SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF JESUS. "Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world." LONDON: ROBERT THEOBALD, 26, PATERNOSTER ROW. 101. CL. 138. PREFACE. I FEAR that some who take up this volume may do so under a wrong impression as to its character and purpose. The series of publications of which this is one, being intended chiefly for the use of Sunday Schools, it may be thought that at least the earlier numbers should be adapted to the taste and understanding of children, and should be emphatically what are called "children's books." The volume now put forth will hardly bear this character; perhaps some will think that nothing of this character belongs to it at all. I can only say that when I first undertook to write it, I very honestly intended to address myself to these juvenile readers, and to adapt my language and my mode of treatment to their capacity and taste. But as I went on, I soon found, what indeed a very little reflection would have told me before I began, that the story I was handling could not by any adaptation or manner of address be made into a child's story; and that if I were to attempt this, I should only succeed in producing a book that would be neither interesting nor useful to anybody. I am told by some that I am wrong in this opinion, and that there is nothing in the story which forbids it to be so told. It may be so; I cannot conceive its possibility; but it may be so. What chiefly concerned me was that I felt I could not so write it. The bare historical facts of the Christian narrative may indeed be told to anyone, and in almost any way. But there is much more in the narrative than these bare facts,—much that requires an adaptation in the reader as well as in the writer. And whatever may be the natural intelligence of children, and their power of apprehending simple truths, there are many things in the story of our Saviour, while he dwelt among us, that can be read only by the eye of experience, and which to be understood, must be felt. On these parts we must either be silent, or we must speak in language that expresses what we speak of; and if we so speak, it will not be in childish phrase. Accordingly many of the scenes here drawn, and still more the meditative portions of the book, are not written for the ordinary reading of a class of Sunday scholars. Some, however, if not read by them, may be profitably read to them; and others, read only perhaps by the teacher, may find their way to the scholar by the light and the warmth they have imparted to his more mature mind. When, therefore, I have imagined myself addressing any one, I think it has generally been the Sunday School Teacher. know these men, and I feel myself more at home in speaking to them than when trying to make myself understood by children. They are now become a very numerous and important class among us, and the part they are playing, both in the work of education, and in the task of keeping alive the religious element among the working classes of our population, is a most important and honourable one. They form almost a distinct class in our social body. They are generally distinguished by their natural I intelligence, by a strong sense of duty, and by an earnest desire to do some good in their day and generation; and the spirit of self-sacrifice they evince in giving up their time and thoughts to the welfare of others on that only day when these can really be called their own, is a proof that they are worthy to be labourers in the Lord's vineyard. But these persons have frequently not had themselves those advantages of early education which are almost necessary for the successful education of others; and in their study of religion under any of its aspects, and in any of its parts, they often stand in need of light, sympathy, and guidance. Among this class of readers I would fain hope there may be some who will find both interest and information in these pages; that many ideas will be suggested which had not before occurred to them; and that the scenes described here may give them a more full and vivid picture of some portions of the Christian story, than that which had generally been presented to their minds in their accustomed reading of the Scriptures. I have myself gained so much in this respect by writing these pages, that I hope others may gain something in reading them. And though I have often failed in transferring to my paper the full strength and vividness of the image that rose before my mind as I was writing, I hope that the necessity of realising these scenes being once suggested, the imagination of the reader will supply the imperfection of my part of the work, and that he will fill up my omissions, or correct my mistakes, or infuse life and reality into my pictures, by working out for himself his own conception of the scene which I may appear to him to have misdrawn. If some views evidently held by the writer of these |