He drew children.  This was the highest test.  The child, fresh from the hand of God, before it is appreciably hurt by parents or surroundings, is drawn to the pure and good.  They are repelled by selfishness and badness.  They draw out the best.  They are drawn only by the true and beautiful and good.  That is, in the early years, before the warping of a selfish, sinful atmosphere has hurt them.  This is an infallible test.  This told most His winsomeness.

Bad people were drawn to Him.  That is, bad in their lives.  Rarely indeed is a human so wholly bad as to be untouched by true goodness, by sincere love.  Here is the touchstone of service.  He touched that spot in the lowest, and by His presence increased the hunger of their hearts for purity and for sympathy up toward purity.

His enemies—­a very small group, but in a position of great power, holding the national reins—­His enemies were drawn to Him, by a drawing they fought, but could not resist.  They admired Him while hating Him.  His presence disturbed because it accused the opposite in them.  They recognized the purity, the love, the rugged honesty, the keen insight, the poised wisdom, and they hated Him the more intensely, so committed were they in the practice of their lives to the opposite of these.  Jesus was very winsome.  It was to be expected of Him, for He was a man unstained and unhurt by sin.  Man, God’s sort of man, is winsome, for he is in the image of God.  It was to be expected of Him, for He was God.  And God is winsome.  Did men but know God they would throw themselves at His feet in the utter abandon of strong love.

Jesus’ personality must have been very attractive, because of the man living within.  He found expression in it.  The spirit of a man finds expression in his presence.  He goes out to others through his presence.  From what we know of Jesus His presence must have had something distinctly impressive about it.  He would have a gently majestic bearing.  He walked upright like the king He was.  He had the true dignity that is not conscious of its dignity.

Jesus must have had a remarkable face.  One’s presence centers peculiarly in the face.  It comes to bear the imprint of the man inside.  A man cannot keep out of his face the dominant spirit of his life.  The sin of the life, the purity of the heart, is always stamped on the face.  The finer the nature the plainer is the facial index.  That is the reason women’s faces reveal the inner spirit more than men’s.  Quite apart from His features, the inner spirit of Jesus must have made His face beautiful with a manly fascinating beauty.  Yet in all likelihood those features were finely chiselled and the skin clear, and with the transfiguring power of the spirit within, that face must have been a great face in its beauty.