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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 40153
   :PG.Title: The First True Gentleman
   :PG.Released: 2012-07-07
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Anonymous
   :DC.Title: The First True Gentleman
              A Study of the Human Nature of Our Lord
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1907
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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THE FIRST TRUE GENTLEMAN
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      Cover

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      THE FIRST
      TRUE GENTLEMAN

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      *A Study in the Human
      Nature of Our Lord*

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      *With a Foreword by*
      EDWARD EVERETT HALE, D.D.

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      BOSTON
      JOHN W. LUCE & COMPANY
      1907

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      *Copyright*, 1907, *by*
      JOHN W. LUCE & COMPANY
      *Boston, Mass., U.S.A.*

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      *The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass.*

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   A FOREWORD

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The dictionaries and the
students of words have a great
deal to say,--perhaps more than
is worth while,--of the origin of
the word Gentleman,--whether
a gentleman in England and a
*gentilhomme* in France mean
the same thing, and so on.  The
really interesting thing is that in
a republic where a man's a man,
the gentleman is not created by
dictionaries or by laws.  You
cannot make him by parchment.

As matter of philology, the
original gentleman was *gentilis*.
That is, he belonged to a *gens*
or clan or family, which was
established in Roman history.
He was somebody.  If he had
been nobody he would have
had no name.  Indeed, it is
worth observing that this was
the condition found among the
islanders of the South Sea.
Exactly as on a great farm the
distinguished sheep, when they
were sent to a cattle fair might
have specific names, while for
the great flock nobody pretends
to name the individuals, so
certain people, even in feudal times,
were *gentilis*, or belonged to a
*gens*, while the great body of
men were dignified by no such
privilege.

The word gentleman, however,
has bravely won for itself,
as Christian civilisation has gone
on, a much nobler meaning.

The reader of this little book
will see that the poet Dekker,
surrounded by the gentlemen
of Queen Elizabeth's Court,
already comprehended the larger
sense of this great word.  The
writer of this essay, taking the
familiar language of the
Established Church of England,
follows out in some of the great
crises of the Saviour's life some
of the noblest illustrations of the
poet's phrase.

It is well worth remembering
that the Received Version of the
New Testament, which belongs
to Dekker's own generation,
accepts his noble use of
language in one of the great
central passages.  In the very little
which we know of the early
arrangements of apostleship, we
are given to understand that the
Apostle James lived at Jerusalem,
and that in what he wrote
he addressed the Christians
of every race and habit in all
parts of that world of which
Jerusalem is the centre.  The
Epistle of James may be called
the first encyclical addressed to
all sorts and conditions of men
who accepted Jesus of Nazareth
as the leader of their lives.
To this day its practical and
straightforward simplicity
challenges the admiration of all those
believers who know that the tree
is to be judged by its fruits,--that
it is not enough to cry "Lord,
Lord,"--that it is not enough to
say, "I believe in this" or "I
believe in that";--but rather
that the follower of Christ must
do what He says.  And how
does this gentle apostle of
apostles define in word the "wisdom
which is from above?"  The
wisdom from above is first pure,
as the Master had said, "Blessed
are the pure in heart."  Then the
Wisdom from above is
peaceable, as the angels said when
He was born.  Then the wisdom
from above is gentle.  The man
who follows Christ is a gentle
man.  The woman who follows
Christ is a gentle woman.

And if anyone eager for
accuracy in the use of language
choose to hunt the Greek word
which we find in St. James's
Epistle through the lexicons, he
learns that the gentleman whom
St. James knew is he who in
dealing with others "abates
something from his absolute
right."  He is so large and
unselfish that he can grant more
than he is compelled to grant by
rigorous justice.  He is the man
who can love his brothers better
than himself.  These are phrases
from the old dictionaries.

"Greater love hath no man
than this, that a man lay down
his life for his friends."

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   EDWARD E. HALE.

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   The First True Gentleman

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The Elizabethan poet
Dekker said of our Lord that
He was "the first true gentleman
that ever breathed."  The
passage is worth quotation:--

   |   "Patience! why, 'tis the soul of peace,
   |   Of all the virtues nearest kin to Heaven.
   |   It makes men look like gods, the best of men
   |   That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer--
   |   A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,
   |   The first true gentleman that ever breathed."
   |

All through English literature
the word "gentleman" has
had two meanings, and has
been used to describe a man
of certain qualities as well as a
man of a certain birth.  A
hundred and fifty years before
Dekker wrote it was declared that
"truth, pity, freedom, and hardiness"
were the essential qualities
of a gentleman.  Our Lord
in His human nature personified
these things.  Every gentleman
in Christendom derives his
ideal from Christ whatever
may be his dogmatic creed.  No
virtue, perhaps, was so
characteristic of our Lord as His
devotion to truth.  He declared
before Pilate that it was the
end for which He was born.
He condemned all those who
hindered its diffusion and tried
to make it the monopoly of a
caste.  He tabooed all absurd
asseverations, the occasional
use of which was but a
confession of habitual lying.  He
taught that lies were of the
Devil, and that it was the Holy
Spirit who led men into all
truth.  He said that sincerity
was the great light of the
Spirit, that all double-minded
men were in the dark, and that
their fear of the light of day was
their own sufficient condemnation.
The ideal gentleman all
through the ages has conformed
his conduct in the matter of
truth to the Christian standard.
He has avoided mental
reservation, abhorred lying, and,
though he has garnished his
speech with oaths, his yea has
meant yea, and his nay, nay,
and he has regarded his word
as his bond.

Again, courage and pity were
combined in the character of
Christ as they had never been
combined before.  Now the
combination is common enough.
We have the seed and can grow
the flower; but every man who
excels in both is in some sense
a follower of Christ.  The
courage of our Lord, though it
included physical courage, was
not of that calibre which is
more properly called animal,--animal
courage implies a want
of imagination, and is probably
incompatible with pity.  Christ
in the garden of Gethsemane
"tasted death for every man,"
and held out a hand of sympathy
to that vast majority who must
for ever regard it with strong
dread.  Yet by His precepts,
by His life, and by His death
He taught men that fear can be
mastered, though it is a form
of suffering seldom altogether
spared to the highest type of man.

Apart from their religious
significance, the trial and
crucifixion of Christ form the scene in
the world's history of which
humanity has most reason to
be proud.  Christ, in His
human nature, was a Galilean
peasant.  He excused to his
face the Roman Governor who
stooped to threaten a prisoner
in Whom he found no fault.
Judge and prisoner changed
places.  The distinctions of the
world dissolved before the
distinctions of God.  At Pilate's
bar all gentlemen recognise
their hero, an example for
ever of the powerlessness of
circumstances to humiliate.

On the Cross not only did our
Lord maintain that composure
which witnesses to the supreme
power of the soul, but with still
balanced judgment He refused
to impute sin to the Roman
conscripts whose orders were to
crucify.  He made a last effort
to console the grief of His
mother and His friend, and set
Himself to give hope and
encouragement to the suffering
thief who believed he was
receiving the due reward of his
deeds.  A genius however great,
a gentleman however perfect,
could imagine no story of
courage more noble or more
inspiring than the one set down in
the Gospels.

A new pity came into the
world with Christ.  The lump
is not yet leavened; even the
white race is not yet pitiful.
All the same, the emotion of
pity is a power, and does,
broadly speaking, distinguish
Christendom from the heathen
world.  It is part of the ideal of
all those who are conscious of
having an ideal at all.  Gusts
of anger, both national and
individual, sweep it out of sight;
it is paralysed by fear, rendered
blind by use and wont; again
and again its scope is narrowed
by the reaction which follows
upon affectations and exaggerations;
but it is never killed.  It
has been part of the moral
equipment of a gentleman since
Christ "went about doing good,"
revealing to men the secret
Nature could not teach
them--breaking, as it seemed to them,
the uniformity of her relentlessness--the
secret of the divine
compassion.

The independence of mind
and manner inculcated by our
Lord still marks a gentleman
to-day.  Did He not teach that
a man's conduct must at all
times be ruled by his code and
not regulated by his company?
He must maintain the same
attitude towards life whether
he find himself among just or
unjust, friends or enemies.  He
must not salute his brethren
only, nor be only kind to those
that love him.  He must remain
an honest man among thieves,
ready to rebuke an offender to
his face, but still a gentleman,
who does not "revile again" or
suffer the passion of revenge
to destroy his judgment.  This
moral independence is the rock
on which character is built.
The man whose actions depend
upon his environment has but
a sandy foundation to his moral
nature.  Upon this strong rock
of moral independence rest also
the best manners.  Self-assertion
and self-distrust are singularly
allied.  It is the ill-assured
who push in their ardent desire
to be like somebody else.  It is
dignity rather than humility
which is recommended to us
in the parable of those who
chose the chief seats at feasts.
It is a common thing to hear it
said by simple people in praise
of some one they regard as
pre-eminently a gentleman that "he
is always the same."  No doubt
the publicans and sinners whose
friendly advances Christ
accepted without apparent
condescension said this of Him.
He was so entirely Himself
among them that the vulgar-minded
Pharisees whispered to
one another that He must be
ignorant of the sort of company
He was in, or surely He would
make plain the gulf fixed
between Himself and them.  By
conventionality our Lord seems
never to have been bound.  On
the other hand, He did not
wantonly overthrow the conventions
of His day.  When a
social custom struck Him as
injurious, He told those who
gave in to it that it stood in the
way of better things, substituting
custom for conscience.  On
the other hand, He fell in with
the usual ways of respectable
people in a great many particulars,
praying in a village place
of worship beside Pharisees
who stood up to bless themselves
and publicans who dared
not so much as lift their eyes to
heaven, taking part in a service
which was far enough removed
from the sincere, spiritual, and
wholly unsuperstitious worship
to which He looked forward as
He talked beside the well.

Christ had a horror of
tyranny in every form, and He
seems to have regarded it as a
peculiarly heathen vice.  "The
kings of the Gentiles exercise
lordship over them," He said.
Some bold translators
emphasise His meaning by saying
"lord it" over them.  Dekker
was right.  A true gentleman
is not harsh, implacable, or
capricious.  The breaking of
other men's wills gives him no
pleasure.  Christ's followers, He
said, must avoid all selfish wish
for ascendency.  A ruler, He
said, should regard himself as
the servant of all.  Where
ruling is concerned the counsels
of Christ seem, like all His most
characteristic utterances, to be
calculated rather to inspire
aspiration in the minds of good
men than definitely to regulate
their action, for in more than
one of the parables His words
imply that an ambition to rule
is a lawful ambition, and that
increased responsibility may be
looked to as a reward.

Theoretically the Christian
attitude towards power has
always been the gentlemanlike
attitude.  Hall, the chronicler,
writing in 1548, says in the
"Chronicles of Henry VI.":
"In this matter Lord Clyfford
was accounted a tyrant, and
no gentleman."

It is commonly said to-day
that Christianity has never been
tried.  Such a judgment is
superficial in the extreme.  The moral
teaching of Christ has never
been entirely carried out by any
community nor perhaps by any
man, but to speak as though it
had no great influence is sheer
affectation.  The white people
have wasted, it is true, their time
and their blood in quarrelling
about dogma; but every
Christian sect has recognised in the
divine character of the
Nazarene Carpenter who suffered
upon the Cross the
perfectibility of the human race,
and in their highest moments
of aspiration and repentance
peoples and rulers alike have
pleaded His merits before God.
Nothing but this recognition
could have curbed the cruel
pride of the ancient world,
have undermined the barriers
of race and caste with a sense
of human brotherhood, have
cast at least a suspicion upon
the theory that might is right,
and made respect for women a
necessary part of every good
man's creed.  Entirely apart
from what is usually called
religion in England to-day,
"truth, pity, freedom, and
hardiness" are the ideals of the race
because nineteen hundred years
ago Christ was born in the
stable of a Jewish inn.

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