petual illustration of his own words, the interpretation of the deeper spiritual enigmas.

And yet there is an important sense in which the preaching of Jesus was strangely unworldly. It was not such discourse as in Greece made orators famous. So devoid was it of secular elements, that one would not know from it that Palestine was overrun with foreigners, that the iron hand and iron heel of Rome wellnigh pressed the life out of the nation, that the provinces were glowing with luxuries, cities everywhere springing up, while the people, ground down by extortion, were becoming wretched and desperate. Jesus was a Jew, susceptible and sympathetic to a remarkable degree. There was never such a field for patriotic oratory. But amid insurrections cruelly quelled, amid the anguish of his people, he let fall no single word of secular eloquence. Amidst the tumults of war and the prodigalities of foreign luxury and wasteful dissipation was heard the calm discourse of heavenly themes. It was of the soul, of that new and possible soul, that he spake,—and so spake that all the nation took heed, and the sordid common people, rushing after him for bread, paused, listened, and, wondering, declared "he speaks with authority." Something more critical of his method of discourse we shall submit by and by. Here we only point out the eminent unworldliness of it, and the introduction of a searching personal element unknown before, but now so much a part of Christianity that we fail to appreciate its originality in Christ. We mean the individualizing of discourse to each heart, so that every man felt that it was addressed to him, concerning himself, — his spiritual self.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. THE BEATITUDES.

HE customs of his country would naturally lead Jesus to

THE

be much abroad, and he seems to have had a peculiar love for the open fields. His journeys, his habits of teaching by the way, his frequent resorting to the sea-side and to the solitude of the hills, impress one with the belief that he loved the open air far more than the house or the street. It is certain that while at Capernaum he had sought out places of seclusion, and had his own familiar haunts. These were not simply for rest to the body, but also for meditation and for communion with his Father. Wherever he went, Jesus found out these natural sanctuaries; while for the benefit of others he often taught in synagogues and in the Temple, for his own refreshment he loved better the wilderness, the lake-shore, the hill-top, the shaded ravine, or the twilight of the olive-groves.

The

Such a resort he found on the summit of Mount Hattin, a hill rising from the plain about seven miles southwesterly from Capernaum. It was more an upland than a mountain. two horns, or summits, rise only sixty feet above the table-lands - which constitute the base, and the whole elevation is but about a thousand feet above the level of the sea. From the summit toward the east one may look over the Sea of Galilee, and northward, along the broken ranges, to the snow-clad peaks of Lebanon.1

1 "This mountain, or hill, for it only rises sixty feet above the plain, — is that known to pilgrims as the Mount of the Beatitudes, the supposed scene of the Sermon on the Mount. The tradition cannot lay claim to any early date; it was in all probability suggested first to the Crusaders by its remarkable situation. But that situation so strikingly coincides with the intimations of the Gospel narrative as almost to force the inference that in this instance the eyes of those who selected the spot were for once rightly directed. It is the only height seen in this direction from the shores of the Lake of Gen

Returning from a preaching tour, Jesus, and with him the immense and motley throng that now everywhere pressed upon him, reached this neighborhood at evening. Not waiting for his voluntary blessings, the multitudes sought to touch his very garments, that they might receive benefit from that virtue which seemed to emanate from his person. Gliding from among them as the shadows fell, he hid himself from their importunity in some part of the mountain. Here he spent the night in prayer.

There is no part of the history of Jesus that stirs the imagination more profoundly than these solitary nights, in lonely places, spent in prayer. It surely was not a service of mere recitation, nor such implorations as the soul, wounded by sin, full of fear and remorse, pours out before God. We must conceive of it as a holy conference with God. He who came down from heaven again returns to its communion. Weighed down and impaired by evil, the soul of man sometimes rises above the consciousness of its bodily condition, and rejoices in an almost accomplished liberty. Much more may we suppose that in these hours of retirement the sinless soul of the Saviour, loosed from all consciousness of physical fatigue, hunger, or slumberous languor, rejoined its noble companions, tasted again its former liberty, and walked with God. But we can hardly suppose that in these exalted hours he forgot those who all day long tasked his sympathy. Did not he who on the cross prayed for his enemies, on the mountain pray for his friends? Did not he who now "ever liveth to make intercession" for his follow

esareth. The plain on which it stands is easily accessible from the lake, and from that plain to the summit is but a few minutes' walk. The platform at the top is evidently suitable for the collection of a multitude, and corresponds precisely to the 'level place' (Luke vi. 17, mistranslated 'plain') to which he would come down' as from one of its higher horns to address the people. Its situation is central both to the peasants of the Galilean hills and the fishermen of the Galilean lake, between which it stands, and would therefore be a natural resort both to Jesus and his disciples (Matthew iv. 25 — v. 1) when they retired for solitude from the shores of the sea, and also to the crowds who assembled from Galilee, from Decapolis, from Jerusalem, from Judæa, and from beyond Jordan.' None of the other mountains in the neighborhood could answer equally well to this description, inasmuch as they are merged into the uniform barrier of hills round the lake, whereas this stands separate, 'the mountain,' — which alone could lay claim to a distinct name, with the exception of the one height of Tabor, which is too distant to answer the requirements.” STANLEY'S Sinai and Palestine, pp. 360, 361 (2d ed. 368, 369).