There are but few people to pay any heed to the strange incident. Two or three of those who climb the stairway turn about and stare curiously at the group below. There are three others still more interested. One man behind puts his turbaned head over Simeon's shoulders, peering inquisitively at the child, as if trying to see what the old man finds so remarkable in him. Beyond, two old beggars approach with a sort of good-natured interest. They are quaintly dressed, one of them wearing a very tall cap. Such humble folk as these alone seem to have time to notice others' affairs.
It must not be supposed that this scene very closely represents the actual event it illustrates. The painter Rembrandt knew nothing about the architecture of the old Jewish temple destroyed many centuries before. A Gothic cathedral was the finest house of worship known to him, so he thought out the scene as it would look in such surroundings. The people coming and going were such as he saw about him daily; the beggars looking at the Christ-child were the beggars of Amsterdam, and the men seated in the wooden settle at the right were like the respectable Dutch burghers of his acquaintance. It was like translating the story from Aramaic to Dutch, but in the process nothing is lost of its original touching beauty.
In studying the picture, you must notice how carefully all the figures are painted, even the very small ones in the darkest parts of the composition. The beautiful contrast, between the light on the central group and the soft dimness of the remoter parts of the cathedral, illustrates a style of work for which Rembrandt was very famous, and which we shall often see in his pictures.
We read in the evangelists' record of the life of Jesus that he went about the country preaching the gospel (or the good news) of the kingdom of Heaven. Sometimes he preached in the synagogue on the Sabbath day; but more often he talked to the people in the open air, sometimes on the mountain-side, sometimes on the shore of the lake Gennesaret, or again in the streets of their towns.
The scribes and Pharisees were jealous of his popularity, and angry because he exposed their hypocrisy. The proud and rich found many of his sayings too hard to accept. So it was the poor and unhappy who were most eager to hear him, and they often formed a large part of his audience. Jesus himself rejoiced in this class of followers, and when John the Baptist's messengers came to him to inquire into his mission, he sent back the message, "The poor have the gospel preached to them."
