fusalem, to a child of common observation, must have been a fource of much furprise. How many queftions, and how many remarks would not fuch a journey have raised in a young mind? -His foul must neceffarily have expanded in allufion and comparison. In the midst of fuch a scene as Jerufalem prefented to youthful curiofity, every step

would have awakened reflection. Yet ftrange, too young for an impoftor, and too fimple for a hypocrite, not a single obfervation on human life, on the city, or on the inhabitants appears to have efcaped him. Yet stranger ftill, this ignorant boy, carelefs of all the novelties of the city, and truant to his parents, who had already left Jerufalem on their journey home, without any introduc

tion, alone, and probably in mean apparel, proceeds to the Temple, the moft famous place in the city. There, he finds the most learned men in the country dictating on the public affairs. He feats himself in the midft of them, and, all of a fudden, he enters into the debate. By the fingular pertinence and depth of his obfervations, rather than by any artifice of eloquence, he draws on himself the attention of all. Soon they become astonished, and dropping their own concerns, regard the child with a mixed tumult of curiosity, awe and wonder.

THIS early and brilliant success, in his first attempt to attract public admiration, one might imagine, would har

man.

fixed the predominant character of the If the tremulous nerves of the Olympic victor would sometimes be overpowered in supporting the laurel which his corporeal strength had won, what must be the nature of him, who receives in youth, with equanimity, the more cherished, and flattering distinction, which a powerful mind commands from the willing, perhaps the unwilling voices of his cotemporaries? Already, in imagination,the brightest scenes open upon his manhood. The obscurity of his family is forgotten. The trappings of honour will not only clothe himself, but conceal the meanness of his parents. In the ardour of riper years, who will not follow him, whom they reverence in childhood?

We know nothing more of JESUS CHRIST, until he is thirty years of age. On this blank in his life, during a period of eighteen years, every man must judge, agreeably to his own feelings and views of human nature. But it muft be obvious to every one that this long obscurity is, perhaps, the most extraordinary circumstance of his life. How could a young man, confcious of talents, and contemptible in that age, both on account of his parentage and place of nativity, facrifice so long, the laudable pride of raising his family, or possessed of more expanded feelings, of honoring his native country? Though age is slow and calculating, youth is hasty and clamorous of the present. How could a youth, who at the age of

་་-. ...--བ་

twelve, commanded the attention of sages, preserve a silence of so many years? Though prudence measures ev ery thing with her compasses, genius is more rapid. How could a young man, like JESUS, whose nation was the reproach of the earth, bury himself in the obscurity of Nazareth for so long a period of that time, when the passions are all alive, and when pleasure engrosses the current moment, or ambition lays plans for the future?

AT about the age of thirty, JESUS appeared again in public. He was then in all the ripeness of manhood, at a period equally distant from the levity of youth, and the cares of age. He is reported to have been in his person ex