to invite to retrospection and introspection; to favour habits of solitary thought and study,

till it kindled into fanaticism. Mile by mile as you travelled southwards, memories of the

past would crowd around, and thoughts of the future would rise within. Avoiding the

great towns as the centres of hated heathenism, the traveller would meet few foreigners,

but everywhere encounter those gaunt representatives of what was regarded as the

superlative excellency of his religion. These were the embodiment of Jewish piety and

asceticism, the possessors and expounders of the mysteries of his faith, the fountain- head

of wisdom, who were not only sure of heaven themselves, but knew its secrets, and were

its very aristocracy; men who could tell him all about his own religion, practised its most

minute injunctions, and could interpret every stroke and letter of the La w - nay, whose it

actually was to 'loose and to bind,' to pronounce an action lawful or unlawful, and to

'remit or retain sins,' by declaring a man liable to, or free from, expiatory sacrifices, or

else punishment in this or the next world. No Hindoo fanatic would more humbly bend

before Brahmin saints, nor devout Romanist more venerate the members of a holy

fraternity, than the Jew his great Rabbis.31 Reason, duty, and precept, alike bound him to

reverence them, as he reverenced the God Whose interpreters, representatives, deputies,

intimate companions, almost colleagues in the heavenly Sanhedrin, they were. And all

around, even nature itself, might seem to foster such tendencies. Even at that time Judæa

was comparatively desolate, barren, grey. The decaying cities of ancient renown; the lone

highland scenery; the bare, rugged hills; the rocky terraces from which only artificial

culture could woo a return; the wide solitary plains, deep glens, limestone heights - with

distant glorious Jerusalem ever in the far background, would all favour solitary thought

and religious abstraction.

It was quite otherwise in Galilee. The smiling landscape of Lower Galilee invited the

easy labour of the agriculturist. Even the highlands of Upper Galilee32 were not, like

those of Judæa, sombre, lonely, enthusiasm -killing, but gloriously grand, free, fresh, and

bracing. A more beautiful country - hill, dale, and lake - could scarcely be imagined than

Galilee Proper. It was here that Asher had 'dipped his foot in oil.' According to the

Rabbis, it was easier to rear a forest of olive-trees in Galilee than one child in Judæa.

Corn grew in abundance; the wine, though not so plentiful as the oil, was rich and

generous. Proverbially, all fruit grew in perfection, and altogether the cost of living was

about one-fifth that in Judæa. And then, what a teeming, busy population! Making every

allowance for exaggeration, we cannot wholly ignore the account of Josephus about the

240 towns and villages of Galilee, each with not less than 15,000 inhabitants. In the

centres of industry all then known trades were busily carried on; the husbandman pursued

his happy toil on genial soil, while by the Lake of Gennesaret, with its unrivalled beauty,

its rich villages, and lovely retreats, the fisherman plied his healthy avocation. By those

waters, overarched by a deep blue sky, spangled with the brilliancy of innumerable stars,

a man might feel constrained by nature itself to meditate and pray; he would not be likely

to indulge in a morbid fanaticism.