40 CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE

In one of the chambers adjoining the Temple where the Jewish boys were taught, Jesus
is sitting, with the rest of the scholars, being taught by the doctors or wise men. The
teachers have been wondering who this child can be. He is so attentive to them, and
answers. their questions so eagerly and so well, trying to learn all He can. Never before
have they hada scholar like this one. What! can He be the child of these poor peasant
people who rush forward when they see Him? Yet, unlikely as it seems, it must be so.
Listen to what the woman is saying, “Son, why hast Thou thus dealt with us? behold, Thy
. father and I have sought Thee sorrowing.”
; But they wonder still more when He answers, “ Wist ye not that I must be about My
Father’s business?” What can He mean by this? “Don’t you know that I must be
about the business that belongs to My Father?” Then thisman isnot His Father. He
has another Father to please and-work for. Who can He be? Ah, we know what they
did not know. God is His Father, not Joseph. He must learn to please His Father when
He is young. Though He is only a boy, He is not too young to try to know and’ do
His Father’s will on earth as He had loved to do it in Heaven before he came down to be
a little child and save a sinning world. ies

And how did He begin to do His Father’s business? Did He go His own way and
turn His back on His mother and foster-father? Oh no, though it is true He is the Son of
God, He is the Son of Mary too.. Clever as He is, He is an obedient, dutiful child. At
once He leaves the Temple where He loves to be and goes back with His mother and
Joseph to Nazareth. He knows that in so doing He is pleasing His Heavenly Father,
for-He is obeying the fifth commandment, in which God tells children that if they would
keep His Holy Will and Commandment, they must honour their father and mother.
Yes, Jesus is the pattern child. He loves God His Father. The Temple, His Father’s
House, as He called it once, is dear to Him. He isa scholar ready to learn all His
teachers can tell Him about God. But Heis:a loving child, too, fond of His earthly mother
and the foster-father who has watched over Him so kindly ever since He was born, and He
is just as ready to do what they tell Him as to worship'His Father in the Temple, or
learn in the Temple school great and wise truths about God.

Children often forget, do they not, that the best way of pleasing God is to be obedient
at home, doing what they are told, for then they are most like the Holy Child Jesus.

RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BUNGAY.