access to many books, but he knew the Old Testament, well and
familiarly--better and more aptly than some people expected. Traces
of other books have been found in his teaching, not many and some of
them doubtful. Generally one would conclude that, apart from the Old
Testament, his education was not very bookish--he found it in home
and shop, in the desert, on the road, and in the market-place.

It is interesting to gather from the Gospel what Jesus says of the
talk of men, and it is surprising to find how much it is, till we
realize how very much in ancient times the city was the education,
and the market-place the school, where some of the most abiding
lessons were learnt. Is it not so still in the East? Here was a boy,
however, who watched men and their words more closely than they
guessed, on whose ears words fell, not as old coinages, but as new
minting, with the marks of thought still rough and bright on
them--indexes to the speaker.

Proverbs of the market every people has of its own. "It is nought,
it is nought, saith the buyer, but, after he is gone his way, then
he boasteth." And the seller has all the variants of caveat emptor
ready to retort. In antiquity, and in the East to-day, apart from
machine-made things, we find the same uncertainty in most
transactions as to the value of the article, the same eagerness of
both seller and buyer to get at the supposed special knowledge of
the other, and the same preliminary skirmish of proposal, protest,
offer, refusal, and oath. Jesus stands by the stall, watching some
small sale with the bright, earnest eyes which we find so often in
the Gospels. The buyer swears "on his head" that he will not give
more than so much; then, "by the altar" he won't get the thing. "By
the earth" it isn't worth it; "by the heaven" the seller gave that
for it. So the battle rages, and at last the bargain is struck. The
buyer raises his price; the seller takes less than he gave for the
thing; neither has believed the other, but each, as the keen eyes of
the onlooker see, feels he has over-reached the other. Heaven has
been invoked--and what is Heaven? As the words fell on the
listener's ears, he saw the throne of God, and on it One before
whose face Heaven itself and earth will flee away--and be brought
back again for judgement. And by Heaven, and by Him who sits on the
Throne, men will swear falsely for an "anna" or two. How can they?
It is because "nothings grow something"; the words m