to-day in Nazareth, where he lived in his boyhood. It is the Sabbath-day, and he has gone to church, and stands reading to the people from the Bible. He read in the book named Isaiah; read about himself. These are the words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” When he had read these wonderful words he closed the book, and gave it to the minister, and sat down. All the people looked at him, wondering what he would say. Then he began to talk. He told them that the promises he had been reading to them were fulfilled. All listened and wondered at the tender and beautiful words that he spoke. They whispered to each other, saying, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” Then he said to them: “You will surely remind me of the proverb, ‘Physician, heal thyself.’ Do some of the wonderful things here that we have heard of you doing in Capernaum. But, remember, no prophet is highly thought of in his own country. Remember that during that time of famine in Israel, when it didn’t rain for three years and six months, there were many widows, but the prophet Elijah was sent only to one at Sarepta, a city of Sidon. And there were many lepers in Israel while the prophet Elisha lived there; but Naaman, the Syrian, was the only one that was cured.”
This preaching made the people angry, and they started up in wrath and thrust him out of their city, and wanted to push him headlong down the hill on the top of which Nazareth was built. But just there he showed his power, in passing quietly through the crowd of angry people, holding them back by the power of his gaze, and went away.
JESUS IN THE TEMPLE, READING THE BIBLE.—Luke iv. 16.