But what they would not do, God himself would.  God in Christ had come to feed his own flock, and to seek the lost sheep, and bring them gently home to God’s fold.  He could feel for these poor wild foresters and mountain shepherds; he could understand what was in their hearts; for he knew the heart of man; and, therefore, he could make them understand him.  And it was for this very reason, one might suppose, that our Lord was willing to be brought up at Nazareth, that he might learn the country speech, and country ways, and that the people might grow to look on him as one of themselves.  Those Scribes and Pharisees, one may suppose, were just the people whom they could not understand; fine, rich scholars, proud people talking very learnedly about deep doctrines.  The country folk must have looked at them as if they belonged to some other world, and said,—­Those Pharisees cannot understand us, any more than we can them, with their hard rules about this and that.  Easy enough for rich men like them to make rules for poor ones.  Indeed our Lord said the very same of them—­’Binding heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and laying them on men’s shoulders; while they themselves would not touch them with one of their fingers.’

Then the Lord himself came and preached to these poor wild folk, and they heard him gladly.  And why?  Because his speech was too deep for them?  Because he scolded and threatened them?  No.

We never find that our Lord spoke harshly to them.  They had plenty of sins, and he knew it:  but it is most remarkable that the Evangelists never tell us what he said about those sins.  What they do tell us is, that he spoke to them of the common things around them, of the flowers of the field, the birds of the air, of sowing and reaping, and feeding sheep; and taught them by parables, taken from the common country life which they lived, and the common country things which they saw; and shewed them how the kingdom of God was like unto this and that which they had seen from their childhood, and how earth was a pattern of heaven.  And they could understand that.  Not all of it perhaps:  but still they heard him gladly.  His preaching made them understand themselves, and their own souls, and what God felt for them, and what was right and wrong, and what would become of them, as they never felt before.  It is plain and certain that the country people could understand Christ’s parables, when the Scribes and Pharisees could not.  The Scribes and Pharisees, in spite of all their learning, were those who were without (as our Lord said); who had eyes and could not see, and ears and could not hear, for their hearts were grown fat and gross.  With all their learning, they were not wise enough to understand the message which God sends in every flower and every sunbeam; the message which Christ preached to the poor, and the poor heard him gladly; the message which he confirmed to them by his miracles.  For what were his miracles