Christ the Teacher's Pattern.
STUDY diligently the character of Christ as a teacher. Observe how he accommodated his instructions to the wants, the prejudices, the understanding of the people; how he availed himself of their habits and customs, their occupations and history, to give form and force to his instructions. He descended to their level, and showed himself their friend. He encouraged their questions, and solved them, when proper, without seeking their applause of his wisdom, or asserting his superiority. He was firm, decided, bold, yet gentle, patient, and unobtrusive. He approached men as they were, and remembered their prejudices and their ignorances. His teaching was uniformly natural; his illustration of truth plain and forcible; his exhortations were not empty phrases, urging his hearers to duties they did not understand; his instruction and advice always went together. He was intelligible to every sincere hearer, and impressed his doctrines by motives and arguments which commended themselves to every unseared conscience. He exemplified in his own life all that he taught. His sincerity was never made questionable by levity of manner, flagging of interest, or wavering of purpose. He was not discouraged by his little success, nor provoked by the incredulity with which his assertions were received, nor disheartened by the inconstancy of his disciples. He truly was "a teacher sent from God;" and let all who bear that office keep their eye fixed on the one model of all perfection. The grand characteristic of his teaching was simplicity. The language he used was fitted to the youngest and most illiterate of his hearers. With a mind qualified to baffle all the learning of the scribes and the wisdom of the philosophers, he used the plainest speech of the country, and loved to make his instructions familiar to his hearers by referring to the most common subjects of their observation and by employing the simplest allegories and comparisons to fix his lessons in their memory. "The common people heard him gladly."—The Teacher Taught.