, let us glance at some of the hurrying events. And for
today consider the contrast which presents itself between the entrance
of Jesus at Jerusalem on Sunday morning, and his return to the city by
the same road on this Monday {149} morning of his last week. Yesterday
he came over the brow of the Mount of Olives, surrounded by an
enthusiastic throng, the centre of their popularity. To-day he comes
along the same road, unattended and alone, the crowd slinking away from
him, his popularity gone. And how does he bear himself through these
shillings of opinion? He simply does not manifest any consciousness of
change. He is as undisturbed by neglect as he was yesterday by
success. On Sunday, while the people were spreading their branches
beneath his feet, he looked across the valley to the city and wept as
he looked; and to-day, coming with no popular applause, he enters
straight into the city and asserts to its leaders his supreme
authority. In the midst of popularity he seems saddened, and in the
midst of neglect he seems stirred to a defiant boldness. In short, he
is unscathed alike by what seems to be success and what seems to be
failure. He goes his way through it all with his eye on that great end
which gives him peace amid the throng, and courage amid the solitude.

That is the only way in which one can maintain himself among the
shifting currents {150} of popularity. It comes and goes like a tide.
The man who tries to lean on it is simply swept by the rising tide into
self-conceit, and then stranded by the ebb of that same tide on the
flats of despair. Popularity is as fickle as the April winds, and one
can trust it as little as he dare trust the New England climate. It is
only he who can be wholly self-controlled amid the triumphs of his Palm
Sunday who can move on with equal self-control to the bearing of the
cross with which that same week may close.

{151}

LXI

TWO QUESTIONS ABOUT CHRISTIANITY

_Luke_ xx. 19-38.

(PASSION WEEK--TUESDAY)

The Sunday of the last week of Jesus was all triumph, the Monday was
all neglect, the Tuesday was all controversy. He returns once more
from Bethany to the city, and he finds the opposition at its height.
At once he is set upon by two kinds of people and asked two kinds of
questions as to his mission and aim. One question was political, or as
we now are saying sociological. What did he think about taxation?
What was his attitude toward the governme