I

THE HOUSEHOLD GATE.

F one considers that, after his experience in the wilderness, Jesus seems for a period of some months to have returned to private life, that he neither went to the Temple in Jerusalem, nor appeared before the religious teachers of his people, nor even apparently entered the Holy City, but abruptly departed to Galilee, it may seem as if he had no plan of procedure, but waited until events should open the way into his ministry.

But what if it was his purpose to refuse all public life in our sense of that term? What if he meant to remain a private citizen, working as one friend would with another, eschewing the roads of influence already laid out, and going back to that simple personal power which one heart has upon another in genial and friendly contact?

His power was to be, not with whole communities, but with the individual, from man to man; and it was to spring, not from any machinery of institution wielded by man, nor from official position, but from his own personal nature, and from the intrinsic force of truth to be uttered. At the very beginning, and through his whole career, we shall find Jesus clinging to private life, or to public life only in its transient and spontaneous developments out of private life. He taught from house to house. He never went among crowds. They gathered about him, and dissolved again after he had passed on. The public roadside, the synagogues, the princely mansion, the Temple, the

boat by the sea-shore, the poor man's cottage, were all alike mere incidents, the accidents of time and place, and not in any manner things to be depended upon for influence. He was not an elder or a ruler in the synagogue, nor a scribe or a priest, but strictly a private citizen. He was in his own simple self the whole power.

The first step of Jesus in his ministry is a return home to his mother. This is not to be looked at merely as a matter of sentiment; it is characteristic of the new dispensation which he came to inaugurate.

In the spiritual order that was now to be introduced there were to be no ranks and classes, no public and official life as distinguished from private and personal. The Church was to be a household; men were to be brethren, "members one of another." God was made known as the Father, magisterial

in love.

Had Jesus separated himself from the common life, even by assuming the garb and place of an authorized teacher, had he affiliated with the Temple officers, had he been in any way connected with a hierarchy, his course would have been at variance with one aim of his mission. It was the private life of the world to which he came. His own personal life, his home life, his familiar association with men, his social intercourse, formed his true public career. He was not to break in upon the world with the boisterous energy of warriors,-"He shall not strive nor cry"; nor was he to seek, after the manner of ambitious orators, to dazzle the people, - -"His voice shall not be heard in the streets." Without pressing unduly this prophecy of the Messiah, it may be said that it discriminates between an ambitious and noisy career, and a ministry that was to move among men with gentleness, affability, sympathy, and loving humility.

We shall lose an essential characteristic of both his disposition and his dispensation, if we accustom ourselves to think of Jesus as a public man, in our sense of official eminence. We are to look for him among the common scenes of daily life, not distinguished in any way from the people about him, except in superior wisdom and goodness. It is true that he often stood in public places, but only as any other Jew might have done.

He was never set apart in any manner after the usages of the priesthood. He came back from artificial arrangements to nature. There is great significance in the title by which he almost invariably spoke of himself, "the Son of Man." By this title he emphasized his mission. He had descended from God. He was born of woman, had joined himself to the human family, and meant to cleave fast to his kindred. To one conscious of

his own Divinity, the title "Son of Man becomes very significant of the value which he placed upon his union with mankind. His personal and intimate connection with the great body of the people, beginning with his early years, was continued to the end.

It is not strange, then, that Jesus began his active ministry with a return from the scene of his temptation to his former home. He did not pause at Nazareth, but either went with his mother or followed her to Cana, where a wedding was to take place. There were two Canas,- one now called Kefr Kenna, a small village about four miles and a half northeast of Nazareth, and Kana-el-Jelil, about nine miles north of Nazareth; and the best authorities leave it still uncertain in which the first miracle of our Lord was performed. It may be interesting, but it is not important, to determine the question.

The appearance of Jesus at the wedding, and his active participation in the festivities, are full of meaning. It is highly improbable that John the Baptist could have been persuaded to appear at such a service. For he lived apart from the scenes of common life, was solitary, and even severe. His followers would have been strongly inclined to fall in with the philosophy and practices of the Essenes. If so, the simple pleasures and the ordinary occupations of common life would be regarded as inconsistent with religion. Jesus had just returned from John's presence. He had passed through the ordeal of solitude and the temptation of the wilderness. He had gathered three or four disciples, and was taking the first steps in his early career. That the very first act should be an attendance, with his disciples, by invitation, at a Jewish wedding, which was seldom less than three and usually of seven days' duration, and was conducted with most joyful festivities, cannot but be regarded as a significant testimony.

The Hebrews were led by their religious institutions to the cultivation of social and joyous habits. Their great religious feasts were celebrated with some days of solemnity, but with more of festivity such as would seem to our colder manners almost like dissipation. In all nations the wedding of young people calls forth sympathy. Among the Hebrews, from the earliest times, nuptial occasions were celebrated with rejoicings, in which the whole community took some part.

The scene comes before us clearly. The bridegroom's house, or his father's, is the centre of festivity. The bride and groom spend the day separately in seclusion, in confession of sin and rites of purgation. As evening draws near, the friends and relatives of the bride bring her forth from her parents' house in full bridal apparel, with myrtle vines and garlands of flowers about her head. Torches precede the company; music breaks out on every side. Besides the instruments provided for the processions, songs greet them along the way; for the street is lined with virgins, who yield to the fair candidate that honor which they hope in time for themselves. They cast flowers before her, and little cakes and roasted ears of wheat. The street resounds with gayety; and as the band draws near the appointed dwelling, the bridegroom and his friends come forth to meet the bride and to conduct her into the house. After some legal settlements have been perfected, and the marriage service has been performed, a sumptuous feast is provided, and the utmost joy and merriment reign. Nor do the festivities terminate with the immediate feast. A whole week is devoted to rejoicing

and gayety.

It must not be imagined, however, that such prolonged social enjoyment degenerated into dissipation. In luxurious cities, and especially after commerce and wealth had brought in foreign manners, the grossest excesses came to prevail at great feasts; but the common people among the old Hebrews were, in the main, temperate and abstinent. That almost epidemic drunkenness which in modern times has prevailed among Teutonic races, in cold climates, was unknown to the great body of the Hebrew nation.

The sobriety and vigorous industry of the society in which we have been educated indisposes us to sympathize with such

expenditure of time for social purposes as was common among the Hebrews. We spare a single day at long intervals, and then hasten back to our tasks as if escaping from an evil. Weddings among the poorest Jews, as we have said, seldom absorbed less than three days. The ordinary term of conviviality was seven days. Among men of wealth or eminent station, the genial service not unfrequently extended to fourteen days. During this time, neighbors came and went. Those from a distance tarried both day and night. The time was filled up with entertainments suitable to the condition of the various classes. The young employed the cool hours with dances. The aged quietly looked on, or held tranquil converse apart from the crowd. Nor was intellectual provision wanting. Readings and addresses were then unknown. In a land where philosophy was as yet only a collection of striking proverbs or ingenious enigmas, it was deemed an intellectual exercise to propound riddles and "dark sayings," and to call forth the exercise of the imagination in giving solutions. These occasions were not devoted, then, to a mere riot of merry-making. They were the meetings of long-dispersed friends, the gathering-points of connected families; in the absence of facilities for frequent intercourse, the seven days of a wedding feast would serve as a means of intercommunion and the renewal of friendships; and it was peculiarly after the genius of the Hebrew people that both religion and social intercourse should take place with the accompaniments of abundant eating and drinking. The table was loaded with provisions, the best that the means of the parties could supply; nor was it unusual for the guests also to contribute to the common stock.

There is no reason to presume that the wedding at Cana was of less duration than the common period of seven days; and it may be assumed, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that Jesus remained to the end. It has been surmised that it was a near connection of his mother who was the host upon this occasion. However that may be, she was actively engaged in the management of the feast, kept herself informed of the state of the provisions, sought to replenish them when they were expended, and assumed familiar authority over the servants, who appear to have obeyed her implicitly.