BOYS OF THE BIBLE. 275

of time in the early home of Jesus. He shall speak to us of
Nazareth :—

“Nazareth is a wooded town. The very name means
‘woods.’ Maybe it was the woods that kept me there so
long and made me love this home of the Lord Jesus Christ
so tenderly.

“There is a fountain in the middle of the dusty and deso-
late old town, which is still called ‘The Virgin’s Fountain.’
Camels groan and kneel, and kneel and groan all around
here, up and down the narrow streets, dusty asses are here,
going and coming with loads of wood, jars of oil, and a
thousand queer old pots and pans and camp ware of
the half-gypsy wanderers who have been roving up and
down the land, no doubt, ever since Moses led them up out
of Egypt.

“But the sublimest time is the twilight here. Doves fly
down in couples as the sun falls suddenly, and stretch their
glossy necks to steal some stray drop of water from the foun-
tain; and then, as the twilight deepens, there comes, as if
companioned by the majesty of night, a dark-eyed daughter
of Israel, or maybe Ishmael, her jar poised on her upturned
palm, her great eyes down in maiden modesty. And then
another comes, and then another, till the fountain is set about
with the most glorious statuary that ever stood in school of
art or temple. The pictures of the Bible have all stepped
out for a moment. Twenty Rebekah’s at the well, and not
a single Isaac, or even a ‘man servant’ in sight.

“J was living in Nazareth, a good many years ago, when
an old man asked me one sweet spring morning to lay my
ear to the ground and listen to what I might hear.

“ There was a dull, soft, far-away sound, not much unlike
the thrumbing of a grouse in a fir-tree high up on the wooded