Of the Great College which inspired and guided Jewish thought, the chief luminary had been Hillel, surnamed the Great. Hillel was a Babylonian Jew by birth, though in blood (on his mother's side at least) he belonged, like Joseph of Bethlehem, to the royal line. Hence he was of kin to Mary and Jesus. Like Joseph, too, he was a craftsman in one of the noble trades. When he left the Farther East for Syria, he was already forty years of age; when he came to Jerusalem and entered himself a student in the school of Menachem the Essene and Shammai the Pharisee, he had to labour for his college fees and daily bread. He sat under Sammias and Pollion. Each of these eminent scholars had risen by his virtues and learning to the high rank of rector of the Great College. Under him the college made a new start for fame. He invented the seven rules. A thousand pupils entered his classes: eighty are said to have become famous as men of letters, doctors, and scribes. He lived to the age of a hundred and twenty, and died when Jesus was fourteen years of age (in the tenth year of our era). He may have been one of the doctors with whom Christ talked in the Temple. Simeon succeeded his father in the rectorship, and was still alive when Jesus began to preach, and died two years after the Crucifixion. THE SANHEDRIM AT JERUSALEM. The Sanhedrim's strength had been reduced first by Herod the Great, afterwards by the Roman governors of Judæa. Herod, on capturing Jerusalem, had seized the whole body of the Sanhedrim, thrown them into prison, and, with two illustrious exceptions, put them all to death. Around Hillel and Shammai, the men whom Herod had spared, a new council had been formed; but the prestige of the Sanhedrim could never be restored. Pilate abridged their rights, taking from them more particularly the power of life and death; yet even after they had lost the right to torture prisoners and stone offenders, they still exercised a vast authority in Jerusalem, and in every other Jewish city. Pilate could not dispute their jurisdiction over Jews, however, in whatever land they dwelt, so long as they did not encroach on the civil powers. The Sanhedrim comprised three classes--priests, Levites, and ordinary Jews. The priestly element was strong. Caiaphas, being the official high priest, had a right to preside. In his absence the chair was filled by Simeon, rector of the Great College. Whoever filled the chair was considered as sitting in the place of Moses. THE WORKING MAN IN CHRIST'S TIME.