Jesus often referred to his treatment and death. How was it possible for them to understand this prediction? It never could have entered the minds of the descendants of Abram, Isaac, and Jacob, that the true Messiah must suffer death before he could begin to restore the Jews to their former greatness. Instead of calling together the most talented and the most influential of the Jewish nation, and openly making known to them the object of his delegation, he associated with that portion of society whose knowledge of Jewish history was very limited; and, as if he dreaded publicity, often charged them to “tell no man that he was the Christ”—the very opposite course to what appears to be consistent with the important object of his coming. Taking the history of Christ’s life, and also, more particularly, that of his teaching, he seems to have no settled plan whatever. At times, he seems to be in the strictest sense a Jew, not only as it regards his nation, but, also, most strictly following the law of Moses, submitting even to all its ceremonies. At other times, he opposes his sayings to those of the law of Moses, and openly forgives sins, without having any recourse to the offering of sacrifice according to the Mosaic law. Sometimes, he speaks of being not only “_Lord of all,_” but that they would “_see him coming down in the clouds, in power and glory, to judge both quick and dead_”; and then, again, speaking of his poverty, as “not having where to lay his head.” His living a life of wandering and mendicity, at times making a great excitement in one place, and suddenly departing to another,—these strange movements (admitting they occurred) entirely took off the attention of the heads of the Jewish people, and caused him to be considered as any thing but the promised _restorer of Israel_. In addition to his unsettled state, his repeated attacks on the rulers, holding them up to the scorn and contempt of the people, had generated such feelings in the minds of the priests and scribes, that they considered him as a pretender to the Messiahship. Besides the hostility he showed to rich men, in speaking of the almost impossibility of their entering that kingdom which was included in all his teachings, namely, “_The kingdom of heaven is at hand,_” when a rich man asked him “what he was to do to inherit eternal life?” the answer of Jesus to him was, in addition to what the rich man had done, “Go and sell all, and give to the poor, and follow me.” We are told that the rich man refused to do that, and Jesus then said of the rich, “how difficult it was for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” This is the wild and levelling doctrine taught by modern prophets. Nothing can be more unreasonable and unjust. If such doctrines as these had, in in the time of Jesus, been practised, he would have drawn a host of idlers after him. Besides, to teach such an unqualified practice as the one proposed to the rich man,