Gospels, and stand by Jesus' side in each one of these simple, tremendous
incidents of His contact with the common people. Then listen anew to His
teaching talks, so homely and so gripping. And the impression becomes
irresistible that the one thought that gripped at every turn, never
forgotten, was to woo man back to the Father's allegiance.



Jesus' World-passion.


Have you not marked the world-wide swing of Jesus' thought and plan? It
is stupendous in its freshness and bold daring. The bigness of His idea of
the thing to be done is immense. To use a favorite phrase of to-day, He
had a world-consciousness. It is hard for us to realize what a startling
thing His world-consciousness was. We are so familiar with the Gospels
that we lose much of their force through mere rote of familiarity.

It takes a determined effort, and the fresh touch of the Holy Spirit, too,
to have them come with all the freshness of a new book. And then we have
gotten sort of used in our day, and in our part of the world especially,
to talking about world-wide enterprises.

We don't realize what a stupendous thing a world-consciousness was in
Jesus' day. He certainly did not get it from His own generation; not from
the Jews. It stands out in keen contrast to their ideas. They lived within
very narrow alleyways. They supposed they were the favorites of God; and
everybody else--dogs, and damned dogs, too; not in the profane usage,
but actually.