288 BOYS OF THE BIBLE.

the fold. He had gone out many a time with the farmer as
he went forth with his basket of seed; he had seen some fall in
the deep, rich furrows, some by the wayside, some amongst
stones, and some had been picked up almost as soon as sown,
by the busy, hungry birds. Then how he had watched the
growth of the corn, first the blade, then the ear, then the
full corn in the ear! He watched his mother making bread,
and in the yard he marked the motherly hen, gathering
chickens under her wing. ‘The lilies of the field had charms
for him—toiling not, spinning not—and yet more beautiful
than Solomon in all his glory. All Nature in all her mani-
fold grace and in every mood won his young heart and
enchained his thought. He watched the changing beauty of
sky and cloud, or climbing the hills of Nazareth, heard
the wind blowing where it listed, but could not tell whence
it came or whither it went. He watched the children at
their play, some in mournful dirge, and some with merry
dance as at a wedding festival. Perchance that parable of
the Prodigal Son, the grandest parable the world has ever
heard, or will ever hear, was but a reproduction of some
page of Nazarene history—some such sin-weary penitent he
may have known in those early days; he may have been
present at such merry-making, when the wanderer returned
to receive the father’s loving welcome, and the fatted calf
was killed. We see him on the Sabbath walking by his
mother’s side to the synagogue, we hear his young, sweet
voice singing the psalms of David, or repeating the prayers
of ancient Israel. So amid the quietude of these Galilean
hills and vales, the boy Jesus was nurturing his soul for the
after years, when

“Cold mountains and the midnight air
Should witness the fervor of his prayer.”