225.  One class only in the community failed of his sympathy,—­the self-righteous hypocrites, who thought that godliness consisted in scrupulous regard for pious ceremonies, and that zeal was most laudable when directed to the removal of motes from their brothers’ eyes.  For these Jesus had words of rebuke and burning scorn.  It has been common with some to emphasize his friendship for the poor as if he chose them for their poverty, and the unlettered for their ignorance.  Yet Jesus had no faster friends than the women who followed from Galilee and ministered to him of their substance, and the two sanhedrists, Joseph whose new tomb received his body, and Nicodemus whose liberality provided the spices which embalmed him; for these, and not the Galilean fishermen, were faithful to the last at the cross and at the grave.  In no home did Jesus find a fuller or more welcome friendship than in Bethany, where all that is told us of its conditions suggests the opposite of poverty.  The rich young ruler, who showed his too great devotion to his possessions, would hardly have sought out Jesus with his question, if he was known as the champion of poverty as in itself essential to godliness.  The demand made of him surprised him, and was suited to his special case.  Jesus saw clearly the difficulties which wealth puts in the way of faith, but he recognized the power of God to overcome them, and when Zaccheus turned disciple, the demand for complete surrender of possessions was not repeated.  On the contrary Jesus taught his disciples that even “the unrighteous mammon” should be used to win friends (Luke xvi. 9), so ministering unto some of “the least of these my brethren” (Matt. xxv. 40).  The beatitude in Luke’s report of the sermon on the mount (Luke vi. 20) was not for the poor as poor simply, but for those poor folk lightly esteemed who had spiritual sense enough to follow Jesus, while the well-to-do as a class were content with the “consolation” already in hand.  Jesus’ interest was in character, wherever it was manifest, whether in the repentance of a chief of the publicans, or in the widow woman’s gift of “all her living;” whether it appeared in the hunger for truth shown by Nicodemus, a teacher of Israel, or in the woman that was a sinner who washed his feet with her tears.  He was the great revealer of the worth of simple humanity, in man, woman, or child.  Our world has never seen another who so surely penetrated all masks or disguising circumstances and found the man himself, and having found him loved him.

226.  This sympathy for simple manhood was manifested in a genuine interest in the common life of men in business, pleasure, or trouble.  It is significant that the first exercise of his miraculous power should have been to relieve the embarrassment of his host at a wedding feast.  Doubtless we are to understand that the miracle had a deeper purpose than simply supplying the needed wine (John ii. 11); but the significant thing is that Jesus should choose to manifest his