the centuries with such gigantic stride? Who is this man who has come riding into every department of human thought and life, the grandeur of whose morality has never been equaled, before the majesty of whose intellectual greatness the world still bows? Who is this man of Galilee, who holds such sway over the enlightened nations of the earth, and whose system of teaching is most at home in a scientific age? Who was this Christ, whose religion is destined to be the religion of the future, and whose reign is destined to girdle the world? Who was this historic anomoly, this universal man, this citizen of the world who was the embodiment of ideal excellence, and the impersonation of all that is noblest and best in humanity? Was he the son of God, or was he not? Was he a mere man, or the incarnation of deity? Was he no more than any other of the great moralists of the past, such as Socrates, Plato, Zeno or Senaca, or were his claims divine? These are questions which have agitated the thought of thinking men for almost two thousand years; and each age must settle them for itself. We may ignore Christ, but this does not dispense with Him. We may deny His divinity and authority, but this does not explain away the wonderful phenomena of christianity. We may treat Him as an impostor or a fanatic, or a mere man; but this does not account for his unique career, or the wonderful grip which he has upon the world. I remark first: He is regarded by some as either an impostor, or a self-deluded enthusiast. They maintain that He either intended to deceive, or was Himself deceived. He either mesmerized His own contemporaries, or is still holding the thought of the world under the magic spell of a hallucination. That He was an intentional deceiver is, in my judgment, as absurd as it is unreasonable. Nothing was more inconsistent with his character than deception. He was a mirror of candor and sincerity. Hypocrisy was as foreign to him as it was detestable. His life was an open book; and his motives were as transparent as they were pure. His work was done in the open. He concealed nothing from the glare of the public eye. On the contrary, He invited investigation, and challenged any one to convict Him of sin or duplicity. He pursued quite a different course to that of an impostor. Had He been a deceiver, He would not have pro voked unnecessary hostility, since any opposition would have brought investigation. Instead of provoking hostility, He would have curried favor, and pandered to the popular conventionalities of His time. Had He been a time server, He would have yielded to popular clamor when the people desired to make him king by force. If he intended to deceive, He was unquestionably the most impolitic and undiplomatic man in history. He was most uncompromising in his terms of discipleship, swerving never an inch from right, in order to win favor. He deceived no man into his service by false pretenses or visions of unbroken ease. So far from currying favor with men, He ignored their time honored traditions and shattered their popular superstitions in a manner as bold as it was merciless. Nor, is it reasonable to suppose that he was a deluded enthusiast. Fanaticism cannot account for the phenomena of christianity. Everywhere, causes must be adequate to effects. If Christ was a fanatic, His achievements are the most colossal miracle in history. No fanatic could hold the attention and the love of the world as has Christ. There is no reason to believe that He was in any sense abnormal. His thinking was balanced and most profound, showing the healthiness and vigor of his great mind. His conduct was practical and eminently sane, showing His sensible grip upon principles, and the normal way in which He lived them. True, He was dubbed "fanatic" by some of His contemporaries, but this has been the unhappy lot of all great men. They stood so close to Him that they could not see the proportions of His genius and His greatness; and it was because they misunderstood Him that they stigmatized Him. Sanity must be tested by the soundness of one's reasoning, and the level of one's living. No fanatic could have produced the Sermon on the Mount. The level of His living has never been reached. The world is cleaving to His genius and imitating His example today, as never before. I remark second: There are others who look on Him only as a great and good man. They admit He was the flower of humanity, but they deny his deity. Those who advocate this view are as far from believing He was an impostor or a fanatic as those who believe in His deity. They ascribe to Him the strictest honesty and accredit Him with the purest motives. They resent any impeach ment of His sanity, or reflection on His sincerity. They look on Him as a model man, and the master of men. They admit the greatness of his intellect and the grandeur of His morality. They hold that He was divine, but divine only as all men are divine. He was divine as all men are in kind, but more divine than any man, in degree. He stood closer to God than all other men, but at best was only a man. They do not deny His divinity, but His deity. In their judgment, He was like God, but was not God; He was a being apart from God, and not one in substance with God; He lived a human life and died a human death; He was one of the greatest of men, but only a man. It needs but little insight to see that there is a modicum of truth in this view, but many overlook the fact that it is only a half truth. It is true that Christ was a man, and the flower of humanity. Too often His humanity is minimized and explained away in the effort to save His deity, as if emphasis on the one could destroy the reality of the other. Deity need not be lost because the humanity of Christ is made intensely human. As a matter of fact, without his humanity, he would cease to be Christ. Without humanity, He might be God in the abstract, but could not be God in the concrete; and it is just his humanity which makes the Christ idea both tangible and possible. Christ was not without His limitations. In the person of Christ, God put just as much of Himself into human form as was possible. And by this very act, chose to limit Himself by subjecting Himself to the conditions of human life. There was, therefore, a normal development in the life of Christ, much as there is in the life of man. The scriptures teach that His human limitations affected Him, much as they affect us; and there is certainly deep signifi. cance in the fact that he increased in wisdom, in stature, and in favor with God and man. He was the one universal He transcended the narrow limits of individuality and nationality. He is the one generic man in whom men of all nationalities may find the great brotherman. He was the contemporary of men of all times and colors and climes. He was the one citizen of the world, the most exemplary cosmopolitan man the world has ever seen. He showed the possibilities of human nature in fruition, and carried humanity up to its highest perfection. He possessed the qualities of mind and heart, without which man. manhood is impossible. He was the embodiment of ideal excellence, and the impersonation of all that is best and noblest in humanity. "If Jesus Christ is a man, And only a man,-I say That of all mankind I cleave to him, And to Him will I cleave alway. If Jesus Christ is a God, And the only God,-I swear I will follow Him through heaven and hell, But the humanitarian view does not explain all the facts. I remark third: There are others who hold that he was a man, but He was more. He was the incarnation of deity; God living a human life, in the form of a man. Only on this hypothesis can we explain his intellectual supremacy. It is still true today, as in His day, that no man ever spoke like this man. He stands alone in the sublimity and elevation of His thought. He is unequaled in the depth of His philosophic insight, and His grasp of moral principles. His discourses are classics, and His parables masterpieces. His intellectual pre-eminence cannot be accounted for by anything in His age or education. So far from being the product of His age, He ran counter to the influences and traditions of His time, and was an anomoly to His contemporaries. Nothing can be evolved unless first involved. No effect could be more inconsistent with a cause than was Christ with the influences of His age. Nor, was He made by the schools of His day, for he exploded their dogmas and punctured their delusions with an iconoclasm, which was as pitiless as it was ruthless. His career is incommensurate with His humble origin and training. We have seen genius emerge from obscurity, but never genius like this. If He was only a man, His intellectual achievements amount to a miracle. Likewise, His moral pre-eminence also attests His deity. He is the one spotless sinless man in history. His own age recognized the purity of His life and the sincerity of His purpose. The man who betrayed Him, called him innocent; and the one who delivered Him to be crucified called Him faultless. He was crucified not for His sins, but because He was misunderstood. He was the victim of circumstances, and a martyr to His convic tions. Microscopic criticism has been turned on Him as on no other. Many, however, who have come to mock, have remained to pray. His great personality grows more fascinating, the closer we get to Him; His gigantic manhood grows more massive and his colossal character more beautiful with the march of the centuries. A source cannot be foul where the flowing stream is clear. Wherever Christ has touched humanity, sin has faded into purity. Vice cannot heal viciousness, nor sin sinning. The influence of Christ attests his purity; and His immaculate life His deity. I remark fourth: If it be asked now who is Christ? I answer, He is God in the form of man. He is deity dwelling in humanity and struggling to purify and glorify human life and living. This is God, come as near man as He can, that He may draw men near to Him. This is God, coming out of the abstract into the concrete. This is God, incarnating himself that He may be seen and known. This is God, expressing himself in terms of human life and human experience. This is God, come near enough, and in a form that men may see His face and feel His heart beat. How this interprets human nature and reveals to us the native wants of humanity. The human heart, everywhere, yearns for a tangible God. A mere metaphysical abstraction is too cold and vague and soulless. "'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for, my flesh that I seek In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be Out of Christ God is incomprehensible, in Christ He is tangible and knowable. The incarnation, therefore, was not an expedient, but a fundamental necessity. In my judgment Christ would have come if man had never sinned. Sin is but an incident, and salvation from it is but a part of the work of Christ. If it had not been necessary for Him to come to save us from sin, he would have come to reveal God to us, and to save us to the highest possibilities of our nature. He is, therefore, more than a redeemer; he is a revealer; and a redeemer because he is a revealer. He is the spiritual leader of the race, and his is the religion of the future. Men, everywhere, have seen His star in the |