itive rule regarding a celibate clergy was promulgated. It is certainly significant that Christ's first miracle was wrought at a wedding.

The principle of love, which constitutes the relationship of husband and wife, also constitutes the relationship of parents to children and of children to parents. The Christian rule supports the teaching of instinct. The love felt by a parent for a child, Christ could not, himself, know as he knew the love of the child for a mother. He came into a community in which parents and children were dear to each other. One need not go beyond the book of Proverbs to learn the strength of parental affection, or the joy that belonged to the filial. The career of the Jewish child was carefully marked out from its birth, and at every stage, the intellect and the heart of the parent were united to give to the child the best condition and environment. The duty of the obedience of the child to the parent is again and again pointed out in the Old Testament; and examples of obedience often occur as inspirations, and of disobedience as warnings. Christ was, therefore, prepared to present the just relation of parents and children to each other. The significance of this relation is most impressive. The relation of the Father in Heaven to his children on the earth is a type of the relation of the earthly father to his sons and daughters, and the relation of the earthly father to his sons and daughters makes vivid and real what the relation of the Father in Heaven to his children either is or should be. Sins against parents are less common in Jewish, than in any other ancient, history. The fifth commandment was among the great commandments, and any breach of it received the severest reprobation.

The love of the parent for the child manifests itself in the service of the older and abler for the younger and feebler,

while the older is in his prime, and the love of the child for the parent manifests itself also in benevolence when the parent has passed into feebleness or helplessness. One can never forget that Christ himself was subject unto his parents, and one also remembers that he asks if he should not be about his Father's business or in his Father's house.

Perhaps the best interpretation of the mutual relations of the parent and of the child is found in the chief of all the parables of Christ. The parable of the prodigal son may also be called the parable of the forgiving father, and, should one prefer the term, the unloving brother might also describe this most significant story. In this parable are seen (1) the love of the father. He follows the younger son's suggestion regarding the division of the estate; he awaits, with yearning heart and eyes, the son's return; he forgives the son's profligacy, and also the older son's hard-heartedness; he rejoices in the son's return to the home, which he ought never to have left. In the parable is also seen (2) the willingness of the father to give unto the son the opportunity of working out his own career,—although knowing that the son might abuse the opportunity,-which is simply an interpretation of the gift of freedom of individual choice. The parable also represents (3) the love of the son for the father, which shows itself chiefly in the form of repentance, on his return. By contrast, also, the parable contains evidence, not of the love of the older son for either his father or his brother, but of his hatred for his father, and of his jealousy and contempt for his brother. It is significant, that, if "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son," this Son used the domestic relation as a prevailing figure in the most impressive of his parables to teach the manifold lesson of love.

Concerning the relation of brothers and sisters to each

VOL. LXI. No. 241. 2

other, Christ has far less to say than of the relation of parents and children; but this relation, it is still evident, is a relation of love. The Jewish family was closely united, member to member. Domestic religion nourished the domestic virtues. Family relationships promoted family intimacies. The observance of the Sabbath fostered personal association: it was a family day. The family was the central unit of Jewish society, and not the individual. To the brothers and sisters were given the duty of its continuance.

The Jewish family, at the time of Christ, had lost in no small degree its sense of clanship. The tribal relationship played a part insignificant, in comparison with the part it had played in the larger share of Jewish history. The family stood distinct and integral. It is the single institution which survived the fall, and it comes forth from the old dispensation into the new, strengthened by Christ's teachings, prepared to maintain its central place.

In ancient society education was more domestic than in modern. Public education is largely a product of democratic society. In Rome the education of a boy was designed to promote his usefulness to the state. In Athens, the education of a boy was designed to promote his usefulness to society. In Jerusalem, the education of the boy was designed to promote his usefulness to religion. If in Rome education was largely forensic, in Athens, æsthetic and philosophic,-in Jerusalem, it was religious and theological; but in Jerusalem education was conducted more largely by and in the family than in the Roman or Greek capital. The first education of the Hebrew youth was that given to him by his mother and his father. The teaching, at home, began early in the life; from the age of three to six, he was trained in the Holy Scriptures, and at six he was sent to school.

This school, usually, was attached to a synagogue. In this school, he continued, usually, until about the age of fifteen. The content of his study was largely the Holy Scriptures and the comments thereon. A rabbi has mapped out the duties and attainments belonging to the youth at various ages: at five years of age, reading the Bible; at ten years, learning the Mishnah; at thirteen years, knowledge of the commandments; at fifteen years, the study of the Talmud; at eighteen years, marriage; at twenty years, active life. Throughout this period, memory was the chief tool of the child, in securing an education. Of that mental discipline which constitutes so large a share of modern education, the Hebrew child took little cognizance. The Talmud compares the student to a wellplastered cistern from which no drop escapes. Josephus boasts of his wonderful memory. The origin of the high place given to this faculty doubtless lies in the sacredness attached to the very words of the Holy Scriptures. It is probable, also, that writing was quite as commonly taught as reading.

The education was not simply mental; it included what is known to-day as manual training and moral and theological instruction. The ten commandments embodied the essence of the theological and ethical instruction. The book of Proverbs represents the character which each Jewish father and mother desired their child to know and to embody; and the Psalms of David sing the songs of a holy and intimate relation to God, which it was the endeavor of the individual as well as the family to make their constant practice.

In the giving of this intellectual, ethical, and religious training, the teacher, who not infrequently was the minister of the synagogue, had the advantage of certain favoring conditions. His compensation he received from the congregation. He

was not suffered to collect fees from pupils. His salary was usually raised by voluntary contributions. The number of hours of a day he taught was not large; and during certain seasons of heat, the lessons were given early in the morning and late in the afternoon. His classes numbered about twentyfive students; if they approached to forty he employed an assistant teacher, and if the number were fifty, there would be coördinate teachers. He was, without exception, a married man. The office of teacher was apparently held in great honor. The contrast between the respect paid to the Jewish teacher and the lack of respect paid to him in most periods of English history is significant.

In addition to the training of the head, and of the heart and of the conscience, education, at the time of Christ, was also manual. Many phrases occur in the writings of the time of Christ regarding the value of a trade. Whoever does not teach his son a trade is as if he brought him up to be a robber is a rabbinical principle. "How highly does the Maker of the world value trades!" It is said that "there were seven years of famine. It will never come to the door of the tradesman, be he one whom his teacher has brought up to a good trade." "There is none whose trade God does not adorn with beauty." The enthusiasm which is to-day found in behalf of the training of the hand, apparently prevailed in the better part of Jewish society two thousand years ago.

To-day, the Jews are a commercial people, but in the earlier times the race was largely given to following a trade. The change from the manual to the commercial relation arose largely from the dispersion of the nation. A scattered people can far more easily become a commercial people than one of carpenters and of workers in iron. Living in Palestine, subject to Rome, commerce was not so easily or largely profitable