Читать книгу A Life of St. John for the Young - George Ludington Weed - Страница 25

At last from the Mount of Olives, at a turn in the road, he had his first view of the Holy City; its walls and seventy towers of great height, and the Holy House—the Temple of God, with which in after years he was to become familiar. There he saw for himself of what he had often heard;—the Holy Altar and lamb of sacrifice—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 fisherman of Gennesaret, the true greatness and honor into which He will guide him.