the like, who did not comprehend one tithe of what He said. He was the
friend of all who chose to seek His friendship. He discriminated so
little that He even admitted a Judas to His intimacy, and allowed women
tainted with dishonour and impurity to offer Him public tokens of
affection. In all these things He differed absolutely from any other
man who ever lived beneath the public eye. In all these things He
still stands alone; for who, among the saintliest men we know, has not
some innocent pride in his ability, or some preference in friendship,
or some instinctive compliance with social usage, or some worldly hopes
and honourable aims which he shares in common with the mass of men?
But these outward dissimilarities of conduct disclose a dissimilarity
of soul. Men live for something; for what did Jesus live? And the
answer that leaps upon us like a great light from every page of the
Gospels is plain; He lived for love. If He did not care for praise or
honour; if He regarded even the preservation of His teachings with a
divine carelessness, it was because He had a nobler end in view, the
love of men. He could not live without love, and His supreme aim was
to make Himself loved. And yet it was less a conscious aim, than the
natural working out of His own character. Fishermen by the sea saw Him
but once; instantly they left their boats and followed Him. A man
sitting at the receipt of custom, a hard man we should suppose, little
likely to be swayed by sudden emotions, also sees Him once, and finds
his occupation gone. A beautiful courtesan, beholding Him pass by,
breaks from her lovers, and follows Him into an alien house, where she
bathes His feet with tears and wipes them with the hairs of her head.
Mature women without a word spoken or a plea made, minister to Him of
their substance, and count their lives His. When He sleeps wearied out
upon a rude fishing-boat, there is a pillow for His head, placed there
by some unknown adorer. The men He makes apostles, all but one, count
His smile over-payment for the loss of home, of wife, of children.
Countless throngs of ordinary men and women forget their hunger, and
are content to camp in desert places only to listen to the music of His
voice. Wild and outlawed men, criminals and lepers and madmen, become
as little children at His word, and all the wrongs and bruises
inflicted on them by a cruel world are healed beneath His kindly
glance. Does it matter greatly what He taught? This is how He lived.
He lived in such a way that men saw that love was the only thing worth
living for, that life had meaning only as it had love. And this is the
imperishable tradition of Jesus:
This is His divinity,
This His universal plea,
Here is One that loveth thee.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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