Loyalty. Steadfastness to the cause he had espoused led Jesus to the cross.  Great characters do not ask what road is easy, but what way is right.  Where duty leads, the strong do not falter nor fail, cost what it may.  They see their task through to the end, though it mean that they die.

Sympathy. Jesus always understood.  His heart had eyes to see another’s need.  His love was as broad as the hunger of the human heart for comradeship.  We are never so much our best selves as when self is forgotten, and we enter into the joys or the sorrows of one who needs us.

Purity. Sin has its price for all it gives us.  We cannot stain our souls and find them white again.  We later reap whatever now we sow.  Jesus’s life of righteousness, lived amid temptations such as we all meet, is a challenge to every man who would be the captain of his own soul.

Sincerity. No man ever doubted that Jesus meant what he said.  No man ever accused him of acting a part.  His enemies, even, never found him misrepresenting or speaking other than the truth.  All truly fine characters can be trusted for utter sincerity of word, of purpose, and of deed.

Courage. Jesus was never more sublime than under conditions that test men’s courage.  Did he face hostile mob and servile judge? did he find himself misunderstood and deserted by those who had been his friends? must he bid his disciples a last farewell? did he see the shadow of the cross over his pathway?—­yet he never faltered.  His courage stood all tests.

Vision. A distinguishing quality of the great is their power to put first things first.  Jesus possessed a fine sense of values.  He willingly sold all he had that he might buy the pearl of great price.  His temptations to follow after lesser values left him unscathed, and he refused to command the stones to be made bread, or to do aught else that would turn him from his mission.

God-Consciousness. Those who have most left their impress upon the world and the hearts of men have not worked through their own power alone.  They have known how to link their lives to the infinite Source of power; the way has been open between their lives and God.  Jesus never for a moment doubted that all the resources of God were at his command, hence he had but to reach out and they were his.

* * * * *

It is evident, as before stated, that this functional definition of religion, this great program of living, cannot be thrust on the child all at once—­cannot be thrust on him at all.  But day after day and year after year throughout the period of his training the conviction should be taking shape in the child’s mind that these are the real things of life, the truest measure of successful living, the highest goals for which men can strive.  The definition of religion which he forms from his instruction should be broad enough to include these values and such others of similar kind as Christianity at its best demands.