and
his active work with the common people was at an end. But he had held off
this crisis until there were a few who did not follow the popular
defection, but rather clung to him from whom they had heard the words of
eternal life (John vi. 68).

132. Jesus' caution brings to light one aspect of his aim in the Galilean
ministry,--he sought to win acceptance for the truth he proclaimed. His
message as reported in the synoptic gospels was the near approach of the
kingdom of God. Any such proclamation was sure of eager hearing. At first
he seems to have been content to gather and interest the multitudes by
this preaching and the works which accompanied it. But he early took
occasion to state his ideas in the hearing of the multitudes, and in terms
so simple, so concerned with every-day life, so exacting as respects
conduct, and so lacking in the customary glowing picture of the future,
that the people could not mistake such a teacher for a simple fulfiller of
their ideas. In this early sermon in effect, and later with increasing
plainness, he set forth his doctrine of a kingdom of heaven coming not
with observation, present actually among a people who knew it not, like a
seed growing secretly in the earth, or leaven quietly leavening a lump of
meal. By word and deed, in sermon and by parable, he insisted on this
simple and every-day conception of God's rule among men. With Pharisee,
Zealot, and dreamer, he held that "the best is yet to be," yet all three
classes found their most cherished ideals set at nought by the new
champion of the soul's inner life in fellowship with the living God. In
all his teaching there was a claim of authority and a manifest
independence which indicate certainty on his part concerning his own
mission. Yet so completely is the personal question retired for the time,
that in his rebuke of the blasphemy of the Pharisees he took pains to
declare that it was not because they had spoken against the Son of Man,
that they were in danger, but because they had spoken against the Spirit
of God, whose presence was manifest in his works. He wished, primarily, to
win disciples to the kingdom of God.

133. Yet Jesus was not indifferent in Galilee to what the people thought
about himself. The question at Caesarea Philippi shows more fully the aim
of his ministry. During all the period of the preaching of the kingdom he
never hesitated to assert himself whenever need for such self-assertion
arose. This was evid