ling with adultery and He traced the sin
to its source. He would purge the heart of the unclean thought; He would
put a ban on the desire before it found vent in accomplishment. He
turned the thought from the body to the heart and to the soul.

And He not only warned men against harbouring the seeds of this sin but
He rebuked them for injustice in dealing more harshly with woman than
they did with themselves. He did not condone sin; He forgave it, and
accompanied forgiveness with the injunction, "Sin no more."

Christ dignified childhood next to womanhood. One of His most beautiful
lessons was woven about a child which He summoned from the crowd. The
child's faith was made the test--"Except ye be converted and become as
little children ye shall not enter into the kingdom." And again, "Suffer
the little children to come unto me and forbid them not: for of such is
the kingdom of heaven."

His depth of affection--His longing for souls--is beautifully set forth
in Matthew 23: 37 when He uses the most familiar object in the animal
kingdom to express His solicitude: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that
killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how
often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen
gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!"

And yet this gentle spirit who would not break a bruised reed--who went
about doing good--was wont to blaze forth with hot indignation against
sordidness and systematized injustice. Hear His fierce denunciation of
the "scribes, Pharisees and hypocrites" who devoured widows' houses
and for a pretense made long prayers; and behold Him casting the
money-changers out of the temple because they had turned the house of
prayer into a den of thieves.

In a startling paradox He sets forth a great truth: "Whosoever shall
save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my
sake, the same shall save it." When, before or since, has the littleness
of the self-centered been so exposed and the nobility of self-surrender
been so glorified? Wendell Phillips has given a splendid paraphrase of
this wonderful utterance. He says, "How prudently most men sink into
nameless graves, while now and then a few forget themselves into
immortality."

But the one doctrine which more than any other distinguished His
teachings from those of uninspired instructors, is forgiveness. Time
and again He brings it forward and lays emphasis upon it. In the