Page:As others saw Him.djvu/32

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AS OTHERS SAW HIM.

for the two lived together, and Miriam bore several children to Joseph after this Jesus. But between him and them there was never good will, and I have heard things told of this Jesus which seem to show some harshness in his treatment of them, and even of his mother. Once when he was told that his mother and brethren were without, and would see him, he as it were repudiated them, saying, "Who are my mother and my brothers? Whosoever doeth the will of God, the same is my brother and sister and mother." Again, when once his mother came to him and would speak to him, he said to her, "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" The man whom I had seen so tenderly thoughtful to a little child could not have spoken thus unless he had felt himself placed by some means outside the natural ties of men.

Of Jesus' upbringing I could learn little. When he was at the age of thirteen, when each Jewish male child becomes a Son of the Covenant (Bar Mitzva), and, as we think, takes his sins upon his own soul, his parents brought him to Jerusalem. On