Very different are the good news Jesus brings us from certain prevalent representations of the gospel, founded on the pagan notion that suffering is an offset for sin, and culminating in the vile assertion that the suffering of an innocent man, just because he is innocent, yea perfect, is a satisfaction to the holy Father for the evil deeds of his children.  As a theory concerning the atonement nothing could be worse, either intellectually, morally, or spiritually; announced as the gospel itself, as the good news of the kingdom of heaven, the idea is monstrous as any Chinese dragon.  Such a so-called gospel is no gospel, however accepted as God sent by good men of a certain development.  It is evil news, dwarfing, enslaving, maddening—­news to the child-heart of the dreariest damnation.  Doubtless some elements of the gospel are mixed up with it on most occasions of its announcement; none the more is it the message received from him.  It can be good news only to such as are prudently willing to be delivered from a God they fear, but unable to accept the gospel of a perfect God, in whom to trust perfectly.

The good news of Jesus was just the news of the thoughts and ways of the Father in the midst of his family.  He told them that the way men thought for themselves and their children was not the way God thought for himself and his children; that the kingdom of heaven was founded, and must at length show itself founded on very different principles from those of the kingdoms and families of the world, meaning by the world that part of the Father’s family which will not be ordered by him, will not even try to obey him.  The world’s man, its great, its successful, its honorable man, is he who may have and do what he pleases, whose strength lies in money and the praise of men; the greatest in the kingdom of heaven is the man who is humblest and serves his fellows the most.  Multitudes of men, in no degree notable as ambitious or proud, hold the ambitious, the proud man in honour, and, for all deliverance, hope after some shadow of his prosperity.  How many even of those who look for the world to come, seek to the powers of this world for deliverance from its evils, as if God were the God of the world to come only!  The oppressed of the Lord’s time looked for a Messiah to set their nation free, and make it rich and strong; the oppressed of our time believe in money, knowledge, and the will of a people which needs but power to be in its turn the oppressor.  The first words of the Lord on this occasion were:—­’Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,’