AMONG the very last verses of the Bible is a message from the life of Jesus, describing him as "the root and the offspring of David." A hasty glance at the respective careers of these two monumental characters along the line of spiritual advance, finds apparently little or no element in common. David was a "man of war," and for this reason was not permitted to build the temple at Jerusalem. Jesus stands for "peace, good will toward men." Nevertheless, the words from the Apocalypse just quoted, indicate that the revelator recognized something basic in the life of David which, while it made him the towering individuality of the most clearly defined epoch of Judaism, also rounded with the centuries into the still more determinative life of Jesus. A study of this parallelism, as apprehended in Christian Science, has proved distinctly profitable to the writer.
The words of the Master, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," together with the integrity of his practice, leave no doubt as to the Principle which he exemplified. The activity and power 'to which he attained through this vision of man as found in Spirit and not in the flesh, was so marvelous, so unique, so remote from the well-established experience of men, that many moderns have been inclined to look upon the story of Jesus of Nazareth as an interesting curio of Christian tradition, but of little use as a working model. It is therefore most refreshing to find this hint from John's vision on Patmos as to a working basis whereby much of Truth, Life, and Love was similarly individualized in the life of one so thoroughly human as the shepherd-boy of Bethlehem, the fighting king of Israel.
While the astonishing mastery of the elements on the waters of Galilee, and the crowning conquest of the flesh at Bethany, have continued to challenge the theistic dogmas of more than eighteen centuries, and fully fill up the "measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," the beautiful forbearance of David with the house of Saul, as representing the divine Principle in human government, and his unfailing magnanimity to his enemies, carry us back to the very kindergarten of Spirit as it were, and present the earlier lessons of the Christ-idea to every human life.
