Connecticut western news., 1890-11-26

his early whereabouts. What boy sees between 7 and 17 always sticks to him. When the apostle Peter preach
 es you see the fishing nets with which he had from his earliest days been fa- miliar. And when Amos delivers his prophecy you hear in it the bleating of the herds which he had in boyhood at tended. And in our Lords sermons and conversations you see all the phases of village life and the mountain ous life surrounding it. They raised their own chickens in Nazareth, and it. after time he cries: 70 Jerusalem! Jerusalem! how often would have gathered thee as 8 hen gathereth her chickens under her wings!" He had seen his mother open the family ward hohe at the close of summer and the moth niiiersn flying out, having de- istroyed the garments, and in after years he says: ''Lay not up for your selves treasures on earth where moth doth corrupt. In childhood he had seen mile of flowers white as the snow, or red as the flame, or blue as the sea, or green as the tree tops, and no wonder in his manhood sermon he said, Consider the lilies" While one day on high point where now stands the tomb of Neby Ismail, he had seen winging past him so near as almost to furry his hair the par fridge and the hoopoe and the thrush and the osprey and the crane and the raven and no wonder afterward in his manhood sermon he said 'sBehold the fowls of the air.'' In Nazareth and on the road to it there are great many camels. I see them now in memory making their slow way up the zigzag road from the plain of Esdraelon to Nazareth Familiar was Christ with their appearance, also with that small insect, the gnat which he had seen his another strain out from cup of water or pail of milk, and no wonder he brings afterward the large quadruped and the small insect into his sermon, and, while seeing the Pharisees careful about small sins and reckless about large ones, cries out: Woe unto you, blind guides, which strain out gnat and swallow camel"
 THE SHEEP KNOW HIS VOICE.
 He had in boyhood seen the shep- herds get their flocks mixed up, and to one not familiar with the habits of shepherds and their focks, hopelessly mixed up. 2. And sheepstealer ap- pears on the scene and dishonesty de- lnands some of those sheep, when he owns not one of them. ''Well," say the two honest shepherds, i've will soon settle this matter" and one shep- herd goes out in one direction and the other shepherd goes out in the other direction, and the sheepstealer in an other direction, and each one calls, and the flocks of each of the honest shep-, Aerd1s rush to their owner, while the sheepstealer calls and calls again, but gets not one of the flock. No wonder that Christ years after, preaching on great occasion and illustrating his own shepherd qualities, says: ''When he putteth forth his own sheep he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice, and the stranger they will not follow, for they know not the voice of the stranger"
 The sides of these hills are terraced for grapes. The boy Christ had often stood with great round eyes watching the trimming of the grapevines. Clip! goes the knife and off falls branch. The child Christ says to the farmer, '''What do you do that for?" "Oh," says the farmer, ''that is dead branch, and it is doing nothing and is only in the way, so I cut it off," Then the farmer with his sharp knife prunes from living branch this and that ten dril and the other tendril. ''But," says the child Christ, these twigs that you cut off now are not dead. What do you do that forF' "Oh," says the farmer, Eve prune off these that the main branch may have more of the sap, and so be more fruitful No wonder in after years Christ said in his sermon: t'I am the true vine and my Father is the husbandman every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit" Capital! No one who had not been country boy would have said that. ... ..
 JESUS KNEW ALL NATURE.
 Streaks of nature all through Christ's sermons and conversations! When pigeon descended upon Christ's head at his baptism in the Jordan it was not the first pigeon he had seen. And then he has such wide sweep of discourse as you may imagine from one who has stood on the hills that overlook Naza- reth As far as I understand, Christ visited the Mediterranean sea only once, but any clear morning he could run up on hill near Nazareth and look off to the west and see the Med iterranean, while there in the north is snowy Mount Lebanon, clad as in white robe of ascension, and wonder on the east and southeast Mount Gi1boa, Mount Tabor and Mount Gilead, and wonder in the south is the plain of Els draelon over which we rode yesterday on our way to Nazareth. Those mount ai11s of his boyhood in his memory, do you wonder that Christ, when he want ed good pulpit, made it out of mountain seeing the multitudes he went up into the mountain And when he wanted especial communion with God he took James and John and Peter into "a mountain apart"
 Oh this country boy of Nazareth, come forth to atone for the sins of the world, and to correct the folhes of the world, and to stamp out the cruelties of the world, and to illumine the darkness of the world, and to transtigure the