heart more than in outward circumstances.  Even the dreamers among the people, who were as unready as Jesus for any uprising against Rome, and who waited for God to show his own hand in judgment, found in Jesus—­come to seek and to save that which was lost—­something so contradictory of their idea of the celestial judge that they could not easily think of him as a Messiah.  Jesus was a puzzle to the people.  They were sure that he was a prophet; but if at any time some were tempted to query, “Can this be the Son of David?” the incredulous folk expected ever a negative reply.

130.  This was as Jesus wished it to be.  An unreasoning enthusiasm could only hinder his work.  When his early cures in Capernaum stirred the ardent feelings of the multitudes, he took occasion to withdraw to other towns and allow popular feeling to cool.  When later he found himself pressed upon by crowds from all quarters of the land, by the sermon on the mount he set them thinking on strange and highly spiritual things, far removed from the thoughts of Zealots and apocalyptic dreamers.

131.  The manifest contradiction of popular Messianic ideas which Jesus presented in his own person usually served to check undue ardor as long as he was present.  But when some demoniac proclaimed the high station of Jesus, and thus seemed to the people to give supernatural testimony; or when some one in need sought him apart from the multitudes, Jesus frequently enjoined silence.  These injunctions of silence are enigmas until they are viewed as a part of Jesus’ effort to keep control of popular feeling.  In his absence the people might dwell on his power and easily come to imagine him to be what he was not and could not be.  Jesus was able by these means to restrain unthinking enthusiasm until the multitudes whom he fed on the east side of the sea determined to force him to do their will as a Messiah.  Then he refused to follow where they called, and that happened which would doubtless have happened at an earlier time but for Jesus’ caution,—­the popular enthusiasm subsided, and his active work with the common people was at an end.  But he had held off this crisis until there were a few who did not follow the popular defection, but rather clung to him from whom they had heard the words of eternal life (John vi. 68).

132.  Jesus’ caution brings to light one aspect of his aim in the Galilean ministry,—­he sought to win acceptance for the truth he proclaimed.  His message as reported in the synoptic gospels was the near approach of the kingdom of God.  Any such proclamation was sure of eager hearing.  At first he seems to have been content to gather and interest the multitudes by this preaching and the works which accompanied it.  But he early took occasion to state his ideas in the hearing of the multitudes, and in terms so simple, so concerned with every-day life, so exacting as respects conduct, and so lacking in the customary glowing picture of the future, that