Besides this, there was that other not less sacred book, or revelation, of nature, where God's thoughts are written and em- bodied in the things that are made. And of this book the child Jesus was a constant and diligent student. The vale of Nazareth is described by travellers as one of the most beautiful spots to be found in Palestine, or even in the world. St. Jerome rightly calls it " the flower of Galilee," and compares it to a rose opening its corolla. It does not command a landscape like Bethlehem ; the gkdle of hills which encloses it makes it a calm retreat, the silence of which is, even in our day, broken by the hammer and chisel of the artisan. The child Jesus grew up in the midst of a thoroughly simple life, in which a soul like His might best de- velop its harmonies. He had only to climb the surrounding heights to contemplate one of the finest landscapes of the Holy Land. At His feet lay the plain of Jezreel, tapestried with myriad flowers, each one more beautiful than Solomon in all his glory. Its boundaries were Tabor and Carmel, whence echoed the voice of Elijah ; Lebanon confronted Carmel, and the chain of Hermon
96 THE GROWTH OF THE CHILD JESUS
joined its snowy summits to the mountains of Moab ; while afar off glimmered the Great Sea, which, outlying all national barriers, seemed to open to Jesus that world which He came to save.
^ Standing at Fuleh, and looking due north, you can see, some six or seven miles away, the green hills that embosom the village of Nazareth. How often from the hidden village, when the sun was sinking westwards over Carmel, must there have come to the top of the green hill overlooking the great plain the lone figure of a Young Man to look out over the great sea of beauty, and watch the slowly darkening plain, while Tabor, Hermon, Gilboa, Ebal, and the hills of Samaria still glowed in the sunset.
Skylarks to-day sing their sweetest over green Galilee; a thousand wild heri3s load the evening airs with perfumes; the golden honeysuckles add their scent to that of the myrtle bushes along the pathways ; and a sky of surpassing blue domes the whole wondrous scene. This village of the Nazarene is not even mentioned in the Old Testament. Strange fact ! Yet from it was to go forth one still small Voice which was to shake the temples, waken the tombs, and bring the pillars of empire to the ground.
It was here, on these grassy hills, that those wonderful Eyes drank in, through three-and-tvventy years, all that imagery of fruit and flower, of seed and harvest time, all the secrets of the trees, which afterwards became the theme of similitudes and parables. It was here the Master prepared to manifest all that infinite knowledge of soul and sense, the pale reflection of which, as it is found in the Evangelists, has come as a moonbeam over the troubled river of the lives of men, silvering the turbid stream, lighting the gloomy headlands, and shedding its benign rays far out upon the endless ocean in which the fevered flood is at last to rest.^
These are the flowery fields, where first The wisdom of the Christ was nursed; Here first the wonder and surprise Of Nature lit the sacred eyes: Waters, and winds, and woodlands, here, With earliest music charmed His ear, For all His conscious youth drew breath, Among these hills of Nazareth.
^ Sir William Butler : An Autobiograjjhy, 374.
ST. LUKE II. 40 97
The quiet hills, the skies above,
The faces round were bright with love ;
He lost not, in the tranquil place,
One hint of wisdom or of grace;
Not unobserved, nor vague nor dim,
The secret of the world to Him,
The prayer He heard which Nature saith
In the still glades by Nazareth.
Yet graver, with the growth of years, The step, the face, the heart appears; The burden of the world He knows. The unloved Helper's lonely w^oes Till, when the summons bids Him rise From that still place of placid skies, Fearless, yet sorrowing unto death, Jesus goes forth from Nazareth.^
iii. Spiritual Growth.
" The grace of God was upon him."
1. This word goes beyond all we have yet considered. It says that in these silent years the boy Jesus lived toward God ; that within the life of home and school and play there was another life; that the child looked up to a Father in heaven, and by most simple faith brought Him into the midst of the scenes He saw and the duties He did. That word spoken to earthly parents in the Temple is a mysterious saying, to be laid up with many another in Mary's heart, to be read in the light of events long afterwards, and perchance to be mysterious even then. To us the most re- markable and revealing thing about it is the simple, devout familiarity with which He uses the Father's name. His manner of taking God for granted and of assuming His relation to Him. " Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's house ? " This is no strange, sudden break from all His past, no discovery of His mission. His life hitherto has been leading Him to this hour. In the hills of Nazareth He had found a house of God where He held communion with Him ; the poor synagogue of Nazareth was to Him His Father's house before He saw the great Temple at Jerusalem. In the home of Nazareth He found Him near. Every