Page 258 - Demo

254drunkards and prostitutes? Could the Christians bear with a curate or parson of a similar conduct? Certainly not. A spiritual guide may have intercourse with all sorts of sinners in order to convert and reform then, providing that he is sober, abstemious, and sincere. According to the quotation just mentioned, Christ admits that his behaviour had scandalized the religious leaders of his nation. It was true that the officers of the Customhouse, called “publicans,” were hated by the Jews simply because of their office. We are told only two “publicans”[1] and one “harlot” [2] and one “possessed” woman [3] were converted by Jesus (pbuh) ; but all the clergy and the lawyers were branded with curses and anathemas. [4] All this looks awkward and incredible The idea or thought that a Holy Prophet, so chaste and sinless like Jesus (pbuh), was fond of wine, that he changed six barrels of water into a most intoxicating wine in order to render crazy a large company of guests already tipsy in the wedding-hall at Cana,[5] is practically to depict him an impostor and sorcerer! Think of a miracle performed by a thaumaturge before a rabble of drunkards! To describe Jesus (pbuh) as a drunkard, and gluttonous, and a friend of the ungodly, and then to give him the title of “the Son of Man” is to deny all the Jewish Revelations and religion.Again, Jesus (pbuh) is reported to have said, “The Son of Man came to seek and recover that which was lost.”[6]The commentators of course interpret this passage in a spiritual sense only. Well, it is the mission and the office of every prophet and the preacher of the[1] Matthew and Zacchæus (Matt. ix. 9; Luke xix. 1- 11).[2] John iv.[3] Mary Magdalene (Luke viii. 2).[4] Matt. xiii. etc.[5] John ii.[6] Matt. xiii. 11, Luke ix. 56; xix. 10, etc.