68.  It is instructive in connection with this inwardness of Jesus’ life to recall the rich familiarity with the whole world of nature which appears in his parables and other teachings.  The prospect which met his eye if he sought escape from the distractions of home and village life, has been described by Renan:  “The view from the town is limited; but if we ascend a little to the plateau swept by a perpetual breeze, which stands above the highest houses, the landscape is magnificent.  On the west stretch the fine outlines of Carmel, terminating in an abrupt spur which seems to run down sheer to the sea.  Next, one sees the double summit which towers above Megiddo; the mountains of the country of Shechem, with their holy places of the patriarchal period; the hills of Gilboa, the small picturesque group to which is attached the graceful or terrible recollections of Shunem and of Endor; and Tabor, with its beautiful rounded form, which antiquity compared to a bosom.  Through a gap between the mountains of Shunem and Tabor are visible the valley of the Jordan and the high plains of Perea, which form a continuous line from the eastern side.  On the north, the mountains of Safed, stretching towards the sea, conceal St. Jean d’Acre, but leave the Gulf of Khaifa in sight.  Such was the horizon, of Jesus.  This enchanted circle, cradle of the kingdom of God, was for years his world.  Indeed, during his whole life he went but little beyond the familiar bounds of his childhood.  For yonder, northwards, one can almost see, on the flank of Hermon, Caesarea-Philippi, his farthest point of advance into the Gentile world; and to the south the less smiling aspect of these Samaritan hills foreshadows the dreariness of Judea beyond, parched as by a burning wind of desolation and death.”  In the midst of such scenes we are to understand that, with the physical growth, and opening of mind, and moral discipline which filled the early years of Jesus, there came also the gradual spiritual unfolding in which the boy rose step by step to the fuller knowledge of God and himself.

69.  That unfolding is pictured in an early stage in the story given us from the youth of Jesus.  It was customary for a Jewish boy not long after passing his twelfth year to come under full adult obligation to the law.  The visit to Jerusalem was probably in preparation for such assumption of obligation by Jesus.  All his earlier training had filled his mind with the sacredness of the Holy City and the glory of the temple.  It is easy to feel with what joy he would first look upon Zion from the shoulder of the Mount of Olives, as he came over it on his journey from Galilee; to conceive how the temple and the ritual would fill him with awe in his readiness not to criticise, but to idealize everything he saw, and to think only of the significance given by it all to the scripture; to imagine how eagerly he would talk in the temple court with the learned men of his people about the law and the promises with which in