=Situation of Nazareth.= For twenty-seven or eight years Nazareth was Jesus' home. Here he received those varied influences which are reflected in his life and teaching. The town of Nazareth^{(116)} lies about one thousand five hundred feet above the level of the sea and fully a thousand above the Plain of Esdraelon to the south. The town itself is one hundred and forty feet below and a mile and a half back of the southern front of the range of hills on which it rests. It stands in the midst of an upland hollow, facing eastward. In the spring the fields in front are green with grain, while olive trees are scattered along the hillside up which the town climbs. The encircling hills, however, are gray and rocky, with only meagre suggestions of verdure, and are at present entirely denuded of trees. Here the shepherd and the tiller of the soil lived and worked side by side. =Its Central Position.= Nazareth, in ancient times, was by no means a small, secluded town. It stood in the very heart of lower Galilee. Nearby the great highways radiated in all directions. From Esdraelon came one branch of the great central highway of Palestine. Across the same plain came the main caravan route from the east-Jordan land, from the Desert of Arabia, and beyond. Southward past Nazareth ran two great highways, which connected with the coast roads through Philistia to Egypt. Westward ran a road directly to the southern end of the Plain of Acre, following in part the line of the present carriage road from Nazareth to Haifa. To the northwest ran another well-travelled road, connecting at Ptolemais with the coast road to Phœnicia and the north. To the northeast, by way of the Sea of Galilee and Capernaum, a branch of the main central highway ran to Damascus. The quiet upland city, Nazareth, was therefore peculiarly open to each of the many varied influences that emanated from the cities and lands of the eastern Mediterranean and from the great Græco-Roman world across the sea.