me the truths of righteousness and
judgment; while it set before them the way of spiritual salvation and
formulated the demands and conditions thereof, indicating the higher
path, the strait gate and the narrow way, it was also directed to the
bruised hearts and broken spirits of those who attended His steps. We
are told, after all, but very little of the words and deeds of Jesus
during those eventful years in which He trod the highways and byeways
of the land breaking the bread of life from city to city. Of the
period passed in Nazareth in preparation for the strenuous days to come
we are told nothing at all. The world, it is said, would hardly
contain the books if all had been written down. But enough is told to
give us visions of those unrecorded days, and to show that He was a
cheering Christ, a messenger of comfort--this Saviour of ours. Healing
was in His words. "Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked
with us by the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures?" said,
one to another, those two disciples who, with saddened countenances,
had set out together to Emmaus on that troubled day. Watch Him yonder
in the house at Bethany, what time bereavement casts its shadow upon
the dwelling. "And He took little children in His arms and blessed
them." Here, again, is a whole history of tenderness. From this one
act a flood of light streams backward and forward upon His whole
earthly life, and we can see the kindly glance that brought the little
ones around Him. We can hear the gentle voice that dispelled their
shyness and gave confidence to their hearts. Even in that old time,
and in the quiet and dreamy East, life had many cares. There were push
and drive and hard and grinding rivalry even then. Those days had
their economic questions as well as ours. It was only by hardest
struggle that many a cupboard was furnished and many a table spread;
for poverty is no new thing, and sorrow, affliction, oppression, dread
and death are as old as the hills. We read of the beggar by the
wayside, of Lazarus writhing in hunger and smitten with sores on the
threshold of Dives, who wore purple and fine linen and fared
sumptuously every day. The widow's house was robbed; the orphan was
cheated of his small inheritance; life, even for the fortunate, went
much as it does now--the music of gladness to-day, the solemn tones of
the dirge to-morrow. How gracious to many a hearer would be that
Sermon on the Mount wi