h the
mob which only a moment before had wanted to kill him.

An instant after Jesus was gone, anger again came over the men like the
backwash from an ocean wave. Some shook their fists in the direction
Jesus had gone, but not one had the courage to follow.

The disciples did not attempt to follow Jesus. They were glad that no
one in the town knew them, and they wasted no time in leaving. They all
realized that men who were afraid of Jesus might take out their anger on
his followers. It was late that night before the disciples found one
another and started to hunt for their Master.

Jesus had left the city and climbed to a high ridge where he had loved
to go as a boy. Now he looked down on the broad valley of Esdraelon,
stretching south to the foothills of Samaria, where so many of the great
battles of ancient Israel had been fought. Had he not always felt that
someday he would be rejected by his own home town?

Nevertheless, Jesus was not scorned by everyone in Nazareth. A few
people remembered the place he loved and they came to him there. They
were not rich people, and there were no elders from the synagogue among
them. They were the sick and crippled; they were people for whom life
was hard, and they believed the word which Jesus had spoken to them. The
disciples found him teaching and healing these few.

"These have heard my word," said Jesus to the followers. "To them the
Kingdom is given." The disciples listened to Jesus telling the poorest
folk of Nazareth the news of the Kingdom. When they left, Jesus spoke
very plainly to the disciples.

"Why are you so discouraged?" he asked. "Have we not preached the gospel
of the Kingdom here?"

"They turned us out!" burst out James. "They laughed at us! They tried
to kill you!"

Simon was bitter. "We should never come near this miserable village
again. We might have been killed!"

"If men are to enter the Kingdom of God, they must repent," answered
Jesus. "It cuts them to the heart to confess that they have forgotten
God and his righteousness. They hate us for teaching them the truth
about themselves."

The disciples sat in gloomy silence. Simon gazed out over the plains
below. Here through many defeats in battle the Jews had paid the price
of their sin--but Israel had not yet learned. Still the nation spurned
the prophets whom God sent. Would the Kingdom never come?

[Illustration]

5. WHO IS THIS CARPENTER?

After their harsh experience at Nazare