the evangelists are, comparatively speaking, extremely few. Put them all
together, they are less by one-half or two-thirds than the words which
it will be necessary for me to use in order to set forth His teaching in
this little book. And further, the little we have is, for the most part,
so casual, so unpremeditated, so unsystematic in its character. Once and
again, it is true, we get from the Evangelists something approaching
what may be called a set discourse; but more often what they give us is
reports of conversations--conversations with His disciples, with chance
acquaintances, or with His enemies. Sometimes we find Him speaking in
the synagogues; but He is quite as ready to teach reclining at the
dinner-table; and, best of all, He loved to speak in the open air, by
the wayside, or the lake shore. Once, as He stood by the lake of
Gennesaret, the multitude was so great that it pressed upon Him. Near at
hand were two little fishing-boats drawn up upon the beach, for the
fishermen had gone out of them, and were washing their nets. "And He
entered into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put
out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes
out of the boat." It is all so different from what we should have
expected; there is about it such an air of artless, homely simplicity.
Finally, we cannot forget that Jesus was a Jew speaking to Jews. Son of
God though He was, He was the son of a Jewish mother, trained in a
Jewish home, in all things the child of His own time and race. Whatever
else His message may have been, it was, first of all, a message to the
men of His own day; therefore, of necessity, it was their language He
used, it was to their needs He ministered, it was their sins He
condemned. The mould, the tone, the colouring of His teaching were all
largely determined by the life of His country and His time.

Yet this is He concerning whom all ages cry aloud, "Never man spake like
this man." This is He before whom the greatest and the wisest bow down,