x. 32), and the dauntless resolution with which He pressed on towards

Jerusalem (Mk. x. 33), they could not enter into the meaning of His words. His predictions of suffering and death clashed with all their deeply-rooted ideas of the nature of the Messianic kingdom, and it was now that two of their number, James and John, encouraged by their mother, preferred the request[441] that in His kingdom they might _sit the one on His right hand, and the other on His left_. Even His reply that they should indeed _drink of His cup, and be baptized with His baptism_, sounded to the rest like the concession of some mysterious dignity, and provoked a jealousy on their part, which the Holy One strove to check by reminding them once more of the true nature of His kingdom, that therein He is truly _first who is the servant of all; even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many_.

With this final proof of the utter inability even of His own chosen Twelve to lighten by their sympathy a particle of what lay before Himself, the Holy One, having recrossed the Jordan, continued His way amidst the crowd of pilgrims setting forth towards Jerusalem. Approaching Jericho He healed two blind men[442], who sat by the wayside begging and implored His aid; He accepted in the City of Palm Trees itself the hospitality of Zacchæus[443], a superintendent of customs or tribute there (Lk. xix. 1–10); corrected, by delivering the Parable of _the Pounds_[444], the idea that the Kingdom of Heaven was _about immediately to appear_, and at length, six days before the Passover, reached the safe seclusion of the mountain hamlet of Bethany (Mtt. xxvi. 6–13; Mk. xiv. 3–9; Jn. xii. 1–11).

Illustration: JERUSALEM in the time of OUR LORD

London and New York: Macmillan & Co. _For Maclear’s New Test.ᵗ History_ _Stanford’s Geog.ˡ Estab.ᵗ_