net, the farmer, the wine-skins. The Talmud has little in favor of trade; the Greek philosophers condemned toil as menial; Jesus followed a trade, according to Hebrew custom, and exprest appreciation of labor.

To assist us in realizing the personal goodness of Jesus, let us recall four striking gospel facts, viz., that Jesus never prayed with the disciples, tho he taught them to pray; tho he prayed in their presence, and tho he prayed for them. Second, there is no record of his confessing sin or praying for forgiveness. Third, there is no indication that he ever aspired to be anything different from what he was, or of his seeking to know a truth he did not already possess. Fourth, there is no evidence of compunction of conscience, or sense of having made a mistake.

He successfully withstood repeated temptations, he loved God and man, he was obedient, self-controlled, selfdenying, self-respecting, sincere, loyal, courageous, faithful, calm, patient, prudent, hopeful, humble, tender, dignified, self-sacrificing. These are contrasts in his character, but they make for symmetry. He lacked the defects of his qualities.

Of himself he testified that he always did what pleased God (John 8:29), and that the prince of this world had nothing in him (John 14: 30). He challenged his enemies to convict him of sin. (John 8:46). He had the unique consciousness of oneness with the Father, his conscience was void of offense. Of Jesus alone in human history can this be recorded. He is a concrete standard of ideal personal goodness.

Turning to his social goodness, we find Jesus loving little children, having friendships with women, and rely. ing on his disciples' companionship.

As a social worker Jesus showed organizing ability, vision, passion for service, ceaseless activity, and how to

delegate power. He spoke on our social problems-the home, marriage, divorce, war, crime, labor, poverty, wealth, religious authority, observation of the Sabbath, missions, and the kingdom of heaven.

He taught the gradual incoming of the reign of God, as leaven works; the brotherhood of man, the fatherhood of God, the infinite worth of the individual, and personal witnessing to He showed that the Good truth. News is social in his first sermon, in his message to John, in the mission of the twelve, and in his picture of the last judgment.

So Jesus lived and taught the ideal of goodness in each of its three phases, and meets the second test of the modern standard of complete living.

June 15-21-The Emotional Ideal (John 14:27)

The emotions, as well as the body and the will, have a real place in complete living. The emotional life of Jesus, as a review of the facts will show, was both rich and full. It was based upon the normal endowment of human instincts. There is a compelling beauty in his words that makes quotation easy..

Jesus had a sense of humor. There is a smile in his words as he calls James and John "Boanerges," and as he refers to tyrannical Gentile kings as "benefactors." There is grim humor in his figure of the blind leading the blind. The grotesque appears in his reference to having a beam in one's eye, and giving one's child a snake for a fish or a scorpion for an egg. There is hyperbole in swallowing a camel and the crying out of the stones by the wayside. There is irony in his words to the Pharisees: "Many good works have I shown you from the Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?" There is sarcasm in the Pharisees prayer: God, I thank thee that I am not as

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other men are." There is wit in his retort: "If I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out?" There is much satire in his denunciation of the hypocrites as "concealed tombs" and "whited sepulchers."

Jesus preached and practised the gospel of joy. Fifty-nine times in the New Testament references to joy occur. Following the return of the seventy, he "thrilled with joy at that hour in the Holy Spirit." It was "my joy" that makes "your joy." The kingdom is characterized by joy in finding the lost.

The ministry of Jesus was marked by compassion, for the leper, the bereaved widow of Nain, the blind men of Jericho, the Gerasene demoniac, and the multitudes without a shepherd. He taught that man should be merciful to man because God is merciful. Three times we find references to his tears, at the tomb of Lazarus, over Jerusalem, and in the Garden (Heb. 5:7). Miracles that he would not perform as a sign to convince an evil generation he did work through the motive of sympathy. In Gethsemane his heart was sad, "sad even unto death." Yet sorrow was subsumed in the final victory.

Jesus marveled at the unbelief of his fellow townsmen and at the faith of the Roman centurion. He was evidently surprized at the ignorance of Nicodemus. He was greatly amazed in the Garden (Mark 14:33). He was himself a constant source of astonishment to his disciples and others.

Jesus felt anger, mingled with grief, when criticized for doing good on the Sabbath (Mark 3:5). He was moved with indignation against his disciples for rebuking the mothers who brought him their babes to bless. Only the anger unmotived by love he condemned (Matt. 5: 22).

He felt disappointment at the lack of faith and dullness of understand

The intellectual ideal is the knowledge and love of truth, involving ultimately the performance of the truth when it is moral, and perhaps also its application to the conditions of life when non-moral.

Our question here runs: Is the intellectuality of Jesus such as to exemplify this ideal? Some surprizing results appear as soon as we apply this test to the incidents in the life of Jesus. The content of his teaching shows him as intellectually keen and alert to the significance of the common events of life, like sowing and reaping; to notable events, like the fall of Silvanus' tower; to historic events, like the healing of Naaman; and to coming events, like the destruction of the Temple.

The quality of his thinking was intuitive, rather than discursive; concrete, rather than abstract; positive, rather than negative, and creative, rather than critical. His adverb is "verily"; his verbs are "come," "follow," "go."

That Jesus loved the truth, and so imprest his contemporaries, is clear from the flattering words by which spies sought to entrap him: "Teacher, we know you are sincere, and that you teach the way of God honestly and fearlessly; you do not court human favor."

From a number of examples it is clear that Jesus possest dialectic skill, which he exhibited with telling effect in intellectual combat with his critics. Illustrations are: The question concerning stoning the sinful woman; the question of putting away one's wife; the question of his authority in doing wonderful works; the question of paying taxes to Cæsar, and the question of the Sadducees concerning the resurrection. In all these cases he was on the defensive. He assumed the offensive finally, and silenced his critics with the question concerning the sonship of Christ.

The Jews were perplexed at his teaching and asked: "How does this man know anything of books?" (Weymouth). We may answer that he drew his knowledge from man in the synagog school of Nazareth and

Psalms, our records containing quotations by him from fourteen of the thirty-nine books, mostly from Isaiah, Psalms, Hosea, and Deuteronomy. He defined his own mission as the fulfilment of law and prophets. Contrary to the scribes, he interpreted the law as inner, rather than outer; he strest the individual rather than the nation, and he taught that the kingdom was present, rather than future, and spiritual, rather than temporal. Jesus was original both in his personality and in the emphasis in his teaching on the divine fatherhood.

A general view of the world, that is, an implicit philosophy, appears behind the words of Jesus. It is a world of of persons, including the Father, the Son, the Comforter, and children of God. There are also angels, satan, and demons. There is a natural order manifesting a universal Providence. There are sense and spirits, space and time, and progress. He has a mission, and there is a goal, the coming kingdom, a regeneration (Matt. 19:28). Such a philosophy is primarily practical, in accord with Hebrew genius and the needs of life.

Reviewing the intellectuality of Jesus, it is clear that in the quality and spiritual content of his thinking he is standard for our race.

parents, from his observed contact with nature, and from the leading of God within his own soul. He disclaimed knowledge of all things (Mark (13:32). He asked questions for information: "How many loaves have ye?" "Where have ye laid him?"

It is hard to see how the soul of Jesus could have been nourished but for the Old Testament scriptures upon which he feasted. He knew all its three divisions, Law, Prophets, and

Ideal (John 4:24)

We all agree that life is not complete until it is spiritual, yet there is little agreement as to what is meant by the spiritual. Is it an element in human nature, structural, like the physical, volitional, emotional, and intellectual? Or, is it a new relationship between all these structural elements and the Divine? The latter is truer to the facts in the case. The spiritual is not structural, it is the

whole human structure in relationship to God.

To realize this view, draw a circle, inscribe a square, write the four words "health," "goodness," "beauty," and "truth" on the four sides of the square, write "God" at the top of the circle, and then, in accordance with all our argument, write "Christ" at the center of the square which is also the center of the circle. The whole symbol may be called "Complete Living." It shows that spirituality is inclusive, involving the relationship of every good thing to God. A friend in England writes: "With Christ as our standard all our virtues should touch the Infinite."

It remains only to indicate that Jesus related all life to God.

He related his own body to God by regarding it as a sanctuary (John 2:19). He related the whole physical order to God by teaching that God clothes the grass of the field, makes the sun to rise, sends the rain, feeds the ravens, marks the sparrow's fall, and numbers the hairs of the head. The whole material system of things is the Father's house with many rooms. All the parables are analogies between earth and heaven, whereby things are more than they

seem.

Likewise, he beheld the vocational occupations of men and women in spiritual light. The seed of the sower is the Word of God. The lost sheep is a soul away from God. The good and faithful servant is approved by his Lord.

His own personal goodness he related to God. "Why call me 'good'? No one is good, no one but God." And again, "I do always those things that please him."

Social goodness, too, he related to God, coupling the second commandment in the law with the first, seeing right relationships among men as the heavenly kingdom, and teaching his disciples to pray that the will of God be done on earth.

The perfection of beauty he traced to its divine original,-" as your heavenly Father is perfect." The beauty of the lily derived from God who clothed it.

The ideal of truth to Jesus was personal and practical. It was the word of God, it was himself, it was the means of God in the sanctification of men, it was that to which he bore witness before Pilate. It was not flesh and blood but the Father who revealed to Peter the truth of the great confession.

The whole outward life of Jesus was unified in relationship to God. At twelve the temple was his Father's house. At thirty the baptismal dove was the Spirit of God. The autobiographical account of the temptation reveals him as driven by the Spirit. The power by which he cast out demons he recognized as "the finger of God." The law of Moses is "the commandment of God." Prayer, as only self-communion he condemns in the Pharisee. Children have their angels before the Father's face. Comfort he finds in the Spirit. Before Caiaphas he affirms himself to be "the Son of the Blessed."

Is it not clear that Jesus related all life, including his own, to God, and so exemplified ideal spirituality?

And all of us, whom he has touched, he has made witnesses of these things, "until the day dawn, and the shadows flee away."

What It Does

(Heb. 11:1-40; 12:1, 2) THE treatment of the subject of faith in the epistle to the Hebrews is somewhat different from that in Paul's writings. While Paul fixes his eye on faith as the sole means of salvation from sin, the author of Hebrews views it as an attitude of confidence which the disciple must have in the leadership of Christ. Hence, he begins by showing that underlying the whole of life there is an element of truth. Thus he grounds the distinctly Christian faith upon a universally valid and reasonable function of the human soul. Faith always is the solid reality upon which the intuitions of mankind rest, "the assurance of things hoped for." In the King James Version, the word "substance" was somewhat inadequate. It needed the further explanation that faith is the giving of substance to the things that are believed. For faith. For faith is certainly more than belief. It is commitment of one's self to what is believed. And by that commitment the reality of those things is brought into view. By its faith the bird gives substance to the laws of its being when it ventures from its perch upon the air that will sustain it.

This faith underlies every explanation of creation. Things that are seen were made of things which do not appear. What else does science teach concerning the constitution of the world than that the great visible masses consist of units which can not be perceived by the senses. Of course,

the first century writer of the passage knew about electrons and ions, or even atoms. But the scientist who computes the existence of these uses just the same kind of faith as the believer in the creation of the world by the word of God.

Faith is in the next place fundamental to correct and acceptable worship. "By faith, Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain." Whatever else this story of primitive life. upon earth may mean or not mean, it does convey the truth that all acts of worship are neither equally pleasing to God nor of equal value to those who perform them. And the difference between them lies in that attitude and temper of the worshipers which leads them in varying degrees to give themselves up to the influence of God's Spirit.

The case of Enoch brings into view another power of faith, namely, its victory over death. "Enoch was translated that he should not see death." For the man of to-day the important thing to realize is that he, too, can, by the same faith, pass into the presence of God as if death did not exist. What tho his body may dissolve into its clayey constituents. If in spirit he "practises the presence of God," how can such an incident as the dissolution of the physical frame mean anything else to him than that God takes him to himself.

Faith next enables its possessor to labor patiently in the face of misunderstanding and ridicule. This was what it did for Noah. Noah, it is said,