At the expiration of the seven days of unleavened bread, they began their return homeward; but the child Jesus staid behind in Jerusalem, to make inquiries, and to listen to the instructions of those who publicly explained the sense of Scripture, and the traditions of the elders. His mother and Joseph were ignorant of this delay, till the end of the first day's journey; for as it was customary on these occasions to travel in very large companies, and these perhaps often separated into groups at considerable intervals, they took it for granted that he was with some of his friends or kindred, who were no doubt often charmed with his lovely company, and expected him to rejoin them in the evening. The day closed, the different parties assembled--but, to the inexpressible concern of Mary and Joseph, Jesus was not to be found! They searched and searched again, but in vain! The anxious father, but the still more anxious mother, flew to every friend, to every fellow traveller--no tidings were to be heard! Ah, Simeon, thy sword is beginning to pierce this maternal breast! What a night of sleepless anxiety passed, and with what haste did they retrace their steps to Jerusalem! What could they imagine, but that some evil beast had taken their Joseph! The weeping mother chides her negligence, stops every passing stranger, fancies perhaps that some emissary of persecution had seized him, and that Archelaus had accomplished what Herod had begun, searches every house where they had visited or lodged--O what must the mother feel--such a mother--and of such a child! But--he is found! On the third day, he was seen in one of the courts of the temple appropriated to the Jewish doctors, where they were accustomed to lecture to their disciples. It might be, perhaps, in the room of the great sanhedrim, where they assembled in a semi-circular form. In front of them were three rows of the scholars, containing each three-and-twenty. It is probable, that Christ sat in one of these rows; and, perhaps, the questions he put, and the answers he gave, excited so much notice amongst the doctors, that they called him into the midst of them, which was occasionally done. Thus the Jews state, that "if one of the disciples or scholars say, I have something to say in favour of him (one that is put on his trial) they bring him up and _cause him to sit in the midst of them_; and he does not go down from thence the whole day." [14]