But Paul’s epistles had shewn me that, when he regarded Christ as having authority over all things, he, Paul, was in the habit of quoting one of the most beautiful of David’s Psalms, which said, “What is man that thou art mindful of him, and _the son of man_ that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him but little lower than the angels.” Now here my MS. said, in the margin of the Psalm—as I quoted it above—“_but little lower than God_.” Then David continued, “Thou hast _subjected all things under his feet_.” These words “subjecting all things” are frequently applied by Paul to the reign or lordship of Christ over mankind. And “to subject” was precisely the word used by Epictetus concerning the ideal ruler, when he taught us that Socrates had the power “so to frame his hearers” that they would “_subject_” their wills to his. It seemed to me, then, that if Scaurus had said to Mark “Why did you not explain which _son of man_ Jesus meant?” Mark might have replied, “_Because the Lord Jesus did not recognise two ‘sons of man.’_ He taught us that the son of man on earth is intended by God to be the son of man in heaven, and that the son of man, even on earth, is superior to the moon and the stars, having ‘authority over all things’.” Afterwards I found that Jesus (in Matthew) quotes elsewhere part of another passage in this same psalm of David, namely, “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou established strength, because of thine adversaries, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.” Paul taught that the “adversaries” of the Lord are the angels of Satan, and the “enemy” is the devil, and these are like wild beasts seeking to devour the soul of man. David, therefore, might be interpreted spiritually as meaning that God has given “authority” to the Son of man, not only over the visible “beasts of the field” but also over the invisible “beasts” that attack the heart of man. “Over these”—Paul might say—“hath the Son of man received authority that he may still the enemy and avenger,” that is to say, that he may put Satan to silence by delivering man from the bondage of sin. Some thought of this kind occurred to me at the time. And I was confirmed in it afterwards when I found in the gospels elsewhere mention of “authority” to “trample on, or rule over,” wild “beasts” of various kinds. The facts seemed to shew that Jesus often meditated on this beautiful poem of David and on the power given by God to “the Son of man” and to “babes and sucklings”—to whom Jesus appears often to refer under the title of “the little ones.”