562                   A. M. E. REVIEW.

to God than the rich moralist who boasted in pious prayer of
his excellencies; that to do righteously in daily conduct was
better than to do scrupulously in sacrifice.  He preached to the
common people the religion of a common life, the religion that
Micah had preached some centuries before--that to do justly,
love mercy, walk humbly with God, is all that God asks of any
of his children.  He gathered his disciples from the common
people: Peter, James, John, Andrew, were fishermen; Matthew
was a tax-gatherer; in all the twelve there was only one eccle-
siastical aristocrat from the province of Judea, and he was the
traitor that betrayed him.  The people flocked to hear a preach-
er whose preaching, as well as his deeds, was a ministry to the
wants of a common life.
  When reigion separates itself from common life, it grow
ascetic.  The religion of Palestine in the first century was a re-
ligion of asceticism.  The ancient law of Israel provided but one
day of fasting in the year, but subsequent ceremonialism had
added other days.  The orthodox Jew fasted on the fifth day
of each week, because on that day Moses went up to the Mount
for the law, and on the second day of each week, because one
that day Moses brought the law down; on the fourth day of the
month, because on that day Nebuchadnezzar had captured
Jerusalem; on the fifth day of the month, because on that day
the Temple had been burned; on the seventh day of the month,
because on that day the Jewish Governor of Jerusalem had
been murdered; on the tenth day of the month, because on
that day Jerusalem had been besieged by the Chaldeans.  These
were the regular fasts of the more orthodox; others were add-
ed by  individual inclination or ecclesiastical decree.  Re-
ligion sat in sackcloth and in ashes.  To be religious was to be
gloomy, sad of visage, thin of flesh. The Master swept all this
away.  He never fasted himself save in that one great wrest-
ling with temptation in the wilderness; he counseled his dis-
ciples not to fast, told them that, if they must fast, to keep their
fasting secret.  He came, as he said of himself, eating and drink-
ing, and, though men railed at him and called him a wine-bibber
and a drunkard, still he went on eating and drinking.  He bade
his disciples if they gave feasts, to invite the poor, the lame,




			

OHS/National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center Serial Collection

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 28, Num. 2

Volume:  28
Issue Number:  02
Date:  10/1911