And He not only warned men against harbouring the seeds of this sin but He rebuked them for injustice in dealing more harshly with woman than they did with themselves.  He did not condone sin; He forgave it, and accompanied forgiveness with the injunction, “Sin no more.”

Christ dignified childhood next to womanhood.  One of His most beautiful lessons was woven about a child which He summoned from the crowd.  The child’s faith was made the test—­“Except ye be converted and become as little children ye shall not enter into the kingdom.”  And again, “Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not:  for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

His depth of affection—­His longing for souls—­is beautifully set forth in Matthew 23:  37 when He uses the most familiar object in the animal kingdom to express His solicitude:  “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!”

And yet this gentle spirit who would not break a bruised reed—­who went about doing good—­was wont to blaze forth with hot indignation against sordidness and systematized injustice.  Hear His fierce denunciation of the “scribes, Pharisees and hypocrites” who devoured widows’ houses and for a pretense made long prayers; and behold Him casting the money-changers out of the temple because they had turned the house of prayer into a den of thieves.

In a startling paradox He sets forth a great truth:  “Whosoever shall save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.”  When, before or since, has the littleness of the self-centered been so exposed and the nobility of self-surrender been so glorified?  Wendell Phillips has given a splendid paraphrase of this wonderful utterance.  He says, “How prudently most men sink into nameless graves, while now and then a few forget themselves into immortality.”

But the one doctrine which more than any other distinguished His teachings from those of uninspired instructors, is forgiveness.  Time and again He brings it forward and lays emphasis upon it.  In the very beginning of His ministry He drew a contrast between the perverted morals of that day and the spiritual life into which He would lead them (Matt. 5): 

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.  But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven, for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.  For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye?  Do not even the publicans the same?  And if ye salute your brethren