ice--reminders of the coming
Messiah; the offering of incense; and the many and varied forms of
stately worship.

At the time that John made this visit to Jerusalem, there was a
celebrated school known as that of Gamaliel, who was the most noted of
the Jewish Rabbis, or teachers. Boys were sent to him from all parts of
Palestine, and even from distant countries in which Jews lived. There
was one such boy from the town of Tarsus, in the Roman province of
Cilicia in Asia Minor. Though living in a heathen city, surrounded by
idolatry, he had received a Jewish training in his home and in the
synagogue school, until he was old enough to go to Jerusalem to be
trained to become a Rabbi. Like John he had learned much of the Old
Testament Scriptures, but it does not appear that he had the special
influences which we have imagined gave direction to the thoughts and
plans of the five boys of Galilee. In his boyhood he was known as Saul;
afterward as Paul. He and John in their early days differed in many
things; in the later days they became alike in the most important
thoughts, feelings, purposes and labors of their lives. And because of
this they became associated with each other, and are remembered together
as among the best and greatest of mankind.

It is possible that John visited the school of Gamaliel, and that the
boy from Bethsaida and the one from Tarsus met as strangers, who would
some day meet as friends indeed. It is more probable that they worshiped
together in the temple at the feast, receiving the same impressions
which lasted and deepened through many years, and which we to-day have
in what they wrote for the good of their fellow-men.

When John returns from Jerusalem to his home we lose even the dim sight
of him which our imagination has supplied. During the silent years that
follow we have two thoughts of him,--as a fisherman of Galilee, and as
one waiting for the coming of the Messiah. His parents' only thought of
him is a life of honest toil, a comfort in their old age, a sharer in
their prosperity, and an heir to their home and what they would leave
behind. They little think that he will be remembered when kings of their
day are forgotten; that two thousand years after, lives of him will be
written because of a higher relationship than that of mere cousinship to
Jesus; and that their own names will be remembered only because John was
their son. Only God sees in the boy playing on the seashore, and in the
fi