The Sermon of the Mount can be understood only by means of the Master Key of the Inner Teachings, which opens the door of the mind to an understanding of the hard sayings and veiled mystic import of many of His precepts.  We shall devote considerable space in one of our later lessons of this series to a consideration of the Inner Meaning of this great sermon and teaching, and therefore shall not go into details regarding it in the present lesson, deeming it better to proceed with the story of the Master’s Work.

A few days after the delivery of the Sermon of the Mount, the Master left Capernaum and traveled from town to town visiting His various centers of teaching, as was His custom.  On the journey Jesus performed a feat of occult power that proved Him to be one of the Highest Adepts of the Occult Brotherhoods, for to none other would such a manifestation have been possible.  Even some of the highest Oriental Masters would have refused to undertake the task that He set before Himself to do.

The company was leisurely proceeding on its way, when nearing a small town they met a funeral procession coming in their direction.  Preceded by the band of women chanting the mournful dirges according to the Galileean custom, the cortege slowly wended its way.  The etiquette of the land required strangers to join in the mourning when they came in contact with a funeral procession, and the company assumed a mournful and respectful demeanor, and many joined in the dirge which was being chanted by the procession.

But Jesus invaded the privacy of the procession in a manner shocking to those who held closely to the familiar forms and customs.  Stepping up to the bier, He stood in front of it and bade the carriers halt and set it down.  A murmur of indignation ran through the ranks of the mourners, and some strode forward to rebuke the presumptuous stranger who dared to violate the dignity of the funeral in this way.  But something in His face held them back.  Then a strange feeling passed over the crowd.  Jesus was known to a number of the mourners, and some of those who had witnessed some of His wonder-workings began to whisper that strange things were about to happen, and the ranks were broken as the people flocked around the Master at the bier.

The corpse was that of a young man, and his widowed mother stood beside the pale figure stretched upon the bier, and spreading her arms in front of it, she seemed to ward off the profaning touch of the strange man who confronted it.  But the stranger looked upon her with a look of transcendent love, and in a voice vibrant with the tenderest feeling said unto her, “Mother, weep not—­cease thy mourning.”  Amazed, but impressed, she turned an appealing gaze to Him who had thus bidden her.  Her mother love and instinct caught a new expression in His eyes, and her heart bounded with a wonderful hope of something, she knew not what.  What did the Nazarene mean?  Her boy was dead, and even God Himself never disturbed the slumber of the body from which the spirit had flown.  But still what meant that expression—­why that leap and throbbing of her heart?