The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-12-22
Subscribe for The Herald " %~sr 6125 Per Month.

acknowledge that it was another lad
who had given him the push. He
changes into kids some boys when he
wanted them to play with him; and
then, at the entreaty of their mothers,
retransforms them into boys. 1t is
needless to touch further on this prod
igality of superfiuous and unmeaning
pettentS.
They Present IL False Picture.
8. But. worse than this, the Apocry-
phal Gospels, from the ignorance, and
probably, in most instances, from the
heretical opinions of their writers,
make the boy Jesus positively repul-
sive in character. He is inplacably
revengeful and cruelty remorseless.
He becomes the terror of the neigh
borhood in which he lives, so that,
becaues of him. his parents live in
perpetual disquietude and alarm.
He is pert, petulant and intolerable
to his teachers. and instead of listen
ing to their instructions, lectures
them on physics and metaphysics.
hyperphysics and hypophysics. Let
one or two instances suffice.
I. When the Lord Jesus was re-
turning home with Joseph in the even
ing, he met a boy who ran to thrust
him so violently that he fell down.
The Lord Jesus said unto him, AS
thou hast thrown me down, SO shalt
thou fall and not rise And the same
hour the boy fell down and breathed
his last" 8
II. Again, Jesus had been making
some pools and channels of water and
''the son ofsoAnnas. the scribe, was
standing there with Joseph, and took
a branch of willow and spilled the
water which Jesus had collected. And
when Jesus saw what was done, he
was angry. and said to him, Wicked,
impious and foolish one. wherein have
the pools wronged thee? Behold now,
thou shalt also whittier as a tree And
gether.' When the parents com
planned his mother came and en-
treated him to .be less w1lathful.
But he said. He was worthy of
death. because he destroyed the works
which I had wrought Therefore his
mother 'besought him. saying DO not
my Lord. because they all rise against
u.s. And he, not willing that his
mother should be grieved, spurned the
body Of the dead with his right foot.
and said to him. Arise, o son of in
iquity. for thou art not worthy to en-
ter into the rest of thy father Then
he who was dead arose and departed"
III. Again. when he is sent to
teacher to learn his letters, the master
begins imperiously to teach him, say
ing, "Say Aleph.' But Jesus said to
him. First tell me what Beth is"
The master, being angry, struck him
with rod of storax wood; and soon
after he smote him he died. And
But Joseph. being afraid, called Mary
to him. and said. ''Know truly that
my soul is sad unto death on account
of that boy"
The Authentic Accounts Enough.
It is. then. abundantly clear that
the spurious James. and Matthew and
the others. have not only nothing gen
uine to teach us about Christ, but
that the picture of him which they
represent is utterly debased. The
genuine Gospels were written for our
learning not for our amusement; to
promote our salvation, not to gratify
our curiosity. Their very silence is
eloquent with truth. What do they
tell us of the infant and the youthful
Christ? They give us the narrative
of his incarnation: they present us
with the picture of the sweet, sub
mtsive years spent in the shop of
the carpenter at Nazareth; but from
his early return from Egypt to Cali
lee up to the commencement of his
ministry. when he began to be about
80 years DID," they preserve but one
anecdote and one word. The one an
ecdote is the story of that visit to Je-
rusalem. which was probably con-
nected with what we should call his
confirmation: and this to show us
how. in his earliest years, he loved
his fathers house of prayer. The
one word is "the carpenter" in the
disdainful question of the vulgar and
the ignorant. who thought that they
had abolished his claims when they
asked. "Is not this the carpenter?''
That one word tells us all that is to
be told of more than twenty years,
during which he grew Gin wisdom
and stature. and favor with God and
man." A scanty record? Not scanty
for it's purpose, for in that one word
is revealed to all mankind nothing
less than the sacred dignity of labor,
and the blessed truth THAT the true
grandeur and meaning of human life
depends neither on rank nor fame.
neither on the glare of publicity nor
on the encourage of power, nor on
the multitude of things which man
possesseth. but on his creation after
Gods image, and on the sign of his
redemption marked visibly upon his
forehead.