Article November 2, 1912 Issue

FROM OUR EXCHANGES

[Advance.]

Turning to the Messiah, what do we find? A teacher addressing himself to the professional religionists of the day, to priests, rabbis, and scribes? No, but a Son of man speaking to the common people of the day. The men of learning and the leaders and rulers were his critics. He did not try to make his doctrines square with their views, or ask them for authority or approval; but to the multitude, with all its wants, sicknesses, miseries, and unutterable longings, he looked for that understanding which interprets the highest and deepest meanings. And "the common people heard him gladly." They felt the strange thrill, the penetrating power of his message. To them he was a revelation of God and of their own hearts. He taught them "as one having authority," and not as the scribes and Pharisees. Christ was the Great Commoner. He headed the multitude. He spoke to it and spoke for it. All its bruises, blind eyes, and deaf ears, all its agonies and strivings, all its hunger and hope, all its manhood and womanhood and sweet-faced babyhood appealed to him, and he answered it in words and doctrines which are imperishable. They live, not because they are written on a sacred page or are guarded in precious archives, but because they are woven into the fiber of our being. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."

Are not the conditions much the same today? We look for new light. Whence will it come? Where will it lodge? Who will seize it, interpret it, and cleave to it? Will the critic? Will the learned man? Will the fortunate man, lifted above the multitude, out of want and sore trial, into the sunshine and ease of luxury? We want better things. How will they come? Who will plant the seed, water it with tears, bless it with prayers, and watch the tender plant with an agony of solicitude? Will the man at the front, who is satisfied with things as they are now?

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