escribes against undue tenderness, "Say while you kiss your
child, he is mortal," with the habitual attitude of Jesus toward
children,--taking them in his arms, and saying, "Of such is the kingdom
of heaven." It is in such scenes as these--in his relations especially
with women and with children--that we best see the genius of the heart,
the newness which came into the world with Jesus.

While dwelling in an inner realm of joy, he had the keenest sense of the
sin and sorrow in men's lives. "He was filled with compassion for the
multitude, as sheep having no shepherd." Their epilepsies,
leprosies,--the hardness of heart, the insensibility to the higher
life,--these moved him with a great pity. Scarcely save in little
children did he see the heart-free joy, the natural freedom and
happiness, which was his own. The hard-heartedness of the rich, the
scorn of the self-righteous for the outcasts, moved his indignation.
Thus the holy happiness of his own life was mingled with a profound sense
of the trouble of other lives.

His reading of the trouble was very simple: there were but two forces in
the world, moral good and evil, God and Satan, and God was shortly to
give an absolute triumph to the good.

Among the chief impressions he made was that of commanding power. He
must have been full of healthy and majestic manhood. Women and children
were attracted to him, as the weak are attracted by the strong. In the
storm on the lake, his spirit so rose above the elemental rage--as if
upborne with delight by the sublime scene--that his companions forgot
their fears, and in the remembrance it appeared to them that the sea and
wind grew calm at his word. His strength seemed to impart itself to the
weak, his health to the sick. The stories of marvel which richly
embroider the whole story are partly the halos of imagination investing a
personality which commanded, charmed, inspired.

Sometimes evil was considered the work of wicked spirits,--so especially
in cases of lunacy. Over some such cases Jesus had a peculiar power. He
even imparted this power to some of the disciples, who caught his
inspiration. The disciples, and probably Jesus, believed that this power
extended to other sicknesses. Of the uniformity of nature there is no
recognition in the New Testament. Man's power over events is believed to
be measured by his spiritual nearness to God. "If ye have faith as a
grain of mustard seed," ye can cast mountains in