Simplicity is the marked characteristic of all Jesus' acts of devotion. While it was His custom to preach in the synagogue on the Sabbath day, yet, so far as appears in the four Gospels, Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, Luke's Sermon on the Plain, the Lord's Prayer, and most of Jesus' important discourses were delivered, not in the synagogue and on the Sabbath day, but wherever time and place suited His convenience--from a ship, on a mountain, on a plain, in His own house, etc. (Matt. V:1; X:1; XII:2; XVIII:1; XXIII:1; XXIV:3; Mark IV:1; X:1; Luke V:3; VI:17; X:1; XI:1; XII:1; John III:2; IX:40; XII:22, 23; XIV; XV; XVI; XVII). To demonstrate how far modern Christianity has traveled from the ideas of Jesus, it is only necessary to attend some ceremonial service in an Episcopalian or Catholic Cathedral, or some protracted prayer meeting of one of the Evangelical denominations. Out of the fruitful field of Pauline theology, there sprang, even within a few centuries after the Crucifixion, a plentiful crop of the direst evils that have ever afflicted mankind--creeds and definitions of belief. Fortunately, disputatious theologians are now limited to the weapons of pen and ink, but in the Middle Ages oceans of blood were spilt over these religious quarrels. If we could suppose the Westminster Confession of Faith, or the Thirty-nine Articles, or the Augsburg Confession to be submitted to Jesus for His approval, it is easy to imagine the substance of His answer: "I don't know what all this stuff means. I do not understand your terms--pre-destination, fore-ordination, trans-substantiation, infant damnation, etc. There is nothing here that I ever preached. I have given you a simple standard of righteousness, which every one can understand and follow, viz., right living. Have you forgotten my saying, that 'all the law and the prophets were contained in the two commandments to 'Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,' and to 'love thy neighbor as thyself' (Matt. XXII:37-40). These creeds of yours may be true, or partly true, or wholly false. But the important fact for you to remember is, that they are unnecessary to salvation--are non-essentials. If this sort of logomachy pleases you as an intellectual exercise, well and good, if it goes no further. But, beware that, in following this _ignis fatuus_, you do not neglect the only one main essential to God's favor--'to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.'" CONCLUSION