Tax return of Jesus from Cans to Cape Galilee resembled a province of Se i CHAPTER VI IDYLLIC DAYS THE return of Jesus from Cana to Capernaum was probably a kind of triumph. Young, gracious, fascinating, He had by a single act endeared Himself to a multitude of humble people. The rapid growth of His popularity is easily explicable when we recollect the crowded condition of Galilee, and the extraordinary swiftness with which rumour travels among Oriental peoples in times of excitement. Residents in India have often told us marvellous stories of how the telegraph itself has been outstripped by the speed of popular rumour. Things which the authorities have treated as profoundly secret are openly discussed in bazaars and market-places a thousand miles away. The whisper of the statesman's closet vibrates through an empire. It would seem that a kind of freemasonry, the methods of which are never known to persons in authority, exists among these subtle-witted and silent populations of the East, and by its means news is disseminated as by the birds of the air. Galilee resembled a province of India in its crowded life, and the presence of the conquering Romans drove the people to a thousand means of underground communication. Within a very narrow tract of country were found more than two hundred towns and villages, with an average population of about fifteen thousand persons. |