is but short." What has become of the Pharaohs and Neros and Diocletians, who at one time fiercely perse- cuted the people of God.? Where is the enmity of Charles the Ninth of France, and Bloody Mary of England ? They did thek utmost to cast the truth down to the ground. But the truth rose again from the earth, and still lives ; and they are dead, and mouldering in the grave. Let not the heart of any believer fail. Death is a mighty leveller, and can take any mountain out of the way of Christ's chmxh. " The Lord liveth" for ever. His enemies are only men. The truth shall always prevail.
Observe, in the last place, what a lesson of humility is taught us by the divelli7ig place of the Son of God, when He was on earth. He dwelt with His mother and Joseph " in a city called Nazareth."
Nazareth was a small town in Galilee. It was an obscure, retired j)lace, not so much as once mentioned in the Old Testament. Hebron, and Shiloh, and Gibeon, and Bethel, were far more important places. But the Lord Jesus passed by them all, and chose Nazareth. This was humility.
In Nazareth the Lord Jesus lived thirty years. It was there He grew up from infancy to childhood, and from childhood to boyhood, and from boyhood to youth, and from youth to man's estate. We know little of the manner in which those thirty years were spent. That He was " subject to Mary and Joseph," we are expressly told. That He worked in the carpenter's shop with Joseph, is highly j)robable. We only know, that almost five sixths of the time that the Saviour of the world was on earth was passed among the poor of this world, and