XIV.
PALESTINE AND ITS PEOPLE.
"Too long hast Thou been silent, O Lord Jesus, and
very much too long; begin now at last to speak," says
St. Bernard in one of his sermons.
We can scarcely imagine a greater contrast than the thirty years of our Lord's Life now past, and the three that are to come. Hitherto He has been hidden away as the carpenter of an obscure village, unknown except to His humble relations, and very imperfectly known even to them. Now, with a band of devoted disciples, He is to come and go along the highways of the land, to be a familiar Figure in the Temple at the time of the great yearly Feasts, a Teacher in the synagogues up and down the country, the Guest of Pharisees of distinction. He will be followed from city to city, and across the wilderness and up the mountain slopes by multitudes of every age and class and calling. He will be found amidst friends and enemies, at festive gatherings, at the bedside of the sick and lonely poor.
To know Him better we will try to get some idea of the land to which He is coming as Teacher of its people.
If we take a map of the world we shall find that the little country of Palestine lies just in the heart of the Eastern hemisphere. It forms part of Asia, it adjoins Africa, and the same sea that bathes its shore washes all those of southern Europe; as if to show by its very situation that the Land from which salvation flowed to all lands should be the centre to which the men of every
