Commenting upon the life of Cromwell and the universal enthusiasm with which Charles II was welcomed back to resume his rule over England, Mr. Balfour is reported to have said recently that "if the Great Commoner failed, and with all his genius it is manifest that he did fail, it is not because he was indifferent to the traditions of his country . . . but because by the force of circumstances . . . he found himself compelled to break with those traditions, formally and absolutely;" and from this he counseled that those who wish to make the best of the future must never ignore the past, but look to it "with reverence and respect." This putting of the question of the attitude of would-be reformers toward past teachings, convictions, and achievements is worthy of thoughtful consideration. Generally speaking, one of the most serious obstacles to a progressive movement is the fact that, however commendable it may be, the radicalism of some of its exponents is not tempered with reverence or respect for traditions which many deem sacred. As a result of the undiscriminating and unsympathetic speech of its representatives, the idea comes to be looked upon as destructive rather than constructive, as unscientific and hence unwise, a menace and not a means to progress.
The history of reforms has thus disclosed the disposition of men to attach either too much or too little value to the past, to regard its dictum as final and supremely authoritative, or to judge it from a narrow, provincial point of view; and one of the most marked aspects of the life of the Master is found in the steadiness and sanity of his poise in this respect. The impulse awakened by conservative resistance to new ideas has often blinded those who have espoused them to the worth of anything which pertained to the old order, and they have indulged in that irreverent criticism which tends to intensify passion and estrangement. Not so did Christ Jesus. He saw the very great removal of the Judaism of his day from the teaching of Moses and the prophets, and he must have foreseen that the temple service would pass away, that not one stone would be left upon another, in the conquests of that more vital, more spiritual apprehension of divine Truth which he had brought to the world; and yet again and again he showed how much he reverenced "the law and the prophets." Until denied the privilege by the rabidity of the Pharisees, he seems to have gone regularly to the synagogue on the Sabbath day. It was zeal for the maintenance of the purity of the temple service that impelled him to overthrow the tables of the money changers with an abandon which reminded his disciples, as St. John tells us, of David's words, "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." To the leper whom he had healed, as Matthew relates, he said, "Go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them."
In these and other instances Christ Jesus gave evidence of his recognition of the worth of the old when rightly related to the new, and this ability to embrace the entire spectrum of revelation, the unfoldment of truth in human consciousness, and to recognize the unity of all values, past, present, and future, speaks for our Lord's spiritual apperception, and his exaltation above his fellows. He honored and loved the true, the beautiful, and the good, wherever found. Despite their misapprehensions and mistakes, he appreciated all that his forebears had accomplished through their loyalty to their highest understanding, and he sought to conserve and utilize every thread of gold to be found in the rifts of the nation's perfunctory ritualism. At the same time he hesitated not to declare that higher sense of truth whose verity he had demonstrated. He separated the tares from the wheat and treasured the latter as a precious heritage which had not suffered in the least because of its association with its unlikeness in the field of human understanding.
