of them. And of these Christ was one.

'Know thyself' was written over the portal of the antique world.
Over the portal of the new world, 'Be thyself' shall be written.
And the message of Christ to man was simply 'Be thyself.' That is
the secret of Christ.

When Jesus talks about the poor he simply means personalities, just
as when he talks about the rich he simply means people who have not
developed their personalities. Jesus moved in a community that
allowed the accumulation of private property just as ours does, and
the gospel that he preached was not that in such a community it is
an advantage for a man to live on scanty, unwholesome food, to wear
ragged, unwholesome clothes, to sleep in horrid, unwholesome
dwellings, and a disadvantage for a man to live under healthy,
pleasant, and decent conditions. Such a view would have been wrong
there and then, and would, of course, be still more wrong now and
in England; for as man moves northward the material necessities of
life become of more vital importance, and our society is infinitely
more complex, and displays far greater extremes of luxury and
pauperism than any society of the antique world. What Jesus meant,
was this. He said to man, 'You have a wonderful personality.
Develop it. Be yourself. Don't imagine that your perfection lies
in accumulating or possessing external things. Your affection is
inside of you. If only you could realise that, you would not want
to be rich. Ordinary riches can be stolen from a man. Real riches
cannot. In the treasury-house of your soul, there are infinitely
precious things, that may not be taken from you. And so, try to so
shape your life that external things will not harm you. And try
also to get rid of personal property. It involves sordid