n of the original authors, though in one case
these are more considerable than is sometimes allowed. That the
Gospels owe their appeal to the recorded sayings and doings of our
Lord, is our natural way of putting it to-day; but if for "our Lord"
we put a plainer description, more congenial to the day in which the
Gospels were written, we shall be in a better position to realize
the significance of the worldwide appeal of his words. Thus and
thus, then, spoke a mere provincial, a Jew who, though far less
conspicuous and interesting, came from the region of Meleager and
Philodemos--not from their town of Gadara, nor possibly from their
district, but from some place not so very far away.

It was not to be expected that he should win the hearts of men as he
did. He had not the Greek culture of the two Gadarenes. Celsus even
found his style of speech rather vulgar. But he has, as a matter of
common knowledge--so common as hardly to be noted--won the hearts of
men in every race and every land. The fact is familiar, but we have
as historians and critics to look for the explanation. What has been
his appeal? And what the heart and nature, from which came this
incredible power and reach of appeal? "Out of the abundance (the
overflow) of the heart the mouth speaketh," he said. (Matt. 12:34).
This he amplified, as we have seen, by his insistence on the weight
of every idle word (Matt. 12:36)--the unstudied and spontaneous
expression or ejaculation--the reflex, in modern phrase--which gives
the real clue to the man's inner nature and deeper mind, which
"justifies" him, therefore, or "condemns" him (Matt. 12:37). The
overflow of the heart, he holds, shows more decisively than anything
else the quality of the spring in its depths.

Here is a suggestion which we find true in ordinary life as well as
in the study of literature. If we turn it back upon its author, he
at least will not complain, and we shall perhaps gain a new sense of
his significance by approaching him at a new angle, from an outlook
not perhaps much frequented. How did he come to speak in this
manner, to say this and that? To what feeling or thought, to what
attitude to life, is this or the other saying due? If he, too, spoke
"out of the overflow of his heart"--and we can believe it when we
think of the freshness and spontaneity with which he spoke--of what
nature and of what depth was that heart?

We can very well believe that much in his speech that was
unforget