can. His ears are keener, His heart more tender. He is in command. You do
as He bids. So you help most in meeting the need.

He Himself when down here left the crowds, when they were so great that
the towns were overwhelmed and they had to be taken out to the country
places. He would leave these crowds and go off quietly to get alone with
His Father.[63] All that tireless ministry was under the direction of
Another. He went off for close touch, and fresh consultation with His
Father.



The Father's Image in the Common Crowd.


Have you ever wondered what there was in those common crowds to attract
our Lord Jesus? Perhaps if you have ever walked in those narrow crowded
alleys called streets, in China or Japan, you may have wondered,
sometimes. Tired, dirty, pinched faces, eyes vacantly staring, or else
fired with low passion, high-keyed voices bickering and jangling,--all
this crowds in and out on every hand. Dirt, disease, low passion,
selfishness, apparent absence of anything noble or refined, are all
tangled inextricably up with these in human form.

And our Lord Jesus lived in an Oriental world. Is there any world quite
like it, except indeed it be the slums of our western world cities,
European and American? City slums seem to be our western point of contact
with the greater part of the eastern world. What was there to attract the
Lord Jesus to these crowds? Their need, you answer. Yes, no doubt, their
terrible need did move Him with compassion, to the hurting point.