crowd of impotent folk, of halt, blind, and withered, lay about waiting for this movement of the surface of the pool. There was no spot in Jerusalem where we could sooner expect to find our Lord, with His wondrous power of healing all manner of diseases. Not even His Father's house was more likely to be trodden by His feet than this Bethesda, or house of mercy. Probably there was a greater throng than usual, because of the feast, which would offer an opportunity to many to come out of the country. Jesus passed by until He singled out one man, apparently because He knew he had now been crippled for thirty-eight years, and had been so friendless that during all that time he had no man to help him to get down first to the water. The cripple was hopeless, but still lingered there, as if to watch others win the blessing which he could never reach.

Upon this miserable man Jesus looked down with His pitying eyes, and said, as though speaking to one who would not hesitate to obey Him, 'Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.'

It seems as though Jesus passed on, and was lost in the crowd; but the cripple felt a strange strength throbbing through his withered limbs. He was made whole, and he took up his bed, to return home, if he had any home, or at least to escape from that suffering multitude. Then did the Pharisees behold the terrible spectacle of a man carrying his bed through the streets of Jerusalem on the Sabbath-day! They cried to him hastily, 'It is not law

ful for thee to carry thy bed on the Sabbath-day.' He answered them by telling the story of his miraculous cure, though he did not know who the stranger was, for Jesus was gone away. No doubt he put his burden down at the bidding of the Pharisees, but he did not lose the new strength that had given him power to take it up.

The same day Jesus found him in the Temple, whither he had gone in his gladness. Once more those pitying, searching eyes were fixed upon him, and the voice that had spoken to him in the morning sounded again in his ears. 'Behold,' said Jesus, 'thou art made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.' The man departed and told the Pharisees who it was that had made him whole, thinking, no doubt, to bring praise and glory to his deliverer.

Possibly until now the presence of Jesus at this feast had not been known to the Pharisees. The last time He was in Jerusalem He had solemnly and emphatically claimed the Temple as His Father's house, and had indirectly reproved them by assuming the authority to rid it of the scandals they had allowed to creep into it. Now they found Him deliberately setting aside one of their most binding rules for keeping the Sabbath. John the Baptist, though both priest and prophet, had never ventured so far. Their religion of rites and ceremonies, of traditions, of shows and shams, was in danger. With their religion, they firmly believed their place and nation would go, and Jerusalem and Judea would become like

the heathen cities and countries about them. It was time to put a stop to it. John the Baptist was in prison. What if Jesus of Nazareth could be slain quietly, so as not to disturb the common people, who heard Him gladly?

Jesus then, forewarned, it may be, by a friend, found Himself compelled to quit Jerusalem hastily, instead of sojourning there till the coming passover. He was now too well known in the streets of the city to escape notice. More than this, if He stayed until the Galileans came up to the feast there would be constant danger of His followers coming into collision with the Pharisees. Riots in Jerusalem at the time of the feasts were not uncommon, and often ended in bloodshed. Not long

before, Pilate had slain eighteen Galileans in some tumult in the Temple courts; and there was every probability that some such calamity might occur again should any provocation arise.

Jesus therefore retreated from Jerusalem with the few friends who were with Him. He had not yet chosen His band of twelve apostles, but John, the youngest and dearest of them all, was with Him, for it is he alone who has given us this record of the first year of our Lord's ministry. Philip also we suppose to have been His disciple from the first, in obedience to the call, Follow Me;' for Jesus seems to have been particularly grieved with his dulness of mind, when He says to him, 'Have I been so long time with you, Philip, and yet hast

thou not known Me?' Moreover, when Jesus was next at Jerusalem for the passover, those Greeks who wished to see Him came and spoke to Philip as being best known as the attendant of our Lord. Whether there were other disciples with Him, or who they were, we do not know. It was a little company that had lived together through eleven months, most of which had been spent on the banks of the Jordan, in a peaceful and happy seclusion, save for the multitudes that came to be taught the new doctrine, or to be healed of their afflictions. Now they were to be persecuted, to have spies lurking about them, to be asked treacherous questions, to have perjured witnesses ready to swear anything against them, and to feel from day to day that their enemies were powerful and irreconcilable. With a sad foresight of what must be the end, our Lord left Jerusalem and returned into Galilee.

CHAPTER VI.

HIS OLD HOME.

JESUS came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. His aunt, Mary Cleophas, was still living there with her children, if His mother was not. The old familiar home was the same, and the steep, narrow streets of the village, in which He had played and worked. Coming down to it from the unfriendly city of Jerusalem, it seemed like a little nest of safety, lying amongst its pleasant hills. Here, at least, so His disciples might think, they would find repose and friendship; and the soreness of heart that must have followed the knowledge that the Jews sought to slay their Master would here be healed and forgotten.

The Sabbath had come round again; a week since He had given strength to the cripple. It was His custom to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath; and the congregation which met there had been familiar with Him from His childhood, when He went with His supposed father Joseph. The Rabbi, or ruler, could not but have known