“You poor child!” she said to him, “you do not know that you have attempted something which no mortal can accomplish. Don’t engage in anything of this kind again, if you do not wish to become the unhappiest of mortals! What would happen to any one of us who undertook to compete with one who paints with sunbeams and blows the breath of life into dead clay?” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: In the Temple] IN THE TEMPLE Once there was a poor family—a man, his wife, and their little son—who walked about in the big Temple at Jerusalem. The son was such a pretty child! He had hair which fell in long, even curls, and eyes that shone like stars. The son had not been in the Temple since he was big enough to comprehend what he saw; and now his parents showed him all its glories. There were long rows of pillars and gilded altars; there were holy men who sat and instructed their pupils; there was the high priest with his breastplate of precious stones. There were the curtains from Babylon, interwoven with gold roses; there were the great copper gates, which were so heavy that it was hard work for thirty men to swing them back and forth on their hinges. But the little boy, who was only twelve years old, did not care very much about seeing all this. His mother told him that that which she showed him was the most marvelous in all the world. She told him that it would probably be a long time before he should see anything like it again. In the poor town of Nazareth, where they lived, there was nothing to be seen but gray streets. Her exhortations did not help matters much. The little boy looked as though he would willingly have run away from the magnificent Temple, if instead he could have got out and played on the narrow street in Nazareth. But it was singular that the more indifferent the boy appeared, the more pleased and happy were the parents. They nodded to each other over his head, and were thoroughly satisfied. At last, the little one looked so tired and bored that the mother felt sorry for him. “Now we have walked too far with you,” said she. “Come, you shall rest a while.” She sat down beside a pillar and told him to lie down on the ground and rest his head on her knee. He did so, and fell asleep instantly. He had barely closed his eyes when the wife said to the husband: “I have never feared anything so much as the moment when he should come here to Jerusalem’s Temple. I believed that when he saw this house of God, he would wish to stay here forever.” “I, too, have been afraid of this journey,” said the man. “At the time of his birth, many signs and wonders appeared which betokened that he would become a great ruler. But what could royal honors bring him except worries and dangers? I have always said that it would be best, both for him and for us, if he never became anything but a carpenter in Nazareth.”