wayward woman the way to a reconstructed life, the welfare of the living soul before him was his controlling thought.  Jesus had a true sense of the value of a life, and no life was too humble or too unpromising for him to lavish upon it all the wealth of his interest and all the power of his sympathy and helpfulness.  He did not feel that his time was poorly spent when he was teaching small groups, and many of the choicest gems of his teaching were given to a mere handful of earnest listeners seated at his feet.

In all his teaching Jesus manifested a deep reverence for vital truth.  He told his disciples, “The truth shall make you free.”  He was never afraid of truth, but accepted it reverently, even when it ran counter to accepted authority.  Nor did Jesus ever lose time or opportunity in teaching trivial and unessential matters to his hearers; the knowledge he gave them was always of such fruitful nature that they could at once apply it to their living, Jesus’s teaching carried over; it showed its effect in changed attitudes of life, in new purposes, compelling ideals, and great loyalties and devotions.  Out of a band of commonplace fishermen and ordinary men he made a company of evangelists and reformers whose work and influence changed the course of civilization.  Every person who responded to his instruction felt the glow of a new ambition and the desire to have a part in the great mission.  Thus the teaching of Jesus entered into the actual life and conduct of his pupils.  The truths he taught did not lie dormant as so much mere attainment of knowledge.  They took root and blossomed into action, into transformed lives, and into heroic deeds of kindly service.  The constant keynote and demand of Jesus’s teaching was shown forth in his, “He that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them”; he was never satisfied without the doing.

Much is to be learned from the technique of Jesus’s teaching, imperfect though the account is of his instruction.  He always met his hearers on the plane of their own lives.  He would begin his instruction with some common and familiar experience, and lead by questions or illustrations to the truth he wished to present.  In this way, without the use of technical words or long phrases, he was able to teach deep and significant truths even to relatively uninformed minds.  Jesus appealed to the imagination through picturesque illustrations and parables.  He made his hearers think for the truth they reached, and so presented each truth that its application to some immediate problem or need could not be escaped.  He was always interesting in his lessons, for they did not deal with unimportant matters nor with tiresome platitudes.  He never failed to have definite aim or conclusion toward which his teaching was directed, and the words or questions he used in his instruction moved without deviation toward the accomplishment of this aim.  He was too clear, too deeply in earnest, and too completely the master of what he was teaching ever to wander, or be uncertain or to waste time and opportunity.  He felt too compelling a love for those he taught ever to fail at his task.