But was there not a seeming inconsistency here in the teachings of the Master?  If the poor achieved heaven automatically by their mere poverty, why were they still needing a physician? Under that view, why were not the rich those who needed a physician—­according to the literal words of Jesus?

Up to the close of this passage the orator’s manner had been one of glacial severity—­of a sternness apparently checked by rare self-control from breaking into a denunciation of the modern Dives.  Then all was changed.  His face softened and lighted; the broad shoulders seemed to relax from their uncompromising squareness; he stood more easily upon his feet; he glowed with a certain encouraging companionableness.

Was that, indeed, the teaching of Jesus—­as if in New York to-day he might say, “I have come to Third Avenue rather than to Fifth?” Can this crudely literal reading of his words prevail?  Does it not carry its own refutation—­the extreme absurdity of supposing that Jesus would come to the squalid Jews of the East Side and denounce the better elements that maintain a church like St. Antipas?

The fallacy were easily probed.  A modern intelligence can scarcely prefigure heaven or hell as a reward or punishment for mere carnal comfort or discomfort—­as many literal-minded persons believe that Jesus taught.  The Son of Man was too subtle a philosopher to teach that a rich man is lost by his wealth and a poor man saved by his poverty, though primitive minds took this to be his meaning.  Some primitive minds still believe this—­witness the frequent attempts to read a literal meaning into certain other words of Jesus:  the command, for example, that a man should give up his cloak also, if he be sued for his coat.  Little acumen is required to see that no society could protect itself against the depredations of the lawless under such a system of non-resistance; and we may be sure that Jesus had no intention of tearing down the social structure or destroying vested rights.  Those who demand a literal construction of the parable of Dives and Lazarus must look for it in the Bowery melodrama, wherein the wealthy only are vicious and poverty alone is virtuous.

We have only to consider the rawness of this conception to perceive that Jesus is not to be taken literally.

Who, then, is the rich man and who the poor—­who is the Dives and who the Lazarus of this intensely dramatic parable?

Dives is but the type of the spiritually rich man who has not charity for his spiritually poor brother; of the man rich in faith who will not trouble to counsel the doubting; of the one rich in humility who will yet not seek to save his neighbour from arrogance; of him rich in charity who indifferently views his uncharitable brethren; of the man rich in hope who will not strive to make hopeful the despairing; of the one rich in graces of the Holy Ghost who will not seek to reclaim the unsanctified beggar at his gate.