CHAPTER XIV.

THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS.

Luke ii. 40.

ND the Child grew and waxed strong, full of wisdom, and the grace of God was in Him." St. Luke might have said as much of any holy child, but in this case he touches upon one of the great mysteries of the Incarnation : the natural development of the man Jesus. It is certain that He had the use of reason from the instant of His conception, yet in all external conduct He was led into active and intelligent use of His mental faculties as other boys are; and just as His bodily force was brought out and established in a graceful, muscular frame by the labors of a carpenter's apprentice, so by the teaching of Mary and Joseph His understanding was trained. He learned the first lessons of Hebrew morality and worship at

the same time and place that He learned to handle the carpenter's tools. Never were such teachers as Mary and Joseph. God allowed the human soul of His Son Jesus to be instructed by them, and the Holy Spirit fitted them for their task.

His human nature was not a mere appearance, but a full reality. The divine nature might indeed have taken possession of all His human faculties and assumed imperative control, and no other teaching would have then been possible. But God willed otherwise. Jesus was taught, Jesus learned, He studied, He thought, He reasoned as men do from childhood up. The exception to this humanly

natural process was when it was interrupted for a special purpose. But ordinarily the humanity of Jesus was not absorbed by His divinity. Soul and body were perfect in their humanity, which always remained wholly itself. It used its personal contact with the divine nature to save itself from errors and weaknesses, but never to become such a prodigy as to be beyond reach of imitation.

At the summit of His conscious life the man Jesus felt the unitive personal bond of the God Jesus. But the divinity was displayed only exceptionally, in some marvel necessary to overwhelm the dulness of the people or the incredulity of the Scribes. Hence He stored His memory by human means; He exercised His intelligence by the use of His eyes and ears. He learned to read and to write as other boys do. He passed from the simple intuition of childhood gradually and progressively to the reasoned processes of developing mental powers. "And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace with God and men." While a child He did not act like a man; He was glad to be a child and childlike. His perfection was perfect childhood.

As His years increased, so did His human wisdom: by the lessons of nature always about Him, by the teaching of His parents, by the habits of

thought common to children, by the pious practices of a perfect Hebrew family. Always this increase of human wisdom was lighted up by the eternal wisdom that dwelt within Him; but the human soul never lost

its distinct identity. We may, therefore, put aside the infantile miracles of the apocryphal gospels as myths. What purpose could they serve, except to embarrass Mary and Joseph? Besides, St. John tells us that the "beginning of miracles" was at the wedding of Cana. How much more reasonable, as well as edifying, is the actual fact as given by St. Luke, that He was obedient to His parents-modest, sweet, gentle, full of grace and piety, beloved of God and man. He has thus sanctified childhood and youth, that most beautiful epoch of human life, and made Himself the patron and model of childhood's sunny existence.

Our Saviour's home during all these happy years was the little Galilean city of Nazareth. It is now almost exactly what it was in the olden time. It lies some miles westward from Lake Genesareth, in a picturesque opening of the range of hills which is the southern boundary of the plain of Esdrelon.

There are today, travellers tell us, the same kind of houses in which the Holy Family dwelt scattered along the narrow streetssmall and square, with walls of rough stone, windows few and small, roofs flat. Little groups of trees are seen, sycamores and cypresses, all so old that one

can fancy the "Son of Joseph the carpenter" having enjoyed their shade as He took His noon-day rest in the long ago. When the sun has

set, the groups of men and their wives and little ones chat together in the evening air, and are seen before bed-time engaged in their evening prayers, just as

the Holy Family was wont to do. There is the spring from which during so many ages the villagers have got their supply of water, and we can fancy Mary and her little Boy amid the groups that now pass to and fro with their water-jugs. We hear boys at play, and we know that the Boy Jesus played and laughed and was merry with other boys, right upon these same great rocks and up and down these same sloping hills.

Here is a carpenter shop, without the least doubt just like the one in which Jesus lived and worked and from which He went forth to be baptized by John. Everything tells of very limited means, but there is no sign of actual penury. It is not imagination, it is the valid reproduction of reality which shows us here the Holy Family: a grave-looking man in the prime of life is at work, his wife looks on, both smile at their little Boy as He plays among the shavings. The little shop is backed by the hill-side into which a chamber has been excavated. There is a rack in which the

tools are set, saws and axes and chisels, and there are various little piles of rough boards. In such a dwelling lived Jesus and Mary and Joseph between the return from Egypt and the beginning of His public life.

Mary, adhering to the custom of Oriental mothers, weaned her Child only after two years, celebrating the event with the festive union of neighbors and relations. At the age of five the father began to teach the Boy the law of God. Thus the carpenter shop was ever associated in the memory of Jesus with the wonderful things told of God's people in the Hebrew Scriptures, and the sublime principles and precepts of the Mosaic law.