neath the pitiless sunlight, but they will not have stoned the adultery out of her protesting heart. Forgive her, and a new woman is created in her, who goes away to sin no more. To treat her thus is to redeem her; to treat her in any other way, to deepen her degradation and confirm her ruin.

And in yet one other thing Christ revolutionizes our notions of justice. He is quick to recognize that this woman, odious as she may seem, is nevertheless a victim. The sin she did was only hers in part, but the punishment is to be hers alone. How significant of that false morality which rules the world is the action of these men, who are so eager to stone a guilty woman, but have no word to say about the guilty man! Him they exculpate, her they treat as beyond all pardon; and such is still the practice of society. But Christ, by His conduct, reverses this partial verdict, shifts the centre of gravity, puts the crown of infamy on the right brows, and stands beside this crushed and cowering creature as the implacable avenger of the wrongs of women. He says in effect, "You have brought me a fallen woman; where is the fallen man? You have brought me a wronged woman; where is he who did the wrong? Are ye indeed unfallen? With God there is no respect of persons, still less of sexes. Let him that is without sin of thought or act cast the first stone." The effect of that speech was terrible and immediate. Hardened as these men were, yet they could not but admit what all rational men admit if they will reflect-that the only equitable basis of society is that which puts men and women on precisely the same moral terms. Christ invited them to stand beside this woman, if they dared; to lift up their eyes to meet His searching glance, if they could; and to answer whether in their hearts they could say that justice would be done in the death of this woman while the worse criminal went unscathed. And they could not reply.

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They which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last; and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst."

The Pharisees were not men used to giving up an argument without a struggle. In many a previous encounter with Christ they had stood their ground with thorough Jewish obstinacy, and had been too proud to own themselves defeated. But there are times when argument is of no avail, because it is not a mental but a moral crisis which overwhelms men. They are overtaken by the fierce lightning of Heaven, and have no time to run for shelter. The light that shines upon them is so vivid, so searching and tremendous, that their whole life is illumined by it, and they are forced to see what they least desire to see. When a great modern dramatist would depict these hours of intense self-revelation he does so by a series of highly imaginative symbols. The wretched man who has wasted his life in extravagance and vanity hears upon the mountain-side wailing voices of little children, which cry to him, "We are thoughts: thou shouldst have thought us!" Withered leaves sweep past him on the accursed air, murmuring, "We are watch-words: thou shouldst have planted us!" Music, full of ineffable regret, sighs on his ears, "We are songs: thou shouldst have sung us"; and the very dewdrops on the mountain-side are tears of pity that were never shed. It was the peculiar power of Christ to make men feel these keen regrets, not by elaborate images, but by single words. He speaks so quietly that men think it is their own hearts that speak. He suggests conclusions which we imagine are our own. He does so in this case, and no one can study Christ's treatment of the unchaste without feeling how right He is. Even the Pharisees felt it. They realized that the woman they had accused had

become their accurser; the Christ they would have snared had become their judge. Their silent departure from the scene, each with bowed head and fearful heart, was the admission that the new principles of justice enunciated by Christ were the only true principles. The songs they might have sung, the thoughts they might have thought, they heard that day upon the lips of Christ, and they knew them for the loftiest truth that man can know.

Sooner or later the world must accept these revolutionary principles of Christ, if society is to live. Christ spoke too early by two thousand years. He Himself admitted that He had much to say which the world could not bear as yet. In spiritual vision, as in physical vision, "there is a gradual adaptation of the retina to various amounts of light." We must not despair because this process is so gradual that it appears almost imperceptible. It is a dangerous error to remit any social idea of Christ, however startling, to the category of "charming impossibilities." As the world

learns, by the constant failure of its judicial codes, the folly of punishment as a means of repressing crime, it may come to see that forgiveness is a better remedy. As it reaps the fearful aftermath of war, it may become suspicious of the doctrine that armed force is necessary for the welfare of society. As it is confronted more and more with its own injustices, it may prefer a general amnesty to wrong to methods of government which create fresh wrong for every wrong they crush. Finally, illumined and enriched through its illusions, the world may come to see that love alone is the one vital principle by which society can thrive. Two thousand years of experiment and error will then seem a light price to have paid for that golden age which will begin when man at last is brought to realize that "love worketh no ill to his neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law."

CHAPTER XX

THE FULLER EXPOSITION OF SOCIAL TRUTHS

THE final portion of the ministry of Jesus may be traced with tolerable accuracy. He left Galilee in the October of the last year of His life, in order to be present at the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem, remaining in Jerusalem until the Feast of Dedication, which took place in December. He then departed into Perea, returning to Bethany, at the risk of His life, in order to raise Lazarus from the dead. Immediately after this event He retired to the secluded district of Ephraim, which lay about fifteen miles north of Jerusalem. “Jesus walked no more openly among the Jews, but went thence into a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with His disciples." A brief journey through the familiar districts of Samaria and Galilee followed. In the beginning of April He arrived at Bethany, and six days later He was crucified by the order of Pontius Pilate.

The crowning significance of this final section of Christ's life is curiously attested in the construction of the Gospels. If we take the Transfiguration as marking the sublime preface to the closing scenes, we find that the greatest teachings of Christ happened after this event, and from this point we have a narrative of much greater fulness and detail. To the acts and teachings of this last six months Matthew devotes one-third of his entire Gospel, Mark nearly one-half, Luke more than one-half, and John no less than three-fourths. Each evangelist thus betrays his consciousness that it was in

the climax of His life that Christ was best known.

All that had gone before was preliminary and prelusive. His thoughts now take a final form, His views of the world and society are vindicated by experience, His verdicts are decisive.

These last utterances of Christ are mainly concerned with Himself and His redemptive mission; with the fuller exposition of social truths; and with the idea of a final judgment. We may postpone the consideration of the first of these topics, because the narrative of the last days is its completest exposition; and of the last, because the social teachings are naturally precedent of the teachings upon judgment. By the social teachings of Christ we mean those counsels which aimed at a fresh construction of society. It was with such teachings that Christ opened His career. The whole Sermon on the Mount is an impeachment of society. His own life and conduct is a yet stronger impeachment. He is brought into contact, at every point in His ministry, with two systems of society, the Jewish and the Roman, each of which He finds is composed of elements which are hostile to human happiness. The one is based upon religion, yet so completely misinterpreted religion that its whole spirit is harsh in the extreme; the other is based upon a frank materialism, in which the spirit of religion has no part. Each had succeeded in establishing a tyranny under which man was crushed. The Roman especially had built up a world-wide tyranny, which his own truest philosophers were powerless to resist. The very power of protest had been silenced. A weight of horrible monotony oppressed the entire ancient world. The life which we see at a distance as so gay and splendid was in reality full of that peculiar dreariness which attends the loss of high ideals. Wise men felt that the whole social system was in decay, without being able to put their finger on the root of the disease; common and ignorant men