Page 77 - HSLChristmasAnthology

HSL Christmas Anthology page 77

198 SAINT BERNARD AND OTHER PAPERS

to do to him. He recommended the most entire trust
in God. The people came to him in great crowds, and
loved to hear him speak; for in those days nobody
preached such doctrines — or indeed any doctrines
with such power to convince and persuade earnest men.
The people heard him gladly, and followed him from
place to place, and could not hear enough of him and
his new form of religion — so much did it commend
itself to simple-hearted women and men. Some of
them wanted to make him their king.But while the people loved him, the great men of

his time — the great ministers in the Hebrew Church,
and the great politicians in the Hebrew State — hated
him, and were afraid of him. No doubt some of these
ministers did not understand him, but yet meant well
in their opposition ; for if a man had all his life been
thinking about the " best manner of circumcision," or
about " the mode of kneeling in prayer," he would
be wholly unable to understand what Jesus said about
love to God and to man. But no doubt some of them
knew he was right, and hated him all the more for that
very reason. When they talked in their libraries, they
admitted that they had no faith in the old forms of
religion; but when they appeared in public they made
broad their phylacteries, and enlarged the borders of
their garments; and when they preached in their pul
pits, they laid heavy burdens on men's shoulders, and
grievous to be borne. The same thing probably took
place then which has happened ever since ; and they
who had no faith in God or man were the first to accuse
this religious genius with being an infidel.So, one night, they seized Jesus, tried him before

daylight next morning, condemned him, and put him to
death. The seizure, the trial, the execution, were not