UNMISTAKABLY the work and message of Jesus of Nazareth had to do with the every-day lives of those around him. Great and good and exalted he truly was, yet when Peter's wife's mother was "sick of a fever" he went to her and healed her. The wayside beggar received his loving attention, the rabble and crowd which had dogged his footsteps for several days were considered compassionately by him, so much so that he applied himself to the task of relieving their hunger, even bidding them "sit down" that they might partake of the food in comfort.
The one who could say, "I and my Father are one," the one who could speak to the storm and cause it to be still, was the same man who voluntarily healed the wretched cripple lying in impotent squalor at the pool of Bethesda. The speaker who uttered the majestic and heart-searching truths of the Sermon on the Mount was not above touching the leprous stranger, nor did he turn aside from the call of blind Bartimeus. His enemies said of him that he was the "friend of publicans and sinners," and so truly described him. He was their friend, patient with their faults and weaknesses, mingling with them in the streets of the towns, walking with them the dusty roads of the country, laboring always to awaken their understanding to that truth which should be their one worth-while possession.
Nineteen centuries have passed since Jesus walked the earth. Today as it was in ancient Galilee, blind beggars beseech alms, the unclean strive to hide their sores, the multitudes hunger and faint by the wayside, the lame wait in vain for the troubling of the waters. As in those times, there are today many doctrines and systems of men, many learned schools twisting arguments this way and that, many conclaves of solemnity and ceremony. Today charity is plenteous, learning of the material sort abounds; but still the average man, the unit of that vast body known as the common people, the worker, toiling on more or less blindly and dumbly from day to day, listens with dull ears, and in his heart there is the insistent question, What real help is there for me, for my everyday labor, my every-day temptations and struggles, for the destruction of my fear and despair?
