June to May Author:Edward Everett Hale Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHRIST THE FRIEND. "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." — LUKE ii., 52. This is the statement of the very beginning,... more » and with unconscious simplicity all the Gospels carry it out to the very end. The people hear him gladly. They cannot resist the grace with which he speaks. They throng together to hear him, and jealous priests are forced to confess that they can do nothing to resist this personal popularity. It is like what we call the magnetism of a man. None of the writers attempt any explanation. Not that it is beyond explanation, but it is enough for them to state the result. Matthew himself thinks it enough to say that Jesus saw Matthew sitting in his office, and said to him, " Follow me " ; and he followed him. He does not pretend to say more. John gives the same account — neither less nor more—of what happened when he called Philip, Peler, Andrew, James, and John himself. Hardly more passed when he called Nathanael. Were this all we knew, we must be content with saying that this Saviour of men had an extraordinary personal command, such as we have no other illustration of,— that he commanded, and these men obeyed, could not help obeying. This, of course, would be all that we could say. The world has perhaps been too willing to satisfy itself with this answer,— too willing; for, though the Gospels are but fragments, they are fragments all alive and quick with nature ; and, in the midst of a hundred illustrations, we have many suggestions which explain the methods .of 'his power. I. Here is his complete self-abnegation, self-surrender, forgetfulness of self. " He made himself of no reputation." At the very beginning of his active life, when it was borne in upon him that the time had come at last which they hadall been waiti...« less