Talmudists have much to say respecting her her wealth, her extreme beauty, her braided locks, her shameless profligacy, her husband Pappus, and her paramour Pandera; but all that we really know of the Magdalene from Scripture is that enthusiasm of devotion and gratitude which attached her, heart and soul, to her Saviour's service. In the chapter of St. Luke which follows this incident she is mentioned first among the women who accompanied Jesus in His wanderings, and ministered to Him of their substance; and it may be that in the narrative of the incident at Simon's house her name was suppressed, out of that delicate consideration which, in other passages, makes the Evangelist suppress the condition of Matthew and the name of Peter. It may be, indeed, that the woman who was a sinner went to find the peace which Christ had promised to her troubled conscience in a life of deep seclusion and obscurity, which meditated in silence on the merciful forgiveness of her Lord; but in the popular consciousness she will till the end of time be identified with the Magdalene whose very name has passed into all civilised languages as a synonym for accepted penitence and pardoned sin. The traveller who, riding among the delicate perfumes of many flowering plants on the shores of Gennesareth, comes to the ruinous tower and sclitary palm-tree that mark the Arab village of El Mejdel, will involuntarily recall this old tradition of her whose sinful beauty and deep repentance have made the name of Magdala so famous; and though the few miserable peasant huts are squalid and ruinous, and the inhabitants are living in ignorance and degradation, he will still look with interest and emotion on a site which brings back into his memory one of the most signal proofs that no one-not even the most fallen and the most despised-is regarded as an outcast by Him whose very work it was to seek and save that which was lost. Perhaps in the balmy air of Gennesareth, in the brightness of the sky above his head, in the sound of the singing birds which fills the air, in the masses of purple blossom which at some seasons of the year festoons these huts of mud, he may see a type of the love and tenderness which is large and rich enough to encircle with the grace of fresh and heavenly beauty the ruins of a once earthly and desecrated life.

CHAPTER XXII.

JESUS AS HE LIVED IN GALILEE.

Ir is to this period of our Lord's earlier ministry that those mission journeys belong-those circuits through the towns and villages of Galilee, teaching, and preaching, and performing works of mercy— which are so frequently alluded to in the first three Gospels, and which are specially mentioned at this point of the narrative by the Evangelist St. Luke. "He walked in Galilee." It was the brightest, hopefullest, most active episode in His life. Let us, in imagination, stand aside and see Him pass, and so, with all humility and reverence, set before us as vividly as we can what manner of man He was.

Let us then suppose ourselves to mingle with any one fragment of those many multitudes which at this period awaited Him at every point of His career, and let us gaze on Him as they did when He was a man on earth.

We are on that little plain that runs between the hills of Zebulon and Naphtali, somewhere between the villages of Kefr Kenna and the so-called Kana el-Jalîl. A sea of corn, fast yellowing to the harvest,. is around us, and the bright, innumerable flowers that broider the wayside are richer and larger than those of home. The path on which we stand leads in one direction to Accho and the coast, in the other over the summit of Hattîn to the Sea of Galilee. The land is lovely with all the loveliness of a spring day in Palestine, but the hearts of the eager, excited crowd, in the midst of which we stand, are too much occupied by one absorbing thought to notice its beauty; for some of them are blind, and sick, and lame, and they know not whether to-day a finger of mercy, a word of healing-nay, even the touch of the garment of this great Unknown Prophet as He passes by-may not alter and gladden the whole complexion of their future lives. And farther back, at a little distance from the crowd, standing among the wheat, with covered lips, and warning off all who approached them with the cry Tamê, Tamê-"Unclean! unclean!". clad in mean and scanty garments, are some fearful and mutilated figures whom, with a shudder, we recognise as lepers.

The comments of the crowd show that many different motives have brought them together. Some are there from interest, some from curiosity, some from the vulgar contagion of enthusiasm which they

cannot themselves explain. Marvellous tales of Him—of His mercy, of His power, of His gracious words, of His mighty deeds-are passing from lip to lip, mingled, doubtless, with suspicions and calumnies. One or two Scribes and Pharisees who are present, holding themselves a little apart from the crowd, whisper to each other their perplexities, their indignation, their alarm.

Suddenly over the rising ground, at no great distance, is seen the cloud of dust which marks an approaching company; and a young boy of Magdala or Bethsaida, heedless of the scornful reproaches of the Scribes, points in that direction, and runs excitedly forward with the shout of Malka Meshichah! Malka Meshichah- "the King Messiah ! the King Messiah!"-which even on youthful lips must have quickened the heart-beats of a simple Galilæan throng.

And now the throng approaches. It is a motley multitude of young and old, composed mainly of peasants, but with others of higher rank interspersed in their loose array-here a frowning Pharisee, there a gaily-clad Herodian whispering to some Greek merchant or Roman soldier his scoffing comments on the enthusiasm of the crowd. But these are the few, and almost every eye of that large throng is constantly directed towards One who stands in the centre of the separate group which the crowd surrounds.

In the front of this group walk some of the newly-chosen Apostles: behind are others, among whom there is one whose restless giance and saturnine countenance accord but little with that look of openness and innocence which stamps his comrades as honest men. Some of those who are looking on whisper that he is a certain Judas of Kerioth, almost the only follower of Jesus who is not a Galilæan. A little further in the rear, behind the remainder of the Apostles, are four or five women, some on foot, some on mules, among whom, though they are partly veiled, there are some who recognise the once wealthy and dissolute but now repentant Mary of Magdala; and Salome, the wife of the fisherman Zabdîa; and one of still higher wealth and position, Joanna, the wife of Chuza, steward of Herod Antipas.

But He whom all eyes seek is in the very centre of the throng; and though at His right is Peter of Bethsaida, and at His left the more youthful figure of John, yet every glance is absorbed by Him alone.

He is not clothed in soft raiment of byssus or purple, like Herod's courtiers, or the luxurious friends of the Procurator Pilate: He does not wear the white ephod of the Levite, or the sweeping robes of the

Scribe. There are not, on His arm and forehead, the tephillin or phylacteries, which the Pharisees make so broad; and though there is at each corner of His dress the fringe and blue riband which the Law enjoins, it is not worn of the ostentatious size affected by those who wished to parade the scrupulousness of their obedience. He is in the ordinary dress of his time and country. He is not bareheaded—as painters usually represent Him-for to move about bareheaded in the Syrian sunlight is impossible, but a white keffiyeh, such as is worn to this day, covers his hair, fastened by an aghal or fillet round the top of the head, and falling back over the neck and shoulders. A large blue outer robe or tallith, pure and clean, but of the simplest materials, covers His entire person, and only shows occasional glimpses of the ketôneth, a seamless woollen tunic of the ordinary striped texture, so common in the East, which is confined by a girdle round the waist, and which clothes Him from the neck almost down to the sandalled feet. But the simple garments do not conceal the King; and though in His bearing there is nothing of the self-conscious haughtiness of the Rabbi, yet, in its natural nobleness and unsought grace, it is such as instantly suffices to check every rude tongue and overawe every wicked thought.

And His aspect? He is a man of middle size, and of about thirty years of age, on whose face the purity and charm of youth are mingled with the thoughtfulness and dignity of manhood. His hair, which legend has compared to the colour of wine, is parted in the middle of the forehead, and flows down over the neck. His features are paler and of a more Hellenic type than the weather-bronzed and olive-tinted faces of the hardy fishermen who are His Apostles; but though those features have evidently been marred by sorrow-though it is manifest that those eyes, whose pure and indescribable glance seems to read the very secrets of the heart, have often glowed through tears—yet no man, whose soul has not been eaten away by sin and selfishness, can look unmoved and unawed on the divine expression of that calm and patient face. Yes, this is He of whom Moses and the Prophets did speak-Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Mary, and the Son of David; and the Son of Man, and the Son of God. Our eyes have seen the King in His beauty. We have beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And having seen Him we can well understand how, while He spake, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice and said, "Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the paps that Thou hast sucked!" "Yea, rather

blessed," He answered, in words full of deep sweet mystery, "are they that hear the word of God and keep it."

One or two facts and features of His life on earth may here be fitly introduced.

1. First, then, it was a life of poverty. Some of the old Messianic prophecies, which the Jews in general so little understood, had already indicated His voluntary submission to a humble lot. Though He were rich, yet for our sakes He became poor." He was born in the cavern-stable, cradled in the manger. His mother offered for her purification the doves which were the offering of the poor. The flight into Egypt was doubtless accompanied with many a hardship, and when He returned it was to live as a carpenter, and the son of a carpenter, in the despised provincial village. It was as a poor wandering teacher, possessing nothing, that He travelled through the land. With the words, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," He began His Sermon on the Mount; and He made it the chief sign of the opening dispensation that to the poor the Gospel was being preached. It was a fit comment on this His poverty, that after but three short years of His public ministry He was sold by one of His own Apostles for the thirty shekels which were the price of the meanest slave.

2. And the simplicity of His life corresponded to its external poverty. Never in His life did He possess a roof which He could call His own. The humble abode at Nazareth was but shared with numerous brothers and sisters. Even the house in Capernaum which He so often visited was not His own possession; it was lent Him by one of His disciples. There never belonged to Him one foot's-breadth of the earth which He came to save. We never hear that any of the beggars, who in every Eastern country are so numerous and so importunate, asked Him for alms. Had they done so He might have answered with Peter, "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have that give I thee." His food was of the plainest. He was ready, indeed, when invited, to join in the innocent social happiness of Simon's, or Levi's, or Martha's, or the bridegroom of Cana's feast; but His ordinary food was as simple as that of the humblest peasant -bread of the coarsest quality, fish caught in the lake and broiled in embers on the shore, and sometimes a piece of honeycomb, probably of the wild honey which was then found abundantly in Palestine. Small indeed was the gossamer thread of semblance on which His enemies could support the weight of their outrageous calumny, "Behold a glutton and a wine-bibber." And yet Jesus, though poor,

t