However, in passing, it may be well to pause long enough to observe how the presentation in the Temple brings the limited circumstances of Joseph and Mary to our notice. The custom of ceremonial purification by a Jewish mother in the sanctuary with a sacrifice is fully stated in Lev. xii. Two offerings were required, a burnt and a sin offering. When Mary presented herself with her babe in the court of the women, in the Temple, the proper offering was a lamb for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtle-dove for a sin offering; but with that beautiful tenderness which is so marked a characteristic of the Mosaic law, those who were too poor for so comparatively costly an offering were allowed to bring instead two turtle-doves or two young pigeons. Mary, instead of the lamb and dove, brought the offering of the poor--two doves. With this offering in her hand, she presented herself to the priest. One incident more occurs in the presentation in the Temple. At the moment when Mary had completed her consecration, an old man came tottering through the throng. It was the aged Simeon, “just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel.” Taking from Mary’s arms her precious infant, and, as with face aglow and eyes kindled with heavenly fire, in speaking his holy rapture, one passage is specially directed to her, “Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also.” This “sword,” we must believe, entered her heart as later she saw her Son on the cross. In the return from Egypt after the death of Herod the Great, it appears to have been the intention of Joseph to have settled at Bethlehem at this time, as his home at Nazareth had now been broken up for a year or more, intending there to rear the infant King, at his own royal city, until the time should come when he would sit upon David’s throne and restore the fallen kingdom to its ancient splendor. But “when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea,” he turned aside into Nazareth, as well he might, if he knew the life and character of the new prince, thinking, no doubt, the child’s life would be safer in the tetrarchy of Antipas than in that of Archelaus.