feet with tears and wipes them with the hairs of her head.
Mature women without a word spoken or a plea made, minister to Him of
their substance, and count their lives His. When He sleeps wearied out
upon a rude fishing-boat, there is a pillow for His head, placed there
by some unknown adorer. The men He makes apostles, all but one, count
His smile over-payment for the loss of home, of wife, of children.
Countless throngs of ordinary men and women forget their hunger, and
are content to camp in desert places only to listen to the music of His
voice. Wild and outlawed men, criminals and lepers and madmen, become
as little children at His word, and all the wrongs and bruises
inflicted on them by a cruel world are healed beneath His kindly
glance. Does it matter greatly what He taught? This is how He lived.
He lived in such a way that men saw that love was the only thing worth
living for, that life had meaning only as it had love. And this is the
imperishable tradition of Jesus:

This is His divinity,
This His universal plea,
Here is One that loveth thee.

What then is a true Christianity but the accurate reproduction of this
spirit of love, the creation of loving and lovable men and women, who
attract and uplift all around them by the subtle fascination of the
love that animates them? What is a Christian Church but a
confraternity of such men and women? What is a Christian society, but
a society permeated by this spirit, and bringing all the affairs of
life to its test? And what place have social superiorities and
inferiorities; pride, scorn, or coldness; harsh theologies, breeding
harsh tempers and infinite disputes; the egoism that wounds the humble,
the strength that disregards the weak, the vanity that hurts the
simple, in any company of men and women who dare to wear the name of
such a Founder? It was as a Bridegroom Christ came, anointed with all
the perfumes of a dedicated love, and until the last bitter hour of His
rejection, He moved with such lyric joyousness across the earth, that
life became festive in His presence. It is as a Bride the church
exists on earth, and if no festive smiles are awakened by its presence,
and no gracious unsealing of the founts of love in human hearts, then
is it not Christ's Church, for He has passed elsewhere with another
company to the marriage-feast, and His Church stands without, before a
barred and darkened door.

THE JUSTICE OF JESUS

_HOW H