The Saviour of the World (Routledge Revivals)

Volume I: The Holy Infancy

Charlotte Mason, Charlotte M Mason

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781138900783
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317478690
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

The Saviour of the World covers each incident and each saying in the Bible and converts them to either a single poem, blank verse or rhymed stanza, according to the subject. This volume, called The Holy Infancy, was originally published in 1908. This book will be of interest to students of both religious studies and English literature.

BOOK II

THE NOVITIATE

I

To Jerusalem, year by year, the parents went

To observe their nation’s solemn Festival;

Nor knew they took the Paschal Lamb that year—

White, without blemish, set apart to be

Sin-offering before God for all the world!

When He was twelve years old, now, went He up

With all the joyous company, praising God.

There, in the temple, the Boy took on Him,

As custom was, His part in Israel’s life—

A son of Judah, called for praise of God.

As dim previsions come to our dull minds,

Did He, conditioned as a child of man,

Hear, while He shared the sacrificial Feast,

The echo of a Word—The Lamb that was slain

Ere the foundations of the world were laid?

Did He foresee, scarce knowing what He saw,

That Last sad Supper, when the Lamb of God

Gave of His flesh and blood at dying feast?

The days of the Feast went by; quick-rising thoughts

Surged in the heart of the young Son of Man :

Think what it were, if, all at once, the sun,

Faces of men, service of prayer and praise,

The immanence of God, grew real to thought,

Each with its full significance! The wonder of’t

Would send us dazed and faltering on our way :

A child sees somewhat—this Child saw the whole,

All, full of pristine meanings, awful claims;—

Things grow not stale to the Eternal Mind.

Now, when His parents returnèd, the Boy Jesus

Tarried behind them in Jerusalem,

His home, the court of His own Father’s house!

The folk returned in two gay companies,

The men and the women, while the children ran

From one to the other as their humour was :

Thus it befell that they had gone a day

Or ever His parents knew the Child astray.

Inquiring among kinsfolk and acquaintance,

They hurried, anxious, up and down the camp

Couched round the evening fires; His mother wept,

Blaming herself for holy trust betrayed;

And every word she treasured in her heart

Revealing the Child’s state, returned in chiding.

Back to Jerusalem turned they, seeking Him;

And, for three fevered days of much distress,

The Child they searched for in each likely place;

But not in that where, had they understood,

They first had sought, unanxious and assured.

After three days they found Him in the temple;

Here was the Boy, sitting among the doctors,

Fulfilling all that part of Jewish child

As Moses had conceived it :—” What mean ye

By the lamb, the bitter herbs, loins girt, and sandals

Strapped for journey?”What joy in this young scholar.

So apt to learn, so strenuous to attend

And quick in apprehension! All the tale

Of Israel’s great deliverance they told

To the Boy who knew, and fain would know much more.

The past was plain, but the great Feast looked on :

His teachers found their settled thought perplexed,

Their knowledge failing, as the Boy’s replies

Opened new, simpler meanings; while, unconscious,

He brought fresh thought to bear on time-worn themes,

And showed how their stale words of letter-lore

Looked, quickened by the Spirit. Day of grace

Came to these pedant doctors as they asked,

Aside, questioning each other, “What think ye

Of th’ Boy? New wine into old bottles pours He,

And brings Messias to our very door!”—

They, too, were in the Light.

After three days

The parents came upon the group—the doctors

With fervent young Disciple in their midst.

Alas, for Mary! Days of fretful search

Wrought weariness of flesh, soreness of heart :

Blind to His part, she thought but of her own

(This once) : and His mother said to Him, “Son,

Why dealt thou thus with us? Thy father and I

Have sought thee sorrowing!”Even while she spake,

His mother knew her fault, knew she had failed

In love’s nice comprehension; she should have known :

“Why is it that ye sought Me? ‘‘said her Son,

Wistful and troubled with that life-long grief—

No one would understand! Not one would know!—

But, patient, sweet always, He told her how,

“My Father’s business I must be about—

Wist ye not that?”Nor yet they understood.

“My Father”—was the word blissful surprise

To Him who spake—possession realised?

And did the others wonder, taking thought?

We, knowing beyond their knowledge, dimly see

That His Vocation this day reached the Boy :

He heard His Father’s call, gave meet reply;

Sate, pupil, in His Father’s house and learned,

As meek disciple, at the doctors’ feet :

What things are lovely, meet, of good report

In any boy, became the Son of Man;

These, and no other. No subt...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Copyright Page
• APOLOGIA
• Table of Contents
• LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
• INTRODUCTORY
• BOOK I THE HOLY INFANCY
• BOOK II THE NOVITIATE
• BOOK III FIRST WORDS AND FIRST WORKS
• INDEX OF THE SUBJECTS OF POEMS, AND BIBLE REFERENCES