Character and Conduct – 12 March – One by One

NOTHING is more characteristic of Jesus’ method than His indifference to the many – His devotion to the single soul.   His attitude to the public, and His attitude to a private person were a contrast and a contradiction.   If His work was likely to cause a sensation Jesus charged His disciples to let no man know it:  if the people got wind of Him, He fled to solitary places:  if they found Him, as soon as might be He escaped.   But He used to take young men home with Him, who wished to ask questions:  He would spend all night with a perplexed scholar:  He gave an afternoon to a Samaritan woman.   He denied Himself to the multitude:  He lay in wait for the individual.   This was not because He under-valued a thousand, it was because He could not work on the thousand scale:  it was not because He over-valued the individual, it was because His method was arranged for the scale of one.   Jesus never succeeded in public save once, when He was crucified:  He never failed in private save once, with Pontius Pilate.   His method was not sensation:  it was influence.   He did not rely on impulses:  He believed in discipline.   He never numbered converts, because He knew what was in man:  He sifted them, as one winnoweth the wheat from the chaff.   Spiritual statistics are unknown in the Gospels:   they came in with St. Peter in the pardonable intoxication of success:  they have since grown to be a mania.   As the Church coarsens she estimates salvation by quantity, how many souls are saved:  Jesus was concerned with quality, after what fashion they were saved.   His mission was to bring Humanity to perfection.

The Mind of the Master, Dr. JOHN WATSON.

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