The Penn's Grove record., 1909-08-13
Written in Jerusalem by the eloquent
Brooklyn divine and writer, now in
the Holy Land, devoting months
to research and study
Subject: Nazareth.

Text: "And Nathaniel said unto
MIN, Can any good thing come out Of
NAZARETH"
Nazareth nestles among the hills.
ana as o come upon it over the
last brow of the rolling country that
lies between the town and the coast,
the eye is delighted with the simple
beauty and quiet grandeur of the
spot. 1t is a fit stage for the setting
Oh the earliest scenes in the life drama
OF the woodworker's apprentice whose
divine mission it was to mediate the
knowledge Of the love of God for
men. Here, in the lower highlands
OF the Galilee, inspired with a daily
vision of the holy heights of Carmel.
upon whose summit another and an
earlier messenger had taught the
truths OF God; face to face with the
martial memories of out-stretched
Megiddo, gifted with an easy view of
the snow-capped tops of Hermon, in
the midst of Gentle influences,
neighbor to the jealous, patriotic
Galilean Jews; on the highroad across
which Travelled the wealth and infor-
nation and culture of Greece and
Rome; to the east the sea and to the
west the ocean; here Christ spent
that youth of which we know so lit
tie and that must have meant so
much.
You may see at Nazareth a glorf-
Gus picture conveying an artists i'm
preston of the Holy Boy at work.
You may enter, under the ruins of an
obviously ancient, immense Cru
saders' church, a rock hewn room
about which traditions had become
entwined. You may sit inside the
synagogue where "He stood up to
read" in which filled with wrath"
they rose up" against Him. If so
inclined you may endeavor to dis
cover the location of "the brow of
the hill" yer which, with true Cali
lean dispatch and temper, they tried
to throw Him down headlong." But
none of these things, interesting as
they may be, is so calculated to i'm
press the mind and to warm the heart
as the landscape of which this shrine
city is the centre. As you look about
you, with a knowledge of contem-
poraneous conditions in the time Of
our Lord, you wonder, not, after the
manner Of Nathaniel, how could "any
good thing come out of Nazareth,
but how could any high souled young
man living under the spell of an iden-
teal environment help being less
than a prophet to his people. Nazar-
eth Is the sort of place in which we
would imagine the boyhood of Christ
to have been spent, even as the lifes
| jeoparding Galileans were the kind
of men Jesus needed to constitute
the early company Of His disciples.
1t is no wonder that He fastened
20 the succor OF the distressed at
Main or that He was familiar with
the Scripture as a boy. For toward
Main He was indebted for many a
charming outlook which must have
endeared the place and its inhabi-
tants to His heart. Born in Beth
lehem He must have had, at twelve,
no inconsiderable knowledge of that
town and it's environment, actual
and historical; while the region about
Nazareth and the countrysides visi-
BILE from the elevation to the north
west of Nazareth were peopled with
memories, suggestive, ~enriching, en-
larging, impelling. To the south lay
the entrance to the valley of Jezreel,
heavy with stories of Saul and Ahab,
of warfare and slaughter, of the Vine
| yard of Naboth and the chariot of
Jehu, of peridious Jezebel and the
dogs which ate her, Of Elijah the
Tishbite. To the southwest, Megiddo
where Ahaziah died. To the south
east, Endor. Over yonder was Leb-
anon; towards the west, the waters
of the ships OF Tarshish. Here Rome
and Greece; worshipers on Gerizim
and Moriah: the past. the present,
and the future; causes and probabili-
ties; history and prophecy; the cul-
ture, the tendencies, the hopelessness,
and delinquencies of an age, we're
| gratuitously open to the student of
the life of men.
Was it not indeed a fitting land and
a proper school?
Bethlehem was a gracious cradle.
Nazareth was a university. AS the
Judean city of David gave Him His
first fresh breaths, so the despised
city OF the Galilean hillside afforded
Him first, refreshing, augmenting in
spirations. Here His soul began to
breathe, His mind to frame the relig-
ious and moral PHILOSOPHERS that the
Father shot into His soul. In the
midst of the fields and valleys, the
rocks and vineyards, the woods and
orchards, elevations and high places,
the suns and rains and clouds and
dews and streams and droughts, the
stars and moonlight, the joys and suf-
ferings, the virtues and the sins Of
this locality which owes its fame TO
Him, His spotless heart was stirred
by Him whose evangel He was.
The men who tried to kill Him by
throwing Him down hill achieved
thereby an everlasting notoriety of a
somewhat impersonal character. The
teaching that He proffered and that
they refused is the sublimation of di-
vine revelation. When they rejected
the Master they made it easier for
His disciples in every age to endure
Indifference. When that community
turned a deafened ear to the wisdom
of God in Jesus they gave heart to
every prophet and servant Of God for
evermore.
And as, from the height which
Jesus often must have climbed with
youthful ardor, we look down upon
the modern village. the narrow streets
are filed with other faces, the spirits
of a host who have lived within and
Travelled to these sacred precincts rise
to greet us, and wehear a voice which
says with infinite sweetness and as
surance, @The Spirit of the Lord is
upon Mel"
IRA w. HENDERSON. i
Jerusalem, June is, 1909.