In the home of Zacharias and Elizabeth the baby John grew up a strong, noble boy. Very early they told him of the angel's visit, and of the command that throughout his life he was not to taste wine nor any strong drink. He was under a vow or pledge of special service for God; and one sign of his pledge was to be his not tasting wine nor even eating grapes. Another sign was in leaving his hair to grow long and never cutting it. Everyone who saw him would know by these signs that he was pledged to a life of peculiar service to God. When John became a young man he went away from his home and lived in the desert, alone with his own thoughts and with God. Very likely, his father and mother died before he went to live alone, for at the time of his birth they were old people and could not live many years. John lived upon the plainest of food, the locusts that could be gathered in the field, and were boiled, to be eaten by the poorest people. He ate also the honey made by the wild bees and stored by them in hollow trees and holes in the rocks. All those years of his young manhood, John was thinking upon the work to which God had called him, talking with God and learning God's will; so that when the time came, he could give God's message to the people. [Illustration: Plowing in Bible time] [Illustration: They sought out the inn at Bethlehem but Joseph found within its walls no place where his wife could rest after her long and wearisome ride.] The Child-King in His Cradle CHAPTER 7 FOR A FEW months after their marriage, Joseph and Mary lived in their little house at Nazareth. Joseph worked at his trade as a carpenter, while Mary cared for the home and carried the water for the needs of the house from the well in the middle of the village, walking with her jar full of water on her head. One day Joseph came home and told his wife that he had been called to go on a journey to Bethlehem, which was the town from which their family had come. Both Joseph and Mary, as we have seen, had sprung from the line of the great King David, who had been born in Bethlehem more than a thousand years before. Every one who belonged to the line of David, wherever he might be living, looked upon Bethlehem as the home-town of his family. The Emperor Augustus at Rome, who ruled over all the lands and was above Herod, the king of Judea, had given orders that a list should be made of all the families in his wide empire. He wished to lay a tax upon every family; that is, to call upon every family to pay money for the support of his officers, his army, his court; and in order to fix this tax, he must have written down the names of all the people. In our land such a list is made every ten years, and is called a census. With us, men are chosen in every city and town to go to the people where they live and make the list of their names. From all the states throughout the land, these lists are sent to one office, and there the names are arranged in order.