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THE 
 
 METHOD OF JESUS 
 
 AN INTERPRETATION OF 
 PERSONAL RELIGION 
 
 BY 
 
 ALFRED WILLIAMS ANTHONY 
 
 Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Criticism, 
 
 Cobb Divinity School 
 Author of " An Introduction to the Life of Jesus " 
 
 SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY 
 
 New York BOSTON Chicago 
 1899 
 

 Ad 
 
 X.J'WJuLj 
 
 Copyright, 1899, 
 By Silver, Burdbtt and Company. 
 
 TYPOGRAPHY BY C. J. PBTBRS ft SON, 
 BOSTON. 
 
To Her 
 
 Whose Culture of Mind and Heart, 
 
 Sweetness of Disposition, 
 
 High Ideals, 
 
 Patience and Charity, 
 
 Have Enriched My Life, 
 
 And Left a Precious Heritage, 
 
 Pig Wife, 
 
 632675 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In recent theological thinking a wide gap 
 exists between two schools. Conservatives re- 
 iterate time-worn conceptions. Progressives 
 proclaim views so far in advance that only spe- 
 cialists can keep pace with their rate of speed. 
 Between the two the great mass of Christians, 
 dissatisfied with the old theology because of its 
 obvious inadequacy, yet not understanding the 
 new, stand in perplexity, uncertain what to be- 
 lieve. All such need to know that the new 
 theology, wherein true, is really involved in, 
 and as yet but partially evolved from, the 
 old. 
 
 Theology is but man's attempt to state his 
 conception of the divine nature and the divine 
 laws. As man develops in capacity to appre- 
 ciate the Infinite, and perceives ever a little 
 more clearly the operations of divine energy 
 and the expression of divine thought, his the- 
 ology must change; it cannot remain at a 
 standstill. But he will need no new Bible; 
 
 5 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 he simply needs to understand the old Bible 
 better. 
 
 The following attempt to interpret the method 
 of Jesus is Biblical. In its advance it seeks to 
 proceed only a step at a time. If offers a help- 
 ing hand to those who move cautiously and 
 slowly. For others who have thought long 
 and far upon the topics here treated, these 
 pages will have a small, if any message; but 
 the earnest hope is entertained that they may 
 be a real help in stimulating some to study, 
 and to understand, both the mind and the 
 method of the Master. 
 
 A. W. A. 
 
 Cobb Divinity School, Lewiston, Me. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Ultimate Principle 9 
 
 II. The Radiance of his Person 27 
 
 III. The Abounding Life 46 
 
 IV. The Plan of Operation 65 
 
 V. Creative Acts 82 
 
 VI. Rules for the Life Without Ruels . . 103 
 
 VII. Transcendent Repose 121 
 
 VIII. Victory over Self and Circumstance . 137 
 
 IX. The Ministry of Evil 154 
 
 X. Character, the Portal to Vision . . . 168 
 
 XI. The Evidential Value of Life .... 183 
 
 XII. Promoters of Peace 199 
 
 XIII. Perils of Omission 214 
 
 XIV. Want, the Prophecy of Supply .... 224 
 
 XV. Progressive Revelation 240 
 
THE METHOD OF JESUS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ULTIMATE PRINCIPLE. 
 
 Jesus Christ professed to present to men, 
 in substance, the final form of religion. When 
 given, it was not elaborated in detail, but lay 
 infolded in the germ, ready to develop under 
 favorable conditions and in due process of time. 
 Jesus gave, however, the ultimate principle. 
 What is that ultimate principle ? What is the 
 essential feature of the teaching of Jesus ? 
 The creeds and sects and controversies of nine- 
 teen centuries show how variously these ques- 
 tions have been answered. 
 
 "God's love," cry some, "is the chief fact 
 proclaimed by Jesus ; " and they set forth upon 
 a new crusade, as if under a new standard. A 
 prominent utterance it surely was on the lips, 
 and in the still plainer language of the life, of 
 Jesus, — a marvelous truth for the world to 
 know and the church to con, a truth too little 
 9 
 
10 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 understood even now amongst men ; and yet 
 this was scarcely the chief proclamation of 
 Jesus, and cannot be made the center of faith. 
 Are we to rely upon the love of God and noth- 
 ing more ? Is his love the way, the truth, and 
 the life ? While the very essence of the divine 
 nature, yet divine love cannot be the cardinal 
 feature of religion. The love of God is not the 
 object of worship, cannot be regarded as the 
 expression of man's relation to God, is not reg- 
 ulative of human destiny, save as modified by 
 divine wisdom and justice, and cannot be alone 
 the principle of man's faith. Divine love un- 
 derlies, surrounds, permeates, and determines 
 the characteristics of the religion which Jesus 
 revealed, but yet is not the chief fact for man 
 to consider. 
 
 Did Christ come, then, to establish primarily 
 an ecclesiastical system ? Can it be said that 
 the church is the way, the truth, and the life ? 
 Is she the pivot on which religion revolves? 
 Does she possess exclusive control of divine 
 favors and blessings here on earth? In sub- 
 stance these claims have been made for her. 
 Men have deemed attachment to the church, 
 compliance with her requirements, and confi- 
 dence in her acts, of paramount importance. 
 Her absolution they have deemed perfect, her 
 blessings divine, her explanations inspired, her 
 
THE ULTIMATE PRINCIPLE. 11 
 
 decrees infallible. Tendencies in this direction 
 exist in more than one communion. But is this 
 the true core of what Christ brought the world ? 
 Does the kingdom of God, which he proclaimed 
 and established, mean an organization circum- 
 scribed by human suffrage, with membership 
 therein determined by the decree of man, one 
 or many ? 
 
 Perhaps the Apostle Paul magnified faith 
 more than did Jesus, and thereby turned the 
 thought of Christian disciples too much to the 
 systematic statement of the substance of that 
 faith. Certainly the Nicene creed gives a hun- 
 dred-fold greater prominence to abstract theo- 
 logical conceptions than does the Sermon on 
 the Mount ; and much of the experience of the 
 church to-day is determined by the inherited 
 influences of that creed, rather than by the 
 teachings of Jesus. It was not faith of an 
 abstract character that Jesus emphasized, cer- 
 tainly not a faith that embodied a definition of 
 sin, and an explanation of salvation, and con- 
 victions concerning God's sovereignty and 
 man's free agency. When Jesus speaks of 
 faith, it is invariably of a faith in himself. He 
 is supreme ; faith is but a channel leading to 
 him. The faith which means merely an intel- 
 lectual apprehension and syllogistic statement 
 of Biblical history, chronology, and doctrine, 
 
12 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 while perhaps representing orthodoxy, cannot 
 represent Christianity. Jesus Christ has left 
 no evidence that he was a great theologian in 
 the modern sense. He set forth no statement 
 so completely as did Paul. Works upon sys- 
 tematic theology, which appear in his name 
 to-day, would seem out of place in his hands. 
 Theology is important, but it must find its 
 center in him. 
 
 Are we to discover, then, the emphasis of 
 Jesus upon works ? Surely he declared that 
 not they who simply cried " Lord, Lord," should 
 enter into the kingdom of God ; he gave in- 
 structions about doing good in daily life ; he 
 promised rewards for merely distributing cold 
 water ; he depicted the final judgment as 
 phrased in recognition of various charitable 
 and philanthropic deeds, such as become the 
 most practical system of Christian ethics ; yet 
 Jesus did not proclaim as ultimate and final the 
 virtue of good deeds and the necessity of noble 
 living. If that were all, Aristotle and Socrates 
 and Plato might have sufficed as saviors of the 
 world. 
 
 Morality has been decried and abused in time 
 past by a considerable part of the preaching that 
 meant to be Christian. Now it is in danger of 
 being too highly exalted by another part of 
 the preaching that means to be Christian. But 
 
THE ULTIMATE PRINCIPLE. 13 
 
 it must not assume more than its right. A 
 Christian is not a Christian in spite of what 
 he does, as was once thought ; because of faith 
 he cannot presumptuously commit sin. Antino- 
 mianism is dead ; let it be dead ; but the reac- 
 tion must not follow. Works alone do not 
 suffice. The center of religion is far beyond 
 them. Christ affirmed that the virtue of a deed 
 lay not in the deed itself, but in the spirit with 
 which the deed was performed. Motive sanc- 
 tifies movement ; intention gives character to 
 action; devotion ennobles all endeavor; love 
 hallows labor. Jesus asked for works done in 
 his name. The true value of the works lay in 
 their relation to him. 
 
 The fact is, with whatever truth he pro- 
 claimed, Jesus laid stress upon himself. He 
 employed habitually the emphatic "I." "I am 
 the way, the truth and the life ; no man cometh 
 unto the Father except by Me." It is the su- 
 premest egotism the world has ever known or 
 dreamed of, an egotism steeped in humility, 
 an egotism transformed by self-sacrifice, an 
 egotism actuated by love; it is a self-con- 
 sciousness, never forgetting itself, yet never 
 seeking its own ; it is self -justification — 
 " which one of you convinceth Me of sin ? " 
 — yet never boastful; it recognizes the pos- 
 session of infinite power, yet never employs 
 
14 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 that power for personal comfort or personal 
 safety. It is the unparalleled paradox of all 
 history. 
 
 Jesus Christ is the central fact ; he is the 
 ultimate principle. He stands in the forefront 
 throughout the New Testament, both in the 
 Gospels and in the Epistles, in the preaching 
 of the apostles as well as in his own declara- 
 tions. John came preaching him : " Behold the 
 Lamb of God." Jesus proclaimed himself with- 
 out stint: "I am the door," "I am the good 
 shepherd," "I am the bread that came down 
 out of heaven," " Moses wrote of Me," " and I, 
 if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me," 
 " I and my Father are one," " All men should 
 honor the Son, even as they honor the Father." 
 While he proclaimed the kingdom of heaven, 
 the love of God, and the redemption of man 
 from sin, yet he preached himself most. He 
 inaugurated, as never before nor since, a re- 
 ligion of personality. 
 
 The apostles preached not faith, not works, 
 not conversion, nor baptism, nor sanctification ; 
 not the church, not theology, not creeds, nor the- 
 ories of God's purposes, plans, government or 
 attributes ; but they preached Christ, — Christ 
 crucified, Christ risen, Christ living as savior, 
 sanctifier, strength-giver, and life: Christ the 
 Son of God, the atonement for sin, the great 
 
THE ULTIMATE PRINCIPLE. 15 
 
 example, the present and loving friend. In all 
 their preaching they lifted him up. The sub- 
 stance of Peter's sermon on the day of Pente- 
 cost lies in the conclusion, " Therefore let all the 
 house of Israel know assuredly that God hath 
 made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified 
 both Lord and Christ." It was of the same sub- 
 ject that Peter again discoursed unto the people 
 on the day when the lame beggar was healed "at 
 the gate of the temple which is called Beauti- 
 ful : " " Unto you first, God, having raised up 
 his son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning 
 every one of you from his iniquities." On the 
 next day thereafter, before the rulers, Peter 
 and John bore testimony that " neither is there 
 any other : for there is none other name under 
 heaven given among men, whereby we must be 
 saved." It was the Christ foretold in prophecy 
 of whom Stephen preached. Unto the eunuch 
 " Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at 
 the same scripture preached unto him Jesus." 
 Of Paul the simple record is, that after his 
 conversion, "straightway he preached Christ 
 in the synagogues, that he is the Son of 
 God." 
 
 This, then, is Christianity's own central fact, 
 not an abstraction, an axiom, an obligation ; not 
 a posture, a form, a genuflexion ; not a rite, nor 
 a ceremony ; not an offering, a gift, nor a sacri- 
 
16 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 fice demanded ; not a place, a feeling, a mem- 
 ory ; nothing, indeed, but a personality, a living 
 being, the Christ. 
 
 Suppose one expounds to a child the depths 
 of tenderness and the patient endurance of a 
 mother's love ; or lets the child nestle in its moth- 
 er's arms, weep out its woes, and tell its joys in 
 the sympathizing ear : which method will reveal 
 to the child the real maternal affection ? Can 
 another's eloquence take the place of personal 
 experience ? Was ever a boy asked to subscribe 
 to the statement that his mother weighed one 
 hundred and forty-six pounds, stood five feet 
 and three inches tall, was composed of so many 
 parts of hydrogen and oxygen, so many parts 
 of nitrogen, so many parts of phosphates, and 
 so many parts of other chemical substances ? 
 Do we in this way ascertain whether a lad loves, 
 honors, and obeys his mother, and tries to imi- 
 tate her ? Is it thus we relate ourselves to per- 
 sons ? The dialectics of affection, of friendship, 
 of maternity, can never disclose to the hungry 
 human heart what love is, and what friendship 
 contains of sympathy and helpfulness and joy, 
 and what " mother " means in all the long years 
 of life from the cradle to the grave. 
 
 Alas! it has been only in religion that men 
 have thought it needful to inquire into devotion 
 by means of the catechism, to ascertain the 
 
THE ULTIMATE PRINCIPLE. 17 
 
 heartbeats by investigating what the head con- 
 tains, to test the depth of love by the strength 
 and lucidity of opinion, and to estimate the value 
 of discipleship by the correctness of theological 
 views. The invitation of Jesus to the labor- 
 weary and the heavy-burdened is like that of a 
 mother : " Come unto me . . . and I will give 
 you rest ; " his call to men of sorrow and suffer- 
 ing and weakness was the assurance of a friend 
 to render them help, to share their griefs, to 
 relieve their perplexities, and to enlighten their 
 ignorance. 
 
 The personality of the Christ is far above all 
 mere formulae of religion and creed-statements. 
 It is to a person that Christianity has ever in- 
 vited its followers, and yet the very disciples 
 who associated with him three years in his Pal- 
 estinian ministry did not comprehend his person 
 and his mission, — " Have I been so long time 
 with you, and yet hast thou not known me, 
 Philip ? " And many another disciple, even after 
 decades of discipleship, fails to realize his dis- 
 cipleship to a real person, a living spirit. Chris- 
 tianity in its essence is simpler than many a 
 Christian thinks. We struggle with great vol- 
 umes, we are catechised upon profound myste- 
 ries, we do not hesitate to formulate opinions 
 concerning eternal truths of which the begin- 
 ning lies in the counsels of God, and the end 
 
18 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 terminates with eternity ; we profess allegiance 
 to this or that doctrine, when all the time the 
 simple question should be, What is Christ to 
 us ? What is our relation to our Friend, Brother, 
 Saviour ? 
 
 There is nothing mystical about belief in the 
 personality of Jesus. If one believes in any kind 
 of immortality ; if one has place for a belief in 
 the existence of spiritual beings of any nature, if 
 one but clearly recognizes the psychic phenom- 
 ena, so much discussed to-day, of the continuity 
 of a personal mind, for example, from youth to 
 old age, while the physical tenement-house un- 
 dergoes renovation and complete replacement 
 a score of times, or of the telepathic influences 
 which overleap space and seem independent of 
 mere body, or of the mental contents which 
 as hopes, aspirations, and convictions transcend 
 all experience, and point to a life now lived that 
 is more than purely material ; if indeed one has 
 place for these conceptions in his thinking, then 
 has one a natural and inevitable place for the 
 recognition of the present personal existence 
 of Jesus Christ. 
 
 With most of mankind the friends who died 
 yesterday are not dead ; having laid aside their 
 material forms, they are living still. Only the 
 body died. The tenement-house crumbled, but 
 the tenant has moved forth into larger quar- 
 
THE ULTIMATE PRINCIPLE. 19 
 
 ters, into greater freedom. Jesus lives, as they, 
 yet far more truly ; for he lives without limita- 
 tion. After his death he proved his life ; and no 
 fact of Christianity is more completely demon- 
 strated, and in no other religion is there one 
 fact so clearly proved as the resurrection. Be- 
 fore the crucifixion he manifested the scope of 
 his possibilities by showing his nature as far 
 above that of man, while yet living as man. To 
 believe in the spiritual existence of Jesus, in his 
 attributes which overtop space and time, is but 
 the legitimate transcendentalism that notes 
 whither history, science, religion, and human 
 need point. The religion of personality em- 
 ploys present tenses. We are invited not 
 merely to an historic Christ, but also to a 
 living Christ. 
 
 Of himself Jesus said, " I am the way, the 
 truth and the life." Paraphrased, this might 
 read, " I am the means, the end, and the power ; 
 the final goal am I, the avenue leading thereto, 
 and the very power by which one passes over 
 the road ; in me alone are destination, route, and 
 power of locomotion ; I am the way, the truth 
 and the life." 
 
 Truth surely is the goal. This age seeks 
 truth. What are the facts ? That is the in- 
 quiry of science. What do the facts portend ? 
 What lies back of appearance ? These are the 
 
20 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 lines of investigation pursued by scientists and 
 philosophers. Mere opinion, mere conjecture, 
 phenomena alone, are worth less to-day than 
 ever before, because to-day more than ever be- 
 fore, men are seeking for truth. Even some of 
 the commotions taking place in many of our 
 longest settled, most conservative convictions 
 show that we are not content to receive inherit- 
 ances from the past unquestioned, but are bound 
 to ask, " Are they true ? " and probe them to the 
 core. 
 
 So Jesus proclaimed himself as the end. 
 He is the solution that men seek, if they did but 
 know it. While working on a problem, men do 
 not know the answer that they seek, but Jesus 
 has the answer all worked out. He is the re- 
 ligous finality, when he is fully understood. 
 He does not profess to state which is the true 
 system of therapeutics, allopathy, or homoeop- 
 athy, nor to declare whether each and every 
 one of Darwin's conclusions concerning the 
 evolution of species are correct ; nor does he 
 give the least suggestion that he purposes to 
 solve all difficulties in geology, biology, astron- 
 omy, or chemistry ; nor that he will explain the 
 composition of the Pentateuch, or any problem 
 pertaining to the physical, material, mental, or 
 even moral universe. He plainly indicates in 
 which domain he answers inquiries, and pro- 
 
THE ULTIMATE PRINCIPLE. 21 
 
 fesses to be the end, truth. It is the spiritual, 
 the religious domain alone : "No man cometh to 
 the Father except by Me;" "he that hath seen 
 Me, hath seen the Father also." In man's search 
 for God, Christ will answer questions. He is 
 truth ; here he follows every interrogation point 
 with an explanation, but not with a period ; for 
 there may be more to learn, — more questions, 
 more answers, more growth, more truth. 
 
 The goal is ultimate. He who comes thereto 
 need seek no further, though at the goal he 
 needs still to understand the true significance 
 of his attainment. He who comes to the ulti- 
 mate principle obtains a complete revelation, 
 though not yet completed within himself, for 
 his soul must assimilate what he has found, and 
 can assimilate but slowly. Nevertheless he has 
 attained the vantage ground where he can learn 
 the proper relation of his own soul to the di- 
 vine ; can experience the appropriate peace and 
 contentment that the human heart, with sin 
 oppressed, craves before its sovereign, and can 
 receive the stimulus and strength that weak 
 humanity requires in order to render it ade- 
 quate for divine obligations: "The truth shall 
 make you free." 
 
 " I am the way," said Jesus. One city lies 
 forty miles distant from another ; can it be said 
 that the way to the latter lies through the lat- 
 
22 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 ter ? that the destination and the route are 
 one ? Yet this is what Jesus says of himself : 
 "The way to Me lies through Me." Christ 
 is the means as well as the end ; to find him 
 one must make use of him. At first this may 
 seem absurd, but only at first. Christ's seeking 
 man precedes man's seeking him ; his overtures 
 antedate any of man's desires. He is at the 
 door before man opens the door ; to find him 
 is really to find oneself in relation to him. To 
 know him a little is to learn of him more ; to 
 see him dimly is to bring him nearer ; to hear 
 of him from others is to become acquainted 
 with him for oneself. It is the fulfillment of 
 the saying of old, "To him that hath shall be 
 given." A little of Christ reveals more of 
 Christ, and it requires a little to find the 
 more. 
 
 Employing Christ to find Christ is as diver- 
 sified a process as are the experiences of the 
 human heart and the possibilities of human life. 
 No two start from the same point. In different 
 directions, at different angles, they approach 
 one common center. If each employs what 
 each already knows of Christ, the issue will be 
 for each the same. To put in practice truth 
 already discerned leads to more truth ; to medi- 
 tate upon mystery is but to prepare the soul for 
 entrance into the mystery, and, indeed, to pick 
 
THE ULTIMATE PRINCIPLE. 23 
 
 away little by little upon the substance of the 
 mystery itself ; even telling to others half-real- 
 ized hopes and indistinct impressions is to limn 
 upon the soul in clearer outlines every aspect 
 of these hopes and impressions. It is by taking 
 the truth and pondering upon it that the truth 
 becomes vital. 
 
 Every little truth is the germ of a great 
 truth. Involution has preceded evolution by 
 the infinite distance of infinite thought. All 
 was implicit; very little as yet has been ren- 
 dered explicit. When the mind steadily con- 
 templates one serious truth, confirmation comes 
 from every side, even from the most unexpected 
 and unlikely sources. So any fact in Christ's 
 life and utterances and influence may be the 
 starting point for a fuller revelation and a com- 
 pleter understanding of him. It is but neces- 
 sary to begin. 
 
 Jesus is also the life. Life means vitality, 
 activity, strength; it may be called power, 
 although it is not mere abstract force; it is 
 vastly more, for in man life involves spiritual, 
 as well as physical, functions. But Christ is 
 power unto his disciples, he is the support 
 and strength of his followers. " Without Me 
 ye can do nothing," he said to them. " My 
 grace is sufficient for thee," was his message 
 to the Apostle Paul, and that apostle straight- 
 
24 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 way replied, " In weakness am I then strong." 
 Jesus restores flagging zeal, he imparts new 
 courage, he quickens drooping energies, he 
 gives large outlooks and high resolves to his 
 disciples. 
 
 But we have no warrant to claim that he will 
 always bend to our wishes and answer our weak 
 prayers just as we make them, foolishly often- 
 times, though uttered in his name and, as we 
 may think, according to his will. Were he 
 so to yield to us his power, he would but re- 
 pudiate his own wisdom, and accept our scant 
 supply instead. The attempt to dictate to the 
 Almighty in regard to health either of ourselves 
 or of our friends belongs to no kind of science, 
 " Christian " or "natural." That the Almighty 
 has power is not in question ; his wisdom alone 
 is at stake, — a wisdom which has ordained the 
 laws of the universe, physical as well as spir- 
 itual. 
 
 In the sphere of spiritual search and heart- 
 inquiry that power, however, is unreservedly 
 available for man. He is the life for those who 
 seek God : " No man cometh unto the Father 
 except by Me." For entrance to God Christ's 
 help is needful ; to find Christ is to be borne on 
 unto God ; to enter into Christ is to enter into 
 God; "He that hath seen Me hath seen the 
 Father also." 
 
THE ULTIMATE PRINCIPLE. 25 
 
 But a transformation takes place in this fel- 
 lowship. Two friends in proportion to their 
 intimacy grow alike. Husband and wife in the 
 union of close accord tend to conform each 
 to the other even in physical appearance. In 
 fact all sympathy tends to assimilation, and love 
 causes coalescence. So in the fellowship and 
 friendship of Jesus a new life begins. Regen- 
 eration is not a mere figure of .speech ; tha 
 power imparted, the means employed, the knowl- 
 edge acquired, the love aroused, work changes 
 in our very natures ; all things become new ; we 
 become transformed into another likeness, into 
 the likeness of Christ. We begin to live as 
 never before, and can say, in the words of Paul, 
 11 1 live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." 
 The divine ideal begins then to be realized 
 within us, as his personality and ours begin to 
 blend. 
 
 Christ, then, is ultimate. Employing him 
 discovers him ; beholding him produces con- 
 formity in type. He is life, not merely as pat- 
 tern, nor yet as inspiration alone ; but he is 
 a transforming power amongst men. Nations 
 most imbued with his spirit advance most 
 rapidly in the civilization and culture of Chris- 
 tian intelligence, philanthropy, and purity ; indi- 
 viduals most completely indoctrinated with his 
 principles, while amongst men in very lowly 
 
26 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 circumstances, yet dignify their lot and glorify 
 human environment into the conditions of the 
 kingdom of God. That he is the way, the 
 truth and the life is demonstrable, not in theory 
 alone, but on the pages of history and in the 
 private record of many human hearts. The 
 germ of nineteen centuries ago has not yet 
 fully unfolded into the perfect form of the king- 
 dom of God, but the development is in process ; 
 the kingdom of God, while still coming, has 
 already come ; the ultimate principle has been 
 disclosed. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 That it was the life of Jesus, the very life, 
 rather than the record of that life, which has 
 influenced the world, enlightening it and re- 
 deeming it, is not difficult to discover. The 
 scantiness of the record itself is a fact in evi- 
 dence. The entire New Testament does not 
 equal in length and comprehensiveness one vol- 
 ume of any of the well-known biographies of 
 famous men, like Boswell's Life 'of Johnson, Irv- 
 ing's Life of Washington, or Carlyle's Life of 
 Frederick the Great. Then, of the twenty-seven 
 books within its covers, only four are directly 
 descriptive of Jesus, in bulk a little less than 
 one-half of the entire New Testament. Then, 
 too, the Gospels duplicate each other in large 
 part. If all that is repeated in parallel passages 
 be eliminated, the narrative, reduced to very 
 small proportions, will present the true dimen- 
 sions of the recorded history of Jesus, the whole 
 in length scarcely more than equaling one chap- 
 ter of an ordinary biography. Has such a narra- 
 
 1 Some sentences in this chapter are repeated from my " An Introduction 
 to the Life of Jesus." 
 
 27 
 
28 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 tive as that, so brief, so fragmentary, so obscure 
 in places, been the means of stirring the world 
 so profoundly as Christianity has ? Do the po- 
 tency and the virtue lie in the record ? Impos- 
 sible. Back of the record, more than parchment, 
 more than phrases, more than history, more than 
 biography, there must be a life. 
 
 The record does not reveal all of that life. 
 It is obviously incomplete. Of the sayings 
 of Jesus it has preserved but comparatively 
 few. No book printed, no series of volumes 
 ever published, no manuscripts ever penned, 
 could contain all that any one person, how- 
 ever taciturn, in the course of three years' 
 contact with the people of city and country, 
 would have uttered in conversation and public 
 address, in inquiries and answers, in exhorta- 
 tions and soliloquies, in prayer and praise. 
 But Jesus was not taciturn and uncommunica- 
 tive. It was his very mission to teach, to 
 preach, to proclaim the kingdom of God as at 
 hand, to reveal himself. Yet he who spake as 
 never man spake, though speaking so wonder- 
 fully, had by him no phonograph, no steno- 
 graphic reporter, no scribe, no private secretary. 
 Those words of his which have been preserved 
 must have burned themselves into the memories 
 of the persons who heard them, as living, glow- 
 ing samples of the whole. What a multitude 
 
THE RADIANCE OF HIS PERSON. 29 
 
 of sayings have been lost ! But more than 
 mere words is now transforming the world. 
 Such efficacy lies not in mere language. The 
 life itself was imparted ; the life came into the 
 world, and has remained constantly disseminat- 
 ing itself. 
 
 Of the works of Jesus, but few are described 
 in the narrative. This is not an assumption, 
 but is indicated in the narrative itself. Of the 
 "mighty works" done in Chorazin and Beth- 
 saida, referred to by Jesus as sufficient to have 
 convicted the wicked cities of Tyre and Sidon, 
 had they been done in them, we know nothing. 
 At the first Passover in Jerusalem " n^any be- 
 lieved on his name, beholding his signs which 
 he did." Of these signs also we have no 
 account whatever. In the last two chapters of 
 the Fourth Gospel, the writer plainly says, 
 " Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the 
 presence of his disciples, which are not written 
 in this book ; but these are written that ye may 
 believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
 God ; and that believing ye may have life in 
 his name ; " " And there are also many other 
 things which Jesus did, the which if they should 
 be written every one, I suppose that even the 
 world itself would not contain the books that 
 should be written." Such expressions as these, 
 by one intimately conversant with that life, 
 
30 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 though in the hyperbolic language of the Orient, 
 yet plainly show the magnitude of that life as 
 beyond the power of pen or tongue. 
 
 There were also many persons believing on 
 Jesus of whom we have no further tidings than 
 a casual allusion in the record. At that first 
 Passover in Jerusalem, just mentioned, "many 
 believed on his name." How many they were, 
 or who they were, or how long they continued 
 in discipleship we have no means of knowing. 
 A short time later the disciples of John the 
 Baptist saw so many coming to Jesus for bap- 
 tism that they could exclaim in exasperation to 
 their Master, " Rabbi, he that was with thee 
 beyond Jordan, to whom thou hast borne wit- 
 ness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men 
 come to him," — a testimony of success not 
 elsewhere amplified. Because of Lazarus many 
 Jews went away and believed on Jesus, and at 
 another time even some of the rulers believed 
 upon him, yet, fearing the Pharisees and loving 
 the glory of men more than the glory of God, 
 did not confess him. 
 
 In all these directions the record suggests 
 influences from the life of Jesus upon the men 
 of his time reaching far beyond the mere nar- 
 rative. It is obvious, therefore, that an exhaus- 
 tive record of the life of Jesus does not, and 
 could not, exist. The best we have is deficient 
 
THE RADIANCE OF HIS PERSON. 31 
 
 in an account of the words, the works, and the 
 personal influence of Jesus as he moved amongst 
 men. The life is plainly more than the record. 
 The life gives radiance and brilliancy and glory 
 to the record. The record condenses and epit- 
 omizes ; the life was vast and full. The record 
 is fragmentary and presents gaps ; the life was 
 continuous. What is recorded must be regarded 
 as but specimens of the whole ; the main features 
 are delineated and the chief characteristics are 
 brought out. 
 
 During all his ministry Jesus evinced su- 
 preme confidence in the efficacy of his own 
 life without external aid or support of any kind. 
 In giving himself to the world he seemed sed- 
 ulously to avoid outward acts which might in 
 any degree limit his life to mere form. He 
 left behind him no written word. Had he 
 done so, what a "sacred relic" it would have 
 been for glass show cases and long pilgrimages 
 and " holy " ostentation. But with stylus he 
 committed to papyrus or parchment no auto- 
 biography, no diary, no memoir, no epistles 
 even. The legend which arose about three 
 hundred years after his crucifixion in regard 
 to a correspondence with Abgarus, king of 
 Syria, has in it no ground of credence what- 
 ever. According to that legend Abgarus wrote 
 to Jesus with the request to come to Edessa 
 
S2 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 and heal the king of a certain disease from 
 which he suffered, and Jesus replied with a 
 letter saying that he himself could not come, 
 but that after his resurrection one of his dis- 
 ciples would come and heal the disease and 
 teach the people. The text of this alleged let- 
 ter, covering about twenty lines of an ordinary 
 page, is preserved in a Syriac document now 
 in the British Museum in London. But there 
 is not the slightest trustworthy evidence that 
 Jesus ever composed a word of the epistle. It 
 is an invention of a later day. Jesus left no 
 written word. The only incident, probably au- 
 thentic, of his making letters or hieroglyphics of 
 any kind is at the time when, stooping down, 
 he wrote with his finger on the ground, and 
 said to the woman taken in adultery, "Neither 
 do I condemn thee ; go, and sin no more." 
 And yet even this incident is not found in the 
 oldest texts of the New Testament. He be- 
 queathed no literary remains to the world. He 
 gave simply — yet how marvelously — his life ; 
 that was to be the radiance of the world. 
 
 Jesus did not even add his signature to an 
 account of himself, thereby authenticating the 
 narrative. There was to be no standard, or 
 copyright edition of his life. He directed 
 no one to write his biography. While giving 
 instructions to his disciples to teach and preach 
 
THE RADIANCE OF HIS PERSON. 33 
 
 all that he had said and done, he designated no 
 one to act as historian. The little band of fol- 
 lowers had its treasurer, but never a secretary. 
 Jesus made no provision for the composition of 
 a record and the preservation of documents. 
 He left simply his life; that, like the leaven, 
 was to be self-propagating. If it was misunder- 
 stood, he could calmly suffer it so ; if it was to 
 be misrepresented, he was willing to permit all 
 of those possibilities. The life would yet assert 
 itself and banish error. That was stupendous 
 confidence imposed in the future. 
 
 It is further noteworthy that Jesus himself 
 baptized no one. While bidding his disciples 
 to baptize, and himself receiving the adminis- 
 tration of the rite at the hands of John the 
 Baptist, he seemed unwilling to give occasion 
 for any pretentiousness, ever to claim a special 
 excellence in the descent of baptismal merit 
 through external channels from him. Had 
 he personally baptized, then some men would 
 have arisen to assert that no initiation into his 
 life was valid save that following in direct 
 course through an unbroken succession from 
 him. The life would have been limited within 
 Christo-derivative, baptismal bounds, which he 
 was unwilling to allow. Judaism already had 
 the taint about it of rigid formality and tra- 
 ditionalism. This he would avoid. 
 
34 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 It is noticeable, also, that while Jesus gath- 
 ered about him a band of disciples, who subse- 
 quently proved the nucleus of the Christian 
 Church, yet he did not formally organize a 
 church. No mode of organization and govern- 
 ment can claim precedent or indorsement from 
 him. " Apostolic " is the highest sanction any 
 ecclesiastical body has ever hoped to deserve. 
 In his presence Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and 
 Congregational forms stand alike. The life is 
 limited to no one, but may flow through each, 
 and outside of all. 
 
 In giving his life to men, in healing their 
 infirmities, relieving their distresses, Jesus fre- 
 quently enjoined them strictly not to tell of 
 what he had done. To the leper he -said, 
 " See thou tell no man ; " the two men who had 
 been blind he charged, " See that no man know 
 it;" when by the Lake of Galilee he healed 
 the people, he "charged them that they should 
 not make him known;" when he had cast 
 out unclean spirits, " he suffered not the de- 
 mons to speak because they knew them ; " 
 when he had raised Jairus's daughter "he 
 charged them much that no man should know 
 this ; " the dumb, who found his tongue be- 
 cause of Christ's healing, was bidden to remain 
 silent still as to who had performed the cure ; 
 and even when the disciples had confessed him 
 
THE RADIANCE OF HIS PERSON. 35 
 
 through the mouth of Peter as "the Christ 
 of God," and when they had beheld the glory 
 of his transfiguration on the mountain, he 
 cautioned them to tell no man, or at least not 
 until after his resurrection. Such prohibi- 
 tions, so numerous and so strict, seem obvi- 
 ously to indicate that Jesus wished, so long as 
 he himself was amongst men, to be his own 
 means of revelation unto men, not allowing 
 those who had but caught for the first time a 
 glimpse of his character and mere fragments 
 of his life to pass about amongst men the 
 meager, imperfect representations of that life 
 which they then would be sure to give ; for the 
 life itself was at hand, to reveal itself, needing 
 then no intermediary, no representation. 
 
 There are thirteen such prohibitions re- 
 corded in the Gospels, and but one command 
 of a directly opposite character. According to 
 the Gospel of Mark the man in the country of 
 the Gerasenes, from whom a legion of demons 
 had been expelled, was bidden, " Go to thy 
 house unto thy friends, and tell them how great 
 things the Lord hath done for thee, and how 
 he had mercy on thee." Here there is a mes- 
 sage of mercy to be proclaimed. Jesus nowhere 
 posed as a great healer ; he was always a man 
 of mercy, a Christ of forgiveness and grace, a 
 Saviour. It is certainly probable that this com- 
 
36 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 mand rested upon the man's character, he be- 
 ing one who could appreciate something of the 
 inner, spiritual part of mercy, and probable 
 that it rested also upon the consideration in 
 the Master's mind, that unless that home heard 
 by way of the healed man it might not hear at 
 all of Jesus. To hold men in check until they 
 could once fairly recognize that life of mercy 
 and grace, was to favor the increase of the 
 proper recognition, when once begun ; it was to 
 pause a while for the determination of the kind 
 of leaven that should be intrusted to the whole 
 lump. 
 
 But the pure radiance of that life can be 
 seen, when we consider that the earliest and 
 greatest conquests made by Christianity were 
 achieved at a time when no record whatever 
 existed, and the life was disseminated solely by 
 preaching and through personal contact. Not 
 one of the twenty-seven documents now consti- 
 tuting the New Testament canon was in exist- 
 ence until a score of years after the crucifixion 
 of Jesus. 1 Then the Epistle of James and the 
 First Epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians were 
 penned, with perhaps a year or two between 
 them. None of our present Gospels were in 
 
 1 The world has been saying twenty-three years ; within recent 
 months Professor Harnack of Berlin has been urging a period of 
 but eighteen years. 
 
THE RADIANCE OF HIS PERSON. 37 
 
 existence until nearly forty years after the 
 death of Jesus, while the last one, the Gospel 
 of John, was probably written fully sixty years 
 after the resurrection. At the time, therefore, 
 when Christianity was making some of its 
 greatest triumphs, the apostles had practically 
 no Bible, certainly no New Testament what- 
 ever in its present form. While men were 
 devoid of the Book of appeal and of instruction 
 such as we have, the simple efficacy of the life 
 became the more apparent. While there was no 
 record to vie with the life and usurp its place, 
 the radiance of the life was the more striking. 
 
 Peter, when preaching on the day of Pen- 
 tecost, had no written or printed Gospel from 
 which to preach. Philip, expounding to the 
 eunuch of the south country the significance 
 of messianic prophecies, had no Gospel of Mat- 
 thew, Mark, Luke, or John to cite by chapter 
 and verse. Paul, traveling from city to city 
 and proclaiming the message of the cross unto 
 the Gentiles, had no Foreign Bible Society be- 
 hind him putting into his hands translations of 
 the Gospels for distribution as tracts amongst 
 the heathen ; he was without sacred documents 
 save those of the old covenant. Through all 
 these men the life shone with intense, yet 
 simple radiance. Acquainted with Jesus, they 
 preached Jesus; understanding his life, they 
 
38 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 disclosed it to others ; and possessed by that 
 life, they were enabled to pen records, as the 
 need was felt, and to amplify its application as 
 new demands of human nature and human 
 experience were heard. 
 
 But the life was the great fact. In that age 
 without a record the potency of the life became 
 revealed. How it spread ! By it three thou- 
 sand were touched and transformed on the day 
 of Pentecost. Soon a persecution, intended to 
 check the life, simply scattered the possessors 
 of it abroad, and by so much the more dissemi- 
 nated the life. It took root in Phenicia and 
 Cyprus and Antioch. From Antioch, under an 
 epithet at first given in derision, — " Christian," 
 — but soon exalted to honor, with Paul and 
 Barnabas the seed was borne forth to fill the 
 world. With Paul it spread throughout Asia 
 Minor, thence over into Macedonia, thence into 
 Greece, and finally, after a short lapse of time, 
 even unto the Imperial City. What a conquest 
 was that ! All this time there was no New Tes- 
 tament, but the life was operative in the minds 
 and hearts of men ; churches were multiplied 
 and converts were counted by the thousand. If 
 this was not a divine life, then there have been 
 manifested, in the history of the Christian 
 Church, human phenomena which the world has 
 never elsewhere seen duplicated. 
 
THE RADIANCE OF HIS PERSON. 39 
 
 But we must consider yet farther, while 
 numbers were so increasing, what wonderful 
 changes were taking place in the character of 
 the men who were subject to the influence of 
 that potent life. Men like Peter and John, 
 without diploma or degree from the schools of 
 the Rabbis, and to the Jew in consequence " un- 
 learned and ignorant men," spoke with so much 
 boldness and clear discernment that their hear- 
 ers accounted for the strange eloquence only by 
 saying that "they had been with Jesus." A 
 man like Peter, intensely Jewish in his natural 
 make-up and convictions, became sufficiently 
 broad-minded and liberal to visit Caesarea, carry- 
 ing Christian ministrations unto Cornelius, a 
 previously despised Gentile ; and, though with 
 some slight lapses, the same disciple ever after 
 retained an open heart for those who believed 
 from amongst the Gentiles. That Peter, im- 
 pulsive, almost fickle, who, after most em- 
 phatic assertion of loyalty and faithfulness, 
 had within a night denied even more emphat- 
 ically and with an oath that he so much as 
 knew Jesus by sight, became in process of 
 time calm and steadfast, even to the endur- 
 ance of imprisonment for Christ's sake, yielding 
 up his very life at length by a cruel martyr- 
 dom, yet unswerving in his allegiance to his 
 Lord. 
 
40 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 Men like the inhabitants of Corinth, ac- 
 customed to luxury, prone to sensuality and 
 sordidness, could become pure in purpose, gen- 
 erous in thought and loyal to Christ, as the 
 correspondence of Paul with them shows, de- 
 spite its obvious reproofs and corrections. The 
 Galatians, though fickle and easily moved from 
 their professions, could nevertheless become 
 stalwart enough to receive stern rebuke and 
 strict instruction, under the apostle's confi- 
 dence of their profiting thereby. Those Gen- 
 tile converts addressed in the Epistle to the 
 Ephesians, surrounded and well-nigh charmed 
 by the elegance and pomp and arts of heathen 
 worship, became, nevertheless, transformed into 
 worshipers of the true God, fellow-heirs with 
 the Father's most favored children. 
 
 Wonderful, truly stupendous changes were 
 wrought in the people of those early days by 
 the effect of the life, reflected through the me- 
 dium of human lives, — changes which though 
 happily not confined to that age, yet enable us 
 to see most clearly the resplendent radiance 
 of the life and its mighty effects when opera- 
 tive alone. Everywhere it gave mental and 
 spiritual enlightenment. Once those humble 
 Galilean peasants were not able to receive the 
 utterances of Jesus and he had been obliged 
 to withhold many a declaration he would fain 
 
THE RADIANCE OF HIS PERSON. 41 
 
 have given ; but how their capacity subse- 
 quently increased and how the revelations then 
 came to them under the guidance of the Spirit ! 
 They so grew and expanded as at length to 
 become, to all subsequent ages, the medium of 
 communication concerning the Christ who had 
 appeared to them in the flesh and had held 
 discourse and instruction with them for three 
 years. Fishermen became ambassadors and 
 heralds ; peasants became the custodians of the 
 greatest, deepest, broadest philosophy the world 
 has ever known ; unlearned and ignorant men 
 were fitted to be the religious guides and sacred 
 historians of the world, and coming generations 
 have looked back to their utterances and exam- 
 ples as the oracles of God. 
 
 It was a wonderful life that could enlighten 
 men to such an extent. Human powers and 
 capabilities have not repeated such marvelous 
 mental and spiritual changes, as were wrought 
 in those simple Galilean fishermen, and all his- 
 tory has no precedent to offer. It was dis- 
 tinctly, as Jesus himself said, unto the poor 
 that the Gospel had been preached, and yet 
 these very people, poor and destitute of human 
 resources, accomplished, not through slow lapse 
 of years but with startling celerity, almost im- 
 mediately, wherever they went, the most stu- 
 pendous results in influencing their fellowmen 
 
42 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 and in affecting human institutions : results 
 which could never have been effected by the 
 most perfect system and organization that 
 man's unaided wisdom has ever devised, by the 
 influence and prestige of kings and rulers, by 
 the force of the largest combinations of men 
 the world has ever known, or by the employ- 
 ment of all the capital and wealth the world 
 has been able to heap together. Yet a re-crea- 
 tion of individuals, a transformation of com- 
 munities, and a remolding of human thought 
 and expectation were accomplished through 
 the early Christians. It was the life of Christ 
 which wrought these mighty effects in men, 
 through the instrumentality of very ordinary, 
 weak mortals. Indeed the weakness of the 
 instruments but the more clearly displays the 
 efficiency of the power. 
 
 And then through these unpromising chan- 
 nels what further modifications, after lapse of 
 time, were accomplished in society ! The life 
 became gradually so widely disseminated that 
 the home felt its influence, governments be- 
 came remodeled, law took on new expressions, 
 commercial transactions evinced different prin- 
 ciples, and literature acquired new standards 
 and felt the throb of an entirely new purpose. 
 The life was the light of humanity, and so per- 
 meated humanity as to give it, not new appear- 
 
THE RADIANCE OF HIS PERSON. 43 
 
 ances and new forms only, but also a new 
 character and a new nature. 
 
 With these facts in mind three brief corol- 
 laries now thrust themselves upon the atten- 
 tion : — 
 
 (i). Since the life has been the light of the 
 world, we need feel no anxiety for the perpetu- 
 ity of the church of Christ, and need not yield 
 for a moment to discouragement concerning 
 her work. Despite the fact of Sabbath dese- 
 cration, despite the prevalence of crime and 
 lust and sin, despite forgetfulness of moral 
 obligations and denials of God, despite the 
 mass of horrid human actions, which a sensa- 
 tional press daily brings beneath our eyes, yet 
 we must not think that the world is growing 
 worse, that the church is failing in her mission, 
 and that Christianity is not gaining ground. 
 Sensational news is news simply because it is 
 exceptional. Christian virtues have become 
 commonplace. The life has come into the 
 world, and what it has called into existence 
 it can surely preserve. Were the church uni- 
 versal to be swept away in a moment, still 
 would the life remain ; that was operative be- 
 fore there was a church ; it does not secure 
 its strength from the church, but rather the 
 church has drawn all her strength from the 
 life ; so long, therefore, as she continues to 
 
44 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 draw her sustenance from Christ, her life and 
 usefulness are assured. 
 
 (2). Emphasis upon the life gives to the 
 Bible its rightful significance. The life is first 
 and chief ; the Bible is not to be worshiped, 
 nor to be so revered as to become an end in 
 itself; its service is to bring man to the life. 
 Man, then, must not bow down to the letter ; 
 he must reach out for the life ; and, if he finds 
 the life, he will then cease to fear for the book ; 
 he will have confidence that the life will guard 
 its own. Hostility cannot destroy that which 
 the life pervades. What God wills to stand 
 must stand. Criticism will accomplish one of 
 two results, — either it will completely demon- 
 strate its own folly, or it will cause men to 
 better understand that which the life, as the 
 light of men, illumines. If, then, we at all dis- 
 cern the power of the life, we may have confi- 
 dence in that which manifests the life. 
 
 (3). In preaching and exhortation unto others 
 and unto ourselves we ought to lay greater 
 stress upon the life, and the necessity of seek- 
 ing that alone. We need not aim primarily 
 at an understanding of the Bible, or at the 
 acquirement of a perfect system of theology. 
 The Christ will explain the Bible quite as much 
 as the Bible will explain the Christ ; and the 
 light of life is a better revelation of sound 
 
THE RADIANCE OF HIS PERSON. 45 
 
 doctrine than is sound doctrine of the life. 
 Creeds are not so essential as the life ; one can 
 be saved without a creed, but one cannot be 
 saved without a Saviour. The life coming unto 
 a human heart may propound a hundred ques- 
 tions and arouse a thousand misgivings, leading 
 to multitudinous doubts and mysteries, but the 
 questions and misgivings and mysteries do not 
 concern the soul that truly finds Christ. As 
 Christ enters into that soul the shadows must 
 flee away. As Christ is the light of the world, 
 so is he the light of the single soul. The con- 
 fidence springing from his presence gives peace. 
 His radiance quickens, refreshes, revives the 
 best in the human heart, and banishes evil. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE ABOUNDING LIFE. 
 
 Life and the products of life are exceedingly 
 abundant about us, far more abundant than is 
 usually realized. 
 
 The life of the vegetable kingdom enters into 
 our edifices in every beam, board, and shingle ; 
 is in our clothing and furnishings of cotton, 
 linen, and lace ; in pulp, it becomes paper and 
 books, boxes and dishes, pails and chairs, floors 
 and walls, and even the car-wheels on the rail- 
 road. It furnishes at least eight-tenths of our 
 food. The animal kingdom is scarcely less in- 
 dispensable to man ; it is not only a main source 
 of food supply, but also gives to our floors car- 
 pets, to our plastering hair, to the jointures of 
 our furniture glue, to us and to all things for 
 covering it gives furs, skin, wool, and leather ; 
 it furnishes bone and horn ; it makes contribu- 
 tions to our instruments of music, whether of 
 wind or string. 
 
 Animalculae swarm in the tiniest drop of 
 water, fatten in the microscopic dust, and jostle 
 46 
 
THE ABOUNDING LIFE. 47 
 
 each other in every breath we breathe ; they 
 penetrate the tissues of our bodies, hold assem- 
 blage under our finger-nails, and high carnival 
 on our teeth. An American dentist in Germany 
 has made himself world-famous amongst den- 
 tists by a learned work upon the bacteria of the 
 teeth. Indeed bacteriology contributes more to 
 nosology and therapeutics now than any other 
 branch of science. A bacillus has been found 
 for almost every disease. In the filtering es- 
 tablishment of the Berlin water-works one may 
 see drops of water kept under favorable condi- 
 tions for the cultivation of microbes in order to 
 discover in larger size both their number and 
 their kind, that the relative purity of the water 
 supply may be determined daily and the health 
 of the people be guarded. Every laboratory 
 for the scientific study of sanitation, disinfec- 
 tion, and other subjects allied with the public 
 health, is equipped now with appliances for the 
 investigation of microscopic life. Life, indeed, 
 in some form is so abundant that the scientist 
 can scarcely find a place or a condition where 
 it is not, when wishing to conduct experiments 
 without its insistent presence and perplexing 
 complications. Darwin and Wallace, separately, 
 spent months of experimenting to obtain a sin- 
 gle cubic inch of atmosphere totally germless, 
 that they might know, and might tell the world, 
 
48 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 whether there could be by any possibility a 
 spontaneous generation, or whether all life 
 came solely from antecedent life. Successful 
 at length in eliminating life, they found that 
 life in any form could come only from life, and 
 that the abundance everywhere and in every- 
 thing was not due to spontaneity of generation, 
 but to parental or antecedent reproduction and 
 propagation. 
 
 The prevailing characteristics of all these 
 forms of life are two : self-preservation and 
 self-propagation. The former means prolonged 
 existence for the individual ; the latter means 
 prolonged existence of the species ; or, in other 
 words, that, when the individual can no longer 
 survive, then his offspring shall preserve his 
 kind. The one involves self-protection, an in- 
 stinct in the lower orders, causing a ceaseless 
 conflict and ruthless destruction of others that 
 self may live ; the other, the perpetuation of 
 the species, causing death also, resulting usually 
 from the process of reproducing life. Many 
 plants die when they have brought seed to per- 
 fection ; in many forms of animal life, likewise, 
 the individual perishes on reproducing itself in 
 its young. Procreation severely taxes the vital- 
 ity of all forms, from the lowest to the highest. 
 
 These are the laws of natural life, and upon 
 these laws Herbert Spencer has founded his 
 
THE ABOUNDING LIFE. 49 
 
 system of ethics. Holding that man, like all 
 other orders of life, exists for the twofold ob- 
 ject of preserving his individual existence and 
 of propagating his kind, Spencer declares that 
 the essence of right and wrong lies in the 
 maintenance of the abundance of life by these 
 two ways, — the preservation of oneself and 
 the propagation of one's kind ; that the true 
 ethical standard is to be found in answer to the 
 questions : What perpetuates life ? What favors 
 begetting and rearing offspring ? This founda- 
 tion of ethics is set forth, applied, and illus- 
 trated in Spencer's Data of Ethics. One school 
 of nineteenth century philosophy, therefore, 
 holds up as the highest ideal revealed to man, 
 to have life and to have it abundantly. Strangely 
 enough, this is also the language of Christ in 
 expressing at one time his mission among men, 
 " I came that they may have life, and may 
 have it abundantly." 
 
 It is a curious coincidence that Spencerian 
 ethics and Christian ethics, that agnosticism 
 and faith, that Herbert Spencer and Jesus 
 Christ can employ the same language and 
 preach from the same text. But here, as in 
 all else, mere externals are not a safe criterion 
 of inward contents ; phrases may sound alike 
 yet be indeed the vehicles of entirely differ- 
 ent thought ; identity in language is no proof 
 
50 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 of identity or even of similarity in thought 
 and intention. Motive is more than deeds and 
 meaning more than words. 
 
 Spencer thinks of this life. His glance is 
 backward. He reads the record of anatomy, 
 morphology, and physiology ; he sees the past 
 which this life has had, but he sees for it no 
 future. " To have life " is to have it here, and 
 to have it in three modes, — physical, mental, 
 and social. " To have life more abundantly " is 
 to increase it in the following directions : to 
 make the health better and the body more ro- 
 bust ; to augment intellectual vigor and attain- 
 ments ; to allow others in seeking to increase 
 their own life to its fullness free opportunity so 
 to do; and to beget offspring who shall con- 
 tinue this same vital round. These are the 
 Spencerian directions of ethical possibility and 
 obligation. 
 
 But the abounding life of Jesus is more 
 abundant than Spencer means. It includes all 
 forms of the material life of men and extends 
 much farther. It must be remembered that 
 religion does not array itself against science 
 and philosophy ; it is only a certain kind of 
 religionists who set up a conflict. The domains 
 of Christianity are so vast that all true science 
 and all true philosophy have a home within her 
 jurisdiction. There may be a conflict between 
 
THE ABOUNDING LIFE. 51 
 
 religion and so-called science ; there may be a 
 conflict between science and so-called religion ; 
 but Christianity never conflicts with truth. 
 Where man knows truth, his knowledge har- 
 monizes with all other truth. Much that 
 Spencer avers is undoubtedly true ; it has the 
 accord of other truth. Science, if true, is as 
 true as religion, and religion, if true, can be 
 no truer. God is one ; truth is his nature. If 
 Spencer has a part of truth, he has so much 
 knowledge of the being and will of God. 
 
 Wherein truth is spoken, Spencer's words 
 accord with the teaching of Jesus. Jesus Christ 
 means that we shall have physical life and that 
 it shall abound. 
 
 Amongst the Jews sound health is, and ever 
 has been, notorious. Modern science has re- 
 cently discovered that those animals forbidden 
 by the Mosaic law, as food, are among the ani- 
 mals most liable to parasitic forms of life, 
 engendering such diseases as rabies and trichi- 
 nosis. The Jewish methods of slaughtering 
 animals, which carefully eliminate the blood 
 from the flesh, remove one prolific breeding- 
 place of bacilli. Even circumcision has hygienic 
 claims. And so the preparation for Christianity 
 was one that touched the physical life. 
 
 But Christ and Christian principles even 
 more clearly and completely advocate and pro- 
 
52 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 mote sound health. The sins of the flesh are 
 all condemned by Christ ; they all produce dis- 
 ease and unsoundness. Temperance, quietness, 
 peace, joy, hope, faith, — fruits of the spirit, — 
 are as beneficial to the body as to the soul. He 
 who forbade useless worry and anxiety for the 
 morrow gave a prescription for health and hap- 
 piness for both to-day and to-morrow. He who 
 healed bodies nineteen centuries ago in Pales- 
 tine, heals them no less truly in America to- 
 day. It is not, however, a healing accompanied 
 by unction, gush, excitement ; nor by oil, the 
 imposition of hands, and the utterance of peti- 
 tions which in their insistent, exorbitant, and 
 selfish demands often travesty prayer; but a 
 healing unattended by commotion, unheralded 
 by spectacular demonstration, frequently, in- 
 deed, unknown and unrecognized by the patient, 
 and yet no less truly Christ's mighty work ; it 
 is the healing derived from trust, from obedi- 
 ence and from Christian living, the result of 
 following the Great Physician's directions, not 
 for a moment to tide over a crisis, but for a 
 lifetime, as regulative of all acts and thoughts 
 and states. 
 
 Were there not just laws of retribution oper- 
 ative constantly, these gracious physical advan- 
 tages to the Christian would be more frequen/ly 
 apparent ; but oftentimes penalties must be 
 
THE ABOUNDING LIFE. 53 
 
 borne in the flesh for sins or errors in the indi- 
 vidual himself or in a long line of ancestry, for 
 which no repentance and no atonement can 
 provide a remedy. The laws of God are not at 
 variance. Each has its domain. But the laws 
 of Christ, heartily and consistently obeyed, 
 mean for men most certainly an increased 
 soundness of body. We are temples for the 
 indwelling of the divine ; and when the divine 
 has control of his own habitation, we may well 
 believe that he will make that habitation whole- 
 some and sound. 
 
 It has often been supposed that Jesus Christ 
 himself was not a good example of physical 
 health. Medieval art may be responsible for 
 the opinion, for it has delineated him as wan, 
 pale, sickly, emaciated, and haggard. But that, 
 doubtless, is a caricature, false though pious. 
 He was no gaunt, religious enthusiast. There 
 is not a note of unreality, unwholesomeness, or 
 unsoundness in all his teaching. His words 
 have the ring of vigor, robustness, and strength. 
 Was he weak and puny — he, born of a woman 
 chosen out of all Israel, his father divine ? 
 Surely hereditary influences from such sources 
 were good. Was he frail and feeble, he, who, 
 in open air, a carpenter by trade till thirty, 
 walked from Galilee to Judea, and from Judea 
 to Galilee, repeating the journey again and 
 
54 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 again ? he, who pushed on to Tyre and Sidon, 
 and also out beyond Jordan ? Did he lack 
 strength, he, who could endure forty days of 
 fasting, and then the mental and spiritual rack 
 of that satanic temptation ? Were those nerves 
 unstrung, and that physique shattered, that 
 could survive the heart-breaking agony of the 
 Garden of Gethsemane, and then permit their 
 possessor to remain patient and forgiving under 
 the taunts and tortures of his accusers and 
 crucifiers ? 
 
 That he was weary by Jacob's Well in Sama- 
 ria, that he slept in the storm-tossed boat on 
 Lake Gennesaret, that he was hungry after his 
 resurrection, and ate food, but prove the real- 
 ity of his human body, not its frailty. Isaiah's 
 language, " He hath no form nor comeliness ; 
 and when we shall see him, there is no beauty 
 that we should desire him," has been thought 
 to apply to the physical appearance of Jesus ; 
 but Isaiah was writing of the servant of Jeho- 
 vah, the faithful remnant of Israel, and not of 
 the coming Messiah. 
 
 He who could at sight draw young children 
 to him, who was attractive also to men as well 
 as to women, won not only by his eyes and 
 smile, but must have had charm also in manly 
 bearing and physique. There is no reason, 
 therefore, why we should not conclude with 
 
THE ABOUNDING LIFE. 55 
 
 confidence that by example and by teaching 
 Jesus meant to promote an abounding life in 
 the physical man. 
 
 That he meant a mental life, likewise, and its 
 increase is evident from the method of instruc- 
 tion which he employed, and the effects of his 
 person upon men of all time. The parables in 
 which he spoke are not a crutch to thought, as 
 some people suppose; they are not easy, but 
 hard to understand. The disciples begged him 
 to explain the parables to them, and he com- 
 plied. Parables are incentives and stimulants 
 to thought ; they require mental activity. By 
 them attention is secured, comparisons must be 
 instituted, and inductions drawn. To hear his 
 parables is to take a lesson in logic. Unless 
 men opened their minds, and stirred their souls, 
 they could receive nothing from him. He re- 
 quired attention and thoughtfulness first of all. 
 
 Jesus widened the mental horizon of his 
 hearers. He made them observe ordinary 
 things, seen, but unobserved before; he told 
 them of relations always existing, but hitherto 
 ignored ; caused them to think as a neighbor 
 thought ; reminded them of past history, taught 
 them present truth, and pointed them to a dis- 
 tant and resplendent future. His teaching in- 
 volved the principles and not the rules of 
 religion. His was not a code to read or memo- 
 
56 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 rize; no casuist he. Every disciple must be- 
 lieve, think, assimilate, and, assimilating, shape 
 his course by mental and spiritual appreciation 
 of the truth. 
 
 The palpable effects of Christ's life upon his 
 followers is evidence of what he means to be 
 normal among his disciples of all time. It has 
 caused wonderment that humble fishermen be- 
 came seers and prophets, that a tax-gatherer 
 should become a world-famous historian. But 
 it is not so strange after all. The apostles 
 were mentally awakened, and spiritually aroused 
 to their full capacity. The possibilities are 
 stupendous when a man's full intellectual and 
 spiritual powers are called into exercise. 
 
 The testimony of subsequent history, also, 
 shows the expansive power of Christianity on 
 the mind. The nations most Christ-like have 
 become the most intellectual. The people tak- 
 ing in the most of Christian principle and 
 motive imbibe the most of civilization and cul- 
 ture. Where the record of the life has gone, 
 there the printing press and school have fol- 
 lowed. Where the church has been planted, 
 there the academy and the college have sprung 
 up. 
 
 Jesus plainly intended that the mind should 
 develop. He went away saying, " I have many 
 things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them 
 
THE ABOUNDING LIFE. 57 
 
 now," and he promised that the Spirit should 
 guide them into all truth, calling to remem- 
 brance all things that he had said unto them. 
 Expansion by enlargement, and fuller posses- 
 sion by attainment, he manifestly intended for 
 his followers. Although men still subscribe 
 to statements which their ecclesiastical grand- 
 fathers wrote, assenting to views the validity of 
 which they have not once probed for them- 
 selves, and accept far-reaching doctrines and 
 skillfully fashioned creeds without prying into, 
 digging out, and opening up truth for their own 
 minds ; yet this is not the intention of Jesus. 
 He meant for the human mind enlargement in 
 the appreciation and assimilation of truth. The 
 grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ, in which the Apostle Peter ex- 
 horted his hearers to grow, has been as yet by 
 no means exhausted. 
 
 But Jesus Christ enlarges also the social life. 
 "Am I my brother's keeper?" is no less a 
 pre-Christian than a pre-Mosaic question, un- 
 derlying both the law and the Gospel. Chris- 
 tianity is distinctly a religion of fraternal 
 obligation and social contact. "Thou shalt 
 love thy neighbor as thyself " was the second 
 of the Lord's two great commandments. We 
 discover but half of Christianity when we see 
 only our relation to God through Christ ; but 
 
58 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 the other half is as plainly declared, our relation 
 to humanity through Christ ; he spoke of both 
 and taught both. Giving a cup of cold water, 
 feeding the hungry, visiting the sick and pris- 
 oners are services done unto him. Such con- 
 duct, if performed in his name, constitutes a part 
 of Christianity. 
 
 The Jew has always honored the family. His 
 Bible, and ours, declares at the outset its insti- 
 tution as divinely designed ; the Jew's inspired 
 singer, and ours, has said that "children are an 
 heritage of the Lord and blessed is the man 
 whose quiver is full of them." Jesus himself 
 has sanctioned and hallowed the family as a 
 social center. He himself entered a family 
 and spent ten-elevenths of his earthly years 
 within a home. He sanctioned marriage and 
 made its obligations more binding than even 
 the Mosaic code had done. He found solace 
 and shelter in the home of Martha and Mary ; 
 he attended the wedding feast at Cana ; he re- 
 stored the dead to parents and sisters. 
 
 Jesus did not live apart from men, but 
 amongst them, in the cities even, where the 
 multitudes were. He was no recluse and no 
 ascetic. Hermits and monks and celibate 
 priests are burlesques, rather than patterns, of 
 Christianity. He sanctioned social life, life 
 amongst men ; he taught its improvement and 
 
THE ABOUNDING LIFE. 59 
 
 gave principles which modern minds and hearts 
 are but just beginning to comprehend and 
 apply. 
 
 " And who is my neighbor ? " asked the law- 
 yer. By parable and teaching, Jesus replied, 
 " Every one who is in need, whom you can help, 
 whether you like or dislike the man, whether 
 he esteems or despises you ; his need and your 
 ability to help constitute the social bonds be- 
 tween you. Go thou and do likewise." This 
 is his social standard ; this is one commandment 
 of Christ for social life. In some places the 
 church is but just now dreamily opening her 
 eyes to this direction of her mission, but it is 
 not new in the words and the works of Jesus. 
 
 Thus far the teachings of Herbert Spencer 
 and Jesus Christ are in agreement. Rest, rec- 
 reation, athletics, and physical culture are Chris- 
 tian as well as scientific. Reading and study, 
 thought and philosophy, school, college and 
 university, science and learning are sanctioned 
 by Jesus Christ, no less definitely than by the 
 highest exponents of this world's wisdom. 
 Charity, benevolence, philanthropy, a recogni- 
 tion of social sorrows and social joys, and par- 
 ticipation in the affairs of government and 
 politics are for the Christian even more than 
 for the agnostic, because the Christian, fired 
 with the enthusiasm for humanity which springs 
 
60 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 from a sense of duty as well as of love for man, 
 can best affiliate with all social conditions. 
 
 The ethics of Christ are seen, therefore, to 
 overlay the ethics of Spencer. All that Spen- 
 cer means Christ means, and more. Spencer 
 has no place for the great dynamic, the personal 
 pronoun. The omission is characteristic of 
 such ethics and philosophy ; they leave deity 
 out of their reckoning. Agnosticism makes 
 a place for God but puts no God in the place 
 prepared. 
 
 The worldly philosophy exhorts, have physi- 
 cal life and have it abundantly. Jesus Christ 
 says, have life and have it abundantly, not 
 merely because it is the law of nature, of which 
 protoplasm and polyp partake, but because 
 I, your example and inspiration, wish you to 
 have generous physical resources for your own 
 better satisfaction, for greater usefulness unto 
 others, and for the highest glory of God ; be a 
 type in brawn and muscle of the best that God 
 has made, and employ this brawn and muscle in 
 manner pleasing to him. 
 
 The worldly philosophy says, have mental 
 life and have it abundantly. Jesus Christ re- 
 sponds, have mental life and have it abun- 
 dantly, not to quibble, to disparage and to 
 doubt concerning the great mysteries of the 
 ages, but to investigate, discover, apprehend, 
 
THE ABOUNDING LIFE. 61 
 
 and apply truth to self, to man, and to God ; 
 from the present and from the past, for the 
 present and for the future, enlarge the mental 
 and spiritual outlook, magnify that spiritual 
 nature, God-designed, God-made, and enter into 
 fellowship with me, the revelation of God, 
 thereby to behold with me the eternal truths of 
 righteousness and grace. 
 
 Worldly philosophy pronounces for social life 
 and its abundance. Jesus Christ approves and 
 adds, have social life, have it abundantly, but 
 not merely that you yourself may live and your 
 offspring may survive you ; and, as a necessary 
 condition to your own and your offspring's un- 
 disturbed and peaceful existence, that others of 
 the race may have the same privileges of pre- 
 serving self and protecting their young; but 
 live for others, be willing to die for others — " he 
 that loseth his life for my sake shall save it " — 
 save by spending, increase by giving, gain by 
 sacrificing, save and serve others ; follow my 
 example ; so shall you truly live. 
 
 The warmth of Christ's appeal, the glow of 
 his call issue from his person. Live, live, he 
 cries ; to the utmost enlarge thyself, to the 
 utmost use thyself, to the utmost give thyself. 
 What magnetism in his person ! "lam come, 
 that ye may have life, and may have it abun- 
 dantly." This is the deepest secret of his mes- 
 
62 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 sage, "I am come." Here I am, the way, the 
 truth and the life ; partake of me. He who 
 believes in me as the Son of God and Saviour 
 of men, he who patterns after me as the perfect 
 plan God designed for human lives, he who 
 accepts from me all that I by my sacrifice of 
 love, as man and God, have achieved between 
 man and God, he shall live, live not merely in 
 body, not merely in mind, not merely among 
 men, but a life of communion with God, both 
 here and hereafter, constantly becoming trans- 
 formed into the diviner likeness. Without me 
 no such life is possible. Without me men have 
 sought to live and have perished ; all religions 
 without me fail, both for this life and in the 
 promise of a future life ; all philosophies with- 
 out me grovel amid the weaknesses, the sins, 
 and the doubts of men ; all systems without me 
 raise questions unanswerable, cause longings 
 unappeased, leave fears irremediable. 
 
 Christianity is more than dogma. Jesus does 
 not give us opinions, but life. No man need 
 believe a statement, or feel required to do this 
 or that deed, or be of one or another disposition, 
 simply because a man, be he priest or prophet, 
 or a body of men, whether church, council, or 
 synod, make this or that declaration ; but only 
 because his mind and conscience, grasping the 
 ideal, bid him believe, do, and be. All that con- 
 
THE ABOUNDING LIFE. 63 
 
 cerns a man, to be a part of him, must spring 
 from within him ; it becomes then his life. 
 Those are thieves and robbers who dogmatize 
 and take away the moral and spiritual activity 
 of our own free choice and independent appre- 
 ciation and assimilation. 
 
 Belief in Christ brings Christ into the soul ; 
 like a new scion set in an old tree, belief in 
 Christ takes of the old life, draws it up into 
 the new, and little by little, utilizing the natural 
 forces and activities of the natural man, trans- 
 forms them and him from one life into another, 
 from the production of mere natural excellences 
 and virtues into bearing the new, the better, 
 the Christian fruit. Belief then performs its 
 high and noble function, becomes vital in man, 
 lives within him, and makes him by transforma- 
 tion live within it and thus unto Christ. 
 
 This new, this higher life, like all life, can 
 come only from antecedent life ; there can be 
 no spontaneous generation ; it is from Christ. 
 It is his purpose, his mission, his very life to 
 give life. 
 
 In the animal kingdom self-preservation in- 
 volves usually the death of others. In the spir- 
 itual kingdom the preservation of life in one 
 brings an increase of life to all ; there is no 
 destruction of others for the sake of self, there 
 is no irrepressible conflict, no survival of the 
 
64 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 fittest ; all who have the life in any measure 
 are fit, and all survive, each helping the others. 
 In the animal kingdom procreation involves 
 often death, always suffering and loss of vital- 
 ity; in the spiritual kingdom to transmit life, 
 to live in others by influence, by personal ex- 
 ample, by precept, by power, by inspiration, and 
 by service is but to live the more, to lose noth- 
 ing, but rather to enlarge one's own spiritual 
 vitality. By the life which Christ gives, we 
 live with satisfaction to ourselves and useful- 
 ness to others in this life, and thence live on 
 with fullness of life hereafter. But all this 
 life is in progressive forms, unfolding a higher 
 always from a lower as the plan of the Master's 
 operation shows. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE PLAN OF OPERATION. 
 
 Consecutiveness, the significance of which 
 has been taught us by the scientist, is a word 
 which we are finding to-day may be appropri- 
 ately applied to most, if not all, processes and 
 changes. The keen observer discovers few real 
 beginnings, and the number constantly de- 
 creases. He finds, instead, continuance of what 
 long since came forth from an antecedent. 
 What he once termed a beginning is in many 
 instances now understood as a mere modifica- 
 tion of what previously existed. 
 
 In the study of history, events are no longer 
 regarded as isolated occurrences; and history 
 is no longer written as beads are strung upon a 
 ribbon ; but in the study of the past there has 
 come to be recognized a well-defined philosophy 
 of history, which discerns in all the record of the 
 human race, streams of progress, development 
 of tendencies and modification of characteristics. 
 
 Our modern pedagogy enunciates with ever 
 increasing clearness, Aristotle's declaration that 
 
 65 
 
66 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 " all intellectual teaching is based upon what is 
 previously known to the person taught," the 
 truth of which all who have taught know full 
 well. 
 
 The last-born science, sociology, intent upon 
 knowing society's conditions, in tabulating mo- 
 tives, forces, and facts, is a science solely as it 
 appreciates the inevitable consecutiveness of all 
 of society's changes, the concatenation of social 
 cause and effect. The recognition of an order 
 of development in modern society is fast trans- 
 forming generous, impulsive, unthinking charity 
 into a calmer, truer, more Christian philan- 
 thropy, and is making Christ-like scientists of 
 us all. 
 
 Christ-like scientists, I say, for the Master 
 long since enunciated the principle which the 
 scientist, historian, teacher, and reformer, chiefly 
 from scientific sources, are at length learning. 
 Christianity in relation to its past, in relation 
 to the race, to nations and to individuals, en- 
 ters as a coordinating, connected and consec- 
 utive factor. Preserving the good of the past, 
 it enlarges, modifies, purifies, transforms the 
 present, and thus produces a new creature for 
 the future. It does not destroy, it fulfills. 
 
 Our Lord revealed on earth heaven's plan of 
 operation. He came not to destroy the stand- 
 ards, precepts, and commandments already 
 
THE PLAN OF OPERATION. 67 
 
 sacred to the people, not even to disparage 
 them, still less to ignore them, but to restore 
 their meaning to the original divine dimensions, 
 to enlarge their applications as they worthily- 
 required, and to extend them into the depths 
 and heights that evince their accord with the 
 perpetual and universal truth of God. 
 
 The Jew believed in one God. Jesus reiter- 
 ated and reaffirmed the unity of God, yet gave 
 the world the data of the Trinity. 
 
 The Jew believed in Jehovah as propitious 
 only to the Jew. While acquiescing in this be- 
 lief by affirming that " salvation is of the Jews " 
 and that his mission was primarily to " the lost 
 sheep of the house of Israel," yet Jesus declared 
 the fatherhood of God wide enough to embrace 
 all who receive the spiritual sonship proffered, 
 of whatever race or tongue, and indeed compre- 
 hensive enough to include, through God's mercy 
 and love shown in creation and the offer of re- 
 demption, all mankind. The Jew dared scarcely 
 utter " Father," though at times vaguely enter- 
 taining the thought of Jehovah's fatherhood. 
 It was Jesus who taught his disciples always to 
 say " Our Father/' when they prayed. 
 
 Jesus preserved the election typical of 
 Judaism, yet so enlarged its conditions as es- 
 sentially to change its character. The old dis- 
 pensation might be called Calvinistic, while the 
 
68 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 new was Calvinio-Arminian. Under the old, 
 divine favors were bestowed, it was at first be- 
 lieved, upon one single condition, namely He- 
 brew descent ; in order to inherit the promises, 
 a man must be a child of Abraham. This was 
 the election of a race. But a new condition at 
 length was recognized : even a Jew might fail 
 of divine favor, if he ceased to obey and worship 
 God. The later prophets made it plain that 
 Jehovah required more than mere Abraham ic 
 descent, more even than mere sacrifice and an 
 outward compliance with the law, — an inward 
 act, to love mercy and to walk humbly with 
 God. The emphasis was in process of shifting 
 for centuries. Jesus continued and accelerated 
 this change of emphasis, his chief requirements 
 being belief, love, obedience, full allegiance of 
 the heart with its attendant service. 
 
 In olden days set forms, ceremonies, sacri- 
 fices, and the externals of religious observances 
 were too often deemed sufficient for pleasing 
 God. Jesus did not abrogate form, ceremony, 
 and sacrifice. He performed and rendered 
 them all in a fuller, deeper sense, as for sacri- 
 fice, becoming himself the efficient offering for 
 all time and for all men. He laid stress upon 
 that which externals signified. With works he 
 demanded also the inward operations of faith 
 and love. The Sermon on the Mount shows 
 
THE PLAN OF OPERATION. 69 
 
 how, while still preserving the requirements of 
 the law, Jesus added to them and fulfilled them. 
 Jesus Christ himself, therefore, entered into the 
 stream of progress ; he himself exemplified the 
 principle of consecutiveness ; he became an ex- 
 ponent of the method of evolution. 
 
 It would not be a difficult task to show how, 
 since the days of Christ, Christianity has always 
 developed according to the same principle. No 
 age, no century, no religious upheaval, no com- 
 motion has been isolated and detached. Each 
 change has had its cause, in part at least, not 
 far before it, in its natural antecedents. Men 
 have discovered that truth is not fragmentary, 
 but continuous ; the revelation of truth is not 
 spasmodic, but progressive ; and the apprecia- 
 tion of truth is not often an ecstasy, but more 
 frequently a growth. 
 
 One means of discerning how faithfully the 
 principle of consecutiveness was carried out by 
 Jesus will be found in observing how tolerant 
 he was of abuses which at the same time he 
 came to reform. He was a king, establishing a 
 kingdom, potent enough to dictate to all the 
 powers of the earth and even marshall by his 
 side the legions of heaven ; yet he assumed 
 control of no government, himself yielded ac- 
 quiescence to the decrees of the rulers, teaching 
 his followers, also, to render unto Caesar the 
 
70 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 things that pertained to Caesar: he repudiated 
 for himself the title and the crown of a king. 
 He allowed evils in government to continue, 
 and yet he introduced the principles which 
 gradually, yet surely, by growth and consec- 
 utive development, should remedy evils, cor- 
 rect abuses, and rectify mismanagement. 
 
 He came to manumit the slave ; and yet his 
 Gospel issued no proclamation of immediate 
 emancipation. The slave was even bidden to 
 serve his master more faithfully and to remain 
 content with his lot ; yet how surely, through 
 the lapse of centuries, the teaching of Jesus 
 was bringing to pass freedom for all mankind ! 
 
 Our Lord made wine, that superior wine of 
 such excellent quality as to astonish the expert 
 who presided at the banquet; and yet, while 
 thus entering into the customs of the times, 
 accepting conditions as they were, he taught 
 ever emphatically that temperance is always 
 imperative, that abstinence, if for no other 
 reason than to avoid offense to others, is ne- 
 cessary, that the body is a temple for the in- 
 dwelling of God, and that all the physical and 
 mental faculties must be kept clear and un- 
 clouded for service both to God and to man. 
 
 Fasting was in vogue when Jesus was on 
 earth. John and his disciples fasted oft ; Jesus 
 and his disciples did not fast, and were taunted 
 
THE PLAN OF OPERATION. 71 
 
 in consequence by unbelieving Jews as glutton- 
 ous and winebibbers. While not himself fast- 
 ing, yet he neither condemned nor approved 
 fasting. Once in the Authorized Version of the 
 English Bible there appears a seeming indorse- 
 ment of fasting, in the phrase uttered when 
 Jesus descended from the Mount of Transfigur- 
 ation and found the disciples unable to heal the 
 paralytic boy : " This kind goeth not out save 
 by prayer and fasting." But in the Revised 
 Version the word "fasting" disappears, as it 
 ought on textual authority ; and in all the New 
 Testament there really appears no approval of 
 the custom. In the Sermon on the Mount, 
 Jesus says simply, "Moreover when ye fast, 
 be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance ; 
 for they disfigure their faces that they may be 
 seen of men to fast. Verily I say unto you, 
 they have their reward. But thou, when thou 
 fastest, anoint thy head, and wash thy face; 
 that thou be not seen of men to fast, but of 
 thy Father which seeth in secret ; and thy 
 Father which seeth in secret shall recompense 
 thee." It is as though he had said, If ye choose 
 to fast, then fast, but make no sanctimonious 
 show of it to attract the attention of men. 
 
 Sickness in the days of Jesus was thought by 
 the people to be due to possession by demons. 
 Jesus did not turn aside from his ministry of 
 
72 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 reconciliation to impart instruction in nosology, 
 the science of the causes of disease, nor in 
 therapeutics, the science of healing. He sim- 
 ply healed the sick and let medical science 
 develop in its time. 
 
 It is very plain that Jesus entered into the 
 life of men as a consecutive factor. He took 
 the times as they were, and life as it was, 
 and religion as it was. He did not institute 
 a revolution by proclaiming anarchy ; he did 
 not clear the field by compulsion. He ob- 
 served conditions then existing; he entered 
 into circumstances as they were. His were 
 changes wrought from within outwardly, and 
 not of that kind which skim the surface with- 
 out affecting the interior. t His was the method 
 of evolution, and the principles he employed 
 are profoundly instructive for his disciples 
 to-day. 
 
 In the first place, a standard by which to 
 judge both men and measures is presented to us. 
 We are required to try the spirits, to prove all 
 things, and hold fast that which is good. We 
 certainly need some criterion by which to make 
 our tests. Here is such a criterion. Construc- 
 tiveness, not destructiveness, is a reliable touch- 
 stone. Does a man or measure simply scout 
 the past, repudiate the present, denounce, re- 
 ject, destroy ? Then, we may well regard such 
 
THE PLAN OF OPERATION. 73 
 
 a man or measure with suspicion. Iconoclasm 
 befits not the times of Anglo-Saxons. Renan, 
 the late French apostle of myths, said wisely, 
 in the preface to his personal memoirs, "The 
 true men of progress are those who have for 
 their starting-point a profound respect for the 
 past." 
 
 A man who derides what others have done 
 and are doing, who sees good in nothing save 
 that which he himself achieves, is generally a 
 man whose outlook is limited and whose activi- 
 ties are partial, onesided, and unreliable. A 
 man who upsets, overthrows, and seeks to de- 
 stroy what already exists, cannot himself pos- 
 sess a large share of truth and utility. From 
 the nature of the case he not only expends his 
 time and resources in destructiveness, but still 
 worse, fails so to relate his efforts and achieve- 
 ments to previous accomplishments as to give 
 stability and permanence to his work. While 
 the " assentator," as the old Romans used to 
 term the man who always said "yes, yes," is 
 not to be trusted, because, if not designedly 
 seeking to flatter, he at least lacks convictions 
 of his own, yet the dissentator, — to coin a 
 word, — is still less to be trusted, for, lacking 
 wisdom to discern that which may be good 
 about him, he does not allow the wisdom of 
 others to have effect. The flatterer and cheap 
 
74 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 henchman magnify and extend the influence of 
 their leaders, adding by their influence, how- 
 ever small, some potency to constructive plans 
 and purposes ; while the habitual denier isolates 
 himself, limits his own energies, and attains no 
 permanent result, for even if successful in his 
 destructiveness, he has simply heaped the 
 ground with ruins. 
 
 It seems to be a fashion in some quarters to 
 seek notoriety through negations, some persons 
 seeming to consider it an evidence of thinking 
 better than their predecessors to repudiate what 
 their predecessors have thought. Young people 
 ought to seek as friends those whose conversa- 
 tion is filled with words of appreciation and 
 approval for the good there is in the world, 
 rather than those who but criticise, censure, and 
 denounce. A carping, chronic fault-finder is, 
 from the philosophical point of view, a fool 
 rather than a wise man. If one finds a princi- 
 ple or an organization, the constant tendency 
 of which seems to be to deny and destroy, no 
 better counsel could be given than to avoid it. 
 To what service divine providence can put a 
 church, or a sect, or a man whose chief activity 
 is debate, whose effects are divisive and schis- 
 matic, it is difficult to determine. Construc- 
 tiveness, consecutiveness, development, growth, 
 these words describe a principle which the 
 
THE PLAN OF OPERATION. 75 
 
 wisest minds of all ages have found in the facts 
 of man, nature, and revelation. 
 
 But, besides giving us a standard by which to 
 judge of men and measures, the principles in- 
 volved in the method of the Master present us 
 with a model to imitate. The Christ entered 
 into existing conditions. Divine truth is not 
 revolutionary ; it is gentle and pervasive. We 
 need not say that it simply assimilates unto 
 itself, but rather it allows itself to be assimi- 
 lated and absorbed. Truly, the human mind 
 has had revealed to it such facts as a divine con- 
 formity to the world, a divine compliance with 
 customs and practices of the day, a divine adap- 
 tation to specific surroundings, and even a di- 
 vine expediency that is willing to lose itself in 
 that which it blesses. 
 
 The whole mission of Christ upon earth is 
 illustrative of this descent from the higher to 
 the lower for the sake of the lower, that the 
 lower might by gradual, consecutive changes 
 rise toward the higher. Humanity climbs to- 
 ward divinity because divinity first condescended 
 to come down unto humanity. They teach well 
 who bend to the level of the ignorant. They 
 live well who adapt their highest ideals to the 
 hardest exigencies of stern reality. They are 
 Christ-like who maintain their Christianity by 
 living practically their faith in all the walks of 
 
76 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 life, evenly, sweetly, consecutively in all expe- 
 riences. 
 
 Monasticism and the monkish spirit are flatly 
 contradictory to this model. As Jesus mingled 
 with men and entered into the ways of men, 
 so the Christian disciple needs to continue in 
 the ordinary routine of life, making all life 
 Christian. Seclusion, separation, and sanctimo- 
 niousness are not sanctioned by the Master's 
 example. It was, and ever has been, absurd 
 for monks and nuns to withdraw into their 
 caves and convents ; but it is no less absurd 
 now for men to limit themselves to Sunday 
 services for their religious exercises and ex- 
 periences, and not to take these exercises and 
 experiences with them into all the affairs of the 
 week. There is not so grave danger to-day 
 that the Sabbath will be desecrated by unbe- 
 lievers as that week days will not be hallowed 
 by believers. It is the monkish spirit that 
 thinks Christianity is not practical for business 
 and housekeeping, for school and college, for 
 the farm and shop, and all tasks of ordinary life, 
 but can thrive only within sacred precincts and 
 under certain artificial circumstances away from 
 the common course of life. Too many men in 
 this spirit permit their religious experiences 
 to become isolated aspirations on one day in 
 the week, separated from all other like aspira- 
 
THE PLAN OF OPERATION. 77 
 
 tions by the chilling period of six " secular " 
 days. 
 
 But Christian lives should be made consecu- 
 tive. They should be maintained warm and 
 vital every hour. No tasks are mean, none 
 need be uncongenial, to righteousness. Chris- 
 tianity may be adapted without harm to every 
 circumstance in which necessity places a dis- 
 ciple, and to a very large majority of the circum- 
 stances which the disciple may select whether 
 for pleasure or profit. It is Christ-like to be a 
 Christian while in the world and among men. 
 
 In its efforts to relieve distress, rectify evils, 
 and institute the reforms of the present day, 
 society needs also to learn to imitate the ex- 
 ample of Jesus. Patience first of all is needed. 
 Changes, if of value and destined to accomplish 
 real benefit, must develop slowly, striking deep 
 root, into the very nature of the men or things 
 affected. The reformer must recognize present 
 conditions before he can expect to see modi- 
 fications according to his desires. Sympathy 
 must knit him to the present before he can 
 change the present. 
 
 It has been discovered in these latter days 
 that money alone does not relieve poverty, but 
 may aggravate it ; that opportunities for work 
 do not of themselves bring thrift and comfort 
 to improvident households ; that tracts and 
 
78 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 Bibles will not alone carry cheer and gladness 
 into godless homes. Something additional is 
 needful ; that is sympathy, the actual touch of 
 one human soul upon another. The only way 
 really to give is to give of one's self. It is the 
 bestowment of self that determines whether all 
 other gifts are means of relief or are actual 
 occasions of offense. Christ came among men ; 
 conserving the good he found, he made it bet- 
 ter, and gave it life that it might itself grow, 
 extend, develop, and know the full potency of 
 itself and its divine impartation. In seeking 
 any reform it is necessary to recognize the 
 principle of consecutiveness, what is being the 
 starting point and what is being also the con- 
 sideration to determine the exact form that 
 efforts for modification shall assume. 
 
 Then, further, by the method he employed, 
 Christ has given the world a means of forecast- 
 ing the future of Christianity. Inasmuch as 
 religion expands consecutively, the prophet of 
 to-day, by looking far enough into the past, can 
 discover the direction of expansion, and esti- 
 mate the course and rate of progress. A famous 
 orator of our colonial days declared, " I have no 
 way of judging of the future, except by the 
 past." It is this manner of judging of Chris- 
 tianity's prospects which the method of the 
 Master affords. 
 
THE PLAN OF OPERATION. 79 
 
 The past shows wonderful progress. Chris- 
 tianity does not seek mere lip-service. If her 
 devotees ever have been content with that, they 
 have had what they sought, an ephemeral suc- 
 cess ; but the permanent gains of Christianity 
 are of the kind that do not depend upon mere 
 profession ; they must develop from the heart, 
 and find expression in character. Such gains 
 are necessarily slow. When the obstacles in 
 the way of Christianity are considered, — the 
 centuries of inherited institutions behind it, 
 the deeply fixed tendencies and evils around 
 it, the false religions to overcome, and this, too, 
 not by violence and force, but gently, as the 
 sunshine overcomes miasma, — the gains have 
 been marvelous. 
 
 The followers of Jesus at first were but a 
 dozen, and these had scarcely caught a glimpse 
 of his truth and his spirit when he was taken 
 away. But the numbers soon took on a rapid 
 growth. Despite misconceptions, perversities, 
 monstrosities, exaggerations, fanatical delusions, 
 enemies within and without, Christianity grew 
 in the apostolic days at a marvelous rate of 
 increase. The new faith outlived opposition, 
 survived persecution, survived the greater dan- 
 gers of royal patronage, outlived the dark ages, 
 and in the midst of the insidious evils of modern 
 civilization still preserves its essential charac- 
 
80 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 teristics, sinking constantly deeper into the con- 
 sciousness of the race, and taking firmer hold 
 upon the lives of men. 
 
 The history of the Christian religion reads 
 like a miracle, when one considers both its 
 hindrances and the weakness of the human 
 vessels to which it was intrusted. How a 
 student of history can be a pessimist, it is diffi- 
 cult to see. A thoughtful review of but a sin- 
 gle century discloses rapid strides and marked 
 improvement in almost every respect. Let 
 one investigate the subjects of law, crime, 
 drunkenness, slavery, the condition of woman, 
 the purity of the family, love of truth, respect 
 for private possessions, and one will be im- 
 pressed with the wonderful advancement ; while 
 a yet wider view of the past, from the time 
 of the advent of Christ, brings out in still 
 clearer relief the remarkable development of 
 the world toward truth and righteousness and 
 God. 
 
 The world is growing better, the tendency is 
 toward the light ; and the consecutiveness of 
 the past, running through the present, forecasts 
 a brighter future. Whatever changes are in 
 store cannot be destructive. Divine power has 
 come into the world, and not to destroy but to 
 fulfill. The constructive are more than all the 
 destructive forces. Past and present are filled 
 
THE PLAN OF OPERATION. 81 
 
 with the forces of a divine life working out the 
 world's redemption. 
 
 The church at large is more active in good 
 works to-day than ever before, more earnest in 
 evangelization, more potent in preaching, more 
 practical and sympathetic in ministration, more 
 Christ-like in every respect. The auxiliary or- 
 ganizations multiply her resources and increase 
 her efficiency in every direction. 
 
 Surely the outlook is bright. Golden oppor- 
 tunities are at hand. Unto the church the pur- 
 pose, the plan, and the efficiency of a divine 
 person have been given, of a person who leads 
 onward consecutively into truth and unto vic- 
 tory, till all the gracious thoughts of an infinite 
 love shall have been fulfilled. The Master's 
 method is one of progression and development. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 CREATIVE ACTS. 
 
 The principle of evolution has been dem- 
 onstrated in most of the progress discernible 
 in the world's history and in the process of 
 change taking place within nature's wide realm. 
 Among men, also, in their political organiza- 
 tions, their intellectual pursuits, and all the 
 affairs which characterize their civilization and 
 culture, a consecutive, developing growth may 
 in most respects be predicated. Even the spir- 
 itual experiences of individuals and of the race 
 fall in large part into the same category. Jesus 
 Christ joined with the prophecy, the religious 
 training and the divine preparation which had 
 been granted to the past. He unfolded his own 
 teaching progressively. 
 
 Within certain limits, the principle of devel- 
 opment which science has formulated may be 
 pronounced valid by every thoughtful person. 
 But limits must be recognized. To discern 
 them and to recognize the nature of the 
 energy which produces the growth and de- 
 82 
 
CREATIVE ACTS. 83 
 
 velopment is to distinguish between theistic 
 evolution and those other forms of evolution 
 better designated as materialistic, or pantheistic. 
 Theistic evolution simply indicates a certain 
 mode in which God works. This work proceeds 
 through an ascending scale of existences with 
 such quietness and slight gradations that the 
 nature of the power and the reality of a person 
 at work are often overlooked, but at occasional 
 limits, or bounds, special forms appear, seem- 
 ingly demanding a special power. It is at 
 these bounds that God is best seen. 
 
 The first particle of matter, that original 
 nucleus of the nebulous mass which subse- 
 quently whirled in space and formed a universe, 
 
 — whence came that primal substance ? Mat- 
 ter is eternal, some have said. But this answer 
 does not satisfy. Matter has not the attributes 
 of mind. No microscopic examination, no close 
 analysis has yet shown that the gray particles 
 of a human brain, the most finely organized and 
 wondrously endowed of any material substances, 
 move from material causes alone. There must 
 be something more than they, something im- 
 material, directing them. No theory of the uni- 
 verse — that vast organization of material parts 
 
 — has yet accounted for the beginning of things 
 in other reasonable terms than to predicate 
 mind back of matter. The first half-clause of 
 
84 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 the Bible epitomizes the best wisdom of science, 
 philosophy, and revelation : " In the beginning 
 God created." At that farthest bound the utter 
 necessity of a God is felt. 
 
 With this predication of beginning, we may 
 let geology, astronomy, biology, and all the 
 allied sciences then give their utterances. The 
 nebular hypothesis seems credible ; we may ac- 
 cept it, if those who are specially versed in the 
 modes and methods of nature tell us it is the 
 only hypothesis yet known to man that in any 
 measure adequately accounts for observed facts. 
 A cosmic dust, a chaotic mist may have been 
 the first product of God's creation, which he 
 saw was "without form and void." It was, 
 nevertheless, his creation ; it was endowed with 
 properties which he had given, and it must obey 
 his laws. Then the forces which he himself 
 imparted, agitate, impel, affect this first crea- 
 tion. Modification at once begins ; differen- 
 tiation follows ; order comes gradually out of 
 chaos ; and in the slow process of development 
 inorganic matter assumes its manifold shapes. 
 
 But another limit in the unfolding series is 
 met when the first form of life appears. In 
 earth and rocks and metals, in chemical ele- 
 ments, liquids, acids, solids, there is no life. 
 The closest study in all the laboratories of the 
 world has shown that life alone begets life. No 
 
CREATIVE ACTS. 85 
 
 such possibility as spontaneous generation has 
 ever been discovered. Development from the 
 cosmic dust to the full-orbed star and planet, 
 the great sun and moon, and the round world 
 may be possible ; but there appears an impass- 
 able gulf between mere matter and matter 
 endowed with life, however near towards the 
 pioneer front of inorganic matter be pushed the 
 lowest type of organic existence. A new act 
 of creation at this point seems imperative. 
 When life exists, there must have been life 
 before it. In pure matter there is no life. 
 That gulf must have been bridged by God. 
 He, the source of life, gave life, and with this 
 gift a new order of development begins. 
 
 What marvelous forms, what plenitude of 
 beauty, what variety of uses and pleasures are 
 exhibited in the vegetable kingdom, from the 
 tiny, almost imperceptible mosses, lichens and 
 molds, to the gigantic sequoias of California ! 
 The flowers, the grains, the fruits, how innum- 
 erable ! Yet we can readily conceive that all 
 these, though well-nigh infinite in variety, may 
 have developed from primary, simple forms 
 when once the initiative was given and the 
 laws of modification prescribed. 
 
 It may be that this initiative and these laws 
 were of sufficient potency and scope to extend 
 beyond the vegetable limits into the animal 
 
86 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 kingdom, for there are forms of life manifest- 
 ing characteristics of both the animal and the 
 vegetable kingdom, and seeming to belong to 
 each. Perhaps the transition from the one to 
 the other has been by developing powers in- 
 herent within the first plant-life, and no new 
 creative act has been necessary to enter the 
 realm of animate beings. 
 
 But, whatever the truth may be at this point, 
 on ascending the scale of animal existence 
 a limit of natural expansion, extension and 
 growth is met when man is found. Physically 
 he may have descended from the anthropoid 
 ape, but he possesses a new, a moral nature, 
 which the beast does not possess, and the 
 germs of which it is hard to prove the brute 
 in any degree manifests, despite Herbert Spen- 
 cer's contention that the human conscience is 
 seen in its incipiency in a dog's fear of pun- 
 ishment when, after wrong doing, he skulks to 
 his corner. The highest form of ape stands on 
 the other side of a gulf from man. Physical 
 and mental qualities may be similar, may be 
 closely related, but there is in man, even in 
 the lowest type of man (inherent, albeit for 
 a time dormant) a capacity to discern between 
 good and evil, to entertain and appreciate con- 
 ceptions of abstract truth, to exercise and 
 evince qualities which we term ethical, such 
 
CREATIVE ACTS. 87 
 
 as the ape, anthropoid though he be, has never 
 given slightest token of possessing. 
 
 Yet another limit in the order of develop- 
 ment, no less significant than the preceding, 
 has been indicated by Jesus Christ at the point 
 where morality would pass into Christian char- 
 acter. On his authority a new creative act 
 is here necessary. A man by the exercise of 
 his moral faculties, by effort improving every 
 excellence and virtue within him, nevertheless 
 cannot, without aid from above, make himself 
 a Christian, cannot perfect his spiritual vision 
 and render himself spiritually minded. He 
 must have a new nature begun within him ; 
 he must "be born again." This demands 
 divine intervention, a direct divine impartation, 
 an impartation of life, which in the New Testa- 
 ment is described as the new birth. There 
 follows then opportunity for development in 
 Christian excellence, for growth in grace and 
 knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, the transi- 
 tion from babes fed with the sincere milk of 
 the word into adults partaking of the strong 
 meat of the Gospel, from the condition of 
 children, speaking and thinking as children, 
 unto that of men who have put away childish 
 things in religion, who seek the perfection of 
 Christian graces by working out their own 
 salvation with fear and trembling. 
 
88 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 The four bounds which we have considered 
 separate the course of development into four 
 segments: the inorganic realm, or realm of 
 mere matter; the organic realm, or realm 
 of natural life ; the human realm, or realm of 
 moral perception; and the spiritual realm, or, 
 to use the New Testament term, the kingdom 
 of heaven. These realms are in an ascending 
 scale of vastly increasing values. They may 
 be named the mineral kingdom, the vegetable 
 and animal kingdom, the moral kingdom, and 
 the spiritual kingdom, or the kingdom of 
 heaven. Their bounds are the points at which 
 creative acts of the Almighty are apparent. 
 
 In the Gospels the terms "kingdom of 
 heaven" and "kingdom of God" are used 
 synonymously. Sometimes the bare phrase 
 "the kingdom" is employed. This kingdom 
 is the great cardinal fact proclaimed. John 
 the Baptist, though not understanding it, came 
 to introduce it : " Repent ye ; for the kingdom 
 of heaven is at hand." Jesus brought as the first 
 message on his lips, " The time is fulfilled, and 
 the kingdom of God is at hand ; repent ye and 
 believe the Gospel." His teachings were con- 
 cerning that kingdom. Nearly all his parables 
 had that for their basis ; the kingdom of heaven 
 was likened to seed and sowers, to leaven, to 
 lost coin, and precious pearls ; to erring sons, 
 
CREATIVE ACTS. 89 
 
 and wandering sheep, to a vineyard, a marriage 
 feast, a great supper, a householder going into 
 a far country, and many other similitudes. 
 The kingdom of God was the theme of conver- 
 sation and discourse in the synagogue, on the 
 mount, in Jerusalem, in the field ; with Nico- 
 demus, with the disciples, with the twelve, with 
 the Pharisees. 
 
 Jesus did not teach that the kingdom of 
 heaven was to be set up at some future time, 
 on his return to earth ; then it might be pro- 
 claimed and completed ; but it began with him, 
 and through his gentle teaching was made man- 
 ifest as already founded. He did not say that 
 men would enter it at, or after, death, but that 
 while here on earth, in this present life, men 
 could enter it and were entering it. The citi- 
 zens of that kingdom became recipients of a 
 new life now. What their blessings and privi- 
 leges might be in the hereafter were not the 
 only, nor indeed the great, considerations, but 
 their new life, new joys, new duties, and new 
 activities in the present were chief and emphatic. 
 The kingdom of God was a present reality on 
 the lips of Jesus, and not a prediction. It had 
 already come ; and yet he toiled and prayed that 
 it might come still more fully. He also taught 
 his disciples, the citizens of the kingdom, to pray 
 and toil for its extension : "Thy kingdom come." 
 
90 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 The Jew had expected the restoration of the 
 throne of David, and the reestablishment of 
 the temporal kingdom. John the Baptist shared 
 this expectation ; and the apostles could not 
 rid themselves of it until after the Ascension. 
 Not that would Jesus build. The highest bless- 
 ings which God could bestow were not neces- 
 sarily connected with prosperity in the nation, 
 pride in the household, and patriotic satisfaction 
 and comfort in the individual. Jesus let earthly 
 governments alone, — far wiser than have been 
 his reputed vice-regents who sit on the bank of 
 the Tiber. But there are men to-day, neither 
 Jews nor Romanists, who expect, nevertheless, 
 a kind of Jewish kingdom and ecclesiastical 
 sovereignty as the greatest work that Chris- 
 tianity can accomplish. They would institute 
 a kind of social revolution, restore primitive 
 conditions, on the principle — to travesty it a 
 little — that to give every man " ten acres and 
 a cow," would convert and Christianize him. 
 Had this been the remedy for the world we 
 might expect that Christ would himself have 
 instituted some such social reform ; but while 
 he healed bodies and relieved distresses, having 
 and evincing unfailing compassion toward all 
 who were in any way unfortunate, he made not 
 external but internal conditions chief and em- 
 phatic. 
 
CREATIVE ACTS. 91 
 
 John the Baptist did not view the kingdom 
 of God as did Jesus, although appointed a special 
 forerunner to usher it in. He could be used 
 for a work which he did not fully comprehend. 
 If guided by an architect wiser than he, he 
 could build better than he knew. John the 
 Baptist was a gloomy man, certainly stern and 
 severe in his conception of the kingdom of 
 heaven, and in his presentation of it. John 
 withdrew to the desert, fasted oft, preached 
 sternly, " Repent, — bring forth fruits meet for 
 repentance." He declared that he who came 
 after him came with judicial axe laid at the root 
 of the tree and an eschatological fan within his 
 hand to thoroughly purge the floor. ' He told 
 the people to impart clothing and food to the 
 destitute, the tax-gatherers to be honest in col- 
 lections, the soldiers to refrain from violence 
 and be content with their pay. His proclama- 
 tion was one of judgment ; his view of reforma- 
 tion was to alter conduct. There are John the 
 Baptists to-day, denunciatory, threatening, warn- 
 ing, who, though eager to fulfill a divine commis- 
 sion, do not perceive the true essentials of that 
 commission. 
 
 The kingdom of heaven does not come with 
 sternness, does not begin with preaching judg- 
 ment, does not undertake primarily to rectify 
 conduct. Jesus lived among men, remaining in 
 
92 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 the deserts apart from men only during his 
 forty days fast, and the few weeks of retirement 
 shortly before his crucifixion. But the haunts 
 of men were his haunts. He brought the king- 
 dom to them and thus sought to introduce them 
 to the kingdom. He associated with the fami- 
 lies, and sat at the feasts of men and moved 
 among the crowds. With the axe he would not 
 smite the bruised reed ; with the fan he extin- 
 guished not the smoking flax : " Neither do I 
 condemn thee ; go and sin no more." All moral 
 excellence he made rest in motive; all Chris- 
 tian grace to spring from the heart. He em- 
 phasized the inward condition ; and so not 
 deeds, not conduct, does he dwell upon, so much 
 as faith and love and intention. With these, 
 right conduct will regulate itself. 
 
 While John might bid a man guard his hand, 
 Jesus would bid him guard his heart. Accord- 
 ing to the teaching of Jesus, anger is murder 
 at one stage ; lust, though as yet unfulfilled, is 
 the equivalent of adultery committed. Christ 
 prefers the amputation of hand or foot rather 
 than the commission of sin in the heart. The 
 external might perish ; the internal must be 
 preserved. 
 
 John the Baptist, while in prison, doubted 
 whether Jesus was the Messiah, because Jesus 
 did not come with stern judgments, speedy 
 
CREATIVE ACTS. 93 
 
 issues, and the establishment of a throne. He 
 looked for the axe and the fan which he had 
 proclaimed. Jesus was waiting for inward 
 assimilation of the truth, for slow growth, for 
 development of life according to the divine 
 impartation. John expected his own message 
 to be literally and immediately fulfilled. 
 
 Many of us are, like John, impatient. Hav- 
 ing uttered a truth, true in the morning, we 
 forget that at noontime its pertinence, like the 
 dawn of the morning, may have passed away. 
 We judge also the coming and the spread of 
 the kingdom too frequently by the standard of 
 our own restricted horizon, becoming doubtful 
 and even discouraged, if our hopes, the offspring 
 of first convictions, are not straightway verified 
 and established. The kingdom is God's king- 
 dom. We cannot dictate to it, cannot hurry it 
 outside of God's plan, cannot alter its essential 
 character. 
 
 This kingdom cannot be augmented, as Jes- 
 uits have thought, by capturing savages, baptiz- 
 ing them by force and terming them Christians ; 
 or, as Vladimir tried with his Russians, having 
 sixty thousand in a day baptized at military 
 command, without regard to faith and inward 
 assimilation of truth. The kingdom of God 
 can spread among men only by that creative 
 act involved in the new birth, that spiritual im- 
 
94 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 pact of the divine truth which comes through 
 faith and personal surrender, and by the growth 
 consequent thereto. 
 
 This spiritual life is not a life perpetuated by 
 inheritance from parents, is not a life in the 
 line of developing excellences and moral char- 
 acteristics — although a godly heritage and 
 moral excellences may be like good soil, favor- 
 able to good seed, — but is a life issuing di- 
 rectly from the Creator, a new life. It is not a 
 new manner of life, — that were mere conduct ; 
 the very words of the original tongue which 
 Jesus employed show this ; but it is life itself, 
 that which exists and is manifest in mutually 
 related functions, not the manner of manifesta- 
 tion nor the mode of operation. 
 
 Regeneration does not mean simply a change 
 from immorality to morality. That would be 
 no more than John the Baptist required, a con- 
 formity to outward requirements. It includes 
 this change, but it means far more ; it involves 
 new discernment, new capacities, new duties, 
 new affections, new aspirations, new blessings, 
 — indeed an extension, not perfect at first, yet 
 begun, into all the spiritual activities of which 
 the soul of man, made in the image of God, is 
 capable. The Apostle Paul was as moral a man 
 before his conversion as after it. He honestly 
 thought that he was serving God in persecuting 
 
CREATIVE ACTS. 95 
 
 the church and hindering the kingdom all he 
 could. After his conversion he could be no more 
 honest, no more well-meaning ; but he had a new- 
 nature which enabled him to discern differently, 
 love differently, and experience satisfaction in a 
 new sphere of activity. He was a new man 
 spiritually, while unchanged morally. He had 
 a new life, and that new life was more than an 
 accession of morality, more than a mere altera- 
 tion in his mode of living. Some men have 
 marked moral changes at the time of the new 
 birth, but the degree of change is due to pre- 
 vious condition. According to the teaching of 
 Jesus the essential character of the spiritual 
 life is that it issues from the Spirit. 
 
 This internal change, however, does not take 
 place without cooperation on the part of man. 
 While the operations of the Spirit are still, 
 subtle, and mysterious, even like the wind, the 
 presence of which we feel, and the effects of 
 which we see, without beholding the wind it- 
 self, yet the Spirit's operations are not unex- 
 pected, erratic, nor arbritary in coming and 
 going. Man can invite and secure the work 
 of the Spirit. Indeed, man must prepare for 
 the Spirit, must receive the Spirit, and must 
 allow the Spirit to have free control of his heart. 
 Man, then, in conversion, is born of two cooper- 
 ating agencies, of his own volitions and of the 
 
96 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 Spirit's power. As in all births, here, also, there 
 are two parents. Man's willing mind, cooperat- 
 ing with the divine mind, begets conversion. 
 Two accordant volitions produce a new spirit. 
 
 In his relation to the individual, it was 
 Christ's great work to induce inward compli- 
 ance with his own will. He sought to awaken 
 faith in his person. He exhorted men to be- 
 lieve. He did many mighty works that they 
 might believe, and in response to belief; but 
 withheld the works when belief was withheld. 
 He revealed his love in order to call forth love ; 
 he showed compassion, rendered service, gave 
 his life, as the greatest proof of love, desiring 
 love from man in return. He imparted instruc- 
 tion, left commandments requiring obedience, 
 the inward obedience of the heart. He gave 
 promises of his presence and help to inspire con- 
 fidence and trust. He disclosed difficulties and 
 cross-bearing, yet blessedness and reward and 
 final triumph, in order to call forth in his disci- 
 ples determination, zeal, and consecration. He 
 sought ever to win men, to stir them, so that 
 men should then bestir themselves. He sought 
 to win their hearts, their own action, their coop- 
 eration and allegiance. In his ministry to man- 
 kind, there is not the slightest effort manifest to 
 coerce men, or to allure them unawares into the 
 kingdom of heaven, or in any way to overlook 
 
CREATIVE ACTS. 97 
 
 or diminish the dignity of their own free choice 
 and free act in coming to him. Rather, he 
 emphasized that independency of action, and 
 showed his respect for man's noble freedom by 
 patiently following the sometimes toilsome and 
 disappointing path of persuasion, and by suffer- 
 ing rebuffs, rejection, and final crucifixion at 
 the hands of men, who, in their own determined 
 purposes, would not yield to his gentle influ- 
 ences and loving appeals. The Spirit seeks, 
 but does not seize, men. 
 
 John the Baptist came, though with harsh 
 demeanor and uncompromising message, yet 
 addressing himself to men's judgments, as he 
 called them to repentance, — " Repent ye." 
 The baptism which John administered to all 
 who came to him, even to Jesus himself, be- 
 came the most characteristic act associated with 
 John. It gave him his name, the baptizer. 
 When, therefore, Jesus, himself but recently 
 baptized, speaks to a person familiar with John's 
 work, of a birth " of water and of Spirit " as 
 an indispensable preparation for entering the 
 kingdom of God, the most obvious and most 
 necessary understanding of the word " water " 
 is of something connected with that applica- 
 tion of water, which John for nine months had 
 made, and still was making. But the baptism 
 of John did not stand alone, as a rite effica- 
 
98 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 cious in itself. All knew that John bade not 
 simply to be baptized, but to repent and be 
 baptized ; and the greater emphasis rested upon 
 repentance. Therefore, the word reminding 
 men of John's baptism will remind them of 
 John's essential and characteristic message, 
 compliance with which alone allowed one to be 
 baptized, " Repent." Nicodemus, to whom 
 these words were addressed, doubtless so under- 
 stood them. Such seems the most obvious 
 and most natural meaning. A paraphrase 
 might render the utterance as follows : " Ex- 
 cept a man be born of a repenting, submissive 
 mind, and of the power of the Spirit cooperat- 
 ing therewith, he cannot receive the new life 
 which makes him a member of the kingdom of 
 God." 
 
 From experience we know full well that bap- 
 tism alone, the mere rite, does not produce con- 
 version nor occasion spiritual life. Ximenes's 
 Moors and Vladimir's Russians were Moors and 
 Russians after baptism as before. Baptism, as 
 a sacrament, is attended with various blessings 
 and peculiar joys to the person qualified to 
 receive it, but baptism follows conversion, as 
 an act of obedience and a profession to the 
 world of changes already wrought. It indicates 
 death to the old, and resurrection to the new 
 life. 
 
CREATIVE ACTS. 99 
 
 The kingdom of God has evinced its catho- 
 licity by receiving all who have ever with sim- 
 ple, repentant and believing hearts given place 
 to the Spirit's operation. It has taken within 
 its borders the vilest sinners, not with their 
 sins, but despite their sins, already repented of ; 
 it has given them new life, and allowed within 
 them the development of holiness and spiritual 
 beauty. It has received to itself the saints of 
 the earth. That kingdom has a marvelous 
 population to-day. It is both visible and in- 
 visible. In the invisible part are gathered the 
 nobility of all time both from royal palaces and 
 from lowly hovels, from all lands, all climes ; 
 the disciples of our Lord of every age are 
 there. 
 
 But the kingdom here with us on the earth is 
 not wholly visible to the ordinary vision. No 
 one denomination limits it. Doubtless not all 
 the denominations together fully include it. 
 The church is its most potent, tangible repre- 
 sentative here on earth ; but the church is not 
 yet infallible ; the church is still very human. 
 Within her borders may be some who have not 
 yet come into the kingdom through the acquisi- 
 tion of a new life, and outside of her borders 
 are doubtless many more who, while truly citi- 
 zens of the kingdom, have not as yet allied 
 themselves with their fellow-citizens in organi- 
 
100 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 zations for the better development of the new 
 life bestowed, and the spread of the knowledge 
 of it throughout the world. 
 
 We pray for this kingdom to come. There 
 are wide areas of the earth, thickly populated, 
 where the kingdom as yet has scarcely been 
 named. There are multitudes of hearts sur- 
 rounded in the most favored lands with the 
 most favorable influences that as yet have 
 scarcely given the kingdom serious attention. 
 Multitudes still there are who fail to under- 
 stand what the kingdom may mean to them ; 
 other multitudes who are bitterly opposed to 
 its spread or even to its existence. We pray 
 for the kingdom, we must likewise work for it. 
 Our task is to prepare the Spirit room. In our 
 own lives we must be growing in grace con- 
 stantly. We must develop the life we have. 
 As for others, sympathizing with their condi- 
 tion and their needs, we must seek to render 
 their hearts receptive of the Spirit's influence ; 
 we must deal gently, lovingly with all men, 
 seeking to win them by the power of the life to 
 the Source of life. As we pray there is work 
 for us of preparing for divine creative acts by 
 setting the conditions in order. 
 
 The kingdom has already come in wonderful 
 measure. In proportion to the changes in- 
 volved, it is but a short time since Jesus was 
 
CREATIVE ACTS. 101 
 
 on earth in Palestine with a dozen followers. 
 A little room, hardly large enough for a modern 
 desk-office, would have contained all the mem- 
 bers of the kingdom then. Jesus had the won- 
 derful hardihood to leave that company, a little 
 handful, to leaven the whole world. But see 
 the results ! How that leaven has spread ! Not 
 to mention the innumerable hosts in the king- 
 dom invisible, look here on earth now : every 
 continent possessed in part, and in large part, 
 by the kingdom ; almost every nation having cit- 
 izens of that kingdom by the thousand and the 
 million. And beyond the mere multiplication 
 of numbers, see how the kingdom has spread 
 through its quiet influences ; scarcely a man 
 breathes to-day, however bitterly he may oppose 
 the kingdom, however little he may think him- 
 self concerned in it, who is not in some way 
 indebted to the kingdom of God, a recipient of 
 its benefits. Our governments, our institutions, 
 our trade, commerce, travel, literature, art, archi- 
 tecture, industries, all receive some benefit from 
 the kingdom. The kingdom has come, how 
 largely ! Not alone is every church a memorial 
 of its presence, but every hospital, every asylum, 
 every school, every printing press. Men may 
 cry, "Lo, here" and "Lo, there," but the king- 
 dom comes apace. With hopeful hearts its 
 members need but to be true to the life, giving 
 
102 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 the Spirit free scope, that the mighty work of 
 God may progress, and his kingdom may still 
 further and more speedily come. They must, 
 however, have a clear conception of what the 
 life really is, and must let it become manifest in 
 the simple, practical relations of human society. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 RULES FOR THE LIFE WITHOUT RULES. 
 
 The spiritual life has been strangely con- 
 ceived of. In the second century after Christ 
 the Christian doctors began to maintain that 
 Christ had prescribed a twofold rule of holiness 
 and virtue ; the one ordinary, the other extraor- 
 dinary ; the one lower, the other higher ; the 
 one for men of business, the other for persons 
 of leisure, and such as desire greater glory in 
 the future world. They, therefore, divided the 
 requirements of Christ for life and morals into 
 " precepts " and " counsels." By precepts they 
 meant the laws which were universally obliga- 
 tory and had been enacted for men of all de- 
 scriptions on the lower plane ; by the counsels 
 they indicated the rules which pertained, as 
 they thought, solely to such as were called, or 
 aspired, to superior holiness and a closer walk 
 with God. 
 
 From these distinctions sprang in the course 
 of time the whole system of monasteries and 
 convents, with their "vows" and "rules," under 
 103 
 
104 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 which an isolated, unworldly life thought to be 
 spiritual, became formal and lifeless, its chief 
 merit being that it fortunately was a life possible 
 for the few only. According to this standard, 
 the more spiritual one became the less suited 
 was he to live among his fellows. He was taken 
 from his regular labor, from his usual haunts, 
 from his home and loved ones. Marriage was 
 deemed a sin, the getting of gain unlawful, and 
 the possession of property forbidden. The 
 more of spiritual life a man obtained the less 
 of social life must he have ; and at length it 
 became obvious that the less of mental and physi- 
 cal life also could he enjoy ; for he was obliged 
 to forego pleasure, to restrain the imagination, to 
 curb poetic fancies, if he had them, and to deny 
 his independency of judgment ; and through fast- 
 ings and vigils, by flagellations and pains, he 
 reduced to its utmost tenuity what little life of 
 the body his cell had left him. The flesh was 
 supposed to be the seat of sin and it must be 
 crucified. Whatever was natural was looked 
 upon as unspiritual. 
 
 What a travesty of Christ's example was this ! 
 
 But a recent view, much proclaimed in some 
 sections to-day, is hardly less erroneous. It 
 makes spirituality to consist of emotional ex- 
 citement. The soberness and gloom of the 
 monastery it puts far away, and likewise the 
 
RULES FOR THE LIFE WITHOUT RULES. 105 
 
 isolation, for its greatest argument is to be 
 found in the contagious ecstasies of the prayer- 
 meeting, the songs and shouts and hallelujahs 
 of religious enthusiasm. This conception rele- 
 gates to the second grade all those who possess 
 a calm, perchance a slightly melancholy dispo- 
 sition, to whom life seems serious, who move 
 sedately and think soberly and are as little 
 inclined to hallelujahs as to Hebrew. This 
 view of the spiritual life fails to recognize that 
 there are times in an individual's experience 
 when, instead of experiencing rapture on the 
 mountain top, he must walk through the valley, 
 shut in, cramped, depressed ; it seems to declare 
 that all experience under a cloud and in trial 
 must be regarded as inferior in religious value 
 to those which are happier, as though tears 
 could never be in place, and as though, when 
 God led one through the valley of the shadow 
 of death, there were no rod and no staff upon 
 which to lean for comfort and help. 
 
 But yet another definition of spirituality has 
 thrust itself upon popular attention. It is this : 
 that, while the term morality indicates a recog- 
 nition of ethical values in relation to this present 
 life, spirituality indicates a recognition of ethi- 
 cal values in relations to the future life. Ac- 
 cordingly, the spiritual man is a man of expec- 
 tancy, hope, anticipation ; he lives not for this 
 
106 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 life, but for the life to come ; heaven is his 
 home, this is but a brief abiding-place ; he 
 longs for to-morrow, has little or no satisfaction 
 in to-day. This view makes the spiritual life 
 a life deferred. 
 
 Neither of these views accords with the teach- 
 ing and example of Jesus. He went amongst 
 men; he was not an ascetic. He brought glad- 
 ness and cheer ; he participated in the joys of 
 men. Yet he himself wept; he was "a man 
 of sorrows and acquainted with griefs." He 
 plainly declared that the life he gave began in 
 this life: "He that believeth hath everlasting 
 life." 
 
 What, then, is the spiritual life ? Can any 
 rules be laid down for it ? 
 
 One very plain definition of the life which 
 Jesus desired is involved in his words, "He 
 that hath my commandments and keepeth them, 
 he it is that loveth me." To know the will of 
 Christ and to do it, that is to show love to him, 
 that is to be in fellowship with him and to 
 partake of his life. The calm, the serious, the 
 sober may be as spiritual as the active, the viva- 
 cious, the joyous. The heavy-laden, the sore 
 oppressed, the sadly afflicted may be as truly 
 pleasing to God and in as intimate communion 
 with him as the easy-going, light-hearted, sing- 
 ing Christian. Indeed, in the darkest hour of 
 
RULES FOR THE LIFE WITHOUT RULES. 107 
 
 midnight the disciple is as near the divine sup- 
 port as in the brightest glare of noonday. This 
 the Master teaches. 
 
 True discipleship is spirituality. Knowledge 
 and obedience are its plainest tests. To have 
 Christ's commandments and to keep them, that 
 is proof of devotion ; to know his will and to do 
 it, that is to become like-minded with him. It 
 cannot be proved that Jesus ever laughed or 
 shouted or sang. But it is known that he 
 shed tears and was in anguish and distress ; he 
 sweat bloody drops ; he prayed in lonely mid- 
 night hours ; he was heartbroken. And yet 
 there is no evidence whatever that he ever 
 condemned or reproved the play or display of 
 emotion. The prattle and the mirth of chil- 
 dren he would not rebuke. Their mock wed- 
 dings and dances, their made-up funerals and 
 sorrows he took notice of and used as illustra- 
 tions in his discourses. He participated in the 
 quiet joys of the home life of his friends, and 
 entered into the generous festivities of the 
 marriage feast. All this time he was true to 
 the life within him ; he was setting the exam- 
 ple for men of all succeeding centuries. What 
 better precedent can we find, though we search 
 all records through ? 
 
 In all this variety of experience in the envi- 
 ronment of the ordinary life of his day, the 
 
108 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 principle of Jesus lay in his words, " My meat 
 is to do the will of him that sent me, and to 
 accomplish his work," and, " I must work while 
 it is day." His life was one of devotion to the 
 will of the Father. To know and to do God's 
 will was the one object of his solicitude. 
 
 Intellect and will enter into spirituality more 
 than do emotions. Duty brings one nearer to 
 God than does feeling. Whether one feels like 
 a task or not, the only question for a conscien- 
 tious soul is, What is the divine wish ? When 
 that wish is known and heeded, then joy or 
 sorrow may come, the disciple has nothing to 
 fear, for he and his acts are in the keeping of 
 the Almighty. That is the consolation for the 
 Christian. 
 
 It is not, however, a small thing to have the 
 commandments of Christ. Even to have the 
 choicest of them treasured up in memory is not 
 to possess them as the Lord means. But to 
 have his commandments in the Biblical sense is 
 to understand them; to know the will of God 
 is to enter into an appreciation of the spirit of 
 Christ ; and this is not so easy as it may seem 
 at first. It requires study and involves growth. 
 One cannot solve the mysteries of God's great 
 revelation all at once ; one must be humble, and 
 patient, and plodding. The highest spiritual 
 state is attained when one has lived long in the 
 
RULES FOR THE LIFE WITHOUT RULES. 109 
 
 divine service, ever adding a little to knowledge, 
 ever learning more ; and this, doubtless, re- 
 quires long years for its consummation. Yet 
 one can always know enough of the divine pur- 
 pose to fulfill the demands of a day, and may 
 possess a sufficiency of the mind of Christ to 
 come into close accord with the loving heart of 
 God. However far into the future the vistas 
 of possibility may extend, enough is intelligible 
 at any one time for the knowledge, the duty, 
 the service, and the experience of the hour. 
 
 To know fully the will of God requires a 
 knowledge of all his revelation ; and how vari- 
 ously has that revelation been given to man ! 
 It is in the Bible, and in all his works, — in all 
 his laws, in all his creatures. Nature and man 
 and history reveal the mind of God. In them 
 are operative his laws, expressive of his will. 
 To learn any law of the universe is to learn just 
 so much of the divine mind. Physiology and 
 psychology, geology and astronomy, botany and 
 zoology, anthropology and sociology disclose the 
 mind of God, wherever they set forth proven 
 law. Science, enlarging the mental horizon, 
 may prepare the soul for spiritual vision. The 
 school and college may fit the pupil for heaven. 
 May, that is all that can be said ; it is possible, 
 no more can be affirmed. The well-trained, the 
 well-stored mind, as it has an increased circle of 
 
110 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 knowledge for contact with the infinite, may 
 thereby participate in a closer fellowship with 
 the divine. 
 
 But simply to know the will of God is not to 
 commune with him ; having the commandments 
 of Christ does not of itself assure likeness to 
 him. One must do that will and keep those 
 commandments. Obedience is the second great 
 requisite, but not second in importance. A 
 submissive will is as necessary as an apprehend- 
 ing mind. Indeed, God has revealed himself as 
 willing to suffer an ignorant mind, to condone 
 lack of knowledge, to hold no one responsible 
 for what he does not know ; but God has given 
 no intimation that he ever overlooks a rebellious 
 will, or treats leniently a stubborn disposition, 
 or thinks lightly of disobedience. When the 
 mind has once apprehended a law of God, then 
 the will must conform to it ; when divine pur- 
 poses and plans are intellectually discerned, 
 then in that direction must volition flow and 
 action follow; "He that hath my command- 
 ments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth 
 me ; " " If ye love me, keep my command- 
 ments." Keeping the commandments is the 
 supreme test. Obedience really overleaps all 
 other marks of discipleship. Submission of will 
 is the greatest evidence of spirituality, as indeed 
 it is the chiefest condition for its perfection. 
 
RULES FOR THE LIFE WITHOUT RULES. Ill 
 
 Here is the point of difficulty in most men's 
 lives. Here they rebel ; they will not obey. 
 Of knowledge they have a sufficiency ; but they 
 will not yield to what they know. The stub- 
 born will keeps them back. It shuts some 
 men out of the kingdom of God altogether ; 
 others, who have yielded sufficiently to have 
 come within the kingdom, draw arbitrary lines 
 in dealing with God ; in some things they will 
 obey, in other things they will not ; a part 
 of the time they will serve God faithfully, a 
 part of the time they will not ; some sacrifices 
 for God they readily make, others they will 
 not ; and so they mark off their lives into 
 segments of willingness and unwillingness, of 
 obedience and disobedience, of tenderness and 
 devotion, of stubbornness and contumacy. 
 Such men cannot grow in grace. 
 
 Oh, this stubborn will ! this selfish will ! this 
 it is that accounts for an unspiritual church, 
 for half-hearted Christians, for a drag at the 
 wheels of Gospel progress. This stubborn 
 will ! Can it not grow tender ? Can it not yield 
 completely ? Will it not obey in all things and 
 at all times and to all lengths ? That would be 
 a surrender indeed ; that would be genuine con- 
 secration ; that would lead to true sanctification. 
 
 But spirituality is not mere goodness. A 
 great truth, which is an old truth revised, has 
 
112 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 recently dawned upon the Christian world to 
 prevent the shrivelling of the spiritual life into 
 simple morality. It is the doctrine to which 
 theologians give the name, the immanence of 
 God ; it is essentially the old doctrine of the 
 omnipresence of God. Under the old view, how- 
 ever, by some fatal inconsistency, the Christian 
 who believed that God was everywhere present, 
 straightway thought of him as somehow afar off 
 in the heavens, or elsewhere out of reach, and to 
 be brought near only by the circumlocution of 
 unreal, formal appeals or unusual, extraordi- 
 nary propitiations. According to the new view 
 God is recognized as ever present, in all nature, 
 everywhere. The winds blow, the stars and 
 planets move in their orbits because of him. 
 All natural objects express his will ; the tree, 
 the flower, and the fruit assume their mul- 
 titudinous forms because of his wisdom and his 
 very presence. It is a recognition of the truth 
 of Paul's utterance made long ago at Athens : 
 "God is not far from any one of us ; in him we 
 live and move and have our being." He is our 
 very life. It is not necessary to stretch forth 
 the hand to find him, still less to cry aloud 
 and batter at heaven's door as though he were 
 on a journey, or were sleeping. God makes his 
 temple in man, dwelling in all the members 
 and parts both of the individual and the social 
 
RULES FOR THE LIFE WITHOUT RULES. 113 
 
 organism. He notes the tiniest sparrow that 
 falls to the ground ; in his knowlege the very 
 hairs of our heads are enumerated ; he is con- 
 cerned in everything we do ; no affair of ours, 
 however trivial to us, is beneath his notice ; he 
 is interested in everything that in any meas- 
 ure interests or affects mankind or his own 
 broad creation. 
 
 This old truth, newly conceived of, newly 
 realized and emphasized, is of vast importance. 
 According to it we see that God does not 
 reach down, as the naturalists and deists have 
 claimed, out of some high and distant heaven, 
 to touch nature occasionally, creating some- 
 thing or rectifying something ; but he is always 
 in nature, always preserving, controlling, regu- 
 lating ; without him nature could not exist. 
 We see that God does not specially draw near 
 his people, when they have pacified him and 
 strenuously invoked him, but he is always near 
 them, always trying to reveal himself, always 
 seeking to make his children think of him and 
 realize his presence and help. 
 
 Those who have caught this new, larger view 
 of God's presence, are making less distinction 
 between things sacred and things secular, for 
 everything they regard as holy in its place and 
 in its way. Monday is a holy day for Monday ; 
 and Saturday for Saturday is just as holy as 
 
114 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 Sunday for Sunday. One God made all the 
 days of the week and has fitted them each for 
 its purpose. Business is a holy occupation at 
 its time and in its place, if carried on uprightly ; 
 and so school, and home, and pleasure, and 
 work are all hallowed, all made holy by the 
 presence of God. We can be spiritual in all 
 these places, at all these tasks, — indeed in any- 
 thing and everything that ought to be, because 
 God wills it. 
 
 God's manner of communicating with men 
 becomes better understood when one realizes 
 the divine immanence. He spoke to prophets 
 and apostles of old ; but he is no less near to 
 the disciples of to-day, and has no less love for 
 man and proffers no less of truth. Of the ele- 
 ments in inspiration, the divine approach and 
 the divine message are constant ; human need, 
 the preparation of the human medium, and the 
 occasion vary. But individual need is as great 
 to-day as ever ; and the preparation of individ- 
 ual minds and hearts, after centuries of Chris- 
 tian development, is superior to that in the 
 times of the apostles and the prophets. Is 
 inspiration, therefore, a charisma of bygone 
 days ? Is the book closed ? the communication 
 cut off ? 
 
 To preachers all denominations recognize a 
 divine communication, at least once. The 
 
RULES FOR THE LIFE WITHOUT RULES. 115 
 
 preacher must be " called " to preach ; and ex- 
 amining councils catechise him strictly as to 
 the character and validity of the " call." This 
 is but an inquiry into the degree of inspiration 
 which he has already received, fitting him for 
 the discharge of his mission. By providential 
 signs and by internal convictions he can test 
 that inspiration. But is inspiration thereafter 
 to be denied him ? Does God depart from him 
 thenceforth forever ? Has the minister of the 
 Gospel need of communications from the Spirit 
 only when he is deciding upon his profession, 
 and when he stands before the examining board 
 in the hour of his ordination ? How about the 
 selection of a text, and the preparation of a ser- 
 mon, and the presentation of a message ? How 
 about daily ministrations to needy souls, and 
 constant living in the divine presence ? One 
 answer only can be given to these inquiries : if 
 God be with his servant at all, then divine com- 
 munications and a divine inspiration are possi- 
 ble for each day and each hour. 
 
 But every disciple has a "call," as well as 
 the minister. If the Christian blacksmith has 
 not a "call" to blacksmithing, he should leave 
 his anvil, and go whither God does call him, as 
 a Christian. The Christian merchant, the 
 Christian lawyer, the Christian physician, if 
 truly Christian, must be obedient to the divine 
 
116 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 will, and must yield to that will in choosing 
 and in pursuing a vocation. Infinite wisdom 
 can individualize. The divine voice may come 
 in multitudinous forms and accents, and with 
 manifold injunctions. God may inspire the 
 housekeeper in her work, the mother with her 
 cares, the bricklayer, the civil engineer, the 
 teacher, the clerk in whatever line of business, 
 — every toiler, however humble or however 
 great his daily toil. 
 
 If God be near, must he be dumb ? Cannot 
 he speak to his own children ? Indeed, the 
 really pertinent question is, Do the children 
 hear ? 
 
 With a knowledge of divine laws, with sub- 
 mission to the divine will, and a recognition of 
 the divine presence, growth in the higher life 
 will surely ensue. Nothing remains absolutely 
 stationary. Spirituality means an unfolding 
 life. The very idea of God involves a concep- 
 tion of change, improvement, enlargement, life, 
 growth. The infinite energy is not power at a 
 standstill, but power in operation. God is ever 
 bringing something better to pass. 
 
 A conservatism which does not change signi- 
 fies death. The church, or the individual, that 
 is satisfied with present attainments and present 
 visions may well nigh be termed dead, certainly 
 is not a spiritual church or a spiritual individ- 
 
RULES FOR THE LIFE WITHOUT RULES. 117 
 
 ual. The conservatism of holding fast that 
 which is good must be retained. Certainly we 
 are to be careful and cautious, by always trying 
 the spirits, lest we be led astray into vagary 
 and error ; yet never are we to remain motion- 
 less and become petrified, never be but the 
 reminiscence of a past virtue, and the memory 
 of a former life. We are to live, to live in the 
 present, to live in the future, always to grow. 
 
 Good habits, if they lead to nothing better 
 than themselves, are nearly, if not quite, as bad 
 as bad habits. As soon as a virtue has become 
 so habitual as to be a part of us without effort 
 and without thought, then its special merit as a 
 virtue ceases ; it is now routine, and for spirit- 
 ual value its worth consists in its serving only 
 as the base of operations for reaching out to- 
 ward the acquisition of a new virtue and the 
 formation of a new habit. If we but remain 
 in the exercise of old habits, however good they 
 may be, we continue in the operation of virtues 
 which have become automatic and mechanical ; 
 they occur on purely physical grounds, because 
 our nerve fibers and brain cells have taken cer- 
 tain definite forms, and act from self-excitation, 
 without conscious thought or volitional effort. 
 
 He who does a thing without thinking is 
 not engaged in a spiritual act; he who acts 
 without a conscious volitional effort is not liv- 
 
118 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 ing a spiritual life. Such an one may live a 
 moral life ; he may be virtuous, true, honorable, 
 and useful in society, a man upon whom neigh- 
 bors and friends may rely ; but he is not truly 
 spiritual. Spirituality requires growth. All that 
 is stored away in the sub-conscious depths of 
 our being should furnish foundation and basis 
 for our future character-building, but should 
 not prove the conclusion of our acquisitions ; for 
 conscious functions alone are spiritual. They 
 who are moral have greater possibilities of spir- 
 itual attainment than they who must first con- 
 tend with positive wickedness of heart and with 
 vicious habits. But it certainly is true that a 
 man in the gutter, who, with all the strength of 
 his being, is struggling to overcome a depraved 
 appetite, may be really a more spiritual man 
 than he who, perhaps in the innermost councils 
 of the church, wraps himself in a kind of Phari- 
 saic garb of self-righteousness and congratu- 
 lates himself that he is not as the other man 
 is ; for the latter moves along in the even, blame- 
 less tenor of his way, making no gains, enlarging 
 no spiritual boundaries, simply living a good life 
 as a matter of habit. 
 
 Goodness should never be disparaged. It 
 merits the apprenticeship of a lifetime. The 
 world rightly aims at and strives for goodness. 
 But when the Christian has attained even the 
 
RULES FOR THE LIFE WITHOUT RULES. 119 
 
 largest virtue, then he should reach up and ob- 
 tain yet other unappropriated goodness. Jesus 
 Christ has set the standard ; the saint purest 
 grown may grow yet more : " Be ye therefore 
 perfect, even as your Father in heaven is per- 
 fect." To be spiritual one must be growing. 
 
 The spiritual life becomes at length, also, if 
 not at first, a life of love. Love springs up 
 spontaneously sometimes, the inevitable conse- 
 quence of hidden, almost mysterious affinities. 
 Sometimes it results from a calm, intellectual 
 appreciation of the excellences of the object be- 
 loved. At other times it grows, by slow process, 
 out of an arrested attention, to an enkindled 
 interest, then a dawning sympathy, at length 
 real solicitude, and so, by stages, becomes itself, 
 love. To this latter process, service is the 
 main avenue of approach. Continued service 
 to a person leads almost invariably to love for 
 the person. Many of us have felt obliged at 
 times, from a sheer sense of duty, to render a 
 service to persons, unlovely, if not indeed pos- 
 itively distasteful to us at first ; and yet, how 
 often, as the service has proceeded, has dislike 
 yielded to interest, and then to sympathy, and at 
 length to love ! There are mothers and fathers 
 who have entertained no glad anticipations of 
 the coming of a little stranger to the family, 
 who, nevertheless, after its arrival, have found 
 
120 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 the pain, the suffering, the service and sacri- 
 fice for the baby's multitudinous little wants 
 the very means of calling forth love, deep and 
 strong and patient. 
 
 The spiritual life is a life of love. Love 
 begins with acquaintance and knowledge ; it 
 deepens through fellowship and communion ; 
 it expands, as, by slow transition, it takes on 
 one by one the characteristics of the object 
 beloved, and grows into the same likeness. 
 The possessor of this life, amid all vicissitudes 
 and trials, experiences nevertheless a content- 
 ment and peace surpassing any explanation 
 springing out of his circumstances. This we 
 must next consider. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 TRANSCENDENT REPOSE. 
 
 The significance of the sayings of Jesus 
 often lies as much in the circumstances under 
 which they were spoken as in the words them- 
 selves. A case in instance is involved in his 
 remarkable assurance of peace : " Peace I leave 
 with you, my peace I give unto you : not as the 
 world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your 
 heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." 
 These words are spoken on that memorable 
 Thursday evening directly preceding the awful 
 day of the crucifixion. Within two or three 
 hours Jesus is set upon in the Garden of Geth- 
 semane by a mob, seized, and hurried into the 
 presence of his judges. Before another day has 
 fully dawned he has been brought before the 
 ex-high priest Annas, and the high priest Caia- 
 phas, and the Sanhedrim of the Jews ; next unto 
 Pilate ; thence transferred to Herod, and finally 
 — his sixth judicial hearing — remanded to 
 Pilate for sentence. By Pilate, at the clamor 
 of the multitude, he is condemned to the cross. 
 121 
 
122 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 Before the sun has again reached the zenith, 
 the cruel nails have pierced the quivering flesh, 
 and the upright post with its precious load has 
 been reared aloft. Before another sun has set, 
 he, the light of the world, has been taken from 
 the cross and placed in the rocky tomb. The 
 agony, the denial, the abandonment by friends, 
 the mockings and scourgings of enemies, the 
 pain, the rack, the supreme crisis, — all these 
 dire experiences are impending, as he well 
 knows, and yet the Master calmly speaks of 
 peace : " Peace I leave with you, my peace I 
 give unto you." Within twenty-four hours the 
 disciples whom he addresses will be scattered 
 abroad, each one fleeing for his life lest he too 
 suffer death like the Master. 
 
 The shadow of the cross gives these words 
 their deepest meaning. They are words of 
 peace, when there seems to be no peace. They 
 soothe and allay and assure, when apparently 
 every ground of solace and assurance and quie- 
 tude is wanting. The utterance and the occasion 
 seem at variance. Sentiment and circumstance 
 seem antagonistic. Thought and environment 
 have fallen into a paradox. 
 
 From these words, thus uttered, the lesson 
 becomes apparent, that outward condition does 
 not afford inward contentment and satisfaction. 
 Peace is an experience of the soul. It does not 
 
TRANSCENDENT REPOSE. 123 
 
 depend upon an east wind, or upon the weather, 
 though climatic conditions affecting the bodily 
 health have a potent influence upon spirits. 
 But peace is independent of meteorological 
 changes. Repose is transcendental. It exists 
 independently of farming or business, of home 
 and possessions. It depends upon what a man 
 is, and what his relation to the divine help is. 
 
 Seekers after gold grasp and clutch at every 
 glittering grain of golden treasure, but still are 
 anxious and unsatisfied. The rich have never 
 found peace and contentment in riches alone. 
 More often they find carking cares and multi- 
 plied perplexities. Neither has the voluptuary, 
 in all his round of diversions, acquired the 
 joy of satisfying peace. Pleasure may promise 
 solace, but it is a banker insolvent, never re- 
 deeming its pledges. No better reward of peace 
 does position, or place, or power afford. Has 
 any one yet observed that beauty, or fine gar- 
 ments, or facile manners, or aristocratic con- 
 nections yield peace ? 
 
 If outward circumstances gave peace, how, 
 then, could David have stood undaunted before 
 Goliath and unabashed before Saul ? How 
 could Elijah have stood before Ahab ? How 
 could Paul have spoken in the presence of Felix, 
 and Festus, and Agrippa, and appealed unto 
 Caesar ? Could Stephen, looking steadfastly up 
 
124 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 into heaven, have rejoiced at the vision that met 
 his gaze, while yet they stoned him ? Would 
 it, indeed, have been possible for the martyrs of 
 all the Christian centuries to have endured their 
 pains and tortures, if peace came from outward 
 circumstances ? Would those hymns have been 
 sung in the Philippian prison by Paul and Silas ? 
 Would Martin Luther have defied the pope ? 
 Would he have translated the New Testament 
 quietly on the Wartburg, while his enemies were 
 harrying through the land like a pack of hounds 
 after the quarry ? Could he have thundered 
 before the Council of Worms, " Here stand I : 
 I can naught else. God help me"? If outward 
 circumstances determined peace, how would it 
 be with the great majority of us mortals, who 
 possess little wealth, who lack position and 
 power, who are uncommended by personal ap- 
 pearance, or brilliant endowments, or influential 
 associations ? 
 
 But in the shadow of the cross peace abounds. 
 The words are addressed to the disciples, hum- 
 ble fishermen, unadorned, untitled, unrenowned 
 and soon to be deprived of their one powerful 
 friend. It is surely in no external way that 
 Jesus bestows upon his followers peace and 
 quietness. The world tries to make its appor- 
 tionment of satisfaction to a few favorites, and 
 under certain favorable conditions, but the gifts 
 
TRANSCENDENT REPOSE. 125 
 
 of Jesus are for all men and at all times. Peace 
 may abound in the midst of the sorest trial, 
 under the deepest affliction, beneath the dark- 
 est cloud. 
 
 The converse of this first lesson is happily 
 true ; the peace which Jesus gives, as it is not 
 dependent upon outward circumstance, so is it 
 equal to any emergency, for it is not destroyed 
 by any external commotion. 
 
 Here is a picture : on the Mediterranean Sea 
 sails a ship, storm-tossed, having two hundred 
 and seventy-six souls on board, — the captain, 
 officers, and crew, military officials and soldiers, 
 merchants and pleasure-seekers ; there are also 
 some prisoners, chained in custody of the 
 soldiers. For fourteen days the frail vessel has 
 labored in the sea. Freight and tackling have 
 been thrown overboard to lighten the ship. 
 Consternation is depicted on every face but 
 one ; despair in every heart but one. One man, 
 a prisoner, in his chains, is crying, " Be of good 
 cheer; eat; abide by the ship; we shall all be 
 saved ; not one shall perish." That one man 
 has leaned upon his God ; in consequence, that 
 one man enjoys now peace and confidence. 
 That man is the Apostle Paul on his way to 
 Rome, in bonds, but his spirit breathes the free 
 air. Outward circumstances have not affected 
 his sense of security, his soul's quiet calm. 
 
126 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 Our Master furnished a yet better illustra- 
 tion of peace. But a very brief time after his 
 message of peace was bequeathed unto his disci- 
 ples, when the multitude came upon him in 
 the Garden of Gethsemane, he was the calmest, 
 most peaceful person present, though the most 
 imperiled. When he stepped forth from the 
 shadow and darkness into the glare of their 
 torches and calmly said, "Whom seek ye ? I am 
 he," — affrighted, the soldiers and officers and 
 proud ecclesiastics who had come to arrest him 
 fell on their faces to the ground. His Apostle 
 Peter, in attempting to defend him by the 
 sword, with clumsy agitated stroke aimed at the 
 neck, smote a man's ear. It was a frightened 
 concourse on either side. He alone remained 
 calm. The disciples, though three years already 
 under his tuition, had not yet learned the lessons 
 of a spiritual kingdom and of spiritual conquests. 
 They knew almost as little of him whom they 
 revered as did those who hated Jesus. In 
 alarm for their own lives they soon fled. The 
 Master taken, they could think only of death, 
 and an end to all their ardent expectations for 
 Israel, an end to all their earnest endeavors and 
 hearty sacrifices for the Master's sake. The 
 lessons of spiritual truth, though ever so well 
 taught, had not been well learned by the dis- 
 ciples. But no fear ruffled the Master's peace- 
 
TRANSCENDENT REPOSE. 127 
 
 ful repose. He had fought out the battle in 
 his own soul : " O my Father, if it be possible, 
 let this cup pass from me : nevertheless not as 
 I will, but as thou wilt." He evinced a peace- 
 fulness not affected by circumstance. 
 
 But the triumphs of peace are visible in the 
 lives of Christian disciples to-day. Every 
 pastor in the round of his ministrations of 
 comfort and consolation enters homes from 
 which he carries more than he can by any 
 means convey thither : homes that ever stand 
 out distinctly in his thought ; homes in which 
 murmurings have been stayed, in which rebel- 
 lion has been quelled, in which undisturbed 
 peace reigns. The benediction of such homes 
 spreads throughout an entire community. In 
 spite of circumstances, yea, by the very adver- 
 sity of the lot, the triumphs of peace become 
 the more complete. 
 
 There are saints in every community, with 
 their greater opportunities, more saintly to-day 
 than the Christians of Corinth who were called 
 saints by the Apostle Paul. Every church could 
 furnish a quota. Not that men and women of 
 this age or of any age have attained unto final 
 perfection, but they have so grown in grace as 
 to make the contrast between what now is and 
 what might have been almost stupendous. By 
 the victories achieved, by the steadiness and 
 
128 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 patience with which they endure trial, by their 
 bearing of burdens, by the fortitude and con- 
 fidence wrought into life, by the fine fiber 
 fashioned into the texture of sterling Christian 
 character are we to judge. 
 
 There is a peace that can endure unruffled 
 the loss of property, the asperities of enemies, 
 the desertion of friends. There is a peace 
 which, despite calumnies and misrepresenta- 
 tions, despite scorn and ridicule, can still retain 
 its calm and keep its sweetness. There is a 
 peace which can survive the blasting of fond 
 hopes and the miscarriage of cherished plans. 
 Such peace issues from a divine source. It 
 partakes of the mighty pronouns of the utter- 
 ance, " Peace / leave with you, my peace / give 
 unto you. Not as the world giveth, give / unto 
 you." That is more than a human peace. 
 
 Not long ago the Church thought of herself 
 as having but one message. She exhorted 
 men, " Be ye reconciled to God." She pleaded 
 with them, " Repent of your sins ; obey the 
 Lord ; be at peace with him." Eager to afford 
 the ministrations that might in any measure 
 aid in reconciling or shriving the soul, her ser- 
 vants stood with anxious solicitude beside the 
 bed of the dying, whispering, " Has he yet 
 made his peace with God?" At length the 
 Church has seen also that her mission presents 
 
TRANSCENDENT REPOSE. 129 
 
 a broader aspect. Jesus declared the first great 
 commandment to be to love God supremely, 
 but he also said, "The second is like unto it, 
 Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself ; " that 
 is, thou shalt be reconciled to thy neighbor in 
 all his ways and all his interests, and shalt 
 promote the conditions of peace between thy- 
 self and thy neighbor ; as thy devotion extends 
 upward toward God, so must it also extend out- 
 ward amongst men. This is the declaration that 
 religion must be cubical, of solid content ; it 
 must not only have elevation, but also exten- 
 sion ; it must be not aspiring only, but also 
 toiling ; while ideal, it must also be practical ; 
 not a religion of faith only, but a religion of 
 works as well ; not only fitting for heaven, but 
 equally fitting for earth ; a religion not alone 
 to die by, but to live by, daily and hourly, from 
 youth to old age. The hope of Christianity is 
 not alone for the hereafter, but it also embraces 
 the earth. Christianity is adapted to all life ; 
 it molds all life ; it purifies all life ; it redeems 
 and sanctifies all life. With it nothing is com- 
 mon or unclean. What it has touched becomes 
 straightway holy. The lowliest task can be 
 glorified by the Christian : " Whatsoever ye do, 
 whether ye eat or drink, do all to the glory of 
 God." That is the new, broader spirit of preach- 
 ing and service that is now actuating the church. 
 
130 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 But it needs to be made plain and to be em- 
 phasized that this new spirit is not a substitu- 
 tion for the old. It is an addition. It displaces 
 nothing. It simply enlarges. It does not claim 
 that philanthropy is religion, that good works 
 are sufficient, that this life is all. It simply 
 emphasizes the love of man, the necessity of 
 good deeds, and the importance of holy living 
 in this life. Without the old message of love 
 toward God, the new message of love toward 
 man is idle and meaningless, for it loses its 
 motive and becomes but a sentiment. Peace 
 amongst men, if alone, is superficial ; it is vain 
 unless there be also peace with God. 
 
 The church has been saying, What is the use 
 of preaching the Gospel to a man who is hun- 
 gry and cold and shelterless? we must feed him 
 and clothe him and house him first. But the 
 inquiry is no less pertinent, What is the use 
 of dispensing food unless the tidings of salva- 
 tion be also given ? Of what value is a gar- 
 ment, if a man's inner nature be not touched 
 and changed ? Why house a man, if we do not 
 also make him the temple of something holy ? 
 Indiscriminate charity will but multiply improv- 
 idence and pauperism. Sociology as a science 
 may be mere theory, as an art it may be naught 
 but sentimentalism. Philanthropy alone has no 
 point of contact with the divine ; it is simply 
 
TRANSCENDENT REPOSE. 131 
 
 of man, for man, and ends with man. There 
 must be the ideal ; there must be the upward 
 reach of the soul by faith ; there must be devo- 
 tion to God, a reconciliation with him, the at- 
 tainment of his approval. 
 
 Peace with God, — has a man that ? This 
 question is as pertinent for the church to put 
 to-day as ever. It is the supreme question for a 
 human soul to answer. Peace with God, — this 
 is what imparts to all life its true significance ; 
 this beautifies life and sanctifies life. This 
 allays the pangs of conscience ; this takes away 
 the pain and penalty of past guilt ; this begins 
 heaven here in the breast. Attendance upon 
 the services of a Christian church, the enjoy- 
 ment of the preaching of the Gospel, the pay- 
 ment of honest debts and the faithful fulfilment 
 of social obligations, meet many of the ethical 
 requirements of our day, but fall far short of 
 the high duty and privilege involved in the 
 teaching of Jesus. There are husbands whose 
 wives have satisfying peace in the fellowship 
 and communion of the divine, but wives cannot 
 answer this supreme question for their hus- 
 bands ; the men must answer for themselves. 
 There are young people whose fathers and 
 mothers have long lived in the peace of God, 
 but the great question is for children to answer 
 for themselves. It is an individual question, 
 
132 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 because it is an individual matter. It concerns 
 not social peace, nor a general amnesty ; it is 
 for the single soul. This is the sure founda- 
 tion for all other quietness and calm. Without 
 this one, the others are deceptive and ephemeral. 
 This abides. 
 
 A simple rule, approved by revelation and 
 by experience, can be given for the acquirement 
 of peace: two things are necessary, obedience 
 and trust. 
 
 The son of any household, while obedient, 
 has nothing to fear. His one sufficient answer 
 to all misgivings and all sophistries of judgment, 
 whether of himself or of his friends, is, " Father 
 told me to do this," and then he may quietly 
 and steadily continue his task. That is all the 
 logic a good son needs, after his father has once 
 spoken. Alternatives and evasions concern him 
 not, neither do speculations regarding the out- 
 come or significance of his movements, if father 
 has bidden it so. Even if in the performance 
 of his duty some accident or mischance befalls 
 him, still the conscientious son of a wise father, 
 though filled with regret, has nothing to fear : 
 " Father knows I meant well," is his perfectly 
 justifiable excuse ; " I did the best I could." Is 
 God less reasonable than a wise earthly parent ? 
 
 The specific act of obedience varies with 
 the individual and with the hour. But that 
 
TRANSCENDENT REPOSE. 133 
 
 thing is required which conscience bids, what- 
 ever it may be. Confession of Christ before 
 men, baptism and church membership, recon- 
 ciliation with some offended neighbor or friend, 
 the undoing, as far as possible, of some pre- 
 vious wrong act by restitution and restoration, 
 the remodeling of extensive business opera- 
 tions upon a strictly honest and honorable 
 basis, — these may be the beginnings for differ- 
 ent people ; but whatever the beginning, the 
 moral act is the same, obedience to God through 
 fidelity to conscience. Whether it be to open 
 the purse, to quicken the hand, to melt the eye 
 in sympathy, or simply to stand fearlessly for 
 the right, obedience is necessary. 
 
 There is no ambiguity in the rule, whatever 
 may be the outlook. This is the rule of life 
 that has always made life noble. The martyrs 
 of old observed this rule. It was the rule of the 
 apostles. Peter and John, when admonished 
 by the great Jewish council, the Sanhedrim, 
 to cease preaching, answered unhesitatingly, 
 "Whether it be right in the sight of God to 
 hearken unto you more than unto God, judge 
 ye." This is the spirit of all reformers. Wick- 
 liffe, Huss, and Luther set obedience to God 
 above all else. Our pilgrim fathers came to 
 these inhospitable shores and founded these 
 New England colonies because they counted 
 
134 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 no cost of property or pains too great to pay 
 that they might have in their worship an op- 
 portunity to obey God according to the dic- 
 tates of their own conscience. Though storm 
 and shipwreck, though famine and destitution, 
 though tomahawk and firebrand threatened 
 them, yet they found a haven of rest and 
 peace, because they made obedience to God 
 supreme. 
 
 Obedience to the divine will makes heroes 
 of common men. The path of duty leads far 
 out beyond the vision of the farthest seeing 
 man ; it takes in the scope of infinite purposes. 
 To obey God is to partake of his wisdom, for 
 it is to engage in his plans. Then one can 
 well trust. The humblest individual has a high 
 and noble task, though it be but extending a 
 cup of cold water to a thirsty comrade, when 
 that is done in obedience to the will of God. 
 The merest child is cooperating with plans 
 such as fashioned this world and are now set- 
 ting up the borders of the kingdom of heaven, 
 when he does some act, trifling in itself, which 
 it is the wish of God that that child perform. 
 Nothing which God wills is insignificant. The 
 pin-points and the dust-specks of human des- 
 tiny are all grand and holy when seen in the 
 light of infinite wisdom and love. The jots 
 and tittles of the divine law are all great with 
 
TRANSCENDENT REPOSE. 135 
 
 the certainties of the divine purpose and the 
 possibilities of human peace. 
 
 Obedience to God enlists one in divine en- 
 terprises, unites one with divine wisdom, and 
 brings one into the channels of the operation 
 of divine strength and grace. Then there is 
 nothing to fear. "Having done all, stand," 
 wrote the Apostle Paul. Having obeyed the 
 Lord, then may the disciple trust him, is the 
 sentiment written all over the page of revela- 
 tion, and running throughout the history of 
 God's dealings with man. Having obeyed, 
 there remains then nothing to dread, neither 
 the wrath of man nor the displeasure of God. 
 
 On the chamber wall of his childhood's 
 home, a mature man sees in memory, wherever 
 he goes, a motto so placed by his mother's 
 hand that the eye would easily see it when 
 awakening, — a motto, not handsome in itself, 
 not elegantly framed, but plain to read and 
 very significant to him all his days: do right 
 and fear not. It is the motto of the life of 
 Christ. That sentiment wrought into active 
 life brings peace. That ennobles the humblest 
 career. That dignified the incomparable life of 
 the Son of Man. When conscience and action 
 blend in the same channel, then ensues peace 
 such as the world cannot give and the world 
 cannot take away. 
 
136 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 "Who's there?" the wind the casement rattles. 
 "Who speaks?" the tree -tops murmur and sigh. 
 "Some one is looking!" Naught the darkness 
 Is piercing save God's all-seeing eye. 
 
 Such is a picture of the disobedient, the dis- 
 trustful, the fearful ; for " the wicked flee when 
 no man pursueth." 
 
 But the obedient, free from alarms, are at 
 rest. The Lord is their strength and refuge ; 
 and in him have they their peace. Yet peace 
 is obtained at no less price than obedience, and 
 this involves, frequently, struggles and con- 
 quests before peace can be enjoyed. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 VICTORY OVER SELF AND CIRCUMSTANCE. 
 
 All life calls for careful discriminations ; the 
 higher the life, the finer must distinctions be 
 made. The conception of contentment that 
 would befit a brute, if he has any such con- 
 ception at all, would not avail for man ; and the 
 idea of contentment that a lazy man might 
 entertain would prove wholly inadequate for 
 an active, energetic man. Indeed, two Chris- 
 tians might disagree as to the propriety of pred- 
 icating contentment at all of the genuine 
 Christian life, one averring that contentment 
 is the bane of the church, that her members 
 are too contented, too well satisfied with condi- 
 tions as they are, and not sufficiently active in 
 extending the kingdom of God; the other de- 
 claring that the church ought always to be 
 contented with the divine providences which 
 have marked out her lot and her experiences, 
 and, without murmurings or complainings, ought 
 to plod steadily on about her work. The two 
 seem to disagree, but the disagreement is only 
 137 
 
138 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 in words. A careful distinction in meaning 
 shows that each would assent cheerfully to the 
 divine will, and feel discontented only with 
 human achievements in accomplishing the di- 
 vine intent. The Christian should acquiesce 
 in all divine purposes, and never be indifferent 
 to them : that is the true theory of content- 
 ment for him. 
 
 In like manner, unless distinctions are made, 
 contradictions appear in the invitations of Jesus. 
 He calls the weary and heavy-laden to him for 
 rest, and yet declares that no man who fails to 
 take up his cross daily is worthy of him, as 
 though discipleship meant both repose and toil, 
 both ease and hardship. But the discrimina- 
 tion which the Gospel affords renders the para- 
 dox plain : Jesus invites the world to a release 
 from the burdens of sin and to an acceptance 
 of the obligations of righteousness ; he does 
 not call one to an inanity, or to a voluptuary's 
 paradise. 
 
 While, therefore, Jesus provides for his follow- 
 ers a transcendent repose, he assigns to them at 
 the same time all the strivings with temptation, 
 all the responsibilities of his mission, and all the 
 opportunities of his kingdom ; they must ago- 
 nize to enter in by the strait gate, they must 
 labor in the vineyard, they must administer 
 faithfully the talents intrusted to them, they 
 
VICTORY OVER SELF AND CIRCUMSTANCE. 139 
 
 must bear the burdens and the crosses, and 
 endure the crucifixion, if need be ; " it is enough 
 for the disciple that he be as his master." And 
 how that Master toiled ! After his ministry- 
 began, he made no earthly home his resting 
 place ; his meat was to do the will of him who 
 sent him ; he was obliged ever to accomplish 
 that work. 
 
 There are two ways of treating the tribula- 
 tions of this world : one is to surrender to them 
 with a whine and with complaint ; the other is 
 to face them calmly and courageously, and make 
 the best of them. 
 
 Were we to tabulate and magnify hard- 
 ships, the list might be formidable. In the 
 sweat of our faces do we eat bread ; daily 
 must we toil ; the land produces weeds faster 
 than crops ; houses decay ; possessions vanish 
 because of moth, rust, thieves, and changing 
 conditions ; mills suspend operations ; bonds 
 depreciate ; friends frequently prove faithless ; 
 death often claims the most loved one ; human 
 society is fickle ; governments do not always 
 govern, — and so the tale might be prolonged. 
 Distress, disappointment, affliction, trial, trou- 
 ble come to all. We might hang our harps on 
 the willow and sit ourselves down by the waters 
 of Babylon and weep. Niobe in her tears, 
 Rachel inaccessible to consolation, might appro- 
 
140 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 priately be our models, were we to count only 
 woes and hardships. 
 
 Pessimism has its data. But pessimism 
 merely interprets one set of facts, which are 
 facts, nevertheless ; views but one side of truth, 
 a side of truth, however, which we must re- 
 member. There are evils in the world, mani- 
 fold and insistent. But why ? Are they ends 
 in themselves ? Do they mark out the destiny 
 of mankind ? Do they, indeed, preponderate in 
 life, and, when the pleasurable has passed away, 
 are they to be the residuum ? Ah, no. And 
 here pessimism is wholly wrong. The life and 
 the teaching of Jesus show that ills and trials 
 and hardships are but incidental in shaping 
 human destiny ; they are disciplinary at most. 
 It is not intended that they shall overcome man, 
 as pessimistic philosophy maintains, but that 
 man shall overcome them, and from the pro- 
 cess of overcoming emerge a stronger, better, 
 nobler man, refined by his very hardships. 
 
 The lazy, slothful farmer, who rises after the 
 sun is up, leans against the doorpost and whit- 
 tles sticks by the hour, while he observes the 
 weather, and curses the rain, when it is wet, 
 and when it is hot, the sunshine, may well 
 think that the whole world is coming rapidly 
 to want. He does not cooperate with the re- 
 creative, constructive forces of nature. He sees 
 
VICTORY OVER SELF AND CIRCUMSTANCE. 141 
 
 only the laws of decay, degeneracy, and ruin, — 
 laws which are in the minority when opposed, 
 but easily hold sway, if the majority stand aside 
 and let them operate. The farmer has in his 
 power the pivotal choice — which shall win on his 
 farm : sloth and poverty, or industry and thrift. 
 
 The man of toil and push and courage is no 
 pessimist. His acres are broad and fertile, his 
 buildings snug and firm. What optimistic barns 
 he has, with bursting mows, and sleek cattle ! 
 There is a merry, opulent sound to the jingle 
 of his chains, and the rattle of his carts. He 
 has overcome his world. The rocks, the stumps, 
 the weeds, hillsides, meadows, bottom-land, — 
 he has overcome them all. He is master ; at 
 his royal command they do his bidding. 
 
 The labor of brawn and muscle and strong 
 determination has a kingly might. Its sove- 
 reign ukase is universally heeded. It bids 
 great rivers wed their banks, and, lo ! there 
 springs, like heaven's bow of promise, the bond 
 of union from either shore, great bridges, high- 
 ways of intercourse. It tames the lightning's 
 dangerous pranks, and renders it a Ganymede 
 to discharge its errands, and deliver its mes- 
 sages in distant parts of the world. Following 
 invention's suggestions, labor overleaps space, 
 penetrates earth's deepest recesses, drags forth 
 antiquity's secrets, lays its hand on tired hu- 
 
142 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 inanity's head, and brings the ministrations of 
 soothing devices, — indeed, copes with all dis- 
 tresses and relieves their bitterness. Labor 
 omnia vincit, said the Romans, and the school- 
 boy writes it now on the fly leaf of his book : 
 Labor overcomes everything. In Eden labor may 
 have been a curse ; but under conditions which 
 we Adams and Eves, outside the flaming gate, 
 must now face and contend with, labor is our 
 best boon and benefactor. In the industrial 
 world it restores us to our lost estate, brings us 
 back to our paradise. By hard toil we enter 
 once again the garden, and come beneath the 
 Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, with the 
 possibilities of power once more in our hands. 
 
 Mankind may be of cheer. Laments, com- 
 plaints, and pessimistic moanings are repudi- 
 ated by all human experience. Circumstances 
 are not against us. 
 
 "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 
 But in ourselves, that we are underlings." 
 
 We can make the tribulations of this world 
 yield us good. We can overcome the world. 
 "Where there is a will, there is a way." 
 
 "Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius: 
 
 Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, 
 Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, 
 Can be retentive to the strength of spirit." 
 
VICTORY OVER SELF AND CIRCUMSTANCE. 143 
 
 This world, though a stubborn foe, becomes a 
 valuable servant. It awaits our conquests. It 
 can be overcome. 
 
 But, it has been urged, two factors account 
 for all individual peculiarities and characteris- 
 tics, and determine human destiny — heredity 
 and environment. All can agree with the 
 genial poet-doctor, who said that the training 
 of a child should begin with his grandmother, 
 for we all know that, while size and temper 
 and beauty are determined in horses and cattle 
 and sheep by care in breeding, we, human ani- 
 mals, inherit from our ancestors peculiarities 
 of mind and body. This is a matter of com- 
 mon observation, as well as of scientific dem- 
 onstration. 
 
 Blood tells. And what a sorry plight for 
 thousands of earth's little ones ; blood, vicious, 
 diseased, alcohol-crazed, lust-inflamed, the venom 
 of satanic spleen in every heart-beat, such blood 
 is theirs, the children of innocency, thus cursed 
 through no fault of theirs ! Parentage implies 
 an awful immortality ; unto the third, and 
 fourth, and succeeding generations the lives 
 of parents go on and on. Statistics of the 
 famous " Jukes " family have shown that, with 
 scarcely an exception, the progeny of one 
 wicked woman, numbering in several genera- 
 tions one hundred and sixty, came, with her 
 
144 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 vices in their blood, to the brothel, the prison, 
 the poorhouse, and the insane asylum. 
 
 But while the evil that men do lives after 
 them, the good is not interred with their 
 bones ; the good likewise survives. Fathers 
 and mothers may rejoice in this, that holy am- 
 bitions, earnest endeavors, sweet and patient 
 living, project themselves forward into their 
 children's lives with abiding blessings. Hered- 
 ity, therefore, imparts to every child contend- 
 ing forces and tendencies, some for good and 
 some for evil, — the invariable characteristics 
 of human nature, warfare within the soul. The 
 contending forces vary in different individuals. 
 In that "Jukes" family the evil overwhelmingly 
 predominated ; in other families good tenden- 
 cies are supreme. 
 
 The social standard of judging men is not 
 God's standard ; the social standard is based on 
 absolute merit. God's judgment takes into 
 account men's talents and possibilities ; of him 
 to whom many talents have been committed 
 much is required ; of him to whom few talents 
 have been given, but little is expected. God 
 takes account of advantages and disadvantages ; 
 he demands that only of which one is capable ; 
 and so, in his sight, every child, whatever its 
 inherited tendencies, starts upon an equal 
 plane, in perfect innocency, with no sin scored 
 
VICTORY OVER SELF AND CIRCUMSTANCE. 145 
 
 against him, and no merit to his credit. Sin 
 and merit are both to be determined by the de- 
 gree of fidelity with which each in his place, 
 with his talents, responds to his possibilities. 
 Each child must make his own character ; each 
 has certain possibilities ; those possibilities con- 
 stitute his world for conquest. At least, within 
 the scope of his possibilities is he free. For 
 the winning of the approval of God, therefore, 
 none are handicapped. 
 
 Environment is now generally looked upon 
 as a stronger factor in life than heredity, for it 
 has been proven that nine out of ten of the chil- 
 dren placed in good homes by the Children's 
 Aid Society of New York turn out well, and 
 eight out of ten of the criminals who receive 
 the influences of Elmira Reformatory subse- 
 quently live honest lives. Surroundings exert 
 a powerful influence. It has been averred 
 that a human being " left in infancy without 
 the help and stimulus of human companions, 
 would, even if able to survive, yet never mani- 
 fest distinctively human traits ; nothing of that 
 which is highest and most characteristic in 
 man comes to him apart from instruction ;" and 
 it has been found, by the sad experience of a 
 child in India, that a child grown up among 
 wolves will run on all fours like a wolf, eat, 
 snarl, and take his enjoyment as do the wolves. 
 
146 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 And yet, while we fully acknowledge the 
 great potency of these influences within us and 
 without us, — whether we maintain with Dar- 
 win and Spencer that acquired characteristics 
 can be transmitted, or with Haeckel and Weiss- 
 mann that they cannot be transmitted, — this 
 we all know (for experience and observation 
 teach it daily), a man is more than his inheri- 
 tances and more than his surroundings, — he 
 can rise above them, — he can overcome them ; 
 the power of will is superior to heredity and 
 environment. Let us appeal to familiar in- 
 stances. What made Grant, Grant ? His sur- 
 roundings ? Horse-breaking and log-rolling ? 
 When but twelve years of age, young Ulysses 
 with a pair of horses was hauling logs two 
 miles to be used in a county jail which his 
 father had contracted to build. One day the 
 man who loaded the wagon did not come on 
 account of severe rains. The boy would not 
 return with an empty wagon. He discovered 
 a slanting maple-tree close at hand ; near this 
 he backed the wagon, and then with one horse 
 drew the heavy logs, one by one, up the side of 
 the tree and twitched them on to the load. 
 Grant in conquering his logs was making Grant, 
 the successful general. 
 
 Did environment make James A. Garfield ? 
 Born in a log cabin, fatherless at eighteen 
 
VICTORY OVER SELF AND CIRCUMSTANCE. 147 
 
 months, poor, and without friends ; at seven- 
 teen, tramping the tow-path ; when bent upon 
 school, cutting one hundred cords of wood in 
 fifty days at fifty cents a cord. What made 
 Garfield? Garfield himself. And our Lincoln, 
 that Kentuckian rail-splitter, what made him ? 
 The eminent geologist, Hugh Miller, was once 
 but a stone-cutter. The renowned linguist, 
 Elihu Burritt, came from a blacksmith's shop. 
 Is environment the explanation ? Benjamin 
 Franklin, Daniel Webster, Horace Greeley, 
 Horace Mann, and thousands of others, no 
 less conspicuous, have risen to eminence from 
 humble circumstances, by courage, persever- 
 ance, and constant application conquering the 
 world about them. How many of our most 
 famous and renowned men can sing, with 
 Whittier, — 
 
 " Blessings on thee, little man, 
 Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan! 
 With thy turned-up pantaloons, 
 And thy merry whistled tunes; 
 With thy red lip, redder still 
 Kissed by strawberries on the hill; 
 With the sunshine on thy face, 
 Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace; 
 From my heart I give thee joy — 
 I was once a barefoot boy ! " 
 
 What worlds have been overcome by persis- 
 tent effort! Demosthenes, practicing on the 
 seashore with pebbles in his mouth, broke him- 
 
148 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 self of stammering and indistinct articulation. 
 Professor Von Treistchke of Berlin University, 
 a most popular lecturer, though deaf and dumb, 
 yet learned to articulate by studying, as deaf 
 mutes may, the physical action of the vocal 
 organs. Laura Bridgeman was blind, as well as 
 deaf and dumb, and had been partially deprived 
 of the senses of taste and smell ; touch alone, 
 and that blunted, remained to her for contact 
 with men and things. What a world of dark- 
 ness and isolation shut her in ! but, by those 
 little instruments, the nerves residing in her 
 finger-tips, she overcame her world of dark- 
 ness and seclusion — patient, wonderful Laura 
 Bridgeman ! Even more marvelous are the 
 results that Helen Keller is achieving in the 
 same way to-day. 
 
 What patient courage, what unwavering de- 
 termination does the successful musician evince 
 before earning his musical freedom, — enduring 
 long days and years of unremitting bondage to 
 the mechanical details of notation, theory, and 
 execution ! What a world of hindrance and 
 tribulation does the pianist, or organist, en- 
 counter in the obstinate inelasticity of that 
 third finger! The artist, how formidable his 
 world, — perspective, pose, color, tone, com- 
 position ! He lodges in garrets, lives on crusts, 
 ransacks the byways and galleries of all Europe 
 
VICTORY OVER SELF AND CIRCUMSTANCE. 14c9 
 
 for subjects and inspiration, overcoming all the 
 time his world. The author puts days of patient 
 thought and careful pruning into single lines. 
 Geniuses are not exempt from hardship and 
 toil ; rather, because of hardships and toils 
 are they geniuses. " For him who toils, God 
 helps," said Euripides ; and Sophocles averred, 
 "To those who act not, fortune is no ally." 
 The Vedas wisely exhort, 
 
 ** Perform all necessary acts, for action 
 Is better than inaction ; none can live 
 By sitting still and doing naught ; it is 
 By action only that a man attains 
 Immunity from action." 
 
 We can acquire habits of mind and tem- 
 per ; we can overcome ourselves, our laziness, 
 our idleness, our forgetfulness, our selfishness. 
 Will is a factor in the destiny of man greater 
 than hereditary influences and the effects of 
 environment combined. Mr. W. M. F. Rounds, 
 who is qualified to speak, says, " I wish to put 
 myself on record, after a study of the criminal, 
 and contrary to my previous utterances, as 
 going squarely back to the doctrine of free 
 will as laid down by our fathers." Dr. G. A. 
 Gordon states it as the conclusion of a large 
 number of thinkers that genius and saintliness 
 
150 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 are transcendent, above heredity and environ- 
 ment. Dr. A. H. Bradford in his very helpful 
 study, " Heredity and Christian Problems," 
 cites the case of a colored woman whose 
 heritage was vicious and criminal, and whose 
 circumstances of life since childhood had been 
 such as to tend to the development of passion, 
 who, nevertheless, despite blood and environ- 
 ment, had turned from her old surroundings 
 and old friends, and had made a new life for 
 herself ; another case of a woman, whose home 
 was utterly distasteful, without the least love 
 between herself and husband, who, however, 
 after years of such conditions, constantly grow- 
 ing worse, by a simple act of will decided that 
 a new domestic life must begin, and set herself, 
 unaided, to accomplish this, and it did begin ; 
 and a third case, of a man of fine and noble 
 character, who had risen to the front rank of 
 his profession out of an heredity which he 
 called "all pure devil." 
 
 Instances of the supremacy of will every 
 thoughtful person has observed innumerable 
 times. The wisdom of that discreet philoso- 
 pher, Rev. John Todd, whose " Student's 
 Manual" our grandparents conned, has been 
 amply vindicated. " Do not fear," he says, " to 
 undertake any habit which is desirable ; for it 
 can be formed, and that with more ease than 
 
VICTORY OVER SELF AND CIRCUMSTANCE. 151 
 
 you may at first suppose. Let the same thing, 
 or the same duty, return at the same time every 
 day t and it will soon become pleasant. No mat- 
 ter if it be irksome at first ; but how irksome 
 soever it may be, only let it return periodically, 
 every day, and that without any interruption 
 for a time, and it will become a positive pleas- 
 ure." 
 
 The world of sin and temptation can be with- 
 stood. As witnesses there comes before us a 
 multitudinous array of the saints of all ages, 
 and of saints of to-day, in our own communi- 
 ties, who resist temptation and drive evil from 
 their hearts. " Be of good cheer," bade Jesus ; 
 " I have overcome the world." 
 
 For Jesus it was a world such as we en- 
 counter, a world of poverty. The poor man's 
 offering was brought to the temple when he 
 was forty days old, at his mother's purifica- 
 tion ; he had not where to lay his head ; he 
 lived the life of an humble carpenter. 
 
 It was a world of forgetfulness for our Mas- 
 ter. Throngs followed him and then in fickle- 
 ness turned from him ; they waved palm 
 branches before him one day, and then, within 
 a week, cried, " Crucify him, crucify him ! " 
 His most intimate friends and trusted com- 
 panions swore unwavering allegiance and yet 
 within twenty-four hours, when danger threat- 
 
152 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 ened, either skulked into hiding or denied on 
 oath that they were acquainted with him. 
 
 He was beset by most subtle temptations : 
 to exercise his power for his own personal 
 comfort, — " Command that these stones be 
 made bread ; " to trust himself presumptuously 
 to his own divine nature and the divine over- 
 sight, — " Cast thyself down : he shall give his 
 angels charge concerning thee ; " yea, and to 
 accomplish in a moment the very mission of his 
 life, — the conquest of the world, — by yielding 
 to the world's plans and ideals through bowing 
 down unto Satan, — " All these things will I 
 give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship 
 me;" but he resisted all. Truly, he was 
 tempted in all points, like as we are ; yet he 
 sinned not. 
 
 It was a world of sordidness, passion, mean- 
 ness, narrowness, bigotry, strife, anger, and 
 contention which Jesus overcame. He did not 
 avoid it ; he did not isolate himself from it ; he 
 did not neglect it ; nay, he sought it, he volun- 
 tarily came to it, he made himself a part of it, 
 he faced its affronts and asperities. He over- 
 came it. 
 
 A marvelous model ! As he walked the hills 
 of Galilee and the streets of Jerusalem, he 
 overcame anger of speech, when men reviled 
 him ; overcame impatience, when men deserted 
 
VICTORY OVER SELF AND CIRCUMSTANCE. 153 
 
 him ; overcame resentment, even when they 
 crucified him, tenderly pleading, " Father, for- 
 give them, they know not what they do." 
 
 The world can never exhaust the significance 
 of that supreme sacrifice on Calvary ; and yet 
 even a greater sacrifice was made at heaven's 
 gate, when the Lord Christ parted from the 
 glory with his Father, for which he once prayed, 
 and came to earth, taking upon himself the like- 
 ness of man, laying aside his heavenly power 
 and majesty, descending to Bethlehem's mean 
 manger, to Judea's factions and prejudices and 
 sins. Ah, that advent, that incarnation ! what 
 a victory then was won over the world ! If 
 purity ever had repugnance for impurity, if 
 power ever was loath to lay aside its preroga- 
 tives, if majesty ever hesitated to humble it- 
 self, if heaven ever proved attractive, why did 
 not the beloved Son of God then remain in 
 heaven's glory at the right hand of the Father ? 
 The world lost in sin, steeped in its iniquities, 
 so obtuse to spiritual influences, was then over- 
 come ; love won its greatest battle ; love then 
 conquered the world, and brought its own reve- 
 lation and atonement to man. This was the 
 greatest conquest ever conceived of, a victory 
 for our sakes, a victory of sacrifice, a victory 
 not only for an example, but of power, for it 
 gave us a Saviour and a Life. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE MINISTRY OF EVIL. 
 
 Evils are divisible into three groups : — 
 There are evils which come upon us from 
 natural causes, such as earthquakes, whirlwinds, 
 excessive heat,* excessive cold, drought, floods, 
 lightning, blight, and many plagues and pes- 
 tilences, — evils that may be said to be the 
 dispensations of Providence, or the works of 
 God. 
 
 Another group embraces evils which arise 
 immediately or remotely from the misdeeds of 
 men. Some are inherited from wrongs of long 
 ago ; others spring forth from present social 
 conditions, and seem to be necessary accom- 
 paniments of modern life. Many of the disas- 
 ters which we ascribe to God are really from 
 man. Cholera issues not from God but, begin- 
 ning in unclean customs of the Orient, spreads 
 among pilgrims to Mecca through promiscuous 
 bathing in plague-infected, albeit " sacred," 
 water, and is carried in infested clothing to all 
 corners of the earth. God does not send the 
 154 
 
THE MINISTRY OF EVIL. 155 
 
 plague ; it is man who disseminates it. Typhoid 
 fever breeds in foul sinks and sewers, for which 
 human ignorance or carelessness are responsi- 
 ble. It is man, in unwholesome, sometimes 
 immoral and dishonest social conditions who 
 sets evils in motion the effects of which, disas- 
 trous and dire, are often imputed to divine 
 wrath or divine indifference. Poverty and dis- 
 tress are usually man-occasioned. Their causes 
 lie sometimes in actual vice, sometimes in lazi- 
 ness and waste, sometimes in ignorance ; and 
 sometimes bad laws are to blame, the effects 
 of which in subtle ways, scarcely perceived by 
 social economists, and never dreamed of by 
 those who suffer, bring seasons of widespread 
 business depression, of uncertain money supply, 
 and of opportunities for extortions, exactions, 
 and injustice by individuals or corporations. 
 
 In the third place, there are evils which are 
 self-occasioned, — evils to the body, because the 
 body is abused ; evils to the mind, because the 
 mind is not cared for and kept in its favorable 
 atmosphere ; evils to the conscience and soul, 
 because the higher nature in its thousand needs, 
 activities, and possibilities is dwarfed, starved, 
 destroyed. 
 
 These three kinds of evils may be termed 
 natural, communal, and individual. The groups 
 do not always remain distinct ; all evils may 
 
156 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 not satisfactorily submit to this classification, 
 and yet the groups are sufficiently definite to 
 enable us to see how limitation of different 
 kinds is possible, and how the ministry of evil 
 may be made beneficial to the soul. 
 
 The third group of evils, the individual, may 
 be terminated by an act of will ; for they lie 
 within the scope of man's control. This is 
 true in theory at least, and may be approxi- 
 mated in practice. The perfect man would 
 have no personal evils. If living in obedience 
 to all laws of his body, the body would be sound 
 and serviceable in every part, — barring, of 
 course, hereditary defects and results of un- 
 avoidable accidents. The Creator has so made 
 these wonderful human frames that every part 
 seeks ever to repair its own wastes, to supply 
 deficiencies in other parts, and, eliminating poi- 
 sons and warding off hurtful assaults, to protect 
 itself and the whole from harm. As an expres- 
 sion of its own nature, the human system strives 
 constantly to perfect itself. If we but intelli- 
 gently cooperated with it or even ceased to 
 hinder its operations, it would speedily remove 
 from us a vast amount of evil. 
 
 Old age, in truth, must be faced, for even the 
 strongest and most robust at length fail and 
 die ; but the ripe fruition of a life, coming to 
 its end according to natural processes, should 
 
THE MINISTRY OF EVIL 157 
 
 be termed no more an evil than the withering 
 of a flower, when its life has been perfected in 
 the germinant seed. The wasting of physical 
 strength in the fullness of old age is as natural 
 as the stopping of a clock, when its store of 
 energy from the spring, or the weight, has been 
 exhausted. Old age and death indicate matur- 
 ity. They are the normal stages of promotion 
 to a riper, higher existence. Early death and 
 physical breakdown in middle life alone are 
 really evil. But, by conformity to laws, written 
 in our physical members, these might be largely 
 avoided. Allowing for inheritances and mal- 
 adies incurable, the physical infirmities still 
 within an individual's control are multitudi- 
 nous. No one yet knows the possibilities of 
 his physical well-being. 
 
 Evils of remorse for sins committed, of regret 
 for opportunities wasted, of sorrow over unkind- 
 ness done and pain inflicted, of spiritual blight 
 and soul-unrest because of estrangement from 
 God, — these are evils subject to the will of 
 man, not in theory only but in practice ; they 
 are limitable to an hour and a moment, and may 
 be ended when the individual by his own free 
 choice puts himself in harmonious contact with 
 divine grace. 
 
 But the other two groups of evils, the na- 
 tural and communal, are wholly beyond the 
 
158 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 power of the individual. Before them he seems 
 hopeless ; they loom up as fate ; he can neither 
 avoid nor overcome them ; they at times 
 threaten to crush him in their path. He can- 
 not give wisdom and judgment to the mass of 
 men : he can at best simply found schools and 
 help set in operation agencies for the slow 
 education of future generations. He cannot 
 impart a sense of justice and righteousness to 
 legislators and executors of the law : he can 
 but strive to arouse his fellow-men to a due 
 recognition of the importance of these excel- 
 lent qualities in public servants, and at the 
 polls can register his opinion by one vote. 
 Sometimes he may be able to publish text- 
 books on ethics, or write editorials in influen- 
 tial journals, or preach sermons to listening 
 multitudes, or himself sit in halls of legislation, 
 assisting in the enactment of laws for the exe- 
 cution of righteousness and truth in the land ; 
 but usually he must simply wait and suffer, 
 while his fellow-men, massed in an almost 
 frenzied multitude, pursue what seems to be a 
 relentless way. 
 
 Neither can the indiyidual avert the fury of 
 the storm and hurricane, nor turn aside the 
 heat of the sun, nor stay mysterious shocks 
 of earthquake. A somewhat feeble attempt 
 at foretelling and warning people of the ap- 
 
THE MINISTRY OF EVIL. 159 
 
 proach of such dread visitations is all that 
 at present has been attained. 
 
 Have these ineluctable disasters and mis- 
 fortunes a mission ? or are they, as frequently 
 termed, " an unmitigated evil ? " 
 
 In describing the tender care of the Father 
 for his children, Jesus once illumined the prob- 
 lem of evil by the following pregnant words : 
 "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." 
 Evils have a legitimate place in the economy 
 of God ; they have a mission ; they serve some 
 good purpose ; about them is an adequacy, 
 for a time at least ; they are sufficient for 
 to-day. 
 
 The scientist has yet to discover a single 
 animal or plant, however noxious or deadly, 
 which, in the scale of being and in the wide 
 service of nature to man, has not some direct 
 or indirect beneficent effect. The moralist, 
 too, I think, has yet to find a single burden, 
 pain, trial, or tribulation, ever laid upon 
 humanity's shoulder, which is not in some way 
 tributary to physical, mental, moral, or spirit- 
 ual development. Horace Bushnell once wrote 
 a book, the value of which is yet unabated, 
 upon " The Moral Uses of Dark Things ; " 
 and Dr. John Watson's (Ian Maclaren's) " The 
 Potter's Wheel " makes plain the same lesson, 
 how good may come out of evil. The writer 
 
160 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 of the epistle to the Hebrews also expressed 
 this thought : " Now no chastening for the 
 present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous ; 
 nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peace- 
 able fruits of righteousness unto them which 
 are exercised thereby." 
 
 Discipline is the great benefit ; and yet what 
 does discipline signify ? 
 
 Natural and communal evils make men pru- 
 dent and sagacious. The severities of winter 
 account for most of the differences between a 
 thrifty, energetic population in northern lati- 
 tudes and a more indolent, listless population 
 near the equator. In the history of the world 
 rugged hills and cold regions have contributed 
 world-conquerors. Northern races, moving 
 southward, have usually degenerated in energy 
 and manhood in the midst of teeming fertility 
 and prodigal abundance. Wealth primarily rep- 
 resents an effort to provide for impending times 
 of need. Were the present altogether affluent 
 and satisfactory, mankind would think but 
 little of future needs. "Let us eat, drink, 
 and be merry," is the cry of the voluptuary, 
 unconscious of hardship or suffering. It is 
 because of storms that the government main- 
 tains a Weather Bureau giving daily prognos- 
 tications. Necessity has become the fertile 
 mother of thousands of inventions. Hardship 
 
THE MINISTRY OF EVIL. 161 
 
 requires man to inspect natural conditions and 
 foresee impending changes ; he can scarcely 
 help becoming observant ; and consequently in- 
 sight and foresight issue as the permanent ben- 
 efactions of evil. 
 
 Then, also, evils develop strength. It is the 
 burden-bearers who can bear burdens, the busy 
 who can work. Those who are coddled and 
 petted are generally idle and useless, inert in 
 mind and flabby in muscle. A self-made man, 
 so-called, is merely a man who has been obliged 
 to face hardships in life with little or no help, 
 and has become what he is, whether self-made or 
 otherwise, by enduring the hardships, winning 
 in the struggles, and overcoming the difficulties. 
 When at length he is strong, people term him 
 " self-made." 
 
 Some kinds of evils develop, also, breadth of 
 mind and sympathy. The saints of earth who 
 can best appreciate another's circumstances and 
 most effectively render assistance are those who 
 have tried life in some of its bitterest portions. 
 Through experience they have learned to see 
 and understand. A deep philosophy for all of 
 human need lies in the fact that Jesus Christ 
 was tempted in all points like as we are ; he, 
 therefore, is touched with a feeling of our in- 
 firmities. Because of this bond of sympathy, 
 we can be assured of his nearness to us, and 
 
162 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 can realize his contact with our life in suffer- 
 ing. Suffering makes the whole world kin. 
 Pain brings all classes to a level. Grief and 
 sorrow obliterate distinctions ; and, therefore, 
 they who sorrow learn to know men. 
 
 Still further, the evils in life tend to produce 
 confidence and courage. Repulses from with- 
 out, throwing a man back upon himself and his 
 own resources, make him self-reliant. The sailor 
 who has weathered storms fears not an approach- 
 ing gale; vessel, sails, rope, and spar, he confi- 
 dently trusts, because he has tried them. So 
 in life's voyages, the buffeting of winds, of 
 waves, and tempests prepares the voyager for 
 another day's voyage. 
 
 But one of the best of all benefits from evils 
 is the preparations for peace which they give to 
 man. So obtuse are our perceptions that we sel- 
 dom appreciate blessings until deprived of them. 
 Home means most to us after a period of depri- 
 vation. How good the sunshine is after days and 
 weeks of cloud and rain ! How sweet the quiet 
 when the day's turmoil of hurry and anxiety 
 and painful labor is over ! How good is peace 
 when the battle is won ! Indeed, that for which 
 we have toiled, we appreciate ; that which has 
 cost us pain becomes precious. Anguish, a 
 high price, is, nevertheless, often the only 
 price at which contentment can be purchased. 
 
THE MINISTRY OF EVIL. 163 
 
 Ah, the discipline of trial is not a myth ! 
 Even the sad burlesques of trial and suffering 
 which men, in their cravings for peace of con- 
 science, have brought upon themselves only 
 prove the reality of the peace which human 
 experience has often found in the throes of 
 pain. Many a religious enthusiast, particularly 
 of the Orient, has deemed lacerations of the 
 flesh obligatory as an act of merit not only to 
 win divine favor, but also to render the spirit 
 open and receptive to the tenets of faith which 
 his religion offers. The terrible ordeal of hook- 
 swinging in India, — in which the great hook 
 of iron holds a worshiper by the livid flesh and 
 allows him to swing back and forth high above 
 the heads of a gathered multitude, an object of 
 pious wonderment, — is but a mistaken, incon- 
 gruous plea for peace by the way of pain. 
 
 Martin Luther was seeking peace when he 
 climbed the staircase at Rome on his knees. 
 The doctrine of penance rests largely upon this 
 very principle, that pain is both propitiatory 
 and palliative. Fasting finds its justification 
 to-day, wherever it is justified, because of its 
 disciplinary effects upon the soul and its prepa- 
 ration, thereby, for deeper spiritual experiences. 
 A hermit in lonely cell, with self-immolation, 
 scourgings, hair shirt, thongs, watchings, and 
 scanty supplies of food, is simply seeking peace 
 
164 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 via dolorosa. Simeon Stylites on his pillar, 
 year by year ascending ever higher, until at last 
 sixty-six feet above ground, unable night or day 
 to recline, lived out his life, having crucified the 
 body by thirty-seven years of slow torture, in a 
 frenzied attempt to obtain the full fruits of the 
 discipline of suffering. 
 
 Surely there is a great and holy mission in 
 pain and trial ; but Jesus taught, also, that evils 
 are not to be courted and sought. Simeon on 
 his pillar, and every human being, whether her- 
 mit or not, who solicits hardships and trials to 
 abide with him, is but plucking evil out of all 
 the days and heaping it upon himself in one 
 day. Evil is sufficient for the day ; it must 
 abide in its day. While it serves a purpose, 
 yet that purpose is limited to the present. No 
 day may rightly plunder another day of its 
 share. No forward look may rightly anticipate 
 evil and bring it back, even in thought, as an 
 accumulation for to-day. Do not cross the 
 bridge until you get to it ; do not suffer pain un- 
 til it is necessary ; take no anxious thought for 
 the morrow : these are maxims which accord 
 with the wisdom of divine revelation, as well as 
 of human experience. Out of to-morrow draw 
 back none of its burdens. 
 
 Doubtless the surest way to escape hell is, 
 not so much to fear hell and strenuously avoid 
 
THE MINISTRY OF EVIL 165 
 
 it, as to bear, little by little, as they come, the 
 burdens of life, even if they seem like an inflic- 
 tion of punishment itself. The safest road to 
 greatness is not by anticipating great deeds, 
 but by performing little ones in their oppor- 
 tunity. Holiness is never a great straining 
 after future excellence; it is rather perfection 
 in small, present graces. 
 
 To-day, simple to-day, the plain commonplace 
 Now, without extraordinary experiences, di- 
 vested of all flavor of martyrdom and glory, 
 to-day, with its ordinary routine, with its frugal, 
 yet ample opportunities, to-day is the accepted 
 time in our Lord's sight. To-day is sufficient ; 
 it has an adequate supply of trial for discipline 
 and development, is significant enough in all 
 equipment for the finest fruits of Christian ex- 
 perience. To-day is the entrance to heaven as it 
 is the escape from hell. To-day unlocks all the 
 future, though containing none of that future. 
 To-day and its equipment are enough. Were 
 man to have only to-day, this single day and no 
 more, yet in this day could be settled all the 
 destinies of the entire human family. To-day 
 is enough to deal with evil, cope with evil, and 
 determine the significance of evil to the soul. 
 
 Another teaching of the Master makes the 
 mission and scope of evil plainer. As the evil 
 of to-morrow must not be brought back into to- 
 
166 THE METHOD OF JESUS, 
 
 day, so is it true that no evil should be taken 
 out of to-day and carried forward into to-morrow. 
 Evil must abide in its day ; its sufficiency is 
 momentary, not prolonged. Nightfall is dm 
 as a barrier to the passage of evil, to or fro, 
 either from the future into the present, or from 
 the present into the future ; it is a time of set- 
 tlement, — the clearing-house of pain. We m 
 carry no sorrow into the night ; and borrow no 
 trouble from beyond to-night. Pain may h' 
 for to-morrow, but it must be the pain of to-day. 
 The past may have trained us and developed us 
 for to-day, but the pain we leave behind, 
 with us only its peaceable fruits. 
 
 The burdens of life have their place in God's 
 good providence, but that place is on the shoul- 
 der, never at the back, and never before, an hin- 
 drance to the feet and a menace to the face. 
 
 There are unfortunate men and women who 
 carry burdens ever with them, and accumulate 
 woes as the ragman gathers junk. This is not 
 Christ-like. We have seen men and women liv- 
 ing in constant, anxious dread of dire misfortune, 
 of some evil sure to happen. This likewis 
 not Christian. Jesus forcibly said, " Let the 
 dead bury their dead. 1 ' Birth and death belong 
 to a day, and cannot be indefinitely repeated. 
 
 Burden-bearers may take comfort in the 
 thought that, though the struggles with diffi- 
 
THE MINISTRY OF EVIL. 167 
 
 culty be hard and prolonged, oft repeated, yet 
 there is a time for rest ; no burden may right- 
 fully go out of its day. Wc may lay it down, and 
 unbend the yoke. We may place our burden on 
 him who bears the sin of the world. Joy cometh 
 in the morning. We should begin every day 
 anew ; we must not let trials and tribulations be- 
 come monotonous. That which was yester- 
 day's must remain with yesterday. To-day has 
 enough. We must check the whining tone, and 
 guard the peevish complaint and querulous 
 spirit. We must throw off anxious forebodings, 
 relieve strained nerves, and relax taut energies, to 
 bathe in thoughts of divine goodness and grace. 
 If evils are limited to their day, shut within 
 their own natural barriers, borne neither in an- 
 ticipation nor by retrospection, but only in 
 actual experience, then will they bless mankind. 
 Their ministry is for good ; but un-christian 
 men frequently become bitter during discipline, 
 morose and pessimistic under trial ; it is because 
 they fail to deal with evils rightly. Christians 
 become sweeter, more hopeful, more helpful, 
 realizing that "whom the Father loveth, he 
 chasteneth ; " and the hand that smites bears 
 also the balm that heals. Blessed, then, be the 
 extremity that helps us to know the loving- 
 kindness of him who draws near in the time of 
 need. Self-discipline means self-realization. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 CHARACTER, THE PORTAL TO VISION. 
 
 What a man is determines what he sees. 
 Environment goes for naught unless he have 
 the power of relation to environment. Man is 
 the solution of circumstance, not the creature 
 of circumstance. The world culminates in 
 every man : what his character is decides what 
 the character of all else shall be to him. 
 
 There really is no God for the wicked ; they 
 see him not, they know him not. They may 
 behold a projection of their own unrighteous- 
 ness, and call it " God ; " " Lord, I knew thee 
 that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou 
 hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast 
 not strawed ; " they may see a grotesque 
 image of wrath and vengeance, but it is not 
 God. God is discernible to the pure in heart 
 only. To the froward, unto whom the Psalmist 
 says he appears froward, God's real character 
 does not appear at all. 
 
 Judas could not have written one of the Gos- 
 pels. His suicide was but expressive of him- 
 168 
 
CHARACTER, THE PORTAL TO VISION. 169 
 
 self. Though with Jesus as long as any of the 
 disciples, he saw not Jesus ; thirty pieces of 
 silver assumed larger proportions in his eyes 
 than did the Lord. 
 
 " What is truth ? " asked Pilate. Pilate was 
 a moral coward ; desiring to free Jesus, thrice 
 attempting his release, yet condemning him to 
 death and impotently washing his hands be- 
 cause of his wife's dream, Pilate could not then 
 see truth, and the Christ made no reply. 
 
 Simon Magus would give money for the power 
 of the Holy Ghost ; but he was not willing to 
 give himself. He and his money were, there- 
 fore, cursed to perish together; for his silver 
 and his soul were, indeed, not much unlike. 
 
 The Bible bears its own attestation upon its 
 face. What it is is seen in every part. The 
 pure in heart in all ages, the truest, noblest, and 
 best men and women have always found in it a 
 revelation of God. Could a forger of the second 
 century, a liar at heart, have written the Gos- 
 pels, and invented the Christ ? As soon think 
 of thistles bearing figs ! Martin Luther rea- 
 soned on this wise : the self -vindication of the 
 Word of God is conclusive ; that which reveals 
 truth, must be true ; that which shows God, 
 must partake of the divine. 
 
 Was Jesus Christ the Son of God ? Miracles 
 are not the only appeal, nor yet the bare asser- 
 
170 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 tions of Scripture. The life itself is in evi- 
 dence. Take the smallest residuum of criticism, 
 even of hostile criticism, and then declare 
 whether man ever spake as he ! Where is the 
 duplicate of such compassion as his, such pa- 
 tience as his, such tenderness, such bravery, 
 such forgiveness ? When and where has the 
 world ever matched his teaching, in simplicity, 
 in penetrativeness, — going directly to the con- 
 science, — in power to mold and shape those 
 who hear and heed it? The character of the 
 Christ is unique, incomparable in the world's 
 history. It is seen by those who have the ca- 
 pacity to appreciate, even in part, the incompar- 
 able, to see the divine. 
 
 The judge in any court house, as he presides, 
 in all his rulings, in all his charges, discloses 
 day by day less of law than of himself. 
 
 The journalist in any editorial sanctum, daily 
 coining thought for thousands of careless read- 
 ers and giving shape and policy to an enterpris- 
 ing, successful newspaper, is yet recording 
 more of his own inner biography than of the 
 wide world's news. The careless reader reads 
 the news; but the observant discover in every 
 line the genius of the newspaper, and know the 
 personality in the managing chair. 
 
 The physician with his phials and prescrip- 
 tions is yet more than all he brings and applies, 
 
CHARACTER, THE PORTAL TO VISION. 171 
 
 or prescribes. He is read, discerned, looked 
 for, leaned upon. Though he diligently set to 
 work to cultivate a non-committal exterior, in 
 order to avoid awakening needless alarm or 
 raising false hopes, yet by even a dull eye his 
 spirit and character and many of his fears and 
 hopes are seen. 
 
 The preacher in the pulpit preaches himself 
 more than sermons. Those hearers most like 
 the preacher know the real preacher best. It 
 is his life that gives power to his words. At 
 least, what the people think him to be is the 
 measure of his influence upon them. He may 
 preach Christ, far above himself, and yet, year 
 in and year out, he lifts his hearers toward 
 Christ only as he himself draws near to Christ. 
 His soul must needs be the great high priest 
 between men and God. If he be pure, he sees 
 God ; as they see him, so they through him are 
 led to see God. 
 
 The teacher really teaches personality, and 
 little else. A, b, c's are remembered ; some 
 tables in arithmetic are remembered, a few rules 
 and dates, — but after all not many. The 
 teacher, however, is never forgotten. Old men 
 remember the teachers of even their most 
 youthful days. Teachers have assigned les- 
 sons, but teachers, unassigned, have been stud- 
 ied even more. Teaching is really a matter of 
 
172 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 contagion, rather than instruction. The intel- 
 lectual and moral, as well as the spiritual life, 
 are imparted by contact. Character arouses 
 character, inspires character, really makes char- 
 acter. What the teacher is determines what 
 the teacher teaches ; and what the pupil is 
 determines, no less, what the pupil receives. 
 
 Parents may exhaust themselves and exhaust 
 their children by precepts and exhortations, 
 while pouring forth the wisdom of Solomon, 
 even adding the rod thereto, without materially 
 benefiting son or daughter. All that is on the 
 lips is of little avail ; but whatever is in ex- 
 ample, — that never fails. Example is charac- 
 ter in expression. Children do not seriously 
 heed what they hear ; they do follow what they 
 see. What a father is, therefore, rather than 
 what he professes determines the amount of 
 fatherhood which he bestows upon his children. 
 
 Every man, whatever his trade or calling, 
 gives to the world more than the products of 
 his business and toil. He gives himself, un- 
 intentionally, unconsciously, yet inevitably. 
 What he is, all about him partake of, and in 
 proportion as they resemble him do they ap- 
 proach a full realization of what he is and par- 
 take of him fully. 
 
 Character is the open door through which a 
 man looks out and sees the world ; it is also the 
 
CHARACTER, THE PORTAL TO VISION. 173 
 
 open door through which other men look in and 
 discover him. 
 
 Men always behold a reflection of themselves 
 in the world. The painter sees color ; the 
 sculptor, form ; the architect, structure, mate- 
 rial, form, and utility combined ; the musician 
 hears tones and harmonies ; the geologist reads 
 upon the pavement indications of geologic 
 changes ; to the botanist all the world is a gar- 
 den ; the biologist studies life even in the 
 water we drink, the dust we inhale, and the very 
 tissues of which the body is composed. Every 
 man in the mirror of the universe beholds him- 
 self, or a part of himself. What he is deter- 
 mines his vision ; the significance of all the 
 world depends upon the man himself. 
 
 Important principles are here involved. Men 
 are restless to-day, seeking changes, clamoring 
 for improvement. They complain of external 
 circumstances, of hard environment, of trials of 
 which they seem helpless victims ; and they 
 seek by popular discussion and by legislative 
 enactment to relieve distresses and secure 
 amelioration. They seem to have divided all 
 the world into two factors, themselves on the 
 one hand, and everything else on the other; 
 and to have begun reform by laboring upon 
 the second factor. It is the wrong factor to 
 amend and improve first, if at all. Self-culture 
 
174 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 alone gives culture ; self must be the starting 
 point. 
 
 Many a child has times of wishing, " Oh, if 
 only my father lived in such a house, or was as 
 rich as such a man ! " But there would be no 
 greater happiness if the wish were gratified; 
 happiness comes not from houses or wealth. 
 
 Many a maiden, I suppose, is foolish enough 
 to look upon another and to sigh within herself, 
 " Ah, if only I had that complexion, and form, 
 and hair, and those eyes ! " But attractiveness 
 and winsomeness do not depend upon features 
 which must fade with years, and may vanish in 
 a great sorrow of a single day. 
 
 Students not infrequently envy what seem to 
 be the easier circumstances and greater advan- 
 tages of another. But they, too, look at the 
 wrong factor. He who earns his own way 
 through school and college may have the better 
 opportunity for self-culture, and by the very 
 lack of what he terms advantages may really 
 have the greater advantages. That plodding 
 student, who acquires laboriously and retains 
 with difficulty, may chafe and groan over his 
 grinding toil, as he looks from the window upon 
 a more brilliant classmate who has ample time 
 for tennis, and walks, and chats, and, as later in 
 the classroom, he hears the brilliant man make 
 glib recitation of paragraphs that elude his toil- 
 
CHARACTER, THE PORTAL TO VISION. 175 
 
 some application ; but the end is not yet. Per- 
 haps the slow plodder, after all, gains the more 
 from study and classroom, by his very plodding 
 disciplining himself to prolonged and severe 
 mental labor, fitting himself for work in the 
 great arena of life, for which the other has 
 had no training, and finds at length no disposi- 
 tion. Self is the great factor, self-discipline the 
 true aim. 
 
 Few would object to the clamor heard in the 
 industrial world to-day, for higher wages and 
 shorter days, or would not wish that the one 
 were paid and the other granted ; but if those 
 who are so strenously striving after better pay, 
 and a nine or an eight-hour day of labor, were 
 as earnestly seeking also the betterment of 
 self, they would make real gains. Too often 
 the man who complains has sunk himself in the 
 mass. If only he would now assert his man- 
 hood, show his personal dignity, stand for 
 himself alone, for truth, for right, for sobriety, 
 honesty, and honorable dealing ; if only he 
 would be a man, every inch of a man, before 
 God and his fellows, — then would his life be 
 truly noble, and the final solution of his diffi- 
 culties more simple. 
 
 There are Christians longing for the quiet, 
 even temperament of some other Christian, 
 scarcely realizing that their best garden-plot 
 
176 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 for all Christian graces is in their own souls, 
 that their deficiencies, even their perversities, 
 are opportunities for self -culture. 
 
 What can I make of self ? That is the vital 
 question. Self-victory is true achievement. 
 Self is the measure of all perception ; self is 
 both the spectacles through which all the world 
 is seen, and the telescope for far distant vision 
 toward other worlds. Self, therefore, is the 
 one chief factor for cultivation. 
 
 In modern psychology, particularly as applied 
 to the science of teaching, the term appercep- 
 tion now plays an important part. Apperception 
 is the act of the mind in bringing all of its 
 knowledge to bear upon the recognition of 
 any idea. To illustrate : on beholding a rose- 
 bush, never seen before, what new thing does 
 the observer behold ? Does he see the bush 
 in its parts : the leaf, the trunk, the bark, the 
 fiber, the form, the flower? Does he see in 
 the bush anything that he would state in de- 
 scribing the characteristics of the rose ? Very 
 little indeed, if anything ; really a new rose-bush 
 is to an observer simply a stimulation, from 
 without, coming to him by way of vision, to 
 call up in his mind all knowledge of rose-bushes 
 which he has previously gained. The form, the 
 fiber, the bark, the trunk, the branch, the leaf, 
 the flower, he sees only as he has seen them 
 
CHARACTER, THE PORTAL TO VISION. 177 
 
 before. An observer perceives chiefly that 
 which he already knows. Past acquisitions de- 
 termine present acquirements. Even in rose- 
 bush matters what a man is determines what 
 he shall see. 
 
 When a company of travelers goes abroad, 
 the man of letters finds literary associations 
 everywhere ; the political economist runs upon 
 financial and social data everywhere ; the trades- 
 man can pick up bargains on any corner and 
 bring home suggestions for trade from many a 
 street-vender as well as from every great em- 
 porium ; the philanthropist discovers on every 
 side problems and solutions in reform ; so the 
 statesman sees statescraft, the historian histori- 
 cal suggestions, the artist art. All Europe is but 
 a gigantic stimulus to internal apperception. 
 What a man takes with him, that, in ninety- 
 nine parts, he sees, adding perhaps thereto the 
 one hundreth part as a genuine acquisition. 
 
 We cannot leave self behind ; we cannot drop 
 self out of calculation ; we cannot rise above 
 and ignore the self which we have been rearing. 
 We must always live with, depend upon, and 
 employ self. We are self-fettered ; but we are 
 not victims of self. While inseparable from 
 ourselves and so limited by our past achieve- 
 ments and present development, yet little by 
 little, even in the hundredth part, we may 
 
178 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 master ourselves and gradually make our- 
 selves. 
 
 The past has gone, irrevocably, leaving us 
 as we are ; but the future lies open. What to- 
 morrow shall hold for us depends upon what we 
 to-day make of ourselves in the small fractional 
 part of gain and improvement of which we are 
 capable. Shall we see rose-bushes to-morrow ? 
 Then we must have seen them in part at 
 least before to-morrow comes. Even rose-bush 
 vision is a matter of cultivation. Shall we 
 have eyes for pictures to-morrow ? Will virtue 
 win our appreciation ? Shall we be able to be- 
 hold purity ? Shall we see God ? Self-training 
 prepares for sight. 
 
 It is plain what these truths portend. A 
 prophecy of future citizenship lies in the school- 
 room. The aptitudes called forth in the pupils 
 assure the qualities and the development of the 
 man. Manhood and womanhood are the fruit- 
 age of early impressions and influences. 
 
 But present attainments, made in learning the 
 lessons of life, have a prophecy, also, for far dis- 
 tant visions. When a man is through with the 
 pupilage of this earthly experience, what shall 
 he then see ? Must not the answer be, he will 
 see that for which he has been fitting himself ? 
 Can the sinner see God? Can he perceive that 
 which he has in no degree cultivated in him- 
 
CHARACTER, THE PORTAL TO VISION. 179 
 
 self? Will it be possible for a man to stand 
 upon the summit of the mountain of the New 
 Jerusalem, and look out upon the glories and 
 raptures of the blessed, and take in the enjoy- 
 ment which they experience, unless he has 
 fitted his soul beforehand, in some degree at 
 least, for those experiences ? Can we apprehend 
 more than that for which and by which we are 
 apprehended ? Ah, heaven to have signifi- 
 cance to a man must have its seat within the 
 man ! Heaven must get into him more than 
 he gets into heaven. The New Jerusalem begins 
 within, if it begins at all for us mortals. The 
 soul is the seat of spiritual delectation. It is 
 the pure in heart who shall see God. 
 
 These are simple, yet far-reaching truths. 
 What are we ? Are we what we would fain be 
 to-morrow, and next year, and always ? What 
 do we harbor within ? Is it what we shall be 
 satisfied to have ourselves converted into and 
 at length become, for eternity ? It is suicide 
 against the higher self, not only that is, but 
 also that may be, to harbor unhallowed and 
 unhallowing thoughts. 
 
 A tradesman may be so much of a trades- 
 man, so absorbed, body and soul, in his business 
 as to be capable through all eternity of only 
 dealing in small wares and taking satisfaction 
 in bargains. The lawyer, doctor, teacher, stu- 
 
180 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 dent, mill-man, farmer, the toiler of every kind 
 and every grade, may make life but the routine 
 grind of the chosen profession and labor. 
 
 We cannot equalize human conditions. It 
 is impossible to bring all men to one level. No 
 Utopian scheme of nationalization or of social- 
 ization has yet been wrought out that can be 
 applied, because all men are not intrinsically 
 equal, and cannot enter into equal possessions 
 and responsibilities. The individual is himself ; 
 he cannot be changed by the enactment of 
 legislation or by the philanthropy of his fellows, 
 into anything more than what he, by his own 
 mastery over self, will make of himself. Soup- 
 kitchens and back-door charity effect no per- 
 manent good. Relief and reform must reach 
 within and come from within. 
 
 It is impossible by vote of the church to 
 make men saints. Canonization is a heart 
 process. It is difficult to see how any system 
 of theology can work out the salvation of all 
 men. The individual stands by himself. What- 
 ever God is does not effect what man is, unless 
 man can take and assimilate that which God 
 proffers. God can see man ; but will man see 
 God ? I can see a stone ; can the stone see 
 me? However much I may prize the stone 
 and be well disposed toward it, yet there 
 can be no fellowship between the stone and 
 
CHARACTER, THE PORTAL TO VISION. 181 
 
 me, unless the stone can take on enough of my 
 characteristic to win and appreciate my ap- 
 proval. No analogy of nature and no utterance 
 of revelation warrant the assumption that an 
 embryo while undeveloped shall enter into 
 higher states. It must grow, it must develop ; 
 it must have an opportunity for growth and 
 development. Salvation, though accompanied 
 by divine influences and powers, must yet be 
 an achievement by man ; it is a process of 
 growth under cultivation, a development from a 
 possibility into an actuality, a struggle for gain 
 and improvement, a cultivation of the pure and 
 noble and spiritual in man. 
 
 The pure in heart may see God everywhere. 
 He is not far away on some high Olympus, or 
 in some remote planet. In him we live and 
 move and have our being. Wonderful are the 
 works of his hand. All law expresses his will ; 
 all truth reveals his being. He rules in nature 
 and reigns amongst men. Despite the evil 
 deeds of men, God's presence and purposes 
 stand forth in human society both past and 
 present. God is in all the world. 
 
 They who have so willed it and have so devel- 
 oped their spirits have divine companionship 
 always. What strength to lean upon God when 
 in trial ! What solace to turn to God when in 
 sorrow ! What peace to trust in God when 
 
182 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 perplexed ! What wisdom when God leads the 
 way ! They alone who see God in all the affairs 
 of life have learned to make life beautiful; 
 they alone fit in with the plans and purposes of 
 the eternities. They alone behold the evidence 
 and give evidence of the presence of God in 
 human affairs. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF LIFE. 
 
 Councils, conferences, and conventions usu- 
 ally issue, as the result of their deliberations, 
 elaborate statements of principles in the form 
 of platforms and resolutions. The first council 
 of the Christian church, however, put forth a 
 very brief circular as the outcome of its conclu- 
 sions, albeit the matters that had claimed atten- 
 tion were of the utmost importance to the life 
 of the church, and had threatened to rend it 
 asunder. 
 
 Should Gentile converts to Christ be re- 
 quired to enter the church by the way of Jewish 
 ceremonialism ? That was the question at issue ; 
 and the young church was divided in relation to 
 it. Paul had gone forth preaching that circum- 
 cision was unnecessary, that a man could become 
 a Christian and unite with the Christian com- 
 munity without regard to his compliance with 
 Jewish ceremonies, indeed, without his knowing 
 a thing concerning their main characteristics. 
 Others — and even Peter wavered here — de- 
 183 
 
184 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 clared that, since all the promises through Abra- 
 ham had been made to the Jews, and the Mes- 
 siah himself had come of the seed of David, the 
 royal Jewish descent, it was necessary, without 
 exception, to become a Jew first, in order next 
 to become a Christian. 
 
 The discussion at this council in Jerusalem 
 seems to have been both friendly and exhaus- 
 tive. Paul and Barnabas related their experi- 
 ence in preaching to Gentiles and receiving 
 Gentiles into the church. Peter called to mind 
 the vision he had had on the housetop, when 
 deliberating whether, or not, to go to Cornelius. 
 James, as chief of the church in Jerusalem, and 
 presiding officer of the council, expressed his 
 opinion, and then the assembly put its conclu- 
 sions in the form of a letter, to be sent by 
 the hand of Paul and Barnabas and Judas, 
 called Barsabbas, and Silas. The letter read 
 as follows : — 
 
 " The apostles and elder brethren unto the brethren 
 which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and 
 Cilicia, greeting: Forasmuch as we have heard that 
 certain which went out from us have troubled you with 
 words, subverting your souls ; to whom we gave no com- 
 mandment ; it seemed good unto us, having come to one 
 accord, to choose out men and send them unto you with 
 our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men that have hazarded 
 their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We 
 
THE EVIDENTIAL VALVE OF LIFE. 185 
 
 have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who themselves 
 also shall tell you the same things by word of mouth. 
 For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay 
 upon you no greater burden than these necessary things ; 
 that ye abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from 
 blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication ; 
 from which if ye keep yourselves, it shall be well with 
 you. Fare ye well." 
 
 Neither the platform put forth by a modern 
 political caucus nor the canons promulgated by 
 a modern ecumenical council would be so brief. 
 As for Jewish ceremonialism, no burdens were 
 laid upon young Christians ; they might come 
 directly into the church without circumcision 
 or other Jewish forms. They were required only 
 to avoid arousing Jewish prejudices by partak- 
 ing of meats unceremonially slaughtered or dis- 
 hallowed before heathen idols, and they were to 
 keep themselves free from the vice of unchastity, 
 then so common among their Gentile neighbors. 
 Further than this the whole stress of the docu- 
 ment was upon the men who bore the message, 
 men who would tell the tale by word of mouth, 
 men who had hazarded their lives for the name 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ. In substance the 
 council declared : Men of worth will make 
 known our decisions and our spirit better than 
 can a letter. They laid the emphasis, not upon 
 what was stated in words, but upon that which 
 
186 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 should be explained by men. This emphasis was 
 a recognition that in religion living testimony- 
 is superior to documentary evidence. 
 
 God has made, and still makes, revelations 
 of himself in three distinct ways : He com- 
 municates directly with man by his Spirit ; he 
 shows himself in all his works, this vast miracle 
 of his word which we call nature ; and he re- 
 veals himself in man. 1 The Bible is but a record 
 of some of the revelations given through these 
 three ways. 
 
 There have been times when it was thought 
 that God revealed himself only by means of 
 direct communications ; and nature then was 
 supposed to have no message from her Creator 
 to man. But the Psalmist recognized the tes- 
 timony of nature to God, when he wrote, " The 
 heavens declare the glory of God ; and the 
 firmament showeth his handiwork." Modern 
 science confirms daily the fact of the divine 
 presence, in wisdom and power, in all this vast 
 realm of natural law and beauty. All truth 
 declares the will of God. There is, therefore, 
 a bible in the latest work on science, if that 
 work be true. Every faithful, painstaking in- 
 vestigator of the works of God, if he be like 
 
 1 Of course man is a part of nature, and direct communications 
 are a revelation in man ; and yet these three ways have a certain dis- 
 tinctness. 
 
THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF LIFE. 187 
 
 Agassiz, regards every scientific experiment 
 as a prayer to God for knowledge of his ways, 
 and every discovery as an answer to the prayer. 
 
 But God reveals himself even more fully in 
 man. He made man in the first place in his 
 own image. Man therefore, might be termed 
 the first piece of sculpture ever made, — fash- 
 ioned in clay, a likeness of God ; not in form and 
 features, for God is a spirit, without material 
 form, — but when breathed into and become a 
 living spirit, then the clay took on characteris- 
 tics of God and represented, though but par- 
 tially, the divine mind. Through all the past 
 God has sent men to represent him and to make 
 known his will. He has not attached a revela- 
 tion in words of great Hebrew letters, or in 
 English terms, to the trees, or penciled them in 
 flaming characters on the clouds, or written 
 them on the wide waters of the seas, or graven 
 them on the rocks, — all this he might have 
 done ; but he has sent man to speak to man, 
 himself first giving the word to man, as man 
 himself could receive it. 
 
 Moses and Joshua and Samuel and Elijah and 
 Elisha and Isaiah and Jeremiah and all the 
 prophets came as men to men, bearing the word 
 of God. Moses received the spoken word be- 
 fore the two tables of stone were committed to 
 him as memoranda. 
 
188 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 Indeed, in the fullness of time, the God-man 
 came, Jesus Christ. No better way in heaven's 
 wisdom could be devised for a revelation to man 
 than by man. The incarnation, the advent, that 
 night in Bethlehem, and all the varied vicissi- 
 tudes of thirty-three years in Galilee and Judea 
 and Samaria were owing to the fact that man 
 is the best exponent of God to man. When 
 the divine mind would write a revelation capa- 
 ble of human comprehension, then is earth the 
 parchment, flesh and blood the ink, and all the 
 opportunities of time the pen. 
 
 We understand in daily life the value of per- 
 sonal conversation. In coming to a business 
 understanding with a man, a five-minute inter- 
 view is worth a score of written pages. For 
 the same purpose the telephone is worth more 
 than the telegraph, for it allows the exchange of 
 question and answer, of tones and inflections, 
 of moods and intentions, thus imparting more 
 of personality. The printing-press can never 
 supplant the pulpit and the platform. The pul- 
 pit and the platform show a man, thinking, 
 speaking, living, and by his very presence and 
 life giving forth influence unto men. The 
 printed page carries a smaller part of person- 
 ality, merely the thought, sometimes colored by 
 feeling, sometimes inspiring and convincing, but 
 never an adequate exponent of the personality 
 
THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF LIFE. 189 
 
 behind the language. Man is the best means 
 of revelation to man, and the better the man, 
 the better the means. Thirty-three years of 
 Jesus Christ on earth is worth more to the world 
 than thirty centuries of prophets and apostles. 
 
 I saw once, in parallel columns, the opinions 
 of two eminent men. One maintained that in 
 politics principles were the great, the only con- 
 sideration to have in mind ; given the right 
 principles in a party platform, it mattered little 
 who the candidates of the party might be ; a 
 vote was a vote for the prinicples. The other 
 man maintained that the principles of a party 
 were subordinate to the men nominated by the 
 party ; that the men interpreted and, therefore, 
 expressed the principles, and it was impossible 
 to vote for principles apart from the men repre- 
 senting them; that the men must be right. 
 Which of these two reasoned correctly ? I have 
 no hesitation in saying, the latter. 
 
 No party is better than the men it has in 
 office, whatever its principles and platform may 
 be. Let an official pin the ten commandments 
 on his breast and carry the Bible in his pocket 
 and talk the phrases of the Apostle Paul, and 
 yet, if he is a thief, he will steal. Let him 
 espouse the moral laws that appeal to the con- 
 science of the community, yet if he is himself 
 addicted to immoralities, if he is open to corrup- 
 
190 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 tion on the part of law-breakers, he will allow 
 violation and defiance of law, whenever his per- 
 sonal passion or greed are served. 
 
 It is men who make politics more than princi- 
 ples. It is men who give good government 
 more than parties. It is men who institute 
 reforms and conduct reforms, and build right- 
 eously ; it is not an intangible sentiment that 
 can be written upon a piece of paper, like a set 
 of resolutions, or a platform. Hon. Carl Schurz 
 is credited with saying at a conference of Good 
 Government Leagues something to this effect : 
 " If you have an ideal city charter and ordi- 
 nances, yet put Lucifer in charge, you will have 
 bad government ; while, with a very imperfect 
 charter and ordinances, with Gabriel administer- 
 ing affairs, you will yet have good government." 
 
 For good government we must select good 
 men. More depends upon Gabriel, or Lucifer, 
 than upon law and ordinances. It matters but 
 little whether, for municipal government, a 
 man be republican, democrat, prohibitionist, 
 mugwump, or populist, provided he be honest, 
 competent, and reliable. To rectify mismanage- 
 ment and control the governments that effect 
 our homes, happiness, and well-being, we must 
 watch men more than mere party professions. 
 
 How shall we improve the conditions of 
 society ? How often this question confronts 
 
THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF LIFE. 191 
 
 us to-day ! Every labor disturbance, whether in 
 the East or the West, the North or the South, 
 raises the question anew and brands it on our 
 consciences. How improve the condition of the 
 laborer? how equalize possessions ? how restore 
 industrial peace and social good-will ? The 
 questions are open ; the problems are unsolved. 
 
 While gains may be expected along the line 
 of legislation and by boards of arbitration and 
 by organized compromises, yet the final solution 
 is to be looked for chiefly in the gradual im- 
 provement of the individual man. This is a 
 slow way, an old-fashioned way, but a sure way. 
 The circumstances of the laborer may be hard, 
 but the laborer himself often needs greater 
 change and improvement than his circum- 
 stances. Lift him as a man, and he will im- 
 prove his conditions himself. Set him to 
 climbing, and he will carry his environment 
 with him, as the snail takes his house upon his 
 back. The reformation of society lies in the 
 reformation of the individual man. The history 
 of our country shows that our great men are 
 those who have overcome circumstances by first 
 overcoming themselves. 
 
 This truth pertains still more pertinently 
 to the church. It is men who make the church 
 more than creeds. Not all Christians realize 
 this. Some think that if the creed be right, 
 
192 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 then the church is of necessity right. Alas ! 
 men have labored on creeds, and disputed about 
 creeds, and wrangled, and fought, and shown 
 themselves very unlike their divine pattern, 
 Christ ; and the church, whatever the creed re- 
 sulting, has been a very poor church with such 
 conduct. 
 
 Jesus Christ did not take a creed and say, 
 " On this rock will I found my church." We 
 might cease all intellectual activity, the moment 
 we enter the Christian church, had he so done. 
 But he took a man, — an ordinary kind of a 
 man, too, of an impulsive nature, who was up 
 to-day and down to-morrow, — and said in intent, 
 " On this rock will I build my church ; on weak 
 human nature, like thine, Peter, yet human 
 nature capable of becoming solid and firm, like 
 a rock, Peter, as thou hereafter wilt become ; on 
 this rock I build my church." 
 
 The Christian church consists of character 
 and conduct more than creed. When Jesus 
 was crucified, he left no written resolutions 
 behind, no charters, constitutions, bylaws, ordi- 
 nances, canonical laws, — nothing in writing. 
 All the writing he ever did, so far as reported, 
 was on the sand. He left nothing behind but 
 men, and his spirit operative in them. What a 
 legacy for the church ! 
 
 The apostles, also, had not a scrap of writing 
 
THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF LIFE. 193 
 
 such as we now possess in the New Testament 
 for at least a score of years after the cruci- 
 fixion. They went about preaching. Gospels, 
 epistles, history of the acts of the apostles: 
 they were making these things ; they were 
 themselves the world's New Testament then ; 
 they were the epistles known and read of men. 
 
 Jesus did not come to bring a Zend Avesta, 
 a Koran, or a Bible even ; he came to give life. 
 His last great commission rests wholly upon 
 character and conduct, upon life, his life through 
 the lives of the apostles affecting men. 
 
 Wherever the early disciples went, men 
 believed in Christ and partook of the new life. 
 It was not because the disciples carried with 
 them creeds or tracts or Bibles even, but because 
 they carried the life within themselves, and this 
 life communicated itself to others. So has it 
 been always. Where the life is, there it mani- 
 fests itself. No church has a monopoly. In all 
 communions, about a saintly man there is soon 
 found a garden of saintliness. So has it been 
 with Francis of Assisi, Bernard of Clairvaux, 
 Thomas a Kempis, Brother Lawrence, and mul- 
 titudes of others. 
 
 We need have no quarrel with any church or 
 sect not our own. Creeds are attempts at an 
 intellectual definition and explanation of the 
 contents of Christianity; let men hold their 
 
194 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 creeds ; let us ask only that they evince the 
 Christ-like life in word and work and thought. 
 Life is more convincing than argument. The 
 church truest to the divine pattern will eventu- 
 ally win the allegiance of men. The tree with 
 the best fruit will be cultivated in the orchard. 
 To prove her divine calling the Church must 
 show her divine character. To be Christ-like 
 is to be apostolic. 
 
 Life always gives weight to words. The 
 devil quoted Scripture in the temptation, but 
 won no convert, because of what he was and 
 whom he addressed. No preacher's utterances 
 carry greater weight than the force of the per- 
 sonality behind them, either imputed or actually 
 existing. Every preacher must confess with 
 the utmost humility : " It is I that speak more 
 than my brain or tongue ; and it is not the 
 I that I would be, or imagine myself to be, or 
 perchance sometime may be, but it is the I 
 that I am now ; that and little else that I may 
 say has force." Rhetoric and illustration, logic 
 and clearness have their values ; but life alone 
 has power. 
 
 In social gatherings, either of the church, or 
 of the home, it matters little whether words be 
 finely put or very faultily phrased ; the man or 
 woman who is earnest, sincere, and true im- 
 presses us and does us good. It is character 
 
THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF LIFE. 195 
 
 that tells more than profession. Would a man 
 do good ? Then must he be good. Would he 
 speak like angels ? then must he live like an- 
 gels. The life both discerns and reveals God. 
 Character obtains and character imparts power 
 from above. 
 
 The great argument of Christianity through 
 all time has been Christian living. Learned 
 works do not convince the world of the reality 
 of the Christian religion, as do piety and faith 
 and faithfulness. The reality of life cannot 
 be questioned. Nor can it really be counter- 
 feited. The semblance lacks genuineness, and 
 deceives few. But all the unbelievers in the 
 world cannot answer the argument of Christian 
 living. 
 
 The first church did wisely in sending forth, 
 as their representatives, to allay trouble and 
 smooth out difficulties, men who had hazarded 
 their lives for the name of Jesus Christ. Theirs 
 is an example for the present. The heathen 
 nations and tribes of the earth must receive 
 more than the institutions of religion ; they 
 must have men to arouse, instruct, inspire. 
 Even that enlightened eunuch, who sat in his 
 chariot reading the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, 
 could not understand the Scriptures until Philip 
 came, and, in friendly fashion, sitting beside 
 him in the chariot, explained the passage. 
 
196 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 " Understandest thou what thou readest ? * 
 asked Philip. "How can I," replied the eu- 
 nuch, " except some one shall guide me ? " 
 Personal guidance the heathen world needs. 
 
 We must still supply ministers to pulpits, 
 visitors for the poor, and sympathizers for all 
 the suffering. It is impossible to relieve the 
 heart of distress by any mechanical appliance. 
 No modern invention can supplant personal 
 effort in fulfilling the second great command- 
 ment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
 self." 
 
 Every Christian is an instrument of God for 
 revelation and righteousness in the world. He 
 cannot delegate his responsibility to another. 
 Each must render his own part. The Christian 
 disciple has the ability, however few or many 
 may be his talents, however humble or exalted 
 his lot, to reveal the mind of God to his fellows, 
 and thus to be in the line of revelation which 
 has been from Adam's day. However timid 
 and fearful the disciple may be, still he has an 
 opportunity, in the civilization of the nineteenth 
 century of demonstrating to men the reality 
 of the divine in-coming, and the efficacy of 
 the life which is lived in Christ. By his Chris- 
 tian character a man can do for the church 
 he loves what neither books nor papers, ser- 
 mons, societies, nor organizations can do with- 
 
THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF LIFE. 197 
 
 out him or his personal influence ; he can attract 
 men, persuade men, convince men. He has 
 the power of life. 
 
 The practical exhortation, therefore, is in 
 order for all. Christians to-day are not in perils 
 as were the prophets and apostles of old. Mob 
 violence, stoning, hanging, or death from sword 
 or fire are far from most. Few need risk life in 
 foreign lands or on boisterous seas. The hazard 
 men face is the hazard of a possible ridicule, a 
 possible scorn or lack of sympathy, a possible 
 alienation of friends, — merely possible, scarcely 
 probable, — but they do face the necessity of 
 self-denial, of earnestness, of watchfulness, of 
 constancy. Yet so much they ought surely to 
 hazard. 
 
 Cannot a man realize more clearly the mis- 
 sion he should fill as a revealer of righteous- 
 ness unto others ? When the temptations of 
 business and daily toil confront him, can he not 
 say, "No," for Jesus' sake, and no less for the 
 sake of his business associates ? When the 
 appetites and passions of the flesh assail, can he 
 not suppress them for Jesus' sake, and for the 
 sake of the community in which he lives ? When 
 the meanness and sordidness of self-seeking and 
 pride threaten to submerge one, can he not 
 struggle yet a little harder to withstand them, 
 for Jesus' sake, and for the good of the world? 
 
198 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 When peevishness and pettishness and anger 
 prompt to cross words and unkind deeds at 
 home and among friends and loved ones, can 
 not the Christian still, for the name of Jesus, 
 and for the happiness of those he loves, turn 
 his bitterness into pleasantness and his frowns 
 into smiles ? 
 
 Surely it is worth trying, trying yet again 
 and with redoubled effort ; for character may 
 become eloquent with messages of divine 
 grace ; conduct may be more than logic to 
 men ; life may be the revelation of God to our 
 fellowmen. The method we employ may be 
 the Master's method promotive of his peace 
 on earth. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 PROMOTERS OF PEACE. 
 
 When our Lord pronounced the beatitude, 
 " Blessed are the peacemakers : for they shall 
 be called sons of God," obviously he did not 
 mean that they are the children of God who 
 by bluster and blows terrify or subdue warring 
 factions into silence, albeit peace results from 
 their efforts. The big bully who with clinched 
 fists lays low each of two quarreling boys, 
 though a peacemaker, is not, we would all 
 agree, thereby a child of God. Nor is the 
 impatient mother in any degree divine, who 
 shakes her children roughly and scolds them 
 into silence. 
 
 A dead Indian may be a peaceful Indian, 
 yet killing him is not the proper way of pro- 
 moting peace. By slaying thousands of cruel 
 savages, neither men nor governments can fit 
 themselves for the kingdom of heaven. Eng- 
 land, France, and Germany in their schemes for 
 the partition and colonization of India, Africa, 
 China, and the islands of the sea, may by the 
 199 
 
200 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 might of armies and navies preserve peace, 
 without deserving in any measure the eulogy 
 of the Master, and without developing in any 
 degree the characteristics of God's children. 
 Those statesmen who declare that the mainte- 
 nance of great standing armies is but a peace 
 measure, do not thereby display heavenly 
 virtues. 
 
 At the birth of Jesus the angels sang, 
 "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth 
 peace among men in whom he is well pleased." 
 Jesus himself said, " Peace I leave with you ; 
 my peace I give unto you : not as the world 
 giveth, give I unto you." The Son of God 
 came indeed to bring peace, but yet it was a 
 peculiar peace ; it was not a peace of the 
 worldly sort, not a peace that came from the 
 exercise of superior force or from effective 
 domination. 
 
 Peace of one kind Jesus had nothing to do 
 with : " I came not to bring peace, but a 
 sword." He had no sympathy with those who 
 cried "Peace, peace !" when there was no peace. 
 Under certain conditions he set a father at 
 variance with his son, put mother and daughter 
 in antagonism, and made foes within a house- 
 hold circle. Even in the list of beatitudes he 
 recognizes the existence of intense and active 
 antipathies, which allow no place for the cessa- 
 
PROMOTERS OF PEACE. 201 
 
 tion of hostilities and the return of kindly feel- 
 ing : " Blessed are ye when men shall reproach 
 you, and persecute you, and say all manner of 
 evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice 
 and be exceeding glad : for great is your reward 
 in heaven : for so persecuted they the prophets 
 which were before you." This signifies war- 
 fare, not peace, — warfare between the good 
 and the evil. 
 
 We must recognize at least three distinct 
 kinds of peace, which may be characterized as 
 follows: the first, the peace of surrender; the 
 second, the peace of indifference ; and the 
 third, the peace of right relations. 
 
 The peace of surrender many a battlefield 
 has known, when one of its great armies, deci- 
 mated, discouraged, defeated, has accepted the 
 terms of capitulation, laid down arms, given up 
 the object for which it fought, and found rest 
 from carnage. 
 
 On the battlefield of life are many souls 
 daily purchasing peace at this price. We see 
 a young man, away from home, toiling early 
 and late in an humble position, lodging 
 alone within four dismal walls ; to him life at 
 length becomes monotonous and humdrum ; 
 the soul craves excitement. Though long 
 sober and steady, long resisting the allure- 
 ments of saloon and low entertainment hall, at 
 
202 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 length he quiets his restlessness, yields to the 
 cravings of his lower nature, and surrenders up 
 his best manhood. All his previous struggles 
 and labors he throws away. He finds a mo- 
 mentary peace ; but at what a fearful cost ! 
 
 In our great cities, young, unprotected, 
 seeking diligently a hard-earned and scant live- 
 lihood, many a girl finds the struggle to main- 
 tain her purity and innocence too hard, and 
 yields to the evil so abundant and so persis- 
 tent about her, for the sake of a little ease, 
 or pleasure, or peace, as her foolish heart may 
 call it. 
 
 Two friends meet together and discuss the 
 great problems of life, speaking of God, truth, 
 and religion. One is shrewd, crafty, skeptical ; 
 the other, honest, ingenuous, devout. They 
 argue. The memory of one has been stored 
 with quotations and authorities which amaze 
 and perplex the other, who knows only what 
 his heart has taught him. Bewildered, and at a 
 loss for a reply, the latter yields at last to the 
 insistent sophistries of his friend. Argument 
 then ceases ; it is peace, but at the price of 
 defeat and surrender. 
 
 Many a home circle experiences a similar 
 tragedy of faith. A man and a woman, from 
 different homes, with different degrees of con- 
 viction in regard to many social customs and 
 
PROMOTERS OF PEACE. 203 
 
 many fundamental tenets of faith, unite for- 
 tunes to found a new home. After frequent 
 periods of contention, good-natured though 
 they be, the stronger will wins and the weaker, 
 for the sake of peace, gives way. But awful is 
 the peace not approved by conscience. 
 
 The peace of surrender is sometimes due to 
 cowardice, sometimes to discouragement, some- 
 times to sheer physical and mental exhaustion. 
 But whatever its cause, its effects are but tem- 
 porary ; it is not an abiding peace ; it is loss ; 
 it brings soon in its train sadness and sorrow ; 
 it is not the peace which Jesus introduced to 
 the world. They who seek this kind of peace 
 are not peacemakers approved of God, worthy 
 to be called the children of God. 
 
 A surrender to iniquity will never obtain 
 the peace of righteousness. Woe unto them 
 who yield to the enticements of evil, for, though 
 thinking that they shall obtain the solace of 
 their evil desires, they shall at the end but 
 drink the gall of bitterness and the dregs 
 of disappointment and remorse. Cursed are 
 those peacemakers of this worldly sort, for 
 they shall be at last known as Satan's own 
 offspring. Peacemaking is not cowardly or 
 mean surrender, any more than it is bluster 
 and bullying. 
 
 The peace of indifference particularly char- 
 
204 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 acterized the time of Jesus. It was against 
 this that he brought the sword. Many were 
 self-righteous, indifferent to the offers of a 
 greater good, careless and supercilious toward 
 the Messiah. 
 
 The world abounds ever in those who are 
 seeking this kind of peace. " It is hard to re- 
 sist evil," they say ; " indeed, it is not worth 
 while ; let it alone ; matters will come out all 
 right in the end." And so they are indifferent 
 to all manner of wrong and iniquity. They 
 condone the sowing of wild oats ; they extenu- 
 ate peccadilloes and lapses ; they wink at social 
 evils, political corruption, and official incom- 
 petency. It is easier to leave abuses alone 
 than to resist and try to reform them. " Let 
 well enough alone," is their plea. " Do not be 
 impractical," they urge. " You will stir up 
 needless opposition," they warn. " It has 
 always been this way and always will be," they 
 declare. And so they fashion excuses, relieve 
 themselves of responsibility and settle down to 
 a feeling of personal indifference towards the 
 wrongs of the day, the discords and the strifes 
 among men. 
 
 I have seen a mother, whose love for her 
 child no one could doubt, so careless of the 
 child's welfare that his physical and his moral 
 nature were both hourly in danger of irreparable 
 
PROMOTERS OF PEACE. 205 
 
 injury. If he ran into danger, she did not like 
 to forbid him, for " probably he would come out 
 all right," she reasoned. If he disobeyed her, 
 she took no pains to correct him, for " Josie 
 was a good boy and wouldn't do it again," and 
 she did not like to cross him. 
 
 As I have seen parents surrender to a child's 
 tears, so I have seen them hopefully, optimisti- 
 cally ignorant of all that the child was doing. 
 "Jennie may run on the streets : I do not like 
 to keep her too close ; the poor girl must have 
 some liberties ; she will be all right ; " so reasons 
 too frequently the fond mother, yielding easily 
 to the peace of indifference ; or, " Tommy is 
 out late nights, I know, but I think no harm 
 will come of it ; he likes to have his own way, 
 and it might be worse if I should say anything 
 about it." Alas ! sometimes this is all a mother 
 can do ; but at other times it is the makeshift 
 excuse of a maternal laissez-faire principle, 
 seeking the easy peace of careless indifference. 
 
 Easy-going indifference sometimes assumes 
 the garb of charity, and secures for itself praise. 
 It is easy to give to a beggar a nickel, when 
 nickels are abundant ; but what virtue is there 
 in the gift when the one intention is to be rid 
 of the beggar ? " I do not want to be troubled," 
 is the actuating motive. For a housekeeper 
 to furnish the tramp a dinner at her back door 
 
206 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 occasions probably the least trouble for either 
 her or the man of the house ; but the dinner 
 does not help society in its solution of the 
 problem of vagrancy. It is easy as a policy for 
 a city or town or county or state to say to all 
 vagrants and to all criminals, "You may go 
 free, if you will leave us alone ; move on ! " In 
 times past it has been comparatively easy for 
 England to rid herself of paupers and convicts 
 by transporting them to Australia and " assist- 
 ing " them to America ; but are such methods 
 right methods of securing peace ? They are not 
 the sons of God who say to all iniquity, vice, 
 disorder, and obnoxiousness, " Move on — Out 
 of my sight — Let me alone — Give me peace." 
 
 A man with a guilty conscience may relieve 
 his pangs of remorse by plunging into pleas- 
 ure or by drowning his sorrows in the cup. A 
 sinner may soothe his soul by putting away 
 seriousness. Indeed, by a purely subjective, 
 intellectual process, a man may reason out, 
 wholly by himself, terms of peace between him- 
 self and God, without taking God into the 
 account at all. 
 
 But true peacemaking is a deeper, more seri- 
 ous task than any of these superficial expedi- 
 ents imply. There really is no peace unless 
 right relations are observed. A quack may 
 deaden a pain, but a genuine physician heals 
 
PROMOTERS OF PEACE. 207 
 
 the complaint by removing the cause. A police- 
 man may order a beggar to move off, but a 
 philanthropist, a real lover of man, seeking the 
 cause of poverty, will try to remedy it at its 
 seat. A pettifogger will twist and turn the law 
 for a special interpretation, but a great lawyer 
 will look deep down for principles, and counsel 
 his client according to the true ends of justice. 
 A perfunctionary teacher may, by severity and 
 sternness, keep order in the schoolroom and 
 " hear lessons," while a loving teacher, a genius 
 at teaching, will study the attainments and pos- 
 sibilities of each pupil, adapting and explaining 
 as each requires, and, inspiring all, will have 
 attention and quietness as a perfectly natural 
 condition of the schoolroom. A foolish, indul- 
 gent parent will permit sweetmeats, and allow 
 privileges which are hurtful to the child, while 
 a wise mother or father, in close sympathy with 
 the child, always directs the appetites and de- 
 sires of the little one, so that after a while, he 
 more than half controls himself, acquiring new 
 wisdom daily. 
 
 True peace must rest on right relations. 
 Wendell Phillips, in his large, bold hand, once 
 wrote in my autograph-book, "Peace, if pos- 
 sible; justice at any rate." Were Phillips and 
 Garrison and John Brown peacemakers ? They 
 were seeking right relations ; they were bent 
 
208 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 on securing justice and freedom for all. Were 
 those others peacemakers who urged compro- 
 mise and compliance, who deplored war and were 
 willing to give up anything rather than resort 
 to arms? Warfare and carnage are terrible 
 woes to a land ; but injustice, falseness in the 
 social fabric, and continued wrong relations are 
 worse. 
 
 Blessed are those who set relations right ; 
 blessed are those who improve conditions ; 
 blessed are those who dig down to the founda- 
 tions of truth and justice and build thereon ; 
 for all such build as God builds, act as he acts, 
 and fulfill his purposes ; they are worthy to be 
 called the sons of God. 
 
 Love of truth is the chief characteristic of 
 a genuine peacemaker. He does not count 
 himself the measuring rod for all about him ; 
 he tries to see things as they are. He does 
 not assume that his little brain contains all 
 wisdom ; but outside of himself, in man, in 
 things about him, in God above him, are prin- 
 ciples and influences to which he must con- 
 form ; these he must know ; he must have 
 knowledge of conditions as they are. Fact and 
 truth above all else he seeks. How else can he 
 introduce right relations ? 
 
 Peace cannot be founded upon falsehood any 
 more than a secure house can be built upon the 
 
PROMOTERS OF PEACE. 209 
 
 crater of a volcano. Falsehood will not remain 
 still ; it seethes, it boils, it bursts forth. A lie 
 will out, for it is not in right relations to any 
 abiding fact ; all that rests upon it topples and 
 slips. There is no peace in lies ; there is no 
 permanency in error. Truth alone can stand ; 
 truth alone is sure. 
 
 Blessed are the permanency-makers, for they 
 shall be called like unto God ; blessed are they, 
 because they so adjust men and things as to 
 leave their work well done, not needing rectifi- 
 cation, being founded upon truth where it may 
 abide. Blessed are those whose lives fit har- 
 moniously into their surroundings, filling gaps, 
 bridging chasms, supplying deficiences, mak- 
 ing the life of society about them smooth, firm, 
 more solid, more happy, more contented, adding 
 character to their little world ; they, though at 
 length going, or dying, yet abide, for they have 
 builded upon truth ; they are peacemakers. 
 
 A second characteristic of a genuine peace- 
 maker is gentleness. Gentleness has yet great 
 achievements to win in the world. We scold 
 and bluster, we worry and fret, but in this way 
 do we secure peace ? By so doing, do we allay 
 trouble and alleviate distress, or lessen by one 
 iota the discords of the world ? God's ways are 
 ways of gentleness. "Thy gentleness hath 
 made me great," sang the Psalmist. A quiet 
 
210 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 answer turns away wrath ; gentleness soothes 
 and calms disquieted spirits. 
 
 Gentleness is efficacious because it implies 
 self-control. No one can be gentle and tender 
 of touch unless the hand be steady, the nerves 
 calm, and all the muscles in complete subjection 
 to the will. No one can be gentle and tender 
 of speech unless the mind be calm, the passions 
 still, the thoughts active and deliberate. Gen- 
 tleness indicates self-mastery ; it is a greater 
 proof of strength than roughness and rudeness, 
 though thoughtless people do not so regard it. 
 Any soul can fly into a passion. It is a stronger 
 soul, however, that checks the passion, subdues 
 anger, and, under whatsoever provocation, con- 
 tinues calm and quiet. They who are gentle 
 keep peace within ; then they are able to pro- 
 mote peace without. 
 
 Gentleness wins its way ; it obtains a hearing 
 as does nothing else. Noise and bluster, pas- 
 sion and rant may monopolize attention for a 
 season ; but gentleness succeeds and stays. 
 Blessed, then, are the gentle, for they do good 
 to all about them ; holding quiet restraint upon 
 themselves, they call a halt to the wrangling 
 and excitement of turbulent disputants ; they 
 pour in the oil of calm reason, they mix the 
 myrrh of considerateness, they bind up wounded 
 hearts with sympathy and love. Blessed are 
 
PROMOTERS OF PEACE. 211 
 
 they who promote gentleness, for they partake 
 of the characteristics of God. 
 
 Another characteristic of the genuine peace- 
 makers is the spirit of self-sacrifice. No one 
 produces peace in the community by sitting in 
 his home and simply wishing well to the world. 
 He must go forth and give of himself to the 
 world. Gentleness must not be thought of as 
 passive do-nothing-ness. Love of truth and 
 gentleness should not produce inactivity. The 
 one indicates allegiance to fact ; the other indi- 
 cates a method. But what are fact and method 
 unless employed ? Of what avail are drugs on 
 the apothecary's shelves and a prescription 
 wisely penned by the physician, unless the 
 patient has the prescription filled and takes the 
 medicine ? 
 
 Love of truth and gentleness must be applied ; 
 they must combine in self-sacrifice. Wishes 
 alone never make peace ; prayers alone cannot 
 produce it. Peacemaking comes from personal 
 effort. " Peace, if possible ; justice at any 
 rate : " that is a martyr's battle-cry. That 
 means peace only on the foundation of truth, 
 cost what it may ; time, effort, life itself, — all 
 may go into the payment, but peace, peace 
 founded upon truth, must come. 
 
 In its treatment of social disorders, industrial 
 strifes, class contentions and political machina- 
 
212 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 tions, society has already evinced an earnest 
 devotion for truth in investigating actual condi- 
 tions and trying to come at the fundamental 
 facts, and has adopted also the method of gen- 
 tleness through agitation, organization, educa- 
 tion, legislation, and arbitration. And yet society 
 has not yet reached the point of sacrificing self ; 
 statesmen and politicians, governors and legis- 
 lators have not yet become social peacemakers 
 to this extent ; efforts and sacrifices they leave 
 too largely to others. But altruism, as an active 
 principle of conduct, must be still more com- 
 pletely triumphant over egoism before the per- 
 fect reign of peace on earth can be ushered in. 
 Peacemaking, even in its partial and incom- 
 plete form, is, however, a blessed task. It 
 suggests smiles instead of frowns, kindness 
 instead of anger, cooperation instead of oppo- 
 sition, industry instead of warfare. The condi- 
 tions of peace, rendering men fraternal, allow 
 husbandry, trade, commerce, education, civiliza- 
 tion, culture, worship. Peace unites, harmon- 
 izes, solidifies the social fabric. Peace gives 
 joy and solace and comfort to the human heart. 
 Peace causes the land to burst forth into happi- 
 ness and rejoicing. Peace lessens labor, mini- 
 mizes hardship, assuages pain, mitigates grief. 
 What greater boon is there for man than 
 peace ? 
 
PROMOTERS OF PEACE. 213 
 
 Peacemaking is even Godlike. The infinite 
 love is ever seeking peace, the peace of every 
 troubled heart, the cessation of every woe, of 
 every strife, of every conflict, of every pain. 
 To peace God calls ; and to be peacemakers is 
 his wish for us. Thus called, we must obey. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PERILS OF OMISSION. 
 
 The law of Moses is prohibitive. "Thou 
 shalt not " is its phraseology. Not to do is its 
 fulfillment. Avoid, pass by, leave undone, are 
 the terms of its practical exhortation. Accord- 
 ing to the Ten Commandments, there can be no 
 sins of omission, for every sin must be omitted. 
 Commission is sin, while omission is virtue. 
 Cold passivity meets all the requirements of 
 the ten negations. 
 
 But Christ has set a higher standard. He 
 has placed the law of God wholly on its posi- 
 tive side. His two great commandments are 
 mandatory — commandments properly so-called. 
 "Thou shalt" are the terms of statement: 
 "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
 thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy 
 mind ; " " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
 self." And when he was asked for an explana- 
 tion of the second commandment, he gave the 
 parable of the good Samaritan, concluding with 
 the positive requirement, " Go thou and do like- 
 214 
 
PERILS OF OMISSION. 215 
 
 wise." Sometimes he even condensed the two 
 commandments into one, "Follow thou me;" 
 but the bidding is then no less positive and its 
 execution no less obligatory of positive and 
 definite acts. 
 
 The teaching of Jesus in all particulars re- 
 quires aggression into positive righteousness, 
 and not mere recession from iniquity. With him 
 omission is sin, while in commission lies the 
 virtue. To refuse, to pass by, to avoid, to leave 
 undone, to neglect, bring the guilt of condem- 
 nation. Indifference and passivity are grievous 
 faults ; inaction is sin. 
 
 Indeed, we may find this higher law running 
 through all departments of life and being. By 
 neglect no one can obtain saving for the body or 
 the mind. Neglect is fatal for the physical and 
 mental, as well as for the spiritual well-being, 
 whether of a babe, child, or man. In busi- 
 ness, in farming, in the arts, and in the profes- 
 sions inaction entails ruin. Through careless 
 indifference comes neither safety nor soundness 
 for homes, schools, or political, social, and reli- 
 gious institutions. The pauper, the tramp, the 
 drunkard, the criminal are not reformed by 
 simple well-wishing. The laissez-faire principle, 
 once advocated by over-hopeful optimists, has 
 proved itself inadequate for actual progress 
 toward improvement, and has been abandoned 
 
216 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 by economists and sociologists, because it has 
 been discovered in hard experience that effort 
 and struggle, well directed, constant, and vigor- 
 ous, are the only means of social advancement. 
 
 That the kingdom established by Christ, after 
 nineteen centuries, has not gained possession of 
 the whole earth, is owing less to [errors and 
 heresies of doctrine into which Christians may 
 have run, than to the ease and idleness in which 
 they too freely have indulged. The man of 
 hardness of heart is not alone he who commits 
 crimes, but more often he who, guilty of no 
 actual misdeeds, yet never exerts himself for 
 positive deeds of love and mercy. 
 
 Our Lord gave expression to no exhortations 
 for quietness and ease in his kingdom, " Sit ye 
 still and keep yourselves spotless ! " but his ap- 
 peals were to action, cross-bearing, self-denial, 
 labor. He taught, not they who cry, " Lord, 
 Lord," shall enter into the kingdom, but they 
 that do the will of God. Not they receive his 
 commendation and promotion who keep their 
 talents ever so safely, but they who put them 
 forth in service, and increase them by use. 
 
 The sin of omission is so intangible and so 
 subtle that few realize personal guilt, or guard 
 sufficiently against it. It is cloaked under the 
 garb of good resolutions ; we disguise it under 
 the excuse of " by and by," or " to-morrow," or 
 
PERILS OF OMISSION. 217 
 
 "pretty soon," and so we permit that thief of 
 time to filch away a large share of our positive 
 virtues. 
 
 Because robbery is an open, discernible crime 
 of positive act and intent, all honest men shun 
 it ; yet the same men who call themselves 
 honest will permit a neighbor to be despoiled 
 through some waste or neglect, which a word 
 or a slight effort might have prevented. The 
 crime of murder is so heinous that all right- 
 minded people shrink from it in horror ; and yet 
 some of these same right-minded people will 
 allow a person to reduce his life by degrees, slow 
 or rapid, through some seemingly slight failure 
 to guard and preserve the physical powers. 
 This is not ignorance alone, but is careless 
 neglect. It is a hard-hearted wretch, we think, 
 who will stand on the bank of a river and per- 
 mit a fellow-being to drift by him over the falls 
 without a single effort to rescue or to attract 
 the help of other rescuers. Yet many of us by 
 passive permission become responsible for loss 
 and destruction that engulf our neighbors. 
 
 Sins of commission we see ; they can almost 
 be weighed, measured, and tabulated in their 
 due relations and importance ; but sins of omis- 
 sion have an extremely tenuous hold upon the 
 attention, and still smaller attachment to mem- 
 ory, if indeed they are noticed at all. There is 
 
218 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 little hazard in saying that any person who re- 
 views life soberly for a moment, will take notice 
 of ten things done that ought not to have been 
 done to one thing left undone that ought to have 
 been done, while, in all probability, the person is 
 guilty of fifty or a hundred times as many sins of 
 omission as of commission. 
 
 If a public official becomes intoxicated, or 
 appropriates the public funds, his misdemeanor 
 is obvious, can be proved and brings speedy pun- 
 ishment ; but, if, instead of overt acts of disquali- 
 fication, he simply neglects duty and fails to 
 discharge his obligations, the delinquences are 
 seldom observed by his constituents ; and when 
 noticed, are far more difficult of proof than 
 overt acts. 
 
 Not always does it follow that the student 
 who keeps along with his classes, without fail- 
 ure in recitations, performing all the routine 
 work of his course, is the successful scholar of 
 disciplined mind and intellectual power. The 
 man of broad scholarship must not neglect to 
 think as well as to learn, to weigh as well as 
 to memorize, to read good literature as well as to 
 study the assigned lessons. The ten command- 
 ments of an educational course may lie in the 
 marking system, with its spurs and incentives 
 of class rank and teachers' reports ; but the 
 new dispensation of education, the gospel of 
 
PERILS OF OMISSION. 219 
 
 learning and wisdom, by which the student 
 works out his own intellectual salvation, lies 
 in personal zest, personal application, a per- 
 sonal commitment to knowledge for the sake 
 of what knowledge may do with and for its 
 disciples. If a young man in college strives 
 simply for his diploma, he has his reward, — a 
 diploma ; but if he faithfully avails himself of 
 all the opportunities for true culture which the 
 course affords, following for the sake of knowl- 
 edge some of the by-paths of truth, which the 
 class as a whole is not required to enter, verily 
 he also will have his reward, — culture and 
 power. 
 
 A business man does not need to push his cus- 
 tomers from the store in order to lose their trade ; 
 if he but neglect them and their interests, he will 
 not be troubled with their presence again. The 
 errand boy need not break, destroy, and steal, 
 in order to render himself unfit for promotion ; 
 if he simply leaves his regular tasks unper- 
 formed, his services can be dispensed with at 
 night. The cook to prove her worthlessness 
 need not throw the baking out-of-doors, but 
 simply let it burn in the oven. The gardener 
 may destroy his plants quite as effectually by 
 letting the weeds choke them as by pulling 
 them out of the ground. A seaman may com- 
 mit suicide by simply allowing his vessel to drift. 
 
220 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 The sins of omission may be accounted for. 
 Sometimes they spring from ignorance, an 
 ignorance of circumstances, of consequences, 
 or of the divine will. The civil law makes no 
 allowance for violations of this nature, requiring 
 every man to inform himself of the statutes. 
 The great Lawgiver above requires knowledge, 
 yet deals leniently with his subjects, holding 
 them responsible only for their talents and 
 judging them only according to their light. 
 Of that man to whom much has been com- 
 mitted, of him, and of him only, shall much be 
 required. The heathen who have never heard 
 the terms of salvation may yet find acceptance 
 with God in proportion as they have not neg- 
 lected that which they have known. Infinite 
 justice will not require at our hands sheaves 
 which our hands are incapable of gathering. 
 Failure to perform the impossible cannot be 
 reckoned as sin, and the totally unknown is, to 
 a moral being, the impossible. 
 
 Where, then, there is ignorance there may be 
 excuse. But if the ignorance be one of willful- 
 ness and obstinate perversity, then the sin of 
 omission returns to the cause of the igno- 
 rance, and guilt remains. An innocent lack of 
 knowledge, however, we may well believe, the 
 Master always condones. And how could it be 
 otherwise? Who then could be exempt from 
 
PERILS OF OMISSION. 221 
 
 his condemnation ? For who knows all ? Who 
 has entered into a full conception of all that is 
 involved in the commission of a single, simple 
 deed or of the entertainment of a single 
 thought ? It would require infinite wisdom to 
 understand the significance of even one hour 
 of life lived by a very humble man. None can 
 know all the moral and spiritual opportunities 
 and influences in the midst of which they live. 
 Their innocent ignorance must be the extenua- 
 tion of their failures in a thousand directions 
 to avail themselves of the grace abounding in 
 human circumstances. 
 
 Another cause of sins of omission may be 
 found in personal indifference toward opportuni- 
 ties and possibilities. This differs from igno- 
 rance, as it is less mental in its nature than 
 emotional. The indifferent man " does not 
 care ; " he has no liking one way or the other ; 
 " it is all the same " to him. Such a man is 
 lukewarm, — neither hot nor cold, — to be 
 spued out of the mouth. 
 
 The probation of this world does not admit 
 of neutrality. Issues are clear ; lines are drawn ; 
 sides must be taken. This is not a world of 
 monotonous levels, nor of confused and obscure 
 colorings, nor of continuous, unvarying force. 
 The earth itself is composed of hill and valley, 
 of light and shade, and is permeated with forces 
 
222 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 of great and small impulsions. By it, likes and 
 dislikes are aroused and varied discriminations 
 occasioned. The very tutelage of nature de- 
 stroys indifference and ennui in her subjects. 
 
 From the beginning of his instructions to 
 man, God has taught the necessity of choosing 
 and loving something, some one. A man can- 
 not remain indifferent in the kingdom of 
 heaven. He must care ; he must prefer right- 
 eousness ; he must seek the kingdom and its 
 interests ; he must love God, and hate iniquity. 
 
 There is a large class of men and women to- 
 day, outside the pale of the Christian church, 
 who at least seem — if they are not really so — 
 indifferent to the claims of religion, and they 
 constitute a difficult class for the church of 
 Christ to reach. Though they may not be a 
 desirable class for the church to incorporate 
 within her own membership, for, if once within 
 it, they will still retain the accumulated disposi- 
 tion of indifference and neglect, yet for their 
 own sakes they must be sought ; they must be 
 aroused to something positive in life, to positive 
 holiness, righteousness, and love. 
 
 Indifference has no excuse, and is without 
 extenuation. 
 
 But yet another cause of the sins of omission 
 lies in sheer inaction. This differs from igno- 
 rance and indifference, inasmuch as it is neither 
 
PERILS OF OMISSION. 223 
 
 mental nor emotional in its nature, but rather 
 volitional. A man, knowing what he ought 
 to do, and quite likely preferring that which 
 duty prompts, yet does not do it. Perhaps he 
 simply postpones action. He may not inten- 
 tionally set his will against God's will in the 
 matter, but he does not place his will in har- 
 mony with the divine will. He may try to 
 occupy for the time-being a position of neutral- 
 ity. But the teaching of Christ makes it quite 
 plain that volitional omission is volitional insub- 
 ordination. Not to obey is to disobey. 
 
 Shall, then, a man who knows the inexorable 
 laws and the inevitable consequences of neglect 
 in farming, in trade, in learning, and in culture, 
 — shall he expect immunity, if he neglect his 
 soul's welfare and his spiritual obligations ? 
 Shall a man be less wise in his religion than in 
 his business, his pleasures, or his personal and 
 social improvements ? If attention and action 
 are the price of success in all other depart- 
 ments of life and being, shall they not also be 
 recognized as the price of salvation in the 
 spiritual domain ? 
 
 The divirie love has in no manner neglected 
 us. Can we escape a righteous condemnation, 
 if we neglect the overtures of grace, the decla- 
 rations of the divine will, and the opportunities 
 of fellowship with Christ ? 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 WANT, THE PROPHECY OF SUPPLY. 
 
 The measure of individual possibility is ex- 
 pressed in the beatitude, " Blessed are they 
 that hunger and thirst after righteousness : for 
 they shall be filled." 
 
 A little definition will aid in disclosing the 
 significance of this measure. To hunger and 
 thirst are strong expressions for desire, com- 
 mon in all languages. The lexicon, in students' 
 hands, defines the Greek word for hunger, in its 
 metaphorical use, " to crave ardently, to seek 
 with eager desire," and says of the word for 
 thirst, "figuratively, those are said to thirst 
 who painfully feel their want of, and eagerly 
 long for, those things by which the soul is 
 refreshed, supported, strengthened." The Greek 
 original of the word rendered " shall be filled " 
 occurs frequently in the New Testament, signi- 
 fying to feed, to satisfy with food ; first used of 
 feeding animals, and later of feeding men. 
 
 This beatitude might, therefore, be para- 
 phrased, Blessed are those who eagerly long 
 
WANT, THE PROPHECY OF SUPPLY. 225 
 
 for righteousness, and earnestly strive to be 
 righteous : for they shall have righteousness 
 fed to them as food, and their longings shall be 
 met. But, since righteousness here must not 
 be thought of as something abstract, the para- 
 phrase might be amplified to the form, Blessed 
 are they who eagerly long for personal good- 
 ness, who earnestly strive to be personally 
 good : for they shall be fed with the elements 
 which make personal goodness, and shall find 
 their ideals constantly approaching realization. 
 
 Worldly wisdom expresses sententiously the 
 same thought, " Where there is a will, there is 
 a way ; " and the wise seer of the Old Testa- 
 ment Scriptures has written, "as he thinketh 
 in his heart, so is he." Longings become pur- 
 poses ; aspirations are converted into policies 
 and plans ; thinking transmutes itself into con- 
 duct ; ideals make character. 
 
 We have already seen that there is very 
 little suddenness in this world. Changes are 
 usually by growth, by slight gradations, by 
 almost imperceptible modifications. And this 
 is as true in relation to changes which affect 
 human souls as in the developments taking 
 place in the physical universe. 
 
 It is obvious to us that the supposed exem- 
 plary bank official, who startles the community 
 by enormous peculations, has not all at once 
 
226 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 made his stealings, but long since began to 
 think wrongly in regard to the wealth com- 
 mitted to his trust ; and gradually the thought 
 grew to a purpose, and at last the purpose be- 
 came an act. The man of reputed probity and 
 purity has not all at once become profligate 
 and vicious, when a public disclosure reveals 
 a foul and putrid life, but has long allowed 
 viciousness to paint the pictures of his mind, 
 until, delighting in the pictures, he has desired 
 the vice, and given himself to its embrace. No 
 blasphemer and scoffer has lost respect for 
 God and religion in a day or a night, but has 
 reached his negations and their accompanying 
 mental obtuseness and hardness of heart by 
 inches. 
 
 Character is a growth. It creeps upon us as 
 the twilight becomes darkness and as the dawn 
 increases to day. Virtue is not a flash, a flare, 
 a glare, or a sudden ecstasy. Goodness springs 
 not up as mushrooms. Righteousness repre- 
 sents the slow accretions of unfolding charac- 
 ter; it is the evolution of spiritual manhood 
 from the inherent, latent powers and possibili- 
 ties of the soul. 
 
 In many seeds the embryo reveals its axis, 
 plumule, and leaves, indicative of what the 
 plant shall be, before the plant has begun to 
 grow. At some stages of development from 
 
IVAhIT, THE PROPHECY OF SUPPLY. 227 
 
 the egg, the unaided eye can behold what the 
 microscope long since discerned, a clear proph- 
 ecy of the life to be, its kind, its form, and 
 perchance its functions. So in the aspirations 
 of a human soul, in its longings and desires, is 
 a prophecy of what that soul, developing in 
 character, shall be. 
 
 The ideals are the embryo of the man. To- 
 morrow lies wrapped within to-day. What one 
 hungers and thirsts after, that shall he have; 
 what one wills to be that shall he become. 
 The constituent, undeveloped elements of both 
 heaven and hell are infolded in the human 
 breast. Direction lies in ambition, and destiny 
 is determined by choice. 
 
 We must never look upon conversion as a 
 completed act. It is merely a beginning. In 
 it two cooperating agencies combine and con- 
 tinue their activities : the human will, supply- 
 ing proper conditions by its determination of 
 spiritual direction and pliancy, and the divine 
 power, imparting through the truth new prin- 
 ciples and new cogency to the soul. But con- 
 version must not satisfy. A converted soul 
 that is satisfied with conversion will soon be a 
 dead soul. To be born and not to grow is to 
 be a monstrosity. 
 
 Christ's assurance of satisfaction to them 
 that hunger and thirst after righteousness 
 
228 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 does not refer to the mere joy of entering upon 
 a Christian life but to the fuller joy of continued 
 development in the Christian life. He speaks 
 of constant aspirations for increased righteous- 
 ness, persistent longings for more holiness, and 
 never-ceasing incentives to progress, improve- 
 ment, and enlarged conceptions of the possibili- 
 ties of acquaintance with divine truth. 
 
 To be satisfied is to stagnate and become 
 unwholesome ; to be satisfied is to petrify and 
 become a monument sacred to the memory of 
 an experience ; to be satisfied is to lay down 
 the historian's pen and close the volume ; to 
 be satisfied is to terminate one's spiritual biog- 
 raphy. No, no. Blessed are they who are 
 not satisfied, who long for more, for they shall 
 behold their ideals far in advance, and shall 
 find both joy and inspiration in pursuit. 
 
 No other religion sets so high a standard for 
 its adherents as Christianity : • " Be ye there- 
 fore perfect even as your Father which is in 
 heaven is perfect." Other religions exhort, 
 " appease God ; " but to appease and pacify 
 Deity is not so lofty an aim, by an almost meas- 
 ureless distance, as to become like God in 
 holiness. Buddhism holds forth the ideal of 
 final absorption into divinity, losing personal 
 identity ; but to be merged in the infinite is by 
 no means so exalted and ennobling an aim as, 
 
IVANT, THE PROPHECY OF SUPPLY. 229 
 
 while distinct from God, to take on by degrees, 
 albeit slowly, some of the holy characteristics 
 of God. 
 
 Christianity sets up the unattainable as its 
 goal, " the prize of the high calling of God in 
 Christ Jesus," and urges man to attain thereto. 
 The very impossibility of attainment and, there- 
 fore, of immediate and complete satisfaction, 
 is one proof of the perennial freshness of the 
 religion of Jesus Christ. When the world has 
 grown old, the ideal will still be attractive and 
 potent, will still be in advance. When man 
 has run his course, the goal, still far in the 
 distance, will attract him. When humanity has 
 reached out to its farthest stretch, it will still 
 have spheres of attraction and allurement on 
 beyond it. Even eternity cannot exhaust the 
 object of pursuit or make the aim and ideal of 
 the Christian cheap and mean. Could any- 
 thing short of this be adequate for an ultimate 
 religion ? Could anything else be worthy the 
 name of a " divine " religion ? Could one know 
 that the religion was not from man unless it 
 held out to man more than man ever was 
 capable of ? 
 
 Blessed indeed, then, are they who hunger 
 and thirst. Let them become ever so right- 
 eous, yet more remains to long for. Let them 
 climb and mount, they may climb and mount 
 
230 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 still higher. Let them attain all the excellences 
 of earth and there will yet remain for them 
 unappropriated goodness ; aye, on into eternity 
 they may go, ever advancing, ever attaining, 
 ever hungering and thirsting, ever being filled. 
 
 To hunger and thirst is the mark of life and 
 growth. He who is learning, desiring ever to 
 know, is the scholar, not he who knows. He is 
 a fossil who thinks he knows enough, and does 
 not learn. Young men who go forth from 
 college satisfied with their diplomas will end 
 where they begin ; they are already antiquated. 
 Life is before ; it is not past. The small suc- 
 cesses already achieved should be an inspira- 
 tion. Having contributed some knowledge, 
 some character, some power, past life should 
 have also contributed a great hungering and 
 thirsting after more knowledge, more character, 
 more power, more life, else the past has been 
 well nigh void and vain. That is a good institu- 
 tion of learning which sends forth its students 
 equipped with a method and an ambition for 
 scholarly attainments and an intellectual life, 
 whether possessing at the time of graduation 
 much of knowledge or not; and that is a good 
 student, not who knows a great deal, but who 
 is conscious that he knows little, and wills to 
 know more. 
 
 Possibility is better than pride of possession ; 
 
WAUT, THE PROPHECY OF SUPPLY. 231 
 
 opportunity is worth even more than achieve- 
 ment. Achievement may be a closed door; one 
 may be on the inside, yet perhaps a prisoner, 
 shut up in the past. If there be no more op- 
 portunities, dismal indeed is the prison-house ! 
 Opportunity throws wide a door, through which 
 one may pass, not into a cut de sac, a blind 
 alley, but into spacious halls, opening wide into 
 an alluring vista of possibilities. 
 
 He who would preserve his life must ever 
 enter the open doors, and never abide. His 
 rest must consist in not resting. Weariness and 
 ennui are the portion of those who have settled 
 into attainment and obtain nothing more. They 
 are caged and captive ; the past repeats itself 
 with wearying, painful monotony. To them 
 life is walled up, blank and drear. Their to-day 
 was yesterday, and their to-morrow will be to- 
 day, without surcease. 
 
 Oh, woe unto them who have lost ambition 
 and strive no longer to achieve ; woe unto him 
 who has lost his appetite, either physical or 
 mental ; woe to him to whom all things have 
 become flat and insipid ; woe indeed to all who 
 no longer hunger and thirst after knowledge in 
 the intellectual sphere, or after righteousness 
 in the spiritual sphere, for they are indeed 
 dead ! 
 
 Such a feeling of woe for those who do not 
 
232 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 hunger and thirst, who do not entertain the 
 spirit of progress, lies behind the thought of 
 Carlyle when, in his "Life of Frederick the 
 Great " he speaks of excessive conservatism : 
 " It is very wrong to keep enchanted wiggeries 
 sitting in this world, as if they were things still 
 alive. By a species of * conservatism,' which 
 gets praise in our time, but which is only sloth- 
 ful cowardice, base indifference to truth and 
 hatred to trouble in comparison with lies that 
 sit quiet, men now extensively practice this 
 method of procedure, little dreaming how bad 
 and fatal it at all times is. When the brains 
 are out things really ought to die, — no matter 
 what lovely things they were and still affect to 
 be, the brains being out, they actually ought in 
 all cases to die, and with their best speed get 
 buried. Men had noses at one time ; and smelt 
 the horror of a deceased reality fallen putrid, of 
 a once dear veracity become mendacious, phan- 
 tasmal ; but they have to an immense degree 
 lost that organ since, and are now living com- 
 fortably cheek-by-jowl with lies. Lies of that 
 sad ' conservative ' kind, and indeed of all kinds 
 whatsoever : for that kind is a general mother ; 
 and breeds, with a fecundity that is appalling, 
 did you heed it much." That is a Carlylean 
 lament over a lack of hungering and thirsting 
 after new truth and after enlarged righteousness, 
 
TV ANT, THE PROPHECY OF SUPPLY. 233 
 
 He who does not long for more and for better 
 is content with sham, and then weds himself, in 
 the stupidity of his slothfulness, to lies. All 
 our progress in the arts and sciences, in travel 
 and discovery, in invention and knowledge is 
 due to hungering and thirsting. This Western 
 Continent was discovered because a man, though 
 hindered, thwarted, yet determined, seeking, was 
 not baffled. A quiet observer in a dim cathe- 
 dral, though at length suppressed and perse- 
 cuted, yet, nothing daunted, persevered : the 
 swinging lamp emboldened him to declare of 
 the earth, it "does move." Astronomy is a 
 science because men have hungered to know 
 the heavens and their mysteries. Electricity 
 bends its shoulder to the service of man be- 
 cause man has hungered and thirsted after 
 knowledge of the lightning's nature and method. 
 The intense longing now felt in the observa- 
 tories, laboratories, and workshops of thousands 
 of persistent seekers prophesies that more 
 knowledge, in directions yet unknown, will 
 benefit mankind in our day. Man has longed 
 to fly ; the prophecy of his flying is written 
 large on the attempts, and more clearly on the 
 desires of man. 
 
 And yet, while the standard of Christianity 
 may be termed inaccessible, nevertheless at- 
 tainment in Christian longing and aspiration is 
 
234 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 more certain than in any other domain. In the 
 physical, industrial, social, political worlds, the 
 promise of satisfaction holds good only under 
 fixed conditions. 
 
 It used to be said that every American boy 
 might aspire to the presidency of the United 
 States. Yet among seventy millions of people 
 not more than fifteen individuals living at any 
 one time can, by any possibility of contingen- 
 cies, ever attain to the honors of a four years' 
 residence in the White House. The others 
 may hunger and thirst, yet never be more than 
 town clerk or ward politican. It used to be 
 true that a farmer could with ease earn a com- 
 petency, pay for his farm, and educate liberally 
 his boys and girls at the academy and college ; 
 but the conditions of landholdings in the West, 
 with large acreage, fertile soil, cultivation by 
 machinery and cheap transportation, have 
 rendered the chances much more against the 
 farmer and raised barriers over which he has 
 no control. Not all who hunger and thirst for 
 the old homestead on the hillside can to-day lift 
 its incumbrance of mortgage. 
 
 It used to be true that the mechanic could 
 reasonably look forward to becoming a master 
 in his trade, an owner, and participator in large 
 enterprises ; but now he is too often a mere 
 part of a machine, acquainted with but a small 
 
WANT, THE PROPHECY OF SUPPLY. 235 
 
 portion of his trade, perhaps trained only to the 
 holding of two pieces of leather so that a 
 machine may complete the labor of his hands. 
 However much he may hunger and thirst for 
 advancement and promotion, yet he knows only 
 one machine and its possibilities ; his world has 
 become narrowed down to the circumference of 
 that one piece of mechanism ! It used to be 
 true that a young man in a store might reason- 
 ably expect, by industry and frugality through 
 the patience of years, to become proprietor; 
 but now he " clerks it " at the ribbon counter ; 
 he knows nothing but ribbons ; he may hunger 
 and thirst after satins or woolens, after book- 
 keeping or purchasing ; but he is filled with 
 ribbons ! 
 
 The industrial world surely faces a hard bond- 
 age to-day in too many of our great cities and 
 villages and in too many of our modern facto- 
 ries and shops. Labor agitations have this 
 not unreasonable complaint behind them. The 
 unrest, the discontent, and all the manifold dis- 
 turbances caused by strikes, lockouts, boycott- 
 ing, rioting, and by tramps are due in no small 
 degree to the fact that there is a social, an indus- 
 trial hungering and thirsting, keen and insistent, 
 that has no hope of being appeased, no promise 
 of assuagement. The great social problem to- 
 day is, how to meet these longings, most of 
 
236 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 which are legitimate. To hunger and thirst 
 without the promise is to face despair. 
 
 But in righteousness there are no arbitrary 
 limitations. In religion a man stands alone, 
 unfettered by his fellows, unrestrained by social 
 hindrances, free from the bondage of monopo- 
 lies, " trusts," and " corners." In religion there 
 are no favors ; God is no respecter of persons. 
 So far as the individual is concerned, the whole 
 religious world consists of but two, God and 
 himself. While in labor a man becomes a part 
 of his machine, and in agriculture and trade he 
 is a part of a great social organization, a part of 
 a system, yet in matters that pertain to the 
 spiritual life he appears as a sovereign person 
 before a sovereign personal God. 
 
 In the approach to God there exist no insur- 
 mountable limitations. Heredity may yield 
 tendencies and biases, but heredity is no final 
 arbiter of destiny ; the circumstances of one's 
 life may check and hinder, but they cannot 
 abrogate the scope of human freedom. God is 
 accessible to all ; heaven is at no time closed to 
 any ; treasures where moth and rust do not cor- 
 rupt may be made as abundant as one wills ; in 
 spiritual pursuits the future is free ; no impos- 
 sibility confronts him whose aim is goodness ; 
 righteousness never fails. 
 
 Ideals make the spiritual man. In spiritual 
 
WANT, THE PROPHECY OF SUPPLY. 237 
 
 things their domination extends more com- 
 pletely than in any other department of being. 
 Aims prophesy of the future ; ambition is a 
 forecast of spiritual attainments. 
 
 These teachings of the Master are pregnant 
 with meaning. They indicate that the new 
 birth is not like the mythical origin of Minerva, 
 full grown from the head of Jove, but a birth 
 unto spiritual infancy and growth ; that, indeed, 
 in Christianity neither the positive nor the su- 
 perlative degree can be applied to man, but the 
 comparative only, for in order to be holy, he 
 must be ever becoming more holy ; in order to 
 be good, must ever be growing better ; in order 
 to stand, must ever be advancing ; and to com- 
 plete the suggestions on this point, it is appar- 
 ent that sanctification must be simply healthful, 
 normal growth in grace. 
 
 The suggestions of these teachings of the 
 Master confirm our thought that the religion 
 which he has revealed must be the final and 
 absolute religion, for it, of all religions, offers 
 the loftiest, most noble standard, and is there- 
 fore fit to abide as the highest type revealed to 
 man ; for Christianity has promise of ever giv- 
 ing satisfaction, of never growing old, never 
 becoming antiquated, never proving inadequate, 
 — even through the limitless aeons of eternity, 
 , and unto the saint purest grown, as it has 
 
238 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 within it the potency of development unto the 
 perfect ideal, God. 
 
 The Master's language does not necessarily 
 disparage conservatism ; for, there is a legiti- 
 mate conservatism, the conservatism of holding 
 fast that which is good ; but the Master sets 
 his approval upon progressiveness, upon ambi- 
 tion for improvement, upon a wholesome dis- 
 content with the past and the present for the 
 sake of gaining a new and a better future. The 
 restless activity and intense self-projection into 
 the future of the Apostle Paul accords with this 
 principle : " Brethren, I count not myself to 
 have apprehended, but this one thing I do, for- 
 getting those things that are behind and reach- 
 ing forth unto those that are before, I press 
 toward the mark of the prize of the high calling 
 of God in Christ Jesus." 
 
 The promise of satisfaction on the lips of the 
 Master affords the inestimable consolation, in 
 the midst of all social, political, and industrial 
 disappointments and distresses, of success to 
 the seeker, rest for the weary, food and refresh- 
 ment for the hungry, grace for the sinful. It 
 speaks of peace after conflict, of home after 
 wanderings, of joy to take the place of pain and 
 sorrow, of heaven when earth is passed. 
 
 If a man hunger and thirst after righteous- 
 ness, what cheer and assurance he may have ! 
 
WANT, THE PROPHECY OF SUPPLY. 239 
 
 Let him look forward, outward, onward, upward : 
 he shall be filled. Though hungering and thirst- 
 ing, though struggling and toiling, — yea, while 
 hungering and thirsting, while struggling and 
 toiling, — nay, better yet, because of his intense 
 longings and because of his strong efforts, the 
 prophecy of his soul's desires shall be met, he 
 shall be fed, he shall be filled, he shall be sat- 
 isfied. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 PROGRESSIVE REVELATION. 
 
 Revelation is always limited by the capacity 
 of the recipient. A pint cup can hold no more 
 than a pint even if supplied from a million- 
 gallon reservoir. Belief is one synonym for 
 spiritual capacity ; it is the synonym for recep- 
 tivity up to the limit of ability. But even ready 
 belief cannot receive all things, because ability 
 is wanting. 
 
 This lack of ability on the part of the disci- 
 ples and contemporaries of Jesus brings to the 
 surface of the New Testament narrative some 
 of the tenderest strains of pathos the world 
 knows. Because of unbelief Jesus was obliged 
 to withhold himself ; having no one who could 
 fully sympathize with him, he had none upon 
 whom he could lean for solace and support, but 
 was obliged to bear his burdens isolated from 
 intimate human fellowship ; though he came 
 with an infinite revelation, yet he could impart 
 but the rudiments, as none were then prepared 
 to receive the whole. He himself said, just be- 
 240 
 
PROGRESSIVE REVELATION. 241 
 
 fore leaving his disciples, " I have many things 
 to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." 
 
 Human incapacity has occasioned divine reti- 
 cence ; the limitations of the flesh put fetters 
 even upon the spirit. In the midst of his dis- 
 ciples stood Jesus, laden, full, infinite with 
 truth, ready to impart ; and before him were 
 the disciples, believing, eager to receive, but 
 unable : "ye cannot bear them now." 
 
 It is plain that there can be no complete and 
 perfect revelation until the complete and perfect 
 man appears. Finality comes not now, but in 
 the future. As man increases in capacity, to 
 him truth may come more freely, more abun- 
 dantly ; and, therefore, because he enlarges, 
 revelation to him may be said to be progressive. 
 
 This truth can be illustrated from the lives 
 of the apostles. While Jesus was with them, 
 they supposed his reign to be temporal and 
 him to be an earthly king. In his kingdom 
 they strove for place and greatness. When he 
 spoke of suffering and death, they expostulated, 
 "Be it far from thee, Lord." Even imme- 
 diately before the ascension, after the intimacy 
 of their three years' service with him, having 
 heard his words, having seen his works and 
 having bathed ih his spirit, they yet inquired, 
 " Lord, dost thou at this time restore the king- 
 dom to Israel ? " But after Pentecost, after an 
 
242 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 enlargement of spiritual vision which made the 
 recognition of new truth possible, they began 
 to see and proclaim the coming of a spiritual 
 kingdom. 
 
 The prophet Joel, at least four centuries be- 
 fore Christ, had said, "and it shall come to 
 pass that whosoever shall call upon the name 
 of the Lord shall be delivered," or saved. But 
 none of the Jews understood these words to 
 mean more than that whatever Jew would call 
 upon God would find favor. Peter, though 
 using the language on the day of Pentecost, 
 had no broader conception of its significance 
 than any Jew would have, and, even after a 
 special experience on the housetop, failed to 
 banish the old notion from his mind. Paul, 
 with a wider training, possessed a broader capa- 
 city to discern that in this old prophetic utter- 
 ance was an expression of divine mercy and 
 purpose toward the Gentile as well as the Jew. 
 
 Although it is declared in the books of Deu- 
 teronomy, Second Chronicles and Job that God 
 is no respecter of persons, yet every Jew sup- 
 posed that amongst Jews alone this divine im- 
 partiality prevailed. The disciples of Jesus 
 entertained the same thought, even though 
 Jesus by his example had shown favor of a 
 wider scope to the Syro-phenician woman, to 
 the Samaritan woman, and to them of Gadara 
 
PROGRESSIVE REVELATION. 243 
 
 and Tyre and Sidon, and even though he had 
 by explicit commandment instructed them to 
 preach the Gospel to every creature. But the 
 special vision to Peter, when he was sent to 
 Cornelius, gave the first clear glimpse of the 
 broader outlook. 
 
 The great commission, spoken by Jesus be- 
 fore his ascension, to make disciples of all the 
 nations, none of the apostles understood, or 
 complied with, until, nearly fifteen years later, 
 the scope of the divine intent dawned upon the 
 minds of the church at Antioch, and Paul and 
 Barnabas were sent out on the first missionary 
 tour. 
 
 Indeed, contrary to a notion prevalent among 
 many Christians, we must acknowledge that 
 those primitive days in the church are not the 
 most perfect examples of the Master's intent 
 for his disciples and the application of his 
 truth. The apostles were so limited in their 
 appreciation of the character of the Messiah 
 and the Kingdom which he was to establish, 
 that their examples and their utterances must 
 be tested by the later and larger revelation that 
 came as Christian experience enlarged the capa- 
 city to discern. 
 
 In his first Epistle to the Thessalonians Paul 
 wrote of Christ's return to earth as so immi- 
 nent that those who were then living should 
 
244 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 see him and "be caught up in the clouds to 
 meet the Lord in the air ; " but within a few 
 months, when penning the Second Epistle to 
 the Thessalonians, Paul had grown to the rec- 
 ognition of the fact that Christ was not to 
 appear immediately, but " the man of sin " 
 must first come, and many preliminary events 
 intervene. 
 
 The choosing by lot of Matthias to take the 
 place of Judas, while certainly "apostolic," need 
 commend to us to-day neither the use of chance 
 and divination in determining important issues, 
 nor the propriety of preserving a sacred apos- 
 tolic college and a certain form of ecclesiastical 
 government. 
 
 Nor can the early communism of the church 
 be cited as an infallible pattern for us to follow 
 to-day. That those Christians sold all their 
 goods and had all things common, is not suffi- 
 cient reason why we should do the same. They 
 inaugurated a practice which Christ had not 
 commanded, and which they themselves ere long 
 abandoned. If the teaching of Jesus does con- 
 tain the germ of this mode of social reformation, 
 we must follow our best enlightenment in de- 
 veloping that germ ; but we are upon insecure 
 ground for finding our present-day duties merely 
 in apostolic precedent. Were we to adhere to 
 that precedent consistently and persistently, 
 
PROGRESSIVE REVELATION. 245 
 
 we should take occasion to follow Jesus, when 
 in danger, "afar off," and to deny him, as Peter 
 did, and, when imperiled ourselves, to seek our 
 own safety, without regard to the Master's need, 
 as did all the apostles excepting John at the 
 hour of crucifixion. If Tolstoi is right in advo- 
 cating for modern society such fraternity as the 
 pentecostal church practiced, it must be proven 
 to us in the light of modern conditions, with 
 the modern conscience revolving the eternal 
 truth enunciated by Christ. 
 
 It is obvious that revelation to man may in- 
 crease along three lines of development. 
 
 The first is through diffusion of knowledge 
 in history, geography, customs, language, and 
 literature. I do not say increase of knowledge. 
 To know what others of a past time or remote 
 country know, may signify an increase of knowl- 
 edge to us, but it is no real increase to the sum 
 total of human knowledge ; it is mere diffusion 
 in time and space. Indeed, there can be no 
 increase of knowledge in history and geography, 
 in customs, past or present, and languages and 
 literatures, past or present ; in these directions 
 diffusion of knowledge alone is possible. To 
 receive the facts of Roman history or of Pales- 
 tinian geography involves simply a transmission 
 of knowledge to us. 
 
 Now, by diffusion of knowledge, men advance 
 
246 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 in capacity to appreciate truth. This is readily 
 assented to, when knowledge of Biblical scenes 
 and events is involved. We may take a tangible 
 instance. 
 
 In the Fourth Gospel occurs a clause which 
 at first sight seems insignificant in meaning, — 
 "And he must needs go through Samaria," 
 — but yields to us a depth of insight into the 
 Master's spirit and character when we recall 
 the position of Samaria, between Judea and 
 Galilee, and learn from Josephus, almost con- 
 temporary with Jesus, that many Jews, because 
 of a long-cherished and intense hatred of the 
 Samaritans, would not go through Samaritan 
 territory, but preferred to pass over the Jordan 
 River, and, by a circuitous route through Perea, 
 make the journey around Samaria. When thus 
 understood, these few words give an example of 
 the Master's moral courage and freedom from 
 human prejudices and hatreds. The little phrase 
 by diffusion of knowledge becomes luminous 
 with meaning. 
 
 Another instance may be found in the life 
 of Paul. When in Phrygia and Galatia, on his 
 second missionary journey, Paul desired to go 
 southwest into the province of Asia, and, being 
 hindered by the Spirit, desired then to travel 
 northward into Bithynia, but, again prevented 
 by the Spirit, was obliged to remain in Galatia 
 
PROGRESSIVE REVELATION. 247 
 
 for a time, after which he passed by Mysia 
 down to Troas and thence into Europe. Such 
 is the simple narrative of the sixteenth chapter 
 of Acts. But new significance attaches to this 
 narrative when we discover in Paul's letter to 
 the Galatians that the apostle preached the 
 Gospel to them the first time "because of an 
 infirmity of the flesh." Sickness seems to have 
 been the manner in which the will of the Spirit 
 was manifested in forbidding Paul to travel 
 either to the southwest or to the north ; and 
 while sick in an unintended tarrying-place, yet 
 the apostle does not mope and waste his time 
 in idle regrets at the miscarriage of his plans, 
 but counts it rather an opportunity to preach 
 the Gospel to the people of Galatia, and he so 
 preaches that " churches " are formed, and con- 
 verts are rendered willing to pluck out their 
 eyes for him. 
 
 And so, by a diffused knowledge of the cir- 
 cumstances involved in the brief Biblical narra- 
 tive, we see more clearly the revelation of 
 Christian character. 
 
 Biblical criticism endeavors to reconstruct the 
 actual conditions and facts attending the origi- 
 nal composition of our sacred books : when they 
 were written, how they were written, and all the 
 circumstances of their origin, preservation, and 
 purpose. From such an attempt, if honestly 
 
248 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 executed, we have nothing to fear, but every- 
 thing to gain. If literary criticism can show, 
 and show as facts and not as conjectures, that 
 the book of Isaiah was written by two men at 
 widely separated periods of time, that the book 
 of Daniel was penned several hundreds of years 
 after the date usually assigned to it, that the 
 Pentateuch is a compilation from several earlier 
 sources, then, though we adjust our present 
 views of the Bible, we shall be in no sense 
 losers, but shall better know what the Bible 
 really is, and shall thus come nearer to the truth. 
 As we know better what Moses knew, or did not 
 know, we shall be better able to "bear" the 
 revelation which God has made to us through 
 him. 
 
 Somewhat more than half a century ago new 
 theories concerning the New Testament were 
 confidently promulgated by certain critics. 
 The religious world was at first greatly dis- 
 turbed ; but the calm and critical investigations 
 which those theories evoked have but firmly 
 and incontestibly established the genuineness 
 and authenticity of the New Testament writ- 
 ings as a whole. 
 
 Criticism simply seeks to reproduce the past 
 that we may understand past processes, and thus 
 rightly estimate present possessions inherited 
 from the past. Modern criticism may at times 
 
PROGRESSIVE REVELATION. 249 
 
 be overzealous and rash ; she is but a youthful 
 maiden still. Her mission, however, is a right 
 mission, and her final conclusions, when tested, 
 turned, and tried, we need not fear, but may 
 welcome. She diffuses knowledge that we may 
 the more clearly discern truth. By our compre- 
 hending better that which is distant in time and 
 space we the better understand the present ; 
 indeed, our capacity to see spiritual forces and 
 apprehend spiritual truth becomes enlarged. 
 Knowledge about the Bible, the peoples of the 
 Bible, and the times of and before the Bible, 
 but increases our ability to receive the revela- 
 tion already given. 
 
 The second line along which revelation may 
 progress is through an actual enlargement of 
 human knowledge, an absolute increase of the 
 sum total of knowledge possessed in the world, 
 and not a mere diffusion of knowledge. Most 
 of the sciences and many of the inventions of 
 to-day give us knowledge absolutely new to 
 man, hitherto possessed by none. 
 
 Archbishop Usher, who lived two centuries 
 ago, by computing the reigns of kings, the ages 
 of the patriarchs, and the generations of men in 
 the Old Testament narration, set the creation 
 of the world four thousand and four years 
 before Christ, about six thousand years ago. 
 But to-day we can compute better than could 
 
250 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 Usher. God has set more dials on creation's 
 clock than the periods of time indicated in the 
 books of Kings and Chronicles. 
 
 Niagara Falls, wearing away, inch by inch, 
 its rocky face, slowly receding from Lake On- 
 tario toward Lake Erie, is one indicator read 
 to-day. The deposits of great rivers, at their 
 mouths, the action of the tides upon the coast 
 lines of continents, the heat of the earth's 
 crust with its rate of cooling, magnetic con- 
 ditions and chemical changes within the earth's 
 fissures and mines, — all these physical aspects 
 of the earth becoming known to-day, prepare 
 for a truer understanding of creation's time and 
 creation's processes than Archbishop Usher in 
 his day could possibly have. 
 
 The story of the rocks, where God has writ- 
 ten a revelation through his immutable laws, as 
 vast strata have cooled from a molten state, 
 have been overturned by their own contraction, 
 have been wrought upon by sun and wind and 
 water, have been shattered by the lightning and 
 the earthquake, — this tale, God-given, known 
 already in part through modern science, and to 
 be still better known when science has delved 
 yet more deeply into physical mysteries, this 
 adds to human capacity to receive the divine 
 revelation. We cannot yet declare whether the 
 earth is twenty million or one hundred million, 
 
PROGRESSIVE REVELATION. 251 
 
 or many thousands of millions of years old — 
 we may know by and by ; but already, seeing a 
 greater age than six thousand years, we discern 
 more clearly the immensity of infinite might 
 working in time. 
 
 Charles Darwin started new lines of thought 
 in every department of learning, and revolu- 
 tionized many of the sciences. While himself 
 ignoring supernatural force and law (and de- 
 ploring, too, before his death, what he had lost 
 thereby), Darwin has given to scientists, phi- 
 losophers, and theologians basic conceptions 
 concerning the manner of the divine procedure 
 in the universe that have enlarged immensely 
 the Christian's perception of the divine pres- 
 ence and wisdom. In consequence of the lines 
 of thought and investigation started by the 
 evolutionists, God is no longer viewed as a 
 Creator who, far above the earth, reaches down 
 occasionally to touch and shape it here and 
 there, creating now this species and then that, 
 but passing his existence amid the glories of a 
 distant splendor ; nor yet is he conceived of as 
 one who, having made the earth and endowed 
 it with forces and laws, withdraws from it and 
 leaves it to run its course uncared for by divine 
 supervision, untouched by divine providence ; 
 but he is regarded as now on earth, throughout 
 the universe, personally present in all forces 
 
252 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 and powers and laws, himself the present pre- 
 server, energizer, and supervisor of man, mind, 
 and matter in all forms. He is not far off, but 
 near, holding all things in his hand, and ever 
 revealing anew his wisdom, gentleness and 
 love, in vegetation, in animal life, in all natural 
 beauty, and in all forces of nature. 
 
 We are learning constantly new facts con- 
 cerning nature, and these enable us the better 
 to understand nature's God, and so the revela- 
 tion of him increases. As astrology has passed 
 away, with its superstitions and mad perver- 
 sions, astronomy has come to take its place and 
 to dignify our minds with a calmer, clearer vision 
 of the divine omniscience and omnipotence. 
 Great laws and grand possibilities confront us 
 in the mysterious depths of limitless space. 
 
 In France, it is reported, a fund has been 
 intrusted to the National Academy as a prize to 
 be given to the first person who within the next 
 twenty years succeeds in establishing communi- 
 cations between the earth and some heavenly 
 body. What a suggestion is this ! And it is 
 not the idle fancy of some unbalanced mind ; 
 thitherward have many of the most conserva- 
 tive conclusions of astronomical science pointed 
 for a long time. But what a suggestion ! 
 Perhaps we shall soon, through some long- 
 distance telephone of the universe, be talking 
 
PROGRESSIVE REVELATION. 253 
 
 with a race of beings, who, in their earth, are just 
 in the primitive age, and are living still in their 
 Garden of Eden, sinless and undefiled. Per- 
 haps in other planets we shall converse with 
 races who have had their probationary period, 
 through ages exceeding any of which we have 
 yet dreamed on this mundane sphere, and who 
 can tell us, out of an experience far in advance 
 of ours, how the Gospel of salvation works 
 righteousness on and on, until sin in the race 
 is eliminated. Perhaps we shall even find that 
 heaven has more definite locations in space 
 than now we can conceive of, that the good, 
 by a kind of transmigration of soul, — at least, 
 a transmigration from planet to planet, — live 
 on in other worlds to work and do, to help and 
 rejoice, to learn and know. Perhaps the re- 
 deemed soul must enlarge and develop so grad- 
 ually that it must have the experience of other 
 worlds until, having seen, through all of God's 
 great universe in all of his great systems of 
 suns, all of his vast works, and all of his loving 
 providences, it shall at length be able to behold 
 God himself, able then to bear the sight and 
 have personal knowledge of the Infinite. 
 
 We live now in mystery. We do not know 
 all. We but feel the edges of an unbroken 
 ignorance stretching out before us in every 
 direction toward infinity. 
 
254 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 "... fain to learn we lean into the dark, 
 And grope to feel the floor of the abyss, 
 
 Or find the secret boundary lines which mark 
 Where soul and matter kiss." 
 
 But we shall know more. Every day we ad- 
 vance a little. Electricity, magnetism, hypno- 
 tism, telepathy, — are but mere words as yet, 
 even to the keenest, strictest scientific nomen- 
 clature. Have we a sixth sense, undeveloped, 
 yet now perchance pushing forth its slightest 
 differentiation ? Are we yet to talk without 
 words and without signs — to read thought in 
 the process of thinking — to transmit thought 
 without a medium ? Of telepathy Professor 
 Drummond wrote, " However little we know of 
 it, however remote we are from it, whether it 
 ever be realized or not, telepathy is theoreti- 
 cally the next stage in the evolution of language." 
 
 Shall we, perhaps, find a seventh sense — and, 
 perhaps, an eighth ? Are we to be capable, as 
 a race, sometime, of knowing some truth, of 
 beholding attributes of God, now hidden, now 
 unknown, at a time when these fleshly walls, 
 through which we peep as through tiny cracks, 
 shall be transparent, and matter shall be read 
 as the mere index of mind ? 
 
 These possibilities almost appall one ! And 
 they are possibilities. They are not mere vapid 
 imaginings. They are before us, in the line of 
 
PROGRESSIVE REVELATION. 255 
 
 definite tendencies. Their shadows have been 
 seen ; their prophecies, though in whispers and 
 confused, have yet been heard. We shall grow ; 
 we shall progress ; and, as we know self better 
 and all things about us, we shall discern more 
 of the Infinite Being and more of the revelation 
 which he makes of himself, and of his purposes 
 to man. We shall then be better able to " bear " 
 what he has to say to us. 
 
 In these two ways of increasing capacity we 
 are all concerned. Even the humblest human 
 being aids in some way in diffusing knowledge 
 and receives in some measure the knowledge 
 diffused. Even the humblest of us, also, though 
 perhaps not adding to the absolute increase of 
 the world's wisdom, yet shares, to some extent, 
 in that wisdom. What we, as a race, advance 
 in, we, as individuals, have a part of. 
 
 But there is yet a third way in which revela- 
 tion may progress, and that is by an acquire- 
 ment of spiritual capacity within an individual 
 himself. For this no one is dependent upon 
 tidings brought by telegraph, or mails, or the 
 printing press ; nor upon discoveries and inven- 
 tions ; nor upon the genii^s, experiments, in- 
 vestigations, and labors of others. We work 
 out this kind of increase by ourselves, each 
 alone. 
 
 For spiritual discernment we must cultivate 
 
256 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 spiritual powers. But the methods and processes 
 of cultivation are manifold. 
 
 Personal virtues must be developed first. 
 There is wisdom, far beyond first thought, in 
 those words of Jesus, " Blessed are the pure in 
 heart, for they shall see God." The common 
 virtues which society makes prerequisite to her 
 approval are not sufficient, — honesty, veracity, 
 chastity, and general respectability, — but those 
 deeper, broader, nobler virtues of kindness, 
 patience, gentleness, compassion, charity, for- 
 bearance, long-suffering, meekness, humility, 
 teachableness, love. Such virtues as these ex- 
 pand the soul. The good see goodness ; the 
 true have an affinity for truth. It is what a man 
 is that determines his vision. The same mes- 
 sage that Paul preached was a savor of life unto 
 life to some, but a savor of death unto death to 
 others. It was only the servant who buried his 
 one talent that said, " I knew thee that thou art 
 an hard man." Those other servants who had 
 cultivated their gifts, had a kinder, truer con- 
 ception of their Master, and were admitted into 
 responsibility and rejoicing with him. 
 
 The individual heart should ever seek to know 
 God directly. God is a spirit ; let the mind 
 think of him thus. He is omniscient, omnipres- 
 ent, omnipotent, merciful, loving ; we must 
 think of him thus. He knows the recesses of 
 
PROGRESSIVE REVELATION. 257 
 
 every heart ; he is in every home, in every shop, 
 on the street, — with us in all our goings and 
 comings. At night we rest in his keeping ; in 
 the morning we wake and walk in his care. All 
 that is, is of him, — the sunshine, the storm, 
 winter, summer, cold, heat, — all things are of 
 God. He is not in heaven, afar off ; he is here, 
 amongst men. In this manner should we think 
 of him habitually and seek to know him. 
 
 And no less intimately should the individual 
 heart seek to know its Lord and Master, Jesus. 
 A study of his life as it was lived upon the 
 earth in that brief span of fleshly tabernacling 
 constitutes the first preliminary. A patient, 
 devout study alone will disclose the perfection 
 and loveliness of that life. And then must one 
 realize that he is risen ; he is a living Saviour ; 
 he is not dead ; Palestine cannot alone claim his 
 presence. One must dwell in thought upon his 
 love and grace and compassion, must seek to 
 imitate his example, must take him to mind and 
 heart by thought and prayer and endeavor. All 
 who so do find his word true, they know the 
 teaching, — that is, an enlarged understanding 
 of revelation dawns upon them. 
 
 Into communion and fellowship with the Holy 
 Spirit must the soul also enter. The Holy 
 Spirit, promised by Christ, is not an "it," but 
 a person. He leads into all truth, calling truth 
 
258 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 to remembrance ; he cheers, comforts, inspires. 
 " Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye be- 
 lieved ? " Have we first realized that he was 
 and is ? Have we been ready to welcome him ? 
 Have we sought to know him as scripture re- 
 veals him ? Have we listened, and hearkened, 
 and heeded spiritual influences, from both 
 within and without ? The dispensation of the 
 Spirit is a dispensation of revelation. 
 
 For growth and development in the inner 
 nature men must find companionship and joys 
 in the fellowship of the spiritually minded. The 
 growth of unbelief is often subtle. A man who 
 was once an ardent and active Christian, with a 
 strong social nature, did nothing worse at first 
 than to yield himself to frivolous pleasures at 
 the very time when spiritual activities claimed 
 his attention. He meant nothing worse than 
 to go with jolly companions when more serious 
 occupations demanded his presence and help. 
 In that man a spiritual degeneracy set in. He 
 lost spiritual vitality as he ceased spiritual 
 activity, and gradually his spiritual discernment 
 became dull, until now he even thinks he can 
 see no God. Pure and noble associations keep 
 the mind open to purity and nobility. It was 
 when the disciples were of " one accord " in that 
 upper room in Jerusalem that pentecostal power 
 and revelation came. Truth finds warmth in 
 
PROGRESSIVE REVELATION. 259 
 
 united hearts. Fire burns only when fuel is 
 in contact. It is easy to scatter a blaze so as 
 to extinguish the last ember and the faintest 
 spark. 
 
 Work for the spiritual conquest of the world 
 is also essential for individual growth in spirit- 
 ual capacity. They who give receive ; they who 
 labor develop. Exercise increases muscle ; ac- 
 tivity promotes assimilation. The scholar who 
 plods in his study incessantly will not acquire 
 as much well-balanced truth as he who tempers 
 scholarly seclusion with judicious social contact. 
 He who has ideals will never rectify and enlarge 
 them until he tests them in life. But above all 
 else, he who would have spiritual visions must 
 behold spiritual needs, spiritual forces, spiritual 
 operations, and must himself labor for spiritual 
 ends. 
 
 Ah, mankind must discern the reality of pure 
 spiritual existence both here and hereafter, and 
 the relation of this life to the life to come. In 
 the midst of this worldliness we need frequently 
 to remind ourselves that the soul is more than 
 food or clothing or fine houses or all of these 
 material things ; that as the soul begins to live 
 now it will live hereafter ; that it needs now, in 
 part at least, what it will more fully need and 
 experience hereafter, — spiritual exercises and 
 activities in the fellowship of God. Spirituality 
 
260 THE METHOD OF JESUS. 
 
 is possible now, in this life, and may increase 
 throughout all this life, even unto eternity. 
 
 And so man may look forward into the future, 
 striving to grow. As human knowledge and 
 human capacity for knowledge increase, God 
 can reveal unto man more of his truth. His 
 revelation progresses in proportion to man's in- 
 crease of capacity to receive. With hopeful 
 expectancy, therefore, and strong determination 
 we may all use the words of the Apostle 
 Paul : — 
 
 "Brethren, I count not myself to have ap- 
 prehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting 
 those things which are behind (as mere attain- 
 ments), and reaching forth unto those that are 
 before, I press toward the mark of the prize of 
 the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." 
 
 In the person of Christ, when we know him 
 as he is, shall each of us find personal satisfac- 
 tion and fulfillment. His method is one of 
 progressive development and growth. He does 
 not work through sudden revolution, but by 
 slower, surer evolution. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abgarus, reputed corre- 
 spondence with Jesus, 31. 
 
 Agassiz, Louis, 187. 
 
 Agnosticism, 49, 60. 
 
 Altruism, 211, 212. 
 
 Animal kingdom, 46, 63, 
 64, 85. 
 
 Antinomianism, 13. 
 
 Apperception, 176, 177, 178. 
 
 Arminianism, 68. 
 
 Assimilation, 25, 259. 
 
 Bacteriology, 47. 
 Baptism, 33, 98. 
 Barnabas, 38. 
 Bible, 169, 186, 193, 248, 249. 
 Biblical Criticism, 44, 247- 
 
 249. 
 Bradford, A. H., 150. 
 Bridgeman, Laura, 148. 
 Brown, John, 207. 
 Buddhism, 228. 
 Burritt, Elihu, 147. 
 Bushnell, Horace, 159. 
 
 Calvinism, 67. 
 
 Canon of New Testament, 
 
 36. 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 232. 
 
 Christian Science, 24. 
 Church, 10, 34, 39. 
 Consecutiveness, 65, 69, 74, 
 
 77,78. 
 Conservatism, 117, 226, 232, 
 
 238. 
 Conversion, 227, 237. 
 Criticism of the Bible, 44, 
 
 247-249. See Biblical 
 
 Criticism. 
 
 Darwin, Charles, 20, 47, 
 
 146, 251. 
 Demosthenes, 147. 
 Destructiveness, 72, 73, 80. 
 Discipline, 160, 163, 175. 
 Drummond, Henry, 254. 
 
 Ecclesiasticism, 10, 93. 
 Election, 67. 
 Emotional piety, 105. 
 Environment, 145, 150, 168, 
 
 191. 
 Ethics of Jesus, 49, 60. 
 Euripides, 149. 
 Evil, the problem of, 159. 
 Evils classified, 154-156. 
 Evolution, 23, 69, 72, 82, 
 
 83, 251, 260. 
 
 261 
 
262 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Faith, u, 68, 96, 240. 
 Family, 58. 
 Fasting, 70, 71, 163. 
 Fatherhood of God, 67. 
 Franklin, Benj., 147. 
 
 Garfield, J. A., 146. 
 Garrison, W. L., 207. 
 Genius, 149. 
 Gentleness, 209-212. 
 Gordon, G. A., 149. 
 Gospels, 27, 30, 36, 37, 193. 
 Grant, U. S., 146. 
 Greeley, Horace, 147. 
 Growth, 116-119, 227-231. 
 237, 241-260. 
 
 Habits, 117, 118. 
 Haeckel, 146. 
 Harnack, A., 36. 
 Health, 51, 52, 60. 
 Heredity, 143-H6, i49> '5°» 
 
 236. 
 Holy Spirit, 257. 
 
 Immanence of God, 112- 
 
 116, 251, 257. 
 Immortality, 18, 253. 
 Inspiration, 114, 115. 
 Involution, 23. 
 
 James, Epistle of, 36. 
 Jesus, emphasizes himself, 
 13, 14, 19, 188. 
 
 impartation of, 24. 
 
 personality of, 17. 
 
 Jesus, physical appearance, 
 
 53, 54. 
 resurrection of, 19. 
 writings of, 31, 32, 
 192. 
 John, Baptist, 30, 91-94, 97. 
 John, Evangelist, 39, 245. 
 John, Gospel of, 37. 
 Judas, 168, 244. 
 Jukes, 143, 144. 
 
 Keller, Helen, 147. 
 Kingdom of God, 28, 88- 
 
 93, 99, 100, in, 216, 222, 
 
 241. 
 Knowledge, 109, 220, 245, 
 
 249. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 147. 
 Love of God, 9. 
 
 of mother, 16. 
 Luther, Martin, 124, 133, 
 163, 169. 
 
 Mann, Horace, 147. 
 Mental quickening, 53, 56, 
 
 60. 
 Miller, Hugh, 147. 
 Monasticism, 76, 103. 
 Morality, 12, 105, 118. 
 
 Nebular hypothesis, 83, 84. 
 Nicene creed, 11. 
 
 Obedience, no, in, 132- 
 136, 156, 214, 223. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 263 
 
 Old age, 156, 157. 
 Optimism, 43, 80, 81, 101, 
 116, 141. 
 
 Paul, 11, 12,15, 36, 37, 38, 
 
 94, 123, 124, 125, 183, 184, 
 
 242, 243, 246. 
 
 Peace, 121-136, 162, 163, 
 
 199-213, 238. 
 
 of indifference, 201, 
 
 203-206. 
 of right relations, 
 
 201, 206-212. 
 of surrender, 201- 
 203. 
 Pedagogy, 65. 
 Personality in religion, 17, 
 
 i9> 2 5> 37, 3 8 , 6l , 64. 
 Pessimism, 140, 141, 142, 
 
 167. 
 Peter, 15, 37, 39, 126, 183, 
 
 184, 192, 242, 243, 245. 
 Philip, 15, 37, 195. 
 Phillips, Wendell, 207. 
 Pilate, 169. 
 
 Preaching, of Jesus, 14, 28, 
 88, 92. 
 of apostles, 14, 
 
 15, 195. 
 call to preach, 
 
 Problem of evil, 159. 
 
 Regeneration, 87, 88, 93, 
 
 94, 237. 
 Renan, 73. 
 
 Resurrection, 19. 
 Revelation, 186-188, 240- 
 
 260. 
 Rounds, W. M. F., 149. 
 
 Sabbath observance, 43, 
 
 76. 
 Sanctification, 237. 
 Scantiness of New Testa- 
 ment record, 27, 30. 
 Schurz, Carl, 190. 
 Science and Religion, 50, 
 
 51, 66, 109, 186. 
 Self-made men, 161. 
 Sermon on the Mount, 11, 
 
 68, 71. 
 Simeon Stylites, 164. 
 Simon Magus, 169. 
 Social life, 57, 58,- 59, 77, 
 
 78, 92, 107, 244. 
 Sociology, 66, 70, 90, 130. 
 Sophocles, 149. 
 Spiritual life, 103-120, 255- 
 
 260. 
 Spiritual presence, 18, 112. 
 Spencer, Herbert, 48, 49, 
 
 50, 59, 60, 86, 146. 
 Spontaneous generation, 
 
 48, 63, 85. 
 Stephen, 15, 123. 
 
 Telepathy, 254. 
 Temperance, 70. 
 Theology, place of, 12. 
 Thessalonians, epistles to, 
 36, 243, 244. 
 
264 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Todd, John, 150. 
 Tolstoi', Leo, 245. 
 Trinity, 67. 
 Trust, 132-136. 
 Truth, germinant, 23, 69. 
 
 the goal, 19, 21. 
 
 harmonious, 51, 
 
 partial, 93. 
 
 Universalism, 180, 181. 
 Usher, Archbishop, 249, 
 250. 
 
 Vedas, 149. 
 
 Vegetable Kingdom, 46, 85. 
 
 Victory, 137-153- 
 
 Watson, John, 159. 
 Webster, Daniel, 147. 
 Weissmann, 146. 
 Whittier, John Greenleaf, 
 
 147. 
 Will, 146-149, 150. 
 Works, 12, 68, 130. 
 
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