's heart was framed,
How he, long forced in humble walks to go,
Was softened into feeling, soothed and tamed.

Love had he found in huts where poor men lie;
His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.

People who live thus, in wise simplicity, undistracted by the numerous
illusions of an artificial life, have no difficulty in accepting
Christ's teaching that love is the supreme law of life, because love
means everything to them in the kind of life they lead. In the wisdom
of the heart they are more learned than the wisest Pharisee, who is
rarely "softened into feeling," whose whole social life indeed imposes
a restraint on feeling. What peasant father would not welcome a
returning prodigal, what peasant mother would not open her arms wide to
gather to her bosom a penitent daughter, recovered from the cruel snare
of cities? Certainly one is much more likely to find such acts of pure
feeling among peasant folk than among the rich and cultured, for the
peasant cares less for opinion, is less respectful of social etiquette,
and follows more closely in his actions the instincts of primal
affection. Who has not discovered among poor and humble folk a strange
and beautiful lenience, the lenience of a great compassion, towards
those sins which in more artificial conditions of society are held to
justify the most violent condemnation, and do indeed close the heart to
pity? In poor men's huts beside the Sea of Galilee Jesus Himself had
found love, love in all its divine daring, lenience, and magnanimity,
and He knew that among people like these He would be understood. He
also knew that the only people fitted to interpret His doctrine of
sovereign love to the world were these simple folk of the lake and
field, and therefore to them He committed His Gospel, and from them He
chose His disciples.

It needed a peasant Christ to teach these things, for no other could
have imagined them, no other could have had the daring and simplicity
to utter them. A peasant Christ He was, living, thinking, and acting
as a peasant even in His highest moments of inspiration. It was
because He always remained a peasant that He was able to see so clearly
the defects of that more intricate social system to which His ministry
introduced Him. He brought with Him a new scale of values, which He
had learned in the school of a more primal life than cou