FINDING OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE.
Holman Hunt (1821-1910)
From a photograph belonging to the Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass., and used by special permission.
He began to see, no doubt, as a boy, how much the world needed a saviour, and he began to form his resolution to be a hero, not a hero like the Roman soldier, but a hero of peace, one who should help and uplift humanity. So the days of his boyhood passed, in study, and work, and play, as he steadily grew toward manhood.
Every year three great feasts were kept by the Jews. The greatest of these was the Passover. People who could do so, left their homes, and journeyed to Jerusalem, the great sacred city of the Jews, to keep this feast; so that all the houses of the city were full of guests, all the villages near by were crowded with people, and the hills about were covered with the tents of those who could find no shelter in the houses. Women and little children were not required to take the hard journey, though they sometimes went. The journey had to be made on foot, or on the backs of horses or mules, the men carrying their food with them, and stopping at night where the dark found them. When they could arrange it, groups of friends and neighbors liked to go together, for company and safety. It was then often a happy journey, though it was never easy, and much as the boys looked forward to it, they often found that it was tiresome to tramp all day over the hills, and that they did not sleep as well at night on the open ground, with the cold stars looking down at them, as they did in their own beds at home. Yet the boys liked to go. Boys no doubt liked to "camp out" then, as they do now, and there was always a touch of adventure; the possibility of meeting robbers, or wild beasts. Besides, it was taking a part in man's work; for they were sometimes allowed to go when they were twelve years old. When they reached this age, they were to "keep the law," as their fathers did, and that made them feel like men. So it must have been a great day for Jesus, when he, now twelve years old, was allowed for the first time to start by his father's side, while his mother rode on an ass beside them, for the long walk of sixty miles in the soft spring air, over the hills to the city and the temple of which he had heard so much.
| IMMORTAL LOVE |
Immortal love, forever full, Forever flowing free, Forever shared, forever whole, A never-ebbing sea. Blow, winds of God, awake and blow The mists of earth away! Shine out, O Light Divine, and show How wide and far we stray! We may not climb the heavenly steeps To bring the Lord Christ down: In vain we search the lowest deeps, For Him no depths can drown. But warm, sweet, tender, even yet A present help is He; And faith has still its Olivet, And love its Galilee. The healing of His seamless dress Is by our beds of pain; We touch Him in life's throng and press, And we are whole again. Through Him the first fond prayers are said Our lips of childhood frame, The last low whispers of our dead Are burdened with His name. O Lord and Master of us all! Whate'er our name or sign, We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call, We test our lives by Thine. |
| --John Greenleaf Whittier. |