not this through
having no selfishness? Hereby he preserves self-interest intact. He is
not self-displaying, and therefore he shines. He is not self-approving,
and therefore he is distinguished. He is not self-praising, and
therefore he has merit. He is not self-exalting, and therefore he stands
high; and inasmuch as he does not strive, no one in all the world
strives with him. That ancient saying, 'He that humbles himself shall be
preserved entire'--oh, it is no vain utterance" (Ibid, pp. 327, 328).

Jesus is said to be pre-eminent as a moral teacher because he directed
his teaching to the improvement of the heart, knowing that from a good
heart a good life would flow; in Manu's code we read: "Action, either
mental, verbal, or corporeal, bears good or evil fruit as itself is good
or evil ... of that threefold action be it known in the world that the
heart is the instigator" (Ibid, p. 4). Buddha said: "It is the heart of
love and faith accompanying good actions which spreads, as it were, a
beneficent shade from the world of men to the world of angels" (Ibid, p.
234). Jesus reminded the people that the ceremonial duties of religion
were small compared with "the weightier matters of the law, justice,
mercy, and truth;" Manu wrote: "To a man contaminated by sensuality,
neither the Vedas, nor liberality, nor sacrifices, nor observances, nor
pious austerities will procure felicity. A wise man must faithfully
discharge his moral duties, even though he dares not constantly perform
the ceremonies of religion. He will fall very low if he performs
ceremonial acts only, and fails to discharge his moral duties" (Ibid, p.
3). Exactly parallel to a saying of Jesus is one in the Saboean Book of
the Law: "Adhere so firmly to the truth that your yea shall be yea, and
your nay, nay" (Ibid, p. 7).

In urging that all great moral duties were taught by pre-Christian
thinkers, we do not mean that Christ took his moral sayings from the
books of these great Eastern teachers; there was no necessity that he
should go so far in search of them, for in the teachings of the Rabbis
of his nation he found all of which he stood in need. Many of these
teachings have been preserved in the more modern Talmud, grains of wheat
amid much chaff, the moral thoughts of some of the purest Jewish minds.
"Take the Talmud and study it, and then judge from what uninspired
source Jesus drew much of his highest teaching. 'Whoso looketh on the
wife of another with a