the province over which Archelaus rules; and instead of returning to Bethlehem, he goes to Galilee, over which Antipas is ruler. Here he takes up his abode in Nazareth, where he lived before he went up to Bethlehem to be taxed, and where Jesus passes most of his childhood.

DESTRUCTION OF THE INFANTS.

“In Ramah was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not." Matt. 2:17, 18.

"A voice comes from Ramah, a voice of despair,
For death's gloomy angel is triumphing there;
The children of beauty his arrows have smote,
And Rachel is weeping for hers that are not!

Alas for the parent whose hope and whose trust
Is withered and broken, and hid in the dust;
Where the blossom of summer all lovely appears,
But the dew-drops of evening are mingled with tears.

A voice comes from Ramah, a voice of dismay,
But the words of Jehovah can soothe it away;
They tell of a region where grief is forgot,

And Rachel is solaced for those that are not."

CHAPTER VIII.

JESUS AT JERUSALEM

"What blest examples do I find,
Writ in the word of truth,
Of children who began to mind
Religion in their youth.

Jesus, who reigns above the sky,
And keeps the world in awe,
Was once a child as young as I,
And kept his Father's law.

At twelve years old he talked with men

The Jews all wondering stand—

Yet he obeyed his mother then,

And came at her command."

ABOUT fifteen hundred years before Jesus came into the world, the Jews were held in cruel bondage in Egypt. God then sent fearful plagues on the Egyptians to induce them to let the people go, but nothing would move their hard hearts. At last he sent an angel to destroy all their first-born children; but the angel of death was directed to pass over every house in which lived a Jew, or one who believed in

God, without entering. To commemorate this deliverance, they held a feast every year, called the feast of the Passover. Exodus 12:1-28. In the days of Christ, the Jews still kept this feast annually, at Jerusalem. They celebrated three great feasts, but only at this one were the women and children expected to be present.

On this occasion, a lamb was to be roasted with fire, and eaten with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs, as a memorial of the bitterness of their bondage in Egypt. Deut. 16: 3. As the lamb was slain at this feast, it was an emblem of the great sacrifice of Christ, who was called the Lamb of God. John 1:29. In Rev. 5: 12, we read of the "Lamb that was slain,' whom the hosts of heaven worshipped; and in 1 Cor. 5:7, that "Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us."

You can hardly imagine the immense numbers who went up to Jerusalem to this annual feast, froin all parts of the world; not only the inhabitants of Palestine, but many foreign Jews from Arabia, Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, and other countries, were gathered there. To give you some idea of the great multitude assembled at this festival, I will tell you of the calculation of Josephus, a Jewish historian, who

lived in the time of Christ. He found that, on one occasion, 256,500 paschal lambs-for so the lambs were called which were used at the passover-were slain for this feast; and allowing ten persons to a lamb, estimated that the total number of the resident and pilgrim Jews at Jerusalem must have been not far from two and a half millions; a number, gathered in that one city, nearly equal to all the inhabitants of the largest of the United States.

Children were not accustomed to go to the feast until they had attained the age of twelve years; they were then called "sons of the law," and expected to keep it. As we have already seen, Jesus, that he might be made in all things like man, conformed to the customs of the Jews, when there was no sin in so doing. Accordingly, we find him, when he was twelve years old, going to Jerusalem with Joseph and Mary. We read in the forty-third verse of the second chapter of Luke, that they did not return until they had "fulfilled the days," by which we understand that they staid at Jerusalem as long as the feast lasted, which was seven days, of which the first and last were distinguished by solemn assemblies. Exodus 12:16;

Deut. 16:8.

When they were returning home, they do not seem at first to have observed that Jesus was not with them, "supposing him to have been in the company" of travellers, or caravan, such as was customary among the pilgrims who went to keep the feasts, for the purpose of affording each other comfort and protection. When they had been a day's journey, they sought him among their friends and relations, but could not find him; and full of anxiety they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. "After three days, they found him in the temple sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions." Luke 2:46. The "temple" here does not mean that part of it called the "sanctuary," the place of worship. It was a large building, and had many halls and spaces separated from others, where the Rabbis, who were the doctors, or teachers of the law, held their schools, and where the judges pronounced their decisions.

It was probably in one of these schools that the child Jesus was found, modestly "hearing and asking questions." Luke 2:46. It was not the place in which he was, nor the occupation in which he was engaged, which caused astonishment, but his under