n little country, which is about the size of the State of New
Hampshire. He had never seen the mighty cities in Egypt to the south
of Him, nor Antioch in Syria to the north. He had never looked upon
Athens nor upon Rome. The man who thinks Broadway, New York, is the
center of the solar system would have called Him provincial. His feet
knew nothing save the narrow streets of Jerusalem and the still
narrower lanes of Galilee.

Yet He moved about with a dream of world-wide empire in His head and
the vision of a Kingdom Everlasting in His heart. "I, if I be lifted
up, will draw all men unto Me." When He sent forth His disciples to do
the work He had taught them to do, this is the way their commission
read: "Go into all the world. Make disciples of all nations. Baptize
everybody into My name and the name of the Father." He had
courage--think of His standing there, a young peasant in little
Palestine, talking about a world-wide empire over which He would rule
by His own unseen spirit!

He found little in His environment to add strength to His hope. He
lived under a government which was tyrannical and corrupt. The Jewish
Church to which He belonged was formal and lifeless. He faced a
society which was ruled by men like Herod, and by women like the
shameless wife of Herod, who cut off a poor man's head for telling her
the truth about herself. He saw the religious leaders of His day
straining at gnats of difficulty in their formal worship and then
swallowing camels of moral fault in their every-day conduct. The
situation might well have frightened the boldest heart. It never
frightened Him. "The spirit of the Lord is upon Me," He said at the
beginning of His ministry, "because He hath anointed Me to preach good
tidings to the poor; He hath sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted, to
preach deliverance to the captive, and to set at liberty them that are
bruised." And when He came to the close of His ministry, He said,
"Behold, I make all things new, a new heaven and a new earth, wherein
dwelleth righteousness." He was undaunted.

He was an optimist. By that I do not mean one of those silly,
short-sighted individuals who goes about saying, "Look always on the
bright side." Jesus looked at both sides. He went about with His eyes
open. He saw everything. He saw the struggle and the sorrow of human
life and felt it as if it had been all His own. He looked upon the
tired, sad, sin-stained face of the race. He