It is assuredly well to remember that he would quite certainly have been moved on by the police and almost certainly arrested by the police for having no visible means of subsistence. For our law has in it a turn of humour or touch of fancy which Nero and Herod never happened to think of, that of actually punishing homeless people for not sleeping at home.
He is referencing Jesus' public life here. It's interesting that even in the 1800s/early 1900s Chesterton seems to be arguing against anti homelessness and anti vagrancy laws.
