Vol. VII. THE EVERGREEN. OCTOBER, 1850. No. 10. lous of CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE. [See Plate.] HE accompanying plate (whose cradle was a manger, made him tremrepresents the first and ble. His fear produced the desire and the only public act of our Sa- determination to remove the cause. With viour, spoken of in the Bi- reckless folly he presumed to array himself ble, intervening the time against God, and to make of no effect the of His return from Egypt and the counsels of the Almighty. In the deep commencement of His Ministry. So chambers of a heart where intrigue lay coiled deadly was the hostility of Herod to amid a brood of evil passions, like a serpent the child whose birth, though in a on its nest, he searched for the means to efstable, was heralded by the miracu- fect his purpose. Foiled in his attempt to appearance a star, and who, as He lay discover from the wise men the dwellingin the manger, received the worship and gifts place of our Lord, on the pretence of a desire of the wise men of the East, that the King to go and worship him, he determined to put determined upon His destruction. The more to death ALL the children from two years old successfully to accomplish his wicked purpose, and under, that thus the infant Jesus might he sent forth and "slew all the children that be reached. Savage and vindictive, with a were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts conscience deadened by a life-long indulgence thereof, from two years old and under, ac- in profligacy and crime, he knew no scruples. cording to the time which he had diligently The resolve was taken-the bloody scheme inquired of the wise men " was executed. The imploring looks of the helpless innocents could not soften the hearts of steel which were made the instruments to effect this dreadful tragedy. Murder lurked in every house, and there was not a hearth which was not darkened by its direful shadow. In Rama there was lamentation and great weeping. The air was filled with the cries of the innocent victims of this ferocious cruelty, and with the wailing of the mothers Wretchedly cruel and corrupt must have been the heart of the man who could plan and execute so terrible a deed. Herod was afraid of the infant Jesus. Surrounded as he was by pomp and power, with wealth and armies at his command, he remembered the prophecy that out of Bethlehem should come a Governor for Israel; and the thought of the child whose birth-place was a stable and VOL. VII. NO. I. The earthly parents of our Saviour went to Jerusalem to attend this Feast when he was twelve years old, and He, having reached the age prescribed by the Jewish law, was taken with them. The days of the Passover having been fulfilled, Joseph and Mary pre who lamented their tender offspring, torn from their breasts to be given over to a violent death. The deed was accomplished-the land was draped in mourning; but the child Jesus escaped. He was under the protecting care of an Almighty Power, which turned to naught the malice and the con-pared to return to their home. Supposing trivances of man. Joseph, warned of God, had fled with the young child into Egypt, where he remained until the death of Herod. Thus miraculously preserved from the fury of the cruel and vindictive king, and having returned from Egypt after the death of his persecutor, we have no further account of our Lord, until we find him, at the age of twelve years, in the Temple in the midst of the Doctors. Him to be in the company-for it was usual on these occasions for the Jews to travel together in large companies-they had proceeded a day's journey before they discovered He had not accompanied them. Immediately they returned to Jerusalem, where, after three days of anxious but unavailing search, they at length "found Him in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the Doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions." The history of our Saviour is at every point connected with some manifestation of superhuman power which marks him as a Divine Being. At His birth a star appeared in the Heavens over the place of His nativity to announce the coming of the Messiah. At His death there were earthquakes and darkness-the graves were unlocked, and yielded up to life those who had long been mouldering in their prison-house. During His ministry on earth wonders and miracles thronged His path to witness to His Divinity; lepers were cleansed-the sick were healed It was the time of the great Feast of the Passover at Jerusalem. To this Feast, which was celebrated every year, the Jews repaired from all quarters of the world. The Passover was one of those Institutions ordained by God himself, which-while it foreshadowed a greater sacrifice, and a greater delivery from bondage-bound the Jews together, and served to preserve their unity as a people. It brought to mind the days of their Egyptian bondage-the time when, groaning under the yoke of oppression, God interposed in behalf of his chosen people, and smote all the first-born of the Egyptians, but passed over the houses of the children of Israel. It reminded them that this judgment, thus inflicted upon their oppressors, had wrung from them a permission to depart from the land of their bondage, and obtained from them a release from their previous slavery. It called to their remembrance the stupendous and inspiriting thought, that they had been selected as the chosen people of God-had been protected by his Almighty arm, and preserved from age to age a monument of His power and goodness. At every cele-ing them and asking them questions," and bration of this Feast the Jews assembled at they were astonished at His understanding Jerusalem in countless multitudes from every and answers." The depth of His wisdom clime, to commemorate this great mercy, and was to them a mystery, and they wondered, to strengthen and brighten the bonds which because they did not know the Divinity held them together as citizens of the same which dwelt within Him. favored nation, and members of the one true amazed, because they could not comprehend religion which God had established, and of how it was that a child could impart to them which he had made them the depository. a knowledge which the study of a life-time the blind and the deaf were made to hear and see-the dead were raised. Before His ministry commenced, the only fact recorded of Him after His miraculous preservation from the fury of Herod, is that represented in the accompanying engraving. Just twelve years old, a very child in point of years, we find Him in the Temple with the DocTORS-the learned men of the age. He was there with these men of giant intellect and profound learning and matured years, not as a learner but as a teacher. He was " 66 hear They were had not enabled them to master. They hung to instruction from the lips of the wise and upon His words in silent astonishment, and the aged, but we behold the venerable sage well they might. There was visible to their hanging with breathless interest upon words outward senses only the human form of the falling from the lips of a child, and cherishchild Jesus; but within that form dwelt the ing them and storing them up as a priceless full majesty of the God-head, and though treasure. The child is the teacher, the aged they knew it not they felt its presence. and the wise are the learners. The sacred They listened with awe to the words He volume does not relate this fact without an spake, and wondered;" had they known object. Like the miraculous appearance of that the voice they heard was Divine, they the star, and the miraculous escape from the would have worshipped. machinations of Herod, it shows us that God The scene presented to our view is a re- was with the child, and prepares us to remarkable one. It is a complete reversal of ceive Him, when He commences His ministhe picture which, under ordinary circum- try as our Lord and Saviour. 3 stances, we should have looked for. We are 66 H. W. not called upon to witness the child listening THE CHILD SAMUEL. REFLECTIONS. or, as more strongly rendered in the margin, 66 ATENTLY, the history of therefore also have I lent him to the Lord;" Samuel is more interesting in the early than in the later particulars. His general course appears to have resembled that not unusual with the prophets. But the opening events of his life contain points of instruction for the YOUNG, of peculiar moment, and not to be so fully gathered from other parts of the holy volume. This eminent Prophet of the Most High was separated to His immediate service by the vow of his mother, before he was born. His infancy was given to his parents; but at the early age of about six years, he was brought by them to the Sacred Tabernacle, the house of God, with due offerings, and there left, under the care of Eli, the Highpriest. The mother, in presenting him, solemnly avowed: "For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition; "Therefore have I returned him to the Lord." "As long as he liveth he shall be returned to the Lord." The child then performed his untainted worship at the consecrated place. And, after a hymn of thanksgiving by the mother, the parents returned to their residence, the child, whom they visited annually at the yearly sacrifice, remaining with Eli, before whom he ministered unto Jehovah. devoted Samuel continued to dwell at the From this early budding of existence, the Tabernacle. By descent he was a Levite;* but officially he could not be of that holy rank for some twenty years or more. (Numb. iv. viii.) In this case, however, "Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child, *1 Chron. vi. 33, 34-the "Shemuel" named being Samuel. His subsequent elevation to be a Prophet and Judge exonerated him from lower functions. |