EAS OF A DIVINE FATHER AND OF A PURE
RELIGION--FIRST DISCIPLES.

Joseph died before his son had taken any public part. Mary remained,
in a manner, the head of the family, and this explains why her son,
when it was wished to distinguish him from others of the same name,
was most frequently called the "son of Mary."[1] It seems that having,
by the death of her husband, been left friendless at Nazareth, she
withdrew to Cana,[2] from which she may have come originally. Cana[3]
was a little town at from two to two and a half hours' journey from
Nazareth, at the foot of the mountains which bound the plain of
Asochis on the north.[4] The prospect, less grand than at Nazareth,
extends over all the plain, and is bounded in the most picturesque
manner by the mountains of Nazareth and the hills of Sepphoris. Jesus
appears to have resided some time in this place. Here he probably
passed a part of his youth, and here his greatness first revealed
itself.[5]

[Footnote 1: This is the expression of Mark vi. 3; cf. Matt. xiii. 55.
Mark did not know Joseph. John and Luke, on the contrary, prefer the
expression "son of Joseph." Luke iii. 23, iv. 22; John i. 45, iv. 42.]

[Footnote 2: John ii. 1, iv. 46. John alone is informed on this
point.]

[Footnote 3: I admit, as probable, the idea which identifies Cana of
Galilee with _Kana el Djelil_. We may, nevertheless, attach value to
the arguments for _Kefr Kenna_, a place an hour or an hour and a
half's journey N.N.E. of Nazareth.]

[Footnote 4: Now _El-Buttauf_.]

[Footnote 5: John ii. 11, iv. 46. One or two disciples were of Cana,
John xxi. 2; Matt. x. 4; Mark iii. 18.]

He followed the trade of his father, which was that of a
carpenter.[1] This was not in any degree humiliating or grievous. The
Jewish customs required that a man devoted to intellectual work should
learn a trade. The most celebrated doctors did so;[2] thus St. Paul,
whose education had been so carefully tended, was a tent-maker.[3]
Jesus never married. All his power of love centred upon that which he
regarded as his celestial vocation. The extremely delicate feeling
toward women, which we remark in him, was not separated from the
exclusive devotion which he had for his mission. Like Francis d'Assisi
and Francis de Sales, he treated as sisters the women who were loved
of the same work as himself; he had his St. Clare, his Frances de
Chantal. It is, however, probable that these loved him more than the
work; he was,