"To express the religion of Christ in precise words would be a mighty task; but it may be said that is was not merely a system, nor primarily a creed; it was a message to individual hearts, bewildered by the complexity of the world and the intricacy of religious observances.

Christ bid people to believe that their Creator was also a Father, that the only way to escape from the overwhelming difficulties presented by the world was the way of simplicity, sincerity, and love; that a person should keep out of their life, all that insults and hurts the soul, and that they should hold the interests of others as dear as they hold their own.

It was a protest against all ambition, and cruelty, and luxury, and self-conceit. It showed that a person should accept their temperament and their place in life, as gifts from the hands of their Father, and that they should then be peaceful, pure, humble, and loving.

  Christ brought into the world an entirely new standard; He showed that many respected and reverenced persons were very far indeed from the Father, while many obscure, sinful, miserable outcasts found the secret, which the respectable and contemptuous missed. Never was there a message, which cast so much hope abroad in rich handfuls to the world.

The astonishing part of the revelation was that it was so absolutely simple; neither wealth, nor intellect, nor position, nor even moral perfection, were needed. The simplest child, the most abandoned sinner, could take the great gift as easily as the most honored statesman, the wisest sage-- indeed more easily, for it was the very complexity of affairs, of motives, of wealth, that entangled the soul and prevented it from realizing its freedom." A.C. Benson.