any angel.  If we could take all the knowledge of all the best teachers who ever lived, and give it to one person, it would be as nothing compared to the knowledge which Jesus, “the Great Teacher” had.  He knew all about heaven; for that had always been his home before he came into our world.  He knew all about God; for, he was “in the bosom of the Father,” John i:  18; and, as he tells us himself, had shared his glory with him, “before the world was.”  John xvii:  5.  He knew all about the world we live in, for he made it.  John i:  10.  He knew all about all other worlds, for he made them, too.  John i:  3; Heb. i:  2.  He knew all about his disciples and every body else in the world, for he made them all.  He saw all they did; he heard all they said; he knew all they thought, or felt.  Wise and learned men have been studying, and finding out things for hundreds of years, about geography and natural history—­and astronomy;—­about light, and heat, and electricity—­and steam—­and the telegraph, and many other things.  Jesus knew all about these things when he was on earth.  He could have told about them, if he had seen fit to do so.  But he only told us what it is best for us to know, in order that we might be saved; and kept back all the rest.  The things that Jesus did teach us when he was here on earth were wonderful; but it is hardly less wonderful to think of the things that he might have taught us, and yet did not.  When we think of the great knowledge of Jesus, as a Teacher, we are not surprised that some of those who heard him “wondered at the gracious words” he spake; or that others asked the question:  “Whence hath this man this knowledge, having never learned?”

Some one has written these sweet lines about Christ as—­The Great Teacher: 

    “From everything our Saviour saw,
    Lessons of wisdom he could draw;
    The clouds, the colors in the sky;
    The gentle breeze that whispers by;
    The fields all white with waving corn;
    The lilies that the vale adorn;
    The reed that trembles in the wind;
    The tree, where none its fruit could find;
    The sliding sand, the flinty rock,
    That bears unmoved the tempest’s shock;
    The thorns that on the earth abound;
    The tender grass that clothes the ground;
    The little birds that fly in air;
    The sheep that need the shepherd’s care;
    The pearls that deep in ocean lie;
    The gold that charms the miser’s eye;
    The fruitful and the thorny ground;
    The piece of silver lost and found;
    The reaper, with his sheaves returning;
    The gathered tares prepared for burning;
    The wandering sheep brought back with joy;
    The father’s welcome for his boy;
    The wedding-feast, prepared in state;
    The foolish virgins’ cry, ’too late!’—­
    All from his lips some truth proclaim,
    Or learn to tell their Maker’s name.”

But the difference between Jesus, the Great Teacher, and all other teachers is seen, not only in the greater knowledge he has of the things that he teaches, but in this also, that he knows how to make us understand the lessons he teaches.  Here is an incident that illustrates how well Jesus can do this.  We may call it: