(Luke 8:3), tell him these illuminative stories of the Master?  In any case Jesus’ new attitude to woman is in the record; and it has so reshaped the thought of mankind, and made it so hard to imagine anything else, that we do not readily grasp what a revolution he made—­here as always by referring men’s thoughts back to the standard of God’s thoughts, and supporting what he taught by what he was.

Mark has given us one of our most familiar pictures of Jesus sitting with a little child on his knee and “in the crook of his arm.” (The Greek participle which gives this in Mark 9:36 and 10:16 is worth remembering—­it is vivid enough.) Mothers brought their children to him, “that he should put his hands on them and pray” (Matt. 19:13).  Matthew (21:15) says that children took part in the Triumphal Entry; and Jesus, clear as he was how little the Hosannas of the grown people meant, seems to have enjoyed the children’s part in the strange scene.  Classical literature, and Christian literature of those ages, offer no parallel to his interest in children.  The beautiful words, “suffer little children to come unto me,” are his, and they are characteristic of him (Matt. 19:14); and he speaks of God’s interest in children (Matt. 18:14)—­once more a reference of everything to God to get it in its true perspective.  How Jesus likes children!—­for their simplicity (Luke 18:17), their intuition, their teachableness, we say.  But was it not, perhaps, for far simpler and more natural reasons just because they were children, and little, and delightful?  We forget his little brothers and sisters, or we eliminate them for theological purposes.

Jesus lays quite an unexpected emphasis on sheer tenderness—­on kindness to neighbour and stranger, the instinctive humanity that helps men, if it be only by the swift offer of a cup of cold water (Matt. 10:42).  The Good Samaritan came as a surprise to some of his hearers (Luke 10:30).  “It is our religion,” said a Hindu to a missionary, to explain why he and other Hindus did not help to rescue a fainting man from the railway tracks, nor even offer water to restore him, when the missionary had hauled him on to the platform unaided.  Not so the religion of Jesus—­“bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ,” wrote Paul (Gal. 6:2)—­“pursue hospitality” (Rom. 12:13; the very word runs through the Epistles of the New Testament).  And, as we shall see in a later chapter, the Last Judgement itself turns on whether a man has kindly instincts or not.  Matthew quotes (12:20) to describe Jesus’ own tenderness the impressive phrase of Isaiah (42:3), “A bruised reed shall he not break.”