seem, we must not think of it as a lonely village which only faint echoes reached of what

roused the land beyond. With reverence be it said: such a place might have suited the

training of the contemplative hermit, not the upbringing of Him Whose sympathies were

to be with every clime and race. Nor would such an abode have furnished what (with all

due acknowledgment of the supernatural) we mark as a constant, because a rationally

necessary, element in Scripture history: that of inward preparedness in which the higher

and the Divine afterwards find their ready points of contact.

Nor was it otherwise in Nazareth. The two great interests which stirred the land, the two

great factors in the religious future of Israel, constantly met in the retirement of Nazareth.

The great caravan-route which led from Acco on the sea to Damascus divided at its

commencement into three roads: the most northern passing through Cæsarea Philipp i; the

Upper Galilean; and the Lower Galilean. The latter, the ancient Via Maris led through

Nazareth, and thence either by Cana, or else along the northern shoulder of Mount Tabor,

to the Lake of Gennesaret - each of these roads soon uniting with the Uppe r Galilean.  5

Hence, although the stream of commerce between Acco and the East was divided into

three channels, yet, as one of these passed through Nazareth, the quiet little town was not

a stagnant pool of rustic seclusion. Men of all nations, busy with another life than that of

Israel, would appear in the streets of Nazareth; and through them thoughts, associations,

and hopes connected with the great outside world be stirred. But, on the other hand,

Nazareth was also one of the great centers of Jewish Temp le-life. It has already been

indicated that the Priesthood was divided into twenty- four 'courses,' which, in turn,

ministered in the Temple. The Priests of the 'course' which was to be on duty always

gathered in certain towns, whence they went up in company to Jerusalem, while those of

their number who were unable to go spent the week in fasting and prayer. Now Nazareth

was one of these Priest-centres,6 and although it may well have been, that comparatively

few in distant Galilee conformed to the Priestly regulations - some must have assembled

there in preparation for the sacred functions, or appeared in its Synagogue. Even the fact,

so well known to all, of this living connection between Nazareth and the Temple, must

have wakened peculiar feelings. Thus, to take the wider view, a double symbolic

significance attached to Nazareth, since through it passed alike those who carried on the

traffic of the world, and those who ministered in the Temple.7

We may take it, that the people of Nazareth were like those of other little towns similarly

circumstanced:8 with all the peculiarities of the impulsive, straight-spoken, hot-blooded,