In His Image

by William Jennings Bryan

In the Sermon on the Mount, in which He embodied such a wealth of moral precept and spiritual counsel, He warned against investments in that which would divert the affections from the great purpose of life. "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven." "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." It was the heart that He dealt with—always the heart, in which man does his decisive thinking and out of which are "the issues of life."

The Master dealt with the beginnings of evil. He did not wait until the sin had been completed or the wrong accomplished. He cut out the bad purpose at its birth before it had time to develop. He says:

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell (Matt. 3: 29).

This may seem like a harsh doctrine and yet it is merely an application to morals of a salutary principle that all understand when applied by the surgeon. A finger is often removed in order to save the hand; a hand is removed to save the arm; and an arm is removed to save the body. An eye, too, is often removed to save the sight of the remaining eye. Is eye or arm or body more important than the soul?

Christ understood relative values in the spiritual world. He used the material things in life to illustrate values in the realm of the ideal; He used the things that are seen to make understandable the eternal things that the senses cannot comprehend.

And what called forth this powerful illustration—the sacrificing of the right eye and the right hand to save the body? He was laying the foundation for a great moral reform, namely, the single standard of morality. He was attacking a great sin and, as usual, He laid the axe at the root of the tree. He was dealing with adultery and He traced the sin to its source. He would purge the heart of the unclean thought; He would put a ban on the desire before it found vent in accomplishment. He turned the thought from the body to the heart and to the soul.

And He not only warned men against harbouring the seeds of this sin but He rebuked them for injustice in dealing more harshly with woman than they did with themselves. He did not condone sin; He forgave it, and accompanied forgiveness with the injunction, "Sin no more."

Christ dignified childhood next to womanhood. One of His most beautiful lessons was woven about a child which He summoned from the crowd. The child's faith was made the test—"Except ye be converted and become as little children ye shall not enter into the kingdom." And again, "Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

His depth of affection—His longing for souls—is beautifully set forth in Matthew 23: 37 when He uses the most familiar object in the animal kingdom to express His solicitude: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!"

And yet this gentle spirit who would not break a bruised reed—who went about doing good—was wont to blaze forth with hot indignation against sordidness and systematized injustice. Hear His fierce denunciation of the "scribes, Pharisees and hypocrites" who devoured widows' houses and for a pretense made long prayers; and behold Him casting the money-changers out of the temple because they had turned the house of prayer into a den of thieves.