ues
and the Temple.

Jesus does not seem to have been primarily interested either in the
constitution, or the worship, or the doctrine of the Jewish Church. He
criticised the spirit of its leaders, but did not discuss their official
positions. He must have felt that much of the Temple ritual was
obsolete, and that many parts of the synagogue services were crude and
dull, but He entered into their worship that He might share with fellow
believers His expression of trust in His and their God. He did not
invent a new theology, but used the old terms to voice His fuller life
with God. He was primarily interested in the religious experience that
lay back of government, worship and creed; and gave Himself to develop
it, apparently trusting a vigorous life with God to find forms of its
own. So He never broke formally with the Jewish Church; and even after
it had crucified their Master, His disciples are found worshipping in
its Temple, keeping its festivals, and observing its law.

But within this Church Jesus had gathered a group about Himself, to whom
He imparted His faith and purpose, and into whom He breathed His Spirit.
He taught them to think of themselves as salt and light to season and
illumine the community about them. As leaders, He bade them become like
Himself servants of all. One was their Master, they all were brethren.
Soon they developed a corporate feeling that separated them from their
fellow Jews, a corporate feeling Jesus had to rebuke because of its
exclusiveness: "Master, we saw one casting out demons in Thy name; and
we forbade him because he followed not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him
not, for he that is not against us is for us." On the eve of His death
He kept a Supper with them, which pictured to them His sustaining
fellowship with them and their comradeship with one another in Him. And
He left them with the consciousness that they were to carry forward His
work, were possessed of His inspiring Spirit and had His presence with
them always. Not by Jesus' prescribed plans, but by His spiritual
prompting the Church came to be. "Like some tall palm the noiseless
fabric sprang."

It was not, then, organization, or ritual, or creed, that made the
Christian Church, but oneness of purpose with Christ. In the picture of
its earliest days we see it maintaining Jesus' intercourse with God by
prayer; continuing to learn of Him through those who had been closest to
Him; breaking the bread of fellowship with Hi