wrought miracles at this first visit to Capernaum, immediately after the wedding scene at Cana, no record or notice of them appears in the narrative, except that, afterward, when he was in Nazareth, he heard, doubtless, the whisperings and taunts of his impudent townsmen, and replied: "Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum do also here in thy country." We may infer, then, that the whole country was full of the rumor of his miracles during his brief stay on this his earliest visit to Capernaum.

Although the woes denounced against "his own city" were designed to reach its citizens rather than the streets and dwellings of the city itself, yet they seem to have overflowed and fallen with crushing weight upon the very stones of the town. The plain of Genesareth and the Sea of Galilee are still there, as when Christ made them familiar by his daily footsteps along their border. But the cities, they are utterly perished! Among several heaps of shapeless stones upon the northeast coast of the Sea of Galilee, for hundreds of years, geographers and antiquaries have groped and dug in vain. Which was Bethesda, which Chorazin or Capernaum, no one can tell to this day. Not Sodom, under the waters of the Dead Sea, is more lost to sight than the guilty cities of that other plain, Genesareth.

VIEW ON THE LAKE OF GALILEE, FROM THE SOUTH.

"And they continued there not many days." The Passover being at hand, Jesus went to Jerusalem, and there next we must see him and hear his voice.

CHAPTER X.

THE FIRST JUDÆAN MINISTRY.

WELVE tribes settled Palestine and a narrow strip of terri

TWE

tory east of the river Jordan. The tribal spirit was strong. Had there been no provision for keeping up a common national life, the Israelites would have been liable to all the evils of a narrow and obstinate provincial spirit. There were neither schools to promote intelligence nor books to feed it. Modern nations, through the newspapers and swift tracts, keep their people conversant with the same ideas at the same time. Every week sees the millions of this continent thinking and talking of the same events, and discussing the same policies or interests. But no such provision for a common popular education was possible in Palestine.

The same result, however, was sought by the great Lawgiver of the Desert by means of a circulation of the people themselves. Three times in each year every male inhabitant of the land who was not legally impure, or hindered by infirmity or sickness, was commanded to appear in Jerusalem, and for a week to engage in the solemn or joyful services of the Temple. The great occasions were the Passover, the Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles. It is probable that the first and last of these were borrowed from celebrations already existing among other nations of antiquity, and primarily had reference to the course of nature. The seasons of seed-sowing and harvesting would naturally furnish points for religious and social festivals. We still retain a vestige of these festivals in the melancholy Fast-day of New England and in the Thanksgiving-day of the nation; so that these simple primitive observances of the vernal and autumnal positions of the sun seem likely to outlive all more elaborate institutions. But if Moses borrowed festivals already in vogue, it is certain that he gave new associations to

them by making them commemorate certain great events in the history of the Israelites.

The feast of the Passover was kept in remembrance of the safety of the Jews on that awful night when Jehovah smote the first-born of every family in Egypt, but passed over the dwellings of his own people, and forbade the angel of death to strike any of their households. The event itself marked an epoch in Jewish history. The secondary benefits of its celebration, however, were primary in moral importance. To be taken away from home and sordid cares; to be thrown into a mighty stream of pilgrims that moved on from every quarter to Jerusa lem; to see one's own countrymen from every part of Palestine, and with them to offer the same sacrifices, in the same place, by a common ministration; to utter the same psalms, and mingle in the same festivities, could not but produce a civilizing influence far stronger than would result from such a course in modern times, when society has so much better means of educating its people.

It was not far from the time of the Passover that Jesus went to Capernaum, and his stay there was apparently shortened by his desire to be in Jerusalem at this solemn festival. Already he beheld among his countrymen preparations for the journey. Pilgrims were passing through Capernaum. The great road along the western shore of the Lake of Genesareth was filled with groups of men going toward Jerusalem. Probably Jesus joined himself to the company; nor can any one who has noticed his cheerful and affectionate disposition doubt that he exerted upon his chance companions that winning influence which so generally brought men about him in admiring familiarity.

If he pursued the route east of the Jordan, crossing again near the scene of his baptism, and ascending by the way of Jericho and Bethany, he approached Jerusalem from the east. From this quarter Jerusalem breaks upon the eye with a beauty which it has not when seen from any other direction. At this time, too, he would behold swarming with people, not the city only, but all its neighborhood. Although it was the custom of all pious Jews to entertain their countrymen at the great feasts, yet no city could hold the numbers. The fields were white with tents.