of their directing their course to the capital, in order to seek that information, which, by the desertion of the star, became requisite. Thus it appears the design of the Almighty, in directing the eastern magi to the capital of Judea, was, that the whole nation might be made acquainted with the cause of their journey. Accordingly, they had no sooner proceeded from Jerusalem, on their way to Bethlehem, than their kind conductor again appeared, went before them to the very city, and fixed on the habitation of the heavenly infant. Guided by this celestial conductor, they entered the house, and prostrating themselves at the sacred feet of their spiritual king, presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Having thus accomplished the design of their expedition, they proposed, according to promise, returning to Jerusalem; but being diverted from that intention by a dream, in which they were warned by God of Herod's design, they pursued another course, toward their own country, and by those means defeated his malicious purposes. No sooner had the wise men departed from Bethlehem, than Joseph was warned by a heavenly messenger of the barbarous purpose of Herod, and commanded to flee into Egypt, with the young child and his mother. Joseph, in obedience to the Almighty's command, rose that very night, and fled into Egypt; and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord, by the prophet: "Out of Egypt have I called my son." The king of Judea long waited, with the most earnest expectation, the return of the wise men, anxious to glut his full resentment on the innocent Jesus; till from their long delay, he began to suspect a delusion, and that his designs were frustrated by some extraordinary interposition of Providence. At length, irritated by disappointment, he resolved to accomplish by cruelty, a resolution he could not effect by art, and accordingly issued orders to a large party of soldiers to go throughout Bethlehem, and all the neighboring villages, and massacre all the children they could find therein that were two years old and under; thinking that the infant Jesus, whom, as a prince, he both envied and dreaded, would fall in the general slaughter. But the heavenly missionary was sheltered from above; nor was the relentless king permitted to impede the design of an Almighty Creator. The tyrant Herod being cut off from the face of the earth, Joseph was warned by an heavenly messenger to return to the land of Israel. The good old man obeyed the Almighty's command, and appears to have had a great desire of residing in Judea, and very probably in Bethlehem; but hearing that Herod was succeeded in his throne by his son Archelaus, and fearing that he might pursue the barbarous designs of his father, he directed his course another way; but being warned again by a heavenly mission, he retired into Galilee, under the government of a mild and benevolent prince, called Antipas, and took up his habitation at Nazareth, where the particular circumstances which attended the birth of the blessed Jesus were not generally known. The evangelist affirms that Joseph, with the infant and his mother, resided at Nazareth, where the holy Jesus spent his youth; "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, He shall be called a Nazarene." CHAPTER II. EARLY CHILDHOOD OF JESUS; ARGUMENT WITH JEWISH DOCTORS; BAPTISM THE WILDERNESS; HIS FIRST MIRACLE. HE precise circumstances of our Lord's childhood and life previous to his public ministry, can not be ascertained from the writings of any of the evangelists, which can alone be relied on as authentic. All we can gather from those inspired men is, that the faculties of his mind were enlarged in pro |