152 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
any other man who has ever lived, also was a manual labourer, and the hands with which he grips the heartstrings of the world are hands that have been stained by toil.^
IT It is a significant fact that not a few high-minded thinkers of modern times, repelled by that insidious blight which works in scenes of frivolity and pomp, have gone forth to live in com- munities where all take equal share in tilling the soil, shaping the plough and loom, and putting the hand to tasks which are accounted mean. The names of Eobert Owen, Laurence Oliphant, Count Tolstoi, together with many men and women who have entered settlements to cultivate rural simplicity, stand for a movement which may yet change our chaotic civilisations. Not only is there an instinctive desire for the keener vitality which comes from strenuous, wholesome physical toil, but the restless sense of race-relations is appeased by such a programme of life. Under these primitive conditions some who have been born to luxury and unearned ease find themselves in more vivid sympathy with the rank and file of their fellow citizens.^
^ There is a pretty story told by Martin Luther of a good bishop who earnestly prayed that God would reveal to him some- thing more than the Bible tells about the childhood of Jesus. At last he had a dream. He dreamed that he saw a carpenter working with saws and hammers and planes, just like any carpenter, and beside him a little boy picking up chips. Then came a sweet-faced woman in a green dress, and called them both to dinner, and set porridge before them. All this the bishop saw in his dream, himself standing behind the door, that he might not be perceived. Then the little boy, spying him, cried out, " Why does that man stand there ? Shall he not eat of our porridge with us ? " Thereupon the bishop awoke. This charming little dream- fable carries with it a beautiful and an important truth. It is the carpenter's child who wanted all the world to share His porridge with Him, who has conquered the heart of humanity.^
2. He obliterated the distinction between the sacred and the secular. — No more effectual and impressive method could have been devised for abolishing the false distinction between the sacred and the secular than that of sending the great Messiah to spend the opening years of His manhood in a workshop. The official priesthood at one time put a huge barrier between the sanctuary and the work-a-day world, that needed to be broken down before the prophecies could be fulfilled. The Temple courts at Jerusalem had been hallowed by many a supernatural
1 C. E. Jefferson. * T, Q. Selby. » J. Halsey.
ST. MARK 153
vision of the Divine Glory, but the new theophany was to be in a scene of common toil. To make One who had wrought with His hands the all-commanding personality of His age, was to prepare men, by an ascending scale of amazement and faith, for the great mystery of His origin and of His after-reign of mediatorial power.
The necessity of secular work is sometimes spoken of among Christians as if it were an evil — a kind of degradation to them — at least a burden and a hindrance — something in spite of which they may retain their Christianity, but which can surely not be helpful to it, or form any part of it. Under the influence of such a feeling, some — especially fresh converts — would fain abandon their secular engagements altogether, and give themselves wholly to what they call a religious life — to meditation, and prayer, and preaching, and duties such as these. But does not the clear daylight of the text dispel such shadows and delusions of morbid or mistaken minds ? Jesus is here seen to set His holy seal on worldly work — to make it no more worldly — but Christian, Heavenly, Godlike. Was not His whole life like His seamless robe — of one perfect piece — all of it religious — all of it devoted to God — all of it gleaming alike with the fair colour of holiness ? Yet thirty years of it were expended in learning and doing the work of a carpenter, and only three in the sacred office of the Ministry.
^ As you gaze upon the earliest Christian pictures in the Eoman catacombs, you cannot fail to recognise that the concep- tion of Christ which was conveyed to the simple minds of the men of the second and third century by the gay and winsome figure of the Good Shepherd, with the happy sheep nestling on His shoulder, with the pastoral pipes in His hand, blooming in immortal youth, must be very different from that of the men of a later age, for whom the gracious and gentle Pastor has given place to the crucified Sufferer, depicted in countless aspects of misery and woe, from the gaunt and ghastly Crucifixes and Pietas and Entombments of the early Florentines, to the sublime dignities of Michael Angelo and Tintoret and Corregio.^
3. Jesus the carpenter has ennobled manual labour. — It may be said that this is a truism, and that the Gospel of " the dignity of labour " has become almost a cant. It is true the sentiment