scholarship will help; but the great book is the human soul, and we need not have scholarship to read that book. Burns and Shakspere were not great scholars; but no scholar ever surpassed Burns and Shakspere in the reading of the human soul. No one ever exerted so profound an influence on the life of humanity as Jesus of Nazareth. You may think that Jesus was simply a man; you will not doubt that from the teachings of Jesus have gone forth an influence greater by far than went forth from Plato, or Socrates, or Confucius, or Buddha. You may think with me that he was the Son of God; you surely will not doubt the potency of the influence that proceeded from the incarnate Son of God. Jesus, the son of the carpenter, what did he know of literature, of science, of philosophy? Rather, what knowledge did he employ? He was thoroughly familiar with the literature of his day—that is, the Bible; but he never displayed or employed any critical or literary knowledge respecting it. He never discussed questions of authorship, he never debated questions of origin or date, he did not touch that which lay on the surface. He read the interior and spiritual truth. He saw in that which to their mind was a mere annal, and a mere law the beating heart of the inspired prophet telling of God. He tore off the wrapping and made the world see it. He plucked from the psalm of David this bud, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” and in his hand it blossomed into the parable of the Good Shepherd. He plucked from the psalm of David this utterance, “Like as a father pitieth his children,” and in his hand it blossomed into the parable of the Prodigal Son. He knew the life back of literature. He invented no machine, gave no hint of any, suggested no steam engine, no steam boat, no electric light. What he _knew_ I say not. I may say what he used, and knowledge of nature as a mechanism he never used; but he looked into nature as a book, read her teachings, and interpreted them; in the sower going forth to sow, in the fisher gathering his fish from his net; in the bird’s song in the air he heard the sweet note of trust; in the flowers blossoming from the ground he read the sweet promise of God’s providing care. Things which men having eyes saw not and ears heard not be brought to their vision and their hearing. He propounded no scheme of political philosophy, none of psychology, or theology, but he taught that “One is your father, even God in heaven, and ye all are brethren;” and the great laws that are to bind together, rather the one great law of order, the law of love, this law he expounded. The son of the carpenter lived that he might teach, among the other lessons, this lesson of the democracy of learning; that learning, in its higher and more valued forms, is for the mechanic busy at his bench, for the smith grimy with toil at his forge, for the mother busiest of all, with hands and brain and heart filled with her children.