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The Seventh Lesson: The Beginning of the End.1027
the fishes, demanding to be fed and clothed without their own work—the
seekers after miracles, demanding fresh wonder-workings—have ever been
the bane of the great Teachers of the Truth. It is a hard and bitter truth, but
all teachers and true lovers of the Truth must learn to meet and understand
it. The mob which reveres a spiritual Master today is equally ready to rend
him to pieces tomorrow.
And still more trouble arose from this mistaken kindness which led Jesus
to feed the crowd by His occult powers, which, by the way, He knew to be
in opposition to the well-established custom of the Occult Brotherhoods.
The formalists, Pharisees and Scribes, having heard of the occurrence,
gathered about the Master and accused Him of violating one of the forms
and ceremonies prescribed by the ecclesiastical authorities—the rite which
required the faithful to wash their hands before beginning a meal. They
accused Him of heresy and false teaching, which tended to lead the people
away from their accustomed ceremonies and observances. Jesus waxed
indignant and, turning on His critics, hurled burning replies upon them. “Ye
hypocrites!” He cried, “You cling to the commandments of men and neglect
the commandments of God! You cleanse your hands but not your souls! You
are the blind leaders of the blind, and both yourselves and your followers
fall in the mire and ditches! Away with you and your hypocrisy!” But the
adverse comment aroused by His actions would not down, and, discouraged
and disheartened by the evidences of the barrenness of the soil in which He
had been sowing the precious seeds of the Truth, He gathered together His
followers and departed into Tyre and Sidon, a quieter region, that He might
rest and meditate over new plans and work. He could see the beginning of
the end.
To understand the nature of the position of the Master at this time, it
must be remembered that His strong hold had ever been with the masses
of the people, who were His enthusiastic admirers. So long as He remained
entrenched in the heart of the populace, the temporal and ecclesiastical
authorities dared not attack Him without a popular uprising of no mean