to be such recognition, but it is to be remembered that from the beginning the women have been by far the more influential part of our membership; they have more adequately and forcibly and persuasively represented to the world the real Gospel of Christ; and partly, I must believe, because they have been so still about it. Till now, at least, the believing women have been a living example of the fact that our Christian religion consists not in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. No one has accused them of unwillingness to confess their Saviour when the time came to confess, for they have constituted always the large majority of His openly confessed followers, and their names are glorious in the lists of the martyrs. But our usual customs have not compelled them to be always lifting up their voices in the streets and putting their religion into noisy words. I confess, if now we are to crowd them all into our pulpits and platforms and other public positions, I fear it will break the charm; for if both sexes of us are to join the Sect of Talkatives, who will be left to stand evidently for the religion of deed and truth?

Thirty years of silent service. But we all feel that those thirty years of our Lord's life were also a time of preparation-preparation for the more public and glorious ministry at the close of His life. I suppose, if we could see the whole, we should

know that every true service faithfully rendered is a preparation for something larger some time. To the servant faithful in a few things, his Lord is always saying, “I will put thee over many things." But have you ever thought of the specific preparation for Christ's work as a preacher, that was going on in those earlier years of silence? He was "increasing in wisdom." This man, who was content to be known simply as a carpenter, was all the time perfecting Himself in knowledge of the three great departments of human study: nature, man, God.

A carpenter. But his eyes were open to the wonders of the natural world, which are free to all who have eyes to see, but which so many of us have no eyes to see. We know, by what appears afterward, that He had considered the lilies of the field, and found more joy in their simple beauty than any courtier in the magnificence of his king. He had watched the little mustard-seed spreading up bravely toward the dignity of a tree. He had grieved with the farmer over the tares multiplying in the field of wheat; He knew the ways of the sheep, and how they recognized the voice of their own shepherd; His nature was moved by the glories of the light and the mysteries of the dark. It was by no sudden gift of insight, we may be sure, that, when Jesus at last opened His lips to speak, He was able to charm the ears of men for all time with

those parables of nature; but from the beginning He had been increasing in that wisdom. For thirty years His mind had been storing itself with that wealth of illustration from God's works in nature.

And the knowledge of man. What a store of that kind of knowledge He could draw upon when He wished! The wedding procession; the unjust judge; the importunate widow, who gains her case at last; the games of children in the market-place; the joy of finding that makes large amends for the pain of losing; the dissipated son running away from his father; the father, lonely, watching; the penitence; the joyous home-coming. Really, all the poets, painters, and historians together could hardly tell us so much about the life and customs of a historic period as Jesus has told us about the life of those days in Palestine through the imagery of a few simple parables. And that knowledge of men, be sure, did not all come to Him after He began to preach. There was a carpenter in Nazareth who had eyes to see, and a heart to feel with men, and who for thirty years before He was publicly known had been increasing in that kind of wisdom.

It may cheer us also to remember, friends, that this was a part of Christ's apprenticeship to the office of High Priest over us, merciful and faithful, and able to be touched with a feeling of our infirmi

ties. Tempted in all points as we are; tempted not only in that dramatic temptation scene in the wilderness, not only in the anguish of the Garden, but tempted as a child in the home, as a pupil learning to read, as a lad learning his trade, as a tradesman in his work, as a private citizen of Nazareth; tempted in all points as we are, though without sin. For thirty years he had been gaining a knowledge of men that would fit him for the work of saving

men.

And then the knowledge of God. Do you suppose it was by some sudden gift or grace.of continuance that Jesus was able afterward at times of crisis to spend the whole night in prayer? Ah, no; there was a carpenter in Nazareth who had learned how to pray; who had found for Himself, and therefore could afterward commend to others, a closet into which He could enter and shut the door, and there pray to the Father that seeth in secret.

He had been gaining knowledge of God, too, as He has revealed Himself through His word. When at last Jesus shall open His lips to quote from Moses and the prophets, men would wonder whether anyone had ever really read those sacred books before. It was a new revelation. Already as a child of twelve years, one day in the Bible School in the Temple at Jerusalem he surprised all by the wisdom of His questions and answers.

But from the Temple he went home to Nazareth to "increase in wisdom," to get more wisdom. We do not know just how much He knew of the Scriptures when He was twelve years old, but we have means of judging what He knew about the Scriptures by the time He was thirty years old. The Christian Church has been trying ever since, and trying in vain, to catch up with what knowledge He had then attained, this carpenter of Nazareth, who had succeeded in living in that small town all those thirty years without attracting men's attention to Himself as in any way remarkable.

Ah, friends, we complain sometimes of our own mean and narrow lives, with their niggardly opportunities and their irksome tasks; we look enviously at others, students at the great universities, travellers visiting distant countries, others mingling with the mighty and learned and powerful in the great world. But what riches of learning and culture are offered to all of us, if we would only look at God's common works with eyes like those of the carpenter in Nazareth; if we would mingle among common men and women with a heart responsive as was His to their common experiences of sorrow and joy and need; if we would study, as he studied, this sacred book which opens so freely to us all. I would not speak slightingly of colleges, and advantages of travel, and cultured society;