Matthew 4. 17. Explain why the message of Jesus, like that of
John, awakened such a quick response among the people.

3. What did Jesus think of the rule of Rome? Read Matthew 20. 25-27,
and Luke 13. 31, 32.

4. In contrast with the Zealots, what was Jesus' plan for winning
freedom and happiness, instead of the oppression and misery of Roman
rule? Read John 18. 33-38.

CHAPTER XXXII

A THOUSAND YEARS OF A NATION'S QUEST

In this course of study we have been tracing the progress of a great
enterprise. A race of people set out in the days of Abraham to seek
the best in life. Did they win or lose, succeed or fail? What did they
achieve, during a thousand years of striving?

SUMMARY OF RESULTS

Looking back over the whole period which we have studied, there are
four short epochs which stand out in bright contrast to long stretches
of darkness as times when the common people had a chance to enjoy some
of the good things of life, or at least had reason to hope that they
might some time gain them for themselves or their children. These were
the times of David, of Josiah, of Nehemiah, and of Simon the Maccabee.
These four men were all able and just leaders. They were all inspired,
to a greater or less extent, by the ideals of Abraham, Moses, and the
great reformer-prophets.

=The long centuries of failure.=--The lives of all four of these men
together, however, do not cover much more than a century. During the
rest of the time, the common people were ground down under oppressors,
either of their own race or foreign conquerors. Generation after
generation of fathers and mothers patiently toiled and struggled and
suffered, in the hope that they might climb just a little higher
toward the sunlight of health and comfort and the higher blessings of
life. Most of them struggled in vain. It is true that a few of the
more fortunate, in each generation, saw some little advance over
earlier generations in the good things of civilization. Such men as
Nicodemus and Zacchaeus, in the time of Jesus, lived in better houses,
wore more comfortable clothes, and ate better food than did King David
himself in an earlier, ruder age. But the common people of Jesus' day
were not so well off as even in the days of Abraham. For as wandering
shepherds they were free. Life might be a bitter struggle against wild
beasts and drought and famine. But no haughty masters looked down on
them with contempt, or robbed them of their last farth