In what ways was it, we may ask, that this authority of Christ shone out now, and took such hold of men? First of all, I would answer, He brought to the birth, within men, thoughts which were lying in embryo in their own hearts. This, which was also Socrates’ way, I have spoken of in the Introductory Chapter and once or twice since. Our Lord wakened within men the perception of truths which they seemed to have once known and forgotten; especially that God was the Father, not only of Israel as a nation, but of every particular man in it. The common people had been told by the learned that they were not worth God’s notice, and when Christ asserted the dignity of each individual soul they said to themselves “we always thought it must be so; and so it is.” The beatitudes in like manner commended themselves to men’s hearts; they felt that if there was a God in the world, it ought to be as our Lord said it was. Secondly, our Lord not only _told_ men that they were the children of God, that they should strive after their Father’s likeness, and that they might approach nearer and nearer to being perfect as He is perfect: but, what was more than this, in every word He spake,—whether of teaching, or reproof, or expostulation, or in His passing words to those who received His mercies—He _treated_ them as God’s children. Man, as man, has in His eyes a right to respect. Anger we find with our Lord often, as also surprise at slowness of heart, indignation at hypocrisy and at the Rabbinical evasions of the Law; but never in our Lord’s words or looks do we find personal disdain. Towards no human being does He shew contempt. The scribe would have trodden the rabble out of existence; but there is no such thing as rabble in our Lord’s eyes. The master, in the parable, asks concerning the tree, which is unproductively exhausting the soil, why cumbers it the ground; but it is not to be rooted up, till all has been tried. There it stands, and mere existence gives it claims, for all that exists is the Father’s. This notion, that every thing belonged to God, and was therefore to be reverently regarded, lay very deep in the hearts of the children of Israel, even the poorest in Galilee; and when the Lord brought it to light, men listened to Him with breathless respect.