1 10 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
was for a brief season of prayer from which he returned the more devotedly to enter into public life. 1 For months he lived almost constantly surrounded by crowds.
But while the pleasures of social life are good in themselves, they are not to be ends in themselves. Life consists in some- thing more than food, 2 and the kingdom of God, as Paul said later, was not to consist in mere sensual enjoyment. 3 That some- thing which can make eating and drinking goods subordinate to some greater good is the spirit of brotherliness in which they become means of furthering the happiness of others. The member of the new society was not to flee the world, 4 but was rather to stay in it as a source of light and life. 5 Social life was shown both by the words and life of Jesus to be the normal life of men. Just as marriage was the ideal form of the life of the individual, so the family and the feast were used by Jesus as the nearest analogies to what life in the new social order was to be. Friendships are to Jesus' mind instinctive and their fruit of necessity, kindliness. 6
II.
It is not to magnify trivialities if attention be called to the attitude of Jesus towards the conventionalities of life. It is of course possible that a man should be thoroughly good and worthy of respect and yet be totally indifferent to the require- ments of society. Many men today are undoubtedly nobly affecting the life of their communities through their sterling integrity and deep religious feeling who are ignorant or careless of conventionalities. But no cultured man wants a boor as his religious teacher any more than he would accept a filthy saint as his Savior. Even John the Baptist was less than the least in the kingdom of God. 7 And it is nothing more than we should have expected when we find Jesus careful about those matters which indicate the gentleman. Though a poor man, and count- ing clothes as at best but a secondary good 8 he seems to have
'Mark 6: 46*?. Matt. 14:23^. Luke 9 : 28. 2 Matt. 6 : 25.
3 Rom. 14:17. 'Matt. 5:14. 7 Matt. mil.
- Johni7:i5. 6 Luke n: 5-8; 15 : 9. 8 Matt. 6 : 25, 28.
