The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-01-22
TIE INTOLERANCE OF JESUS


 There is temptation to make a virtue of intolerance. I have no doubt that the in- quisitor of the middle ages deemed himself much misunderstood individual. He was intolerant, of course, but then it was right for him to be so, for he was right, and the helpless victim on the rack was wrong. No doubt this inquisitor remembered the times when Jesus was intolerant, and deemed him self linked in spirit with the Blessed Saw jour- Of course it did no good to suggest to the bigot as he turned the thumb-screw that the tortured one thought himself right. The bgot did not think he was right he knew And intolerance to him became Q virtue.
 Now, this is the chief difference between Jesus and the bigot; Jesus did know that He was right, while the inquisitor only, thought he knew. The intolerance of Jesus was on the sure foundation of divine cer- tainty while that of the bigot rested on the uncertain sands of human liability to error. Jesus could say, m am the Truth" while the bigot could but murmur, "I think this is the truth" The bigot's intolerance would have been as the Saviours had he had the Saviour's love and God-like wisdom. These he did not have. These he has not now. Human intolerance springs from a heart, which is satisfied as to its own righteousness, and this is the very kind of heart which Jesus did most bitterly condemn
 Who were the people with whom Jesus was intolerant? It was not the woman taken in adultery. With her He was tender Neither do I condemn thee Go and sin T. ~ 4I.- Al.; IL. To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise" It was not with those who violated the Sab bath law of Moses. He Himself violated it again and again. It was not with those who danced for there was music and dancing in the fathers house when the prodigal son returned (Luke xv:25). Jesus was not intoerant in His dealing with these. With | the sinners He sympathized, and He joyed 1 in the light-hearted happiness of youth. It was when Jesus turned to the dominant | factors in the religious life of His day that | He grew intolerant. Toward these His bit | terness knew no bounds. Read from the twenty-third chapter of St. Matthew's | gospel: Woe unto you, Scribes and Phari- sees for ye shut up the kingdom of | heaven against men. =. Woe unto you | Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites-for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. | Ye blind guides, which strain at gnat and | swallow a camel, for ye make clean | the outside of the cup but within are full of extortion and excess. -. Even so ye also outwardlM appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. =. Ye garnish the sepulchres of the righ- teous and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been par takers with them in the blood of the proph- | cts. .. =. Ye be witnesses unto yourselves that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. How can ye escape the
 damnation of hell?"
 l These are but scattered extracts from the most bitter invective ever penned. Get your | New Testament and read it all-thought- fully. It tells of the intolerance of Christ | toward those who loved the chief seats in the synagogues, who controlled the weak willed Pilate through the Sanhedrin, and who sought to make men religious by the process | of the law. These were the ones toward whom Jesus was intolerant, and because He | was intolerant, they slew Him. ' MIDDLETON s. FAREWELL.