went up from the congregation. All his old friends got up
from their seats and rushed to the front of the synagogue. They took
hold of Jesus and dragged him out of the building. At the edge of the
town there was a high cliff, and they took him there to throw him down
on the rocks below. But Jesus slipped out of their hands, and turned
around. Calmly he walked through the crowd. Nobody had the courage to
touch him again.

Jesus never went back to Nazareth any more. Once, when he was
preaching in another town, someone came and told him that his mother
and his brothers had come to take him home. They thought that he ought
to stop this nonsense of pretending to be the Messiah.

But Jesus would not go home with them, for they did not believe in
him. It was better to stay with his disciples. He was at home with
those who trusted him.

"My mother?" he said. "My brothers?"

He looked around at his disciples, and said: "These are my mother and
brothers--my own disciples. Anybody who obeys the will of God is my
brother and my sister and my mother, all in one. That's the kind of
family I want!"

* * * * *

Back in Nazareth nobody thought that Jesus was of much account. But in
other places he meant everything to people who needed help. The
Pharisees were often glad to see him go away. But the poor and the
sick could never see enough of him.

Once there came to Jesus a man who was sick with the dreaded leprosy.
A leper's skin was deathly white, and his flesh was rotting, and he
was sure to die of the disease. Nobody needed help more than a leper
did, but no one would even touch him.

The people back in Nazareth were too proud to admit that the
carpenter's son from down the street might be the Messiah. But a
leper did not have any pride. This leper came to Jesus, and fell on
his face before him, crying out, "Lord, if you will do it, you can
make me clean from this disease!"

[Illustration]

Then Jesus did what everybody else was afraid to do. He reached down
and put his hand on the sick man, and said:

"I will. Be clean."

At once the man was healed of his leprosy. Jesus told him to go and
give thanks to God, and not to tell anyone what had happened. But the
leper could not help telling. Jesus became still more famous as the
man who healed the sick.

Another time he made a blind man see again. The Pharisees tried to get
this man to say that the person who cured him had not been sent fr