ration or
picture to clothe his own intuition. His followers believed his words,
either because of some conscious witness in their breasts, or because
their love and reverence for him won for his assertions an unquestioning
acceptance.

From Judaism he took the familiar idea of one all-powerful and holy God;
a moral ideal which was chiefly distinguished from that of the
Greek-Roman world by its greater emphasis on chastity; and also the
belief in a constant divine interposition in human affairs, which soon
was to culminate in the establishment of a divine kingdom on earth.

Jesus woke in his followers an ardor for goodness, a tenderness for their
fellow men, and a supreme devotion to himself. His words went straight
to the springs of character. He brushed aside religious ceremonial as of
no importance. He sent the searching light of purity into the recesses
of the heart. He made love the law of life and the key of the universe.
He interpreted love, as a principle of human conduct, by illustrations
the most homely, real, and tender. Love is no mere delicious emotion: it
is giving our bread to the hungry, ourselves to the needy. It is not a
mere felicity of kindred spirits,--love them that hate you, pray for them
that despitefully use you!

Jesus was the greatest of poets. To every fact, to every idea, he gave
its most beautiful and spiritual interpretation. When he speaks of God,
his speech is the pure poetry of the soul. Yahveh becomes to him the
All-father. His providence is over the lilies and the sparrows. His
rain and sunshine are shed on the unjust as on the just. His inmost
nature is set forth by the human father meeting his returning prodigal a
great way off. His very life is shared with his children. It wells up
in Jesus himself: the light in his eyes, the tenderness in his tones, the
yearning in his heart,--it is _my Father_ ye know in me!

How does that Divine Power appear in the procedure of the universe? What
real providence is there for the slain sparrow? What is the actual
destiny of those human lives which show only frustration and failure?
Jesus does not answer these questions. It does not appear that he tried
to answer them. His words are filled with a glad, unquestioning trust.
He is not the philosopher seeking to measure life. He is the lover
living it, the poet delighting in it.

The secret of Jesus lay in his sense of the "kingdom of God" within
him,--of obedience, peace, an