And what did He say to the people standing on the shore? "They were only the needed things," said in a clear, simple, beautiful language. If He said them in parables often, it was because the people of His day understood things better said in that way. Things were made clearer, stronger, if illustrated in stories. The great Lincoln understood the effectiveness of such an art, and pointed many a political moral by a human story. If, occasionally, the Master spoke in terms too mysterious to be comprehended by even His disciples, it was occasionally only. The needed things the common wayfarer could understand then, understands them to-day. He boiled down the whole duty of life into seven words, "Do as you would be done by." This, He said, was all there is to religion. How simple, how just, how necessary, if we hope for happiness even in our every-day life. Once at the dawn of a beautiful summer morning in Galilee, the Master stood on the edge of a mountain and chose twelve disciples to help Him teach, and to the whole world delivered the wonderful message known as "The Sermon on the Mount." Lovelier words were never spoken--so simple, so true, so direct, so sustaining to human hearts, that they were to reach through all times and to all men. It ended with the great promise that "unto him who sought God's kingdom all things should be added." The promise of that morning in Galilee sustains mankind forever. Once He went over to the little city of Tyre by the Mediterranean, perhaps to teach some there. Possibly it was the only time the Master ever beheld the ocean. Tyre, with its minarets, its monuments, its temples, its white sails on the sea, was a heathen city. One can fancy how profoundly stirred a soul like His, steeped in a love of nature, must have been at the first sight of the ocean. There were the white ships going to every known land of the earth--there was a new and picturesque people; there was heathendom, in luxurious idolatry. The little journey served Him as material for many a reflection later in His Galilean home. His name was not wholly strange in the beautiful heathen city by the sea--for it is told how a woman, a Greek, met Him, threw herself at His feet, and beseeched Him to heal her daughter. The persistence, the faith of this heathen woman, that He could do it, even without seeing the afflicted daughter, led to a miracle. As in almost all His life the miracle came only after the absolute show of faith on the part of the one asking. No faith, no miracle, was a constant teaching. Only a little time there by the blue sea now, and He is soon off for a three days' stay in that heathen land--the desert cities beyond the Jordan. Heathen as they are there, they follow in multitudes and are astounded at His wonders, for He heals many of the sick.