rience. He is the true shepherd. However indifferent the Jews may be to his word, his own sheep hear and know his voice. They follow him. They feed from his hand. Assailed by crafty and dangerous foes, he saves them by the sacrifice of his own life. This fold is not comprised within the narrow bounds of any race or any church, but whosoever accepts his voice and follows his lead is recognized as of his flock, whom he shall bring at last to the fields of everlasting green, and the pure waters of the River of Life.*

If in this Judean ministry Jesus wrought fewer miracles than in Galilee, they were no less significant. The story of but one is recorded by the evangelist-the cure in the streets of Jerusalem of a beggar, blind from his birth. The case is chiefly remarkable from the subsequent investigation to which it led. It seems almost to satisfy the demands of modern skepticism. The people brought the subject of the case to the Supreme Court. The case was judicially investigated. The blind man's identity was established by his own testimony, and corroborated by that of his parents. That he was born blind was established by the same indisputable evidence. The value of this evidence is enhanced by the fact that his parents were reluctant witnesses, and that the man himself had so little interest to further the cause of Christ that he did not even so much as know who he was; and, finally, so clear was the case, that after the utmost endeavor to browbeat the witness, the court resorted to the sorry expedient of excommunicating him, that they might thus cast discredit on his story.t

So passed away three months of almost absolutely unrecorded work.

The month of December, with its leafless trees, its brown hill-sides, and its continuous rains, brings with it the Feast of Dedication. Instituted by the Maccabean dynasty, a national rather than a Church festival, observed only by the Judeans, chiefly by the Maccabean party, it brought together * John X., 1-18.

+ John ix.

the haughtiest of the Jewish autocrats, and the more narrowminded and bigoted of the Jewish people. In this feast there was nothing to attract Jesus save the opportunity once more to speak to the heart of Judaism.

That opportunity Jesus embraced. But a single sermon was all that the impatience of the Jews would suffer to fall from his lips.*

No sooner had he made his appearance in the Temple than a threatening crowd surrounded him. They demanded that he make instant and plain declaration of his mission. "If thou be the Christ," they cried, " tell us plainly." Jesus at once complied. In language which the historian must interpret as the hearers did, however theological controversy may seek to clothe it with peculiar meaning, he replied, “I and my Father are one." In these words he confirmed the impression produced by his previous declarations. He aroused the same enraged hostility. Unchecked by fears of a foreign populace, a fiercer onset than before was made upon him. They had demanded that he speak plainly. They mobbed him when he did. With that same majestic mien that had already carried him through two similar scenes, he quelled the populace for the moment. He cited against them their own Hebraic Scriptures. He repeated, in language stronger, if that were possible, than before, his mystical union with his Father. Then he bid adieu to the city which so strangely belied its name-Inheritance of Peace. His Judean ministry was at an end. Nor will he return to Jerusalem again until he returns to fulfill the prophecy of his pastoral, and on the mount where a lamb slain saved the life of Abraham's only son, lay down his own life for the life of his sheep.

* See John x., 22-39, for this sermon and its reception.

CHAPTER XXV.

PARABLES IN PEREA.*

AST of the River Jordan lies a wild and romantic region, which is, to the present day, a terra incognita. Its mountains, walling out the Eastern deserts, afford a fitting retreat for plundering tribes of Arabs. Few of the hosts of travelers who annually visit the Holy Land are venturesome enough to invade its territory. Even those whose erudite works are the standards of scholars leave us in ignorance of that portion of the ancient domain of Israel. Many of them seem even to imagine that the Jordan valley constituted its eastern boundary. Even such writers as Stanley, Robinson, and Ritter give little or no account of this district, concerning which little is known except such scanty information as can be gathered from a few papers, and reports of one or two travelers more adventurous than their fellows.

This unknown region went, in the time of Christ, under the general name of Perea. The word is of Greek origin, and signifies Beyond. It was used by the Western populace to describe the country beyond the Jordan. It included the districts known in earlier times as Bashan and Gilead. A plateau whose level plains are elevated two or three hundred feet above the level of the sea, it appears to possess a still greater elevation by reason of its western border, the Jordan valley, which is sunk one thousand feet below that level. In the south a land "tossed into wild confusion of undulating plains," in the north its hills rise into mountains that merge

Matt. xix.; xx., 1-16; Mark x., 1-31; Luke ix., 51-62; x., 1–24; xiii., 22-35; xiv.-xvii.; xviii., 15–30. + Stanley, Sinai and Pal., p. 320.

at length in the range of Lebanon and anti-Lebanon. Its mountain streams and springs are never wholly dry; forests of oak cap its hill-tops; grassy downs afford on its plains admirable pasturage. Now, as in ancient times, it is characteristically "a place for cattle." The high hills of Bashan, the oaks of Bashan, the strong bulls of Bashan, have been made ever-memorable by the sayings of the poet-king..

A wild and rugged region, its history partakes of its geographical character. Among the hills of Gilead, Jephthah gathered the children of Israel for his successful campaign against his southern neighbors, the children of Ammon; here David sought a refuge from the brief rebellion of his son; here the sons of Saul found a home after their father's death. From Gilead came the ascetic prophet of Judah's degenerate days, Elijah, the Bedouin wanderer, bold, active, circumspect, partaking of the very character of the scenery in the midst of which he was reared; and here John the Baptist, in spirit Elijah risen from the dead, prepared for his brief but significant ministry.*

Little as is known of this district, there is enough to indicate that at the time of Christ it was fertile and populous. This region, which now only the boldest traveler dare venture into, was traversed by Roman roads, which aided to make it a favorite route for pilgrims from Galilee to Jerusalem. Where now is only to be seen the nomadic cities of the Bedouin Arabs, formerly ten flourishing cities, built by Roman hands, afforded permanent homes to an industrious population. These now deserted hills were dotted with a hundred villages; these now desolate but once grassy downs were covered with herds and flocks.t

Into this region Christ now entered. He had preached his

* For a farther account of these incidents in the history of Perea, some of which indicate its character, see Numb. xxxv, 1; Judges xi., 29; 2 Sam. ii., 8; xvii., 22; 1 Kings xvii., 1; Luke i., 80.

The cities of Perea gave to its southern portion the name of Decapolis, and it is said that the Jordan alone contains the ruins of one hundred and twenty-seven villages.-Smith's Bible Dict.,'art. Bashan.

Gospel in Galilee, and it had been rejected; he had proclaimed it in Jerusalem, and he had been driven by violence from the city. It remained to proffer it to the scattered Israelites dispersed throughout Perea. Intermixed with a heathen population, descendants many of them of the lost tribes, tracing their genealogy back with difficulty to the period of the restoration, living in intimate contact with the Gentile inhabitants of the Roman cities, the obscure Jews of Perea, no less than the provincial Jews of Galilee, were looked down upon with undisguised contempt by the haughty inhabitants of Jerusalem.

But they were Israelites and dwellers in the land of Israel, and Christ's mission would not be ended until he had preached the Gospel of his kingdom throughout the entire Holy Land.

Little, we have said, is known of this country or its history. A similar obscurity envelops the ministry of Jesus there. Nearly all our information concerning it is derived from one evangelist-Luke. Some scattered fragments are added by Matthew and Mark. Not one of them attempts to follow Jesus in his tours from city to city, or to trace the development of his doctrine, or its effect upon the people. It is, indeed, rather a matter of rational conjecture than of positive and definite information that he spent these winter months in the district of Perea at all. It would be idle, therefore, in the entire absence of any reliable information, to endeavor to trace his ministry in its chronological order. All such attempts necessarily substitute surmise for reliable information. We only know that it was an itinerant one, and that he journeyed from as far north as the Sea of Tiberias to the Ford of Bethabara.* Without, therefore, attempting to trace in detail his course, we shall simply gather up the records of the evangelists, and present, in a few brief paragraphs, the principal results of the two or three months' work on which the Savior now entered.

* Compare Luke ix., 51; xiii., 22; xvii., 11; and Alford in loco, Matt. xix., 1; Mark x., 1. This period is confessedly the most difficult in the