Such was the group which, on the borders of the lake of Tiberias, gathered around Jesus. The aristocracy was represented there by a customs-officer and by the wife of one of Herod's stewards. The rest were fishermen and common people. Their ignorance was extreme; their intelligence was feeble; they believed in apparitions and spirits.[1] Not one element of Greek culture had penetrated this first assembly of the saints. They had very little Jewish instruction; but heart and good-will overflowed. The beautiful climate of Galilee made the life of these honest fishermen a perpetual delight. They truly preluded the kingdom of God--simple, good, and happy--rocked gently on their delightful little sea, or at night sleeping on its shores. We do not realize to ourselves the intoxication of a life which thus glides away in the face of heaven--the sweet yet strong love which this perpetual contact with Nature gives, and the dreams of these nights passed in the brightness of the stars, under an azure dome of infinite expanse. It was during such a night that Jacob, with his head resting upon a stone, saw in the stars the promise of an innumerable posterity, and the mysterious ladder by which the angels of God came and went from heaven to earth. At the time of Jesus the heavens were not closed, nor the earth grown cold. The cloud still opened above the Son of man; the angels ascended and descended upon his head;[2] the visions of the kingdom of God were everywhere, for man carried them in his heart. The clear and mild eyes of these simple souls contemplated the universe in its ideal source. The world unveiled perhaps its secret to the divinely enlightened conscience of these happy children, whose purity of heart deserved one day to behold God. [Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 26; Mark vi. 49; Luke xxiv. 39; John vi. 19.] [Footnote 2: John i. 51.] Jesus lived with his disciples almost always in the open air. Sometimes he got into a boat, and instructed his hearers, who were crowded upon the shore.[1] Sometimes he sat upon the mountains which bordered the lake, where the air is so pure and the horizon so luminous. The faithful band led thus a joyous and wandering life, gathering the inspirations of the master in their first bloom. An innocent doubt was sometimes raised, a question slightly sceptical; but Jesus, with a smile or a look, silenced the objection. At each step--in the passing cloud, the germinating seed, the ripening corn--they saw the sign of the Kingdom drawing nigh, they believed themselves on the eve of seeing God, of being masters of the world; tears were turned into joy; it was the advent upon earth of universal consolation. [Footnote 1: Matt. xiii. 1, 2; Mark iii. 9, iv. 1; Luke v. 3.] "Blessed," said the master, "are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.