Article August 24, 1912 Issue

FROM OUR EXCHANGES

with contributions from A. P. Doyle, R. J. Hutcheon

[Universalist Leader.]

At every step in thought and conduct the Master broke down the traditions of religious exclusiveness. He challenged every prejudice, he ignored every precedent, he outraged a very ancient tradition which had built up a barrier around religion. He spent his life with outsiders. He scandalized the pious people of his day by associating with publicans. His enemies charged him with moral looseness because he ate and drank with the unchurched. They could not understand his philosophy. What they thought was the result of irreligious carelessness, was really the outcome of a magnificent conception of how a great work was to be done.

Under all that Jesus said or did there is an absolute unity of program. He knew how the thing he wanted done must be done. He did not want done what the scribes and Pharisees wanted done. He wanted the kingdom of God to come on earth and among men, and he knew that this kingdom could never be imposed upon men. In spite of all blundering, there never has been and there never will be but one way of doing what Jesus wanted done. He wanted the world made just and righteous. He wanted humanity to become a great fellowship of love. He labored to establish the rule of the heart, of the affections, of the moral sense, as the supreme and binding principle of social life. When we understand what Jesus wanted done, what he lived for, wht he died for, we shall discover that his way, the way of the leaven, the way of the inward light, is the only way.

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