unchanging character of Eastern life has retained till now the old forms of costume and other common objects as they existed at the period of our Saviour’s life on earth. Almost every detail of the present, truly painted, becomes a fact of the past.
But, more wonderful than this, the old customs still continue; the learned Jews still sit together in places of public resort, to talk of doctrine and tradition; the Roll of the Law is as sacred, and as zealously to be kept from profanation, now that the Moslem holds the sacred city, as it was before the Roman had destroyed the Temple of Jehovah.
On its naturalistic principle, the picture aims at showing us one of the ordinary days of religious life in the courts of the Temple. The Doctors are sitting together on a semi-circular bench, and some matter of strange interest animates their discussion. A peasant boy has joined himself to their company, sitting at the feet of one of the youngest of their number,—tradition says, Nicodemus; and this boy has been listening to their arguments, and has asked them certain questions, and has astonished them by his understanding and answers. The questions of the boy have sounded strangely in the ears of these learned men. The blind High Priest holds with nervous grasp the sacred Rolls of the Law, as the Rabbi at his side repeats in his dulled ear something that the boy has said. No wonder the old man holds the Rolls of the Law so tightly in his feeble hands, for it may well be that the words which he hears contain the germ of those questions which on another day were to put the chief priests to silence and confusion.
God’s words at both periods, but spoken now in the voice and timid manner of childhood, to be spoken again in the lapse of years with the force of Perfect Man.
“Only the strange questions of a precocious child,” think these learned Doctors, and the whole occurrence will presently pass from their minds. Not so with Him: the questions which had arisen in long communings on the hill-side at Nazareth are answered now. He has spoken to the men of highest intellect in the land. Their answers to His questions, given with the weight of authority, and the dignity of age, will abide in His mind. The hollowness and falsehood of those answers will grow more and more apparent with His increase in wisdom during those after years that he dwelt in Nazareth subject to His parents.
“Gifted with extraordinary mind, yet only a peasant boy!” think these learned men. Those are His parents—humble folk, who have sought him, and are standing there amazed, as well they may be, at the position in which they have found their son; and He, seeing his parents enter the court, has broken suddenly from His thoughts, and risen to meet them, but in a moment every feeling is absorbed again in the great idea which is forming in His mind, and though His mother draws him anxiously to her arms, He is lost to all earthly consciousness—one hand is passive in her tender grasp, and the other, with purposeless energy, is twitching at the fastening of His girdle. Presently His reply to their expostulation, “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”
I said we were to see in the real the wonder of the Divine.
We behold Him in the picture as they beheld Him that one day at Jerusalem, clad in an ordinary garment, the son of a poor carpenter, but we know that He is the Son of God. The occurrence, which a few days will efface from their recollection, is sacred to us—merely the wondering eyes of an intelligent child, as they beheld his earnest gaze,—unfathomable depth of divine spirit to us. The sadness of that young face, which would be scarcely perceptible to them, deepens in our eyes, a foreshadow of that sorrow which was to cling to His life on earth. They thought it was the surprising talent of a child; we know that it was the development of that wisdom which is divine.
With regard to Mr. Hunt’s conception of the Holy Family.—As far as I am aware, the Virgin and Joseph have been generally painted as conscious of the real nature of their child,—that they did not comprehend it is certain. “And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them.”
There is the mother’s tender love in the Virgin’s countenance, troubled with amazement—amazement too, and deep feeling, in the father’s countenance: but there is the absence of that responsive sympathy which arises from comprehension and appreciation. He stands isolated even in his mother’s arms. Alone, as regards human sympathy, in this great era of His childhood, though in the midst of the busy life of the Temple, as He was so often to stand alone, without the solace of human sympathy and love, in his after life.
When we turn from the group of the Holy Family, a unity of purpose binds together the separate details of the picture, and insensibly draws our thoughts back again to Him. The consecration of the first-born—the lamb without blemish borne away for sacrifice—the table of the money-changer—the seller of doves—the blind cripple at the gate—the superstitious reverence for the Books of the Law, shown by a child who is reverently kissing the outer covering—the phylacteries on the brow—the musicians who have been assisting in the ceremonial of the Temple, and are gazing curiously on the scene, little witting that the boy before them is the descendant of the Royal Psalmist. So it comes to pass that this truthful rendering of detail strikes the chords of those feelings which vibrate in our hearts with every incident of His sacred career. A grand prelude to the after ministry of Christ—conceived in a fine spirit—as the great musician places the theme of his leading ideas in the overture, which ideas are to be wrought to their fulness in the after portions of his work.
It has not been my object to consider the picture technically; that question has been already very fully discussed in other critiques. Everybody must acknowledge the marvellous finish of the execution—utmost delicacy combined with power of effect—the harmony and richness of the colouring—the brightness, true to Eastern climes, though dazzling to Western eyes—the wonderful