THE TWO GENEALOGIES OF JESUS CHRIST. MATTHEW i, 1-17; LUKE iii, 23-38. The genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Matthew i, 1. Being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Adam, the son of God. Luke iii, 23-38. IX. THE TWO GENEALOGIES OF JESUS CHRIST. MATTHEW i, 1-17; LUKE iii, 23-38. THE average American cares little for genealogy. Our country is too young; it has been settled by too many emigrating families; the intermarriage between their descendants has been too free; the vicissitudes of fortune have been too frequent and extreme; the distance between the average man and the great man has been too small; the rejection of the Old World principle of primogeniture has been too complete; the resources of the country are too abounding; the confidence of the people in "manifest destiny" has been too glowing-to permit, with here and there an exception, any special passion for the preservation of pedigrees. Not so with the civilized nations beyond the deep. Their inspiration is largely the inspiration of the past. Their treasures are the treasures of antique relics; their songs the songs of auld lang syne; their constitutions the constitutions of precedents; their authorities the authorities of traditions; their customs the Jewish Pride in Pedigree. Luke ii, 1-5. customs of immemorial mintages. Moreover, the facts that primogeniture has been in large part the law of inheritance for the ancient world, and that each of the nations, in most instances, owes or supposes it owes its origin to a single and conspicuous founder, escorted by a brilliant court, have tended to cultivate the genealogical instinct. Hence, the many family-trees and heraldries and muniment-rooms of our motherland, the venerable Celtic clans perpetuated from generation to generation, the ancient patronymics of Greece and Rome. But nowhere was this passion for preserving pedigrees so intense as among the ancient Jews. And nowhere with so good reason: for to them, from Abraham onward, had been promised the peerless honor of giving birth to the Divine Deliverer. Hence the jealous care with which they guarded their tables of lineage; witness, for example, the genealogical registers of the books of the Chronicles and of Ezra. Accordingly, when Cæsar Augustus issued his decree that all the world should be enrolled, and all went to enroll themselves, every one to his own city—that is, the city of his family ancestor-Joseph also went up from Nazareth of Galilee to the city of David, which was called Bethlehem, knowing, doubtless from the official registry, that he was of the house and family of David, to enroll himself with Mary, his betrothed. This hope of being the ancestor of the promised Messiah, cherished by every family of the Abrahamic race, and especially of the Davidic stock, was the majestic hope which, alike in prosperity and in adversity, in independence |