[From Home Chat, London, England]

How is it that the Master was always meeting people in need? Perhaps you will say that they sought him out. Yes, they did, very often, and ... in crowds. But that was because, in a quiet and unobtrusive way, he had shown men and women and children that he was the helper of the helpless, the Saviour of the lost, the comforter of the sorrowing, the healer of the sick. He did not get his reputation by talking but by doing. You and I may say many prayers, and sing many hymns, and attend church regularly, and these things are all good if they are preparation and dedication for Christlike pity and compassion and self-sacrifice. But even faith without works is dead. Jesus said that he did the works of Him who sent him, and he has left us an example that we may go and do likewise every day.

[Dr. J. George Dorn, as quoted in the Times, Los Angeles, California]

Even in great men, one catches a constant note of hesitance. Even in the most dogmatic person you have the sense of a possible mistake. In Christ [Jesus] there is not the faintest trace of such a hesitance. There is an absolute certainty in the face of every problem. Christ [Jesus] moved ... as one who had full authority. This he accepts as something always valid; that he rejects as something only temporary. This he ratifies; that he cancels. The same authority is seen with reference to himself. He never doubted for a moment that he was the Son of God.

[Editorial in the Frederick Leader, Oklahoma]

Above the vexation of the day, which may arise from many causes, come the words of the Man of Galilee, spoken with quiet assurance nineteen hundred years ago: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls."

The world's idea of rest is luxury, riches, idleness, or play—the Master was a very busy man, without a home of his own, who depended largely on his friends for his daily human needs in the years of his ministry. But he had that inward peace which comes from a right conception of the truth and its application in the daily lives of men. He recognized the allness of God, and His ever-presence. He declared unto his disciples that he sought not ... to do his own will but the will of the Father; and he said on one other occasion that the works he did were not his own but those of his Father, inasmuch as he did only those things that he saw the Father do.

His life was one which was dominated by his Father—and he gave his disciples such a clear conception of the nature of his Father that John, who perhaps understood his teachings better than any of the other disciples, could say, "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love."

It is impossible for one, although he may declare with all the faith in the world that God is omnipresent, to conceive how this may be so, so long as he thinks of the Father as being a corporeal being—for corporeality cannot be everywhere. But when he grasps even in a small degree the truth of Jesus' statement to the Samaritan woman that God is Spirit, and that of John that God is Love, he can begin to understand this great truth, its vital essential to peace and rest and the highest development. Because we can at least understand how Love and Spirit can be and are everywhere, and always the same.

The invitation of the Master comes ringing down centuries to us as it did to the vexed and the troubled, the tired and those sick in body and mind in the long ago—if we truly come to him, we shall have rest and peace. But that coming must be in his own way—it must be in walking with him in meekness and lowliness of heart, as he described himself. That meekness and lowliness means a willingness to obey the great commandments of God, and to be led of Him. It means to be led of love for God and for our fellow men to do the works of love. ...

Who that has tried in vain other means of rest and contentment—who that has wasted vain years in an effort to create material happiness—is ready to deny that this activity in love and good deeds of which the Master gave the most conspicuous example the world has ever known, is the way to perfect rest?

[From the Church Visitor, Dallas, Wisconsin]

The fact that all men are brothers was never realized until Christ [Jesus] came into the world. He exemplified it in his own person and life. He was the Son of man. He was born in a Jewish home and his ancestors were Jewish, but he did not belong to any particular race. In the Old Testament period the fact that all men are brothers was scarcely recognized. Once in a while one of their great prophets arose and declared it, but the people themselves never fully accepted it. ...

Now one's conception of God always determines one's idea of humanity and one's relation to other people. ... If we have a narrow conception of God we will necessarily have a wrong conception of humanity. If, on the other hand, we have a proper idea of God we will have a right conception of man. Christ [Jesus] came to give us a new revelation of God. In the mind of Christ [Jesus] God was a universal Father, the Father of all men. He made it very clear that God was over all and in all, that in relation to mankind He was no respecter of persons, that He did not draw a line between different races and nationalities.

Christ [Jesus] also gave us a new estimate of man. Before his coming. society was divided into classes and groups. There were barriers which separated men. Some were racial, some were national, some were social and religious. The Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans. Those outside of the Jewish race were looked upon as outcasts. Christ [Jesus'] attitude was different. He knew what was in man. The incidental thing of color and class and cash had no significance with him. ... There was no one too steeped in sin but that he could be reclaimed. In parable, in story, in practical effort he taught this great truth. The image of God may be temporarily obscured, but it is there and can be restored.

[From "The Churchman Afield," in the Boston Evening Transcript, Massachusetts]

How wonderful was that peace of the Master's!

He was right at the heart of the storm, yet how calm!

Amid the contention of the upper room, he quietly girded himself and washed the disciples' feet. How restful ... must that act have been! How calm he was before Pilate and Caiaphas and the mob! The words "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" are born not of impatience but of peace.

His disciples, he suggested, are to share that spirit. The same peace of God was to garrison their hearts, in the midst of their tumults and storms. For he never promised immunity. As it had been with him, so would it be with them, if they were loyal to his high demands and purposes. In the world they would have tribulation—and peace. ...

Here and now, amid present circumstances however unideal or imprisoning, it can be our privilege to know the peace of God, and all its guarded happiness and calm.

[Costen J. Harrell, in the Home Quarterly, Nashville, Tennessee]

If our walk with God were closer, we would talk more to each other about it. Not that we would make a display of it, but the thing in which we are vitally concerned naturally finds its way into our conversation. The best kind of experience meeting is where two or three are gathered together conversing in an informal way about their ... delight in God—what He has revealed of Himself to them, how Christ satisfies, how they anticipate with exultant joy the endless future. Who has not at ... times had his heart burn within him as in a little company one person after another has opened the secrets of his inner life? We would be better men and women if such conversations were more frequent among us.

Conversation in spiritual things is a great unused means of grace. If we would put away our idle talk and converse oftener on the things of the heart, how much more worth while and charming would be our meetings together. And in this the New Testament is our unfailing guide and Jesus our perfect example. There was never such a conversationalist as the Lord Jesus. Most of his teachings are clothed in unstudied conversational form. Read again the Gospels and observe how the conversation with the woman of Samaria turned with natural ease from the water of Jacob's well to the water of life, and on what a high plane was the conversation in Zacchæus' house and in the upper room. How easily and simply and sympathetically the Man of Galilee talked about life's most sacred interest! Study him, the great conversationalist, and go thou and do likewise!

[Editorial in States, New Orleans, Louisiana]

The one who was sent "to preach deliverance," "to set at liberty them that are bruised," " to heal the brokenhearted," made it plain that the prisons from which we need deliverance are not made of stones, but of states of mind—of ignorance of God, of hate and intolerance, of vicious thoughts that result in disintegrating habits. ... The consummation of human liberty, toward which all men are instinctively striving, is not that which makes them free of others, but free of themselves and their own wrong deeds. For there is no freedom in doing what we want to do, if it is not what we ought to do.

Jesus overcame evil at every point by a demonstrable knowledge of the omnipotence of good. He was sent to preach deliverance on that basis: not from any evil too strong for man ... to conquer with God's help—for he acknowledged no such evil; but only from a mistaken faith in such evil, and from the love of it, that alone holds humanity in prisons whose doors can only open from within, outward.

He who came "to preach deliverance" entered our prison in order to open the door from within and lead the way out. And he still stands, as the Christ has always stood, outside the barred doors of our hearts that are replete with self, filled with ... pride and prejudice, sin and sickness and fears—and waits till we make room for him to enter and lead us to the liberty of the sons of God.