70. That question "Did not you know?" is the only hint we possess of Jesus' inner life before John's call to repentance rang through the land. Meanwhile the carpenter's son became himself the carpenter. Joseph seems to have died before the opening of Jesus' ministry. For Jesus as the eldest son, this death made those years far other than a time of spiritual retreat; responsibility for the home and the pressing duties of trade must have filled most of the hours of his days. This is a welcome thought to our healthiest sentiment, and true also to the earliest Christian feeling (Heb. iv. 15). John the Baptist had his training in the wilderness, but Jesus came from familiar intercourse with men, was welcomed in their homes (John ii. 2), knew their life in its homely ongoing, and was the friend of all sorts and conditions of men. After that visit to Jerusalem, a few more years may have been spent in school, for, whether from school instruction, or synagogue preaching, or simple daily experience, the young man came to know the traditions of the elders and also to know that observance of them is a mockery of the righteousness which God requires. Yet he seems to have felt so fully in harmony with God as to be conscious of nothing new in the fresh and vital conceptions of righteousness which he found in the law and prophets. We may be certain that much of his thought was given to Israel's hope of redemption, and that with the prophets of old and the singer much nearer his own day (Ps. of Sol. xvii. 23), he longed that God, according to his promise, would raise up unto his people, their King, the Son of David. 71. He must also have read often from that other book open before him as he walked upon the hills of Nazareth. The beauty of the grass and of the lilies was surely not a new discovery to him after he began to preach the coming kingdom, nor is it likely that he waited until after his baptism to form his habit of spending the night in prayer upon the mountain. We may be equally sure that he did not first learn to love men and women and long for their good after he received the call, "Thou art my beloved son" (Mark i. 11). He who in later life read hearts clearly (John ii. 25) doubtless gained that skill, as well as the knowledge of human sin and need, early in his intercourse with his friends and neighbors in Nazareth; while a clear conviction that God's kingdom consists in his sovereignty over loyal hearts must have filled much of his thought about the promised good which God would bring to Israel in due time. Thus we may think that in quietness and homely industry, in secret life with God and open love for men, in study of history and prophecy, in longing for the actual sway of God in human life, Jesus lived his life, did his work, and grew in "wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man" (Luke ii. 52). VI John The Baptist