orders that all the children of two years old and under in Bethlehem and the adjoining country should be murdered. His cruel edict was obeyed, and thus was fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah, "In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation and weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted because they are not.”

Joseph continued in Egypt until after the death of Herod, when he was again warned by God in a dream that he might safely venture to return home; finding however that Archelaus, the son of Herod, was reigning in Judea, he turned aside into Galilee and took up his abode at Nazareth, where the early years of our Lord were spent. "He grew in wisdom as in stature and in favour with God and man.'

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Joseph and Mary were strictly obedient to the rules of the Jewish religion, and went every year up to Jerusalem to celebrate the great feast of the passover, which was instituted to commemorate the deliverance of the people of Israel from their bondage in Egypt. When Jesus was about twelve years old, his parents brought him with them to the feast, but when they were returning the boy remained behind in Jerusalem. When his parents missed him they came back in search of him, and found him in the temple sitting

in the midst of the teachers and expounders of the Law, both hearing them and asking them questions, and all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and his answers. Joseph and Mary remonstrated with Jesus for having alarmed them by staying behind, but he replied that he had been engaged in his heavenly Father's business. He returned home with his earthly parents, and remained subject to them, fulfilling all the duties of a child with exemplary obedience, until the time when it pleased God that he should begin to proclaim the tidings of salvation.

CHAPTER III.

THE PREACHING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.

WHEN Jesus was about thirty years of age, the Spirit of God descended upon John the Baptist, the son of Zacharias, and he went into the country round about Jordan preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. His austere mode of life commanded attention, he was clothed in a coarse robe of camel's hair fastened by a leathern girdle round the loins, and his food was the produce of the wilderness, locusts and wild honey. The subject of his preach

ing was an exact fulfilment of the prophesy of Isaiah, "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it." The fame of his preaching induced multitudes to come aif therm into the wilderness, and to give outward signs of their repentance and their anxiety to lead a new life by receiving baptism in the river Jordan. Some of these belonged to the sect of the Pharisees, who trusted "that they themselves were righteous and despised others." John severely rebuked their pride, saying, "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire."