JESUS PERSECUTED.

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See those dead babies on the ground; and those
wicked men are trying to kill others. What does all this
mean? It is the wicked command of King Herod. He
was king in the land where Jesus was born, and being
jealous of him lest he might become king some day, he
determined to take his life. He told the wise men when
they had found him to bring him word, that he might
come and worship him also. He did not mean it, he only
wanted to find where he was, that he might kill him.

The wise men were warned of God not to go back
and tell the king where the child was, but to go home
some other way. “Then Herod, when he saw that he
was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and
sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethle-
hem,” under two years of age, expecting in this way to
make sure and kill Jesus. What a wicked, heartless king,
to kill all those innocent babies.

Herod did not succeed, however, for God, in some
way, told Joseph and Mary to take the child and go into
Egypt. They had gone out of the land before the terrible
slaughter took place. So he killed these little children tor _
nothing. He was a bloody king. .