Through their vicinity to the heathen Syrians, the Galilæans had adopted many superstitions, and, owing to their ignorance of the nature of disease, the sick were often thought to be possessed by demons, and various forms of illness were ascribed to the influence of evil spirits. The language of the Galilæans had also become corrupted by their Syrian neighbors, and was marred by the introduction of Aramaic forms and words. The Galilæans could not pronounce Hebrew with purity. They exchanged, and sometimes omitted, the guttural sounds, and thus often incurred the ridicule of the Judæans, who thought a great deal of correct articulation. The first word he spoke revealed the Galilæan, and, as his language provoked laughter, he was not often allowed to lead in the recital of the prayers. The birthplace of Jesus, Nazareth, offered no particular attraction; it was a small mountain-town, not more fertile than the other parts of Galilee, and bearing no comparison to the richly-watered Shechem. On account of his Galilæan origin, Jesus could not have stood high in that knowledge of the Law which, through the schools of Shammai and Hillel, had become prevalent in Judæa. His small stock of learning and his corrupt half-Aramaic language pointed unmistakably to his birthplace in Galilee. His deficiency in knowledge, however, was fully compensated for by his intensely sympathetic character. High-minded earnestness and spotless moral purity were his undeniable attributes; they stand out in all the authentic accounts of his life that have reached us, and appear even in those garbled teachings which his followers placed in his mouth. The gentle disposition and the humility of Jesus remind one of Hillel, whom he seems, indeed, to have taken as his particular model, and whose golden rule, "What you wish not to be done to yourself, do not unto others," he adopted as the starting-point of his moral code. Like Hillel, Jesus looked upon the promotion of peace and the forgiveness of injuries as the highest forms of virtue. His whole being was permeated by that deeper religiousness which consecrates to God not only the hour of prayer, a day of penitence, and longer or shorter periods of devotional exercise, but every step in the journey of life, which turns every aspiration of the soul towards Him, subjects everything to His will, and, with child-like trust, commits everything to His keeping. He was filled with tender brotherly love, which Judaism also teaches towards an enemy, and had reached the ideal of the passive virtues which the Pharisees inculcated: "Count yourself among the oppressed and not among the oppressors, receive abuse and return it not; do all from love to God, and rejoice in suffering." Jesus doubtless possessed warm sympathies and a winning manner, which caused his words to produce a deep and lasting effect.