SELECTION FROM POPULAR AUTHORS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VII, Issue 2141, 24 December 1920, Page 3

SELECTION FROM POPULAR AUTHORS.

No. 111. Jesus of Nazareth: "How is it that ye sought me? Will ye not that I must be about my Father's business, or in my Father's house (the Temple)?" And they understood not the saying; but he went down with them to Nazareth, and was subject into them. We can imagine what conduct of this kind and such a reply to his mother would probably have elicited from a boy's parents in our time; but it may be interesting to learn what a believer in Jesus's divinity can see in the story. Dean Farrar seems to think the rudeness of the boy's reply is satisfactorily explained by his saying that "he must be about his father's business or in his father's house (the Temple)." But when we reflect that he was then 12 years old, and that he went back to Nazareth, and that we hear nothing further about him for 20 or 31 years (he was born B.C. 41, commenced' preaching A.D. 28-29 and died A.D. 30), and during that long period he was apparently a simple carpenter, like, his father, he was spoken of as the Carpenter of Nazareth. When we think of all this, it is not clear that he was in any hurry to attend to his heavenly father's business—such hurry as his reply to his mother would indicate, and during all the 21 years he was, so far as we know, working as a carpenter. There is, of course, nothing to be said against such occupation as being suitable for an honest man; but what about it as an occupation for the Son of God. A man will remain a carpenter if he cannot get on further, or is satisfied with his work; but why should it be necessary for the Son of God, with all the extraordinary 1 wisdom he should have possessed, to wait all this time cajpentering? What have other men done before they became 33 years old? Alexander the was 16 years old when he was left in charge of the State, while his father, Philip, marched against Byzantium. Philip was murdered before Alexander; was 20,. at which age he ascended the throne. He conquered the whole of the civilised world. He died before he" was 32, at which age Jesus was still, so far as we know, a carpenter. Napoleon Bonaparte, born in 1709, rose by his own unaided talents to bo the ruler of France by 1800, when he was 31, and was 'made Consul for Life in 1802; then Emperor. William Pitt, at the age of 24, became Prime Minister of •England. If the sweet character of Jesus as a boy, as it presents itself to Dean Farrar, and as it ought to have been in the ease of the Son of God, were followed by an equally prepossessing youth and manhood, and marked by extraordinary wisdom, we might expect to find some evidence of all, this in the appreciation of such qualities by those in whose sight the 30 years had been passed—viz., the family of Jesus, his mother, sisters and brothers, and his fellow townsmen; but the few glimpses offered of their opinion of him show his fellow-townsmen rejecting his claims to be a prophet with scorn, and they were even proposing to throw him down from the top of a hill in his native town when he eseaped. We also find that his mother and brothers were attempting to dissuade him from his foolish pretentions, and trying to explain away his irritating and insulting language towards those above him in position, by saying that he was beside himself. We can even see his own brothers plainly accusing him of pretending to work miracles, and urging him to ?o where his life was in danger. This seen- 1 strange conduct for brothers. The truth about Jesus of Nazareth.! —Philip Sidney. Cloth, 3/- net. .75