Though none of the Twelve had received a liberal education, [42:2] it cannot be said that they were literally "novices" when invested with the ministerial commission. It is probable that, before they were invited to follow Jesus, they had all seriously turned their attention to the subject of religion; some of them had been previously instructed by the Baptist; and all, prior to their selection, appear to have been about a year under the tuition of our Lord himself. From that time until the end of His ministry they lived with Him on terms of the most intimate familiarity. From earlier acquaintance, as well as from closer and more confidential companionship, they had a better opportunity of knowing His character and doctrines than any of the rest of His disciples. When, perhaps about six or eight months [42:3] after their appointment, they were sent forth as missionaries, they were commanded neither to walk in "the way of the Gentiles," nor to enter "into any city of the Samaritans," but rather to go "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." [42:4] Their number _Twelve_ corresponded to the number of the tribes, and they were called _apostles_ probably in allusion to a class of Jewish functionaries who were so designated. It is said that the High Priest was wont to send forth from Jerusalem into foreign countries certain accredited agents, or messengers, styled apostles, on ecclesiastical errands. [42:5] During the personal ministry of our Lord the Twelve seem to have been employed by Him on only one missionary excursion. About twelve months after that event [43:1] He "appointed other seventy also" to preach His Gospel. Luke is the only evangelist who mentions the designation of these additional missionaries; and though we have no reason to believe that their duties terminated with the first tour in which they were engaged, [43:2] they are never subsequently noticed in the New Testament. Many of the actions of our Lord had a typical meaning, and it is highly probable that He designed to inculcate an important truth by the appointment of these Seventy new apostles. According to the ideas of the Jews of that age there were _seventy_ heathen nations; [43:3] and it is rather singular that, omitting Peleg the progenitor of the Israelites, the names of the posterity of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, recorded in the 10th chapter of Genesis, amount exactly to seventy. "These," says the historian, "are the families of the sons of Noah, _after their generations, in their nations; and by these were the nations divided_ in the earth after the flood." [43:4] Every one who looks into the narrative will perceive that the sacred writer does not propose to furnish a complete catalogue of the descendants of Noah, for he passes over in entire silence the posterity of the greater number of the patriarch's grandchildren; he apparently intends to name only those who were _the founders of nations_; and thus it happens that whilst, in