The Empire of Love | Page 5

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 HE CAME
When the golden evening gathered on the shore of Galilee, When the
fishing boats lay quiet by the sea, Long ago the people wondered, tho'
no sign was in the sky, For the glory of the Lord was passing by.
Not in robes of purple splendour, not in silken softness shod, But in
raiment worn with travel came their God, And the people knew His
presence by the heart that ceased to sigh When the glory of the Lord
was passing by.
For He healed their sick at even, and He cured the leper's sore, And
sinful men and women sinned no more, And the world grew mirthful
hearted, and forgot its misery When the glory of the Lord was passing
by.
Not in robes of purple splendour, but in lives that do His will, In patient

acts of kindness He comes still; And the people cry with wonder, tho'
no sign is in the sky, That the glory of the Lord is passing by.

III
THE JUSTICE OF JESUS
One strong peculiarity of the teaching of Jesus--we might even call it
its outstanding feature--is that it is frequently disclosed in a series of
incidents. Unlike most teachers He philosophizes little about life. A
single chapter of the Gospels, or at most two, would contain all the
maxims about life which He thought necessary for wise and lofty
conduct. His method is rather to put Himself in relation to the crucial
occurrences of life, and to reveal the true way of regarding them by His
own attitude towards them. When He would teach the beauty of
humility it is by putting a little child in the midst of His arrogant and
vainglorious disciples, that the child may become the living and
memorable parable of His sentiments. When He would teach humanity,
He does so by His own conduct to lepers. When He would discredit and
expose the barbarism of the Mosaic Sabbatarian laws as interpreted by
scribes and Pharisees, He does so by healing the sick and blind upon
the Sabbath day. He is all for the concrete, teaching not by theory, but
by example. The method is novel, and its advantages are obvious. The
best conceived discourses on humility, mercy, or sympathy, might be
forgotten, but no one can forget the child among the disciples, nor the
raptured gaze of the blind man when his purged eyes open to behold the
face of his miraculous Physician, nor the picture of Jesus touching
without fear or disgust the leper whose unclean contagion made him an
object of aversion even to the pitiful.
It is a wonderful method of instruction; it makes every other method
seem trite and wearisome. Its effect is to make the Gospels a series of
tableaux, which dwell in the memory as things actually seen. The
groups upon the stage perpetually shift and rearrange themselves; each
represents some phase of life, some problem, some combination of
circumstance more or less common in the experience of men,

something that is typical, for Jesus chooses only the typical and
essential things of life for these occasions. The lesser things of life He
passes over; it is the great and crucial matters which attract Him.
But what are the great things of life?
They all fall into one category, they all present problems in human
relationship. No problems are so difficult. They are not speculative, but
practical. A man who may be wise as the world counts wisdom, and
able to pierce with acute analysis to the depth of the abstrusest
philosophic