their allotted time of sojourn, that they might
add here and there to the various parts of general occult lore
possessed by the child. It is also taught that the Magi informed some
of these travelers regarding the boy, that they might impart to him
some truth or teaching for which He was ready.

And so the boy grew in knowledge and wisdom, day by day, year by year,
until, finally, there occurred an event in His life, which has since
been the subject of greatest interest to all Christians and students
of the New Testament, but which without the above explanation is not
readily understood.

The Feast of the Passover occurred in its allotted time of the
year--April--when Jesus was in his thirteenth year. This feast was one
of the most important in the Jewish calendar, and its observance was
held as a most sacred duty by all Hebrews. It was the feast set down
for the remembrance and perpetuation of that most important event in
the history of the Jewish people when the Angel of Death swept over
all of Egypt's land smiting the first-born child of every house of the
natives, high and low, but sparing all the houses of the captive
Hebrews who marked their door-sills with the sacrificial blood as a
token of their faith. This is no place to give the explanation of this
apparently miraculous event, which students now know to be due to
natural causes. We merely mention it in passing.

The Law-givers of Israel had appointed the Feast of the Passover as a
perpetual symbol of this event so important by the nation, and every
self-respecting Jew felt obligated to take part in the observance and
sacrament. Every pious Jew made it a point to perform a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem at the time of the Feast of the Passover, if he could in any
way manage to do so.

At the time of the Passover celebration of which we are speaking,
Jesus had just entered into His thirteenth year, which age entitled
Him, under the ecclesiastical law, to the privilege of sitting with
the adult men of His race at the Passover supper, and also to publicly
join with the male congregation in the thanksgiving service in the
synagogues.

And so, on this year, He accompanied His father and mother to
Jerusalem and made His _second_ visit to the Holy City. It will be
remembered that His _first_ visit there was made when as an infant He
was carried thither from Bethlehem in His mother's arms in accordance
with the Jewish law, and at which time an aged priest and an old
p