SOMEONE has called the Sermon on the Mount "the world's masterpiece of true wisdom." Men of all creeds, and men of no creed, admit that there is nothing in the whole realm of literature to compare with the wisdom embodied in its wonderful verses. Had our Master and Way-shower spoken nothing else, this sermon would be sufficient in itself to constrain mankind to recognize in him the supreme Teacher of the world. Just as the stars pale at the rising of the sun, so other teachers grow small when compared with the wonder of this Teacher, of whom it was written, "Never man spake like this man."
Jesus had chosen his twelve disciples, and vast multitudes, gathered from the surrounding country, awaited him, beseeching him to heal their sick whom they had brought with them; and we read that he healed them all. Then followed his wonderful discourse.
With what wisdom our beloved Leader has given us for the first lessons in the Sunday school the Ten Commandments, a portion of the Sermon on the Mount, and the Lord's Prayer with her spiritual interpretation. The law of the Old Testament, as expressed in the Ten Commandments, was the utterance of the same God who speaks to us by Christ Jesus. The same law reappears in the Sermon on the Mount, but deepened and developed. The sermon opens with the Beatitudes, which form the vestibule, so to speak, into this great temple of Truth; and "Blessed" is the word which is written over the portal. The Beatitudes are couched in such gracious words that it is certain we can never exhaust them.
