Born among the shepherds, He who was to become shepherd of men knew and loved the flocks; the ewes searching for the lost lamb, the lambs bleating weakly, and sucking, almost hidden under their mother’s woolly bodies, the flocks sweltering on the thin hot pastures of their hills; He loved with equal love the tiny seed which you can scarcely see on the palm of your hand and the ancient fig tree, casting its shade over the poor man’s house; the birds of the air which sow not neither do they reap; the fish silvering the meshes of the nets to feed His faithful; and raising His eyes in the sultry evenings of gathering storm, He saw the lightning flashing out of the east and shattering the darkness of the night, even into the west. But Jesus did not read only in the open many-colored book of the world. He knew that God spoke to men through angels, patriarchs and prophets. His words, His laws, His victories are written in the Book. Jesus knew the magic black signs by which the dead pass on to those not yet born, the thoughts and memories of olden times. Jesus read only the books where His ancestors had set down the story of His people, the will of the Lord, the vision of the Prophets, but He knew them in the letter and spirit better than the scribes and the doctors: and that knowledge gave Him the right to leave off being scholar and to become teacher. THE OLD COVENANT Among all peoples the Jew was the most happy and the most unhappy. His story is a mystery which begins with the idyl in the Garden of Eden and ends with the tragedy of the hill of Golgotha. His first parents were molded by the luminous hands of God, were made masters of Paradise, the country of eternal, fertile summer, set in the midst of rivers, where the rich Oriental fruits hung down ready to their hand, heavy with pulp in the shade of the new young leaves. The new-created sky, not yet sullied by clouds, not yet riven by lightning, or harassed by winds, watched over the first two with all its stars. The first couple had as their duty to love God and to love each other. This was the First Covenant. Weariness unknown, grief unknown, unknown death and its terror! The first disobedience brought the first exile; the man was condemned to work, the woman to bring forth her young in pain. Work is painful, but it brings the reward of harvests; to give birth means suffering, but it brings the consolation of children. And yet even these inferior and imperfect felicities passed away like leaves devoured by worms. For the first time brother killed brother: human blood fallen on the earth became corrupt, gave forth an exhalation of sin: the daughters of men united themselves with demons and from them were born giants, fierce hunters and slayers of men, who turned the world into a bloody hell.