And I should have rejected Him for the same reason, because I had no truly generous love of man as man. I should have been no better able to perceive than they that it had pleased God to clothe Himself in the flesh of one who united in His own person all those disabilities which incur the scorn of those who account themselves superior and cultivated, such as lowly and doubtful origin, poverty and the lack of liberal education, and methods of life which outraged social use and custom. Did not Jesus demand for the understanding of Himself precisely that temper which enabled Him to understand others, the temper which discerns the soul beneath all disguise of circumstance? He discerned the splendid and divine beneath the sordid. He saw beneath the drift of sin the buried magnificence of human nature as men discover the hidden temple beneath the sand-drift of the desert. He was able to love all men because all men were to Him living souls. And His own manifestation to the world was such that only those who had this temper could at all perceive His divine significance. The Pharisee could not see that significance simply because he was not accustomed to see men as men. He had no real interest in man as man. He was not a lover of his kind. Hence, when the Son of Man came out of Nazareth, the Pharisee was too careless or too supercilious to regard Him with interest. The divine wonder passed him by; all he saw was a wandering fanatic with no place to lay His head. He could not pierce the disguise of circumstance, and bow in love and awe before the soul of Jesus because he was not accustomed to discern the soul in common people. And so there came home to me the awful truth that I was not a lover of my kind. I was even as the Pharisees, and in denying my regard and love to the lowliest of men and women I was rejecting Jesus Christ. That which had seemed to me a strange exaggeration or an enigmatic sentence, now became a rational principle, a saying that had its root in the deep truth and reality of things; inasmuch as I showed not love to the least of these, my fellows, I denied my love to Jesus Christ Himself. THE LAW OF COMPASSION _THE TRUE MUSIC_ _Not for the things we sing or say He listens, who beside us stoops; Too worn the feet, too hard the way, Too sore the Cross wherewith He droops, And much too great the need that cries From these bruised eyelids and dim eyes._ _He waits the water from the spring Of kindness in the human heart, The touch of hands, whose touches bring A coolness to the wounds that smart, The warm tears falling on His feet Than precious ointment much more sweet._ _O Lord, the way is hard and steep, Help me to walk that way with Thee, To watch with Thee, and not to sleep Heedless of Thy Gethsemane, Till love becomes my worshipping, Who have no other gift to bring._