tation was not among the hierarchs. They watched him for occasions of accusation, proffered him hospitality only as a ruse to entrap him, and openly derided his teachings.*

In Perea as in Judea, the controversy between Jesus and Pharisaism commences upon the Sabbath question. Jesus repeats his testimony to the liberty of God's glorious rest-day. He does not disown the Sabbath obligation. He does nothing to relax it. But he teaches emphatically that it is a day for deeds of mercy. By miracles of healing at least twice repeated, once in the synagogue, once in a private house, he repeats the doctrine that he has already taught in Galilee, "It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day." Here, as there, in every rencounter, Jesus is victor. The common people appreciate his illustrations, drawn from real life, and applaud his doctrines and his deeds. The Pharisees are enraged because they are humbled.t

In order better to bring him into disrepute with the common people, they assume the position of disciples, and ask him for instruction. But their questions are those of the dishonest skeptic. They ask not for information, but to baffle and perplex. Such is the question which they address to him concerning divorce.

As we have already had occasion to indicate, the laws regulating the marriage relation were fearfully lax in the Orient. Wedlock was no indissoluble tie. No legal proceedings were needed to dissolve it. The husband had simply to write a bill of divorce, and dismiss his wife from the house. In that bill he was not even obliged to state the grounds on which he acted. "He that desires to be divorced from his wife for any cause whatsoever," writes Josephust-and many such cases arise among men--" let him in writing give assurance that he will never use her as his wife any more, for by these means she will be at liberty to marry another husband." The Mosaic statute indeed provided that the husband could only * Luke xiv., 1; xvi., 14. † Luke xiii., 10-17; xiv., 1-6.

Josephus, Antiquities, iv., 8, § 23.

put away his wife in case he "found some uncleanness in her."* But under that statute he was the supreme judge. From his decision there was no appeal. The gravest discus- . sions had taken place, too, among the Jewish doctors as to the meaning of the word "uncleanness." The school of Hillel gave to it the utmost latitude. That a woman appeared in public with unveiled face, that she burned her husband's food in cooking, even that she ceased to please his capricious. fancy, was gravely asserted to be a sufficient ground of separation. In the eyes of these Jewish theologians marriage was not meant to be permanent. It lasted only during the pleasure of the husband.

The divorce laws of Greece and Rome were very similar. Cicero dismissed Terentia after thirty years of married life. Cato the younger divorced his wife that he might give her to a friend.

The Pharisees proposed to Jesus the question whether a man might put away his wife for every cause. Jesus replied with an emphatic negative. He accepted neither the teachings of Schammai nor those of Hillel. He denied that even the statutes of Moses were conclusive. He referred his questioners back to the first marriage in Eden; declared that God, by the very constitution of the race as male and female, had ordained marriage; asserted that one cause only could justify in the eyes of God the dissolution of the marriage tie, viz., a violation of the marriage oath. At the same time, he explained that the laws of Moses were not always those of a pure morality. The state can not enforce the ideal by its statutes; and Moses, regulating the conduct of a rude and barbarous nature, was compelled to make allowance for the spirit of the age and the passions of the people, and establish no higher rule of law than the average sentiment of the community would enforce.

The question thus addressed to Jesus had a political as well *Deut. xxiv., 1-4. + Ante chap. xiv., p. 188.

Matt. xix., 1-12; Mark x., 1-12.

as a moral significance. John the Baptist had a little while before suffered death for rebuking the licentiousness of Herod Antipas. The Pharisees, having thus secured Jesus's implied indorsement of that rebuke, endeavored to silence him by threats of the tetrarch's enmity. Under pretense of friendship, they warned him that Herod had designs upon his life. But Jesus perceived their purpose. He replied with dignified severity that it could not be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem. He was not thus to be swerved from the path he had chosen.

Thus meeting at every step the invincible enmity of his foes, Jesus illustrated in his own person the truth of his aphorism, that he had come, not to bring peace, but a sword.

Among the common people, on the other hand, Jesus's ministry is attended in Perea with scarcely less popularity than in Galilee. The publicans and sinners draw near to hear him. Wherever he goes his way is thronged. For the most part the poor are his followers; but now and then, as we have seen, his Gospel reaches the hearts of the noble and the rich. There is that in him which touches the hearts of mothers, and draws their children to him. He not only loves children, the children love him; and when, despite the opposition of his disciples, the mothers bring their little ones to him for his blessing, he is not content merely to give it, but he takes them in his arms tenderly.*

Thus passed away the winter months in a ministry of mercy, pursued unwaveringly, despite obloquy and obstacle. It might perhaps have lasted until the Passover; but it was interrupted by an urgent message from Christ's friends at Bethany. Lazarus was dangerously ill. His sisters sent in haste for Jesus. After a brief delay, he prepared, notwithstanding the dangers which would environ him there, to return to Judea.

* See Luke xiii., 17; xiv., 25; xv., 1; Matt. xix., 13–15; Mark x., 1316; Luke xviii., 15-17.

CHAPTER XXVI.

BETHANY AND EPHRAIM.*

BOUT two miles east of Jerusalem, on the road to Jericho, still lie the ruins of the little hamlet of Bethany. Almost without a history, the vil lage is forever sacred to the Christian heart as the chosen home of Jesus during his tempestuous life in Judea. Embowered in fruity vegetation that gave it its name, "The House of Dates," and shut out from the busy city by the mountainous wall of Olivet, on whose eastern slope it lies, it was doubtless once, though it be not now, "the perfection of retirement and repose," "of seclusion and lovely peace."t

Here was the house of Martha, and Mary, and their brother Lazarus. They were a family of wealth and social distinction; owned their house; had their family tomb in their garden, as did only the wealthier classes; esteemed three hundred dollars' worth of ointment not too costly a token of honor to pay to Jesus. Pharisees in faith, they belonged to the more enlightened and liberal of that party. They possessed many distinguished friends among that class in Jerusalem. But neither party friendships nor party prejudices were able to keep them from Christ. How and where they first learned of him we do not know.

How far Lazarus ac

cepted him does not appear. But the sisters openly enrolled

* John xi.; Luke xi., 1-13; xviii., 1–8, 31–34; Matt. xx., 17-19; Mark X., 32-34. + Bonar, quoted in Smith's Bible Dictionary, art. Bethany. A penny (i. e., a denarius) a day was the ordinary wages of a laboring Allowing but a dollar a day as the wages of labor now, would fix the value of the box of ointment at the price mentioned in the text.

man.

themselves among his disciples. Twice, at least, they made entertainments for him. During his last stay at Jerusalem, just before his crucifixion, when the Pharisees were plotting his destruction, and the city was not safe for him, they received him nightly to their house.

Much has been said, and truthfully, of Christ's friendship for publicans and sinners. He went in unto them and ate with them. He never, so far as we know, declined their invitations; never, certainly, because they were not of his sect or social standing. Yet this was not because he was insensitive. It was not because he voluntarily chose such for his congenial companions. He did not disesteem wealth, and refined and