We will not understand how unlike the methods of mere men is the method of Jesus till we have wearied ourselves with what they call reasonings; till we have come to understand that no man can teach religion who rejects the methods of Jesus for what he thinks are the methods of what he calls logic and philosophy, truly understanding neither. What we may call his manner, as distinguished from his method of teaching, differences Jesus from mere men. No great teacher, unless it be some one who has learned of him the true secret of teaching--and how far below the Teacher the best and wisest fall!--ever before or since has the manner of Jesus. There is a sort of fatality about men’s teaching. Vanity or ignorance makes them seek to appear profound when they are only obscure. What an unspeakable relief and blessing it would bring to all churches and schools if pastors and teachers would only study the method of Jesus and seek to imitate the simplicity of Jesus! Teachers, not a few of them, burden and bewilder their pupils with the dead lumber of learning that is not knowledge; preachers, not a few of them, mystify and mislead their hearers with reasonings, philosophies, and argumentations, mere war of words for the most part, that are not gospel nor life. When Jesus talked of the deepest and highest questions, of God and man, of rights and wrongs, of life and death, of time and eternity, of heaven and hell, it is said, “The common people heard him gladly.” This could never be said of even the good Socrates, or the great Plato; for the “common people” could not understand them. It is indeed a rare thing that the “common people” hear “gladly” a teacher of science, philosophy, or religion whom the uncommon people call great. As a rule, the greater one is, as men measure greatness, the less do “common people” hear him “gladly,” and least of all when he speaks or writes upon the very greatest of themes. Is it because such teachers are not themselves brothers to the common people? One reason is the great men do not truly understand what they teach. And herein is a reason for patience. Perhaps, for the most part, the great ones do the best they can. It seems that, when a mere man seeks to think profoundly or to speak strongly, he must fall into obscurity. This obscurity cannot be due to any inherent difficulty in the truth itself, but to those limitations, mental and spiritual, that belong to mere human teachers. But Jesus taught the greatest truths in language as simple and clear as when he spoke of the most familiar duties of daily life. His manner is as easy and his words as plain when speaking of immortality as when telling men to be honest and to “love one another.”