J. GORDON MELTON 
 
 \s 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 Gift of 
 
 THE INSTITUTE 
 
 FOR THE STUDY OF 
 
 AMERICAN RELIGION
 
 
 Garrett Biblical Institute 
 
 V 

 
 91- 
 
 JESUS CHRIST IN 
 HIS HOMELAND 
 
 LECTURES BY 
 Mme. Lydia M. Von Finkelstein Mountford 
 
 Stenographically Reported. ' 
 
 CINCINNATI : 
 PRESS OF JENNINGS AND GRAHAM.
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY 
 MME. LYDIA M. VON FINKKLSTEIN MOTTNTFOBD. 
 
 EvansUn, !l!n
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST, - - 7 
 
 II. THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS, - - 47 
 
 III. THE MANHOOD AND MINISTRY OF CHRIST, - 91 
 
 o 
 
 CD
 
 I. 
 
 The Nativity of Christ.
 
 THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST 
 
 Dear Christian friends, it makes no difference 
 from what part of the world we may come, or 
 from what nation or what tribe, there is one name 
 that binds us all together, and that is the name of 
 our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In His name 
 to-night I greet you. Coming as I do from the 
 same land that gave Him birth, the same moun- 
 tains and hills and valleys that greeted His eyes 
 when He was incarnated into this world greeted 
 mine when I was born into this world. So I do 
 not simply speak to you as one who has traveled 
 in Palestine as a tourist or explorer, or who has 
 lived there a few years as a missionary, but as 
 one of the people of the country; for that is the 
 hole of the pit out of which I was dug, and the rock 
 out of which I was hewn. For I was born in the r- . 
 
 r- ' I. . " ^* -/ W*|\ r \f 
 
 city of Jerusalem, brought up in the city of Jerusa- . 
 
 lem, and I know the whole country of Palestine 
 
 even from Dan unto Beersheba, from this side ofiiJUn ( V 
 
 Jordan to the other side of Jordan, and I bring 
 
 to you from Palestine, that Holy Land, a message 
 
 of peace. 
 
 Any home you may enter, any person you 
 may meet on the roadside, we do n't simply say, 
 "Good morning, how do you do?" but we salute 
 
 7
 
 8 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 and say, "Salaam Alekom," which translated 
 means, "Peace unto you," and the response is, 
 "Alekom il Salaam wa Rahmet Allah," which 
 translated means, "And unto you be peace and 
 the mercy of God." So you find our forms of 
 speech have not changed, but are the same as in 
 ancient times. When our Lord came unto His 
 disciples, the first words He said to them were, 
 "Salaam Alekom," "Peace be unto you," and 
 when He sent His disciples out to preach the 
 gospel He said, "Into whatsoever house you enter, 
 first say to them, Peace unto this house," so I 
 say to you to-night, "Peace unto you from the 
 Holy Land, and from Bethlehem of Judea." 
 
 We have assembled to-night to study together 
 the life of Christ. The question of the day to- 
 day is, Is Christ divine? Some have said that 
 Christ is simply a principle, and that Joseph was 
 Jesus' father, and that Jesus simply was a man 
 working up to the highest understanding of God, 
 and that He simply was a man of high spiritual 
 degree. Now, we want to know as to whether 
 this man Jesus Christ was simply a man as we 
 are, or whether He was the Son of God. You 
 are familiar with the theological Christ, and you 
 are familiar with the ecclesiastical Christ; you 
 are familiar with the Christ in art and literature; 
 but probably you are not familiar with the tra- 
 ditional Christ, such as we have Him, handed 
 down by tradition from father to son, from chief- 
 tain to tribe, from elders to community, from 
 mother to daughter this Christ that is spoken of
 
 The Nativity of Christ 9 
 
 at the fireside, around the camp-fire, on the other 
 side of Jordan. You know Paul says to us, 
 "Stand steadfast by the traditions you have been 
 taught, either by word or by our epistle." When 
 we teach by an epistle, the man gives his epistle, 
 and it is copied by two or three hundred scribes ; 
 they make hundreds of copies, and each one keeps 
 a copy of the epistle, and that is called teaching 
 by epistle. 
 
 And there is what is called teaching by word. 
 And teaching by word can never be written. It 
 is handed down in song and story ; and you listen 
 to these stories of the elders and chieftains from 
 the beginning of creation to the present day, and 
 then they take those and elaborate them in song 
 and story. 
 
 John refers to this very condition. He says 
 if what Jesus said were written in books, the 
 world could not contain the books; therefore we 
 see what an immense amount of information has 
 been lost to us because it could not be written in 
 books. The Gospels are, after all, more or less 
 fragmentary. It was the business of the recorder 
 simply to record salient facts. The other infor- 
 mation was generally known, and they were re- 
 cording facts, in order to show that Jesus was 
 the Son of God. And so to-night we shall study 
 the history of Christ from these traditions as we 
 have them in His homeland, and I will recite them 
 to you as they are given to us. 
 
 We will in imagination to-night go to the city 
 of Jerusalem with the wise men of old. We come
 
 10 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 to the city of Jerusalem and we ask a question, 
 ' 1 - "Where is He that is born King of the Jews, for 
 we have seen His star in the east, and have His 
 record, and have come to worship Him." 
 
 Now, we find that these wise men that came 
 to Jerusalem were not fools, they were not cranks, 
 they were not crazy men, but they were wise 
 men, and these wise men evidently had come 
 officially to the city of Jerusalem, for they sought 
 an audience with Herod ; and it was a very diffi- 
 fcult thing to get an audience with Herod, who 
 was so proud and great a king. We find that 
 this question of theirs aroused a tremendous in- 
 terest and anxiety in the city of Jerusalem, be- 
 cause of the source whence this question came. 
 For Herod was troubled, and all Jerusalem was 
 troubled with him. Why should Herod be trou- 
 bled, and what does Herod do? Herod goes and 
 gathers all his wise men, the scribes of the people, 
 the teachers of the people, and he demands of 
 them where the Christ should be born. Herod '^ 
 did not understand that Christ was a principle. - 
 Did Herod say, "Where is*"*trie principle to be 
 born?" Don't you see how foolish it is for us 
 (.to say Christ is a principle? Either the Bible 
 is true or it is a lie, and we have to stand to- 
 day on a firm rock to declare the truth of the 
 Bible. If Christ was not the Son of God, He 
 was the greatest impostor the world has ever 
 seen. Now we see that even before His birth 
 they are ready; it is general information to the 
 public at large ; Herod knows about it, he knows
 
 The Nativity of Christ 11 
 
 that the Christ is going, to be born. So when 
 the wise men come here to see, they did not even 
 ask, "Where is the Christ to be born?" but they 
 said, "Where is the King of the Jews, for we have 
 seen His star in the east?" 
 
 Now, the term "the King of the Jews" would 
 signify the king of the enlightened ones. For the 
 Jews had the greatest source of light that people 
 ever had, that is, the idea of spiritual things, as 
 you here in America have got a higher conception 
 and idea of the freedom and liberty to which 
 every human soul is entitled. So people say, 
 "Why, that is American !" It is n't your business 
 principles that give any credit to you the things 
 that make you so smart in business. The idea 
 of being an American is not simply to be a clever 
 business man. That is of the earth, earthy; but 
 the idea of being a true American is to be free, 
 and give freedom of spiritual life and thought to 
 every human being on the face of the earth. That 
 is the American principle, to do justice, and be 
 righteous to all men, to live the Christ life. So 
 it was with the idea of the Jewish religion to 
 the nations at large, that anything there was of 
 the higher thought, they would say, "The Jews." 
 So here were the wise men with their question, 
 "Where is the King of the Jews, He that is called 
 King of the Jews?" not that He was elected or 
 nominated king, but born King of the Jews. 
 
 Now, Herod at once understood who could 
 be born King of the Jews; that was but one 
 person, and that was the Christ. So Herod said,
 
 12 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 "Where is the Christ to be born?" So they 
 looked over their records, these wise men. They 
 had to get up a session, just like your President 
 might have to call a special session of Congress, 
 if there was a question asked by some great 
 power. So Herod had to gather a special ses- 
 sion of his most intelligent men, the scribes, the 
 teachers of the people; and so he said to them, 
 -"Where is Christ to be born?" And they said 
 to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is 
 written," and they gave him the written facts 
 about it. 
 
 Herod goes and has an interview with these 
 men from the East, and he asks when they saw 
 this star, and inquires all about this child, and 
 he asks diligently, not carelessly, but diligently ; 
 he wanted to compare notes and data. Then 
 after getting his answer from his own wise men, 
 he comes to the wise men^officially. First 
 asks for a private audience; next he comes offi- 
 cially and he says : "My wise men say the Christ 
 is to be born in Bethlehem of Judea. Now, you r^ f^> ^ 
 go forth to Bethlehem, and when you find aj < 
 child that tallies with your description^then you 
 come and tell me, and I will come and worship 
 Him. Inform me of the fact, and I will come-yy,^ 
 and worship Him also." So he sends the wise, 
 men to Bethlehem. 
 
 Who and what were these wise men? What 
 business had these wise men to come to Jerusa- 
 lem? According to our unwritten history, these 
 wise men were priests from Persia; they were
 
 The Nativity of Christ 13 
 
 Magian princes from the great Magian order, and 
 they came to worship Christ, to take their oath 
 of allegiance to Him/ Why should they come so 
 far to take their oath of allegiance to this babe, 
 born King of the Jews? The Persian and He- 
 brew religions were not alien to each other.'" In 
 training the Hebrew people, God had them taken 
 into captivity, so they could be educated 
 the Persians. God says about Cyrus in Isaiah,* * Ly5\ 
 44: 28, "He is my shepherd, and shall perform all 
 my pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem, Thou^y^ V^ - 
 shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy founda- 
 tions shall be laid." So we see that Jerusalem 
 and the temple, after all, were foundations laid 
 by a Persian king. But God says to 
 "Thou hast not known me, and yet Cyrus is 
 my shepherd." So you see the relationship be- 
 tween the Hebrews and the Persians. When 
 Palestine was overcome by the Persians, and was 
 a Persian-conquered province, the Persians al- 
 ways sent their own governors to govern Pales- 
 tine, just as you do in the Philippines to-day. 
 Many children of Americans will be born in the 
 Philippines, but they won't care to come to 
 America, they will remain in the Philippines; 
 but they will remain American citizens; and if 
 they have an inheritance come to them from 
 America, it will belong to them, though they 
 never come to America. So with the Persians; 
 many of the Persians that came as governors to 
 Palestine, and many of their children preferred 
 to remain in Palestine, so we have a large colony
 
 v/u 
 
 14 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 of Persians dwelling in Palestine, and have their 
 
 p . ' descendants to the present day. In Jerusalem we 
 
 have a street called the Street of the Medes and 
 
 'Persians, and we have another place called the 
 
 Camp of the Persians. 
 
 These governors were usually in line of suc- 
 cession to the Persian throne. The Persians were 
 very particular; they kept a record, so if they 
 wanted an heir to the throne they could lay 
 their hands on him. We have the same custom 
 in Palestine to-day. For instance, in the case 
 of the very Sultan of Turkey that has been im- 
 peached and his brother placed on his throne 
 the governor of Jerusalem was a Turkish prince 
 in the line of succession to this very sultan's 
 throne. Now, he died; but had he not died they 
 would have fetched him from Palestine to rule 
 instead of the one that is ruling to-day, because 
 he was next in the line of succession to the Turk- 
 ish throne. So we can understand the conditions 
 of Turkish life when we understand that the con- 
 ditions of life are the same in our country to- 
 day. The traditional histories tell us that Queen 
 Esther, when she married Ahasuerus, had a son. 
 This son was a royal prince of Persia, for his 
 father was a king, and he was in line of suc- 
 cession to the Persian throne. He was on his 
 mother's side a prince of the house of Benjamin, 
 so that he was doubly royal, a prince of Israel 
 and a prince of Persia. Time passed on ; and a 
 descendant of this very prince, son of Queen 
 Esther and Ahasuerus, was sent as a governor
 
 The Nativity of Christ 15 
 
 to Palestine, and he was glad to go there, be- 
 cause he wanted to see the land of the ancestors 
 of his mother, for in his veins flowed the blood 
 of the house of Prince Benjamin. He loved the 
 land, and his descendants remained living in the 
 land. 
 
 So it comes up to the time of the birth of 
 Christ. Here was a descendant of that royal 
 house of Persia and the house of Benjamin, and 
 he lived in Nazareth. His name was Nakeeb 
 Shah, and he was a priest-prince, belonging to the 
 Magian order. There was a large community 
 of Persians that resided in Nazareth and its vicin- 
 ity, and he was their priest, a Persian by religion, 
 a very good and faithful man, very wealthy, 
 being the great master shepherd. A princess yV**** c 
 of the house of Israel lived in Bethlehem. Her 
 name was Anna. She was a lineal descendant 
 of the house of David from the shepherd line of 
 the house of David. Joseph, you know, was not 
 of the shepherd line, though he was a son of 
 David ; he was of the carpenters' house, although 
 he was of the house of Nathati and not of Solo- 
 mon, not of the shepherd royal line. But this 
 Princess Anna was a direct descendant of the 
 royal line, through Solomon, being of the shep- 
 herd line as it is called. On her mother's side 
 she was the descendant of the house of Ephraim, 
 who was a son of Joseph that was sold into 
 Egypt by his brothers. Joseph becomes a ruler 
 of Egypt; he marries the Princess Asenath, who 
 was the daughter of a priest of On, the priest
 
 16 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 at Heliopolis, of the temple of the sun. She 
 bears unto him two sons, Ephraim and Manas- 
 seh. Joseph takes these two sons and incorpo- 
 rates them into the royal house of Israel, so they 
 become princes of Israel. On their mother's side 
 they were in the line of succession to the throne 
 of Egypt, in the matriarchal line. This Princess 
 Anna lived in Bethlehem, on the land which be- 
 longed to David originally, where the inn or kahn 
 stood. The land still belonged to David ; though 
 the owner can give away the buildings, the land 
 always remains in perpetuity to the heirs for- 
 ever. It is a curious law we have in the country, 
 that you can never sell the land belonging to a 
 family. It remains to the heirs forever. You 
 can sell the buildings, but not the land; it be- 
 longs to this royal family. 
 
 She was a teacher in the temple, she was a 
 prophetess; that is, you read about Huldah, the 
 prophetess. She was the one that kept the tra- 
 ditions, that is, the one that hands down the 
 unwritten histories. You remember the priest 
 Hilkiah asked Huldah if the word they found 
 was correct, because she was the one that con- 
 served their records. So Anna, being of the 
 house of David, had this portion in the temple 
 which belonged to her ancestor David, but she 
 lived in Bethlehem. She was a very beautiful 
 woman, and a righteous and a godly woman. 
 Prince Nakeeb Shah of Nazareth meets her in 
 the Court of the Gentiles of the temple, falls in love 
 with her, and wants to marry her. He sees a special
 
 The Nativity of Christ 17 
 
 providence in this, that he, of the royal house of 
 Persia, and on his mother's side of the house of 
 Benjamin, should marry the Princess Anna of the 
 house of David and the house of Ephraim. But he 
 could n't marry her, because she was a Jewess and 
 he a Persian. So he becomes a Jew, and his name 
 is changed to Joachim. Not being able to pray 
 in the interior of the temple, as that was only 
 for those of the second generation, he had in 
 Jerusalem large properties, and he donated a 
 court which adjoined the court of the temple, 
 and he and four hundred of his retainers became 
 Jews, and the wall was broken down, and this 
 became all in one, the Court of the Gentiles, and 
 here Joachim and his retainers came to pray. He 
 married Anna, and they for many years had no 
 children. But they took a vow that they would 
 dedicate the child that God would give them unto 
 the Lord, and Mary was born. I have had to 
 give you all this to show you who Mary was. 
 You see you have the record that Mary was of 
 Nazareth, that is all. 
 
 Mary was born. Now, at three years old, % * 
 Mary is brought up to the temple to be dedicated * 
 unto the Lord forever. The father had given his 
 large estate in trust to the temple trustees, as 
 Mary now belonged to the temple. His house in 
 Nazareth, a beautiful, palatial house, he had 
 deeded to Mary, and all the rest were for Mary 
 as belonging to the temple. They were her 
 guardians and trustees. In the Vatican you will 
 find one of the most beautiful pictures, the dedi- 
 
 2
 
 18 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 cation of Mary at three years old. Here are the 
 altar steps, the high-priest standing at the altar. 
 The father and mother of Mary bring her up 
 to dedicate her. The mother is adjusting the 
 robe, when the little girl runs up the steps her- 
 self and claps her hands and sings a song of 
 praise. The high priest lifts her up before the 
 thousands of people, and dedicates her as a hand- 
 maid unto the Lord, and a virgin unto the Lord, 
 and a candlestick of the house of David. She 
 remains in the temple, and her father and mother 
 return to Nazareth, and adopt another little girl 
 to take her place, because Mary belongs to the 
 Lord and has to remain in the temple. That is 
 w hy vou rea d f Mary's sister; she was Mary 
 also. 
 
 At four years old the parents die and Mary 
 becomes a daughter of the temple altogether; 
 she now belongs to the Lord. She grew up a 
 most beautiful child. She was loved by every- 
 body. Every priest tried to vie with the others 
 to teach her. In the Court of the Gentiles, 
 where there were priests of many religions, every 
 priest taught her his particular belief; so Mary, 
 in the Court of the Gentiles, saw the faiths of all 
 nations, as well as that in the holy temple. The 
 high priest allowed her to go into the holy of 
 holies, a thing that was never granted to a woman 
 before or after. 
 
 And so here we find Mary in the temple, the 
 daughter of the temple. The summer months 
 she used to spend in Nazareth, in her own home
 
 The Nativity of Christ 19 
 
 that her father had left her; the fall and winter 
 and spring months she dwelt in the temple. She 
 was a great singer, a sweet singer. She is known 
 as the great singer, the sweet singer, after her 
 ancestor David. She used to compose songs, and 
 sing the songs of David in the temple. And so 
 that is Mzry.faj^jJl^^j/foQUf 
 
 When we see her now, the angel appears to 
 her and says to her: "Hail, thou that art highly 
 favoured, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou 
 among women. Hail to thee, O Mary!" Mary 
 looks around to see what this angel means by 
 such a salutation, and he said to her, "Fear not, 
 Mary; for thou hast found favour with God. And 
 behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring 
 forth a Son, and shalt call His name Jesus." 
 
 Mary first of all turns round about to see 
 what manner of salutation this was; for in the 
 East a man never gives even a man that saluta- 
 tion unless he is on a perfect equality with him, 
 but never to a woman unless he looks upon her 
 as being equal to him. For this reason you see 
 that Mary turns round to see what manner of 
 salutation that was. "What, I, I to be on an 
 equality with an angel?" And he says, "Fear 
 not, Mary ; thou shalt conceive and bear a child." 
 And she says: "How shall this be, seeing I knowv>l fj- 
 not a man, and never will know a man, and have no... ' 
 desire? I am dedicated unto the Lord forever.' * 
 
 Now, it was customary in the country for the 
 girls that were dedicated to the Lord by their 
 parents to remain in the temple until the age of .
 
 20 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 puberty, when the high priest would say to them, 
 "Now that you are arrived at this age, you are 
 free to marry, you are free of the vow of your 
 parents." And then they would send word to 
 all the priests and theological students and say: 
 "There are virgins of the Lord in the temple. 
 Come up and choose for yourselves wives of the 
 virgins of the Lord." Those virgins that did n't 
 want to get married and live after the flesh, re- 
 dedicated themselves unto the Lord. So that 
 when Mary arrives at this age of puberty and re- 
 ceives freedom from the vow of her parents, she 
 says to the high priest: "I am the handmaid of 
 the Lord forever. I have rededicated myself to 
 ^ e ^ e can dlestick of the house of David and a 
 perpetual handmaid and virgin of the Lord." And 
 of her own free will she chose rather to be a door- 
 keeper, to serve and minister in the house of God, 
 rather than live in luxury the life of a princess to 
 which by birth and riches she was entitled to but 
 she renounced the world and was always heard to 
 sing, "Lord, I have loved the habitation of Thy 
 house and the place where Thy glory dwelleth." 
 But, though she remains a perpetual virgin, 
 ^*y she has to have somebody to shield her, for the 
 sa ^ e f tne tribe she belongs to, because there 
 was no male in her line. So she had to marry 
 Joseph, but did n't live with him after the flesh, 
 but she was always called "Joseph's virgin." Joseph, 
 tradition tells us, was a widower having three sons 
 and two daughters. These children are mentioned 
 as "the brethren of the Lord." In Palestine a man
 
 The Nativity of Christ 21 
 
 assumes the genealogy of his wife, if there is no 
 male on her line, and she is legally known only 
 through her husband, therefore that is why Joseph 
 has two genealogies. His own is that given by Luke 
 as the son of Heli, and shows him to be a descendant 
 of David through Nathan, but Mary's genealogy is 
 given by Matthew as the direct offspring of David, 
 the son of Abraham. That is why Mary in her 
 magnificent song refers to her genealogy, "As He 
 spake to our fathers to Abraham, and to his seed 
 for ever." Joseph is only called begotten into this 
 family through Jacob because he is the "husband of 
 Mary of whom was born Jesus, who is called 
 Christ." Matthew i : 16. We still have a sect to- 
 day that is called Safee or Purists that simply live 
 after the spirit. Though Mary was married, she 
 wished to remain a perpetual virgin. She has taken 
 an oath, but she is married for the sake of the rec- 
 ord. And you find Paul alluding to this custom 
 when he says, "If a man marries his virgin, he sin- 
 neth not." If they want to live after the flesh, they 
 would not sin, but otherwise she remains a virgin 
 forever. 
 
 So with Mary; when the angel made his an- 
 nouncement to her, she says: "How can I have 
 a child, seeing I know no man, and never will, 
 and have no desire? I am a virgin of the Lord." 
 And he said to her, "The Holy Ghost shall come 
 upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall over- 
 shadow thee, therefore also that holy thing which 
 shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. 
 The power of the Highest shall overshadow thee." 
 

 
 22 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 He did n't say "son of Joseph." If she had been 
 married in the usual fashion, and it had been an- 
 nounced to her that she would have a son after 
 the flesh, she would have praised God and said, 
 "Now there will be no reproach on me, for Mary 
 will not be barren like Sarah, or Rebecca, or 
 Hannah, or Elizabeth ; but Mary will be a 
 mother; she will bear a child unto the house 
 of David." That is what Mary would have done. 
 But Mary knew perfectly well that according to 
 the flesh she was to remain a virgin wife. So 
 the angel tells her that the holy thing that shall 
 be born of her shall be called the Son of God. 
 
 Mary seems to grasp the whole thing, and she 
 says to him: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord," 
 of whom, of Joseph ? No, but "the handmaid of the 
 Lord, be it unto me according to thy word." Now, 
 you see Mary's implicit obedience. Mary didn't 
 stop and say, "I don't understand this, you must 
 explain it to me." No, but she said, "Let it be done 
 to the handmaid of the Lord according to thy word." 
 That is what Mary handed down to her son accord- 
 ing to the flesh implicit obedience. 
 
 Now, we will go and find Mary and Joseph. 
 We will go with the wise men. We leave the 
 Jaffa Western Gate, go down a hill, and see the 
 Pool of Gihon, to the west the valley of Hin- 
 nom. We go up a steep incline, and we journey 
 across a beautiful plain. You ask, "What is 
 this plain?" and we tell you, "This is the plain 
 of Rephaim." And as we journey across the 
 Plain of Rephaim we see hundreds of Orientals
 
 The Nativity of Christ 23 
 
 coming and going. And to our right hand we 
 see a building standing alone in a field, a one- 
 story building, with a dome, and whitewashed on 
 the outside. We ask what it is. They tell us 
 it is the tomb of Rachel. Whenever you travel 
 in Palestine and see a one-story building, white- 
 washed on the outside, you must know that it is 
 the tomb of some saint. And it was to one of 
 these many tombs that our Lord referred when 
 He said, "Ye are as whited sepulchers, full of dead 
 men's bones." How do we know that? Because 
 they are whitewashed on the outside. 
 
 To our left we pass through a beautiful olive 
 grove, and go up a little hill, and come to a 
 beautiful plain. What do we see upon this beau- 
 tiful plain? We see hundreds of sheep grazing, 
 and the shepherds in the shade of the rocks play- 
 ing upon musical reeds. You ask, "What is this 
 place?" and they tell you, "These are the fields 
 of the shepherd." And as we stand there, it 
 seems to us that twenty centuries roll back, and 
 in imagination we can see aricl hear them, that 
 heavenly host, and the shepherds watching their 
 flocks. They were, tradition says, looking at those 
 beautiful stars, and some say they were talking 
 about the "Star of Jacob," and wondering when it 
 would appear, for that was handed down to them, 
 and they were studying about that star. And 
 suddenly a light shone, and it blinded them, and 
 out of that light they saw a great white-robed 
 angel who said to them, "Fear not, for I bring 
 you tidings of great joy. Unto you is born this
 
 24 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 day in the city of David the Savior, who is 
 Christ the Lord. And this shall be the sign; ye 
 shall find Him wrapped in swaddling clothes and 
 lying in a manger." And they heard the angels 
 singing, "Peace on earth, good will to men." 
 And when the vision had disappeared the shep- 
 herds said, "Come, let us go and see this thing 
 that the Lord hath made known to us." And 
 so with the shepherds we will now go up to 
 Bethlehem, which is only a short distance away. 
 Anybody spending Christmas . in Bethlehem 
 :. to-day can have a very adequate idea of what 
 
 Bethlehem looked like when Jesus was born 
 there. People had come from every part of the 
 country, because it was the enrollment and tax- 
 ation season. To-day they come from every part 
 of the world to celebrate the birth of Christ in 
 Bethlehem. We come into Bethlehem, and we 
 find people gathered from every part of the world. 
 You see groups of men standing. Our streets 
 are not wide like yours, not very much wider than 
 the aisle of a church ; we have no gas lights and 
 electric lights, but there are torches burning 
 here and there to guide the thousands of stran- 
 gers and pilgrims to their lodging places and the 
 people to their homes. Our little booths and 
 shops are decorated with all kinds of wares for 
 the strangers to buy souvenirs of Bethlehem. 
 You see a group of men standing talking, and 
 you come up to them and you say, "Salaam," 
 "Peace." And what do we hear? Says one of 
 these men, "The city is so crowded that there
 
 The Nativity of Christ 25 
 
 is no room anywhere. Do you know the inn- 
 keeper has been obliged to turn his stables into 
 accommodations for the guests?" Now, the inn, 
 the caravansary or khan, is a large building 
 the accommodation of strangers a large build- 
 ing, built in a quadrangle, and open to the sky. 
 All around here is an arcade. These are the 
 stables for the horses, donkeys, mules, and 
 camels. On either side is an open staircase 
 that leads to the habitable rooms upstairs. When 
 these rooms are all full and people are still pour- 
 ing in, what does the innkeeper do? The inn- 
 keeper goes into the stables, turns the horses 
 and mules and donkeys out into the open square, 
 cleans the stables, sprinkles fresh straw all 
 around, and hires portions of them to the be- 
 lated people that come; and often you have to 
 pay four or five or six times as much for ac- 
 commodations in the stables as for one of the 
 best chambers in the house. I tell you, it is S 
 sign of poverty to sleep in the stables at such 
 a time in Palestine; it is a sign that you have 
 got a good deal of money, and the innkeeper 
 is going to get the best of you. Any one who 
 has traveled in your land knows how you go from 
 place to place, and come to a city where there 
 is a convention going on, or some great exhibi- 
 tion, or an inauguration. You go to Washington 
 in the time of an inauguration, as I did ; and it was 
 nothing to pay from five to fifty dollars a night 
 for accommodations. They did in Washington 
 better than we do in Palestine. Now, in the East,
 
 26 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 why, the innkeeper glories at those times. You 
 will see him throw his cloak across his shoulders 
 and walk through his inn, jingling the money in 
 his pockets, and you will hear him saying, "We 
 thank and we praise Thee, O Lord, that Thou 
 hast let us see this day, when we turn our stables 
 into accommodations for the guests. When we 
 charge our regular tariff we can hardly make a 
 living, but when we turn our stables into ac- 
 commodations for the strangers, that is the time 
 we make our living. O, would to God we had 
 such good times all the time !" You who have 
 traveled know how it is; you will go from hotel 
 to hotel at the time of a convention, and you will 
 come to a hotel and you will ask the manager or 
 proprietor to squeeze you in somewhere and 
 O, what a squeeze it is! Sometimes they will 
 put you up in an attic on a shake-up, or shake- 
 down, or they will put you on a cot two inches 
 too narrow or too short for you. And when you 
 come to pay your bill, you have to pay just as 
 much as a person who is occupying a good room. 
 
 Now, if you can do that, what do you suppose 
 we can do? We can charge them what we like. 
 The innkeeper says, "Do you think me a fool to 
 turn my animals into the open court? I am go- 
 ing to make money out of this," and he does. 
 
 Our legends say that Jesus was born in a 
 
 <W**aWv<* grotto. All our inns are built in that way, if 
 
 they can find a place where there are natural 
 
 caves or grottoes. If they have no natural caves, 
 
 they will make separate alcoves for thoroughbred
 
 The Nativity of Christ 27 
 
 horses and donkeys. Now, a person who has a 
 place like that, for thoroughbred horses and don- 
 keys, is not going to allow you a place like that 
 for nothing. I do n't know why the people got 
 the idea that because Jesus was born in a stable 
 and laid in a manger, that Jesus was poor. What 
 does the Bible say? The Bible says He w< 
 laid in a manger because there was no room in ^j^ 
 the inn, and not because they were poor. Now, 
 for this accommodation they must have paid, as 
 people pay to-day, a large price. These thorough- 
 bred horses and donkeys cost from five hundred 
 to fifteen hundred dollars apiece. You go and 
 try in your own country to sleep in a stable, 
 and you will find it difficult. You come to a great 
 city and try to sleep in a stable where there are 
 thoroughbred horses and donkeys will they al- 
 low you to enter into the stable? It will cost 
 you more than a hotel. And so, if Jesus was 
 born in that grotto which they show you to-day, 
 we know that that is the spot, because there 
 is no other inn in the place, and because that 
 thing can not change any more than the Mou: 
 of Olives or the site of Jerusalem. Bethlehem 
 is a small place, and that inn has been there from 
 time immemorial, and that grotto was used 
 simply because there was no room in the inn. 
 The history of this inn where Jesus was born goe&y^4^", *iP 
 to the remote past. It was the home originally g &~ ft 
 of Boaz, who was a wealthy man. And then s- 
 Obed was born there, and Jesse, and David was 
 born in that very house. It was land that was
 
 28 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 in perpetuity for all the descendants of Boaz and 
 of David. When David became king- of Israel, 
 he built a fortress over that house of Boaz ; and 
 when he was running away from the enmity of 
 his son, one Barzillai was faithful to him, and 
 it became his property. And so this house was 
 given to his son, Chim-ham. Now, David 
 could n't give the land, for it remains in per- 
 petuity forever, but he gave the house. As long 
 as Barzillai had descendants and they wished to 
 dwell on this land, they could have his house, 
 but the land was David's in perpetuity. The 
 habitation of Chim-ham which is near Bethlehem 
 was used by Johanan the son of Kareah, when he 
 departed to go to enter into Egypt. Jer. 41 : 17. 
 So time went on until the time of Christ. 
 Most of the descendants of Chim-ham had died 
 and they had turned this place into an inn. Half 
 of the inn was endowed ; that is, they would n't 
 charge any money for people that would come 
 and stay there, that is, teachers and preachers 
 and people from other parts. The other por- 
 tion was for the regular public. You had to 
 come at the enrollment season. Joseph and Mary 
 came up to Bethlehem to that place because they had 
 to; it was the land of their ancestors. There 
 was no room in that inn when they came, so 
 -^hey went into the stable, which was their own 
 ""property, and by a curious thing Jesus was born 
 in that very property, in that very spot where, 
 according to a legend, David had been crowned 
 king of the shepherds in the olden time when
 
 The Nativity of Christ 29 
 
 a child they seated Him in a manger and it was 
 called the chair or throne of David, King of the 
 Shepherds. It was His own property by rights, and 
 because there was no room in the regular inn, He ify. 
 was born in the stable and they laid Him in the '* 
 
 -^- ^ - . - , > 
 
 manger. But the land belonged to them. So we . . . /, - 
 don't read that it was because they were poor, but 
 because there was no room in the inn. 
 
 There is a general impression that Joseph and 
 Mary were very poor. How do we get it? Just 
 simply from this, that in all the pictures that 
 we see painted by artists, we see the babe painted 
 lying naked in the straw. Is n't that contrary to 
 common sense and Scripture? What mother 
 would dream of laying a new-born baby naked tv*QA , 
 jp the straw? Just ask yourself that question 
 unless she \vas stupid. And Mary. Mary the de- 
 scendant of King David, Mary who had found 
 favor with God, Mary the sweet singer of Israel, 
 Mary to do such a thing ! It would be impossible. 
 The commonest and stupidest woman in our land 
 must weave swaddling garments for her first- 
 born child. And instead of doing that, Mary 
 had the garments of the royal house of David, 
 which were handed down from generation to 
 generation, so that it would be impossible for her 
 baby to be found lying naked in the straw. 
 
 Again, it is contrary to Scripture. One of 
 the signs by which the shepherds were to know 
 the child was that they would find Him wrapped 
 in swaddling clothes. And yet all our artists 
 paint this babe naked, because they say it is
 
 30 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 so pretty; and so for imaginary prettiness we 
 sacrifice the historical record, because the Scrip- 
 tures say that shall be the sign, "Ye shall find 
 Him wrapped in swaddling clothes." 
 
 I have a set of swaddling clothes here, a royal 
 set of swaddling clothes such as Jesus had, which 
 we have amongst the people at the present day. 
 (The lecturer produced the different garments 
 and explained them as she continued.) First of 
 all, here is a garment such as Mary would have 
 worn. Mary was a princess of the House of Da- 
 vid, and she was a virgin; and so, as a princess 
 and a virgin her garment would be blue ; that is a 
 sign of her virginity and her royalty. The princes 
 of the House of David all wore garments of dif- 
 ferent cloths. Mary's would be of this beautiful 
 royal blue, all woven with gold. She is a candle- 
 stick of the Lord, so there is the candlestick all 
 woven in gold thread, so that everybody would 
 know that Mary was a candlestick of the House 
 of David, and a handmaid of the Lord. 
 
 Now, Mary would have to have a white gar- 
 ment like this over her head. (Indicating.) This 
 is the way she went about until she came to Beth- 
 lehem, and everybody would know, "Why, Mary, 
 she is a virgin of the Lord, and she is in the tem- 
 ple, the candlestick of the House of David." You 
 can tell everybody in the temple by the garments 
 that they wear. 
 
 Now, Mary is going to become a mother. She 
 has come to Bethlehem. She still wears the vir- 
 gin's garments, but now the time has come when
 
 The Nativity of Christ 31 
 
 Mary was to be a mother. And so Mary takes 
 off the outward garment, this white silk one here, 
 and she must throw it over the manger. Now she 
 must take off her silken garment with the candle- 
 stick of the Lord upon it, for now the one that is 
 to be born is to be the candlestick; He is the light 
 of the world. So she puts her garment over the 
 manger in this fashion (indicating). 
 
 Now, she must have another garment here, a 
 swaddling garment, and this swaddling garment 
 is of white silk (indicating). The shepherds have 
 to find all of these things. This garment is of 
 white silk, striped with blue; that shows that it is 
 a royal child. Blue is a sign of royal blood, and 
 that is where you get your expression "blue 
 blood." Part of this swaddling garment would 
 hang over the other garment in this fashion (indi- 
 cating). 
 
 Now, the genealogy of this child is to be reck- 
 oned with. Besides the royal house, He comes 
 from the House of Boaz through Ruth, and they 
 must bring the sign of the mother's family. So 
 this red garment would be from the land of Moab, 
 and would show that the blood of the land of 
 Moab flowed through His veins. 
 
 What else is this child to be? This child 
 is to save the whole world from their sins, so 
 He has to have a swaddling garment of many 
 colors to show that He was a universal man,, 
 that in His veins flowed the blood of all na- 
 tions, of people of every condition of life a 
 garment of many colors. You read that Jacob
 
 32 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 made his son Joseph a coat of many colors. Now 
 I have here a little coat of many colors, and will 
 show you what kind of coat Jacob made for Jo- 
 seph (indicating). Now, this coat is all woven in 
 many colors. Why did Jacob make his son Jo- 
 seph a coat of many colors? Because he chose 
 Joseph to be chieftain and leader over all his 
 brethren. When a man has a son whom he wants 
 to take his place, to be the heir, he will make for 
 his son a coat of many colors, and when that son 
 puts on that coat, everybody knows that he is the 
 chieftain of all the tribes. Now, when Joseph's 
 brethren saw him coming along in that coat, that 
 is why they said : "Ha, ha ! So father intends to 
 make him ruler over us ! We will kill him." They 
 wanted to kill him. They did n't kill him, but 
 they took his coat off, and put him in a pit, and 
 took the coat and dipped it in blood and brought 
 it to the father and said, "Look here, is this thy 
 son's coat?" If Joseph had had this coat when 
 the Midianites came along, they would have 
 bowed down to Joseph, because they would have 
 ^, known that his father had chosen him to be chief- 
 tain of the tribe, and they would have given Jo- 
 seph a band of soldiers to go and establish his 
 right as chieftain of all the tribe. Had he had the 
 coat on when he went to Egypt, Pharaoh would 
 have given him a regiment to help him establish 
 his right. But when they took his coat away 
 from him, poor Joseph was nothing but a white 
 slave, and they could take him and sell him. 
 When Jacob saw the coat he burst into tears, 
 
 t.
 
 The Nativity of Christ 33 
 
 and said, "Alas! alas! Some wild animal has 
 eaten him up." If you turn to I Chronicles, fifth 
 chapter and second verse, you will read, "But the 
 birthright was Joseph's" that is why he had the 
 coat of many colors "but Judah prevailed against 
 his brethren." So the coat of many colors is 
 typical of the rainbow. God made a covenant with 
 Noah by sending the rainbow to promise him that 
 He would never destroy man by flood in this world. 
 And so a man makes for his heir a coat of many 
 colors to signify and typify that as long as he has an 
 heir his household will never be destroyed. And so 
 the Christ had to have a swaddling garment of many 
 colors, to represent God's promise to the world, and 
 He was the one that was to have in His vejns__the 
 blood of all people^ and to save them from their 
 sins. Now, this belonged to one of the prince 
 shepherds, and he had in his veins the blood of 
 various chieftains of many tribes. And so it 
 belonged to a chieftain on the other side of 
 Jordan. So here you will find that the babe 
 is wrapped in this, and everybody knows now 
 all about His history. 
 
 Now, what else is there? Here we have two 
 swaddling bands (indicating). This is a swad- 
 dling band of white linen, beautifully embroidered 
 with silver thread. That is one band, and then 
 here is another swaddling band, embroidered with 
 the history of the Garden of Eden. Both sides are 
 exactly the same. There is the Tree of Good and 
 Evil, and the Tree of Life. And here is the other 
 
 band, to show that this is a royal child. 
 3
 
 34 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 Now then, there is still another swaddling 
 cloth and that is the greatest of all (indicating). 
 This here is the shepherds' plaid. This is all 
 woven out of silk, with blocks of gold. When 
 you come to know that this swaddling garment 
 here is over five hundred years old by its geneal- 
 ogy, you will be astonished to think that that 
 could be such beautiful work, all woven by hand. 
 This gold has been sewed in with a needle made of 
 wire, and then cut round. This represents the 
 plaid of the King of the Shepherds. Tradition 
 tells us that David's swaddling garment was like 
 this ; and this was the same kind of plaid that the 
 child Jesus was wrapped up in, for He was King 
 of the Shepherds. These patterns are handed 
 down from generation to generation, and they call 
 them the patterns of the Lord. These patterns 
 tell you the religion of the people. Their whole 
 genealogy and religion are woven in their pat- 
 terns ; instead of writing it in books it is embroid- 
 ered. To-day we have changes in certain por- 
 tions of the country, where Western schools have 
 come and are teaching their own embroidery ; and 
 the old people do n't like it, because they say that 
 the young people are beginning to lose their his- 
 tory, because the girls no longer are embroidering 
 as they used to. So this is called the pattern of 
 the Lord. 
 
 I was sitting one day amongst these people, 
 and I heard some old people, who were sitting un- 
 der a tree the youngest of them was about sixty 
 years old and they had their heads together,
 
 The Nativity of Christ 35 
 
 and they were saying, "We have let the water out 
 of the well." I thought to myself, "I wonder 
 what they are up to?" I came up to them. I will 
 tell you the bond I have with the people of the 
 country. Besides being born and brought up 
 amongst them, I have a bond of union with them, 
 and that is that when I was born my mother could 
 not nurse me, and I had to have a native woman as 
 a nurse. There was the wife of a native chieftain 
 who was a great friend of my mother's. She had 
 a sister and a son, and her sister's son died, and 
 she gave her child to her sister, and she took me 
 to suckle instead of her son. And so they say I 
 have sucked boy's milk, and so I am called by 
 them a son. They say that because I have sucked 
 their milk, their blood flows in my veins. I am 
 their daughter and their son. And so here I sat, 
 and I gave them the sign that I belonged to them, 
 and I said, "What are you doing?" They said, 
 "We have let the water out of the well, because 
 we want to get the pattern of the Lord." And I 
 asked, "Where is the pattern of the Lord?" "It 
 is down in the well, in a secret basin in the bottom W-VM/V\ v 
 of the well." I said, "All right, I want to go down cv>^|0 ' 
 and see the pattern for myself." They said, "You 
 must take the oath that you will never reveal it." 
 So I took the oath. I looked down in the well; 
 it was deep and black, and there was a rope lad- 
 der to go down. I went down with them and saw 
 that the well was emptied of water. It was a well 
 that had been cut out of the rock, and it had been 
 plastered over. Here was a place where they had
 
 36 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 knocked the plaster off, and as the plaster fell 
 off of it there was a stone that had been rolled in 
 the rock, showing an entrance into another cham- 
 ber. And they took out the stone which had been 
 rolled in. There was a narrow passage about two 
 yards long, and when we had passed through that 
 we came into another little rock-cut chamber, and 
 this was full of all kinds of patterns, carved out in 
 marble, and on pottery, colored and otherwise, 
 of the most beautiful designs and colors that you 
 ever saw in your life. Then they picked out what 
 they called the pattern of the Lord, and brought 
 it up to the sunshine. Here was the modern Ly- 
 dia, with her girls, that do fine embroidery and 
 make the patterns and weave the genealogy of 
 their people (indicating). You see this hand-em- 
 broidered veil ; it tells the whole history of the 
 people. Both sides of it are embroidered exactly 
 alike. And that means, as you are aware yourself, 
 you must remember that you must never have a 
 "wrong side to your life, it must always be the 
 right side. So that is what it teaches them : that 
 they must ever bear in mind there must be no 
 wrong side of life. (Indicating) And here are 
 the silks with which they embroider them; just 
 floss silk, the native silk of the country. 
 
 I will now show you different patterns, such 
 as have been taught to-day in some of the schools. 
 (Indicating) You see what a gaudy pattern that 
 is, and you can understand why the old people 
 have such righteous wrath against such a pattern, 
 because it means to them nothing. (Indicating)
 
 The Nativity of Christ 37 
 
 But this means their ancient history ; it speaks to 
 them of the salvation through the ark; it speaks 
 to them about Noah and all the prophets and 
 kings, because in it is woven the history of their 
 people. But this (indicating the modern pattern) 
 is nothing to them at all. So you read about the 
 modern Lydia, the seller of purple and fine linen. 
 She would sell all these patterns of the Lord, and 
 would have fifty to one hundred maidens doing 
 this beautiful embroidery. And they came and 
 began to match the colors and embroider the pat- 
 tern. Then came one of the carvers, and he began 
 to carve that pattern on a crude piece of stone, 
 and another on a piece of mother-of-pearl. How 
 they do this I do n't know. This pin that I have 
 here (indicating) was simply carved with a rude 
 instrument. Another man began to paint upon a 
 piece of pottery or marble the pattern of the Lord. 
 And after they had copied it, this pattern of the 
 Lord in marble, with a great deal of ceremony 
 was taken back down into the well and put back 
 in the chamber, and the stone was rolled to the 
 mouth of the chamber, and they plastered the 
 stone over and turned the water on ; and for what 
 I know that pattern of the Lord still lies in that 
 well to-day. Explorers in our country sometimes 
 come upon these things and wonder what they 
 mean ; but we know that they are the patterns of 
 the Lord that have been hid in the bowels of the 
 earth or in the caves. That is how we keep them 
 secret, and it is only in their sayings and songs 
 that we can find out about the histories of these
 
 38 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 people. For into the web of the Palestine em- 
 broideries and weavings is woven all that is funda- 
 mental in our romances, our tales and our religious 
 mysticism. 
 
 Now then, comes this pattern of the Lord (in- 
 dicating) ; this would be the pattern of the House 
 of David, and it would have been handed down, 
 and Mary would have had this to show that she 
 was of the royal House of David; and the child 
 Jesus would have been wrapped in the same swad- 
 T f r/ dling garments that belonged to David. For He 
 was to put on the seed of David, and so this pat- 
 tern of the Lord would be arranged here, the 
 royal swaddling garment of the shepherd king. 
 
 So here lay the child in this manger, and 
 there must have been beautiful flowers and ever- 
 greens and palm trees. For every child that is 
 born in the East, a wreath of evergreen and a 
 potted palm is brought, in order to show that it 
 is an immortal soul. Where do you get your 
 idea of the Christmas tree? From us. The ever- 
 -~*3 green is to show that that child is an immortal 
 soul. So here there will be also a lamp (indicat- 
 ing), a seven-branched candlestick. And so it 
 was with the shepherds. 
 
 With the shepherds now we come to Bethle- 
 hem. We come to the door of the inn, and say to 
 the innkeeper or porter, "Where is the family 
 from Nazareth, of the House of David?" Every 
 one that cotnes has to bring their ensign with 
 them. They had come up officially. Joseph and 
 Mary didn't come up as two tramps, did they?
 
 The Nativity of Christ 39 
 
 They came up, why? Because, you must know, 
 they were of the lineage of the House of David, 
 and so they came up as representative people of 
 the most renowned house in the country, who were 
 originally natives of Bethlehem, and who still had 
 property in it, for they had for generations paid 
 the land tax which Joseph and Mary now had come 
 to pay, and the owners must be found where theirQ^t^,^ ^ 
 property is at the time of the tax gathering. And -Htit/ 
 so we say to the porter, "Where is the family?; 
 Where are those of the House of David?" And 
 he says, "Why, don't you see? Look over there 
 and you will find them." You will find them, 
 how? By their ensign. Here would be the en- 
 sign of the House of David (indicating). This 
 is a root of Jesse of the House of David. You 
 can tell always by that sign the descent of the 
 man. "And so, for the Christ, in that day, there 
 shall be the root of the House of Jesse, which shall 
 stand for an ensign of the people. To it shall the 
 Gentiles come." And he says, "You go there under 
 the arcade and you can find them, and tell them by 
 their ensign." So, as we come along, we stumble 
 over camels and sleeping horses and bags of 
 grain, and stumble, and stumble. They see a 
 baby in the manger. How could they know one 
 from another? It is said that there were twelve 
 babies in the mangers when Jesus was born in_ . 
 Bethlehem, which represented the number of the *>**> 
 Apostles. It is a very common thing to find a 
 baby in a manger. The wives of the camel driv- 
 ers, and the women who do the work in the inn
 
 40 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 place their children in the manger because it is an 
 easy place. And now there were thousands of 
 people who had come from all parts of the coun- 
 try, and there being no room in the inn, it was a 
 natural thing to find a baby in a manger. And 
 how would you know one baby from another, ex- 
 cept by the ensign and the swaddling clothes of 
 its clan and its tribe? And the shepherds came 
 along and said, "There is a baby in the manger," 
 and they said, "Do n't you see that that is the en- 
 sign of the House of Ishmael? We want to find 
 the ensign of the House of David? Another they 
 find, but it is not the one. O, where can they be, 
 that family from the House of David? "O, look! 
 look ! look !" says one to the other. "Do n't you 
 see? There it is! the root of the House of Da- 
 vid ! There is the rod of the House of Ephraim ; 
 both of them joined together. They are of the 
 House of David!" 
 
 So the shepherds came to them, and bowed 
 low before Joseph and Mary, and said, "May this 
 newcomer be a blessing unto you." And Joseph 
 and Mary said to them: "And may you shep- 
 herds likewise receive such a blessing. Enter, 
 you messengers of God." So the shepherds came 
 and brought their offerings of lambs and laid them 
 before the child. And they looked at the babe and 
 said, "There is the swaddling garment of which the 
 angel spoke." And the chief shepherd says, "We 
 were just now in the field, and a great light shone, 
 and a great angel came among us and said to us, 
 'Unto you is born this day in the city of David a
 
 The Nativity of Christ 41 
 
 Savior which is Christ the Lord, and this shall 
 be the sign : you shall find Him wrapped in swad- 
 dling clothes, in the plaid of the King of the 
 Shepherds.' And so here we find Him just as the 
 angel told us." And Mary sat up among her 
 friends and said: "So the angel has appeared to 
 you, just as the angel appeared to me when he an- 
 nounced the birth of our child. It is the fulfill- 
 ment of prophecy. You know, O shepherds, you 
 know how it is written in the prophets." And 
 here Mary, who was the daughter of the temple, 
 would open the manuscript and would read to 
 them. "You know how it is written in the proph- 
 ets ; our Prophet Isaiah, how he prophesied about 
 this time: 'But the people that walk in darkness 
 have seen a great light. They that dwell in the 
 land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the 
 light shined.' And so, O friend shepherd, you 
 have fulfilled the prophecy. Upon you, according 
 to the Scriptures, hath the light shone. You who 
 dwell in the shadow of death, to you have the 
 angels appeared and informed you that the light 
 of the world is come, and now that He is come it 
 becomes us to light the lamp. You have an- 
 nounced to us His coming. And now we shall 
 light His lamp. He is the light of the world. 
 Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory 
 of the Lord is risen upon man." 
 
 And so here Mary proceeded to light 
 seven-branched candlestick. Now, from time im- 
 memorial the seven-branched candlestick is re- 
 garded as being the most holy thing that the
 
 42 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 Jews have in the temple. You read that it was 
 in the Holy of Holies. You find how holy and 
 how precious it was even regarded by foreign na- 
 tions : for when the Romans took the children of 
 Israel into captivity, the first thing they did was 
 to take their golden candlesticks. Go to Rome 
 to-day and look upon the famous Arch of Titus, 
 , and you will find in the center of the arch, as a 
 keystone, a sculptured seven-branched candle- 
 stick, to show that they had taken it away from 
 the Jews. The seven-branched candlestick typi- 
 fies that God created the world in six days, and 
 the seventh day He blessed and hallowed it; and 
 that was the birth or rather the coronation day of 
 man, when he was made king, and God said, 
 "Have dominion over everything." And this 
 candlestick is also called the candlestick of God; 
 for God had seven spirits you read about the 
 seven spirits burning before the throne of God. 
 You read in Revelation about the Son of man 
 walking in the midst of the seven golden candle- 
 sticks. And so the meaning of this candlestick 
 is, the three in the center are called the trinity of 
 God. The first is, God is omnipresent; God is 
 omnipotent; God is omniscient. Now, this is 
 called the Holy Trinity of God. (Here the lec- 
 turer lights the candles). Now then, God is jus- 
 tice, God is truth. That is called the great power 
 of God, the hand of God. The fifth, holy, for He 
 has created all worlds, all powers are in His 
 hands, He hath dominion over everything by the 
 power of His hand, and by that hand He rules
 
 The Nativity of Christ 43 
 
 in justice and in truth; omnipresent, omnipotent, 
 and omniscient. 
 
 Ah, but what else is there of God? God is 
 bounded. You say, "How can God be bounded?" 
 God is bounded, though He is omnipotent and 
 omnipresent and all-powerful, yet He is bounded 
 by mercy and by love. So those are called the 
 mercy seat of God mercy and love on either side 
 of Him. And so that is the meaning of the seven- 
 branched candlestick. 
 
 And as Mary lit this candlestick she said: 
 "For thou wilt light my candle ; the Lord my God 
 will enlighten my darkness. Now has been ful- 
 filled the saying of our great ancestor David, 
 For his candlestick has been lit. He prayed that 
 the Lord should light his candle, and He now has 
 enlightened the darkness of the world. The spirit 
 of man is the candle of the Lord, and so the Spirit 
 of God now has come, in His own blessed Son, 
 for the angels revealed to me that He was the 
 Son of God, born of the Holy Spirit. And so, as 
 the Spirit of God in man, He is the candle of the 
 Lord, and the candlestick for the light of the 
 world has come, and His name is Jesus." And all 
 the shepherds bowed down and worshiped Him, 
 and Mary kneeled down with them in prayer as 
 they all worshiped the child Jesus and sang in 
 chorus : "The light of the world has come. Im- 
 manuel, God is with us, Christ is born in Bethle- 
 hem." And so the shepherds praised and glori- 
 fied God, and they went out glorifying God, and 
 you read that soon all Bethlehem heard and
 
 44 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 wondered at the things that the shepherds had 
 told them. 
 
 And so in Bethlehem, of Judea, in His own 
 homeland, in that inn of His ancestors, the home 
 of Boaz, was born Jesus, that is Christ, fulfilling 
 all the prophecies made about Him, that He was 
 to put on the seed of David. Therefore, was not 
 He the son of David? But, as the angel said: 
 "Unto you is born this day in the city of David 
 a Savior which is Christ the Lord, and this shall 
 be the sign: you shall find Him wrapped in 
 swaddling clothes of the shepherds' clan. Glory 
 to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will 
 towards men. The light of the world has shone !"
 
 II. 
 
 The Childhood of Jesus.
 
 THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. 
 
 Last night we saw the shepherds at the man- 
 ger, and we saw the seven-branched candlestick 
 lit, and we found that Jesus was born in a stable . .^ J " 
 and laid in a manger, not because the family 
 were too poor, but because there was no room in 
 the inn. There is a general impression that Jo- ' 
 seph and Mary were very poor, and we get that 
 idea because we read that the babe was born in 
 a stable and laid in a manger. But we have now 
 comprehended it from a different standpoint. It 
 does not say because they were poor, but "be- 
 cause there was no room in the inn." We 
 have n't got a word of authority in the Bible, 
 after all, that they were very poor; we have sim- 
 ply jumped at the conclusion. The idea of pov- 
 erty was because of the stable, and because in 
 Luke it says, when they came to do for the child 
 according to law, they brought a pair of turtle 
 doves and pigeons, and there the recorder 
 stopped. 
 
 Now, the old Levitical law was that they were 
 to bring a lamb to be sacrificed for the redemp- 
 tion of the soul of the child, and doves and pig- 
 eons were brought as an offering and atonement 
 for the mother. The Levitical law went on to 
 47
 
 */ 
 
 48 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 say that if the parents were too poor to bring a 
 lamb, they could omit the lamb, but they must 
 bring the doves and the pigeons; and we have 
 jumped to the conclusion that they could not af- 
 ford to bring the lamb. The recorder mentions 
 nothing more, and we have just come to that con- 
 clusion. 
 
 Now, there was a greater reason than poverty 
 for Mary not to bring a lamb. Mary could not 
 1 possibly have been so poor as not to bring a lamb, 
 because a lamb in that country costs only fifty 
 cents. But suppose she was too poor to pay the 
 fifty cents, how about the shepherds that came? 
 Every shepherd that comes to pay you an ordi- 
 nary visit must bring you a lamb as a present in 
 his bosom. But at a birth they must bring three: 
 one to be sacrificed for the body, one for the soul, 
 and one for the spirit. Now, every shepherd that 
 came up to the birth of Jesus must have brought 
 three lambs, at any rate two: for body and soul. 
 At an ordinary visit they bring you a lamb. 
 Every time I go back to Palestine, when my 
 shepherd friends come to pay me a visit, they all 
 bring a lamb in their bosom, and I have got a 
 flock of sheep! 
 
 The angels took the trouble to come down 
 from heaven and announce to the shepherds that 
 their King was born; that He was born in the 
 City of David, and that He was Christ the Lord. 
 Every shepherd must have brought, three lambs 
 and laid them at the manger. 
 
 How, how about Zacharias? He was a chief
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 49 
 
 priest of the city of Jerusalem. He was a wealthy 
 man. You can go to the ruins of his palatial 
 house in the hill country of Judea to-day. He 
 had hundreds of lambs grazing on the hillsides. 
 Would he allow his niece Mary to come to Jeru- 
 salem with the Christ as a pauper, without hav- 
 ing a lamb? Zacharias knew who the Christ was. 
 His own son had been sent, through God, to be a 
 special messenger, to prepare the .vay for this 
 child. Would Zacharias dream of such a thing 
 as to allow Mary to go to Jerusalem as a pauper, 
 with the Christ, to the temple? When Mary 
 comes to visit Elizabeth, Elizabeth kneels down 
 before her and says, "How does it come that 
 the mother of my Lord cometh to me?" And 
 was n't she filled with the Holy Spirit, and did 
 she not break out in a loud voice and exclaim, in 
 glorification to God, that the performance of this 
 would take place? Because Mary believed in 
 what the Lord had told her. Would it be possi- 
 ble for Zacharias and Elizabeth to allow Mary 
 to come down to Jerusalem, when this was the 
 Christ, and for this reason their own child had 
 been born as a messenger to prepare the way for 
 Him? 
 
 Now, when an infant is born in a stable in an 
 inn, which is very often the case, especially a 
 first-born child, it becomes the public property 
 of the people in the inn. All the donkey boys and 
 camel drivers and mule boys say, "Glory to God ! 
 We have a baby of our own down in the stable. 
 He is ours, glory and praise to God, a boy, a first- 
 4
 
 H i <r * , 
 
 50 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 born, a boy, a boy, a boy!" And what rejoicing 
 there would be that that child belonged to them, 
 and the boys would spend every nickel they had 
 to buy a present for this boy. Everybody would 
 * f bring a present and lay it down before that man- 
 ger the boy, the first-born boy! And every 
 guest in the inn must dower this child, which is 
 called Trekoot, and so every guest would come and 
 bring silver and gold and bags of money, silks, and 
 perfumes, and lay them before the boy, the first- 
 born. And the women would say, "A first-born, a 
 boy ; we must take off our jewels and lay them be- 
 fore this boy." So it must have been for the Christ, 
 for He was a first-born boy. 
 
 Now, if Jesus had been born in the palace, 
 which was only a few hundred yards away from 
 the inn, He would have belonged to some little 
 bit of a race of the Jewish people, just a little 
 handful. But Jesus, though He came as King of 
 the Jews, did n't come simply to save the Jews. 
 No, He came to save the whole world from their 
 sins. He put on the seed of David through the 
 Jewish race, but He did n't come to save only the 
 Jews. Had He been born in that little old palace 
 there, He would only have belonged to the Jews ; 
 but He belonged to the whole world, and that is 
 why He was born in a stable, because the stable 
 belonged to the whole world. Who would dare 
 to take Him a present over to the palace? You 
 know there is so much red tape about this roy- 
 alty, that they would have to ask permission. 
 You in your country have a lot of red tape. A
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 51 
 
 few years ago, when Prince Henry came to this 
 country, he brought a present for the President 
 from Emperor William. It is against the laws 
 and Constitution of the United States for any 
 President to accept a present from a reigning sov- 
 ereign, without the consent of the people. There- 
 fore they would have had to have a special ses- 
 sion of Congress in order to get the consent of 
 the people for your President to receive the pres- 
 ent of the Emperor. Therefore, your President 
 did n't receive the present. And so you see even 
 you have got these rules and regulations, and we 
 in the old world have got them so strict that you 
 can't come and bring a present, unless you have 
 a certain standing in order to have permission to 
 bring the present. But here in the stable, and on 
 this property that belonged to Him because 
 Christ was born on the property of His ancestor 
 David anybody could come. So Jesus was a 
 present to the whole world, and the whole world 
 could come and bring Him presents. 
 
 Any one who has traveled much and crossed 
 the Atlantic, must know that sometimes a baby 
 is born in the steerage, usually of poor parents. 
 I was crossing once on the Campania. It was 
 crowded with first-class, second-class, and steer- 
 age passengers. In mid-ocean it was announced 
 that a baby boy was born in the steerage. There 
 was great excitement. The first and second-class 
 passengers gathered together and appointed a 
 committee to ask permission of the captain that 
 they might get up a collection and give a present
 
 52 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 to the baby in the steerage ; and the captain said, 
 all right, they could do it. So they gathered a 
 great big collection; it was all silver and paper 
 and gold there were no nickels or pennies and 
 that sort of thing a fine big collection. One of 
 the gentlemen had just come from India and 
 China, and had a great many silk handkerchiefs, 
 and he gave one to the lady, and they made a 
 bag of it, and the father brought the baby on a 
 cushion and laid him on the table in the steerage, 
 and the committee made a speech and brought 
 out their offering to the little baby. The father, 
 in the name of the baby, accepted this present 
 with a great deal of grace. And then we found 
 that this father was one of the richest cattle 
 ranchmen out in the West. He could have 
 bought out the first and second-class passengers. 
 He was a foreigner, and chose to travel in the 
 steerage, but they got this present because the 
 baby was born in the steerage. 
 
 So the same thing here, and it is not because 
 that child was poor that He was born in the 
 stable; but because He was born there, He be- 
 longs to everybody. And so there was rejoicing, 
 and hallelujahs all over the inn over this boy, a 
 first-born boy, the greatest blessing that could 
 happen to anybody. They brought their gifts of 
 all kinds. And the men who had come to pay 
 their taxes to Caesar, brought their presents and 
 made their devotions to this little baby down in 
 the stable. And I have no doubt, as an Oriental- 
 ist who has made this a special study, that around
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 53 
 
 the manger of our Lord on that first Christmas 
 night there was enough to support Him if He . 
 had lived a hundred years. 
 
 So it is not because she was poor that Mary 
 does not bring the lamb. There was a greater 
 and mightier reason than poverty. What was the 
 reason? The lamb was typical of Jesus Christ. 
 Jesus Christ Himself, the Lamb of God, had come 
 to be sacrificed, and hgw could He be redeemed 
 bjr the sacrifice o a lamb ? Would n^ it have 
 shown that Mary was a stupid, foolish, ignorant 
 woman, if she had brought a lamb to be sacri- 
 ficed for her child? Wouldn't it have shown 
 that she would not believe what the angel had 
 told her: that her babe was to be the great 
 sacrifice? It would have proved at once that 
 Mary was unfit to be the mother of the Christ; 
 that she was, as Paul said, still "clinging to 
 the beggarly elements." How could she pos- 
 sibly bring a lamb, when she, in the temple, 
 was of the House of David, and she was the 
 one to whom the angel had come and told that 
 this child was to rule on the throne of His 
 father David, and of His dominion there should 
 never be an end to the House of Jacob? The 
 annunciation to Mary was, "The Lord God shall 
 give unto Him the throne of His father David." 
 Since Joseph was not His father, it was only 
 through His mother He could claim that lineage. 
 Now, the Epistle to the Romans says, "Concern- 
 ing His son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was 
 made of the seed of David according to the
 
 54 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 flesh;" and Mary knew that this babe was the 
 Son of God and the Savior of the world, and the 
 Lamb of God, and she had constantly read, be- 
 cause she was the reader in the temple, a sweet 
 singer of Israel, these passages every day of her 
 life in the temple, as a daughter and child of the 
 temple : "Sacrifice and offering Thou dost not de- 
 sire ; mine ears hast Thou opened : burnt offering 
 and sin offering hast Thou not required. Then 
 said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the Book 
 it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O 
 God; yea, Thy law is within my heart." 
 
 And then again, Mary, the daughter of kings 
 and priests, did she not know how the prophets 
 had thundered against the useless slaying of 
 sacrifices, in Jeremiah, and in Isaiah? God is 
 represented as saying: "To what purpose is the 
 multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? I am full 
 of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed 
 beasts ; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks 
 or of lambs or of he goats. . . . When ye 
 make many prayers, I will not hear ; your hands 
 are full of blood." Had Mary not seen that blood 
 pouring forth in the temple grounds, that useless- 
 ness of the sacrifices that were daily offered up in 
 the temple? Would she who knew the Scriptures 
 so well; she who had been chosen to be the 
 mother of the Christ would she add to these 
 useless sacrifices by bringing a lamb to be sac- 
 rificed for her child? What does the apostle say? 
 "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but 
 by His own blood He entered in once into the
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 55 
 
 holy place, having obtained eternal redemption 
 for us." O Mary, we think too little of that won- 
 drous character of Mary ! When she grasped the 
 situation, when she understood fully the meaning 
 of that revelation to her by the angel, how does 
 she break forth when she comes to Elizabeth? 
 She comes to Elizabeth and breaks forth and 
 cries, "My soul doth magnify the Lord ; my 
 spirit doth rejoice in God my Savior." She did n't 
 say in the priest my savior, in the temple my sav- 
 ior, in the sacrifice my savior, but "in God my 
 Savior." Look at the comprehension, the perfect 
 understanding of that at-one-ment with God! 
 With all our boasted civilization to-day ; with all 
 our so-called poets and poetesses, show me one 
 that could have so feelingly and spontaneously 
 broken forth, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, 
 my spirit doth rejoice in God my Savior." She 
 had a full comprehension of the whole thing. 
 She would n't go and bring a lamb. 
 
 But Mary's great grief came to her when she 
 had to bring this lamb to God as a living sacri- 
 fice unto the temple. That is where the sword 
 pierced through her soul, about which Simeon 
 spoke. We do n't somehow give sufficient atten- 
 tion to Mary, because we think the Catholic 
 Church has done so much by way of adoration 
 that we have got a sort of repugnance to the vir- 
 gin mother, and do n't give sufficient thought to 
 her. We do n't want to worship her, but we want 
 to study that wondrous character. How did 
 Mary feel when Joseph suspected her virtue? Do
 
 56 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 we ever stop to think that she, who knew she was 
 so pure and perfect, the handmaid of the Lord, 
 would ever think that Joseph for one moment 
 would suspect her? Now, here comes Mary, 
 bringing this child into the temple. She has here 
 a prominent part to fill. She has to fill the part 
 almost of a priest, for she is bringing this Divine 
 Lamb of God as a sacrifice into the temple, flesh 
 of her flesh, and blood of her blood. It was her 
 own flesh and blood that was here in her arms, 
 and the legends tell us that as she stood at the 
 entrance of the temple, she wept as she looked 
 upon this beautiful baby, this baby that had now 
 become to her so precious ; she kissed it and loved 
 it and said: "O, how can I give it up? O, I 
 would give a thousand lambs, let them all be 
 slain, for Him ; only let me keep Him ! O, how 
 can I give Him up, so dear and precious to 
 me?" Then suddenly she said: "Strengthen my 
 heart, O Lord! I am Thy handmaid. I ask 
 Thee to give me strength to be able to give 
 Him up. He is so precious. But I am obedi- 
 ent to Thy will, for I am Thy handmaiden. Must 
 I give Him up as the Lamb of God, not as 
 the lambs that are being brought by the hun- 
 dreds to the priest, all slain, with their blood 
 flowing, but a living sacrifice? So she then 
 prayed, "Strengthen my heart." And the answer 
 came, "Thy heart is strengthened, O Mary." 
 Thus the unwritten histories tell us the voice 
 of angels said to her as she was entering the 
 temple.
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 57 
 
 So Mary enters in. She sees Simeon walking 
 in the court of the temple. It had been revealed 
 to him that he would not see death until he had 
 seen the promised light. And so here she was, 
 coming to the temple. And Simeon came for- 
 ward, and she gave him this precious burden, the 
 Lamb of God, into his arms. And Simeon, tak- 
 ing this burden, this Lamb of God, out of her 
 arms into his, broke forth exultantly and said, 
 "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in 
 peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." 
 Here is the salvation of the world in his arms, and 
 here his eyes had seen a light to lighten the Gen- 
 tiles, "And the glory of Thy people Israel." And 
 lo and behold ! when Anna came in, she prayed 
 and glorified God, for she had beheld the redemp- 
 tion of Israel. And so here Simeon dedicates Him 
 before the thousands of people that were gath- 
 ered in that temple court: dedicated Him as the 
 Lamb of God, and his eyes had seen the salvation 
 of Israel, and a light to lighten the Gentiles, and 
 the glory of the people of Israel. So, you see, 
 Christ's dedication was not done in a corner, but 
 He was brought up here in the temple as a living 
 sacrifice. And that is why Mary brings no lamb, 
 because her babe was the Lamb of God and could 
 not be redeemed by a sacrifice. 
 
 Mary did not go about gossiping, but Mary 
 kept those things in her heart, and she pondered 
 over them; she gave them deep and spiritual 
 thought, but she kept them quietly in her heart, 
 and pondered over them.
 
 58 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 MvUfcWr 
 "Yj,, 
 
 The taxation season in Palestine is a very in- 
 teresting one, for the old conditions still are in 
 force to-day. Just as they gathered the taxes in 
 the olden time, in the time of Christ, so they do 
 to-day. Palestine to-day is a Turkish conquered 
 province. In the time of our Lord Palestine was 
 a Roman conquered province. In regard to many 
 of our laws, they are the same. The mode of 
 farming the taxes is the same as in the olden 
 time. We have two representatives in the taxa- 
 tion season : one a Turk and the other an Arab ; 
 in the days of Caesar one was a Roman and the 
 other a Jew. When we collect our taxes, a de- 
 cree is sent forth that on such and such a day 
 the taxes will be collected. It was the same thing 
 in the time of Caesar Augustus. And there was 
 a census to be taken, and Caesar Augustus was 
 going to register the titles of the lands and enum- 
 erate the people; and the same condition exists 
 to-day. A decree is sent forth that upon such 
 and such a day the taxes will be collected, and 
 the people will gather from Dan to Beersheba, 
 from all parts of the country, to have their claims 
 settled and their names enrolled and to pay their 
 taxes. It is not as it is here, just hand in your 
 taxes to the tax gatherer; but you all gather at 
 the town or village where the taxes are to be paid, 
 and they generally begin with the lands and prop- 
 erty in the immediate vicinity of the place where 
 the taxes are to be paid. They begin to call the 
 names. Persons owning property in Bethlehem 
 and Nazareth must be present all the time, be-
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 59 
 
 cause their names will be called among the very 
 first, as belonging to Bethlehem, and among the 
 last as belonging to Nazareth. So we cam see 
 why Joseph and Mary had to remain there, be- 
 cause their names would be called among the 
 first as well as the last. If you had come to pay 
 your taxes, you would be gathered there in the 
 large square of the inn or of the village, and you 
 would be seated on the ground; a place like this 
 platform would be raised, upon which would 
 stand the tax gatherers and the scribe and the 
 treasurer and several of the elders of the com- 
 munity, and the tax gatherer would call out in a 
 loud voice. 
 
 Now, in the country you can own property, 
 but you can lease it and you need not live there. 
 But when the enrollment season comes, and the 
 tax is to be paid, you have to be present in order 
 to testify that you are a living soul. And so 
 Joseph and Mary had to come. The histories 
 tell us that Mary owned her property in Naza- 
 reth, and she was an independent property 
 holder. The Bible does not give us very much 
 information about Mary, but it says that she had 
 "her own house." You remember reading that 
 when she returns to Nazareth from visiting in 
 the hill country of Judea, she returns to "her own 
 house." A woman's name is never mentioned 
 in the East unless she is an independent property 
 owner, and sole representative of her line, male 
 and female. Otherwise they would say her cous- 
 in's house, her brother's house, her nephew's
 
 60 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 house some male relation belonging to her; 
 they would put his name instead. But "her own 
 house" means that she was an independent prop- 
 erty owner, the sole representative of her line, 
 male and female. 
 
 Not only therefore did Mary and Joseph own 
 property in Nazareth, but Mary and Joseph, be- 
 ing lineal descendants of the House of David, 
 owned property in the immediate vicinity of 
 Bethlehem; because, as in Great Britain, the 
 property is entailed, goes from father to son, and 
 can never be sold. You can dwell in Nazareth, 
 but at the enrollment season you have to come 
 and have it declared that you are a living soul. 
 So Mary and Joseph had to come because they 
 were lineal descendants of the House of David, 
 and both of them must have owned property in 
 Bethlehem as well as in Nazareth, and they went 
 up to Bethlehem to pay the land tax. She had her 
 own house because her father, Joachim, left it to 
 her, a palatial house, and that is where the an- 
 nunciation took place. 
 
 So Mary comes to Bethlehem with Joseph be- 
 cause it is the enrollment season. Here every- 
 body is gathered together. The ensign of each 
 tribe is right where they are seated, as the dele- 
 gates have their banners at a political meeting 
 or convention. So every one that has come to be 
 enrolled at the gathering of the taxes would have 
 their banner, and the tax gatherer would be here, 
 and he would call out in a loud voice. Here is 
 the scribe. Here is his ink horn. (Here the lec-
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 61 
 
 turer produced and exhibited an ink horn.) This 
 is what we might (fall a fountain pen I think 
 that is where they must have invented the foun- 
 tain pen. Here is a little ink well, and here are 
 the pens that are in the hole. You fill this with 
 ink. You may think that if you turn it upside 
 down it will run out. But no, you get a lot of 
 floss silk, and put it in and fill the hole, and the 
 floss silk absorbs the ink, so you have ink ready 
 for writing all the time. The scribe puts this in 
 his girdle. So you must imagine the scribe ; and 
 here is his pen and ink, the scribe sitting there, 
 with the treasurer on his left hand. The tax gath- 
 erer calls out in a loud voice : 
 
 "In the name of God, the most merciful and 
 bountiful Giver, I call upon you all that are 
 within the hearing of my voice to come forward 
 and pay your legal and lawful taxes as is re- 
 quired by the law of Caesar Augustus, Emperor 
 of Rome and King of the whole world, and also 
 by the law of God that is written on your hearts." 
 
 Now, at the time of Caesar Augustus they 
 said, of course, "Caesar Augustus." We use ex- 
 actly the same expression to-day, only instead of 
 saying "Caesar Augustus" we say, "Sultan Ha- 
 mid the Fifth;" "-In the name of Sultan Hamid, 
 Sultan of Turkey and King of the whole world, 
 and also by the unwritten law of God, written 
 upon your hearts, come forward and pay your 
 legal and lawful taxes, and have your names 
 written in the book of life." 
 
 Out of courtesy they have to begin with the
 
 
 62 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 royal families of this district, the royal families 
 that are mentioned, and the dukes and princes. 
 First of all we find here upon our list the name 
 of those belonging to the House of David Da- 
 vid who was King of Israel ; David, King of the 
 shepherds; David, born in Bethlehem; and in 
 this city of Bethlehem we shall now proceed to 
 enumerate those that are his descendants. First 
 of all we find upon our roll marked here, "Plain 
 of Rephaim," so many acres of land, bearing so 
 many bushels of wheat, and so many fruit trees, 
 all belonging to one called Joseph, of the House 
 of David. Joseph's residence is in Nazareth, but 
 he is a descendant of the House of David, not of 
 e r y a l l me > but of Nathan's ; not of King Solo- 
 .* mon's, but of the- Prophet Nathan's. He also is 
 ''belonging to the guild of the carpenters, line of 
 the House of David: those who construct tem- 
 ples and synagogues. "Now, therefore, O Joseph 
 the son of David, of" the line of Nathan, if thou 
 art in the hearing of our voice, we call upon thee 
 to come forward and declare that thou art a liv- 
 ing soul, and pay thy taxes." 
 
 Up would come Joseph, and throwing his 
 money down before the tax gatherer, the tax 
 gatherer would say to the treasurer, "Count it," 
 and he would count it. And the tax gatherer 
 would say, "Hast thou counted it? Is it all 
 right?" "Yes, my lord, it is all right." Then he 
 would turn to the scribe and say, "Now, scribe, 
 write that Joseph, the son of David, of the line of 
 the carpenter, hath appeared before us, that he
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 63 
 
 is a living soul, and that his name is worthy to 
 be written in the book of life. Hast thou written 
 it?" "Yes, my lord." 
 
 Now, this matter of the book of life may seem 
 strange to you. To us it is something of daily 
 occurrence. I was at one of these census gather- 
 ings, and a man was brought up. He could not 
 walk ; he was sick, and they had to carry him on 
 a stretcher. The tax gatherer asked him his 
 name, and asked the scribe to write his name. 
 And he said, "Hast thou written his name?" , 
 
 And the scribe answered, "Yes, my lord, for it is / W**" M 
 worthy to be written in the book of life." "Hast"j^L #ll* 
 thou written it?" And the scribe answered, "Yes, 
 my lord." Then we saw that man, by some su- 
 perhuman effort, raise himself up on his elbow, 
 and he looked at us with wondrous eyes I shall 
 " never forget those eyes with such joy in them, 
 and he said, "Praise and thanks unto God, my 
 name is written in the book of life." And with 
 that he expired right before us. But he was 
 happy that his name was written in the book of 
 life. Had he died one minute before, his name 
 would have been blotted out of the book of life. 
 So everybody has to have his name written in 
 the book of life to be worthy. If you are not 
 worthy to have your name written in the book of 
 life, it is blotted out. If you have committed 
 some crime or something against the law, it is 
 blotted right out. 
 
 So it is written that "Joseph hath paid his 
 taxes up to this day and this hour; and stands a
 
 64 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 free man in the books of Caesar Augustus, free 
 of all arrears of taxes. Hast thou written?" 
 And the. scribe answers, "Yes, my lord." And 
 the tax gatherer says, "Now Joseph, son of Da- 
 vid of the line of Nathan, thou hast paid thy legal 
 and lawful taxes and thy name is written in the 
 book of life." 
 
 "Next upon our program we find the fields of 
 the shepherds, belonging to one called Mary, 
 daughter of David, of the shepherd line, a lineal 
 descendant in the royal line of Solomon and the 
 shepherd line of kings; also, on her mother's 
 side, of the House of Ephraim and Benjamin. And 
 therefore now, Mary is a princess of the House of 
 Israel and of the royal House of David. So many 
 acres of land belong to Mary, who lives in Nazareth 
 and also in Jerusalem. Mary, if thou art within 
 the hearing of our voice, we call upon thee to 
 come forward and pay thy legal and lawful taxes 
 and have thy name written in the book of life." 
 So then would come Mary, and kneeling before 
 the tax gatherer would throw down her bags of 
 money, and the treasurer would count it, and the 
 whole formula would be gone through with 
 again. And when the treasurer had said that it 
 was all right, and just as he would be about to 
 write, Mary would say: "Stay thy hand, O 
 scribe. My lord, and all the people gathered 
 here together, let me here declare to you that I, 
 Mary, princess of the House of Israel, and daugh- 
 ter of the royal shepherd line of David, am legally 
 and lawfully married to this man, Joseph, whom
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 65 
 
 you all know, of the House of David of the car- 
 penter line, living in Nazareth, and that I, of my 
 own free will, have married him, and that I have 
 empowered him to represent" me on all public 
 functions as my husband, and that you in this 
 new census of Caesar Augustus inscribe him as 
 such, as you know it doth not behoove a woman 
 who has a husband as a living soul, to appear in 
 public and pay her taxes, for it is only required 
 of a virgin or a widow; and for this reason I 
 have come to Bethlehem to declare this unto you, 
 so that in this new census you inscribe him as 
 my legally chosen and lawful husband. In the 
 name of God do I declare this unto you." 
 
 And the tax gatherer would turn and say, "Do 
 you bear witness what this woman hath said?" 
 And all the people would raise up their right 
 hands and say, "We do bear witness that she 
 swore by Almighty God that Joseph was her legal 
 and lawful husband." Then he would turn to 
 Joseph and say, "Joseph, is this woman thy legal 
 and lawful wife?" And Joseph would raise his 
 hand and say, "By the living God, by the rock 
 of the temple, Mary is my lawful wife." Then 
 the tax gatherer would turn to the scribe and 
 say, "Write, O scribe, that Mary this day hath 
 appeared before us, that she is a living soul, and 
 her name is worthy to be written in the book of 
 life. Hast thou written it?" "Yes, my lord." 
 "Write further, that Mary has declared to us that 
 she is legally and lawfully married to Joseph of 
 Nazareth, and that she doth appoint him as her 
 5
 
 66 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 legal representative, and that she stands free of 
 taxes and stands in the census of Caesar Augus- 
 tus as a free woman, and recorded as married to 
 Joseph of Nazareth. Hast thou written it ?" And 
 the scribe answers, "Yes, my lord." "And now, 
 Princess Mary, may the Lord preserve thee as the 
 apple of His eye ; in the palm of His hand may He 
 ever uphold thee, and the peace that passeth un- 
 derstanding rest with thee in this new life. Rise, 
 daughter, and go in peace." And Mary would 
 rise and step to one side, and go in peace. 
 
 And then the tax gatherer would say: "Are 
 there any more of the House of David? Any 
 more? We simply have had two names recorded 
 of the House of David. If there are any more of 
 that lineage, let them now come forward before 
 we go on to the other families of the district, and 
 of the community and of the land. Any more, 
 any more, any more of the House of David be- 
 fore the record of the House of David is closed?" 
 
 And here Mary came up, and she said, "Yes, 
 my lord, one more of the House of David." And 
 the tax gatherer asked: "What more of the 
 House of David? Who may that be?" "My lit- 
 tle son, my lord." "Your son, Princess Mary?" 
 "Yes, my lord. I came from Nazareth that my 
 son might be born in the home of His ancestors, 
 and He was born there, in the inn, in the very 
 property of our ancestor David, of the House of 
 Boaz, in the very inn which belonged to our great 
 ancestor Boaz He was born." "Where is He?" 
 "Behold, nurse, bring the child." "Is that your
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 67 
 
 child?" "Yes, my lord." "And what may His 
 name be?" "Jesus." "Jesus? No wonder I saw 
 the glory of God over you. He is the Christ?" 
 "Yes, my lord ; the Christ that was to be born of 
 the House of David. I have had a great honor 
 and privilege. A handmaid of the Lord, as you 
 all know, serving in the temple, and a singer in 
 the temple, the angel appeared to me and an- 
 nounced to me that the child was to be born and 
 that we were to call Him Jesus, and that He was 
 to be the son of the House of David and the Son 
 of God. And so He has been born, and He is the 
 Christ." "And is it possible that I have this 
 great privilege, to be able to look into the face 
 of the Christ, the Christ of the seed of David ac- 
 cording to the flesh? Write, O scribe, one more 
 of the House of David. His name is Jesus, the 
 Christ. He is in the book of life, of the House of 
 David. Close up the record of the House of Da- 
 vid, for with Jesus Christ the House 
 now closes. Every blessing be upon thee, 
 Mary, thou art blessed above women, the mother 
 of Jesus Christ." 
 
 "Who hath declared His generation?" saith 
 the prophet. No other name after Jesus! No 
 other king could sit on the throne of David. So 
 came the end and the beginning, the beginning 
 of the reign of Christ, the end of the reign of the 
 House of David. And the unwritten histories tell 
 us that the tax gatherer was thus moved that he 
 had seen with his own eyes the Christ, and that 
 the scribe, with his hand trembling, had written
 
 68 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 Him down in the book of life. The traditions say 
 
 |/\j\"; that the tax gatherer was the father of Matthew, 
 
 who sat at the receipt of custom and afterwards 
 became an apostle. 
 
 And now we come back again to our wise 
 men, whom we left for a while last night. We 
 were walking with them towards Bethlehem. 
 Now with them we go to Bethlehem to find this 
 child. These men were wise men. They brought 
 with them gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 
 Now, gold always represents to us kings, frank- 
 incense means priests, and myrrh means scientific 
 men. So these wise men were representatives of 
 kings, priests, and scientists, and for once in their 
 lives these three great powers united together, as 
 one mind, to do honor to Christ. These wise men 
 were great astronomers and astrologers. We 
 have these men to-day still in the land, who are 
 great students of the stars. Their names are not 
 down in your university lists, they are not known 
 as Professor So-and-So, the great astronomer, of 
 such and such an observatory, but they are 
 known in their own land simply as men studying 
 the works of God. Come with me to one of these 
 tribes whose wise men are students of the stars, 
 and you will see them, sometimes night after 
 night, studying those wonderful stars; and they 
 will tell you, "We study the words of God and 
 His handwriting, so that we may attain eternal 
 life, for it is eternal life to have the knowledge of 
 God which has been revealed to us through Jesus 
 Christ."
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 69 
 
 Once, in company with my brother, we were 
 traveling on the other side of Jordan, and we 
 were the guests of one of these great chieftains, 
 who was a great student of the stars. It was one 
 of their star-studying weeks, and members of 
 every tribe beyond Jordan had gathered together, 
 the students, young men, and old men. And they 
 had thrown open their black tents. These tents 
 have a curtain in the center and are divided, half 
 for the men and half for the women, which the 
 curtain separated ; but they had lifted up the cur- 
 tains and the men had all gathered together. The 
 young men were on the left side, and my brother 
 was mingling amongst them, and the older men 
 were on this side, a group of them talking and 
 studying the stars, and I stood in the center of 
 the tent, leaning against the pole and looking at 
 those beautiful stars. The sky was of that won- 
 drous blue such as you can see only in that part 
 of the world. And as the atmosphere is very 
 rare, distances are very deceptive, and it seemed 
 to us as if we could touch the stars with our 
 hands. And O, the millions of them! O the 
 beauty of them, as we watched them ! And as we 
 looked at those wondrous stars, suddenly a star 
 shot across the sky, and a young man said, "Alas ! 
 alas ! a great soul hath passed away !" The Ori- 
 entals believe that when a star shoots across the 
 sky, it is a sign that some great soul has returned 
 to its home. They believe that God has the coun- 
 terpart of every star in a human being. As God 
 He is called the Shepherd of the Stars. He knows
 
 70 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 them by name, for He has made them with His 
 own hands. And then the chieftain, among the 
 old men that were standing there, said to the 
 young men, and especially to his son Ali: "Do 
 not be grieved that a great soul has passed away. 
 A greater soul than the one that has passed away 
 has been born into the world, for God never 
 leaves Himself without a witness. He calls one 
 rsoul hence, and sends another forth. Look at that 
 / star, how it shines ! Look at its beauty ! A 
 * greater soul has been born into the world than 
 the one that has left this world, to witness that 
 there is only one living and true God." And as I 
 listened to this man, I said to myself: "So it 
 must have been with the wise men of old. It 
 was these wise men that scanned the stars. It 
 had been prophesied of old, and all the seers and 
 prophets were looking forward to that time. And 
 now had come the time, according to their calcu- 
 lations, according to all scientific data that men 
 could understand, when that wondrous star, that 
 star of Jacob that had been prophesied so long 
 ago, was to appear, and in that star of Jacob was 
 to be born the great one. So, as they watched the 
 IM -vfat\. t-l heavens, suddenly there appeared to them that 
 
 star< ^ nc * w ^ en t^y saw t ^ ie star > t ^ ie y i un d 
 out that they must go to Jerusalem and there in- 
 quire as to the place where He was to be born 
 who was to be King of Israel. And so they jour- 
 neyed thither. 
 
 Now, they have found Him through Herod, 
 and they come here to Bethlehem, and they see
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 71 
 
 that star again, and they rejoice with exceeding 
 great joy. And they went in and opened their 
 vessels of gold, frankincense, and myrrh; they 
 put on their garments, each one wearing the gar- 
 ment of his profession or rank. There were seven y//w3, 
 wise men, but three of them were representa- 
 tives of professions. 
 
 What did they see? They found the young 
 child and Mary His mother. Nothing is said 
 about Joseph. Joseph had nothing to do with 
 this matter. They had come to find the child 
 Jesus and Mary His mother. And spj here they 
 came. First of all came the representative of 
 the king; and as he came he brought a crown in 
 his hand, upon a beautiful tray ; and as he brought 
 this crown, it is said to us that he knelt down be- 
 fore the child, and laid this regal crown before 
 Him and said: "We have tried to rule well; we 
 have tried to bring to the lives of the people the 
 might and power of God by the rule of the king. 
 We have done all that we could. But Thou, O 
 child, Thou art He that is to be Lord of lords~p ' / j?J 
 and King of kings." That is the title that the *^ 
 Persians gave their kings lord of lords and king 
 of kings for to the Persian the king always was 
 a representative, on earth, of God, and so they 
 brought their crown here, and they laid it before 
 Him, denoting that it was He that now was to 
 represent God, that He was the Lord of lords and 
 King of kings. And they bowed before Him, and 
 they took their oath of allegiance to Him. He 
 now was the great potentate.
 
 72 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 And then came the great priests, the wise 
 men, the seers, the prophets, the priestly class, 
 the highest, the Magians; and they came here, 
 '^and brought their offering of incense and laid it 
 before the child and said, "We have tried to be 
 mediators between God and man; we have tried 
 to show man that he belongs to God, to teach him 
 a higher life, and all we could do we have done. 
 But Thou art the Great High Priest; Thou and 
 Thou only art the Mediator between God and 
 man. Until now we have simply been represent- 
 ing Christ to come. But now Thou art the High 
 Priest forever unto God." And so they placed 
 their incense before Him. 
 
 And then came the great scientific men, they 
 who had delved down to the bowels of the earth, 
 who had looked into every flower and leaf and 
 root and plant, and into every stone, and into 
 gold and silver, and had tried to find out the 
 source of all life. They came, and they laid the 
 myrrh before Him, to signify that thgy had 
 looked to find the source ~of life in everything 
 that was created ; that now He was the One that 
 had created the whole world, and to Him be- 
 longed all this glory, for it was all His. 
 
 And so these three men bowed before Him and 
 glorified Him, and took their oath of allegiance 
 and worshiped Him. Therefore we see that when 
 God sent His only begotten Son into the world, 
 He sent the most precious thing that lie had. He 
 was heralded by angels, singing in the sky, 
 "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace,
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 73 
 
 good will towards men." We find Mary break- 
 ing forth, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and 
 my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior." We 
 find Simeon declaring Him the salvation of God, 
 "for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation," declar- 
 ing Him the glory of His people Israel. We find 
 the shepherds praising and glorifying God, for 
 they had found the Christ of God ; they had found 
 Him wrapped in swaddling clothes, and they 
 praised and glorified God, and soon all Bethlehem 
 heard and wondered at the things that had been 
 told them. And last, but not least, we find the 
 .wisdom of the world gathered together as repre- 
 sentative men, all_bowing and kneeling before 
 Him and recognizing Him as the Lord of lords 
 and King of kings. 
 
 And so the advent of our Christ was a glori- 
 ous thing in this world : proclaimed by wise men, 
 religious men, shepherds, priests, and kings ; and 
 it was not simply, as we have often pictured it, 
 that of a miserable, poor, unnoticed person com- 
 ing into the world, when every evidence in the 
 Scripture proves to us the contrary, and that 
 those that were lookingjfor the redemption of 
 Israel beheld in that child thejjlory of the people 
 of Israel. Kings and princes bowed before Him. 
 
 An angel appears to Joseph and bids him take 
 the young child and His mother and fly into 
 Egypt, "for Herod seeketh to destroy the child." 
 So Joseph and Mary take the child and flee into 
 Egypt. Egypt has from time immemorial been 
 a refuge for us in Palestine. Whenever we are in
 
 74 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 trouble or disfavor with the government, or wish 
 to escape military duty, we fly to Egypt, and the 
 Governor can not reach us there ; then, when the 
 danger has passed, we come back again. So with 
 Joseph and Mary; when the danger was passed 
 they returned to their home. Where did they go 
 in Egypt? To Heliopolis, which was the ances- 
 tral home of the Joseph who was married to Ase- 
 nath. And literally speaking, as Mary was a de- 
 scendant also of the house of Ephraim, she went 
 among her own kith and kin. So it was written, 
 "Out of Egypt I have called my son." And there 
 the child was protected. 
 
 After the danger was over they came back 
 again to Nazareth, and here we read that the 
 child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with 
 wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him. 
 I don't know how we get the idea sometimes that 
 Jesus was not a handsome man. Many of our artists 
 have given us very fine pictures of the Christ, but 
 others are hideous pictures. They get the idea from 
 the thought expressed in Isaiah, "He was with- 
 out form or comeliness." Now, when we want 
 to say about any person that he is not a Corbett 
 or a Sullivan, we say, "He is without form or 
 comeliness." That is what we would say of these 
 pictures in the newspapers, great big arms, like 
 ropes for muscles that is the idea of the world 
 to-day. People say, "That is a manly man; 
 look at his muscles." Everybody is exercising 
 with dumbbells to have muscles like ropes, be- 
 cause the idea of the world is just that a man
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 75 
 
 must be all bunched out. "God never delighted 
 in the legs of a man," we read in the Psalms, 
 "neither in the swiftness of a horse." That is 
 what we delight in, but God does not; man de- 
 lights in those things. So they were looking for 
 Christ to come as some great big blustering 
 fighter, and all the nations would say: "Do you 
 see that fist? We come as warriors to sweep 
 everybody off the face of the earth that stands 
 in our way. We are going to be IT, to have do- 
 minion over the world, being the strongest and 
 greatest warriors and men that the world has 
 ever produced." That was their idea. So the 
 prophet said, "He is without form or comeliness." 
 
 / Christ was not a form. You could not put 'Christ 
 in a form. What kind of a form would you put 
 
 V Him in? Whose ideal would be the one? Christ 
 was a power and not a form. He was without 
 form and without comeliness, according to the 
 ideas of the world. Some people think that it is 
 only a fighter that is really a handsome man; 
 others do n't think that. 
 
 But Jesus must have been the handsomest 
 man that the world has ever seen. How could 
 He be otherwise? Was He not the very embodi- 
 ment and incarnation of the law? Did Jesus 
 ever break the law? Was He ever sick? What 
 makes us ugly and decrepit? The breaking of Rm^cto \ 
 the law. Did Jesus ever break such a law? We y ^ " 
 never read that He was sick. He was the very 
 embodiment of the law itself, God in man, and 
 man in God perfection. He could not be other- r>
 
 
 76 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 wise than the most beautiful man that the world 
 has ever seen. So full of power, of health was He 
 that when the woman touched the hem of His 
 garment, in an instant she was healed. 
 
 And O, His voice ! Why, His very enemies 
 said, "No man spake like unto this man." The 
 descriptions that we have of Christ are that He 
 was tall and stately, with beautiful gray-blue 
 eyes and long dark lashes. He had the most 
 wondrous, compassionate eyes. His hair was of 
 the type of the house of David, which was the 
 auburn type. It was long and wavy and fell 
 o the shoulders, and sometimes, when the light 
 
 tiftnfLjwt It ' we struc k on Hi s head, His hair would look just like 
 a radiance of gold. Then, on the other side it 
 /v|w~ ft would be of dark brown, so some people would 
 K say, "His hair is dark brown, His eyes are black," 
 ^*f while others would say, "His eyes are gray-blue 
 and His hair golden." So both these types 
 seemed to blend with Him, and He was a beauti- 
 ful man, the most beautiful man the world has 
 ever seen. And the Bible says about Him, "And 
 Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor 
 with God and man." 
 
 We see Him as a child of twelve coming up 
 to Jerusalem. It is the Feast of the Passover. 
 Why does it mention twelve? Why doesn't it 
 say eleven or thirteen. Because twelve was His 
 initiation year. Up to the age of thirteen the 
 father or the eldest male member of the family 
 is liable to divine and human punishment for 
 the offenses of the boy, but as soon as the boy
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 77 
 
 becomes thirteen, the father or guardian brings 
 him up to the synagogue and declares that he 
 is rrow what is called a "Bar Mitzvah," "a child 
 of the commandment;" that his son has been 
 instructed in the why and wherefore of the 
 fasts and feasts, and all about the law, and the 
 ceremony of confirmation takes place, and this 
 child then becomes a member of the united 
 church, and he is looked upon as being old 
 enough to get married, and bears his own sins. 
 At twelve years old the ceremony of initi- 
 ation takes place and the child is initiated into 
 the why and wherefore of the fasts and feasts. 
 And so here Jesus comes, at twelve years old, 
 to be initiated into the Feast of the Passover. 
 You will see them coming to-day, from Dan to 
 Beersheba, with their flags and banners, to spend 
 the Passover in Jerusalem. During the lenten 
 season, they begin every day coming up to Jeru- 
 salem, and in Passion Week they all come by 
 tribes, bearing their banners, and the little boys 
 of the village go ahead of the procession, and 
 the boys that come to be initiated carry their 
 banner at the head of the procession. So the 
 Jerusalem procession meets those who come from 
 the villages, and precedes them through the 
 streets of Jerusalem, and they come to the places 
 of worship, and their banners are taken from 
 them and placed each one according to his line- 
 age. They attend the public service, and after- 
 wards attend what they call the schools of the 
 law, equivalent to what you call your Sunday
 
 78 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 schools. You have your Sunday school adjoining 
 your Churches. Ours would be outside, in the court. 
 There are arcades; there are the doctors of the 
 law, and all the little boys that can read gather 
 together and hear them study different questions 
 of the law. And those are open all day long, 
 every day not like your Sunday schools, one day 
 once a week. And we even have a relay of 
 priests that are there at night, so that if any- 
 body wants any instruction on a religious point, 
 they simply come here where the doctors of the 
 law are sitting, and they can get all the infor- 
 mation they want. 
 
 The little boys that can read are allowed to 
 come in with the doctors of the law, and are at 
 perfect liberty to ask any question of the doctors, 
 and the doctors ask them questions, so that the 
 child shall have a reason for his faith. And they 
 never think of silencing these young aspirants, 
 but question them very closely. You will see 
 the doctors of the law sitting in these different 
 places of worship. For instance, in the Mosque 
 of Omar the doctors of the law will be gath- 
 ered together at the Feast of the Nebi Moosa, 
 and at Easter time. These feasts are men- 
 tioned by their names, but the Passover and 
 Easter and the feast of Moses all fall together at 
 Easter time. The three different religions have 
 all been cradled out of the Bible, the Jewish, 
 Christian, and Mohammedan religions, so they 
 all have these same feasts, and the doctors and 
 priests from the different villages meet at these
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 79 
 
 three feasts, and the doctors of each respective 
 religion of Jerusalem give special lectures at 
 that time, each in their place of worship. And 
 after the public services, the doctors from the 
 different villages come and listen to the lectures 
 delivered by the different priests of Jerusalem. 
 It is a sort of parliament of religions. 
 
 Of the boys, the principal ones will begin 
 and read the opening part of the Scripture. And 
 as they read they will sway their bodies back 
 and forth in the Oriental way. They never 
 sit still, they rock back and forth. They believe 
 that in this way they can better become oblivious 
 to their surroundings, and that in this way they 
 can rock everything into their memories. It is 
 perfectly wonderful what memories they have. 
 If you come and talk to them, they do n't even 
 hear what you say. They become so absorbed 
 in their readings and recitations that they do n't 
 care, no matter who is there, they go right on 
 in the same way, and they sway their bodies 
 backwards and forwards and scream, "Bismillah," 
 "In the name of God, the most merciful and 
 bountiful giver, holy and blessed is His holy 
 name." Then they all sway their bodies back- 
 wards and repeat the same thing. This is pre- 
 liminary to these different discussions they are 
 going to have. 
 
 Now, as they are here seated, and these dif- 
 ferent children are asking questions, and the 
 principal doctor of the law is replying to them, 
 they see the child standing at the entrance. He
 
 80 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 has a little copy of the Scriptures in his hand, 
 and the priest says, "Behold, a child stands for 
 admission into our school. Shall we receive 
 him?" And they say, "Yes, receive him, in the 
 name of the Lord." He rises and comes up to 
 the child and bows, and the child bows before 
 him. He says, "Child, hast thou come to be 
 admitted into the school here?" And the child 
 says, "Yes, my lord." "You will be initiated 
 here?" "Yes, my lord." "The peace of God 
 therefore rest over you. Enter, child." 
 
 The child is brought in. All rise to receive 
 the child boys, priests, and all and the prin- 
 cipal priest takes the child and sets him in the 
 midst of them, because he is the child that has 
 come to be initiated. (Here the lecturer illus- 
 trated this reception, assisted by a child who 
 accompanied her upon the platform.) 
 
 Now, being a stranger and from Nazareth, 
 their principal preacher takes him under his own 
 wing, and so he will spread his cloak over him, 
 like that which is called sitting at his feet, or his 
 particular student, like Paul at the feet of Gamaliel, 
 (indicating) ; he is especially to be protected now 
 and to be taken care of by the principal priest. 
 And the child having long hair, as he has, shows 
 that he is a Nazarite. And his being dressed in 
 white shows that he has come up to be initiated. 
 Jesus must have worn His hair long, because He 
 was a Nazarite. That is their vow, that no scissors 
 must touch their hair. The priest would say to 
 him: "So you have come to be initiated? Now,
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 81 
 
 child, what do you understand about initiation?" 
 And the child would answer, "I understand by initi- 
 ation my relationship with God." "Your relation- 
 ship with God! Ho, ho, ho, ho! Listen, doctors; 
 listen, children, what he says, his relationship with 
 God ! You related to God ? Who told you that you 
 are related to God ?" "The Scriptures have said so." 
 "The Scriptures? Let us see where the Scrip- 
 tures say you are related to God." (Here the 
 lecturer produced a roll of manuscript.) Now, 
 this is the manuscript or copy of the law that the 
 child has, and I will just open it in order to 
 show you. You little boys and girls, if you 
 went to Sunday school, instead of carrying your 
 books, you would have a copy of the law rolled 
 on a stick. This is the stick, and the handle 
 is all inlaid with silver. (Indicating) This is 
 a copy, written on parchment. This roll would 
 be called also a flying roll. When the priest 
 especially wishes to bless the people, the word is 
 written on the skin or flesh of an animal. They 
 have n't yet understood that the Christ came in 
 the flesh, and that was why they regarded His 
 words as being so holy. They would n't regard 
 anything written on paper as being holy, but only 
 if it is written on what was once flesh. Parch- 
 ment was the skin of a holy and consecrated 
 animal, so it was the holy word of God ; and that 
 is why you can't get a Jew to show any disre- 
 spect to a copy of the law. If there is one 
 letter that is not correctly written, they will take 
 and bury it, because the skin is holy, it once was 
 6
 
 82 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 alive. And so it is the word of God written 
 upon what was once flesh, and they don't un- 
 derstand that the word of God became flesh. 
 And so he would take that and say: "The word 
 of God that once was flesh, that is holy; be at 
 peace with you. His flesh can only be peace, 
 peace, peace." So that is called the blessing with 
 the flying roll. 
 
 Now, he says: "Child, thou hast said that 
 it is written that thou art related to God. Now, 
 we have our Scriptures, both yours and these 
 others, and we will see where you can find it 
 that you are related to God. How do you know 
 that there is a God, in the first instance." "It 
 is written." "How do you know it is written?" 
 "It is written in the book that there is a God." 
 "Well, read, and let us see." "In the beginning 
 God created." "Well, how do you know? Sup- 
 pose we say to you there is no God, there is no 
 God, and that this is a forgery, it is not true; 
 what will you say?" And the child will say, 
 "Why, no one will forge anything that there 
 isn't an original of; but should even this be a 
 forgery, God hath written Himself upon the heart 
 of every man, and that can not be forged." 
 
 And so they were amazed at Jesus' learning. 
 They patted His shoulder. "Surely you have got 
 understanding, child, understanding of the word 
 of God. Yes, it is written in the Scriptures that 
 were inspired by God that man is related to God." 
 
 Now, therefore, has come the time when the 
 priest has to give to the children assembled to-
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 83 
 
 gether the history of the evolution of man. You 
 must n't think that it is only in this country 
 that they talk about the evolution of man. They 
 do that also away over on the other side of 
 Jordan, and they say: "Now, many infidels 
 have come to our land, and have brought their 
 books, and translated them into our holy lan- 
 guage, so that our youth can forsake their God; 
 and the infidel says in his books, that he calls 
 science, that man has come out of an animal, 
 that he is evolved out of a monkey; that the 
 animal has been growing until it became a mon- 
 key, and out of that ugly monkey came man." 
 That is what the world says, and therefore they 
 trace no relationship to God. 
 
 Now, the Scriptures tell us, and our wise 
 men, and it has been handed down from time 
 even before the Scriptures were written, that God 
 hath created everything after its kind, and this 
 world is God's garden ; it was His specialty, a 
 kind of model farm. He created everything after 
 its kind and said, "Let it be, let Jt^be, letjt be." 
 And all this came into existence as God had 
 thought it in His mind. He had built it in His 
 mind, and then He manifested it all in these dif- 
 ferent creations, and nothing evolved one out 
 of the other. He did not say, "Out of a fish 
 shall come a bird, and out of a grasshopper a 
 fish," and all that sort of thing, but each one 
 according to his kind. There is a similarity, 
 but that is as in all things, basically; there is a 
 similarity, but every kind is of its own kind.
 
 84 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 Then God said, "Let us make man in our own 
 image." He did n't say in the image of a monkey 
 or any of these animals. He did n't say, "Let 
 us gather all these animals together and we will 
 make man out of them," because man's making 
 had nothing to do with that of the beasts, for 
 God did not gather all the beasts together and 
 say, "I will make a man of them." But He took 
 of the dust, that precious, wondrous dust that 
 He only has made and that only He knows the 
 secret of not this mud that we see, for we know 
 it was the divine dust that He took, because He 
 was going to make a divine man, a man after 
 His own image; and so He took of this dust and 
 He created man; He fashioned him, made him. 
 Then, when He had made him He did n't say, 
 "Let it be," but what did He do? He took and 
 breathed into his mouth did He breathe? No, 
 for your mouth is given for speech and for food, 
 but He breathed into his nostrils, and that won- 
 derful breath went through him, and man be- 
 came a living soul a living soul ! 
 
 Now then, man is made in the image of God, 
 a living soul by God's own creation. And then 
 man wants to know where he came from, and so 
 he wants to see if he belongs to any of the ani- 
 mals. He wants to find out where he can find 
 his mate in the animals and see if he evolved, as 
 these infidels say that he came out of tjiem. And 
 so man had all the animals, and he named them, 
 and God saw that Adam named every animal 
 according to its name, and as Adam looked into
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 85 
 
 this evolutionary business to see if he was there, 
 he could n't find himself. He found that he was 
 not from the animal, but he was from God. And 
 when God saw that Adam understood that he 
 had n't evolved out of a monkey or an animal, 
 then God put him to sleep, and He took of that 
 very breath that He breathed into his nostrils, 
 for there are two nostrils and there were two 
 breaths of God in man then God took that other 
 life and He builded a woman, and therefore man 
 and woman, in the image of God created He them. 
 They are holy ; and therefore you are a descend- 
 ant of that man and woman, created by God, 
 and you are not related to the monkey. And 
 so when you go forth to the world to preach 
 the gospel of your religion, preach to them that 
 you are a child of God and not the child of an 
 animal. Praise and glory to His holy name, you 
 are related to Him and you come to God's temple 
 to be joined to God, to show that you are God's 
 child, and to declare to the world that you are 
 related to God. 
 
 So here the child was amongst the doctors, 
 and we see what wisdom Jesus had. Some 
 people go to the extent of saying that Jesus was 
 an ignorant mechanic, a Galilean peasant, and 
 all that sort of thing; but when He was a child 
 of twelve He astonished all the doctors of the 
 law in the temple. And do you suppose the 
 doctors of the law were not wise men? Here 
 He was, asking questions, fulfilling the prophecy, 
 "And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,
 
 86 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit 
 of counsel anofcmight, the Spirit of knowledge, and 
 of the fear of the Lord ;" and His mother and 
 Joseph looked for the child and could not find 
 Him, but thought that He had gone on with their 
 kinsmen. So they come back to Jerusalem to 
 look for their child. Suddenly Mary remembers 
 that He must be in the temple, and she comes 
 and finds Him sitting among the doctors of the 
 law. And so Mary comes to speak to Him. Why 
 does n't Joseph come ? Joseph was not, a son 
 of the temple. Mary had been brought up among 
 them. No other woman could have gone, no 
 more than a woman could go into the classrooms 
 of Yale or Harvard unless she was a student 
 amongst them; then she could come in. But 
 Mary could go in. Joseph could not go and talk 
 to the child, because he did n't belong to the 
 doctors of the law; but Mary did, and so he 
 accompanies her. Joseph was her protector, and 
 he accompanied her. She comes up and touches 
 the child on the shoulder and says to Him : 
 "Child, why have You dealt with us in this 
 fashion? Behold, Your father and I have been 
 looking for You everywhere." And the child 
 looked at her sweetly and said to her, "Wist ye 
 not, mother, that I must be about My Father's 
 business?" Who had told Him Joseph was not 
 His father? Mary had especially kept this as a 
 secret from Him, for it was her business to attend 
 only to His human development and not tell Him 
 that He was a child of God until that would be re-
 
 The Childhood of Jesus 87 
 
 vealed to Him by God Himself. And so she was 
 amazed that He knew about it, for she knew that 
 neither she nor Joseph had told Him. And so He 
 said, "Wist ye not that I must be about My 
 Father's business?" And the legends tell us that 
 when the priests heard Him, they said: "What! 
 Thou art a blasphemer. Dost Thou say Thou art 
 the Son of God? We shall kill Thee here on the 
 spot. How dost Thou dare desecrate the temple 
 of God and say that Thou art about Thy Father's 
 business?" And Mary said: "Stay thy hand. 
 You can not touch a hair of His head. He is 
 my child and I am responsible for every word 
 that He says." As I have already said, accord- 
 ing to our law, until the age of thirteen the 
 parents are responsible for every act and every 
 word of their children. And now, therefore, 
 Mary said: "The child is only twelve years old, 
 and I, Mary, of the House of David, am responsi- 
 ble for Him, for He is my son and under my pro- 
 tection. Come, child; come, child; come, come, 
 come with us, child; the time has not yet come, 
 child, when Thou canst proclaim Thy Father's 
 business; but it will come. Remember, child, 
 truly Thou art the Son of God. But now, child, 
 Thou art still under the law. Thou hast put on 
 the flesh in order to come and teach the law in 
 Thy Father's house, for that is Thy business. 
 But as You have been born into the flesh, the son 
 of man, You must still for some time obey the law 
 and be under it, until the fullness of time shall 
 come, and then You can come here in the temple
 
 88 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 and preach Your Father's business. But now, 
 child, return again with us to Nazareth; return 
 and wait there under the law until the fullness 
 of time." 
 
 And so you read that the child returned with 
 them, and He was subject unto them. And so 
 you see, children, how you have to be subject to 
 your parents. Even Christ became so obedient, 
 though He knew right there in the temple that 
 He was the Son of God, still God had given Him 
 a father and a mother, and He was subject unto 
 them, because He was under the law. And so He 
 returned with them to Nazareth and abode with 
 them.
 
 III. 
 
 The Manhood and Ministry 
 of Jesus.
 
 THE MANHOOD AND MINISTRY 
 OF JESUS. 
 
 Last night we studied the childhood of our Lord 
 together, and we saw Him as a child returning back 
 again to Nazareth with His mother. We saw Him 
 in the temple amongst the doctors of the law ; we 
 saw that the doctors of the law were amazed and 
 astonished at His wonderful learning, and we see 
 Him going back again to Nazareth; and here we 
 read that "He grew and waxed strong, and was 
 filled with wisdom, and grew in stature and in favor 
 with God and man." In this home of Nazareth 
 Christ attained superior excellence, which remained 
 in its purity all through His earthly career. 
 
 The carpenter's shop we hear people say, "O, 
 He was a poor mechanic, He was a carpenter." God 
 said about Him, "This is My beloved Son." We 
 don't hear it said that God said, "This is the son 
 of the carpenter," but, "My beloved Son," the car- 
 penter having achieved to such a height. 
 
 Let us study this matter of the carpenter. The 
 position of carpenter in Palestine is one of great 
 honor. It is an honorable position. No other 
 tradesman could attain to the position of a high 
 priest except a carpenter. We have a proverb that 
 says, "He who does n't teach his son a trade teaches 
 
 91
 
 92 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 him to steal." And so carpentering is one of what 
 r\ * . we call the high trades. It was Joseph who was 
 v&aHUiAjl/i,,. the carpenter. The question was, "Is this the car- 
 \ v -T/ Pinter's son ?" Once they asked, "Is that the car- 
 
 Yvuflt Wi^f.penter?" or rather, "the carpenter's son." Now you 
 will find that Joseph was, as I explained to you 
 yesterday, of the line of the carpenters of the line 
 of the House of David, and you will find to-day 
 that the king of England is a carpenter by trade. 
 All kings have to learn a trade. Emperor William 
 is a carpenter by trade; the crown prince of Ger- 
 many has only now completed his tuition in the 
 trade of carpenter. The word "pontiff" means a 
 builder, a carpenter. "Pont" means bridge, "pon- 
 tiff" a builder. The Pope would be called a car- 
 penter. So that was always an honorable thing to 
 be a carpenter. I do n't know why we get the idea 
 that Joseph was poor because he was a carpenter. 
 We have n't got such very poor carpenters. It 
 does n't say he was a worker of wood. Among 
 people that are workers of wood we find a good 
 deal of poverty, but a carpenter, a Nadjar, that is 
 in our language a master carpenter and builder. I 
 do n't know that your carpenters here are poor. I 
 have traveled almost the length and breadth of the 
 United States, and yet I have never come across 
 what you call a poor carpenter. Joseph, therefore, 
 was the carpenter of the temple, and a ^synagogue 
 builder, as he was also the /agricultural -carpenter 
 of Nazareth. \t/vtA*XM<k^ 
 
 An agricultural carpenter must be a great 
 genius. He has to invent and make agricultural
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 93 
 
 implements for every kind of farm. It is not like 
 what you do here. You turn out your agricultural 
 implements by the thousands or tens of thousands, 
 and you can use them in every State and in every 
 land. It is not so with us. Every couple of acres of 
 land are entirely different. And so this agricultural 
 carpenter had to be a very clever man, because he 
 had to make his implements to suit the land. Here 
 the first acre is beautiful soil ; the second is all cov- 
 ered with cobblestones; and the third is all rock, 
 probably covered with a layer of six inches of soil 
 upon it, and he has to make ploughs and instru- 
 ments to suit that particular soil. 
 
 You will see our carpenter sitting any after- 
 noon on the doorstep of his shop. Why, a car- 
 penter is also a judge in our land. Anybody having 
 a quarrel with another goes at once with him to the 
 carpenter to settle it, and says : "You are the one 
 that invents implements, you are the one that mends 
 them, you are a genius in our village. We have had 
 a quarrel. This man has abused me." Come now, 
 let us go to the carpenter. What do you want to 
 go to the law for, and have a lot of bother with 
 the lawyers and all that sort of thing? And he 
 comes and adjusts their quarrels. He says, "Let 
 us reason together;" and so he is a great man; 
 he becomes a sort of judge among them ; he is be- 
 loved by the whole place. 
 
 Who does not know Joseph the carpenter as he 
 sits here? He has a number of workmen, and he 
 sits here watching for the farmers. About four 
 o'clock you will see the farmers coming along.
 
 94 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 Here is a man with a plough on his shoulder, and 
 he calls out, "Father Joseph, father Joseph, look 
 at this plough you made for me ; it broke, and what 
 am I to do with it, how am I to plough the field?" 
 Father Joseph gets up and says: "What is the 
 matter, what have you been doing with that 
 plough? Why haven't you had your mind upon 
 what you were doing, and not your head wandering 
 about ? Do n't you know the land is covered with 
 these cobbles, and when you came to where the 
 cobbles were, why did n't you lift your plough ? 
 You went bang into the rock, and broke your 
 plough ;" and he says, "Are n't you ashamed ?" He 
 says, "Come here now and sit down, and I will 
 give you another plough." He goes out with him 
 the next day and shows him how to plough. There- 
 fore he becomes a master and a teacher to these 
 ploughmen. 
 
 Then you will see him sitting there again. 
 Another man comes along with a yoke, and says, 
 "Father Joseph, look at your yoke ; it is all broken ;" 
 and he looks at it and says: "Why, why, son, why 
 did you put those grievous burdens on your oxen? 
 When you were ploughing, first you did n't adjust 
 your yoke properly, and then when you had a sharp 
 corner, and you should have taken a good sweep 
 around, you took a sharp turn and broke your yoke, 
 and almost broke the neck of your oxen. Are n't 
 you ashamed of yourself, to put grievous burdens 
 like this upon your animals? Now come with me 
 and I will show you how to adjust your yoke." 
 And he goes with him and shows him how to adjust
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 95 
 
 his yoke, and how to take the sweep around so as 
 not to break the yoke and break the necks of his 
 oxen. 
 
 A carpenter does not take money for his work, 
 but takes exchange. The farmers bring him wheat 
 and barley and different kinds of cereals and 
 chickens, and butter and cheese and eggs. All 
 these are brought to Joseph the carpenter to pay for 
 the work that is being done by him. So the car- 
 penter's house is full and overflowing with all sorts 
 of things. You will find the great grain bins loaded 
 with wheat and barley and things he has taken in 
 exchange. He is a good man, a kind-hearted man, 
 and the people know it. There has been a drought 
 in the land, and the poor people have had to mort- 
 gage all the jewels of the women for food. They 
 have no collateral now to give. There has been a 
 drought, and the first rains are falling. They 
 have n't any wheat, have n't any money to buy 
 bread to eat; they don't know what to do. They 
 can't pay any more high usury, and they say one 
 to another, "Come, let us go to Joseph the car- 
 penter, he will help us out." And they come to 
 him and say : "Abou Yusef, Father Joseph, we have 
 no collateral to give you; won't you trust us with 
 a few bushels of wheat and barley, so that we can 
 go and plough, now that the rains are beginning to 
 fall ? And when God gives us His blessings we will 
 give you back ten, twenty, or thirty fold." He says, 
 "All right, go to the barn and take it." He does n't 
 even go to see that they do n't take too much. He 
 says, "Go to the barn and fill your sacks." I have
 
 96 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 gone with them and seen them at the grain bins, 
 and have seen them fill their measures until they 
 got a lot of wheat and barley. And then you will 
 see them coming out to the field following the 
 ploughmen, and sowing the grain and praying to 
 God, saying : "God bless Joseph, God give him every 
 blessing and riches. He has helped us in our need ; 
 and God bless this grain that we are sowing, so that 
 we may return it to Joseph the noble one, Joseph the 
 carpenter." And they go with tears in their eyes 
 and weep and say: "O God, have mercy upon us, 
 have mercy upon us, for we have n't got any bread 
 to eat, but let this come back to us a hundred fold. 
 Father Joseph, the carpenter, has helped us, and 
 not the usurer." And so they go and plant the seed, 
 and then the rains fall again, and the sun shines, 
 and their seed grows into golden grain, and you 
 will see them going to the harvest fields and har- 
 vesting; and they come back with laughter and re- 
 +^fi joicing and mirth, as they sing: 
 
 "God make Joseph victorious, God- give him 
 every blessing, dear Father Joseph, our Abou 
 Yusef. God bless him, for through him have we 
 been able to eat bread." 
 
 And so this is the home of Joseph the carpenter. 
 This is the home where Jesus grew, where He saw 
 compassion, justice, love, charity, nobility of soul 
 and of spirit. This is the home where He waxed 
 strong, being filled with wisdom ; and He grew in 
 stature and in favor with God and with men the 
 beautiful home of Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth, 
 the husband of His mother Mary.
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 97 
 
 For eighteen years we do not see Jesus. When 
 we see Him again He is a man. He is traversing 
 the country from Galilee to the Jordan. What has 
 He been doing all these eighteen years? Some tell 
 us that He was a teacher ; He taught the boys in the 
 different synagogues and the schools. He was pre- 
 paring Himself for the fullness of time, when at 
 thirty years old He could come forth officially before 
 the world. He would now be, so to speak, of age. 
 According to the law of the Levites, no man could 
 come forth before thirty years old, and so He was 
 in preparation. We have a legend which tells us 
 that He taught the dyers how to dye colors. All 
 the dyers' shops in Jerusalem are called Christ's 
 shops. You do n't hear about the dyers' shops, but 
 you hear about the Christ's shops, because they say 
 He taught them how to dye colors. 
 
 When we see Him he is at the River Jordan. 
 People have come up to the Jordan from all parts 
 of the country ; Jesus comes up to John and asks 
 him to baptize Him, and John refuses ; John says, "I 
 have need to be baptized of Thee," but Jesus says, 
 "Refuse not to baptize Me ; suffer it to be so now, 
 for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness." 
 
 The custom of baptism was not introduced by 
 Christ ; it was an old, old custom that John was re- 
 viving. It was an old custom coming down from 
 the time of the flood. The sign of baptism was a 
 sign that the son of God, that is man, had never 
 been destroyed, that he had been saved, and so that 
 was the royal sign ; it is called the royal sign of 
 the son of God. It comes from the time of Noah, 
 
 7
 
 98 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 the righteous one. You will find an allusion to that 
 in I Peter 3 : 20 : "When once the longsuffering of 
 God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark 
 was a-preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls 
 were saved by water. The like figure whereunto, 
 even baptism, doth also now save us." Then again 
 in I Corinthians 10 : I : "Moreover, brethren, I 
 would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all 
 our fathers were under the cloud and flood, and all 
 passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto 
 Moses in the cloud and in the sea." So we have 
 here the two kinds of baptism, the one from the 
 time of Noah, the other from the time of Moses. 
 The second is of a higher type, the being baptized 
 unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. Now they 
 are baptized unto Christ; and as Moses led them 
 through the sea, Christ had to go down into the 
 river of life which the River Jordan typifies, in 
 order to be able to redeem man and bring him out 
 into everlasting life. And so He says, "for the sake 
 of righteousness." 
 
 Many people ask me which is correct, immer- 
 sion or sprinkling? Now, both are correct. Im- 
 mersion, of course, is the oldest form ; we still prac- 
 tice it in our country at the present day, and many 
 places where they have no water they dig a hole 
 in the sand and immerse the person, and pour sand 
 over the head. In the same way they are also im- 
 mersed and water is poured over the head. It is 
 a type of being baptized by the Holy Ghost, and as 
 Christ was so baptized it was to typify that form. 
 Of course immersion is the oldest form.
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 99 
 
 I have been both sprinkled and immersed. 
 When I was a baby born my father belonged to 
 the Episcopal Church, and they sprinkled me with 
 water from the Jordan, according to the form of 
 the Episcopal Church. Then there was a nun, a 
 friend of my father's, that belonged to the Greek 
 Church, and she thought that was n't baptism at all, 
 to put water on my head ; so she had me immersed 
 in water and anointed with oil, according to the 
 Greek fashion. And when I grew up to be eighteen 
 years old, I demanded baptism at the River Jordan, 
 where I was immersed. So I haVe been sprinkled 
 and immersed. But in baptism it is not the idea that 
 baptism is going to save us, but it is the fact of our 
 coming out and declaring that we belong to Christ, 
 and that we are going to enter, as Christ did, into 
 the stream of life in order to save souls, in order 
 to save people. Because when we are ready for 
 baptism, then we are already Christians, and the 
 fact of our going into the water is not going to 
 make us holier. The fact is that we are not afraid 
 to bear testimony to that which we believe, and we 
 are going to enter into the stream of life to save 
 lives as Jesus did. 
 
 Going into the River Jordan, He is now entering 
 into the stream of life, He is entering upon His pub- 
 lic ministry, and John baptizes Him. It is just as it 
 is in your Churches here when a man is publicly 
 ordained he is ordained to the work of saving souls, 
 of entering into his public work as a teacher and as 
 a preacher. And now Jesus is baptized. The heav- 
 ens are opened and we hear a voice from heaven
 
 100 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 saying, "This is My beloved Son in whom I am 
 well pleased;" and we see the Holy Ghost, in the 
 shape of a dove, typifying innocence and purity, de- 
 scending upon Him. Jesus comes out of that bap- 
 tism filled with the power of the Holy Ghost. He 
 comes out now under a different law ; He comes out 
 from that water to do higher and holier work. The 
 work He had done previous to that was pleasing to 
 God and received God's affirmation and sanction; 
 but now He comes out filled with the power of the 
 Holy Ghost, all radiant with that power. 
 
 He goes forth now into the wilderness and fasts 
 forty days and forty nights. Why does it say forty 
 nights? Because in our country it is the custom 
 to fast forty days; we have a month of fasting, 
 forty days, which is called Ramadan. We have the 
 people fast all day long until sunset, and at sunset 
 a cannon is fired, and they sit down and eat and eat 
 until midnight, and at midnight another cannon is 
 fired, and they enter into another fast. This is the 
 custom in the Holy Land from time immemorial. 
 But Jesus fasted forty days and nights, and He is 
 here un der this power of the Spirit in the wilder- 
 ness, among the beasts of the fields. Have you ever 
 fasted? You just try it. This is a good time to 
 fast, in Lent. I think nothing of fasting three or 
 four days. But how must you fast ? When we fast 
 it must be an absolute fast. You must fast with 
 your face all shining, you mustn't think you are 
 doing any penance. That is no good. It is when 
 you want to get a higher understanding of the 
 Spirit and come in communion with God.
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 101 
 
 Jesus fasted forty days and nights, and when 
 His fast was broken, He was a-hungered, the human 
 body asserted itself, and now He is to be tempted of 
 the devil. Now, the devil was a very up-to-date 
 person. Many people have an idea that the devil is 
 a creature with horns and hoofs and all that sort 
 of thing, an ugly person. He isn't that at all; 
 he is a beautiful being, a beautiful creation, for he 
 was created the great angel of light, most beautiful, 
 and that beauty was never taken away from him. 
 He was hurled down from heaven, but his beauty 
 was never taken from him ; his beauty remained and 
 that is how he makes himself like an "angel of 
 light." So he conies to Christ with all his persua- 
 siveness he can quote Scripture by the hour. He 
 understands all illusions and delusions. He is wise, 
 he knows things; he is up-to-date, and he always 
 comes in that way, beautiful. When he wants to 
 make somebody specially wicked, he makes himself 
 so lovely, he turns to his original character as the 
 great angel of light. So he comes to Jesus. 
 
 Now I will recite to you the way it is recited to 
 us, how the conversation comes between Jesus and 
 the devil. The devil you know was a fallen angel, 
 and his punishment was to tempt man, and his 
 
 _ll I ' ^^ | ^^MRM ^ i . .* -_u- ^^^^ 
 
 greater punishment was t2_^tmgt. ^*^ as man '*n ^ A. 
 
 Sometimes one almost feels a pain ofsorrow for 
 
 Satan, how much he must suffer. That was his k w **' vx * 
 
 punishment because of his disobedience to God, be- fcvMXv** 
 
 cause of his rebellion; his punishment was that 
 
 should tempt God. And sometimes amongst our 
 
 legends they tell us that he is always glad when
 
 102 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 man does not fall, or rather, when he withstands his 
 temptations. For then he feels in some way that 
 he can expiate his own crime; and so it is not 
 always due, after all, to the devil that man sins 
 it is of his own wickedness. He is allowed to sin, 
 and the devil encourages sin. When the devil 
 stands there and fulfills his work of tempting him, 
 it is of man's own free will that he goes and sins. 
 He can not say, "He tempted me, and I fell because 
 he tempted me." 
 
 So the devil came to Christ and he said to Him, 
 "Jesus, You are hungry; why should You suffer 
 hunger if You are the Son of God ?" Now when we 
 use a term like that, and say to anybody, "If you 
 are so and so," it means you are so and so. And 
 so when the devil said, "If Thou art the Son of 
 God," it meant the same as if he said, "Thou art 
 the Son of God." He said, "If Thou art the Son 
 of God, then take these stones and make them into 
 bread." He was appealing to His human side there. 
 Which one of us that could make stones into bread, 
 in order to show that we were the chosen son of 
 God, would not hire the biggest hall we could find, 
 and charge five dollars apiece to have people come 
 and see we had the inspiration of God upon us? 
 Think what a terrible thing for the devil to tempt 
 Christ ! There was Christ in the form of man, with 
 all the frailties of man ; and the devil says, "If Thou 
 art God, and I know Thou art," he knew he 
 could n't tempt Christ to sin, but he wanted to 
 tempt Christ to give up His mission as a failure; 
 because if Christ would turn those stones into bread
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 103 
 
 for His own gratification, He would give up His 
 mission as Saviour. He wanted to turn Him from 
 that mission; he says, "Turn those stones into 
 bread." So Jesus, whose meat and drink was to do 
 His Father's will, turns to the devil and says, "Man 
 does not live by bread alone, but by every word that 
 cometh out of the mouth of God." 
 
 "Ah," says Satan within himself, "I couldn't 
 get Him here to perform a miracle for Himself; I 
 know what I will do, I am going to offer to make 
 Him king. That is a temptation that will appeal to 
 Him as the son of man, the Son of God but yet a 
 man," and so he says to Him, "Jesus, will You come 
 up with me to that high mountain?" And Jesus 
 goes up into that high mountain. I have been on 
 that mountain, the Quarantine Mountain. You go 
 up and up and up, and what an up-going it is! 
 There are deep precipices, rocky pathways which 
 make you dizzy as you go along; you have some- 
 times to shut your eyes and feel y^our way along the 
 edges of the precipices. There are a great many 
 places where hermits live, Greeks and Russians and 
 Arabs and so forth, that live in the caves of that 
 high mountain. You still go up, and when you get 
 to the top what a vision of loveliness greets you! 
 It is as though you see the world at one glance. To 
 your right, as far as the eye can see, lie the blue 
 waters of the Mediterranean Sea with the ships 
 sailing across its bosom; here at the back is the 
 mountain of Lebanon, with the beautiful pine and 
 fir trees, and the snow-capped peaks. From the 
 foot of Benais you begin to see the Jordan as it
 
 104 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 winds in its course. We call it the emerald neck- 
 lace, and then it cuts through the blue-hued waters 
 of the Sea of Galilee, which looks like a band of 
 gold in the center, and then it commences twining 
 and twining in its emerald necklace until it crosses 
 the plain to the Dead Sea, and then it is swallowed 
 in the middle as it were by a whirlpool ; and so the 
 Jordan flows day in and day out, and the Dead Sea 
 never grows any larger or any smaller. Here at 
 your feet you see the beautiful city of Jerusalem, 
 with its walls and towers and domes and spires 
 pointing heavenward; you see the many villages 
 nestling in the mountainside or down in the valley. 
 Palestine is an epitome of the whole world. You 
 don't need to go out of Palestine to see the whole 
 world in a nutshell. We have our volcanic regions, 
 our prairie regions and seas and lakes and moun- 
 tains, and here you have the eternal snows, and all 
 the trees that grow in the cold regions; and down 
 here you have all the tropical plants, and peaches 
 and figs and raisins and pomegranates, all kinds 
 of fruit, all kinds of flowers. Everything grows 
 with us in Palestine, so you have the whole world 
 before you. 
 
 Now, the devil, who had this power of being 
 able to bring before Christ in a moment of time all 
 the kingdoms of the earth, said to Him, "Look 
 here, Jesus, all these will I give You if You will fall 
 down and worship me, or make an alliance with 
 me; all these will I give You." And we are told 
 that the devil had the power to be able to bring 
 before Jesus the whole vision of all powers of the
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 105 
 
 kingdoms of the world, and he had also the power 
 to bring before Jesus His crucifixion, with all its 
 humiliation, with the revilings, with the spitting, 
 with the crown of thorns all were brought before 
 Him. And he says : "Look here, Jesus, You are the 
 Son of God, You are the chosen one, that should 
 be the Messiah and sit upon the throne of Your 
 father David. Look at Your people down there. 
 What is the use of trying to save these people? 
 These very people You want to save will spit at 
 You, will pierce You, and will kill You ; what do You 
 want to do all this for, when You can get the whole 
 world without it, only recognize my power in it? 
 What do You want to do it for? Look at Your 
 people down there, slaves trodden under the foot of 
 the Romans, Israel persecuted and enslaved; look 
 at them. You can be a king I shall bring all 
 kingdoms to You, and they shall bow down before 
 You; I shall exalt Your name through the whole 
 earth. You can bring in such a kingdom of equity 
 and justice and righteousness, without Your going 
 all through that, only recognize me in it." 
 
 Now, the devil here wanted to tempt Jesus to 
 give up His mission as Saviour. And one of the 
 most awful things to contemplate is this, that Jesus 
 was liable to fall when the devil tempted Him. He 
 was just in the same position as Adam was, for He 
 came for that, to pass through all temptations ; He 
 was tempted like unto man in everything, buf with- 
 out sin ; there was no possibility of the devil tempt- 
 ing Him to sin, but he wanted to tempt Him to give 
 up becoming the Saviour of men. Because if He was
 
 106 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 getting all the kingdoms, what sense was there in 
 coming to be a Saviour? He had all the kingdoms 
 of the world anyhow, but it was the coming to be a 
 Saviour. Now Jesus was the Son of God, and Jesus 
 is God in this sense. Many people say, How is it 
 that Jesus is God and the Son of God? Well, God 
 had a Son begotten of His own substance and kind. 
 Now if you beget a son, your son is under the same 
 law as yourself; he is of the same flesh and blood, 
 he is of the same nature, and you are not a bit 
 greater than your son; you can't be greater than 
 your son. You can not beget a cow or bird or 
 sheep, you can only beget one of your own image 
 and kind. So it was with God. When God begat 
 ., a son, He begat a son after His own substance, and 
 
 therefore God could not beget a man, but He begets 
 God. That is how Jesus is God. He is not God the 
 Father, but He is God the Son. He is of the same 
 substance as God, of the same nature as God, only 
 He is not God the Father, but He is God the Son. 
 Now if the devil could have tempted Him to fall, 
 just see, He would have been an everlasting God, 
 cut away from His Father. He had come to do His 
 Father's will, He had come to finish the work. He 
 had come to destroy the works of the devil, and He 
 had to subject Himself in this form to be tempted 
 and liable to fall. 
 
 O what a terrible thing it would have been for 
 man had Jesus established a kingdom of His own 
 on earth, in compliance with the temptation of the 
 devil ! Do n't you see what a terrible thing it would 
 be? Now John, who was the beloved of Christ, is
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 107 
 
 the great apostle that brings in so much of the one- 
 ness of this nature of God and Christ. The other 
 apostles, like Matthew and Luke, in recording the 
 life of Christ, record His statements. Here comes 
 Matthew ; he describes the Wise Men ; he brings out 
 scientific facts. Here comes Luke; he comes on 
 with the taxation by Caesar Augustus; he tells 
 about the Annunciation, the visit of the angel to 
 Mary, and how this child was to be born of Mary. 
 But John comes forward; he gives no time or pe- 
 riod, and he simply says, "In the beginning" no 
 time but "In the beginning was the Word, and 
 the Word was with God and the Word was God, 
 and that Word was made flesh." In the beginn 
 the Word took flesh, and not the Father, and this 
 Word, "Jesus," was God the Son, and dwelt among 
 men, for which He was called Immanuel, "God with 
 us." The Word was made a separate being by God 
 the Father Almighty, who thus made the Word His 
 only begotten Son. Now the same Word took flesh 
 and was manifested in the life of Jesus. He was 
 the only begotten Son after the flesh, and as the 
 manifestation of the Word or the only begotten Son 
 of God after the Spirit. 'He was set apart for in- 
 dividual existence. Before anything else than God 
 existed, the Word was separated from God and be- 
 came a separate being, a procedure from God, an 
 individualized existence, yet an existence in which 
 there was no memory of its own beginning. In the 
 beginning^was the Word that is, from all eternity 
 the Word existed, and the time was when there 
 was not anything but the Word and God, as John
 
 108 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 says, "in the beginning." So in that remote period, 
 the beginning, that is when God and Jesus were to- 
 gether. In the beginning was the Word. 
 
 Now, concerning this Jesus, His Son, our Lord, 
 which was made of the seed of David according 
 to the flesh, He did not put on the form of an angel, 
 but He put on the form of the seed of Abraham. 
 So many people keep asking, How can Christ be 
 the Son of man and the Son of God ? God gave 
 His only begotten Son in spirit in an earthly body 
 prepared miraculously for the reception of the 
 chosen Son of man. 
 
 Now, Mary could give the soul through her 
 flesh, and that soul which is born through her flesh 
 is called the Son of man. He is the living form, 
 the seed, the only begotten Son of God. And He 
 submitted so perfectly to the Spirit of God as to act 
 in its will and power, and receive the reward of 
 victory over the world and over His own earthly 
 body, as to walk Himself humbly and righteously 
 and perfectly as a man before God. Now, that is 
 how Jesus is called the Son of man, and Mary was 
 able to give Him this body to receive the Spirit of 
 God, to be the Son of God; so it is the body of 
 Jesus that is called the Son of man. His spirit is 
 the Son of God. 
 
 And so here was the devil with all his power, 
 wanting to tempt God in the body of the Son of 
 man not God the Father, but God the Son, and 
 this God the Son in this body of the Son of man. 
 He tries to tempt Him, tries to make Him want to 
 give up saving men. O, what an awful thing it
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 109 
 
 would have been had Christ accepted all the world, 
 the power of the kingdoms, to think to bring man 
 back to Him in that way, and then to have cut Him- 
 self off from God, to separate Himself in a kingdom 
 of His own, and He an everlasting God also, but 
 separated from the Father ! Jesus says to him, "Get 
 thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt wor- 
 ship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou 
 serve." He did not come to be worshiped, but 
 He came to bring back again the love of God, and 
 "Him only shalt thou serve." But, says Satan to 
 himself, "I couldn't get Him to be king. He can 
 see His people down there. I know what I will 
 do ; He is so compassionate, He will want to sacrifice 
 Himself for these people. I will make a priest of 
 Him." And he says to Jesus, "Come with me to 
 the pinnacle of the temple." So Jesus goes with 
 him to the temple. 
 
 Come with me to the Mosque of Omar to-day 
 and you will find there from forty to fifty thousand 
 people standing shoulder to shoulder and raising 
 their hands, and you will hear them saying, "La 
 Illah ila Allah." . "There is only one living and true 
 God. Glory and praise be to His holy name. Allah 
 il Allah." Here were thousands of people from all 
 parts of the world worshiping in that very temple, 
 the temple area, and Satan says to Christ, "Look at 
 these people ; if You will cast Yourself down before 
 them no harm can come to You. Then the people 
 will know that You are the Holy One, for it is writ- 
 ten that the angels will take care of You, lest Thou 
 dash Thy foot against a stone. You go down among
 
 110 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 the people ; I will give You power, so You can sway 
 multitudes. The religious emotions of the people 
 You will have in the palm of Your hand. You will 
 be able to sway them, and be the high priest for ever 
 and ever, and nothing will befall You, for the an- 
 gels will keep You upright over the heads of these 
 people, and the people will worship You." O, what 
 a temptation that would be, to get the power to be 
 able to sway multitudes and to have people come 
 and fall down and worship Him! It was a terrible 
 period for the Christ, for the devil to have to tempt 
 Him. And Jesus turns around, as the Son of God 
 now, and says, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy 
 God." And Satan left Him, whilst the angels came 
 and ministered unto Him as the Son of man, tri- 
 umphant God, Saviour, and Redeemer. 
 
 I have received letters from various people, 
 from Young Men's Christian Associations and 
 Young Women's Christian Associations, and others, 
 saying to me they have tried to live like Christ, but 
 saying they are surrounded by so many temptations, 
 by inheritance of their fathers, by influence of rela- 
 tives and friends, and they feel that they can not 
 rise to that height; for Jesus, though tempted like 
 unto man, was without sin, and therefore He could 
 not understand the position of man. And they have 
 written to ask me what I think about it, that they 
 feel they would have to give the whole thing up 
 because Christ was not tempted like unto man He 
 was without sin. But what does Hebrews say about 
 it? "For in that He Himself hath suffered." It is 
 all nonsense to think Christ did not suffer; that 
 is why He put on the body, so He could suffer
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 111 
 
 "For in that He Himself hath suffered, being 
 tempted, He is able to succor them that are 
 tempted." It is a glorious thing to be tempted; it ; 
 is a sin to fall into temptation. 
 
 For instance, here is a person that every time 
 you give him a glass of wine, his constitution is so 
 that it makes him sick at the stomach. Is there any 
 credit that he does not become a drunkard and a 
 brute? Not a bit of it. Here is a man that every 
 time he sees a cup his hand instinctively reaches for 
 it, and he wants it, and all his ancestors scream in 
 him for it. Did you ever hear your ancestors 
 scream in you and say, "Just take it, do what you 
 like." O those ancestors, do n't they rise like roar- 
 ing lions to scream in our ears ? But when we do n't 
 listen to that screaming, and we do n't take the cup, 
 and we don't become drunkards, that is character 
 for you. It is a glorious thing to be tempted, and 
 that is why we are put into a place to be tempted, 
 because we know where to find ourselves ; we know 
 of our own free will how to choose the good and 
 leave the evil. And you will find James says, 
 "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for , 
 when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life." 
 "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into 
 divers temptations, knowing this that the trying of 
 your faith worketh patience." So it is a glorious 
 thing to be tempted. Angels shall come and min- 
 ister unto us, and we shall become stronger and 
 stronger, and then Christ will come and dwell with 
 us, and the Father will sup with us. "Be ye perfect, $ / 
 even as your Father in heaven is perfect." 
 
 After this temptation we see Jesus coming to
 
 112 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 Cana in Galilee. His first miracle is to be per- 
 formed here. There is a wedding, and there is no 
 wine, and His mother comes up to Him and says, 
 "Son, there is no wine." And He says to His 
 mother, in your translation, "Woman, what have I 
 got to do with thee? My hour has not yet come." 
 I remember, when I first came to this country, the 
 late Robert Ingersoll was giving a series of lectures 
 in the Academy of Music in New York City. The 
 Academy was crowded, and a lady who was intro- 
 duced by Ingersoll said, first of all, she would ad- 
 vise the ladies to trample the Bible under foot, take 
 no stock in the Bible, because, she said, "Jesus, the 
 greatest character in the Bible, insulted His mother 
 by calling her 'Woman.' " She said, "We are free 
 born American women, we do n't want to be classed 
 with those of the harem, we don't want this Ori- 
 ental religion foisted upon us; therefore if Jesus 
 could do such a thing, what do we want with that 
 old Bible?" As I listened to the woman I felt so 
 sorry for her, because I knew she did n't know what 
 she was talking about. When our Lord said to His 
 mother, "Woman, what have I to do with thee," 
 He did not use that term as you use it. You say, "O, 
 that is a lady, that is a woman." 
 
 I say every lady ought to thank God every- 
 day of her life that she has had the crowning glory 
 of being born a woman. O, it is a glorious thing 
 to be born a woman, for woman is the manifestation 
 of God's love to the world Jesus born of a woman. 
 How could Christ be born of a man ? The Oriental 
 word for woman comes from the word "Haram,"
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 113 
 
 which means a holy place, a covered place ; and the 
 other word, "Imra," which means "princess," 
 "mother," and "light." So the literal translation of 
 "mother" is, "thou holy one, thou covered one, thou 
 princess, thou mother of light." When God formed 
 man He said, "It is not good for man to be alone." 
 We have a little story in the Talmud which says 
 that God looked with love and pity upon the world 
 after He had formed man in His loneliness,' and He 
 said : "I will make a mother. I am the Father, but 
 we must have a mother." So God made a mother. 
 God was the Father, and so woman was made out 
 of the flesh, the palpitating flesh. And then God 
 took flesh out of Adam and He builded a woman, 
 or a temple, which means He expended a great deal 
 of power architecturally in building. You will only 
 find that word used in regard to a temple builded 
 a woman, a temple, so that in the fullness of time He 
 could manifest Himself through that temple. So the 
 word "woman" is entirely different as we under- 
 stand it in the Eastern world. When Jesus said to 
 His mother, "Woman, what, have I got to do with 
 thee? My hour has not yet come," it was not "Go 
 mind your business ;" but He said, "Thou holy one, 
 thou princess, thou mother of light." He did not 
 say, "What have I got to do with thee," but He said, 
 "What concerns thee concerns Me. You have 
 brought Me into this world to manifest this light, 
 but do n't hurry Me ; My hour is not yet come." 
 
 He uses that same term of endearment to His 
 mother when He is hanging upon the cross, with lov- 
 ing solicitude for her welfare. "When He saw His 
 
 8
 
 114 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 mother and the disciple standing by, whom He 
 loved, He saith unto His mother, Woman, behold 
 thy son ! Then saith He to the disciple, Behold thy 
 mother! And from that hour the disciple took her 
 unto his own home." This conclusively proves that 
 Mary had no other children but Jesus, for had she 
 had others Jesus could not have given her to John 
 to care for her, as her children would have objected, 
 and such a thing would be a breach of all Oriental 
 filial devotion and responsibility of children's obli- 
 gations to care for their widowed mother, who was 
 bereft of her first-born. Such a thing would be an 
 impossibility for Mary to be designated as mother 
 to a disciple when she had her own children to care 
 for and mother. Therefore, as I have said before, 
 those that are mentioned as the "brethren of the 
 Lord" were Joseph's children by a former marriage, 
 and were much older than Jesus, being young men 
 and women when He was born of Mary, the virgin 
 wife of their father Joseph, whom they regarded 
 as one out of their direct family, because she 
 brought in her own genealogy. 
 
 His whole life was calendered, and He knew what 
 was going to happen every hour and every minute, 
 what was to come. And Mary, woman like, had 
 not much patience, she wanted to b-r-r-r-r, quickly, 
 quickly. What does she do? She doesn't go to 
 the harem, but she goes to the servants and says, 
 "Do what the Master tells you." So we find Jesus 
 uses the word "woman" differently from the way 
 the world uses it. 
 
 You read where it says, "The birds of the air
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 115 
 
 have nests, the foxes have holes, but the Son ofn a/ 
 man hath not where to lay His head." The usual 
 idea people have is that Jesus was so poor He did 
 not have a place to rest His head. But this text 
 does not mean at all that Jesus was poor, but it 
 means that He was not a married man. How can 
 you prove to me that Jesus was not a married man ? 
 I see some of you look shocked. You would not 
 be shocked if you had to answer as many questions 
 as I do. I can not go on a train or aboard ship or 
 anywhere that people do not come up and ask me 
 all kinds of questions, so I am not shocked by any 
 questions. The question stares you in the face to- 
 day, when there are sects in your own land teach- 
 ing that Jesus was a married man and had two ' 
 wives, Mary and Martha. How are you going to >r |h 
 contradict this ? From His own words, "Foxes have 
 holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son 
 of man hath not where to lay His head." When a 
 man is married in the East he says, "I have a place 
 to rest my head." When he is not married he says, 
 "I have no place to rest my head." In the East a 
 man builds a large house; here is a large family 
 room; father and mother sleep in the center, and 
 boys and girls on the sides. Around this quad- 
 rangle are rooms, and those rooms are called mas- 
 nad, rooms where they rest their heads. You will 
 find Jesus alludes to this custom of the children 
 sleeping with their parents. Jesus says, "What man 
 cometh at midnight, and knocketh at the door and 
 asketh for a loaf of bread, and the man from the 
 inside says, 'I can not open the door ?' " Why ?
 
 116 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 "Because my children are with me in bed," refer- 
 ring to this custom. When a son gets married he 
 does not go to independent housekeeping as you do, 
 but he brings his wife to his father's house, and 
 the father gives him a room or a suite of rooms 
 in the house, and this is called masnad, a room to 
 rest the head. Jesus refers to this custom when He 
 says, "In My Father's house are many mansions," 
 literally, "resting places." He was picturing to Him- 
 self His Father's house, "In My Father's house are 
 many mansions," and while they were all independ- 
 ent, in the home they were all under the parental 
 authority of the father under the great patriarchal 
 system. So this is the resting place. 
 
 If you want to curse an Oriental say to him, 
 "May you never get married." That is the worst 
 curse you can place upon him. An Oriental would 
 rather be in prison, with a few crumbs of bread and 
 a few drops of water, and know that some time he 
 would come out and get married and that he will 
 love somebody and somebody love him, rather than 
 live in a palace dressed in purple and fine linen, and 
 ride out in chariots of ivory and gold, and know he 
 can never marry. You here in the Western world 
 have no idea what it means to an Oriental not to get 
 married. You have the bachelor girl and the bach- 
 elor boy system, and it means nothing. Why, as 
 soon as a boy is born, the midwife comes out and 
 cries, "The bridegroom is come, may we rejoice 
 at his wedding, may we rejoice." And the neigh- 
 bors and friends come flocking to the house and 
 bow down to the father and mother and say, "At the
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 117 
 
 baby's wedding may we rejoice; the bridegroom has 
 come to your house." So every time they come to 
 the house and are treated with a cup of coffee, we 
 say, "The bridegroom has come to your house, at 
 your son's wedding may we rejoice, may we re- 
 joice." So in the Oriental mind not to be married 
 is an awful picture. And as that rich man who pro- 
 posed to become a disciple of Christ looked on Him 
 he said, "What, You so beautiful, so great in wis- 
 dom, not to have somebody to love You when You 
 come home, where to lay Your head, to be taken 
 care of!" 
 
 There was nothing about Jesus' appearance to 
 show He was an ascetic. He ate and drank with 
 the publicans and sinners, so His enemies called Him 
 a gluttonous fellow and wine-bibber. There was 
 nothing particular about His mode of life to show 
 that He was an ascetic. As Orientals, we are al- 
 ways resting the body, but it is resting the head ; 
 and what the man had in mind was one of those 
 Oriental homes, with a sanctum sanctorum, a holy 
 place, where the man can retire free from trouble to 
 rest his head. You go into the room; it is all 
 beautifully furnished with thick, heavy velvet car- 
 pet, so no footfall can be heard. During the day 
 he can rest his head; the soft light will come 
 through, which will be soft and peaceful. Here is 
 a white satin and silk couch, and silken pillow, and 
 the wife is an angel. She is attired in pure white, 
 and she stands at the head of the couch, and she 
 has a downy fan, and she will fan him so he can 
 rest his head, and she will perhaps put her hand on
 
 118 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 his head to smooth his brow. She must not say to 
 him, "Do you love me?" and "I love you," and all 
 that sort of thing no, no, no. That is not the time 
 of loving, that is the time of resting, the time of 
 resting the head, and so she is called the guardian 
 angel, and she stands there, and he knows perfectly 
 well that he can rest his head. He knows that no 
 matter what happens, so long as that guardian 
 angel is standing there nothing can break the rest 
 of that head. So when this man had this picture 
 in his mind of the beautiful Christ not having 
 anybody to look after Him, to be the guardian 
 angel to look after Him when He came with weary 
 head tired from the long journeys, it was an awful 
 picture to his Oriental mind of desolation and utter 
 loneliness. And Jesus pictured that with His own 
 words when He said, "Foxes have holes." Did you 
 ever see a ^ ox a ^ one ' Foxes are always in pairs. 
 ^ At" -I "Birds have nests." Did you ever see a bird build 
 a nest alone? Birds are always in pairs. "But 
 the Son of man hath not where to rest His head." 
 Jesus became poor so that we might become 
 rich. It was not a matter of pounds, shillings, and 
 pence; it was a matter not of His simply coming 
 down from heaven and putting on the body of man, 
 but He became poor where He was born into riches. 
 He was born a king, for the Wise Men came and 
 said, "Where is He that is bora King of the Jews ?" 
 He was born into the royal inheritance of the house 
 of David ; He was born on the side also of the Le- 
 vites, where He had an emolument, as a member of 
 the house of David, from the temple. He had a
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 119 
 
 right to be a member of the great Sanhedrim ; He 
 had the right to be a judge in the court. He had 
 all these rights from Solomon to be a great man. 
 And Joseph was a rich man, a man that had lands, 
 a great business; but Jesus took all that inherit- 
 
 1 TT -J 1 ti^ A 11 
 
 ance and He said to the young man, Go and sell 
 your possessions." Now that man had come into 
 possession; that man's father was dead. We know 
 when we read there how a man gets riches; when 
 it says, "possessions," it means he has inherited 
 from his father, and his father is dead. You can 
 not sell your land until your father dies; then you 
 can sell it, and do what you like and change your 
 position. So He said to that man, "Go and sell your 
 possessions and come and follow Me." Jesus re- 
 nounced His rights to the throne. Did n't they want 
 to crown Him king, and He said, "My kingdom is 
 not of this world ?" Did n't His disciples try to per- 
 suade Him to become king, did n't the elders of the 
 village try to persuade Him? But He gave up all 
 wealth, all rights, gave up all the large wealth He 
 had from Joseph and the house of David in order 
 that you and I might become rich. Had He become 
 a king, or had He become a judge, member of the 
 Sanhedrim, a high priest, how could you and I have 
 become rich? So you see how grand the thought 
 of the apostle is, that He was not simply poor, going 
 about as a poor mechanic and carpenter, but He 
 gave up all worldly position, all worldly rights that 
 counted, and was despised because He had abdi- 
 cated, given it all up, so that we might become rich. 
 O, what a glorious thing ! We never would be rich
 
 120 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 in grace today had He taken the position of high 
 priest or king or judge or lawyer. Where would 
 we have been ? But all this He gave up so that we 
 might become rich. 
 
 You read that He was in the court of the temple, 
 and there were the money changers, and He came in 
 and saw them. So many people criticized Christ at 
 this period of His life. They say Christ got angry, 
 and what business had He to drive them out of the 
 temple? It is still customary to-day, if a man's an- 
 cestor has dedicated a portion of land for a religious 
 purpose, and then, as time passes on, they take this 
 land and turn it into a buying and selling place, or 
 anything but what it was originally intended for, 
 this man has the right to come and throw them out 
 and assert his authority. You must know that Jesus 
 was the lineal descendant of David and Solomon, 
 and that property of the temple belonged to Him, 
 every inch of that property was His by the law of 
 land tenure, never to be changed. Why? Because 
 David had bought it with his own money not with 
 the money of the people, but with his own money; 
 he paid silver for that place, and built there an altar 
 to God forever. 
 
 I remember once I was in the court of the 
 Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and here was a 
 piece of property that had been donated for a cer- 
 tain purpose, a place of worship, and there were 
 all these people, such as you see in the court now, 
 and they were buying and selling and money chang- 
 ing. Travelers and pilgrims came in, and every- 
 body said, "Will you buy a shroud ? Come here, buy
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 121 
 
 from me, he 's a cheat ; come, buy from me, a 
 shroud, a rosary; come, buy some oil; come, I will 
 change your money." And you come up to the 
 money changer, and he has got here all the coins of 
 the realm; and every day the cry goes out and 
 says, for instance, "To-day the gold sovereign of 
 Great Britain is one hundred and twenty piasters, 
 and all you people hear, the golden eagle of Amer- 
 ica is worth one hundred and twenty-five piasters." 
 And now you come up, and you do n't know that 
 this man has given out this amount of money, and 
 the money changer says to you, "It is only a hun- 
 dred piasters," and he only gives you a hundred 
 piasters, because you don't know what the ex- 
 change has been that day. And then in another 
 hour the cry goes out on the street it has been 
 changed ; it is only one hundred and ten or one hun- 
 dred and twenty-five piasters. So the buying and 
 selling go on day after day, this money changing 
 and robbing and stealing, and thousands and tens 
 of thousands of pilgrims come. They don't know 
 what to do with their money, and they hand it over 
 to these men, and they give them just half the value 
 of the money they have taken. 
 
 So Jesus came to the temple. It was not in the 
 interior of the temple, but in the court of the Gen- 
 tiles. The* court of the Gentiles is a court of prayer, C0-**/v*~Ij 
 because the Gentiles who became proselytes to 
 Judaism could not go until the second generation 
 to pray in the inner court. So the buyers and sellers 
 began to creep in, and show disrespect for the 
 proselytes to Judaism, taking every inch of
 
 122 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 ground until they came right up to the steps of the 
 temple. So Jesus came there and said, "You have 
 made My Father's house a den of thieves." What 
 did He do ? He took the cord from around His gir- 
 dle and tied it on the rod, as I have seen men do. 
 I was once there, when there was bloodshed going 
 on among the people, as they were fighting the 
 Turkish soldiers for their rights ; and one man came 
 in and took off his girdle from his waist, and made 
 a whip of cords out of it and raised it, and he called 
 upon them and said, "In the name of my ances- 
 tors, of whose loins I am begotten, and in the 
 name of God I demand of you that every one 
 leave this place." So it was with Christ. He 
 took off the cord that was around Him and tied it 
 on the rod of the house of David. "In that day 
 there shall be a root to the house of Jesse." And 
 untying the cord He said, "You have made My 
 Father's house a den of thieves," that is, the house 
 of His ancestors. David had bought that land ; Sol- 
 omon had built that temple unto God; therefore it 
 was doubly the house of His fathers of His fathers 
 after the flesh and of His Father after the spirit. 
 So He overturned their money tables, and drove 
 them out of the temple. 
 
 We see Jesus again in that upper chamber. I 
 have often been to that upper chamber. It is right 
 close by where the tomb of David is. Jesus had 
 asked His disciples to go there; He had sent them 
 to prepare supper. He could see from the window. 
 You have to pass through the court where the tomb 
 of David is. And they sat down to that supper.
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 123 
 
 They sang a song. As I have sat in that chamber 
 it seemed to me that I could hear that wondrous 
 song, one of those beautiful songs of His ancestor 
 David, Christ singing with David's voice the Son 
 of man, the Son of God. You see all through, that 
 Christ is the Son of David, which means that David 
 is speaking in Him David is speaking in Him when 
 God is speaking in Him. It is as though it were God 
 speaking in God, and David speaking in Christ, be- 
 cause David got that grand conception of being able 
 to understand that Christ was to come in the flesh : 
 "Give strength unto Thy servant, and save the son 
 of Thy handmaid. O Lord, truly I am Thy servant ; 
 I am Thy servant, the son of Thy handmaid ; Thou 
 hast loosed my bonds." Who was the son of the 
 handmaid of the Lord? Jesus Christ, the son of 
 Mary, and made of Himself a servant of God. And 
 so here the song is sung, and Jesus . washes the 
 feet of His disciples; and then, after the message 
 goes out, in order to show them that they should 
 give service; you see it was a shame, and that is 
 why Jesus bound Himself with a towel, to show that 
 service is a glorious thing He says, "If I then, your 
 Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also 
 ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given 
 you an example, that ye should do as I have done 
 to you." It is absolute service, individual service. 
 And then He took the bread and wine, and He re- 
 vealed to them this cup, what it meant, as they sat 
 around the table. He had been preparing them for 
 this period. He had been preparing, for it says, 
 "And from that time forth began Jesus to show His
 
 124 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 disciples how that He must go up to Jerusalem and 
 suffer many things of the elders and chief priests 
 and the scribes, and be killed and be raised again 
 the third day." So the disciples had no excuse at 
 all for thinking Jesus would be dead, and buried 
 in the tomb, and not rise again. For He had pre- 
 pared and told them and opened their minds. 
 
 But now comes a glorious thing at the supper 
 . table. He takes up the cup and the bread and says, 
 
 Vjirv*^^.^ "This is My body and this is My blood." Jesus 
 "had put on the likeness of man, and in putting on 
 the likeness of man He put on simply the flesh and 
 blood, and that is why He said, "This is My body 
 broken for you, this is My blood that is shed for 
 you." He had put on this flesh and blood so as to 
 become at one with God. Now the glorious thing 
 about the atonement, as we call it, the at-one-ment 
 with God, is not simply the breaking of bread, the 
 f\fc J&* '? shedding of an animal's blood, but it is to bring us 
 * nto blood relationship. That is the beauty of it, 
 that we are His relations, which means that He is 
 ours and we are His by the tie of blood. He says, 
 "This is the blood, and you must drink of it. You 
 are one with Me." This is the communion, and He 
 revealed Himself in that cup. "Forasmuch," as the 
 apostle said, "as the children are partakers of flesh 
 and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of 
 the same ; that through death He might destroy him 
 that had the power of death, that is, the devil." 
 Now, that is why Jesus had to put on flesh and 
 blood, and to die, that He might destroy the power 
 of death and destroy the works of the devil, and re-
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 125 
 
 veal Christ in the flesh and blood. That is why 
 He installed the holy sacrament, that every time we 
 take of that holy cup and bread, we are as it were 
 revealing Christ in our own flesh and blood, to 
 show that He came in order to save us in that way. 
 And so here they took of the cup, and the apostle 
 tells us that the light came into their minds, and 
 they could see Christ right there ; they could under- 
 stand that at-one-ment, that absolute union with 
 Christ, that inseparable love, tied with Him, for ever 
 and ever. "As often as you take this cup, remem- 
 ber Me." 
 
 Then we see that He leaves with His disciples, 
 and goes through the city, passes through the tem- 
 ple, goes out of the golden gate, down the hill, across 
 the brook Kedron, and comes to the Garden of Geth- 
 semane. Let us go to the modern Garden of Geth- 
 semane, in the same place to-day in the King's Dale,^. 1 
 the same place where Melchizedek came to meet 
 Abraham, where Melchizedek brought to Abraham 
 the elements of the bread and wine, and revealed to 
 Abraham who was to be the ancestor of Christ. We 
 go out of the eastern gate, go down the hill, across 
 the brook Kedron. We see a walled enclosure. 
 The door is opened by a Franciscan monk. He 
 asks us not to talk above a whisper. This garden 
 is kept by the Franciscan monks. There are 
 eight old olive trees, which we are told shaded 
 the Master. Let us ask permission to go and 
 pray under one of those trees, which is supposed 
 to be where the drops of blood fell from Christ's 
 brow, where He said, "Not My will but Thine
 
 126 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 be done" and the voice of Jesus was heard cry- 
 ing, "If it be possible, take away this bitter cup; 
 but not My will, but Thy will, O Father." This 
 cry of anguish of our Lord is so much misunder- 
 stood. The traditions tell us that He was not 
 wanting in faith and courage for Himself as an 
 individual, but it was the disgrace that would fall 
 upon mankind as a race whom He represented that 
 they should perform such an unholy act upon His 
 body, which would rise again, and which forever 
 would bear the marks of their deed, seeing He 
 was their Saviour and had allied Himself to them 
 by ties of blood. Must He drink this bitter cup of 
 humiliation for them? If it were only possible, O 
 Father, to save them from this disgrace. Here it is 
 said that the very blood that He had put on came 
 out in drops from His brow. What the devil had 
 shown Him on the mountain was now coming to 
 pass. Shall He give up being the Saviour? No, 
 no! Not My will but Thine be done. They shall 
 be saved no matter what it costs the Son of man 
 and Son of God. And there appeared an angel unto 
 Him from heaven, strengthening Him. The tra- 
 ditions tell us that it was the angels that ministered 
 unto Him on the Mount of Temptation when He 
 had overcome Satan. So He says to His disciples 
 whom He found sleeping, "Why sleep ye? rise and 
 pray lest ye enter into temptation." He was de- 
 sirous that they at any rate should not bear the 
 stigma that they were unfaithful. "That the saying 
 might be fulfilled which He spake, Of them which 
 Thou gavest Me have I lost none." "Father, I will
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 127 
 
 that they also whom Thou hast given me be with 
 Me where I am that they may behold My glory 
 which Thou hast given Me. For Thou lovedst Me 
 before the foundation of the world. I have glori- 
 fied Thee on the earth. I have finished the work 
 which Thou gavest Me to do. He subjugates 
 everything to the Father. 
 
 So we ask permission, and if the monk thinks 
 you are really an earnest Christian, one who wants 
 to pray, and not simply want to cut off a piece of 
 the tree for a souvenir, he will leave you there to 
 pray. If it be a moonlight night, you kneel under 
 that tree, praying; and you see the proud city of 
 Jerusalem above you, and you see a mob of Roman 
 soldiers, with swords and spears and torches, and 
 people shouting and screaming, and they come 
 down the hill, headed by Judas. And Judas comes 
 up to the Master and says, as he kisses Him, "Hail 
 to Thee, O Master." Why did Judas come to betray .jfvu 
 Jesus with a kiss? Because Jesus was robed in 
 white, and all the disciples were robed in white; 
 they all wore hoods over their heads; that is 
 part of their cloaks, and the hood would fall over 
 their head, and they could n't tell one from another. 
 Judas says, "He that I kiss, that is the one." Jesus 
 throws back His hood and said, "Judas, why dost 
 thou betray the Son of man with a kiss? Why 
 have you come to take Me ? Am I a thief or a rob- 
 ber, that you should come to take Me ?" Whenever 
 there is a thief or robber that escapes they get a 
 band of soldiers, and all the riffraff of Jerusalem, 
 shouting and screaming, "A thief, a thief has es-
 
 128 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 caped," and any man can shoot him without being 
 brought to a court of justice. That is exactly what 
 His enemies wanted to do with Jesus ; they wanted 
 to give everybody a wrong impression of Him. 
 They wanted to tempt thousands of people to think 
 that Jesus was a thief and robber who had escaped. 
 And Jesus refers to this and says, "Am I a thief or 
 a robber, that you should come with staves and 
 sticks to take Me? I will go with you willingly." 
 But they pretended that He was a thief and a 
 robber, and so they bound Him and dragged Him 
 along the streets, and brought Him to the house of 
 the high priest; and then they take Him to Pilate, 
 and Pilate examines Him and says, "I find no fault 
 with this man," and then he sends Him to Herod. 
 Herod was glad to see the Christ ; he had long been 
 desirous to see Him. Herod was of the house of 
 Esau, of Edom, with that bitter enmity still rank- 
 ling in his heart. So Herod was the great king of 
 the Jews. "Who is this man?" When he looked 
 upon Christ he thought He would perform a mira- 
 cle, and when he saw He was not performing mira- 
 cles he was a little bit alarmed, and he laughed 
 "Ha, ha! So, sir, you are the king of the house 
 of David! We have the king; where is the robe 
 of the king of the shepherds? I am no king of 
 the shepherds, I am King of the Jews. Bring here 
 the robe. Let Him be for once in His life King 
 David, the king of the shepherds." And so they 
 brought the crimson robe (here the lecturer pro- 
 duced and displayed a crimson robe), which is the 
 sign of the king of the shepherds, which King
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 129 
 
 Herod had in his possession, but had never dared to 
 put on, for he was not king of the shepherds, but - 
 simply king of the Jews. So they put this robe on 
 the Christ, and they mocked and laughed at Him 
 as they led Him through the streets, mocking and 
 laughing at Him, "Ha, ha! there goes King David, 
 the king of the shepherds, who claims to be of the 
 house of David." "Who is this that cometh from 
 Edom with dyed garments from Bozrah ? This that 
 is glorious in His apparel, traveling in the great- 
 ness of His strength ? I that speak in righteousness, 
 mighty to save." 
 
 They brought Him again to Pilate, and Pilate 
 was himself sorry. He says to Him, "Art Thou a 
 king?" He sees by the robe that Herod has put 
 on Him that He must be a king. And then Pilate 
 goes out to the people and pleads with them and 
 says, "I find no fault with this man." But they cry 
 out, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" and he said, 
 "What, shall I crucify your king?" and they cried 
 out and said, "We have no king but Caesar. Thou 
 art no friend of Caesar's. Crucify Him! Show 
 thyself loyal. We claim no king but Caesar." A 
 Herod, frightened lest they should bring an accusa- 
 tion against him that he was in collusion with this ^ 
 man to place Him upon the throne and dethrone 
 Caesar, said, "Bring me the jug and the basin," 
 and according to the Oriental custom he washes 
 his hands as the water flows over them, and he says, 
 "I will wash my hands of the blood of this innocent 
 man." And they said, "Damo! Damo!" which 
 means, "His blood be upon us and our children." 
 
 9
 
 130 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 I have often been at places in the Holy Land 
 where they have had a blood feud, where a man 
 has had to suffer the penalty, and where they have 
 screamed out for his blood, "His blood be upon 
 our heads and upon our children." 
 
 And then Pilate again thinks he will appease 
 their wrath. He attires Jesus in a royal purple gar- 
 ment and crown, a crown of thorns. The purple 
 garment showed that He was a priest and king. 
 And He had another garment still, which was a robe, 
 whole and without seam from top to bottom, His 
 own garment. You read that the women touched 
 the hem or the border of His garment. When a man 
 wears a garment whole, without seam, it shows that 
 he is a teacher and preacher. When there is a border 
 to it, it shows that he is a physician. That is why 
 the woman touched the border, because she wanted 
 to be healed. If she wanted religious instruction, 
 she touched the upper part, but she wanted to be 
 healed and she touched the hem of His garment, and 
 in an instant was healed. So, when the Roman sol- 
 diers cast lots for the garments of Christ, it was a 
 magnificent garment. You say, "How could Christ 
 wear such a garment?" Do you not read that the 
 women ministered unto Him? The women to-day 
 will take off their jewels, and they will sell them 
 and buy fine silk and gold thread, and they will 
 weave the garment whole and without seam, with 
 all one's genealogy, with everything belonging to 
 him, and they present it to him. And so Jesus had 
 His own seamless garment, the crimson garment, 
 and the royal purple garment, to show that He was
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 131 
 
 physician, priest, and king. And in that way they 
 brought Him out before the multitude in that mem- 
 orable place. Go to Jerusalem to-day. You will 
 see the arch of the Ecce Homo. It was there that 
 Pilate placed Him, with the royal robes on. And 
 he said of Him, "Behold the man Ecce Homo;" 
 and they cried aloud, "Crucify Him, crucify Him! 
 We know no king but Caesar!" 
 
 And so Pilate gives Him over to the soldiers. 
 They seat Him on the marble throne in the pave- 
 ment, and they kneel before Him, and they give Him 
 a reed for a sceptre, and mock at Him, spit at Him ; 
 and after they have satisfied all their wrath, they 
 take off all these garments from Him, and they give 
 Him His own white garment that He had on down 
 there at the garden of Gethsemane. And so in that 
 way He is led to the place of execution. And as He 
 was being led to the place of execution, the legends 
 have it that a soldier carried the royal garment of 
 the king of the shepherds. In the other hand He 
 carried the purple one, that of the royal priest-king, 
 and then the seamless garment of Christ. In this 
 way He walked on ahead, followed by Simon car- 
 rying the cross. Then came Jesus in His magnifi- 
 cent form, and as He walked through the streets of 
 Jerusalem He was indeed a king. On His head was 
 the crown of thorns; and where the thorns had 
 pressed through His brow there were blood drops, 
 and they were like red rubies. And as He majestic- 
 ally walked through the streets, His eyes streaming 
 with tears, He heard the women wailing, and He 
 said, "Wail not for Me, but rather wail for your
 
 132 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 children." And He walked down the Via Dolorosa. 
 Go to Jerusalem to-day and you will see sometimes 
 a thousand people on the street at the different sta- 
 tions of the cross, praying, weeping. At Easter 
 time there are sometimes thirty, forty, fifty thou- 
 sand pilgrims, from every part of the world, and on 
 Good Friday they are all day in the street of sor- 
 row. And so Jesus walked through that street of 
 sorrow, calm and majestic, full of sorrow and com- 
 passion as He looked upon the multitude. And then 
 He was brought to Calvary. They took His seamless 
 garment. They gave it to the soldiers, and the sol- 
 diers cast lots, because it was so beautiful, so rare, 
 so unlike 'a garment. Then they put His cross in 
 the ground. They had dug a deep trench. The 
 thieves were already strung up on their crosses. 
 Jesus was nailed to the cross, and ere they raised 
 Him on the cross, they nailed His hands and His 
 feet, and they took that cross and lifted it up and 
 placed it in that trench ; and as they shook it down 
 His whole body shook. And He was lifted up. And 
 there was a hush that fell upon the multitude, and 
 then the rulers began to deride Him, and the 
 multitude began to cry, instigated by the rulers, 
 "If Thou art Christ, come down and save Thy- 
 self;" and the soldiers began to mock, and the 
 other people stuck out their tongues and mocked 
 and laughed at Him. And as He looked upon 
 them with compassion, He lifted His eyes up to 
 heaven and said, "Father, forgive them, for they 
 cto^-Q Ji know not what they do." In asking God to forgive 
 them, for they knew not what they did, He did n't 
 do what David did. David, when he was dying,
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 133 
 
 called his son Solomon, and he says, "Solomon, 
 swear to me that you will not let the head of Shimei 
 go down to peace in the grave." Why? Because 
 Shimei had mocked him when he was going up the 
 Mount of Olives. But this great Son of David says, 
 "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they 
 do." Then He cried out with a loud voice, "Eloi, 
 eloi, lama sabachthani," which translated according 
 to your version means, "My God, My God, why hast 
 Thou forsaken Me?" Would it be possible that 
 Jesus could for one moment have thought that God 
 had forsaken Him? This is one of our many mis- 
 translations, for we read that those who acted at 
 the cross did n't understand what Jesus said. Some 
 said He cried for Elias; some said one thing and 
 some said another thing. According to our history 
 what Jesus said was, "My God, my God, the leth- 
 argy of death is overtaking Me, for I am entering 
 into the valley of the shadow of death." If David 
 was not afraid of entering into the valley of the 
 shadow of death, how could this greater Son of f\h^T\ 
 David be afraid to enter? It was not the 22d 
 Psalm that He had in His mind, but the 23d, "Yea, | 
 I am entering into the valley of the shadow of 
 death, the lethargy of death is coming over Me." 
 Peter brings it out in his gospel to the Egyptians, 
 in explaining to them about this scene at the cross. 
 He says that Jesus called out, "My power, my 
 power, My power has forsaken Me. I am entering 
 into the shadow of death." And He sees His 
 Father's face and He cries out, "Into Thy hands, 
 O Father, do I commend My spirit." And then He 
 cries out with a loud voice, "It is finished."
 
 134 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 The soul has fled. Hanging only on the cross 
 was the body, the Son of man, the body in which 
 that soul had manifested itself. And there was 
 thunder and lightning and the earthquake, and the 
 dead came out of their tombs and they said surely 
 that was the Son of God. And when the thunder 
 and lightning and earthquake had passed, hanging 
 upon the cross was the body ; and Joseph of Arima- 
 thea comes and asks for the body, and he brings a 
 fine linen shroud, a winding sheet; I have here a 
 winding sheet of fine linen, in order to show you 
 what it is. Here is a shroud of linen (here the lec- 
 turer produces a shroud). It is put on in this way 
 (here the lecturer adjusts the shroud). You see it 
 is very large. You see how wide it is, so that the 
 body can all be covered, of fine linen, the finest 
 linen in the country. And the body is wound right 
 in it, and this portion here is the winding sheet, 
 and it is wound round and round until you come 
 down to the feet, and then the feet are taken and 
 tied by these two tassels, and this part is the towel, 
 the napkin, which you read about, in which the 
 head is wrapped up, the same kind of napkin we 
 use at the present day. It also is of fine linen 
 (indicating). And so the head is wrapped in the 
 napkin by itself. That is why they found the nap- 
 kin by itself and the grave clothes by themselves. 
 And so the body is rolled in this, and the winding 
 sheet is wound round and round, and in this way 
 the body is laid in the tomb. In this way they took 
 the body of Christ, as it was wrapped in fine linen, 
 and laid it in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, a
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 135 
 
 new tomb, where no man's body had been laid, and 
 there, upon that newly hued rock lay the vessel 
 containing the Word of God. And they took and 
 rolled a great stone over the mouth of the tomb, 
 which required three or four persons to roll. His 
 enemies said, "This man said He would rise again," 
 and so they asked for seals to be put on that tomb, 
 and they asked for a watch to be set. And they 
 sealed the tomb, and there the body lay. 
 
 Meanwhile the spirit of Christ left the body and 
 went down to hell. He had now to go down into 
 the depths, He had to go down into hell, and the 
 angels could not go with Him. No angel could., 
 walk through the portals of death. All through^ 
 His ministry the angels were with Him. But now H \JL> 
 had to go down to hell alone. "For I have trodden 
 the winepress alone." He had to go and preach to 
 those that were imprisoned, to set the captive free. 
 He had to go down to the devil's own ground and 
 say, "Now, here am I, who have fulfilled all things 
 as the Son of man; give Me the keys of hell and 
 death. I have won them." 
 
 We have a beautiful picture in the Church of 
 the Holy Sepulchre just to the right as you enter 
 the angels' chamber, a beautiful picture of those 
 who have been in captivity and are coming out ; 
 and there is Adam, and Eve, and Jesus is received 
 by Adam and Eve, preaching the gospel of ever- 
 lasting life to them. So He took the keys of hell 
 and death, and He preached to those that were in 
 prison. 
 
 Now His spirit body returned to the tomb, and
 
 136 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 He raises His body. Christ blended His spiritual 
 body with His earth-born body, or rather, after He 
 had been in hell and come out, He entered, so to 
 speak, ate up His body just in the same way as if 
 you have an ink stain here ; you take a kind of acid, 
 and you put it on that stain, and that acid eats up 
 your ink, and it becomes one with the ink, and so 
 Christ ate up the body ; His spiritual body ate up the 
 human body that He had put on, that formed the 
 likeness of man, and now the earth body and the 
 spirit body were blended in one. "Blotting out the 
 handwriting of ordinances that was against us" 
 (Col. 2: 14). Having abolished in His flesh the en- 
 mity, even the law of commandments contained in 
 ordinances, for to make in Himself of twain one new 
 man, so making peace" (Eph. 2:15). And then 
 the doors are thrown open; the angels hear Him 
 and the stone is rolled away, and Jesus comes out 
 more glorious, more beautiful than He was before. 
 For He had conquered the last enemy, Death; He 
 had trampled him under foot, and He had the keys 
 of hell and death in His possession; and He said, 
 "Go and tell the brethren that I live; I who once 
 was dead live forever more, and I have the keys of 
 death and hell. Go and tell the brethren that I 
 live." 
 
 And so He showed Himself to them at Emmaus. 
 He had to project Himself. They did n't recognize 
 Him ; even Mary did n't recognize Him, and so He 
 had to project Himself into the form they were ac- 
 customed to see Him. And so at Emmaus they did 
 not recognize Him until it came to the time of the
 
 Manhood and Ministry of Jesus 137 
 
 repast, when He projected His personality as the 
 Son of man into their vision, and they could see 
 Him as they had seen Him. And so it was that He 
 showed Himself over the country, the combination 
 of His spiritual body and His earth body ; and every 
 time He had to project something that they could 
 remember Him by. 
 
 Then forty days after His glorious resurrection 
 we see Him and His disciples coming up the Mount 
 of Olives which He loved, the house in Bethany; 
 and here He gathers His disciples all together, and 
 He sends them forth and says, "Go ye forth andQ^. :> 
 preach the gospel to every living creature" not only 
 to living beings, but animals. For the animals have jL 
 a gospel, because they took part as types in the 
 sacrifices. They are to go and preach to the whole 
 world the resurrection, that there is no death "I 
 am the resurrection; I am He that was dead. Go 
 to the uttermost corner of the earth. Carry this 
 message, for I must go to My Father. Go ye to 
 the uttermost corner of the earth and carry it." 
 And as He bid them, He began to bless them, and 
 He was raised higher, and then higher, and higher, 
 as He looked down upon them, and so He left them, 
 until He was lost to their vision. And they stood 
 gazing until an angel came to them and said : "Why 
 stand ye gazing, ye men of Galilee? As ye have 
 seen Him go, in like manner ye shall see Him come 
 again." And so angels appeared at His birth to 
 the shepherds at Bethlehem announcing His advent, 
 and again angels appear to His disciples on the 
 Mount of Olives promising His return hence the
 
 138 Jesus Christ in His Homeland 
 
 natives of Palestine have built a little chapel over 
 the spot from which He ascended, which is marked 
 by a footprint deep in the rock on which He stood. 
 They claim that as He ascended He left the foot- 
 print of one foot as a testimony that this earth was 
 His and that He would return and claim all as 
 prophesied by the prophet Zechariah, "And His 
 feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of 
 Olives (Zech. 14: 4). That little baby that was bewi 
 in the manger of Bethlehem, to-day has revolution- 
 ized the whole world. Infidels may laugh and mock 
 at Him, but His power has grown, His Gospels are 
 translated into every known language on the face of 
 the earth. It is like an electric band around the 
 whole world, notwithstanding there are people who 
 have thrown out His Gospels and think the five-foot 
 shelf of literature is sufficient. All over the world, 
 wherever you are sending your missionaries, telling 
 them about the Christ, they in turn have to flash 
 that idea that they believe that Christ is divine ; and 
 every day we see the words of the prophet Daniel 
 being fulfilled, "And there was given unto Him 
 dominion and glory and power, and His dominion 
 shall be an everlasting dominion that shall not fade 
 away, neither shall it be destroyed." Therefore 
 let every nation and kindred and tribe upon the ter- 
 restial globe to Him all majesty ascribe and crown 
 Him Lord of all. For Jesus Christ is the same yes- 
 terday, to-day and forever, and still we can hear 
 the echo of that glorious song sung on the plains of 
 Palestine, "Glory to God in the highest, and on 
 earth peace, good will toward men." 
 
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