ntal teaching. "By this shall
all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another." And
going back again to his ministry we find that it breathes through every
teaching that he gave. It breathes through that short memorable prayer
which we call the Lord's Prayer. It permeates the Sermon on the Mount.
It is the very essence of his summing up of this discourse. We call it
the Golden Rule. "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye
even so to them." Not that it was original with Jesus; other teachers
sent of God had given it before to other peoples--God's other children;
but he gave it a new emphasis, a new setting. _He made it fundamental._

So a man who is gripped at all vitally by Jesus' teaching of the
personal fatherhood of God, and the personal brotherhood of man, simply
can't help but make this the basic rule of his life--and moreover find
joy in so making it. A man who really comprehends this fundamental
teaching can't be crafty, sneaking, dishonest, or dishonourable, in his
business, or in any phase of his personal life. He never hogs the
penny--in other words, he never seeks to gain his own advantage to the
disadvantage of another. He may be long-headed; he may be able to size
up and seize conditions; but he seeks no advantage for himself to the
detriment of his fellow, to the detriment of his community, or to the
detriment of his extended community, the nation or the world. He is
thoughtful, considerate, open, frank; and, moreover, he finds great joy
in being so.

I have never seen any finer statement of the essential reasonableness,
therefore, of the essential truth of the value and the practice of the
Golden Rule than that given by a modern disciple of Jesus who left us
but a few years ago. A poor boy, a successful business man, straight,
square, considerate in all his dealings,--a power among his fellows, a
lamp indeed to the feet of many--was Samuel Milton Jones, thrice mayor
of Toledo. Simple, unassuming, friend of all, rich as well as poor, poor
as well as rich, friend of the outcast, the thief, the criminal, looking
beyond the exterior, he saw as did Jesus, the human soul always intact,
though it erred in its judgment--as we all err in our judgments, each in
his own peculiar way--and that by forbearance, consideration, and love,
it could be touched and the life redeemed--redeemed to happiness, to
usefulness, to service. Notwithstanding his many duties, business and
political, he thou