A Life of St. John for the Young | Page 7

our Saviour watched upon His
knees."

To the poet's question James and John would answer that they "went
out to see the blue lupin and salvia, the purple hyacinth, the yellow and
white crocus, the scarlet poppy, and gladiolus, the flowering almond,
the crimson and pink anemone."
They also saw the cultivated fields, and the sower casting his seed
which fell on the hardened pathway, or barren rocks, or bounteous soil.
They watched the birds from mountain and lake gather the scattered
grain. They thought not of the parable into which all these would be
weaved; nor of Him who would utter it in their hearing near where they
then stood. They saw the shepherds and their flocks, the sparrows and
the lilies, that became object lessons of the Great Teacher yet unknown
to them. In their rambles they may have climbed the hill, only seven
miles from their home, not thinking of the time when they would climb
it again; after which it would be forever known as the Mount of
Beatitudes.
Such were some of the charming and exciting scenes with which John
was familiar in his early life, and which would interest his refined and
observing nature, of which we know in his manhood. They must have
had an important influence in the formation of his character.
We have spoken of five Bethsaidan boys--Andrew and Peter, James
and John--and a friend. His name was Philip. We know but little of him.
What we do know is from John. He tells us that "Philip was of
Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter." Perhaps he was their special
friend, and so became one of the company of five, as he afterward
became one of the more glorious company of twelve. We shall find
three of these five in a still closer companionship. They are Peter,
James and John. One of these shall have the most glorious honor of all.
It is John.

CHAPTER III _John's Royal Kindred_
It seems almost certain that Salome and Mary the mother of Jesus, were
sisters. Royal blood was in their veins. They were descendants of

David. The record of their ancestry had been carefully preserved for
God's own plans, especially concerning Mary, of which plans neither of
the sisters knew until revealed to her by an angel from God. We think
of them as faithful to Him, and ready for any service to which He might
call them, in the fisherman's home of Salome, or the carpenter's home
of Mary. Mary's character has been summed up in the words, "pure,
gentle and gracious." Salome must have had something of the same
nature, which we find again in her sons.
If Salome and Mary were sisters, our interest in James and John
deepens, as we think of them as cousins of Jesus. This family
connection may have had something to do with their years of close
intimacy; but we shall find better reason for it than in this kinship.
There was another relation closer and holier.
We wonder whether Jesus ever visited Bethsaida, and played with His
cousins on the seashore, and gathered shells, and dug in the sand, and
sailed on Gennesaret, and helped with His little hands to drag the net,
and was disappointed because there were no fish, or bounded with glee
because of the multitude of them.
We wonder whether James and John visited Jesus in Nazareth, nestled
among the hills of Galilee. Did they go to the village well, the same
where children go to-day to draw water? Did James and John see how
Jesus treated His little mates, and how they treated Him--the best boy
in Nazareth? Did the cousins talk together of what their mothers had
taught them from the Scriptures, especially of The Great One whom
those mothers were expecting to appear as the Messiah? Did they go
together to the synagogue, and hear the Rabbi read the prophecies
which some day Jesus, in the same synagogue, would say were about
Himself?
Jesus was the flower of Mary's family, the flower of Nazareth, of
Galilee, of the whole land, and the whole world. Nazareth means
flowery--a fitting name for the home of Jesus. It was rightly named. So
must James and John have thought if their young cousin went with
them to gather daisies, crocuses, poppies, tulips, marigolds, mignonette
and lilies, which grow so profusely around the village. Did they ramble

among the scarlet pomegranates, the green oaks, the dark green palms,
the cypresses and olives that grew in the vale of Nazareth, and made
beautiful the hills that encircled it? Did they climb one of them, and
gain a view of the Mediterranean, and look toward the region where
John would live when his boyhood was long past, in the service of his
cousin at his