de of humble
service to others. Every follower of Jesus must experience it." One of
the disciples is so astonished, even taken aback by this menial service
on the part of Jesus, that he says: Thou shall never wash my feet. Jesus
answered him, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me."

In Oriental countries where sandals are worn that cover merely the soles
of the feet, it was, it is the custom of the host to offer his guest who
comes water with which to wash his feet. There is no reason why this
simple incident of humble service, or rather this symbolic act of humble
service, could not be taken and made an essential condition of salvation
by any council that saw fit to make it such. Things just as strange as
this have happened; though any thinking man or woman _today_ would deem
it essentially foolish.

It is an example of how the spirit of a beautiful act could be
misrepresented to the people. For if you will look at them again, Jesus'
words are very explicit: "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with
me." But hear Jesus' own comment as given in John: "So after he had
washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again,
he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master
and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master,
have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I
have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his
lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know
these things, happy are ye if ye do them." It is a means to an end and
not an end in itself. The spirit that it typifies is essential; but not
the act itself.

The same could be rightly said of the Lord's Supper. It is an observance
that can be made of great value, one very dear and valuable to many
people. But it cannot, if Jesus is to be our authority, and if correctly
reported, be by any means made a fundamental, an essential of salvation.
From the rebuke administered by Jesus to his disciples in a number of
cases where they were prone to drag down his meanings by their purely
material interpretations, we should be saved from this.

You will recall his teaching one day when he spoke of himself as the
bread of life that a man may eat thereof and not die. Some of his Jewish
hearers taking his words in a material sense and arguing in regard to
them one with a