- repeated view of the labors and trials of his service. Already, on
a former occasion too, had he tried to impress them with the true spirit of the apostleship. When on the way to Capernaum, at the close of this journey through Galilee, they had disputed among themselves on the question, which of them should be the prime minister of their Messiah-king, when he had established his heavenly reign in all the dominions of his father David. On their meeting with him in the house at Capernaum, he brought up this point of difference. Setting a little child before them, (probably one of Peter's children, as it was in his house,) and taking the little innocent into his arms, he assured them that unless they should become utterly changed in disposition and in hope, and become like that little child in simplicity of character, they should have no share whatever, in the glories of that kingdom, which was to them an object of so many ambitious aspirations. But neither this charge nor the repetition of it, could yet avail to work that necessary change in their feelings. Still they all lived on in vain and selfish hope, scheming for personal aggrandizement, till the progress of events bringing calamity and trial upon them, had purified their hearts, and fully fitted them for the duties of the great office to which they had so unthinkingly devoted themselves. Then indeed, did the aspiring James receive, in a deeper sense than he had ever dreamed of, the reward for which he now longed and begged;—drinking first of the cup of agony, and baptized first in blood, he ascended first to the place on the right hand of the Messiah in his eternal kingdom. But years of toil and sorrow, seen and felt, were his preparation for this glorious crown.
James has also been made the subject of a long series of fables, though the early
termination of his apostolic career would seem to leave no room whatever, for the
insertion of any very great journeys and labors upon the authentic history. But the
Spaniards, in the general rage for claiming some apostle as a national patron saint,
long ago got up the most absurd fiction, that James, the son of Zebedee, during the
period intervening between Christ's ascension and his own execution at Jerusalem,
actually performed a voyage over the whole length of the Mediterranean, into Spain,
where he remained several years, preaching, founding churches, and performing
miracles, and returned to Jerusalem in time for the occurrence of the concluding
event, as recorded in the twelfth chapter of Acts. This story probably originated in
the same manner as that suggested to account for the fables about Andrew; that is,—that
some preacher of Christianity, of this name, in a later age, actually did travel
into Spain, there preaching the gospel, and founding churches; and that his name
being deservedly remembered, was, in the progress of the corruptions of the truth,
confounded with that of the apostle James, son of Zebedee,—this James being selected
rather than the son of Alpheus, because the latter had already been established by
tradition, as the hero of a story quite inconsistent with any Spanish journey, and being
also less dignified by the Savior's notice. Be that as it may, Saint James (Santo
Jago) is to this day esteemed the patron saint of Spain, and his tomb is shown in
Compostella, in that kingdom; for they will have it, that, after his decapitation by
Herod Agrippa, his body was brought all the way over the sea, to Spain, and there
