' The evil is null, is nought, a silence implying sound.'
And much of the Lord's teaching shows that the sense of form and the feeling for language which belong to them were His in a remarkable degree. Perhaps it was not entirely the power of His own personality', nor yet the substance of what He said, but also in part the music of its expression, that enabled Him so often to throw a spell over His hearers: e.g. 'AH bare him witness, and wondered at the words of grace which proceeded out of Ills mouth' (Lk 4~); 'The people all hung upon him, listening ' (lO-**) ; ' The officers answered, Never man so spake ' (Jn 1^). 'There is, of course, the truest ix)etry in man\' of His sayings and in His parables ; and His teaching teems with flashes of imagery such as only the highest poetry presents. Even in form of language some of His savings lack little of the rhythm and music of poetical expression. But we have to remember that He wTote nothing that remains, and that nothing has been reported in His original words. The best we can expect to find in the NT is a good and faithful translation ; and who can ti-anslate poetry ? But a doubt must remain whether any literary vehicle could carry the full poetic inspira- tion of the Lord Jesus. Poems, however truly living, are the reflexions of life. The Life itself was inherent in Him (Jn 52B), and He came to impart it, not to reflect it (IQiO). So His 'poems' {Tciiu.a.Ta.) are the souls which, generation after generation. He has created anew, the ideals which have trans- formed, and are transforming, the world : even as St. Paul said of his disciples, ' Ye are an epistle of Christ ministered \>y us, wTitten not with ink, but with the Spirit of the li^^ng God' (■2 Co 3<*). See, further, art. Poet.
6. There are some things more properly described, perhaps, as features of character than as mental characteristics, but the distinction is such a naiTow one, being a difference in the point of view and not in the facts, that thej- must be mentioned, tiiough as briefly as possible. The profound rever- ence, of Jesus' mind is one. Not only does this appear in every relation to His Father in heaven, and in the way He taught His disciples to look up to Him, btit also in His delicate respect for all those who .sought His help, and the sensitive regard He showed for the spiritual responsibility of each person, on which He never trenched. Another is His simplicity. He loved a simple life in outward things, rebuking Martha for her too ample proHsion Aviien so little was needful (Lk 10^'), and teaching His followers to spend little care on the wealth and comfort which He held so lightly, and to pray onlj- for ' daily bread.' Bitt simplicity is still more strik- ingly characteristic of the nature and process of His mind. Though more than any other that has ever lived He was 'many-sided,' He never gave the impression of a complicated nature. "With the directness of a child He always turned to the point in hand ; and no one was ever more free from that hesitancy which is so often found in those who are the best able to see both sides of a question. With sympathy unfailing and unlimited. He still was simple, and could put the loftiest thoughts into simple terms. That is always a characteristic of a really great — though not of every great — mind : never was an in.stance of it comparable with this one. Clo-sely akin to this is the fact that Jesus was never disconcerted or bewildered, nor did He
ever lose presence of mind in the most difficult or dangerous situations. Kather, in times of trial, there was a heightening of His serenity of mind ; for trial and sorrow made stronger appeal to His faith, which was alwaj's responsive, .u'? fj-^rewpL- ffo-^e was a counsel most characteristic of Him (Lk 12-"^) ; and it was this habitual trust in the Father that enabled Him in the veiy hour of impending agony to make Hi> followers the be- quest of peace— His peace (Jn 14-*^ 16-^).
7. Two matters of importance remain to be men- tioned, distinct but bj- no means unconnected — (a) Jesus' chrtmct eristic outlook upon life, and (6) His method as the Saviour of the icorld.
(a) One cannot escape the feeling that while others look only at the surface of life, the Master looked through its surface and saw its depth : we see life usually in two dimensions. He looked at it in three, and so saw reality. Of course, from His standpoint all its proportions were veiy dif- ferent from those which appear to us. The most striking expression of what is meant is to be fotmd in Browning's description of Lazarus as given in the Epistle of Karshish. But while Browning had learnt the nature of this larger view, converting all proportions, from Him who called back Lazarus to earth, he represents it as a double prospect in Lazams, with none of that translucent unity which is its essential feattue in the Lord Jesus. The Beatitudes are an instance. Their chief effect, and it cannot be doubted their chief pui-pose, is to set the hearer on a new standjjoint, and so enable him to gain a new view of life. It is no paradox that the poor are blest, while all men congratulate the rich ; and this is not said to give emphasis to the aspect which is too much over- looked. It is simply the truth of life, seen as the ej-es of the Lord Jesus saw it when He looked round on His disciples gathered there, all destitute of earth's possessions, but with a light in their eager faces as they ' hung upon him listening ' which told of the ' righteousness and peace and joy in holy inspiration' which showed that theirs was the Kingdom of God (Ro 14'"). All whose reading of experience goes deep can see, or partly see, why He counted son-ow blest, and gentleness, mercy, purity, and love the treasures of man's real enriclmient. Another instance is the prayer He gave to His disciples when they felt the need of being taught how to praj-. There is an unearthli- ness in it, and a grasp on the real depths of life, such as no other prajers disclose. God's glorj-, and His Kingdom, and the joy of fulfilling His will, fill up all the foreground ; and the remainder of the view includes brief mention of bare needs here, and then fuller appeal for the deeper needs of forgiveness, and of the shelter of Him who is our 'shield and our exceeding great reward.' Hardly less striking is the way in which He enforced the duty of simple truthfttlness, His words calling up vividly the awful picture of the Evil One leaning over the soul that talks loosely, to \Ay it with ' suggestions ' Avhich then find unsuspecting utter- ance as readily as those which the hy}lnoti^^t gives to liis uncon.'^cious ' subject ' (Mt 5^', with which of. Lk 2'2^'). There were times when the Lord expressed .'^trongly this contra.'^t betAveen the view Avhich men took of life and that which He took (Lk 16^^), but more often His reference is a mere allusion. The difi'erence culminated in that most characteristic and central idea on which He .'io often dwelt, that a man must ' lose his life to find it' (Mk %^-^\\ cf. Mt lu**, Lk IT^^, Jn 12-^). Death itself was accordingly transfigured in Jesus' eyes : it neither put a limit to life nor made a breacli which destroyed its continuity. Death was for Him ' sleej) ' ; a slee]) from which He awaked more than one, and from wiiich 'in the