Emerson with his oracular sayings might have served as a priest at Dodona or led the mysteries at Eleusis. Yet, withal, he is genuinely American,—a rare blend of ancient mystic and modern Yankee,—a valued poet too, but as an ethical guide to be accepted only with large reservations. CHAPTER IV THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS At about this time I began to occupy myself more seriously than I had done before, with the study of the New Testament. I had, I think a great advantage in my approach to it, for the very reason that I had not been brought up in the Christian tradition. I came from the outside, with a mind fresh to receive first-hand impressions. I had not had instilled into me from childhood the kind of hesitant awe that prevents impartial appraisement of excellences and of possible deficiencies. On the other hand, as a searcher I was deeply interested to ascertain what Christianity could give me, and to what extent it could further my spiritual development. I had not the enforcedly apologetic attitude; I did not come prepared to accept without question nor yet to find fault; I came to test for my own use. Here am I, with life and its problem before me—how can the teachings of Jesus help me in my search, in my dire perplexities? I must say to begin with that I was particularly struck with the originality of Jesus’ teachings, a quality in them which to my amazement I had found disputed, not only by Jews, but by representative Christians. In Jewish circles it is not uncommon to speak almost condescendingly of Christianity as of a daughter religion commissioned to spread abroad the truths of Judaism, with such alloy as may be needed to suit them to the apprehension of the gentiles. But Christian teachers likewise—I remember particularly a recent sermon to that effect—have taken the ground that Jesus added nothing new to the ethical insight of mankind. His work, it is said, consisted merely in supplying a sufficient motive for performing the duties which everyone knows, but which, lacking this motive, we are supposedly impotent to practice. This strange misapprehension of the intimate nature of Jesus’ contribution to ethical progress is largely due, I take it, to the poverty of our moral vocabulary. Language puts at our disposal only a few terms, such as Justice, Righteousness, Love,—which must needs stand for a great variety of moral ideas. Thus Justice in Plato’s use of the word, implies that “a shoemaker shall stick to his last,” that those who perform the humble functions shall be content to perform them in due subservience to their superiors. A very different meaning was attached to justice by the Hebrew prophets as I have explained in the last chapter. Again, a quite different conception of justice is framed and stressed by modern social reformers. Now it is this ambiguity of the moral vocabulary that conceals the novelty of Jesus’ precepts. Thus, to mention only a single capital instance, it has been