Who has not discovered among poor and humble folk a strange
and beautiful lenience, the lenience of a great compassion, towards
those sins which in more artificial conditions of society are held to
justify the most violent condemnation, and do indeed close the heart to
pity? In poor men's huts beside the Sea of Galilee Jesus Himself had
found love, love in all its divine daring, lenience, and magnanimity,
and He knew that among people like these He would be understood. He
also knew that the only people fitted to interpret His doctrine of
sovereign love to the world were these simple folk of the lake and
field, and therefore to them He committed His Gospel, and from them He
chose His disciples.
It needed a peasant Christ to teach these things, for no other could
have imagined them, no other could have had the daring and simplicity
to utter them. A peasant Christ He was, living, thinking, and acting
as a peasant even in His highest moments of inspiration. It was
because He always remained a peasant that He was able to see so clearly
the defects of that more intricate social system to which His ministry
introduced Him. He brought with Him a new scale of values, which He
had learned in the school of a more primal life than could be found in
cities. Nature always spoke in Him, convention never.
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