men. But His friends thought that He was fitted to be
a Rabbi and teach in the Temple with the Doctors of the Law. He waited
many years, caring for His mother and His younger brothers and sisters
after the death of Joseph, and then He left Nazareth.

CHAPTER VI.

THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS.

Jesus was thirty years of age when He left Nazareth to begin His work
as a Teacher of the Truth. It was the age set by the older teachers
for a young man to begin his work.

His cousin John, the son of Elizabeth and Zachariah, was six months
older than Jesus, and he had begun his ministry on the lower Jordan.
While Jesus had been living quietly at Nazareth preparing for his work,
John had been away in the wilderness beyond the Dead Sea alone with the
Spirit of God. He was a prophet who could be taught by God only. When
his time to speak came he came out of the wilderness to a place on the
banks of the Jordan, just above Jericho, called The Fords. Many people
crossed at this place, and he stood on a bank above the river crying,
"Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."

[Illustration: John the Baptist at the Jordan]

Like those who had made a vow to the Lord, John had never cut his hair,
he wore a coarse garment woven of camel's hair, and lived on the simple
food of the wilderness--locusts and wild honey. He seemed never to
think of himself, but always of One who was coming. He said that he
was only a "Voice," preparing the way for the Messiah, as Isaiah had
prophesied centuries before, and the "Messenger" that had been promised
through Malachi.

"Behold I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before
me."

He did something which seemed new and strange to the people. He called
them to a change of mind--a turning away from sin, and, as a sign that
they had done so, he baptized them in the river Jordan. He was getting
the people ready for the coming of Christ, who was to begin the Kingdom
of Heaven on earth.

Thousands were flocking down to the river to hear the new prophet.
They went from all parts of Palestine, and Jesus, knowing that his hour
had come, went also. He wore a white tunic gathered at the neck and
reaching to his feet, and on it the large blue mantle of thick stuff
that was worn in cold weather, for it was in the winter of the year 31.

We cannot know all about His parting with His mother, and the three
days' journey to the Fords of Jordan, but we know that He came and
s