The fairest and most reasonable way to ascertain what Jesus taught is to study his own life, and then to follow his example. It will be somewhat startling to many when we announce the proposition that the religion of the Christian Gospels is monastic and ascetic in the extreme, and that Jesus himself was an ascetic, and that he required his disciples to become such. One thing is certain: No man can study the character of Jesus and his teachings, his own life and the career of his immediate disciples, without admitting the monkish character of their religion. It was emphatically the religion of sorrow, the religion not only of anti-naturalism, but of unnaturalism. It virtually said: “Whatever is natural is wrong; whatever you desire is wrong. To do what is painful is right, while to do what you want to do is certain ruin. Life must be one incessant wail of suffering if it is to be followed with eternal blessedness. The body is the enemy of the soul, and the world the enemy of God. Worldly prosperity is a curse in disguise, while poverty and want and persecution and suffering of all kinds are indications of the divine favor.” (See _Secret of the East_, by Dr. Felix L. Oswald.) At the very commencement of his public career Jesus formed an alliance with that hardiest of anchorites known as John the Baptist, and in all the Gospels the close relationship between the missions of John and Jesus is constantly recognized. It is a tradition of the early Church that Jesus was never known to smile, and there is an implication in the Gospels that his face was prematurely old. He recommended a life of religious mendicancy and voluntary poverty as absolutely necessary for admission to his kingdom. But there was scarce anything in the teachings of Jesus that had not been insisted upon for hundreds of years before by the monks of India, Egypt, and other countries. It is impossible to go into details, but no man of reading will deny this allegation. Like the ancient monks, Jesus practised long fastings and abstained from flesh meats, though he ate fish and vegetables. He neither possessed nor sought to acquire any worldly property. While going about the streets and the seashore teaching by day, he generally resorted, like ancient monks, to the mountains and wilderness at night, and his principal religious devotions were performed in the darkness of midnight. He abstained from marriage, and had but little regard for the domestic relations. Asceticism was the distinguishing characteristic of the early Church, and the doctrine of the community of goods was practically received by the Church for two hundred years, and is so received by many to-day.