Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise
                                                (Matt. 21:16).

If this were a solitary utterance of his thought upon Nature, it might be ranked with one or two pointed citations he made of the letter of the Old Testament; but it is safe, perhaps, to take it as one of many indications of his communion with God in Nature.  The wind blowing in the night where it listed—­must we authenticate every verse of the Fourth Gospel before we believe that he listened to it also and caught something?  At any rate, in later years, when his friends are over-driven and weary, quiet and open-air in a desert place are what he prescribes for them and wishes to share with them—­surely a hint of old experience (Mark 6:31).

But now let us turn back to Nazareth, for, as the Gospel reminds us, there he grew up.  “The city teaches the man,” said the old Greek poet Simonides; and it does, as we see, and more than we sometimes realize.  Jesus grew up in an Oriental town, in the middle of its life—­a town with poor houses, bad smells, and worse stories, tragedies of widow and prodigal son, of unjust judge and grasping publican—­yes, and comedies too.  We know at once from general knowledge of Jewish life and custom, and from the recorded fact that he read the Scriptures, that he went to school; and we could guess, fairly safely, that he played with his school-fellows, even if he had not told us what the games were at which they played:—­

    At weddings and at funerals,
    As if his life’s vocation
    Were endless imitation.

Sometimes the children were sulky and would not play (Luke 7:32).  How strange, and how delightful, that the great Gospel, full of God’s word for mankind, should have a little corner in it for such reminiscences of children’s games!  We cannot suppose that he had access to many books, but he knew the Old Testament, well and familiarly—­better and more aptly than some people expected.  Traces of other books have been found in his teaching, not many and some of them doubtful.  Generally one would conclude that, apart from the Old Testament, his education was not very bookish—­he found it in home and shop, in the desert, on the road, and in the market-place.

It is interesting to gather from the Gospel what Jesus says of the talk of men, and it is surprising to find how much it is, till we realize how very much in ancient times the city was the education, and the market-place the school, where some of the most abiding lessons were learnt.  Is it not so still in the East?  Here was a boy, however, who watched men and their words more closely than they guessed, on whose ears words fell, not as old coinages, but as new minting, with the marks of thought still rough and bright on them—­indexes to the speaker.