ave
been excited to uncontrollable passion by the simple idea that a leader
was present who could be made to head a movement for Jewish liberty. But
there was something about Jesus which made it impossible to think of him
as such a Messiah. He was much more moved by sin lurking within than by
wrong inflicted from without. He looked for God's kingdom, as did the
Zealots, but he looked for it within the heart more than in outward
circumstances. Even the dreamers among the people, who were as unready as
Jesus for any uprising against Rome, and who waited for God to show his
own hand in judgment, found in Jesus--come to seek and to save that which
was lost--something so contradictory of their idea of the celestial judge
that they could not easily think of him as a Messiah. Jesus was a puzzle
to the people. They were sure that he was a prophet; but if at any time
some were tempted to query, "Can this be the Son of David?" the
incredulous folk expected ever a negative reply.

130. This was as Jesus wished it to be. An unreasoning enthusiasm could
only hinder his work. When his early cures in Capernaum stirred the ardent
feelings of the multitudes, he took occasion to withdraw to other towns
and allow popular feeling to cool. When later he found himself pressed
upon by crowds from all quarters of the land, by the sermon on the mount
he set them thinking on strange and highly spiritual things, far removed
from the thoughts of Zealots and apocalyptic dreamers.

131. The manifest contradiction of popular Messianic ideas which Jesus
presented in his own person usually served to check undue ardor as long
as he was present. But when some demoniac proclaimed the high station of
Jesus, and thus seemed to the people to give supernatural testimony; or
when some one in need sought him apart from the multitudes, Jesus
frequently enjoined silence. These injunctions of silence are enigmas
until they are viewed as a part of Jesus' effort to keep control of
popular feeling. In his absence the people might dwell on his power and
easily come to imagine him to be what he was not and could not be. Jesus
was able by these means to restrain unthinking enthusiasm until the
multitudes whom he fed on the east side of the sea determined to force him
to do their will as a Messiah. Then he refused to follow where they
called, and that happened which would doubtless have happened at an
earlier time but for Jesus' caution,--the popular enthusiasm subsided,