Page:The way of Martha and the way of Mary (1915).djvu/310

288 and sinners is in the spirit of the East; the West prefers ever the company of the just. The West is glad to have the action of Jesus explained in the following verse: "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick."

"Provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in your purses." Alas, all Western weal believes that it is founded on gold. If any good work is to hand, the first thing is to raise a fund.

"When they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak . . .": this has always been most helpful to persecuted nonconformists and heretics.

"I came not to send peace, but a sword" is overlooked in the West. The West thinks that Christ proclaimed peace. And the peace that was before the Great War was thought to be a wonderful fruit of Christianity—the peace of mutual jealousy and fear, the great commercial peace of the twentieth century, that Kipling calls the "Peace of Dives":

The whole wide earth is laid

In the peace that I have made;

And behold, I wait on thee to trouble it.

"He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it": the West emphasises this thought. Carlyle gave it great force in his gospel of work. "Forget your troubles," says the West; "throw yourself into work and lose yourself—then you'll soon find yourself." The East will not work in that way.

"Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden" has been comfort to the West.

In the matter of healing on the Sabbath the Western is rather on the side of the Jews.

The question, "Who is my mother and who are my brethren?" has not been acceptable to the West. The West would have preferred Jesus to be a model family