ini rifle in an
affray with robbers.

"Was he one of the robbers," I ask, "or one of the robbed?"

"I really don't know," says the doctor, "but in a few minutes I am going
to do my best for him."

Is not this Christ's work that is still doing in Christ's town, this
teaching of the children, this helping of the sick and wounded, for His
sake, and in His name? Yet there are silly folk who say they do not
believe in missions.

There are a few so-called sacred places and shrines in Nazareth--the
supposed scene of the Annunciation; the traditional Workshop of Joseph;
the alleged _Mensa Christi_, a flat stone which He is said to have used
as a table when He ate with His disciples; and so on. But all these
uncertain relics and memorials, as usual, are inclosed in chapels, belit
with lamps, and encircled with ceremonial. The very spring at which the
Virgin Mary must have often filled her pitcher, (for it is the only
flowing fountain in the town), now rises beneath the Greek Church of
Saint Gabriel, and is conducted past the altar in a channel of stone
where the pilgrims bathe their eyes and faces. To us, who are seeking
our Holy Land out-of-doors, these shut-in shrines and altared memorials
are less significant than what we find in the open, among the streets
and on the surrounding hillsides.

The Virgin's Fountain, issuing from the church, flows into a big, stone
basin under a round arch. Here, as often as we pass, we see the maidens
and the mothers of Nazareth, with great earthern vessels poised upon
their shapely heads, coming with merry talk and laughter, to draw water.
Even so the mother of Jesus must have come to this fountain many a time,
perhaps with her wondrous boy running beside her, clasping her hand or a
fold of her bright-coloured garment. Perhaps, when the child was little
she carried Him on her shoulder, as the women carry their children
to-day.

Passing through a street, we look into the interior of a carpenter-shop,
with its simple tools, its little pile of new lumber, its floor littered
with chips and shavings, and its air full of the pleasant smell of
freshly cut wood. There are a few articles of furniture which the
carpenter has made: a couple of chairs, a table, a stool: and he
himself, with his leg stretched out and his piece of wood held firmly by
his naked toes, is working busily at a tiny bed which needs only a pair
of rockers to become a cradle. Outside the door of the shop a boy of ten
or twe