forward in the synagogue, into one of those front places where the quality sit.

Still, there was one drawback in being poor. For so long now, father and mother had wanted to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; but to pay the cost of three days' journeyings had been beyond their means. It was a sorrow to them that they could not go. A neighbour's son had gone last year, and had told him all about it. Herod's temple was blazing with gold; there were huge burnt offerings on the altar; the high priest was gorgeously dressed; there was such a bustle in the streets.

Jesus himself had no craving, either for the journey or for a sight of the temple.

II

STEPS lead up into the long, chill interior of the synagogue, where father takes his seat with the elder boys, whilst mother must go to the place set apart for women. The men crowd in, talking and disputing as they come. There is the hazzan on a high seat at the far end, hard by the cupboard where the tables of the law are kept. He calls for silence; then all stand to say a prayer. Now he asks who from among the congregation will read the Scriptures to-day. A man on the front bench rises, a corpulent, white-bearded man wearing a brightly coloured silk mantle and a fine shawl garnished with precious stones. He goes to the lectern, all making way for him, and begins to read with a chanting intonation. One of the richest men in the township, he is learned as well, and no one can vie with him in almsgiving, of which he makes a parade. His conduct is irreproachable. He is always the first to arrive at the house of God and the last among those who remain to pray even after the lamps have been lighted. He is more scrupulous than any in the observance of the fasts, brings up his numerous offspring in the fear of the Lord, gives more than the prescribed tithe to the temple and the poor, sets a good example

to all. Yet nobody loves him, for, at bottom, he loves

no one.

Discouraged and listless is the poor lad as, standing on tiptoe the better to see between the heads of the congregation, he gazes down the long hall towards the lectern, listening with a bad grace to the familiar words voiced by the fat and self-righteous elder. He has pricks of conscience at his own mood, for the reader has never harmed any one, and has fulfilled all the commandments. He had ordered a table once, and when father had taken it to him he had paid more than the stipulated price. Father had called him a good man. Why should the lad dislike him?-There they were, disputing again, because they were not satisfied with the expounding of the text. They were wrangling about the word "Messiah," whether it meant the same thing as "Son of God" and "Son of David." Louder and angrier grew the voices, and each could quote a passage in scripture which supported his own opinion. -The boy grew hot and cold by turns. He was fain to safeguard the treasures of his innermost being; to escape from the cramping atmosphere of the synagogue to the freedom of the hillside where the lark came so near, where the brook was his intimate friend, where the clouds scudded overhead, and where between the clouds his vision could pierce the blue vault of heaven.

In the afternoon, the young folk are back again in the chilly synagogue. They squat in a circle, each with a screed in his hand, following the text letter by letter with the forefinger. The hazzan squats in the

middle, reading the letters aloud one after another. Gradually letters become words, words sentences, and all the boys mechanically intone the passage. This is their only schooling. If one of them gives any trouble, the hazzan deals him a blow with the rod. The lesson is a difficult one, for this written tongue differs from that which they are used to speaking. Here in the highlands they have a dialect of their own, and all Israel makes fun of them for their Aramaic accent. Such is the fate of mountain dwellers the world over. Well, the lesson is finished at last, and the pupils are free to go where they list.

There is so much to look at in the main street. It is a high road of the nations. Whatever is landed at Ptolemais and makes its way to the interior, to the distant northern hinterland, to the tetrarchy, to Herod at Tiberias, to the Syrians in Damascus, must pass by way of Nazareth. There are camels and pack horses, donkeys drawing carts, soldiers, merchants with their wives and their slaves. A halt is made here for food and rest, and the children of the town can get a good view of everything. They can even pick up a few scraps of Greek, for in Sephoris, the next halting place, only three leagues distant, there are more heathens than Jews.

Along the eastern road there come to Nazareth Phoenician traders; scholars from Araby; and outlandish barbarian adventurers, even more strange of speech, who have been in the service of the tetrarch, and now wish to travel homeward across the sea. Then there

are the soldiers, girt with swords, mail-clad men who swear and stamp and shout angry orders. The emperor in Rome has recruited them from many lands, fair men and dark, yet lithe and fierce every one. The grown-up Jews turn their backs on the eagles, lest they should have to pay reverence to an idolatrous image; but the children face about and peep through their fingers, trying to discover what fearful wickedness lies hid in these forbidden pictures.

The coming and going of the heathen, at once alarming and full of great possibilities, is a ceaseless topic of conversation among the Jews. At eventide, when the boy sits in silence beside his father at the cottage door, and the old man chats with one of the neighbours, exchanging complaints that the times are out of joint, much can be gleaned to throw light on what Jesus sees for himself in the street. He stores it all in his memory. So the huge extent of country he saw from the summit of Mount Tabor, that and hundreds of miles more, used to belong to the Jews! The Romans have taken it away from them, and extort taxes and customs dues in addition. They conquered the temple with fire and sword, and even (so it is said) forced their way into the Holy of Holies. That was but a few years ago. Then came one of Herod's slaves, a handsome fellow, Simon by name; he burned the king's palace in Jericho. A shepherd, a giant, strong as Moses, had crowned himself and taken up arms against the Ro

mans.

All these risings had been put down.