Jesus was not a psychologist in the modern sense, yet this teaching of Jesus is psychologically true. Our acts are but the fruits of thoughts that have found lodgment, care, and nourishment in our minds. Our minds, indeed, are but gardens. Seed-thoughts are blown into them by this wind and by that. Involuntarily as well as voluntarily suggestions come into the mind. Now, if the seed-thoughts that are waited into the mind-garden are good, and are carefully tended and nurtured, the garden {238} will bear good fruit--the acts performed will be charitable and clean. But if the seed-thoughts that find lodgment in the mind are noxious, and if these noxious seeds--these destructive weeds of the mind--be tended and nurtured, then the acts resulting therefrom will necessarily be evil. [Sidenote: A concrete example.] Let us turn from this abstract discussion to the concrete example. Do you know why a good boy, who has been taught all his life to keep his body clean from the loathsome poison of tobacco, sometimes takes to smoking cigarettes in spite of his teaching? The reason is perfectly clear. The boy has been tempted. A noxious seed-thought has found lodgment in the boy's mind. Now, had the boy been really strong, had he gone to like a good gardener, hoe in hand, and cleaned out the weeds, the noxious plants could never have bloomed nor borne fruit. But because the boy entertained the evil thought, gave it nourishment and tended it, it grew and spread until the good seed and fruitage of his conscience were crowded out of the mind. One thought, then, remained in power; and on that thought the boy acted. He became a smoker of cigarettes. [Sidenote: The motive all important.] Such examples as this might be multiplied without limit. If you will examine your own acts, you will find that every act of yours is the result of a preconceived thought, entertained and fed. Is it not clear, then, that the teaching of Jesus is far better than the teaching of the Old Law? It is more important to train the mind and to guard the motives, than merely to guard one's acts. If one's {239} motives are pure, wholesome, and sound, one's acts cannot but be so also. [Sidenote: Jesus's doctrine of rewards.]