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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
THE MIGHTY AND 
 THE LOWLY 
 
 BY 
 KATRINA TRASK 
 
 AUTHOR OP "IN THE VANGUARD," ETC. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1915 
 
 All rights reserved 
 

 COPYBIGHT, 1915, 
 
 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electro typed. Published August, 1915. 
 
 J. 8. Cushing- Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
 Uli -5 1915 
 3CU401971 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE 
 LOWLY 
 
 ACROSS the chasm of the centuries, 
 through the dark mists of history, 
 there shines a radiant figure ; He stands 
 majestic, beautiful, serene, convincing in 
 His fearless truth-telling, resplendent in 
 His virile purity. 
 
 Behold Jesus! 
 Called by some, the son of Joseph the 
 
 Carpenter, 
 Called by some, the son of David the 
 
 King, 
 Called by some, the Son of God. 
 
 Over His love-compelling face, the 
 dogmatic Church has woven a sacerdotal 
 veil, bossed with jewels, overlaid with 
 
 B [1] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 mystic symbols, and broidered with 
 many-coloured threads — green for Ad- 
 vent, purple for passion, black for Gol- 
 gotha, and spotless white for Easter 
 day. 
 
 Between the eyes of those who look to 
 Him and His all-seeing eyes of Truth, 
 men have erected high embattled walls 
 of their own building, ornamented and 
 elaborately carved with the manifold 
 devices and interpretations of men. 
 
 Between His outstretched hands of 
 fellowship to all mankind and our seeking 
 hands, rolls an unplumbed sea of blood 
 — blood that has been shed in His name 
 by those who have taken His name in 
 vain to prove a point in argument. 
 
 Between His Word and our eager 
 listening ear, men have made an age- 
 long wrangling buzz, so confusing that 
 His simple divine message comes to our 
 
 [2] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 mind interrupted by the noisy jar of 
 disputants. 
 
 But all the boundless barriers made by 
 men cannot hide Him from those who 
 look to Him with seeing eyes. 
 
 He is an unquenched and an unquench- 
 able Light. 
 
 In His hand He holds the key to an 
 unseen kingdom of the soul. And, 
 speaking as one having authority, He 
 utters immortal words. 
 
 Even if one does not accept the doc- 
 trine of the Incarnation in a strict 
 theological sense, at least one must admit 
 that the Word of Jesus is the most 
 inspired, the most exalted, of all words 
 ever spoken by any teacher, any master 
 of men or founder of a religion, since the 
 world began. Apart from classification 
 of it, or exact belief concerning its verbal 
 inspiration, the Word of Jesus is the most 
 
 [3] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 convincing of all the inspired Books 
 the world has ever known. It bears 
 the internal evidence of Truth and divine 
 wisdom : of inspiration and revelation. 
 
 Jesus spake as never man spake. His 
 philosophy is universal, all-rounded : it 
 goes to the very depth of life and human 
 experience, it goes to the utmost height of 
 aspiration and human possibility. His 
 Word bears upon its wide-spread, up- 
 ward-soaring wings the hope, the prom- 
 ise, the reality of Life. 
 
 But that Word must be taken as a 
 whole! Any part of it wrested away 
 from its context, given without its just 
 balance, and presented as the whole 
 truth is a black lie — for "a lie which is 
 half a truth is ever the blackest of lies." 
 
 The Word of Jesus is a sublime pro- 
 portion : it is a balance of extremes : 
 
 [4] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 in it is even the vital strength of contra- 
 diction, the vigorous truth of paradox. 
 And in its philosophy lies the summation 
 of all conceptions of life. For Jesus 
 knew them all — He considered every 
 side and comprehended every phase of 
 the human heart. 
 
 In His Word are all things for all men ! 
 
 Is one a poet ? — For that soul there 
 is wondrous music. Is one a practical 
 man of affairs ? — There is common- 
 sense handling of the detail of life and 
 work — even to the story of the talents. 
 Is one a mystic ? — There is the hidden 
 covert for the soul. Is one a realist ? — 
 There is the tonic from clear, free and 
 fearless speech. Is one a man of the 
 world ? — There is the thrill of delight in 
 penetrating wit — keen, clever, sharp as 
 a Damascus blade — the incomparable 
 catching and cornering of the wily law- 
 
 [5] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 yers. Is one a logician ? — There is 
 the strength and stimulus of matchless 
 logic. Is one a philosopher ? — There 
 is the inspiration of a new philosophy. 
 Is any man athirst ? — He will find 
 therein the Water of Life. 
 
 Every true way the heart of man can 
 reach, every righteous thing the soul of 
 man desires, the Word of Jesus meets 
 it and responds. 
 
 And yet — woe, woe, woe to the blind- 
 ness and folly of men ! There is no one 
 in history who has ever been more cruelly, 
 more wantonly misunderstood ! No 
 teacher has ever been more falsely inter- 
 preted, more falsely quoted ; quoted 
 with half quotations which throw the 
 truth asserted out of balance, and give 
 the meaning a false perspective. 
 
 Fragments of His wondrous Word, 
 torn from the context to suit the narrow 
 
 [6] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 minds of narrow men according to the 
 narrowness of their man-made dogma, 
 have been presented as the warrant of 
 one class, one sect after another, as 
 widely different each from each as are 
 the warring minds of men. 
 
 Each sect has taken some unbalanced 
 portion of His Gospel, has translated or 
 interpreted it according to its own con- 
 cept, and used it as a corner-stone in 
 the temple of its own building; each 
 sect has also made its concept, its inter- 
 pretation of the Master according to 
 the pattern of the sect, and has formed 
 a different word-picture of Jesus for its 
 followers — painting it in different lines 
 and colours, and in different lights, 
 according to the mind of the individual 
 who spoke as the exponent of his sect. 
 
 And all these pictures are so far apart, 
 even in barest outline, that no man, 
 
 [7] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 contemplating them, can imagine they 
 were intended for the same original. 
 
 The Catholic Church has taken the 
 warm tide of humanity from His veins 
 and enshrined Him in a sacred, guarded 
 tabernacle too high for men to reach ; 
 all-powerful, She has kept the multi- 
 tude kneeling upon the pavement at 
 His feet, whilst the commanding cry of 
 sacerdotal priests has echoed through 
 the vaulted aisles of beauty-stored 
 cathedrals: "Behold Jesus, the very 
 God of very God — this, and this alone, is 
 He!" 
 
 The protesting sects have pulled Him 
 out of the shrine, smashing it in violent 
 bitterness of hatred : they have over- 
 flushed Him with lusty blood, made 
 Him hail-fellow walking amongst men, 
 and they have brought Him into in- 
 timate hobnobbery with the multitude : 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 their familiar call has rung through the 
 colourless, bare Meeting-House : "Be- 
 hold Jesus, the Friend of man — this, 
 and this alone, is He !" 
 
 In the avowed cause of Jesus, men 
 have been led to massacre, to wars, to 
 persistent persecution. His name has 
 been too often the battle-cry to lead 
 men on to cruelty and slaughter. Some 
 words of His have been too often wrested 
 from their context to serve as warrant 
 for crimes, misnamed Christianity, and 
 for persecution, misnamed duty. 
 
 His name has been too often used as 
 an endorsement by which men have justi- 
 fied their passions, their selfishness and 
 their cruelty. Men's consciences assert 
 that fierce and cruel passions must be 
 subdued ; but when they claim a religious 
 motive they justify to their conscience 
 
 [9] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 their sin and call it by the name of virtue, 
 and, with the warrant of the Church, 
 allow their cruelty to take its course. 
 
 In the name of Jesus, men have lighted 
 the fires at the stake, turned the thumb- 
 screw and applied the rack. 
 
 In the name of Jesus, men have 
 sharpened the axe to punish those who 
 before had lighted the fires at the stake. 
 
 The Church Catholic, the Church 
 Protestant, the Church Reformed, have 
 each in turn been responsible for the 
 shedding of blood, the doing of deeds 
 unspeakable, in His name. 
 
 And now, to-day, in this tense and 
 pregnant age, there has arisen a zealous 
 band of strenuous workers in a New 
 Order, who proclaim Jesus as their Cap- 
 tain and use His name as their battle- 
 cry, His standard as their guidon in the 
 fight. 
 
 [10] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 This New Order, with virile insistence, 
 flaunts the blood-red flag to words of 
 His, and madly marches forward in the 
 name of Jesus, obsessed with the wild 
 desire and fierce determination to find 
 in Him a warrant for the propaganda 
 they proclaim. 
 
 "Out upon all former concepts of 
 Jesus," they shout in field and mar- 
 ket-place. "Down with the Church! 
 Down with the rich! Down with the 
 privileged class ! Jesus denounced the 
 mighty and the rich, He condemned the 
 privileged class, He exalted the poor: He 
 was a Carpenter, a Workingman, His 
 mission was to be a Leader of the pro- 
 letariat : His Gospel was a social gospel." 
 
 All Hail to the New Order! All 
 Hail to the earnest workers in the social 
 revolution ! 
 
 [ii] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 They have their reason and their 
 rights! The world sadly needs a New 
 Order, the world demands a social re- 
 generation. 
 
 But in so far as they bring Jesus into 
 the social warfare of the times, in so 
 far as they make Him the Captain of 
 their campaign, and in so far as they 
 wrest the words of Jesus from their 
 context to support that campaign, they 
 take His name in vain. 
 
 Disproportionate riches are a barrier 
 to the development of the ultimate social 
 good : a privileged class manifestly re- 
 tards the coming of an ideal state of 
 society. But riches exist, they have 
 existed since the world began ; and men 
 are now born into different spheres to 
 meet very different problems ; without 
 volition they find themselves the sons 
 
 [12] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 and daughters of the poor, bearing sad 
 burdens, or of the privileged class, bearing 
 the measureless responsibilities thereby 
 entailed. The poor and the rich in 
 different ways are both the victims of 
 evil conditions, the result of the errors 
 of the centuries. These divisions and 
 marked differentiations have gone on 
 since the dawn of the history of mankind : 
 it is a vast, a difficult problem — the 
 solution of which must be intellectually, 
 conscientiously and carefully worked out. 
 Some day all will be changed — there 
 will be a more sane and just balance of 
 conditions : our utmost practical and 
 political energy and influence must be 
 put into the work of changing the condi- 
 tions: but the longer they have existed, 
 the more knotted, snarled, difficult and 
 gigantic the problem, the more time and 
 brains we must put into its solution. 
 
 [13] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 All honour to the social workers who 
 have set themselves to find a solution, 
 to work out the hideous, age-long prob- 
 lem ; all honour to those who strive to 
 bring about improved conditions. 
 
 But they go the wrong way about a 
 righteous task when they exploit the name 
 of Jesus in their campaign ! When they 
 stir up strife with words of His and draw 
 false pictures to use as propaganda in 
 their zeal. 
 
 No single part of the Word of Jesus 
 should be used or urged as propaganda 
 or programme for any church, for any 
 society, or as a platform for any cam- 
 paign — least of all as a programme or 
 platform of social change. 
 
 The Gospel of Jesus cannot be separated. 
 Therein lies its incomparable beauty, its 
 majestic power, its convincing truth. 
 
 [M] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 The Word of Jesus is an everlasting 
 denial of all exclusive claims : whether 
 of church or state, sect or faction, caste 
 or class, dogma or denomination, party 
 or organisation. 
 
 It is the cosmic universality of the 
 Spirit of Jesus that makes Him forever 
 the great sympathiser, the great inter- 
 preter, of the hearts of all men. 
 
 The entire Gospel of Jesus is for all 
 and to all: its message may come to 
 all through all: through the Church, 
 for those who need the outward symbol — 
 through the Meeting-House, for those 
 who demand more freedom — and 
 through the New Order of a larger 
 Brotherhood, for those to whom social 
 reforms are the salvation of mankind. 
 
 Let each class, each sect, each faction, 
 fulfil its mission : let each church, each 
 
 [15] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 fraternity, each social order, preach the 
 message of Jesus in its own way, and the 
 heart that responds to that way will be 
 helped thereby. 
 
 But woe, woe, unto that class, sect 
 or faction which cries — "The truth 
 is here — the truth is there!" Woe, 
 woe, to everyone who says — "This 
 is the only way; the kingdom of God 
 cometh by this way, and by this way 
 alone ! " 
 
 To say that is a supreme denial of 
 the very Word of Jesus. Hearken to 
 His Word — 
 
 "The kingdom of God cometh not 
 with observation : Neither shall they say, 
 Lo here! or, lo there!" 
 
 Jesus urged no doctrine, He taught 
 no rigid creeds, He marked no lines, 
 He formed no forms, He advocated no 
 
 [16] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 propaganda, He founded no institutions, 
 He emphasized no social order. 
 
 He flaunted neither the royal purple 
 standard of the king, the tricolour of 
 the republic, nor the flaming red flag 
 of the proletariat. He wore neither the 
 cope nor the chasuble, the mitre nor the 
 crown, the white linen lawn nor the plain 
 black gown, the monk's hood nor the 
 blood-red shirt. 
 
 Creeds, dogmas, institutions, canons, 
 constitutions, articles and forms, so- 
 cieties, fraternities and social orders — 
 as such — were no more to Him than 
 the broad phylacteries of the Pharisees, 
 nor than the washing of the platters and 
 the cups. 
 
 He knew all, understood all, sym- 
 pathised with all, accepted the sin- 
 cere desire in all — but He commanded 
 
 none 
 
 [17] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 Modern agitators proclaim a New 
 Order, a new Christianity, a social re- 
 ligion. They have tuned their note to 
 match this day of discontent : their cry, 
 which encircles the world, is an insistent 
 protest upon one theme : they, also, 
 would make of Jesus — the myriad- 
 minded Philosopher, the cosmic, uni- 
 versal Teacher — a Specialist, close-lim- 
 ited to a narrow groove; a broader 
 groove than the old one, possibly, but 
 still a groove : and they would make 
 of His Gospel a brief for their own Cause. 
 
 With loud assurance do they cry — 
 "The Gospel of Jesus is altogether a 
 social gospel! Go to, you rich men, 
 weep, weep and howl! Your day is 
 done — you have kept Jesus enshrined 
 in ecclesiastical remoteness, you have 
 used His banner to cover discontent. 
 In His name you have levied taxes for 
 
 [18] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 the church and for the princes of the 
 church. You have used His words as a 
 salve to keep men quiet in their squalor, 
 their poverty and their misery. Out 
 upon you! You have no part in Him! 
 He belongs to us ! He was against the 
 privileged class and against the rich. 
 He was born in a lowly stable; He 
 was of the poor and He came to the poor. 
 No more will we tolerate a remote, ex- 
 clusive Jesus." 
 
 What if there is justice in that pro- 
 testing cry ? What if it be true that the 
 Church has too long kept Jesus remote 
 from men, too long forgotten the Brother- 
 hood of man? What if the privileged 
 class has too often used the name of 
 Jesus to hush the cry of the hungry and 
 the destitute ? What if it be true that 
 the Church has been too often used for 
 selfish purposes by the privileged class 
 
 [19] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 — if it has held the banner emblazoned 
 with the name of Jesus in the march 
 against discontent, and held the Cross — 
 the symbol of His sacrifice — as the 
 sign in the militant protest to silence the 
 eager questions of men ? 
 
 What if all this be true ? 
 
 Shall evil be met with evil? Can 
 lies drive out lies? Must the advocates 
 of the New Order do the very thing that 
 they decry in the Old Order? Shall the 
 methods they denounce be used against 
 the men whom they denounce? 
 
 Is the new cry of the proletariat — 
 the new method of the proletariat, any 
 nearer to the truth than the old cry — 
 the old method of the privileged class, 
 or of the churchly hierarchy ? 
 
 Two classes exist, alas! The rich 
 and the poor, the mighty and the lowly, 
 the patricians and the plebeians, the pro- 
 
 [20] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 letariat and the aristocracy. There is 
 injustice in the very phraseology of class 
 distinctions, there is a sense of social 
 immorality in the use and acceptance of 
 such nomenclature: but since time be- 
 gan these two classes — called by dif- 
 ferent names in different countries and 
 in different ages — have stood marked 
 in history, and the differentiation must 
 be acknowledged, the fact must be ad- 
 mitted. It is an age-long problem — 
 tragic, staggering, titanic, repeating itself 
 in every century after every apparent 
 readjustment. 
 
 This problem will be, it must be, 
 worked out to an ultimate adjustment — 
 it is the inevitable result of evolution : 
 but, pending that adjustment, which 
 will, one day, be worked out, let the 
 apostles of the New Order beware that 
 they do not follow the error they so 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 violently denounce in the Old Order: 
 for in so doing they will go from evil 
 unto evil, and will retard the coming of 
 the better day. 
 
 The apostles of the new social order 
 should be as strict to avoid the concept 
 of an exclusive Jesus as they are drastic 
 in their denunciation of society and 
 the church for having held, heretofore, 
 a concept of an exclusive Jesus. 
 
 This latter-day Order, excluding all 
 who differ from its formula and its con- 
 cept — notwithstanding its proclama- 
 tion of democracy, brotherhood and social 
 Christianity — is no less exclusive really 
 than the former concepts which are so 
 justly to be denounced. 
 
 If Jesus has, heretofore, been kept 
 remote from the proletariat, shall He 
 now be kept remote from the aristocracy ? 
 Should He be enshrined for the privileged 
 
 [22] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 class of the poor any more than for the 
 privileged class of the rich ? 
 
 Let the proletaires beware how they 
 flaunt the standards of Jesus in their 
 war upon their neighbours, and how they 
 use His words to stir up strife. 
 
 With impatient reaction from eccle- 
 siasticism, men are now echoing on every 
 side the cry, 
 
 "The manhood of Jesus! The Hu- 
 manity of Jesus !" 
 
 Welcome cry — too long delayed ! 
 
 Jesus was Man! Whether He were 
 incarnate God is a question not for dis- 
 cussion in these pages; if He were in- 
 carnate God, in His manifestation upon 
 earth He was very man : in all ways He 
 lived, loved, suffered and was tempted 
 like unto all men. The time has come 
 
 [23] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 to think more upon His manhood in 
 its relation to mankind. Too long we 
 have busied ourselves with hair-splitting 
 over the exact quality of His Divinity, 
 instead of carefully studying the reality 
 of His Humanity : too long we have 
 waged war over His immaculate birth, 
 and forgotten, in the dispute, to consider 
 fully His immaculate life : too long we 
 have emphasised the theological dogma 
 of His Godhood, ignoring the supreme 
 lesson of His Manhood : the lesson which 
 shines forth with an effulgent truth 
 the more we ponder it — that to every 
 man it is given to become a son of God. 
 
 It is well that the reality of His man- 
 hood amongst men should be avowed. 
 
 And now as men avow His manhood 
 with firm insistence, they avow at the 
 same time, with flamboyant eloquence, 
 His Democracy. 
 
 [24] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 "Jesus is the great Example of De- 
 mocracy!" they cry, and even as they 
 utter the cry they contradict the essential 
 point of the democracy which they pro- 
 claim. 
 
 "He gave no favour to the rich," 
 they insist, "no respect to the great, to 
 the powerful, nor to the important of 
 the world; He honoured the poor; He 
 received the outcast." 
 
 Thanks be to God, He did honour the 
 poor, He did receive the outcast. Let 
 all men remember it, let no man forget 
 it! 
 
 That is, however, only half the story. 
 
 Let us remember the mathematical 
 truth of the complete circle. 
 
 Consider the Democracy of Jesus. 
 In the days in which He was upon 
 earth, class distinctions were more em- 
 
 [25] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 phatically marked with more degrading 
 lines than at any time in history; the 
 patrician class was tyrannical and des- 
 potic; the poor were trodden under 
 foot ; they had no rights — no power — 
 no place ; they were considered as in- 
 sects, as despicable vermin. And yet, for 
 some wise reason of His own, Jesus took 
 the established order as He found it — 
 without protest or comment. He met 
 the victims of the age-long errors of 
 human experiment — both the victims 
 of the down-trodden class and the more 
 unfortunate, misguided victims of the 
 down-treading class — in precisely the 
 same way ; He treated them, as far as 
 their outward circumstances were con- 
 cerned, with absolute equality. 
 
 The Democracy of Jesus was universal, 
 all-inclusive, all-embracing : it failed at 
 no point. 
 
 [26] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 It included the proletaire as well as 
 the aristocrat — else it would not be a 
 true democracy. But, it included the 
 aristocrat as well as the proletaire — 
 else it would not be a true democracy. 
 
 It included the poor as well as the rich 
 — else it would not be a true democracy. 
 But, it included the rich as well as the 
 poor — else it would not be a true 
 democracy. 
 
 Any so-called democracy that excludes 
 any part of the complete circle is a broken 
 arc. 
 
 The Democracy of Jesus was a Perfect 
 Round. 
 
 When we read, weigh and carefully 
 consider the narrative recorded in the 
 New Testament, we find that whilst 
 Jesus was as hospitable to the down- 
 trodden class as He was to the privileged 
 
 [27] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 class, He was, also, as gracious and 
 hospitable to the privileged class as He 
 was to the down-trodden class. 
 
 Hypocrisy, pharisaism, pride and lack 
 of charity, He ever severely denounced 
 — but He denounced them equally in 
 the prince and in the pauper, in the 
 mighty high priest and in the lowly 
 fisherman. Faith, hope, trust and char- 
 ity, He approved and received — but 
 He approved them equally in the noble- 
 man and in the outcast. 
 
 Through the record of the life of Jesus, 
 and all of the ministry of Jesus, we find 
 therein both sides of life accepted and 
 received with equal impartiality, with 
 equal simplicity, equal comprehension 
 and equal sympathy — the life of the 
 aristocrat and the proletaire, of the ruler 
 and the servant, of the king and the 
 malefactor. 
 
 [28] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 The only differentiation He makes 
 between men is a differentiation of the 
 Spirit. 
 
 The modern agitators, with calm as- 
 surance, make statements from the rec- 
 ords — which they claim to have dis- 
 covered. They claim that the Word 
 has been read in the dim and ghostly 
 light of churchly candles so long that the 
 vital points of the virile Message have 
 been overlooked. 
 
 Granted. But have they bettered the 
 matter in these latter days ? They have 
 merely given us another error in place of 
 the old error. The modern Agitators — 
 the modern Christian Socialists — are 
 now reading that Word in the blaze and 
 crackle of red hot bonfires to the blare 
 and clash of sounding brass and tinkling 
 cymbals, and though they may gain one 
 
 [29] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 advantage they, in their turn, lose other 
 advantages, more vital because more 
 cosmic and universal. 
 
 We must take that glorious life, that 
 divinely proportioned Word in its com- 
 pleteness, as a whole, when from it we 
 would draw conclusions. 
 
 Here are the facts, as recorded in the 
 story, concerning Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 Whatever is thought of the social 
 problem, however true the protest that 
 class distinctions are iniquitous, whatever 
 the wish to draw sharp lines of exclusion 
 against king, patrician and the privileged 
 class, this fact remains: Jesus was of 
 the poor — and of the rich ; He was of 
 the patrician class — and of the plebeian 
 class ; He was the son of a lowly prole- 
 
 [30] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 taire — He was the descendant of mighty 
 kings. 
 
 And ever, throughout His life, the 
 representatives of the two classes — in- 
 dividuals of the patrician class and in- 
 dividuals of the plebeian class — were 
 held by Him in equal consideration; 
 with equal honour and with equal respect 
 He spoke of His father Joseph the Car- 
 penter, and of His father David the King. 
 
 Consider the story. 
 
 On the night in which Jesus was born, 
 the mighty empire of Rome held do- 
 minion over the earth. The world lay 
 at the feet of Csesar and poured its 
 tribute before his imperial throne; the 
 unconquered standards — on which were 
 marked the dauntless letters SPQR — 
 were planted North and South, East 
 and West: and in that little town of 
 
 [31] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 Bethlehem,, in the fair pasture-land of 
 Judaea, amongst the rolling, blue hills 
 and the fruitful, green vineyards, the 
 hour had come which was to bring to the 
 world a new transcendent power. 
 
 Augustus Caesar had sent forth a decree 
 that all men should be taxed : there were 
 taxes, taxes, always taxes, under the 
 iron rule of Rome : but this especial 
 tax was a census that the inhabitants of 
 Judaea might be enrolled upon the Roman 
 records : for further taxation, it is true, 
 but also for their own protection. 
 
 From Xazareth to Bethlehem came 
 Joseph and his wife Mary — the loveliest 
 flower in Judaea. 
 
 Joseph was a working man, an honest 
 toiler ; his wife, a simple working woman. 
 Mary was great with child — the hour 
 of her accomplishment was nigh, yet she 
 stayed not at home in the Xazarene shop 
 
 [32] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 to await the coming of the censor, nor to 
 abide her husband's return : to Bethle- 
 hem she went with her lord. 
 
 No simple journey this : the road was 
 rough, the way was long — over the hills, 
 through the rocky passes. 
 
 Why did a young Mother, with her 
 unborn child lying beneath her heart, 
 venture upon so perilous a way? It 
 w T as that she and her husband might be 
 enrolled of the royal line and lineage in 
 the City of David, for Joseph and Mary 
 were both descendants of the great King ! 
 
 This precious family fact of their royal 
 descent was as much a part of the daily, 
 honest pride of the worthy Carpenter 
 and his lovely wife as were the skill 
 and quality of his honest handicraft. 
 
 Thus, at the advent of Jesus, King 
 and Carpenter are merged in one! The 
 Labourer and the Monarch! 
 
 d [33] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 O mighty lesson in true democracy! 
 When the royal blood and the peasant's 
 blood unite, when there is no hiding of 
 the one, no vaunting of the other, no 
 shame of the lowliness of the one, no 
 false pride in the distinction of the other. 
 
 King and Carpenter — Carpenter and 
 King! And no man marks a difference 
 between them. King and Carpenter — 
 Carpenter and King ! And each mission 
 is looked upon merely as a life-work 
 held consecrate, to be honestly performed, 
 no more, no less. 
 
 King and Carpenter — Carpenter and 
 King ! When men reach the true democ- 
 racy, there will be no difference between 
 them — as men. Each will be merely 
 a working man. Each will know himself 
 a working man and respect himself and 
 the other man for the quality of his 
 work. 
 
 [34] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 The King — a builder, a maker, a 
 creator. What matter whether it be an 
 empire or a mansion which he creates ! 
 The Carpenter — a builder, a maker, a 
 creator. What matter if it be a mansion 
 or an empire which he creates ! 
 
 The real democracy will come when the 
 ruler who rules carelessly will be con- 
 sidered a poorer creature than the car- 
 penter who builds well ; and the carpenter 
 who builds a mansion carelessly will be 
 considered of a lower order of being 
 than the king who builds an empire well. 
 Then the king who builds his empire 
 honestly and well and the carpenter 
 who builds his mansion honestly and well 
 will be of the same order and in the same 
 class. 
 
 Character and not condition will be 
 the test; quality and not circumstance 
 will mark the differentiation. This is 
 
 [35] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 the only differentiation of class that Jesus 
 recognised. 
 
 Back of that Baby, lying beneath the 
 heart of Mary, were Joseph and his wife 
 with their work-worn hands, and the 
 little shop in Nazareth where faithful 
 toil lent dignity to life ; — and back of 
 that Baby, also, were David and Solomon, 
 the mighty Monarchs of Israel, and the 
 unrivalled court of royal magnificence 
 and splendour. 
 
 And ever as we follow the golden thread 
 of the story of Jesus of Nazareth, we 
 find always the utmost extremes of ex- 
 ternal condition meeting, naturally, with 
 sublime simplicity, with perfect harmony. 
 
 The long and toilsome journey from 
 Nazareth to Bethlehem had been accom- 
 plished, the rough way had been trav- 
 
 [36] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 ersed, under the austere stars by night 
 and under the glistening Eastern sun by 
 day. Joseph and his wife had arrived 
 at last at Bethlehem, and Mary, the 
 Mystic Rose of the world, was suddenly 
 gripped by the mortal pangs of travail — 
 that glorious agony of woman which 
 ends at last in the supreme joy and crown 
 of Motherhood, God's greatest gift to 
 humankind ! 
 
 "And she brought forth her firstborn 
 son, and wrapped him in swaddling 
 clothes, and laid him in a manger; 
 because there was no room for them in 
 the inn." 
 
 Here is the vital illustration of a vast 
 and mighty truth — the truth of the 
 unimportance of all external circum- 
 stance and external condition. 
 
 [37] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 Verily Jesus was born in a stable and 
 laid in a manger; but why was He born 
 in a stable and laid in a manger ? 
 
 Who pauses in the insistent argument 
 to read the deep heart of the story? 
 
 The advocates of externals, the apostles 
 of the non-essential, in their desire to 
 stress the point of His poverty, forget 
 the supreme lesson of that birth. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Jesus was born in 
 a stable and lay amongst the cattle, not 
 because He was one of the proletariat, 
 not because He was the son of a poor 
 man — of the working class : He was 
 born in a stable and lay amongst the 
 cattle because of an accident, a mere 
 chance of circumstance : He was born 
 in a stable and laid in a manger simply 
 because there was no room in the inn. 
 
 [38] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 Mary and Joseph, at the end of their 
 journey, went at once to the Inn — 
 probably the best Inn in Bethlehem, else 
 it would not have been crowded. This 
 self-respecting craftsman Joseph and 
 Mary his wife, must have had some 
 financial resources, for they had sufficient 
 money to take journeys to Jerusalem, 
 and to start in haste for Egypt when it 
 became necessary for them to go. 
 
 They must have had the wherewithal 
 to purpose to care comfortably for the 
 coming of the Child : they had no thought 
 except for shelter in the Inn — for to 
 the Inn they went straightway. 
 
 But there was no room in the Inn ! 
 
 The hour of the exalted Mother was 
 at hand, and there was not a place to 
 lay her down in the over-crowded 
 hostelry. Some shelter must be sought, 
 and that at once — her travail was upon 
 
 [39] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 her. The very nearest shelter where 
 privacy could be obtained was the stable, 
 where the cattle of the Inn were sleeping. 
 
 And thus it came about that Jesus was 
 born in a stable and laid in a manger 
 upon a bed of straw. 
 
 What if there had been room in the 
 Inn? What if Mary had found housing 
 there ? What if Mary had brought forth 
 her Son in the Inn as she and her hus- 
 band manifestly purposed ? Would Jesus 
 then have been ever ranked — in the 
 broad classification — with the privi- 
 leged class? Would He have been any 
 different? Would the reality of His 
 mission have been any less? Surely, 
 He would have been as indifferent to 
 His advent in comfort as He ever was 
 indifferent to His advent in the manger. 
 
 He rose above the lowly circumstance 
 of His cradle in the straw amongst the 
 
 [40] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 cattle : He neither stressed it nor men- 
 tioned it in His appeal to men : and He 
 would have risen as certainly above the 
 circumstance of the Inn with its comfort. 
 He would have risen above the splendour 
 and luxury of a palace. 
 
 Jesus was laid in a manger when He 
 was born — because there was no room 
 in the Inn. 
 
 Is not the great Truth suggested in 
 that simple nativity story, the absolute 
 unimportance of all external circum- 
 stance ? 
 
 The fact is not that Jesus was born in a 
 stable, and that, therefore, He came to 
 the poor, was of the poor : the fact is not 
 that He was born in comfort and the 
 best luxury that the town could afford, 
 and that, therefore, He was of finer 
 mould than His brothers : — the fact 
 
 [41] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 is that it made not the slightest difference 
 where He was born. He transcended the 
 stall; He would have transcended the 
 palace. 
 
 Neither did it make the slightest 
 difference to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, 
 where she brought forth her Child. There 
 was no room in the Inn : she accepted, 
 joyously, the situation and went to the 
 desolate stone stable. No sigh of com- 
 plaint, no murmur of fret, no word of 
 worry escaped her. 
 
 She brought forth her Son and laid 
 Him on a bed of straw precisely as natu- 
 rally as she would have laid Him in a 
 cradle of carved cedar- wood, in a fair 
 imperial mansion. With the blood of 
 kings coursing in her veins, she made no 
 demands : she took the cheerless, com- 
 fortless manger and the stony stall 
 amidst the cattle with the same regal 
 
 [42] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 poise, the same womanly sweetness with 
 which she would have taken the cosey 
 Inn with Roman comfort and Roman 
 service. 
 
 Externals do not really matter to the 
 heart that is filled with the Eternal 
 Reality of Life. 
 
 The heart of Mary the Mother of 
 Jesus was pondering things wonderful, 
 sacred, exalted. What to her was the 
 outward measure of her state — the out- 
 ward form of her bed ! 
 
 The one dominant thought which 
 lingers from the careful consideration 
 of that nativity story is the powerlessness 
 of any external thing to touch the Soul 
 alive in the reality of joy — the reality 
 of Life! 
 
 Out of the mouth of that new-born 
 Baby, lying upon His Mother's breast, 
 
 [43] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 there is to proceed in years to come this 
 immortal Word — "The kingdom of God 
 is within you." 
 
 On this holy nativity night, Mary 
 His Mother, with divine prescience, 
 knows the truth of the Word : and 
 all the barren place is radiant with the 
 splendour of her soul. 
 
 Many a woman has brought forth 
 her first-born in a stately room, lying 
 upon a bed of eider-down, hung with 
 curtains wrought with needle-work and 
 threads of gold — surrounded by liveried 
 attendants and lulled by dulcet music, 
 and all the while her mind has been 
 cumbered with the stupid, stuffy, ma- 
 terial details of her luxury, with the 
 formula of the world's conventional 
 order for the advent of a child, with the 
 
 [44] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 contemplation of the pattern and quality 
 of her child's christening robe, and the 
 flashing splendour of the jewels presented 
 to her at her lying-in. And that woman 
 has been poor with a poverty beyond 
 all words, for she has lost the unspeakable 
 beauty of her high estate, because her 
 eyes have been holden — too full of the 
 corruptible treasures of her chamber 
 and her ante-chamber to see the Vision 
 of the incorruptible, that fadeth not 
 away. 
 
 Mary the Mother of Jesus lay upon a 
 bed of straw in a Syrian stable — a cave 
 of stone — upon the open hillside. The 
 steadfast stars were her only tapers, 
 the murmuring night-winds were her 
 only music, around her drowsed the 
 sleepy cattle, before the cave stretched 
 the desolate wold gloomy and drear 
 
 [45] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 with the deep and heavy shadows of the 
 Judaean night. 
 
 But in that stony cave a great and 
 wondrous glory shone ! The barren wall 
 of stone reflected the transcendent glory 
 of Life ; and it was thereby made more 
 beautiful than any gold-covered wall, 
 dimmed and dulled with the dust of 
 mammon. 
 
 The Soul of Mary magnified the Lord, 
 and her Spirit rejoiced. The mystery, 
 the miracle of miracles was upon her — 
 the matchless miracle of Motherhood; 
 and she knew her Son for Emmanuel, 
 "which being interpreted is, God with 
 us." 
 
 Thus every woman who bears a son, 
 in the hour that her son is born, may know 
 that God is with her : and, knowing this, 
 it matters not to her upon what bed 
 she may be lying. 
 
 [46] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 To one who does not see the Vision, 
 external things become more and more 
 tyrannous, until at last they are as 
 cerements to bind that person to a dusty 
 death-in-life. But to the Soul that sees 
 the Vision, externals do not matter in 
 the least degree; they cannot make nor 
 mar Life. 
 
 O matchless lesson to learn! O 
 glorious beholding of the deathless dower ! 
 This is the true emancipation of the 
 Soul. It will raise life to the N'th power 
 on this mortal plane. 
 
 And it is for every man to achieve by 
 self -discipline and by cultivation. It is 
 only by discipline and cultivation that 
 the victory of emancipation can be 
 gained. No great achievement is easily 
 won; no scientific, no artistic accom- 
 
 [47] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 plishment, even, is obtained without 
 laborious days and much self-renuncia- 
 tion. 
 
 And if this greatest of all victories is 
 to be won — the free emancipation from 
 the bondage of life — man must train his 
 mind to understand, subdue his body to 
 forgo, teach his soul to see, and discipline 
 his spirit to realise the Living Truth. 
 
 Then, although he is poor, he may 
 inherit the earth; although he is feeble, 
 he may find wings — he may 'renew 
 his youth like the eagle's,' 'mount up 
 and not be weary, walk and not faint.' 
 
 This is the Possible ! — the imperish- 
 able crown of humanity ! 
 
 And Mary sang her Magnificat. 
 
 O foolish generation, that reads with- 
 out understanding, that hears without 
 hearing, that sees without seeing! 
 
 [48] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 There are those amongst the apostles 
 of the New Order, demagogues, who 
 lead — or mislead — the so-called pro- 
 letariat, who have brought in evidence 
 that glorious hymn of rejoicing as a 
 proof of God's antipathy to riches, 
 His hatred of the so-called privileged 
 class. 
 
 Who knows the mind of the Al- 
 mighty? Who knows whether or not 
 God disapproves of riches — whether or 
 not He has a hatred of any unfortunate 
 class born to a false system, subjected 
 to imperfect education as the rich have 
 been? If it is anywhere proven that 
 God disapproves of riches let men pro- 
 duce the proofs; they must, however, 
 find more convincing proofs than the 
 inspired words of the Virgin's Song. 
 
 Such an interpretation of the Mag- 
 nificat is a complete reversal of facts 
 
 b [49] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 which disproves the commonsense of 
 these demagogues, and thereby nullifies 
 their arguments. 
 
 The Magnificat on the lips of the poor 
 Mother proves exactly the reverse of the 
 things that are claimed by those who use 
 it as an evidence of God's attitude tow- 
 ard the privileged class. 
 
 " He hath put down the mighty from 
 their seats, and exalted them of low de- 
 gree." 
 
 Consider these words! Consider the 
 circumstances under which they were 
 said. 
 
 When Mary lifted up her voice and 
 sang that splendid Song, the mighty 
 still sat securely in their seats — and 
 they were there to sit securely for many 
 years to come. Rome was an estab- 
 lished power, and class distinctions were 
 
 [50] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 every day more sharply marked — the 
 working classes were despised and ig- 
 nominiously regarded even by their 
 own countrymen, whose former manners 
 of simplicity had been corrupted. Mary 
 had in no wise changed her state : she 
 had not risen in any worldly way : she 
 had gained nothing externally : she was 
 the same lowly wife of an humble 
 working man, the same simple working 
 woman of Nazareth; and yet, she 
 suddenly became exalted — exalted 
 higher than the mightiest of the world ! 
 Her soul and her spirit rejoiced and 
 sang : she excelled in strength, in surety, 
 in imperishable possessions : her whole 
 outlook on Life had changed in the 
 twinkling of an eye — former standards 
 fell away, and all measurements had 
 become new, because to her had come 
 the divine Revelation : she knew her- 
 
 [51] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 self to be throned in mighty seats above 
 all queens ; far, far above the shameless 
 wanton who ruled in Herod's palace, 
 decked with priceless jewels, with every 
 physical desire gratified. 
 
 What matter to Mary now whether 
 she be mighty or lowly — according to 
 the standards of men ? She knows her- 
 self exalted into a glorious estate. What 
 to her is poverty ? What to her is her 
 humble home, her daily toil? Without 
 a single gain of money, of place, of 
 worldly circumstance, she knows herself 
 suddenly lifted above the proudest of 
 the earth and possessed, henceforth, of 
 everlasting riches. 
 
 That heroic Song is a stirring proof 
 that it makes not the slightest difference 
 what the outward state may be. The 
 ultimate measurement of possessions is 
 of that which is within. 
 
 [52] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 " He hath filled the hungry with good 
 things; and the rich he hath sent empty 
 away." 
 
 When Mary uttered these words with 
 absolute assurance of their supreme 
 truth, they were outwardly sharply con- 
 tradicted : the mighty Romans were 
 about her everywhere, feasting in their 
 banqueting-halls — the prominent Phari- 
 sees and Jews were everywhere rolling 
 up vast wealth : Herod was in his golden 
 palace, with lavish luxury and royal 
 trappings; on every side were powerful 
 and wealthy men and women flashing 
 in the radiance of dazzling jewels and 
 gorgeous gems — dressed in shimmering 
 stuffs, threaded with gold interwoven 
 with pearls : and they were all feasting 
 sumptuously on the fine flesh, the costly 
 fish, the luscious fruits of the Orient: 
 
 [53] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 Mary, the lowly, was standing in her 
 peasant dress ; she had eaten but the 
 unleavened bread of her class, the figs 
 and the olives from the wayside trees, 
 with but fresh water from the wayside 
 well: nothing had changed in any out- 
 ward way; her condition was much 
 poorer and much humbler even, than 
 that of her girlhood had been : and yet, 
 with swift revelation, she knew her own 
 soul to be satisfied with good things for 
 evermore. And with unerring prescience 
 she knew these mighty ones of earth, 
 feasting about her on every side, to be 
 hungry — hungry of heart and soul; 
 she knew them to be aching and trem- 
 bling in the bondage of decay and fear, 
 she saw for them the finality of the grave 
 with its worms, its oblivion of dust and 
 ashes. In her soul, quickened by the 
 revelation that had come to her, Mary 
 
 [54] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 could divine their emptiness — whose 
 strength lay in their riches : she felt, 
 intuitively, their poverty, hunger, 
 starvation of soul. To her had come 
 a new light and in the shining thereof 
 all standards of measurement were for- 
 ever different : and in the new standards 
 of measurement, Mary discerned the 
 emptiness of the world's fulness without 
 the informing spirit. 
 
 This does not imply that riches are 
 evil; this does not mean that poverty 
 is well; nor does it imply that poverty 
 is evil and wealth is well. 
 
 The story of the great song of Mary 
 means simply this : the poorest are rich 
 if they have the inner glory of life, 
 and the richest are poor indeed, and 
 go away empty, if they have not found 
 that inner glory which nothing can 
 touch. 
 
 [55] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 The inspiring message of the Mag- 
 nificat is not, as has been stated, a de- 
 nunciation of riches : that dignifies 
 riches far too much ; the very phrasing 
 of it is an undue emphasis upon riches. 
 The inspiring message of the Magnificat 
 is the relative unimportance of having 
 riches or of being without them. 
 
 Exaltation is an inward thing. It 
 may come to the lowly — as it did to 
 Mary, and give to the world the song — 
 "My soul doth magnify the Lord," 
 the triumph of which rises high above 
 all material limitations ; and it may 
 come to the mighty — as it did to King 
 David, and give to the world the song — 
 "Bless the Lord, O my soul," the 
 triumph of which rises high above all 
 physical limitations. But the exalta- 
 tion has nothing to do with outward 
 circumstance. 
 
 [56] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 In King David's song, sickness and 
 health are as one to the singer: it car- 
 ries the sufferer, in spite of his pain, 
 to the secret places of the most high 
 where no evil can come nigh his dwell- 
 ing place, where no plague can touch 
 his soul. 
 
 In the Magnificat, poverty and riches 
 are as one to the singer : it makes a 
 working woman stand in her working 
 dress and magnify the Lord and rejoice 
 in her Life, her Love, her Motherhood! 
 
 It is significant that in these two songs 
 of rejoicing — one gladly sung by a 
 mighty king and the other joyously 
 sung by a lowly woman — there is the 
 same note of satisfied hunger, doubtless 
 meaning, thereby, the age-long hunger 
 of the human heart, the barren empti- 
 ness of heart which is the tragedy of 
 the world. 
 
 [57] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 Emptiness is an inward thing: it 
 makes possessions, in themselves, the 
 merest mockery of the heart, leaving it 
 hungry — hungry unto Death. 
 
 " The rich he hath sent empty away." 
 
 Ah, indeed, the rich He hath sent 
 empty away ! Not by taking away their 
 riches : simply by showing them the 
 utter powerlessness of riches to solace, 
 to console, to redeem, to exalt. 
 
 The many crying problems, the many 
 economic sins that existed on that night 
 in Judaea, are another chapter in the 
 Book of Life — they are the claim of 
 another, an historic consideration : the 
 many crying problems, the many eco- 
 nomic sins that exist to-day in every 
 country and in every land that encircles 
 the globe, are another chapter in the 
 
 [58] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 Book of Life : they are the claim of an- 
 other consideration — a consideration we 
 should hasten to give to those problems : 
 in all the historic records from those of 
 Judaea to those of to-day, from the atti- 
 tude of the men and women of the first 
 century, to the attitude of the men and 
 women of the twentieth century, there 
 are found the same false selfishness and 
 the same selfish falsity of men, the same 
 crying evils to be met and mastered. 
 
 But as to the point of the present- 
 day argument, the cry of the modern 
 agitators, namely, that riches in them- 
 selves are denounced by Jesus, that the 
 privileged class is denounced by Jesus — 
 that is a false claim! 
 
 However strange and inexplicable it 
 may seem; however we may think, in 
 our partial view, that it would have 
 hastened the development of the world 
 
 [59] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 if it had been otherwise; however we 
 may protest that the mind of the Master 
 was too compassionate to permit cruel 
 social distinctions without protest ; how- 
 ever we may wish that Jesus had given 
 some solution to the vital problems, 
 which are as present and unsolved to-day 
 as they were in the first years of the first 
 century, this one thing stands forth un- 
 mistakably in the records, Jesus accepted 
 the social order as He found it, with its 
 social sins, its iniquitous patrician privi- 
 leges, its class distinctions, its heart- 
 breaking inequalities, its despotism and 
 its human slavery, its powerful aristo- 
 cratic luxury and its cruel bond-ser- 
 vice. 
 
 In His mortal life Jesus stands against 
 the background of social sin and injustice 
 and utter disregard of human rights : and 
 the two classes, with all their distinctions, 
 
 [60] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 their wide differentiations, met in the 
 Child. 
 
 It opens a wide field of thought and 
 conjecture, if one desires to follow it : 
 of deep questions, if one cares to ask 
 them : but the fact remains that in the 
 birth of that Baby in Bethlehem, the 
 mighty and the lowly, poverty and 
 riches, privileged class and working 
 class, were united; the blood of pa- 
 trician and plebeian, aristocrat and pro- 
 letaire, king and toiler, met in the blood 
 that flowed in the mortal body of the 
 Child Jesus. 
 
 And in the first homage that was 
 brought to the Child, they met objec- 
 tively : the united contrast shines forth 
 in that primitive and beautiful picture — 
 a contrast which makes the true democ- 
 racy, the true harmony. 
 
 [61] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 Two groups of men came with tribute 
 to the Child. They were three shep- 
 herds and three kings : three lowly 
 shepherds clad in fustian, each bearing 
 but a staff in his work-worn hand — 
 three mighty kings arrayed in royal 
 raiment, each bearing in his hand a 
 regal gift. 
 
 O gracious picture that is interwoven 
 in our hearts! Our minds unite these 
 two groups and mark no difference be- 
 tween them. We say "the shepherds 
 and the kings" — "the kings and the 
 shepherds." It is the reiteration of the 
 Christmas story given to us from earliest 
 infancy ; but the essential point of that 
 story has not been taught nor even con- 
 sidered. 
 
 The shepherds and the kings are as 
 one: although worldly power, position, 
 wealth and caste divide them in out- 
 
 [62] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 ward ways, yet they are regarded as 
 of one order. 
 
 Why? Because they were united in 
 the great essentials ; they were both 
 moved by the same inward Spirit. 
 
 This is the true uniting of class with 
 class. 
 
 When the Vision of the divine Reality 
 comes to the heart of man, as it did 
 to those six men, then the lowly peas- 
 ant will be a king, in the reality of 
 his personality, and the mighty king 
 will be as a peasant in his lowly hu- 
 mility. 
 
 To feel this deeply, to believe this 
 really, to act upon this always, is to 
 show forth the all-rounded Democracy. 
 
 As it was in the beginning, so was it 
 at the end. As it was in Bethlehem, 
 so was it on Calvary. 
 
 [63] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 Jesus died upon the cross, despised 
 and rejected of men ; He was crucified 
 as a malefactor : He was considered one 
 of the lowest of the proletariat. 
 
 But it was Joseph of Arimathaea, a 
 man of untold wealth and powerful 
 position, who took that precious body 
 and gave to it the care and the distinc- 
 tion that wealth and wealth alone can 
 give — the spotless linen, the costly 
 spices, the proper preparation for burial, 
 and the hallowed housing in a splendid 
 sepulchre, hewn out of the solid rock, 
 new and noteworthy. 
 
 As it was in the beginning, and at the 
 end, so was it throughout the days of 
 the mortal life of Jesus, in all the ex- 
 ample of His ministry. 
 
 He showed no favour — He marked no 
 differentiation between class and class, 
 
 [64] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 between plebeian and patrician, between 
 aristocrat and proletaire. 
 
 This is the note that has ever been 
 left unemphasised in the consideration of, 
 or contemplation of, His history — left 
 unemphasised although it illustrates that 
 the democracy of Jesus was a true 
 brotherhood, not a brotherhood made 
 by a social state. Brotherhood to Jesus 
 was all-inclusive, never exclusive. 
 
 Each half of the record has been 
 emphasised in turn to the exclusion of 
 the other half. 
 
 The proletaires claim that hitherto 
 those who have taught the Word of 
 Jesus have not considered the pro- 
 letaires. This is true. 
 
 But now the proletaires do not con- 
 sider the aristocrats : they lay the em- 
 phasis on the fact that Jesus was no 
 
 F [65] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 respecter of persons — and mean, there- 
 by, that He respected only the poor 
 and was no respecter of, no sympathiser 
 with, the rich. 
 
 As we dispassionately contemplate 
 with consideration His attitude to all 
 men, we find it is broken at no point. 
 
 Jesus was no respecter of persons ! 
 Neither of the mighty — nor of men of 
 low degree ; neither of the rich — nor 
 of the poor; neither of the man who 
 wore a gold ring and fine apparel — nor 
 of the man who was ringless and wore 
 rags; neither of the man who held 
 powerful place in the state — nor of 
 the man whose pride lay in the fact 
 that he held no place. Jesus measured 
 men by standards before unknown, 
 standards that break down the dividing 
 line — as no revolution nor outward 
 change could do, standards that all 
 
 [66] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 must learn if the world is to evolve to 
 permanent betterment. Jesus preached 
 a Gospel in the clear light of which all 
 outward seemings fall away. 
 
 We cannot consider and contemplate 
 the story of His life without a thrilling 
 realisation — which gives wings to the 
 soul with the expanding thought — that 
 life is more than meat : which is to say, 
 that the essence of life is more than the 
 circumstance of life — the spiritual life 
 of the soul is more than any external 
 condition of life. 
 
 When to a man this emancipation 
 has come, this truth is known, then is 
 he set free from all false standards — 
 then, and then only, will he know the 
 real meaning of democracy. 
 
 Let us consider the Democracy of 
 Jesus as illustrated by His life on earth ! 
 
 [67] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 He broke bread with the lowly fisher- 
 folk — He supped with the chief Phari- 
 sees in splendour. 
 
 He rested in the humble home of 
 Peter, served by the mother of Peter's 
 wife — He took up His residence in the 
 house of the wealthy Zacchseus and 
 brought joy to the house by His coming. 
 
 He sat down upon the grass on the 
 hillside to eat with the common people 
 — He sat down at the lavish tables of 
 the publicans and partook of meat with 
 the tax-collectors and the money-gath- 
 erers. 
 
 He chose, as one of His disciples, a 
 lowly fisherman whom He called from his 
 fishing-net at the end of a long day's 
 toil — and He chose, as another one of 
 His disciples, a publican, a tax-gatherer, 
 whom He called from the receipt of 
 custom. 
 
 [68] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 From the one disciple He graciously 
 received the fresh fish which he had 
 caught in his well-worn net — it was 
 the best which that disciple had to offer : 
 from the other disciple He received a 
 lavish feast made in His honour where 
 the Roman officials and the moneyed 
 men were gathered about the luxurious 
 board. 
 
 He traversed the dusty highway with 
 no water to wash His weary feet — He 
 sat in the banqueting-hall, and upon His 
 feet He allowed the precious spikenard, 
 very costly, to be poured from the 
 alabaster box, broken for Him. 
 
 He drank the unspiced water of the 
 wayside well from the hands of an out- 
 cast woman — He drank the Roman 
 wine at Roman feasts, served by the 
 hands of bondmen and of slaves. 
 
 He taught in the royal porch of the 
 
 [69] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 majestic Temple: He looked upon the 
 stately pillars carved with pomegranate, 
 the tessellated marble floors, the richly 
 ornamented doorways where costly cur- 
 tains, heavy with handiwork, hung on 
 rings of gold, the "Gate Beautiful," of 
 wrought brass, magnificent; and the 
 beauty, the historic significance of it all, 
 entered into His sermons and His simili- 
 tudes. 
 
 He taught, also, on the free and open 
 hillside beneath the arching blue of 
 heaven: around Him was the manifold 
 loveliness of the oriental country-side 
 common to the lowliest — the brilliant 
 colours of rocks and hills, the myriad 
 wild-flowers everywhere; He looked 
 upon the dawn, the sunset, the bird- 
 nesting, the fruit-blossoming, the seed- 
 sowing, and the harvest ; and the beauty 
 and the eternal significance of it all 
 
 [70] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 entered into His sermons and His 
 similitudes. 
 
 He held in His hand the coin on which 
 was imprinted the superscription and 
 image of Caesar, and, smiling subtly at 
 those who had thought to trip Him, 
 He granted His tribute to the mighty 
 monarch of Rome ; He held in His 
 hand, also, the wayside lily, considered 
 its beauty, and proclaimed its splendour 
 surpassing that of the mighty monarch 
 of Israel. 
 
 It is manifest that the outward cir- 
 cumstance of His own life varied with 
 changing conditions; probably it was 
 dependent on the money-bag which, it 
 is recorded, was held by the disciples 
 and which was empty or filled accord- 
 ing to the result of the labours of that 
 little band. 
 
 [71] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 But this change of condition made not 
 the slightest difference to Jesus. 
 
 The calm, serene indifference He main- 
 tained to all external things is soul- 
 stimulating to consider: He made no 
 comment on the chances and changes of 
 personal circumstance, no comment on 
 what He had of material possessions, no 
 comment on what He was denied of 
 material possessions. To Him the open 
 hillside was as beautiful as the majestic 
 mansion, the lily of the field as great a 
 possession as the pearl of great price. 
 His whole life was a sublime disregard 
 of externals. 
 
 Two instances are recorded of men, 
 desiring to follow Him, each of whom 
 questioned Him as to His habitation : 
 His answer was in both cases governed 
 by the condition of the moment, both 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 answers were frank in their candour 
 and straightforward courtesy, but they 
 showed that He well knew both sides of 
 practical experience. 
 
 Once, a certain man said unto Him — 
 "Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever 
 thou goest," and Jesus answered — 
 "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air 
 have nests; but the Son of man hath 
 not where to lay his head." 
 
 Again, two men said unto Him — 
 "Rabbi, where dwellest thou?" and that 
 time Jesus answered — "Come and see," 
 and the record continues, "They came 
 and saw where He dwelt, and abode with 
 Him that day." 
 
 Two men are marked with special 
 distinction in the immortal story. Of 
 two men are said the incomparable 
 words — "Jesus loved him !" 
 
 [73] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 Jesus loved all men : love was His life, 
 love was His mission, love was His reve- 
 lation. 
 
 But there is a vast difference between 
 the divine compassionate love which 
 never knows the touch of anger nor of 
 reproach — the car it as which never 
 fails — and that love which holds a 
 personal quality within it, an inesti- 
 mable gift of friendship, of choice, of 
 intimacy. 
 
 To two men, this personal love of 
 Jesus — warmed with the emotion of 
 His glorious heart — was given : two 
 men were crowned with that supreme 
 favour in the history of the world. 
 And here, again, the meeting of extremes 
 is made manifest. Even in the gift of 
 His personal love, Jesus was no respecter 
 of persons. Of these two men, the one 
 was a fisherman — the son of Zebedee — 
 
 [74] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 whom Jesus had first seen in a fishing- 
 boat mending his net at the end of a 
 long day's toil; the other was a rich 
 young man, the owner of great posses- 
 sions. 
 
 "Ah," cries our protesting Brother in 
 quick heat of argument, "did not Jesus 
 reprove that rich young man and tell 
 him to go and sell all he had and give to 
 the poor, that he might become perfect ? " 
 
 Yes, verily ! Because for that young 
 man there was no other way. His heart 
 was set on his possessions, — things, 
 things, things, — possessions, possessions, 
 possessions ! They were microbes in 
 that young man's soul; for him, there 
 could be no spiritual health until he had 
 gotten rid of them. 
 
 It is an ethical law that it is necessary 
 to get rid of everything that hampers 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 the growth of the soul if the soul is to 
 attain its full stature. All great philoso- 
 phers have taught this, and, supremely, 
 Jesus, the greatest of all philosophers, 
 taught it. 
 
 But the charge of Jesus to the rich 
 young man was no argument against 
 wealth, as such, because, although He 
 charged this rich young man to get rid 
 of his possessions, He did not give the 
 same charge to the rich Zacchseus, to the 
 noble Centurion, to Nicodemus, nor to 
 Joseph of Arimathsea ; — thank God, not 
 to Joseph of Arimathsea, for had all the 
 possessions of Joseph of Arimathsea been 
 given away, who would have rendered 
 the homage that wealth and wealth 
 alone can bring to that blessed body 
 broken upon the tree ! 
 
 It is true that Jesus rebuked this rich 
 young man who had great possessions: 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 but did He not also rebuke Peter, the 
 lowly fisherman who had no possessions, 
 who had left all to follow Him? 
 
 Indeed, He rebuked him far more 
 sharply than He rebuked the rich young 
 man. He turned and said unto Peter — 
 "Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art 
 an offence unto me : for thou savourest 
 not the things that be of God, but those 
 that be of men." 
 
 He rebuked the rich young man be- 
 cause his heart and pride lay in his 
 possessions : He rebuked Peter, the poor 
 fisherman, because his pride lay in having 
 given up his possessions. 
 
 It was not wealth — not the posses- 
 sions of the rich young man that brought 
 sorrow to Jesus; it was the love of them 
 which absorbed him to the exclusion of 
 the realities of life : it was the pride in 
 
 [77] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 the heart of the young man, which Jesus 
 rebuked. 
 
 It was not Peter's poverty that He 
 approved — it was not because Peter 
 was of the unprivileged class that he 
 was welcome to the Master; it was the 
 spirit of lowliness and meekness within 
 the soul of Peter. When, for an hour, 
 that lowliness and meekness gave place 
 to pride, it brought sorrow to Jesus, and 
 He sternly rebuked Peter. 
 
 As in the daily life of Jesus, so in His 
 miracles, He showed no favour when He 
 performed them, no partiality, no dis- 
 crimination of caste, of class, of place, 
 of circumstance in life. 
 
 He raised the son of the poor widow of 
 Nain — He raised the son of the rich 
 nobleman of Capernaum. 
 
 [78] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 He granted the prayer of the blind 
 beggar by the wayside — He granted the 
 prayer of the powerful centurion of Rome. 
 
 He healed the daughter of the despised 
 Canaanite woman — He raised the daugh- 
 ter of the wealthy Jairus. 
 
 He healed the impotent man who lay 
 beside the pool, with no man to help 
 him, — He healed the favourite of the 
 High Priest empanoplied in all the power 
 of the Sanhedrim. 
 
 He refreshed the weary multitude of 
 common folk in the desert ; He made 
 wheaten bread for them to eat — He 
 refreshed the thirsty patricians at the 
 wedding feast ; He made red and fruity 
 wine for them to drink. 
 
 As in His miracles — so in His para- 
 bles. 
 
 Throughout the cycle of His ministry, 
 
 [79] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 Jesus marked no difference, drew no 
 line, made no distinction in the subjects 
 of those soul -penetrating stories. 
 
 With equal impartiality, He infused 
 His parables with lessons for the poor, 
 and He infused His parables with lessons 
 for the rich. With equal impartiality 
 He drew His illustrations from the de- 
 tails of the life of the proletaire — 
 showing the closest familiarity with the 
 work and habits of the poor; and He 
 drew illustrations from the details of the 
 life of the patrician — showing the 
 closest familiarity with the life and 
 habits of the rich : He drew His parables 
 from the toil of the day-labourer — 
 showing the closest familiarity with the 
 work of the toiler; and He drew His 
 parables from wealth, luxury and lavish 
 living — showing the closest familiarity 
 with the life of the aristocrat. 
 
 [80] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 The toilers for a penny a day — the 
 nobleman's dealing with his vast estate. 
 
 The ploughman with his plough in the 
 furrow — the rich man building his 
 stately mansion upon the rock. 
 
 The woman putting a little leaven into 
 three measures of meal — the steward 
 putting the talents out to usury. 
 
 The widow's mite — the ten pieces 
 of silver. 
 
 The humble sower sowing his seed into 
 the ground — the wealthy householder 
 bringing forth treasures new and old. 
 
 The fisherman casting his net into 
 the sea — the great treasures which a 
 man hid in a field. 
 
 The oil in the lamp — the wedding 
 feast of the king's son. 
 
 The poor man who put a new patch 
 into an old garment — the rich man who 
 built new houses and new barns. 
 
 G [81] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 The grain of mustard seed — the pearl 
 of great price. 
 
 It is true that He spake one parable of 
 a certain rich man, and at the end of that 
 parable we find the rich man in Hell. 
 
 But it is also true that He spake 
 another parable of another rich man, and 
 at the end of that parable we find the 
 Good Samaritan — the model set by 
 Jesus for all men to follow. 
 
 Thus He shows beyond a peradventure 
 that the difference He intended to illus- 
 trate was not in the circumstance of the 
 one man, nor in the circumstance of the 
 other man — not in the having of riches, 
 nor in the not having of riches : the 
 difference was in the heart of each man. 
 The one fared sumptuously every day 
 and left a hungry neighbour at his gate, 
 with no thought of his need — w^ith no 
 
 [82] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 sympathy for another's suffering : nat- 
 urally he was in Hell; Hell is the ul- 
 timate effect of a state of selfishness — 
 one does not have to die to discover 
 Hell. The other stopped in his journey 
 to Jericho, descended from his horse, 
 lifted his neighbour in his arms, poured 
 oil into his wounds, and made his money 
 the true means of service : and he was 
 in Heaven, or rather, the kingdom of 
 Heaven, which is Love, was in him. 
 
 Twice, without parables, without met- 
 aphor, Jesus granted a direct answer 
 to the questioner : twice, He vouchsafed 
 His Word regarding the riddle of the 
 universe — the problem of the soul : to 
 two individuals He set forth His Gospel 
 regarding man's relation to God. 
 
 The two honoured by Him as chosen 
 to receive the Truth give, anew, em- 
 
 [83] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 phatic proof that Jesus was no respecter 
 of persons. 
 
 The one was a lowly woman of 
 Samaria, a toiler, a drawer of water, an 
 outcast, a despised sinner; the other 
 was a ruler of Israel, a man of distinction 
 and of wealth, who sat in the seats of 
 the mighty. 
 
 Could any two persons be further apart 
 in class, in caste, in position, in outward 
 religion — as the world counts such 
 things? Yet it was to those two He 
 chose to speak the supreme Word. 
 
 The Word to each was, in essence, the 
 same. It was the verbal expression of 
 the lesson Jesus had ever taught by 
 miracle, by parable, and by the conduct 
 of His life from the happy stable to the 
 bitter cross, the lesson that it is the 
 Spirit only which gives life. 
 
 To neither Nicodemus in his power, nor 
 
 [84] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 to the woman of Samaria in her sin, did 
 He give any outward formula of life, 
 any rigid code of conduct, any rite or 
 ritual of worship, any programme of 
 social procedure. 
 
 To the rich and powerful Nicodemus 
 He did not say, "Privilege is wrong; 
 high place is unrighteous; wealth is 
 wicked ; — if you would inherit eternal 
 life, sell all you have and give to the 
 poor." He said only — "Ye must be 
 born again." And to the tiresomely 
 literal argument of Nicodemus — 
 
 "How can a man be born when he 
 is old ? can he enter the second time into 
 his mother's womb, and be born ? "j 
 
 He answered : 
 
 "That which is born of the flesh is 
 flesh ; and that which is born of the 
 Spirit is spirit." 
 
 [85] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 To the poor outcast woman, aban- 
 doned, despised by men, deep-stained 
 with sin, He did not say — "You cannot 
 approach the altar of the Most High until 
 you have obeyed the law, and man is well 
 satisfied with your canonical fitness to 
 worship God in the appointed place." 
 
 No, He said none of these things. 
 
 Instead, He freely offered her Living 
 Water ; and to her surprise at the 
 simplicity of the hope held out to her 
 sin-laden heart, He answered: 
 
 "Woman, believe me, the hour 
 cometh, when ye shall neither in this 
 mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship 
 the Father. God is a Spirit: and they 
 that worship him must worship him in 
 spirit and in truth." 
 
 Jesus sent the sinner neither to the 
 great temple dedicated to Jehovah, nor 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 to the great mountain of Samaria — 
 neither to the one decreed form nor to 
 the other decreed form. He sent her 
 to commune with God in her own spirit. 
 
 The echo of the truth falls from the 
 lips of the Master and rings clear above 
 all waging warfares of church and state, 
 of social factions and of social class. 
 
 Hearken to the echo like a reiterated 
 strain. It comes from hillside and way- 
 side, from the seats of the mighty, from 
 the gathering-places of the powerful and 
 it comes from the by-paths where the 
 lowly walk, from the shadowed places 
 where the outcasts and the malefactors 
 hide: 
 
 "The Kingdom of God is within 
 You." 
 
 When will man cease to cry in the 
 streets his foolish proclamation of prom- 
 
 [87] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 ise — "Lo, here — lo, there, is the 
 kingdom of God"? 
 
 When will man cease to build up vast 
 Kingdoms of Observation, claiming a 
 warrant for them in the Word of Jesus ? 
 
 Let us remember that Jesus knew life 
 as never man knew it. His philosophic 
 all-rounded Vision presented the eternal 
 truth when He said — 
 
 "The kingdom of God cometh not 
 with observation: neither shall they 
 say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, 
 the kingdom of God is within you." 
 
 Could a vital word be plainer, more 
 direct, more conclusive? 
 
 Jesus recommended no programme, no 
 plan of action, no organisation of work. 
 His recommendation, His advice, His 
 entreaty to man, was to seek a spiritual 
 kingdom, unseen, within the soul, of 
 
 [88] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 which the world can take no note, ex- 
 cept of its fruits. No parish paper can 
 advertise it ; no social society nor federa- 
 tion can proclaim it ; no organised social 
 plant can accomplish it; no strenuous 
 bustling faction can bring it to pass. It 
 lies deep in each soul — its High Priest is 
 the Everlasting Spirit, its fruit is true 
 and lasting Brotherhood. 
 
 This is no plea for the acceptance of 
 outward conditions ; it is no suggestion 
 that outward conditions should not be 
 changed ; God forbid : they cannot be 
 changed too soon : every one should be 
 willing to lay down his life to change 
 them with broad, sweeping, radical 
 changes. 
 
 Let every protest be raised against 
 inordinate, selfish accumulation, against 
 the unjust distribution of wealth, the 
 
 [89] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 unjust control of land, the unjust owner- 
 ship of the product of labour, against 
 the unequal opportunities granted to 
 men. 
 
 The social methods of men are self- 
 ish — alas, they are selfish beyond all 
 thought! The industrial conditions are 
 wrong — alas, they are wrong beyond all 
 thought : they are calling, shrieking for 
 reform ! 
 
 To consider this reform, to study the 
 welfare and improvement of the en- 
 vironment of our fellowmen, to work 
 with mind and heart and soul to bring 
 about a better social system, is the 
 obligation and the trust of every human 
 being who holds a spark of honour in 
 his breast. 
 
 It is to the bitter shame of humanity 
 that conditions are as they are, and, 
 until we change them, we are responsible 
 
 [90] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 for them. We should work for them as 
 we work for political and sanitary re- 
 forms, as a part of our national and civic 
 duty : it is the obligation of a common 
 honesty : it is to be done as we pay our 
 taxes or our debts. 
 
 The social disease following the unjust 
 distribution of wealth, the unrighteous 
 control of land, the iniquitous ownership 
 of the product of labour, should be studied 
 as the diseases of cancer and tuberculosis 
 are studied ; and every man and woman 
 who has learned the principles of Jesus 
 will so desire to study them, and will 
 find a way of betterment. 
 
 But the more sincere is the desire, the 
 greater the determination for social re- 
 form, for economic and social betterment, 
 the more consecrated the resolve to 
 bring them to pass, the more necessary 
 it is that the accomplishment thereof 
 
 [91] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 should not be imperilled by false 
 methods, and that the truth should 
 not be perverted to support it. 
 
 The insistence of the modern agitators 
 that Jesus' chief mission was solely to 
 preach an economic and a social gospel, 
 and that the lesson He taught was 
 confined to the reconstruction of the 
 social system, and the reform of the 
 economic plan of life, from the outside, 
 is directly contrary to facts. The proc- 
 lamation of this error should be avoided, 
 even from the motives of wise policy. 
 It will foil the desired end of ultimate 
 accomplishment . 
 
 The Gospel of Jesus is not a system : 
 it is a Revelation. 
 
 The Gospel of Jesus does not teach a 
 code : it teaches a new life of the spirit. 
 
 His message is to the individual soul. 
 It is true that the vital principle of that 
 
 [92] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 message is the relation of the individual 
 soul to the univei sal soul, to the social 
 soul and to the social conscience, but 
 it must come as the inevitable result of 
 spiritual force to be of any value. 
 
 Another vital principle of the phi- 
 losophy of Jesus is the obligation of fruit- 
 bearing: the regeneration of the soul 
 must be known by the fruit it bears and 
 by that alone. 
 
 Love, helpful, eager love, lavish in 
 service, is the consummate proof, the 
 criterion of the reality in the individual 
 soul of the principle of Jesus. The 
 highest wisdom for the apostles of the 
 New Order is to follow the example of 
 Jesus and preach and teach the rebirth of 
 the soul — the supreme law of the great 
 evangel : then the rest will follow : from 
 the regeneration of the individual souls 
 will come the regeneration of society. 
 
 [93] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 It is foolish for the apostles of the New 
 Order to urge that former methods have 
 not done this : because there has been 
 too much institutionalism and dogma- 
 tism and too little brotherhood in the 
 past, that does not prove that a new or- 
 der of external formation and altruistic 
 dogmatism comes any nearer to the 
 truth. 
 
 There are codes and systems and 
 orders and methods enough, for every- 
 thing, everywhere: but the Message of 
 Jesus is the one Revelation. 
 
 The world has ever groaned and 
 cried out for a revelation of Truth, 
 from the time when the children of 
 Israel wandered in the wilderness of 
 Sinai — even until to-day when the 
 children of the present generation are 
 wandering in the wilderness of Mammon, 
 still worshipping the Golden Calf; since 
 
 [94] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 the day when Plato cried out for the 
 Logos 'to teach erring man how to 
 pray ' — until to-day when men are 
 sounding heaven and earth for a sign. 
 
 If we really have this revelation, this 
 rebirth, in our hearts, the rest will follow 
 as surely as the morning star and the 
 light of dawn follow the darkness and 
 the night. If we have it not, then 
 every accomplishment is but transitory. 
 
 Our little systems of economics, of 
 betterment, and of social reform will 
 have their little day, but they will be of 
 no avail: they will "have their day and 
 cease to be." 
 
 Jesus knew, as all philosophers know, 
 the danger of riches, the interruption 
 of them, the materialising, suffocating, 
 corroding effect of them upon char- 
 acter, when they obsess the soul. 
 Possessions, riches, position, power, are 
 
 [95] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 dangerous and perilous to the great 
 development of life. O perilous danger ! 
 O dangerous peril ! They asphyxiate the 
 man who is absorbed by love of them : 
 they block the way of the soul's advance. 
 Jesus understood this and He said: 
 
 "It is easier for a camel to go through 
 a needle's eye, than for a rich man to 
 enter into the kingdom of God." 
 
 These words have been flung of late 
 as a dogmatic conclusion to all those 
 who have found themselves born into 
 a life freighted with the responsibility of 
 wealth and position. 
 
 These words were not uttered as a con- 
 clusion, but as a metaphor : even as it 
 was a metaphor when He said : 
 
 "Ye blind guides, which strain at a 
 gnat, and swallow a camel." 
 
 Since the days when the Master, 
 heavy and lonely at heart because of 
 
 [96] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 the dullness of His hearers, cried out — 
 " Having eyes, see ye not ? and hav- 
 ing ears, hear ye not ? " men have 
 gone on literalising His subtle mean- 
 ing-freighted words, without reason, 
 logic or common-sense, treating the as- 
 tute intellect and the flashing genius of 
 Jesus with a stupid disrespect that is as 
 futile as it is irreverent; giving to His 
 simple direct words less intellectual con- 
 sideration and discernment than is given 
 to the clever author of the hour. 
 
 Surely, Jesus did not mean to say that 
 it was a habit of the Pharisees to swallow 
 life-sized camels as they would swallow 
 pills. It is clear that the phrase ' swallow- 
 ing camels' was merely a striking, at- 
 tention-compelling metaphor, a graphic, 
 unforgetable illustration. 
 
 And so in the former case Jesus un- 
 doubtedly used the camel in the same 
 
 H [97] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 way. Had He meant that it was as 
 impossible for a rich man to enter into 
 the kingdom of God as it was for a camel 
 to go through a needle's eye, He would 
 not have followed His saying with these 
 further words (in answer to His disciples ' 
 ever-ready question — "Who then can 
 be saved?") "The things which are 
 impossible with men are possible with 
 God." 
 
 It is manifest that Jesus meant merely 
 to illustrate a very difficult achieve- 
 ment. 
 
 The needle's eye! A metaphor of 
 something very small, even as the camel 
 was the metaphor of something very 
 large — a metaphor for the heart of man 
 to ponder. 
 
 Jesus evidently intended to suggest 
 to the subtle oriental mind of the man 
 who had watched the camel bend its 
 
 [98] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 knee and unload its treasures, the way 
 to overcome the difficulty and to ac- 
 complish the result. 
 
 But it is as false to say, with the 
 modern agitator, that Jesus taught that 
 wealth in itself is sin, as it is false to say 
 that Jesus taught that poverty in itself 
 is virtue: it is as stupid to maintain 
 that because Jesus said, "A man's life 
 consisteth not in the abundance of the 
 things which he possesseth," He de- 
 nounced all possessions, as it is stupid 
 for the banal literalist to maintain that 
 because Jesus made the astute obser- 
 vation, "Ye have the poor with you 
 always," He thereby proclaimed a com- 
 plete acceptance of the unequal social 
 conditions and of the continuation of 
 the conditions which arise from the crim- 
 inal selfishness of man. He proclaimed 
 
 [99] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 no acceptance of them, neither did He 
 proclaim any denouncement of them. 
 
 It is true He denounced the unrighteous 
 getting of wealth, He sharply condemned 
 those who devoured widows' houses and 
 those who ground down the faces of the 
 poor, just as He denounced all other sins 
 — especially and emphatically, hypoc- 
 risy, insincerity and pharisaism. But 
 it is a striking fact that one finds, as 
 one reads the record with care and con- 
 sideration, that Jesus, for some wise 
 reason of His own, let the complicated 
 and the crying problems of economic and 
 social conditions entirely alone. He con- 
 fined His teaching to the great and vital 
 principles for the soul, to the compas- 
 sionate yearning over the individual 
 child of man to make him an individual 
 child of God. 
 
 It is a strange and striking fact, 
 
 [100] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 explain it as we may, that Jesus neither 
 stressed, urged nor even advised a read- 
 justment of any social or economic laws, 
 customs, or even of accepted standards, 
 although, in the days of Roman rule, 
 the laws, customs and accepted standards 
 were against all justice and all righteous- 
 ness. 
 
 He denounced no social condition : He 
 said no word of condemnation of the 
 grave social sins that cried for swift 
 redress on every side : nor of the fatal 
 despotism of the imperial government 
 which treated men and provinces as 
 though they were mere grinding-mills 
 from which to turn out tribute to Rome ; 
 nor of the cruel class distinctions which 
 allowed one class of men to tread another 
 class under foot as though they were 
 the dry and barren dust : He did not 
 denounce the publicans and tax-gatherers 
 
 [101] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 who were extorting money from His 
 people ; nor the Roman cohorts — not- 
 withstanding the fact that the inevi- 
 table fruit of His philosophy must be 
 peace and goodwill to all mankind : 
 He did not even utter a protest 
 against the incomparable wrong of human 
 slavery which then prevailed : He ad- 
 vocated no social reform whatsoever: 
 He organised no economic changes what- 
 soever. Moreover, He said no word in 
 praise of political freedom, of political 
 equality nor of social equality. The 
 freedom He taught was a freedom that 
 out-soared all political limitations — the 
 equality He taught was an equality that 
 out-soared all social distinctions. 
 
 Does this imply that He was in- 
 different to the social and economic sins 
 on every side? We have only to read 
 His words, His ideal of life, to know 
 
 [102] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 that no one had so clear a concept of 
 the possibilities of a perfect state of 
 society, so high a realisation of what 
 life might be, and so keen an apprehen- 
 sion of the folly and blindness of those 
 who leave life as it is. 
 
 Ponder His compassion, His divine 
 love, poured forth on all who came to 
 Him, His yearning over the sin and 
 suffering and the sorrow of Jerusalem, 
 bearing the pain of all who suffered in 
 any way, in His own comprehending 
 heart ! He carefully refrained, however, 
 from preaching any social propaganda, 
 or urging any social change, as such, of 
 giving any social formula whatsoever, 
 or any political programme whatso- 
 ever. 
 
 It is manifest that, for some wise rea- 
 son of His own, He thought it best not to 
 do so. 
 
 [103] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 Perhaps it was that He knew all social 
 conditions are but the passing phases of 
 a constantly changing, constantly evolv- 
 ing world, the temporary and transitory 
 ebb and flow of the construction, destruc- 
 tion and reconstruction of social orders 
 that have repeated themselves over and 
 over in every outward experiment since 
 history began. 
 
 Monarchy, with its privileged class, 
 is defied by Democrats until a Republic 
 is established : then, in turn, the Repub- 
 lic evolves its privileged class and that 
 is defied by Socialists : Socialism, in its 
 most promising moment, is confronted 
 by the Philosophic Anarchists : in turn, 
 the Philosophic Anarchists are threatened 
 by the I. W. W's. — and so it goes on 
 and on and on, an endless chain. 
 
 Jesus — who saw with keen wisdom 
 the end from the beginning — knew that 
 
 [104] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 unless the soul of man is changed, this 
 will be forever the result of all external 
 systems of betterment. 
 
 Selfishness, arrogance, hatred and dis- 
 trust are cankers in the heart — in the 
 individual heart and the social heart — 
 they are the things that must be radically 
 changed, not merely the conditions 
 brought about by them; for if the con- 
 ditions merely are treated, it is but shifting 
 the ground, and the old problem is found 
 confronting mankind in a new form. 
 
 The arrogance of the proud privileged 
 man, who scorns his brother because he 
 is poor, is detestable ! But the arrogance 
 of the proud labouring man, who hates 
 his brother because he is rich, is funda- 
 mentally the same. 
 
 The pride of the powerful man who 
 thinks himself superior to his brother 
 
 [105] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 because he sits in the seats of the mighty, 
 and the pride of the man of low degree 
 who thinks himself superior to his power- 
 ful brother because Jesus came only to 
 the poor and lowly — are fundamentally 
 the same. 
 
 The egoism of the man who thinks 
 not of his brother and the egoism of the 
 man whose pride lies in the modern 
 shibboleth of Brotherhood — are funda- 
 mentally the same. 
 
 The pettiness of the man who 
 patronises the poor and the pettiness of 
 the man who envies the rich — are 
 fundamentally the same. 
 
 The self-vaunting of the aristocrat 
 who is haughty and rude toward the 
 proletaire and the self-vaunting of the 
 proletaire who is hateful and rude toward 
 the aristocrat — are fundamentally the 
 same. 
 
 [106] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 The sin of those who shoot the strik- 
 ers and the sin of those who dynamite 
 the capitalists — are fundamentally the 
 same. 
 
 The ungodliness of those who allow 
 the pauper to starve to death and the 
 ungodliness of those who allow the king 
 to be assassinated — are fundamentally 
 the same. 
 
 Selfishness, unrighteousness, sin, in all 
 its phases, can only be purged away by 
 the inward regeneration of the individual 
 heart working from within, outward, to 
 the social heart : this regeneration must 
 be before there can be any lasting better- 
 ment. 
 
 The regeneration of the heart and life ! 
 That was the message of the Master, 
 and that alone can bring the change 
 that will avail. 
 
 The regeneration of life is the renewal, 
 
 [107] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 the rebirth, into something more living, 
 more universal, more vast, more cosmic. 
 
 This word has been so long used in a 
 traditional and theological way, with 
 dogmatic emphasis on the letter of its 
 meaning, that we have forgotten the 
 living spirit of it — even though the 
 reality of its meaning is spread out for 
 us as a living parable in the miracle of 
 every blossoming Spring-time. 
 
 The renewal and the rebirth of life 
 is to the soul what the Spring-time is 
 to the cold and barren earth. 
 
 And it is the change that comes from 
 this regeneration that should be taught, 
 preached, worked for — and not any 
 lesser change. 
 
 Any lesser change is but shifting the 
 ground of discontent. Any change on 
 an outward basis is but going over the 
 old error, which still remains error even 
 
 [108] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 though the purpose and the aim which 
 impel it may have in them a higher 
 motive. 
 
 Every remedy of circumstance that 
 comes from without only opens a new 
 avenue for other evils and errors to come 
 in. It is the law of life on its material 
 side — as history illustrates., 
 
 Jesus knew the heart of man and He 
 knew that the change of the individual 
 heart was the best means to the righteous 
 end of changing the world. 
 
 To build up economic and social 
 changes in any other way than by the 
 working of the Spirit is a foiling of that 
 end. 
 
 Alas! whilst all this modern strenu- 
 ous proclamation is going on — as to 
 the intent of Jesus in regard to social 
 systems, as to the exact social economic 
 quality of His Gospel — the essential 
 
 [109] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 message of the great Teacher, for which 
 humanity is hungering and thirsting 
 without knowing it, is being drowned in 
 the din, the strident disputes of the 
 hour. 
 
 The great possibility of life is being 
 lost in the eagerness to proclaim a newly 
 discovered gospel — a gospel that holds 
 a programme of procedure. And all the 
 while the soul of man groans and travails 
 for immortal help on this mortal plane. 
 
 It is an awful but an incontrovertible 
 fact, proved by generation after genera- 
 tion since the world began, that "Man 
 is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly 
 upward." This is said as an echo of 
 the funeral note, with the solemn funereal 
 trappings conventionalising the words : 
 but when separated from the traditional 
 associations and considered as a fact of 
 history, it is found to be invariably 
 [no] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 true — it is, and has been, the common 
 experience of all mankind. One circum- 
 stance is bettered — and straightway a 
 new trouble comes : every assuaged con- 
 dition brings a new condition from which 
 arises a new and unexpected tragedy of 
 pain. Thus has it ever been since man 
 was born upon the earth. 
 
 O the heart-ache, the sorrow, the 
 suffering that is the destined lot of man ! 
 O the bitter anguish, the tragedy of pain 
 that is the destined lot of woman ! 
 
 There is only one thing that can 
 strengthen, can fortify the soul to 
 meet and overcome the inevitable trag- 
 edy of life — that is the renewal of 
 the spirit. No outward change can per- 
 manently help. 
 
 The cry is for social betterment — 
 and why? That man may be more 
 [in] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 happy, more satisfied, more comfortable 
 and more content. 
 
 But will social betterment make him 
 so ? Not permanently, not surely — no 
 matter what the social change may be ! 
 
 Contentment, happiness, satisfaction, 
 joy, abiding pleasure, are the portion of 
 no class alone; they lie in no external 
 condition, in no outward circumstance, 
 however financially prosperous that con- 
 dition may be. Suffering, sorrow, pain, 
 woe, unhappiness, are the portion of no 
 class alone; they he in no external con- 
 dition, in no outward circumstance, how- 
 ever deplorable that condition may be. 
 
 Mortal man cannot escape anguish in 
 this mortal world. 
 
 In bettering his outward condition 
 man only temporarily suspends his fate. 
 Quickly he is assailed by some other kind 
 of suffering which is as difficult to bear 
 
 [112] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 as his former state — perhaps more so. 
 Outward change is like an endless chain : 
 the condition desired, when gained, is 
 foiled of its benefit by new conditions 
 that have arisen to threaten the enjoy- 
 ment of the achieved betterment. 
 
 Poverty is hard, poverty is cruel, 
 poverty seems unendurable, but poverty 
 is only one of the many grievous burdens 
 that are laid upon mankind — and by 
 no means the most unendurable burden. 
 
 The same fatality may come from 
 causes other than poverty. 
 
 A certain pauper at one time was 
 starving ; he rebelled against his fate ; 
 he struggled desperately to better his 
 condition : he fought day and night with 
 fortune : finally he became a millionaire ; 
 he lived sumptuously in splendour — 
 his table was spread with the finest 
 
 I [113] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 viands, the rarest wines, with all the 
 luxury that wealth can procure; for a 
 brief time he enjoyed the brilliant fortune 
 which he had won in a hard fight. 
 
 Then, like a thief in the night, a direful 
 disease fell swiftly upon him; the func- 
 tions of his body refused to do their work ; 
 the processes of assimilation were choked ; 
 and, once again, that man was starving ; 
 slowly he starved to death. His financial 
 condition had become all that he desired, 
 but the very same fate, against which 
 he had rebelled, overtook him. 
 
 As he lay upon his bed in mortal weak- 
 ness, what mattered it to him whether 
 he starved from lack of bread, or from 
 lack of assimilation — he starved ! 
 
 Starvation was his lot — ordained by 
 destiny — and he had spent all his time, 
 energies, intellect and zeal in trying to 
 work out the problem of bettering his 
 
 [114] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 financial condition to escape it, and he 
 had not escaped it : he had gone directly 
 toward it. 
 
 Now, straightway, he must find a new 
 courage wherewith to meet the same fate 
 in a new guise. His soul must find 
 something to lighten the way of shadow 
 he is passing — to open the eternal 
 Vision to his dimmed and dying eyes, 
 something that lies not in any outward 
 circumstance: something deep within 
 his soul that nothing can touch nor over- 
 come. 
 
 If he had concentrated his energies 
 and his mind on learning the deeper 
 philosophy of Jesus, he would have been 
 free of the bondage that fate now lays 
 upon him. 
 
 A certain woman once sat in a barren 
 room destitute of all beauty; she was 
 
 [115] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 very poor : the blank, bare walls brought 
 fierce rebellion to her, a passionate lover 
 of beauty. 
 
 She cried out against her fate. She 
 worked until she changed her condition; 
 she became a citizen of the world of 
 wealth ; beauty and works of art sur- 
 rounded her, soft colours and lovely 
 fabrics; beneath the windows of her 
 palace stretched the rolling verdure of 
 her flower-bordered lawns. Suddenly, 
 without warning, the optic nerves 
 snapped in her eyes, and she was blind — 
 hopelessly, helplessly, blind. 
 
 The horror of great darkness was upon 
 her, she had lost even the glory that had 
 shone for her of old, for, in her barren 
 room, she had been able to see the love- 
 light in the eyes of her friends. 
 
 Of what avail to her was all the beauty 
 that surrounded her ? 
 
 [116] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 She cried for new courage to meet her 
 dreadful fate — the blackness of the 
 night that shut her in. Her soul agonized 
 for inward light by which she could see 
 the Vision to help her bear the lonely 
 isolation of her lot — the Vision within 
 her soul that nothing could darken. 
 
 Alas for her ! that she had not con- 
 centrated her energies upon gaining the 
 philosophy of Jesus ; that would have 
 prepared her for the final bondage of her 
 fate. 
 
 And ever there is the pain of death. 
 
 There is that cold, dark river in the 
 Shadowed Valley which everyone must 
 cross, alone; some strengthening power 
 must be found to steady the feet as we 
 step into its chill waters and some 
 strengthening power must be found to 
 support us as we tread the lonely way 
 
 [117] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 back from the shore and walk through 
 the Shadowed Valley alone — after 
 watching the waters close over the be- 
 loved one. 
 
 Personal death is the least part of the 
 terror which besets us : to the rational 
 man his own death is an exciting, de- 
 lightful adventure — the going out into 
 freedom and emancipation; but the 
 measurelessianguish is the death of those 
 we love — that is the supreme pain of 
 mortal life ! That inscrutable, inevitable 
 approach of the grim and awful power 
 which silently, relentlessly, tears asunder 
 those who are one, to leave the other 
 divided half alone, reaching aching arms 
 and straining aching eyes into the void. 
 
 Somewhere, somehow, there must be 
 found something to help the heart to 
 bear the unbearable. There must be 
 something triumphant accomplished in 
 
 [118] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 the soul that will enable it to meet all 
 circumstance — even the circumstance of 
 death, for death is a circumstance that 
 neither riches, kings, emperors, poten- 
 tates nor any New Order nor any modern 
 emancipator can change. 
 
 And there is that climax of bur- 
 dens — injustice, betrayal, mis judg- 
 ment. What mortal heart can bear 
 these cruel burdens without immortal 
 help ! How infinitely beyond poverty 
 is this pain ! Millions and multi-mil- 
 lions of golden coin are as stones and 
 pebbles to the heart that is thus wronged, 
 to the spirit that is alone and sorrowful 
 unto death. 
 
 The bettering of external conditions 
 does not, cannot, change the tragedy 
 of life — cannot secure freedom, happi- 
 ness, ease of heart. The mind should 
 be applied to finding the supreme philos- 
 
 [119] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 ophy that can, and does, prepare a man 
 to meet every possible phase of human 
 suffering, to rise above every kind of 
 anguish, whatsoever it may be. 
 
 It is the modern habit to divert the 
 mind from the superlative offered to 
 man, for the seeking, by constantly din- 
 ning into the ears the comparative benefit 
 of a practical programme. 
 
 It is as if a man prone to thirst, with 
 parched lips cried out for refreshment, 
 and when there was at hand a clear and 
 hidden spring of crystal water flowing 
 free, one stopped him on the way to the 
 finding of that spring to swab his mouth 
 with moistened sponges. 
 
 Who would concern himself with 
 preaching a temporary stop-gap, when, 
 by searching and seeking, one may find 
 the immortal day-spring? Who would 
 spend all one's energies proclaiming a 
 
 [120] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 superficial change when, by proclaiming 
 the great lesson of Jesus, there can be 
 found a great emancipation, the fruit 
 of which will be a change that nothing can 
 change. 
 
 Remember! The assertion of these 
 pages is that herein is no lack of sym- 
 pathy nor of approval for the economic 
 revolution that is moving the world. 
 
 The imperative need of the social and 
 economic betterment which men are now 
 demanding with cries from the house- 
 tops is far greater, far more necessary 
 even than they know. But the need of 
 an inward solvent to meet all things 
 that may befall, all conditions that may 
 arise, is the greatest need in all the world 
 — and this is the great emancipation, 
 the glorious Possible, which Jesus taught 
 to men. 
 
 [121] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 Poverty is not pleasant, poverty is 
 not comfortable — but disease, deform- 
 ity, cruelty and betrayal are more un- 
 pleasant and more uncomfortable. 
 
 Hunger for food is desperately hard to 
 bear — but hunger for love is far harder 
 to bear. 
 
 An empty stomach is a sharp ache — 
 but an empty heart is a sharper ache. 
 
 Uncongenial, grinding work is a trial 
 to endure — but blindness is a far worse 
 trial to endure. 
 
 Economic injustice is cruel — but it is 
 not half so cruel as the injustice which 
 misjudges and condemns, unheard, a 
 loving heart. 
 
 It is terrible to starve to death or 
 to be killed by injustice, but one can 
 lie down and die with rapture if one 
 has the inward joy : and if one has 
 it not, one cannot die with any 
 
 [122] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 pleasure, nor with any delight in the 
 adventure. 
 
 Mortal man cannot escape his portion 
 of pain in this mortal life. The in- 
 estimable gain for the human heart is 
 the power to out-soar all condition of 
 every suffering, of every sorrow. 
 
 This inward thing, this possession of 
 the soul, is no churchly state of mind : 
 many philosophers have had it and it 
 made them rise above all outward cir- 
 cumstance. Socrates had it and he stood 
 before his accusers and heard, undaunted, 
 their verdict of death and turned and 
 spoke those noble words which are alive 
 to-day — 
 
 "I am hardly angry with my accusers, 
 or with those who have condemned me 
 to die. ... I have one request to make 
 of them. When my sons grow up, visit 
 
 [123] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 them with punishment, my friends, and 
 vex them in the same way that I have 
 vexed you, if they seem to you to care for 
 riches, or for any other thing, before 
 virtue : and if they think that they are 
 something, when they are nothing at 
 all, reproach them, as I have reproached 
 you, for not caring for what they should, 
 and for thinking that they are great 
 men when in fact they are worthless. 
 And if you will do this, I myself and 
 my sons will have received our deserts 
 at your hands. But now the time 
 has come, and we must go hence; I 
 to die, and you to live. Whether life 
 or death is better is known to God, 
 and to God only." 
 
 After he had thus spoken he drank the 
 hemlock, and, smiling, passed into the 
 Shades. 
 
 [1241 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 What to Socrates was anything that 
 might befall when he possessed this 
 spirit ? 
 
 There are two philosophers who are 
 alike in their philosophy — Marcus Au- 
 relius and Epictetus. A sentence on life 
 from the one might have been written 
 by the other: each rose to that upper 
 realm where great souls dwell. 
 
 Yet the one was the mighty emperor 
 of the world, with the imperial crown 
 upon his head, the inflowing wealth of 
 the earth at his feet; the other was the 
 lowly slave, chained to a prison stone, 
 broken by cruelty and wrong. 
 
 The mighty and the lowly are as one 
 in the essential life if they have found 
 the inward kingdom. 
 
 Nero is dead, myriad emperors and 
 kings uncounted are dust, and queens 
 unnumbered are scattered ashes, but 
 
 [125] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus are im- 
 mortally alive : although they were in 
 the two classes most far apart, according 
 to the world's classification, yet they 
 rank forever equal. 
 
 This is a striking proof that the true 
 equality is an inward thing and the out- 
 ward classification of the world into the 
 mighty and the lowly is a measurement 
 by false and superficial standards. The 
 mighty, as Nero, are put down from 
 their seats when the consuming hand of 
 disease and death touches them with 
 fatal finger : the lowly, as Epictetus, are 
 exalted and live on forever in the world 
 if they have given to the world a living 
 word. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius affirms, "Things 
 themselves touch not the soul, not in the 
 least degree:" and all outward circum- 
 stance is but a passing thing. 
 
 [126] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 Of the many philosophers who have 
 taught this truth, Jesus taught it the 
 most convincingly and illustrated it the 
 most perfectly in His beautiful life. 
 
 The contemplation of that life is 
 arousing to those who consider it his- 
 torically. 
 
 Quite apart from the spiritual side, 
 when one contemplates the altitude in 
 which Jesus moved on earth, one is taken 
 psychically to an high mountain-top. 
 
 So long Jesus has been looked upon 
 through the eyes of interpreters and com- 
 mentators that the world fails to realise 
 the thrilling dramatic beauty and dy- 
 namic power of His mere personality. 
 
 The record of the life of Jesus read 
 simply, as the story of any other man is 
 read, without prejudice or preconception, 
 without theological bent or bias, shows 
 a glorious being of the heroic type. 
 
 [127] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 To many, Jesus is the very God of 
 very God, begotten, not made : to many, 
 He is the Son of God, only as every re- 
 born soul may be the son of God : 
 but in either case He is, on the human 
 side, an historic Person. 
 
 Even if He be very God of very God, 
 He took upon Himself the garment of 
 humanity, not to show the God for 
 men to worship, — that could have 
 been accomplished if He had stayed 
 in Heaven : — He desired to be at one 
 with all men, in all ways, sharing their 
 life, and to be approached as man is 
 approached : He, therefore, lived as a 
 man on this earth — and as such He 
 should be considered. 
 
 Yet there are multitudes of men who, 
 not accepting Jesus theologically, will 
 not consider His life historically because 
 they think of Him only as a being en- 
 
 [128] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 shrined in ecclesiastic seclusion, or obso- 
 lete superstition. 
 
 If these unthinking men and women 
 would once consider Jesus as a living 
 character, would read His life and His 
 words as they read the life and words of 
 any other character in history, they 
 could not fail to give Him their utmost 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 If those who have neglected to consider 
 Jesus, because they have thought He 
 was a churchly possession only, and 
 those who have turned away from Him 
 in reaction from the traditional picture 
 forced upon their youth, will once turn 
 and look upon Him as a man walking 
 on the earth, they will find captivat- 
 ing, compelling qualities that will enthral 
 them : they will find a shining personality 
 that will fascinate them, that will win 
 their worshipful love — and then they 
 
 K [129 1 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 will listen to His words as they listen 
 to the words of any philosopher, prophet, 
 sage or seer. 
 
 To those who have so considered Him, 
 His presence still lingers on the earth, 
 His personality is as living, as vivid as 
 it was twenty centuries ago. 
 
 Come! Let us for a moment con- 
 template Him without the mystic gar- 
 ments in which tradition has enwrapped 
 Him! 
 
 Let us see Him in His captivating, 
 adorable personality as though we had 
 met Him this morning walking beside 
 the glistening sea or sitting upon the 
 flowering hillside. All the heroic figures 
 in history that have stirred the hearts 
 of young and old for ages pale before 
 the ineffable brilliancy of His many- 
 sided, all-rounded personality. 
 
 He was, indeed, heroic ! He was heroic 
 
 [130] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 in His utter fearlessness; He feared 
 neither man nor the raging elements: 
 He trembled not at the tempest upon 
 the deep, which swept around Him, 
 nor at the mighty men upon the earth 
 who sought to entrap Him : He feared 
 neither being misunderstood nor mis- 
 judged ; He feared neither burdensome 
 and difficult life nor cruel and torturing 
 death : He walked, unflinching, in the 
 way that was ordained. 
 
 He was heroic in the extraordinary 
 power He gained over the excitable 
 multitude : He could sway them by 
 His eloquence and by the power of His 
 truth. 
 
 But He was more heroic in the power 
 He had over Himself to forgo His ad- 
 vantage. He refused to use that power 
 with the multitude to secure His own 
 ends. With superb self-denial, He put 
 
 [131] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 aside all ambition: He chose the beauty 
 of soul-possessions rather than the glories 
 and principalities of the earth. The 
 people of Jerusalem, if taken at the tide 
 of their great ovation, would have made 
 Him king : they were tired of Herod — 
 of Caesar; they wanted a leader worthy 
 to follow; they knew that that leader 
 was Jesus ; but He turned from the 
 ovation of palms and tributes, of spread 
 garments and hosannas, and went with 
 His chosen ones to an upper chamber : 
 the joys of the spirit were far more to 
 Him than the principalities of earth. 
 It is recorded that even as a Child, 
 
 "Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, 
 and in favour with God and man." 
 
 By the time He had reached man's ' 
 estate what must He have been? Con- 
 sider the picture ! 
 
 [132] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 In the first place He lived in the open 
 air, His face surely was exceedingly 
 beautiful to look upon, for in the depth 
 of His eyes He held the reflection of the 
 light of the dawn, the miracle of the 
 new day, the serene calm of the twilight, 
 the lofty splendour of the stars. 
 
 The atmosphere that emanated from 
 Him must have been dynamic, charged 
 with all the cosmic forces of life. He 
 was one with nature, in harmony with 
 her! He knew her hidden treasures, 
 the secret places of the mountain-heights, 
 where the wonders of the universe are 
 whispered, and the deep valleys, where the 
 secrets of human life are revealed. The 
 marvellous colours of the flowering land, 
 the opalescent wonders of the sky, the 
 miracle of blossoming and bourgeoning 
 were a very part of Him ; the murmuring 
 music of the winds, the tinkling rivulets 
 
 [133] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 and the surging sea. made rhythm for 
 Him and throbbed in the cadence of 
 His voice. 
 
 His life was one of virile purity, of 
 self-restraint, of alert concentration — 
 therefore no self-indulgence, no slothful 
 ease, no lazy relaxation stunted His 
 stature, coarsened His flesh, dimmed His 
 eyes or took the keen edge from His 
 fla shingly brilliant mind : His mind had 
 that crystalline quality, that spontaneity 
 which is the result only of strict self- 
 discipline and constant self-renuncia- 
 tion. His mind had all the rapier-like 
 keen cleverness of which moderns boast, 
 but the casual reader fails to note the 
 sharpness of that fine wit because it 
 was so delicately veiled by subtlety, and 
 tempered by wit to hide the wit. It was 
 impossible for the wily Jews to entrap 
 Him or to ensnare Him. 
 
 [134] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 There must have been about Him, 
 also, an intense magnetism, an arousing 
 life-giving quality which brought men 
 hope at the mere sight of Him, for we 
 hear them cry as He passed — 
 
 "Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make 
 me clean.' 9 
 
 There are a few persons in the world 
 who have this atmosphere in some degree : 
 they are those who have subdued the 
 flesh — who have put the Ego and all 
 personal desires under foot: those are 
 the persons whom we want near us in 
 the hours of need. 
 
 Jesus had this quality, this atmosphere, 
 in the maximum degree, and the result 
 was that He held and compelled every 
 one whom He met. There was a reserve 
 of measureless power within Him, 
 emanating from Him. The multitudes 
 
 [135] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 followed Him and hung upon His words ; 
 the sick arose and walked, made strong 
 by the psychic strength that came from 
 Him; the hardened old money-changers 
 fell back before Him and left their tables 
 where they sold their goods, trafficking 
 on the superstition of the people. The 
 self-righteous Pharisees at a glance from 
 His penetrating eyes broke down abashed 
 at their own self -revelation. 
 
 There was a fearless frankness, a 
 straightforward directness, a translucid 
 candour about Him that was intellectu- 
 ally stimulating. 
 
 And yet with all this fearless frankness 
 there was a divine charity that stirs 
 the soul : He told men the truth about 
 themselves freely, without disguise or 
 softening, but He never had personal 
 animosity for any personal injury. He 
 knew when men were liars and He called 
 
 [136] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 them, without hesitation and without 
 reserve, "whited sepulchres," "full of 
 dead men's bones," but He had no per- 
 sonal resentment, none, even when they 
 perverted and distorted His words, turn- 
 ing them away from their meaning, and 
 tried in every way to trap Him. And 
 when, at last, they put Him to death, 
 with all the magnitude of His mighty 
 heart He asked God to forgive them. 
 
 Although He had the lofty majesty 
 that compelled the money-changers and 
 the self-satisfied Pharisees, yet there 
 was combined with that a bewitching 
 tenderness, a fascinating winning smile. 
 
 How do we know? Ask the little 
 children of Judsea ! 
 
 After the lapse of the centuries those 
 trusting little children, running to His 
 outstretched arms, give testimony to 
 the fact. 
 
 [137] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 The children insisted upon going to 
 Him, and when His disciples tried to 
 safeguard Him from what they thought 
 an intrusion, He would not have them 
 kept away. 
 
 "Suffer the little children to come unto 
 me, and forbid them not," He said, as 
 He gathered them into His arms. 
 
 This is conclusive. Children never 
 desire to go to a severe, gloomy, or 
 solemn man; they shrink from "a 
 man of sorrows;" they do not even 
 wish to go to one who is colourless and 
 negative. 
 
 Children know ! — and Jesus knew chil- 
 dren ! 
 
 The quick kinship that Jesus had for 
 children, His comprehension of them, 
 of their play — their laughing and their 
 piping and their dancing — is a sure 
 proof of the child-like quality, the spar- 
 
 [138] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 kling freshness of life that He ever kept 
 in His own heart. 
 
 And then there was His incomparable, 
 never-failing courtesy, which gives the 
 flash of another facet of His many- 
 sidedness. He was gracious, considerate, 
 chivalrous — to the mighty and to the 
 lowly, to the ruler and to the outcast, to 
 the nobleman and to the peasant, to 
 the churchman and to the malefactor. 
 
 His courtesy was never-failing because 
 it was comprehending: that is the es- 
 sence of grace. Men are rude and ruth- 
 less because they do not understand; 
 they will not take the trouble to con- 
 sider, to understand. 
 
 Jesus understood; and with complete 
 graciousness He put every one at ease, 
 even the outcasts. Whatever the sorrow, 
 whatever the sin, whatever the difficulty 
 — when a sincere person approached 
 
 [139] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 Jesus, it was like going home : he met 
 an exquisite consideration, a generous 
 response, a perfect comprehension of all 
 his difficulties. 
 
 Apart from all things churchly or 
 theological, Jesus, as He walked the 
 earth, shines forth as the most com- 
 pelling, satisfying presence in all his- 
 tory, in all story, in all the sagas of 
 the world. 
 
 And He has said that all men may be 
 even as He was and this is the message, 
 the evangel, He taught the world. 
 Hearken to His words: 
 
 "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your 
 Father which is in heaven is perfect." 
 
 It is unthinkable that Jesus, the spirit 
 of truth, would have said this unless 
 He knew that it were possible. 
 
 [140] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 He knew that every man may be him- 
 self plus the Eternal. 
 
 But to attain this power man must of 
 necessity learn to see with his eyes and 
 hear with his ears : it is a matter of 
 cultivation, of training, of study, but 
 there must be the training and the study 
 to gain the result. In the physical 
 realm the senses become atrophied from 
 lack of use. A man has to educate 
 them to quick perception to be enabled 
 to really know the full beauty that lies 
 on every side: and, likewise, if he has 
 neglected to see with his spiritual vision, 
 to hear with his spiritual perception, if 
 he has eyes and sees not, ears and hears 
 not, it takes training, discipline and 
 cultivation to be able to really see, to 
 really perceive. 
 
 It is a difficult task to accomplish, but 
 it is possible, it is attainable. In the 
 
 [141] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 universe, just behind the veil of the 
 material world, there are great and 
 potent forces — forces that can work 
 miracles : one need only believe in 
 them, reach out for them, be in tune 
 and harmony with them, to be in 
 the centre of a vast dynamic force, a 
 great creative power, which will give 
 one a new and vibrant life. 
 
 Joy, exaltation, calmness, serenity, 
 fearlessness, are the portion of the soul 
 that has found this dynamic force, this 
 creative power. 
 
 Jesus knew the unseen forces of the 
 universe and, being one with God, the 
 Infinite Source of them all, He was one 
 with the creative Spirit. 
 
 He proclaimed in His Word — "I and 
 my Father are one." 
 
 This at-one-ment with the everlasting 
 Source of all good, of all life, is the supreme 
 
 [142] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 secret of life and it is to be found by 
 every son of the Most High. 
 
 What Jesus said man may say. Man 
 may, if he will, be in harmony with the 
 eternal ever-living Centre and Source of 
 power, force and creative energy and, 
 being in harmony with the Source, the 
 agencies of that power, the dynamic 
 forces in the universe around him are at 
 his command. 
 
 There is nothing that may not be 
 accomplished if a man work with those 
 dynamic forces : his soul will find strength 
 to bear whatever comes and his mind 
 will find ways to change the world. 
 
 But one must believe in a power to 
 utilise it, to possess it : that is the 
 simple law of common-sense in the mate- 
 rial world. 
 
 There is a similar law of common-sense 
 in the spiritual realm. Unseen forces — 
 
 [143] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 cosmic, powerful, spiritual — lie hidden 
 everywhere in the universe : if a man 
 believes in them, he finds them, and if he 
 finds them, he has found the key that can 
 unlock the secrets and the strongholds of 
 the universe. 
 
 This spiritual possession is the only 
 possession that is inviolable, incorrupti- 
 ble, imperishable, eternal. 
 
 This power will enable man to ac- 
 complish the only betterment that will 
 endure. 
 
 And if a man gain this, he is panoplied 
 to meet whatever may befall — he is 
 forever invincible, he is master and lord 
 over himself and over all the circum- 
 stances of life. 
 
 No outward thing made the slightest 
 difference to Jesus : poverty, suffering, 
 pain, ignominy, injustice, cruelty, did 
 
 [144] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 not touch His perfect poise ; He was the 
 same under all outward circumstances; 
 the same lofty, love-compelling, worship- 
 ful, serene spirit moving in the same high 
 altitude ; whether it was in the radiant 
 sunshine of life or in the dark and 
 ghastly shadow of death. 
 
 He rode smiling through the sparkling, 
 gay Jerusalem, amidst the waving of 
 palms and the acclaim of the multitude; 
 He heard the eager shouts of loud 
 hosannas, and in His heart He knew 
 that they would crown Him king. 
 
 He walked, blood-stained, bearing His 
 bitter cross, through the great gate in 
 the relentless wall that stood around 
 Jerusalem, amidst the loud jeers and 
 sneers of the multitude; He heard the 
 cruel cry "Crucify Him ! Crucify Him !" 
 
 L [ 145 ] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 and in His heart He knew that He was to 
 die as a malefactor. 
 
 And yet, in each event, He was the 
 same — unmoved, unchanged, untouched 
 by the outward condition : the same 
 dignity, the same reality, the same 
 majesty enwrapped Him ; the same pur- 
 pose and consecration possessed Him; 
 the same love emanated from Him. 
 
 The palm-crowned king — the thorn- 
 crowned malefactor ! 
 
 And no one marked a difference in the 
 bearing of the man. 
 
 When a man has reached this suprem- 
 acy over all outward circumstance, then 
 has he reached the highest point of attain- 
 ment, of culture, of possession — whether 
 he be mighty or lowly, rich or poor, prince 
 or pauper, ill or well, lonely or happy, de- 
 famed or honoured. To have a spirit 
 
 [146] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 which is serene in its altitude, which walks 
 unmoved, undisturbed, untouched by 
 any suffering, which is at one with God, 
 — that is the highest Good. 
 
 If a man gain this his individual life 
 will be forever changed, and as a result 
 he will change the life about him — its 
 evils, its conditions for his fellow-men : 
 it is inevitable. 
 
 The Golden Rule will be his rule of 
 life, and betterment for the world will 
 emanate from him even as flowers and 
 fruit open from the sunshine. To give 
 one's all, even one's life, as Jesus did for 
 the betterment of the world, will be the 
 desire of the heart. 
 
 But the true betterment will not come 
 by the waving of red flags and the 
 blowing of brazen trumpets, not by 
 shouting upon the housetops: it will 
 not be brought about by advertised 
 
 [147] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 propaganda, with the tinkling cymbals 
 and sounding brass of observation. 
 
 True betterment will come as the con- 
 summate fruit of the Spirit. 
 
 When it comes, it will be impossible 
 for any class to show hatred and malice, 
 to feel hatred and malice toward another 
 class whilst preaching reformation, how- 
 ever wrong that other class may be. 
 
 This key to the unseen kingdom of 
 the soul is the thing to be striven for : 
 the way to find this key is the supreme 
 and glad Evangel of Jesus. And the 
 present generation of blind guides are 
 turning men's attention away from it 
 and are proclaiming aloud the lesser 
 kingdoms of Observation by their asser- 
 tions — "Lo here, lo there, is the way 
 the Master intended men to build up 
 His kingdom." 
 
 [148] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 "What shall it profit a man, if he shall 
 gain the whole world, and lose his own 
 soul?" 
 
 And what shall it profit humanity if 
 it gain a correct system, a more just 
 equilibrium of social order, and if the 
 soul of humanity, the inward spiritual 
 Vision, are lost meanwhile? 
 
 O that the world might rise above the 
 stress and turmoil, above the strain and 
 the pain, above all the raging warfare 
 of life, and reach the altitude of the soul 
 which Jesus knew ! 
 
 O that poverty, injustice and outward 
 circumstance of life might matter as 
 little to every man as they mattered to 
 Jesus ; that the tragedy of his fate — 
 whatever it be — might daunt every man as 
 little as the tragedy of the Cross daunted 
 Jesus. 
 
 [149] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 In all the dramas of the world there is 
 no more soul-stirring scene than that 
 scene in the Garden of Gethsemane. 
 
 The sombre shadows of the Judaean 
 night enwrap the garden. Jesus is alone. 
 He is spent and worn, for He has been 
 passing through a conflict of soul — it 
 is this passing conflict which proves His 
 sensitive spirit and bravely illustrates 
 the power of His conquest : had He not 
 felt the magnitude of the tragedy, the 
 triumph of His poise would not have 
 proved what it did prove. 
 
 His disciples lie in the distance asleep 
 amidst the sleeping flowers: they are 
 unconscious of the quality of that great 
 soul beside which they have lived. 
 
 Jesus looks up into the cosmic spaces 
 of the starry heavens, drawing, as is His 
 wont, the infinite forces of the universe 
 
 [150] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 from the Infinite Power beyond the 
 
 stars. 
 
 Suddenly, upon the silence of the 
 night, there is heard the clank and clang 
 of armed feet, the clashing of swords 
 and staves, and there flashes in the dark- 
 ness the swift moving of lurid lights — 
 Roman lanterns and flaming torches. 
 
 Jesus looks upon the approaching 
 throng and knows that His hour has 
 come! 
 
 The measure of His sensitive nature, 
 finely attuned to harmony, jarred by all 
 discord, is the measure of His pain : the 
 measure of His titanic soul is the measure 
 of the on-rush of prophetic agony. 
 
 He foresees it all — the betrayal by 
 one He loves, the cruel capture, the 
 ruthless binding of His proud person, 
 the bitter injustice which will give Him 
 
 [151] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 no hearing, the mock trial which will 
 grant Him no defence, the ignominy, 
 the persecution, the malefactor's death. 
 
 But He does not shrink nor falter. 
 
 Out from the shadow of the olive trees 
 He steps into the baneful glare of the 
 relentless torches : 
 
 "Whom seek ye?" He asks. 
 
 For a space the mass of merciless 
 murderers are confounded before the 
 majestic presence of the man, the music 
 of His voice, the lofty dignity of His 
 bearing : He seems to wear an invisible 
 crown beside which the imperial diadem 
 of Csesar is as a worthless bauble. 
 
 Surely, this is some stranger who will 
 help them to find the one they seek — 
 the one who hides in terror from their 
 implacable hate, the relentless purpose 
 of their vengence. 
 
 "Jesus of Nazareth," they answer. 
 
 [152] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 History shows no more sublime pic- 
 ture than that valiant figure, serene, 
 dauntless, undismayed, without one 
 stain of fear, standing before that 
 seething throng of murderers with con- 
 suming hatred in their eyes — the im- 
 placable hatred which possesses men 
 who have been told the truth about 
 themselves : Jesus sees the hatred in 
 their eyes, He sees their swords and 
 staves; beyond — He sees the pitiless 
 path to Golgotha, the bitter cross, and 
 He answers: 
 
 "I am He." 
 
 Then He goes forth to die. 
 
 The way He walks is stained with the 
 blood that flows from the stripes which 
 wanton men have laid upon His precious 
 body. Upon His head there is the cruel 
 crown of thorns — the mockery of its 
 
 [153] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 taunt sharper than the long points of 
 the savage thorns; upon His shoulders 
 He bears the burden of His heavy cross : 
 but on His lips there is a compassionate 
 prayer for those who lead Him on to 
 death. 
 
 Across the chasm of the centuries, 
 through the dark mists of history, we 
 see Him hanging on the cross upon 
 the hill of Golgotha. 
 
 The anguish of pierced flesh wracks 
 His quivering nerves, the hot flush of 
 fever consumes His burning frame, the 
 sneers and jeers of the brutal rabble 
 cut deep into His heart. 
 
 And yet, above it all, behold! He 
 shines serene, calm, triumphant, beauti- 
 ful. 
 
 No outward crucifixion can touch His 
 soul. 
 
 [154] 
 
THE MIGHTY AND THE LOWLY 
 
 Through the deafening din of the 
 centuries, through the rolling echoes of 
 history, we hear His final words which 
 teach us how to die — and how to live : 
 
 "Father, into Thy hands I commend 
 my spirit." 
 
 Printed in the United States of America. 
 [155] 
 
' I ^HE following pages contain advertisements of 
 L books by the same author or on kindred subjects. 
 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 In the Vanguard 
 
 A Play in Three Acts 
 
 Decorated cloth, i2mo, $i.2j> 
 Standard Library Edition, $.jo 
 
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 Vision of War 
 
 By LINCOLN COLCORD 
 
 Cloth, i2mo 
 
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 The Life of Man 
 
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IMPORTANT NEW WORKS 
 
 John M. Synge 
 
 A Few Personal Recollections with Biographical Notes 
 By JOHN MASEFIELD 
 
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