one-sided. Little is reported about his early life, but the fact which impressed Dr. Luke, his biographer, as most notable was the natural way Jesus grew into manhood on all four sides of his nature:

They returned to Galilee, to their home city, Nazareth, and the child developed and grew strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.-Luke 2:40.

And his mother treasured all these events in her memory; and Jesus made progress in wisdom, and in stature, in God's grace, and man's good will. —Luke 2:52.

As a boy in Nazareth Jesus seems to have had the broad interests of a normal boy and lived the all-round life. He must have reveled in wholesome sports and outdoor living, for he enjoyed the open air as a man and seldom stayed long under anyone's roof. He certainly did not neglect his mind, for he developed one of the keenest intellects this world has ever known, while in his religious and social nature he had marvelous power. The interesting point is, he grew in all these ways, in even, natural development, all through the growing years of life, and his example furnishes splendid ideals of personal growth for us all.

Jesus developed in physical strength. His hilltown life and love for the open made him grow tall and vigorous. We may be sure he spent many a night on the mountain in his youth, as we know he did in his manhood (Luke 6: 12; 9: 28; John 6: 15). He was no ascetic or recluse. He was virile, muscular, powerful. He read in his Bible,

Love the Lord your God with all your strength, and he lived up to this ideal. He consecrated his body,

that through proper care and exercise it might grow into a strong and useful instrument for God's great purposes. He took long walks with his friends; in fact, that seemed his favorite way to travel even on his longest journeys. But even his remarkable endurance sometimes found its limit, under the great nervous strain of his work as a good physician. At such times he was wise enough to take a short vacation. "Come aside with me into the country to rest awhile," he would say to his comrades. His elastic strength quickly recovered when thus given a chance, for his health was splendid. In a day or two he was again recharged with great vitality, partly physical, partly spiritual, and was sharing it generously with the sick folks who flocked to him. How beautifully he met the Christian standard for the life of the body which Paul sets up in Romans 12: "I plead with you, my friends, as you love God, to present to him your bodies as a living, holy sacrifice, which is your spiritual service!"

Jesus made progress in wisdom.—Though he lived in a small town, he never had "the Main Street mind." He was broad-minded, welcoming new truth as frankly as he tested the old. Like everyone else, his mind grew as he used it. He realized the claim of the ancient commandment upon him,

Love the Lord your God with your whole mind, and he made his mind a fact-grasping, truth-testing machine of wonderful accuracy and power. Even at the age of twelve we see how keen his mind had grown; but at thirty, or soon after, he was so alert and quick at repartee he could outwit the sharpest lawyers of the land. Again and again they went after him to debate with him, bringing their carefully plotted questions by which they hoped to entangle him, but he checkmated them every

time. He must have enjoyed these battles of brains and his skillful victories! But his enemies, repeatedly worsted, finally stopped in despair, and after that "no one dared ask him any more questions."

Remember the time when these wily antagonists sprung on him that dangerous political question about paying taxes to Rome. It was the hottest point in politics in those days. They saw they could get him into serious trouble if he answered either yes or no, for either answer would anger the Jews on the one side or the Romans on the other. Quick as a flash, he saw the danger and dodged it like a skillful matador. Then he stopped the discussion with startling speed! He called for a denarius, their most common coin, and asked whose image and name were stamped upon it. "Cæsar's," they had to reply. "Then pay Cæsar whatever belongs to him; and serve God likewise." It was a most skillful evasion, couched in a veiled rebuke. If they had accepted the Roman coinage and the protection it indicated, they could not complain about Roman taxes; but what about their duty to Jehovah? A common proverb at the time ran thus: "He whose coin is current is king of the land."

These stories of Jesus' remarkable mental alertness and sagacity arouse our respect for his wisdom and our confidence in him as a teacher of life. We can trust the mind of our Master as well as his sympathetic heart. He had a great reverence for truth and longed to free his friends from superstition, ignorance and bigotry. His promise to those who follow him is worth pondering carefully:

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.-John 8: 32.

The religion of Jesus makes people grow in wisdom as he did.