We read in the Mishnah (Kidd. iv. 14) as follows: "Rabbi Meir said: Let a man always

teach his son a cleanly and a light trade; and let him pray to Him whose are wealth and

riches; for there is no trade which has not both poverty and riches, and neither does

poverty come from the trade nor yet riches, but everything according to one's deserving

(merit). Rabbi Simeon, the son of Eleazer, said: Hast thou all thy life long seen a beast or

a bird which has a trade? Still they are nourished, and that without anxious care. And if

they, who are created only to serve me, shall not I expect to be nourished without

anxious care, who am created to serve my Maker? Only that if I have been evil in my

deeds, I forfeit my support. Abba Gurjan of Zadjan said, in name of Abba Gurja: Let not

a man bring up his son to be a donkey-driver, nor a camel-driver, nor a barber, nor a

sailor, nor a shepherd, nor a pedlar; for their occupations are those of thieves. In his

name, Rabbi Jehudah said: Donkey-drivers are mostly wicked; camel-drivers mostly

honest; sailors mostly pious; the best among physicians is for Gehenna, and the most

honest of butchers a companion of Amalek. Rabbi Nehorai said: I let alone every trade

of this world, and teach my son nothing but the Thorah (the law of God); for a man eats

of the fruit of it in this world (as it were, lives upon earth on the interest), while the

capital remaineth for the world to come. But what is left over (what remains) in every

trade (or worldly employme nt) is not so. For, if a man fall into ill-health, or come to old

age or into trouble (chastisement), and is no longer able to stick to his work, lo! he dies

of hunger. But the Thorah is not so, for it keeps a man from evil in youth, and in old age

gives him both a hereafter and the hopeful waiting for it. What does it say about youth?

'They that wait upon the Lord shall renew strength.' And what about old age? 'They

shall still bring forth fruit in old age.' And this is what is said of Abraham our father:

'And Abraham was old, and Jehovah blessed Abraham in all things.' But we find that

Abraham our father kept the whole Thorah--the whole, even to that which had not yet

been given--as it is said, 'Because that Abraham obeyed My voice, and kept My

charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.'"

If this quotation has been long, it will in many respects prove instructive; for it not only

affords a favourable specimen of Mishnic teaching, but gives insight into the principles,

the reasoning, and the views of the Rabbis. At the outset, the saying of Rabbi Simeon--

which, however, we should remember, was spoken nearly a century after the time when

our Lord had been upon earth--reminds us of His own words (Matt 6:26): "Behold the

fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your

heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?" It would be a

delightful thought, that our Lord had thus availed Himself of the better thinking and

higher feeling in Israel; so to speak, polished the diamond and made it sparkle, as He

held it up in the light of the kingdom of God. For here also it holds true, that the Saviour

came not in any sense to "destroy," but to "establish the law." All around the scene of

His earthly ministry the atmosphere was Jewish; and all that was pure, true, and good in

the nation's life, teaching, and sayings He made His own. On every page of the gospels

we come upon what seems to waken the echoes of Jewish voices; sayings which remind

us of what we have heard among the sages of Israel. And this is just what we should

have expected, and what gives no small confirmation of the trustworthiness of these

narratives as the record of what had really taken place. It is not a strange scene upon

which we are here introduced; nor among strange actors; nor are the surroundings

foreign. Throughout we have a life -picture of the period, in which we recognise the

speakers from the sketches of them drawn elsewhere, and whose mode of speaking we

know from contemporary literature. The gospels could not have set aside, they could

not even have left out, the Jewish element. Otherwise they would not have been true to

the period, nor to the people, nor to the writers, nor yet to that law of growth and

development which always marks the progress of the kingdom of God. In one respect