with God and man. One clay he closed the door of the carpenter shop and went out into his ministry. Three years later we find him again in the Hall Gazith in the midst of the doctors. The old priest Annas is there, grayer and more burdened with years; and, as if moved by some strange apprehension of the truth, he cries, “I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us whether thou be the C rist, the Son of the living God?" Jesus answers, Thou hast said. Hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven!" Then the high priest rent his clothes, and said, "He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses. What think ye?" His associates said, "He is guilty of death."

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And behold him still in the midst of the doctors. "Where is the wise, where is the disputer of this world?" Not yet with all their wisdom have they found out God. He stands in the midst of the learned ones, "hearing, asking, answering." And there is none but himself in all the world to explain the three great doctrines of God and man and reconciliation. None but himself has ever answered or can answer the two questions, "How can God be just and the justifier of the ungodly?" and "How can a man be just with God?"

III

THE MAN AND THE PEOPLE

In which the man of Nazareth, being everybody's friend, gets an audience with all sorts and conditions of men.

Now it came to pass, while the multitude pressed upon him and heard the word of God, that he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret; and he saw two boats standing by the lake: but the fishermen had gone out of them, and were washing their nets. And he entered into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the multitudes out of the boat.-LUKE v, 1-3.

THIS Man was followed wherever he went by all sorts of people.1 "The multitude pressed upon him." He had no need to resort to adventitious methods for securing a congregation. No matter where he preached, on the sea shore, at the street corner or in Solomon's Porch, the people flocked to hear him.

Nor did they fail to give him their attention. All the world knows that Paul was an orator; but on a certain occasion, when he was preaching at Joppa, one of his hearers was overcome with sleep. No such incident ever happened, so far as we are aware, under the preaching of Jesus. It is written, "All bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth."

1 When it is said "The common people heard him gladly," we are to understand by the term "people" not the profanum vulgus, but, as in the margin, the multitude.

It would be interesting, were it possible, to analyze his singular power over men. To say that he possessed all the elements of true eloquence such as simplicity, directness, picturesqueness, logical coherence, warmth, earnestness and convincing power, is not enough. Here is something beyond the homiletic or any other art. You have, perhaps, seen a portrait wrought by a great master, with eyes that had the singular quality of following you wherever you went. A like characteristic we observe in the teaching of Jesus. Coleridge expressed this in the terms, " It finds me." Indeed, it searches out and finds the hearts and consciences of all. Jesus was not merely able to sway an audience-others have ruled from the throne of eloquence-but his influence was equally magnetic in personal conversation. It was distributive, holding the multitude because it held every unit in it.

Were we required to put our hand on a single quality or characteristic of which we might say, "This accounts for it," we should name his intense humanness. He was called "the Son of Man" not only because of his representative relation to the race, but because he was distinctively and pre-eminently a man among men. He was able to address himself to the wants of the multitude, all and singular, by reason of his broad acquaintance and sympathy with humanity. He was an intuitive and infallible psychologist, since "he knew what was in man.”

He was everybody's preacher because he was everybody's friend. He stood on a level with his congregation. He wore no robe but homespun; he asked no better pulpit than the prow of a little boat or a place at the corner of a street. He touched men because he

was ever in vital touch with them. And the secret of his unparalleled power lay in the fact that he had something to say, and said it.

He had something to say to the poor.

And the poor of his time were poor indeed. We make a distinction between "God's poor" and the "devil's poor." We take a sympathetic interest in the relief of such as are thrifty and industrious, but unfortunate. Our hearts go out to those who with their best efforts find it difficult to make both ends meet or keep the wolf from the door. But Jesus had a place in his heart for the ne'er-do-weels; for the thriftless, penniless and friendless. Who cares for these? For the men with sunken cheeks and watery eyes who shuffle along our streets? For the women whose faces are sodden with drink, drawing thin shawls around their shivering shoulders and stretching out their hands for alms? Who cares for the devil's poor? They live forlorn and die unwept. "Rattle his bones. over the stones; he's only a pauper whom nobody owns." Who cares? Christ cares! His heart is warm with compassion for them, and all the more because they have so little pity on themselves. He hears their helpless moan, their bitter cry. Do you ask the credentials of Jesus? Here they are: "Go tell John that the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the gospel preached to them." God be praised! The meanest beggar in the world has one true friend who tells him hopefully that it is never too late to mend; that though he has squandered his inheritance and is as poor as poverty, he may turn around and be rich toward God.

And he had something to say to the rich.

The rich of his time were very rich; for the wealth of the world was then concentrated in the hands of a few. Jesus did not denounce them indiscriminately. He respected the rights of property and recognized the fact that a man may have abundant possessions, yet be a righteous man. He was, however, no sycophant. He was often entertained by persons of rank and affluence; and his table-talk was full of searching truths. He warned his wealthy friends against avarice, saying: "It is easier for a camel to pass through a needle's eye than for a man whose heart is set upon riches to enter the kingdom of God." He warned them against the folly of spending time and energy in acquiring a mere modicum of yellow dust, saying: "The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully; and he said, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be?" He told them plainly that there are rich men in hell, saying of one who had been clothed in purple and fine linen and had fared sumptuously every day, "He lifted up his eyes being in torment." He pointed out to them clearly that it was better to part with everything else than to lose eternal life: Go sell all that thou hast, and come and follow me." He had something to say to workingmen.

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And he could say it sympathetically and effectively,