the idolaters view with suspicion these Jewish strangers; no one knows them, and they are homeless wanderers till Joseph is able to hire a little house. Then it is hard to get work, and though he and Mary stint themselves for the sake of the Child, they are so poor that many a time when He asks for bread they have none to give Him.
It seems to have been soon after the slaughter of the Innocents that Herod died and went to Judgment. What an awful account he had to give! To keep a throne of which death must soon deprive him, he had murdered his nearest and dearest, the priests of the Temple, and at last a whole troop of little children, among whom he hoped was the Saviour of the world.
There was nothing now to keep the Holy Family in exile, and the Angel who had ordered the Flight into Egypt appeared in sleep to Joseph saying:
"Arise, and take the Child and His Mother and go into the land of Israel, for they are dead that sought the life of the Child."
And he arose and took the Child and His Mother and came into the land of Israel. But hearing that Archelaus reigned in Judea in the room of Herod his father, he was afraid to go thither. He therefore determined to return to Nazareth in Galilee and settle there.
