failed to make the Law and the prophets intelligible to those classes, and consequently did not draw them within their fold. It was to these outcasts that Jesus turned, to snatch them out of their torpor, their ignorance and ungodliness. He felt within himself the call to save "the lost sheep of the house of Israel." "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick" (Matthew ix. 12). Intent upon the lofty mission which he had undertaken--to turn the ignorant and the godless, the sinner and the publican to repentance, and by virtue of the Essene mode of living to prepare them for the approaching Messianic time--Jesus first sought his native town of Nazareth. But there, where he had been known from his infancy, and where the carpenter's son was not considered to possess superior sanctity but only inferior knowledge, he was met with derision and contempt. When, on the Sabbath, he spoke in the synagogue about repentance, the listeners said to each other, "Is that not the son of Joseph the carpenter, and his mother and sisters, are they not all with us?" and they said to him, "Physician, heal thyself," and listened not to him. The ignominious treatment he received in his own birthplace caused him to utter the proverb, "The preacher is least regarded in his own country." He left Nazareth, never to return. A better result followed the teaching of Jesus in the town of Capernaum (Kefar Nahum), which was situated on the western coast of the Sea of Tiberias. The inhabitants of that delightfully situated town differed as much from the Nazarenes as their mild, fertile land from a rough and wild mountain gorge. In Capernaum there were doubtless a greater number of men steeped in effeminacy and vice, and there existed, probably, a wider gap between the rich and the poor. But just on that account Jesus had more scope to work there, and an easier access was found for the earnest, penetrating words which he poured forth from the depths of his soul. Many belonging to the lowest classes attached themselves to Jesus and followed him. Among his first disciples in Capernaum were Simon, called Kephas or Petrus (rock), and his brother Andrew, the sons of Jonah, both fishermen, the first, in some degree, a law-breaker, and also the two sons of a certain Zebedee, Jacob and John. He was also followed by a rich publican, called sometimes Matthew, sometimes Levi, in whose house Jesus often tarried, bringing with him companions from the classes then looked down upon with the greatest contempt. Women likewise of doubtful repute were among his followers, the most conspicuous of the number being a native of the town of Magdala, near Tiberias, Mary Magdalene, from whom seven devils (according to the language of the time) had to be driven out. Jesus converted these abandoned sinners into remorseful penitents. It was, doubtless, an unheard-of thing at that time for a teacher of Judaism to hold intercourse with women at all, more especially with any of that