esus is that He is always sure of Himself.
Nothing takes Him by surprise, nothing produces the least hesitation in
His judgment. Therefore He must have had an unfailing clue to which He
trusted in the maze of life. Behind all consistency of judgment there
must exist consistency of principle. The principle that governed all
the thoughts of Jesus was _that love was the only real justice_. He
came not to condemn, not to destroy men's lives, but to save them.
There was no problem of human relationship that could not be solved by
love; there was no other principle needed for the regulation of
society; and no other could produce that general peace and good-will
which He called the Kingdom of God.

Thus, on one occasion Jesus tells a story which is so lifelike in every
touch that we may accept it, without doubt, as less a parable than an
incident. A father has two sons, one of whom is industrious and
dutiful, the other wayward and rebellious. The wayward son finally
casts off all pretense of filial obedience, goes into a far country,
and wastes his substance in riotous living. Here we have one of the
saddest of all problems in human relationship, for presently the
disgraced son comes home a beggar. The elder brother who represents
the average social view, has no doubt whatever as to what should be
done. He is offended that the disgraced son should come home at all;
he would have thought better of him if he had hidden his shame in the
country that had witnessed it. Probably his sense of pride and
respectability is offended more than his love of virtue, though he
characteristically gives his jealous anger the illusion of morality.
This, I say, is the average social view. There are few things more
cruel than affronted respectability. The elder brother is an eminently
respectable person, totally unacquainted with wayward passions, and his
only feeling for his brother is disdain.

Jesus tells the story, however, in such a way as to discredit the
average social view. He begins by making us feel that whatever follies
the prodigal had committed, he had already been punished for them in
the miseries he had endured. It is not for man to punish with his whip
of scorn one who has already been flaggellated with a whip of scorpions
in the desert places of disgrace and shame. Jesus makes us feel also
that whatever sins might be laid to the charge of the disgraced son,
there is nevertheless in his heart a warmth of feeling of