as born in a manger-cradle
just at this moment in history the Baby who was destined to accomplish
this miracle; to broaden out to their widest and noblest meanings
these hopes which had been handed down from one generation of Jews to
another. The story of the life of Jesus will be given in detail in
other courses in this series. Here, in a nutshell, is what Jesus did:
he helped men to believe in a God who loved all men as his children,
whether rich or poor, learned or ignorant, Jews or Gentiles or
Samaritans, even the bad as well as the good; for if they were bad,
they needed his love to help them to be good. Jesus not only taught
this idea of God through his spoken words; he helped men, through his
deeds, to understand it. He _lived_ that way, as the Son of such a
God. He healed the sick. He fed the hungry. He ate and drank with
outcasts. He was everybody's friend.

=The inevitable conflict and cross.=--Of course Jesus was not able to
live that kind of life very long in our kind of world. Very soon he
came into conflict with the various kinds of men who enjoyed special
privileges of wealth or learning or honor and were not at all willing
to share these things in a brotherly way; with the Pharisees, who were
considered especially holy and did not want to be brothers to common
men, the "people of the land"; with the rich who did not want to be
brothers to the poor; with priests who did not want to be brothers to
wounded men lying by the side of the Jericho road; with Romans who
were afraid the Jews might think brotherhood meant liberty. So after
three short years of preaching and healing Jesus was nailed to the
cross, praying even as the nails were driven into his hands, "Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do."

=Suppose the Jews had believed in Jesus.=--How different the outcome
of their history would then have been! Instead of a bloody and
hopeless revolt against the Romans, they might have found a way to
live at peace with them, receiving from them a more just and humane
government; Isaiah, centuries before, showed his people how to get
along under the rule of Assyrians. Or, if the Romans had goaded the
people to rebel, they might have fought and died gloriously, not
merely for their own freedom but in the cause of all the suffering
masses in all lands. Thus the whole course of history might have been
changed. The four years' war which did break out in A.D. 66, about
thirty-six years after Jesus' deat