Having thus preserved the infant Christ from the dangers that threatened him, Matthew tells us absolutely nothing about him until he has arrived at manhood, and is ready to enter on his public life. Luke is much less reticent. True, he knows nothing whatever of the star that appeared in the East; nothing of Herod's inquiries as to the birthplace of Christ; nothing of the massacre of the innocents, nor of the flight into Egypt and the return from that country to Nazareth. On the contrary, his narrative by implication excludes all this, for he makes Joseph and Mary go up to Bethlehem for the census only, and return to Nazareth soon after it; so that Herod could have had no occasion to kill the infants up to the age of two years, for Christ could not have been above a few weeks old at most (Lu. ii. 39). Moreover, we learn definitely from one verse that his parents went up _from Nazareth_ to Jerusalem every year at the passover (Ibid., ii. 41). But the absence of any statements like those just taken from the first Gospel is amply compensated in the third by several pleasing details relating to his infancy and boyhood. In the first place we learn that after eight days he was circumcised, and named Jesus according to the angel's desire (Ibid., ii. 21). Next, we are told that after his mother's purification—which would last thirty-three days after the circumcision—she and his step-father took him to the temple to be presented, and to make the customary offering. There was in the temple a man named Simeon who had been promised by the Holy Ghost that he should not die till he had seen Christ. This man, who came by the Spirit into the temple, took the baby in his arms and gave vent to his emotion in the beautiful little hymn known as the _Nunc Dimittis:_—"Now, O Lord, thou dost release thy servant according to thy word in peace, because mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all nations; a light for the revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel" (Lu. ii. 29-32).