WRITING]

So, when the Holy Spirit called Matthew to write what he knew of the
Lord's life on earth, those ancient prophecies, and the wonderful way
in which they had come true, were still in his thoughts. This is why
we find in the Gospel according to Matthew more quotations from the Old
Testament than in the writings of any of the other evangelists.

'See, My Book has always spoken of the coming of My Son.' This is the
wonderful message which God gave to the world through Matthew's
knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures.

Years passed, and those who had seen Christ in His earthly life had
nearly all died, while Gentile Christians everywhere were asking
eagerly for the written story of His life.

Twenty years after Matthew's Gospel was written, God called a Greek
scholar, named Luke, to write what was to be a most important part of
our Bible. The Jews of old hated and despised the Gentiles; we have
seen how bitterly they persecuted Paul because he declared that God had
sent him to preach to the heathen nations; think, therefore, how
impossible it would have seemed to a Jew of this time, that a Gentile
could, at God's bidding, write two Books which should become even more
precious and sacred than the Books of the Law, which the Jews rightly
prized as the greatest treasure of their nation!

Those who work in heathen lands to-day tell us that the Gospel of St.
Luke is always the favourite book of the converts, and that if they can
only afford to buy one Gospel they always ask for that of Luke. This
is because the whole work is written from the Gentile point of view--it
is the world's history of Christ.

St. Luke wrote his Gospel as an historian, and in dedicating his work
to Theophilus[2] in a kind of preface, he followed the Greek custom.
'_Many,_' he says, '_have taken in hand to set forth in order a
declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us_'
(Luke i. 1), but their records have disappeared, while that of Luke
remains.

He was a physician, as we know (Colossians iv. 14), and besides being
highly educated and gifted, he took infinite pains with his work. He
collected all the information he could both from books and
eye-witnesses--either from the Saviour's Mother herself, or from some
of her relations--and to him we owe many of the most beautiful and
touching facts of our Lord's life on earth.

Written last of all, we have the good news--that is, Gospel, told by
St. John.

Whe