' ''' . i. y i, ' 1 , ^ 1 ro -M^xm.,' '; ftj ll.VSH -W I ft. atljaca. ^tm lark THE GIFT OF Tke Ho>v\4, when this volume was t^en. jook copy the call No. and give to the librarian. HOME USE RULES All Books subject to Recall All borrowers must regis- ., ter in the library to borrow books for home use. All books must be re- turned at end of college "■ year *or inspection and i! repairs. 'A Limited books must be re- , turned within the four week ^ limit and not renewed. Students must return -all i? books before leaving town. jj Officers should arrange for | the return of books wanted S during their absence from j town. * Volumes bt periodicals S and of pamphlets are held i!| in the library as much as t possible. For special pur- ' _ poses they are given out for i a limited time. jt Borrowers should not use their library privileges' for N the benefit of other persons. \ Books of special value ' and gift books, when the \ giver wishes it, are not ^ allowed to circulate. ^ Readers are asked to re- ;; port all cases of books ' marked or mutilated. ''' 3 Do not deface books by marks and writing. BT301 .T2'r;897"""' """'" 3 1924 029 311 473' olfn If 56( The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029311473 OUR ELDER BROTHER HIS BIOQRAPHLY. BY E. P. TENNEY, AUTHOR OF Trlumptas of the Cross ; A Story of the Heavenly Campflres, etc., etc. ASSISTED BY Bishop E. R. Hendrix, LL.D-, Prof. Geo. p. Fisher, LL.D., Editor George E. Horr, B.D., Bishop John H. Vincent, D.D., Rev. F. a. Noble, D.D., President E. H. Capen, LL.D., Rev. Edward Everett Hale, D.D., Evangelist Dvwght L. Moody, Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst, D.D., Evangelist H. M. Wharton, D.D., Etc., Etc. IX^LUSTRATED ■With 84 Photographic Reproductions of the World's Celebrated Paintings. I^ing^t^ichafdson Publishing Co., Springfield, Mass. Cincinnati. Des Moines. San Josjfe. Richmond. Dallas. 18S7. , ■Ml' A ^"\^io *i- CopyrlgM, 1897, by the king-richakdson pubmshing co., Spbingfield, Mass. — *- ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Associate Atithors. ►^=:>*-5:$«- Rev. E. R. Hendrix, LL.D., Bishop M. E. Church, South, Kansas City, Mo. Rev. John Vincent, D.D., Bishop M. E. Church, Topeka, Kas. Rev. E. H. Capen, LL.D., President Tufts College. Rev. George E. Horr, D.D., Editor " The Watchman," Boston. Rev. Edward Everett Hale, D.D., Pastor, Editor and Author, Boston. Rev. George P. Fisher, LL.D., Professor, Yale University, New Haven. Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst, D.D., Pastor, Reformer, Writer, New York. Dwight L. Moody, Evangelist of Two Continents. Rt. Rev. F. D. Huntington, S.T.D., L.H.D., LL.D., Bishop of Central New York. Rev. Augustus H. Strong, D.D., LL.D., President Rochester Theological Seminary. Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D., Brooklyn. Rev. H. M. Wharton, D.D., Pastor, Evangelist, and Author, Baltimore. Rev. F. A. Noble, D.D., Pastor Union Park Church, Chicago. Rev. William C. Wilkinson, D.D., Professor, Chicago University. Rt. Rev. J. C. Ryle, D.D., Lord Bishop of Liverpool, England. Rev. Alexander McLaren, D.D., Fellowfield, Manchester, England. Francis L. Patton, D.D., LL.D., President Princeton University. Rt. Hon. ^Villiam E. Gladstone., Ex-Prime Minister of England. 7 Preface. ^*^3^S^^*^ (^ I HIS book is written solely to set forth Jesus Christ as < I Our Elder Brother : as the individual helper of ^ I every man, My Elder Brother. If, perhaps, as some are disposed to say, there have been books enough to explain the Gospel text, or books enough of controversy defending this or attacking that, or books enough on the theology of Christ's life, yet this book is in- tended solely to depict the Wonderful Story in its relation to every human life — My Brother. Luther has said much about the precious pronouns of the Bible, — Me, My, I, Thou. It is this snug-fitting personal relationship between Our Elder Brother and the weary and heavy laden of the world that is the theme of this book. It is an attempt to approach the life of Jesus from the human side, in sym- pathetic touch with each child of humanity. This book cannot be better prefaced than to tell how it came to be written. These studies were blocked out twenty-five years ago, and thereafter, some phase of this great theme so constantly presented itself to the writer's mind, that of public addresses every Sabbath for many years one out of seven had for its sole topic the person or work of Jesus Christ. Nearly three hundred popular pre- sentations were so made, of the principal lines of thought now comprised in this book : so the Author was constantly studying and re-studying how best to interest and instruct not scholars but the common people in the salient features of our Master's Life and Work ; condensing and adapting PREFACE. the voluminous and invaluable works that he found in the libraries, to aid those who have no leisure for extended re- search. In order better to do this, the Author classified his studies, in the attempt to see what the eyes of Jesus saw, to hear what his ears heard, to perceive what people he constantly met, and to know how he appeared when min- gling with the sons of men. And so fascinating was the work of picturing all this, that the writer found himself little by little reading everything that could be seized upon in the great libraries upon the subject. Living in a neighborhood where he could have access to fourteen hundred thousand books, he discovered that the book world for the most part presents the life of our Lord in Chronological rather than Topical arrangement, and through Expository rather than Devotional treatment. To meet his own needs, therefore, the Author selected a few hundreds of volumes, and took years enough to study them with great care ; * and then he arranged his notes along the lines indicated in the first ten books of the Table of Con- tents of this work, — " What Jesus Christ is to Me." Hap- pily, however, in later reading, more material was found that was already classified under one or • another of the topics alluded to. Without hope of preparing or presenting a New Imita- tion of Christ, the writer did hope to form for himself and for the average man a picture of the Life of our Lord wrought out in the light of modern studies and setting forth the Master in his relation to modern life, since the contemplation of the Life of Our Lord in the Nineteenth or Twentieth Century must be based upon fullness of * A Catalogue of these books will be found in the Appendix. 9 PREFACE. knowledge, garnering the fruit of eighteen hundred years of research and studying the story of the Son of Man in its relation to the world-problems of the very generation in which we live. To do this, we need to seize upon certain characteristics of the story, rather than consume time in discussing ques- tions of interpretation or commenting on all the details alluded to in the Gospels : to study the spirit of Christ as revealed in the incidents of his life rather than make a microscopic examination of the incidents themselves. In preparing this book, therefore, the Author has sought to present to the average man, as if in personal conversa- tion or familiar address, the results rather than the proc- esses of much that is best in modern scholarship, and to emphasize the most important points by citing the words of competent authorities : often doing it without crowding the page with a record of earmarks to indicate the sources of studies which have been carefully prepared.* Abundant citation is a part of the plan of this book : upon literary grounds there should be less ; yet the multi- plication of testimonies is one of the main ends sought, with the intent to show the attitude of world-wide scholar- ship and life experience toward certain phases of our Saviour's life. By this plan, the reader has the benefit of phrases more accurate or felicitous than those of the * The Author has been at much pains to secure accuracy in his cita- tions, so making them trustworthy for all ordinary purposes ; yet in the interest of the general reader it has seemed best to i-emove from the notes all those references to book titles and pages and editions which facilitate the work of special students. When, however, the Author has condensed a quotation, he has asked the reader to " Compare " it with the original passage as it is indicated by a note. 10 PREFACE. Author in setting forth the praises of Immanuel, and in his thoughtful hours he is edified and quickened by the perusal of thoughts gathered from regions afar or penned at first in distant ages : and the reflections and annotations of the most eminent students are in this way brought to the serv- ice of those who have little leisure for elaborate studies. Among those whose words are cited, there are some of the most eminent people in the world, some perhaps being great statesmen, the uncrowned kings of Christendom, who have brought their most precious gifts to Christ, whose words are reproduced to aid the meditations of those who dwell far from palaces and the great capitals of civilization. There is a perennial interest throughout the world in tracing and retracing the steps of the Son of Man ; pictur- ing the mountains and seas, the gardens or solitudes, that he gazed upon. And the Author can but felicitate himself and his readers that the art of the painter has been called to the aid of the pen, in the Album of Pictures which is bound into this volume to illustrate the Life of our Lord. And he can but be grateful to those Special Writers whose contributions to this volume so greatly enhance its value. " To make Jesus better known," says Faber, "is to make him better loved : " and this book will abundantly fulfill its mission, if, by it, any one is led to a better knowledge of the Saviour of men, and to love him more. And if any reader peruses these pages in the daily hour alone with God, the writer can but pray that the Holy Spirit which helpeth human infirmities may heal the imperfections of this work, and make it spiritually helpful to him who seeks therein to learn more of the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord. 11 Table of Contents. »<©>« INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. PAGE What Our Elder Brother is to Me, . 66 Book I. OUR PATTERN IN YOUTH. Chapter 1.— The Manger Child, 71 2. — The Home at Nazareth, 81 3. — The Boyhood of Jesus, 91 Book II. OUR BROTHER IN TOIL. Chapter 1. — A Master at the Work-Bench, ... 101 2. — His Work without Flaw, .... 115 3. — The Nazarene Neighbors, .... 125 4. — Mystery of the Wilderness, .... 132 Book III. OUR DIVINE HELPER. Chapter 1. — At Home by the Sea, 143 2. — Stilling the Angry Waves, . . . . 140 3. — The Madman of the Tombs, .... 153 4. — The Hungry Thousands Fed. ... 157 6. — The Divine Healer, I60 6. — New Life for the World, 164 12 PAGE TABLE OF CONTENTS. Book IV. OUR EXAMPLE IN SELF-RENUNCIATION. Chapter 1.— A Singular Life of Service, .... "in 2. — An Unselfish Ideal, 178 3. — The Hovel and the Palace, .... 182 4. — Moral Miracles, 185 Book V. OUR PASTOR AND PREACHER. Chapter 1.— A Lesson at the Wellside, . . . . 189 2. — His Manner in Attracting Attention, 205 3. — His Rhetorical Power, 317 Book VI. OUR TEACHER. Chapter 1. — The Master and His Pupils, . 2. — His Originality in Thought, . 3. — His Self- Assertion, .... 4. — A Kingdom to Establish, . . 5. — His Gentleness and Severity, 6.— The World's Great Teacher, 225 238 242 252 269 279 Book VII. OUR SUFFERING SAVIOUR. Chapter l.-s-Entering the Shadows 289 2.— The Heavenly Vine and Bread, . . 299 3. — Amid the Olives, 309 4.— The Midnight Hour 320 5.— A Triumphant Mob, 326 6.— The Darkness at Noonday, .... 338 13 TABLE OF CONTENTS. Book VIII. OUR RISEN REDEEMER. PAGE Chapter 1. — Day-dawn after the Night, .... 357 2.— Where was His Abode ? 364 3.— Opening the Heavenly Gates, . . . 374 4. — Confident Witnesses, 380 5.— The Paschal Lamb, 394 Book IX. OUR FRIEND ON HIGH. Chapter 1. — Loving Kindness Personally Admin- istered, 401 2. — A Superhuman Mystery, 412 3. — Contrasts in Divine Self-sacrifice, . 419 Book X. THE WONDERFUL NAME. Chapter 1. — The Scriptural Symbols of Christ, . 431 2. — His Name Reflected in Nature, . . 435 3. — Emblems in Human Life, .... 438 4.— The Mystical Union, 443 5. — Alpha and Omega, ... ... 448 6.— The Royal Diadem, ... . 452 14 PAGE TABLE OP CONTENTS. Contributed Chapters. Book XI. THE MASTER AND HIS MESSAGE. Chapter 1. — As a Lad in the Temple, 459 By E. R. Hendrix, S.T.D., LL.D. Chapter 3. — As a Pattern in the World of To-day, 463 By John H. Vincent, D.D., LL.D. Chapter 3. — The Guide of Life, 466 By Elmer H. Capen, D.D., LL.D. Chapter 4.— Our Imitation of the Master, ... 473 By George E. Horr, D.D. Chapter 5. — The Church in Samaria, 475 By Edward Everett Hale, D.D., LL.D. Chapter. 6.— A Story of Skill, 480 By President W. M. Barbour, D.D., LL.D. Chapter 7. — Character of His Teaching and Work, 486 By George P. Fisher, D.D., LL.D. Chapter 8. — The Master, the Message, 600 By Augustus H. Strong, D.D., LL.D. Chapter 9. — Not Law But Love, 506 By John S. Sewall, M.A., D.D. Book XIL THE VOICE AND THE LIFE. Chapter 1.— John's Voice and Christ's Life, . . 513 Rt. Rev. F. D. Huntington, S.T.D., L.H.D., LL.D. Chapter 3. — The Transfiguration, 536 By Edward Abbott, D.D. 15 TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE Chapter 3.— The Door of Salvation, 532 By Charles H. Parkhurst, D.D. Chapter 4.— Our Lord Jesus Christ, 53(i By the Evangelist Dwight L. Moody. Chapter 5.— My Personal Friend, 539 By the Evangelist H. M. Wharton, D.D. Chapter 6.— Our Sympathizing Friend, .... 642 By Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D. Chapter 7. — Love as a Clock-weight, 546 By A. H. Cmrier, D.D. Chapter 8. — The Name above Every Name, . . 553 By Frederick A. Noble, D.D. Chapter 9. — Christ our Authority, 560 By Daniel Dorchester, Ph.D. Supplementary Book. SELECTED CHAPTERS. Chapter 1. — His Characteristics as a Preacher, . 569 By Professor William C. Wilkinson, A.M." Chapter 2. — In Remembrance of Me, 574 By Rt. Rev. John C. Ryle, D.D., D.C.L. Chapter 3. — Two Sayings from the Cross, . . . 577 By Alexander McLaren, D.D. Chapter 4. — God's Love in Scripture, 581 By Francis L. Patton, D.D., LL.D. Chapter 5.— The Redemption of Humanity, . . 584 By Rt. Hon. William E. Gladstone. 16 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 24 Photographic Reproductions of The World's Celebrated F'ain.tings. TITLi;. AKTIST. PAGE. Angels Appearing to the Shepherds, Plockhorst, . . 18 Arrival of the Shepherds, ... Le Bolle, ... 20 View of Nazareth, ... . . Photograph, . . 22 On His Way to Jerusalem, .... Mengelberg, . . 24 In the Temple, H. Hofmann, . 26 Jesus and John the Baptist, . . . E. Winterstein, . 28 Christ's Farewell to his Mother, . Plockhorst, . . 30 Peter's Walk upon the Water, . . Plockhorst, . . 33 Raising the Daughter of Jairus, . . Gustav Richter, 34 The Good Shepherd, . . . . Plockhorst, . . 36 Jesus and the Woman, Emile Signal, . 38 The Penitent, Plockhorst, . . 40 The Sermon on the Mount, . . . Dubufe, ... 42 Preaching from a Boat, .... H. Hofmann, . 44 Casting out the Money Changers, F. Kirchhuch, . 46 His Entry into Jerusalem, .... Plockhorst, . . 48 In Gethsemane, E. K. Liske, . . 50 The Arrest, C. F. Galabert, . 52 Leaving Pilate's Hall, Dore, .... 54 Returning from the Tomb, . . . Plockhorst, . . 56 The Women at the Tomb, . . . Plockhorst, . . 58 On the Way to Emmaus, .... Plockhorst, . . GO The Ascension, G-. Bierinana, . 62 Lo, I Stand at the Door and Knock, . Karl Shonherr, . 64 17 Angels Appearing to the Shepherds. Ploekhorst. Bernhard Ploekhorst was born at Brunswieh, 182S ; his studies were pursued at Munich and Paris, in Holland, Belgium, and Italy. For three years he was professor in the Art School at Weimar. His studio is in Berlin. -5-*-5- " Calm on the listening ear of Night Come Heaven's melodious strains, Where wild Judea stretches far Her silver mantled plains. " Celestial choirs from courts above. Shed sacred glories there ; And angels with their sparkling lyres, Make music on the air. " Rev. E. H. Sears. :x.\^#^ " The heart must ring thy Christmas bell, Thy inward altars raise ; Its faith and hope thy canticles. And its obedience, praise." Whittier. This scene of the Nativity illustrates Book First, Chapter One. 19 Arrival of the Shepherds. Painted in 1883 by LeRolle. The studio of Henry Le Rolle is in Paris, his native city. -f -*--!- The management of the light in this painting suggests the words : " I am come a Light into the world, that whosoever believeth in me should not abide in darkness." " When Christ was born, midnight gloom lightened into midday brightness. When Christ died, midday darkened into midnight." Moody's Notes from my Bible. 31 View of Nazareth. Photographed. ^-*-!- " We want no prophets here ! Let him be driven From synagogue and city ! Let him go And prophesy to the Samaritans." " The world is changed. We Elders are as nothing ! We are but yesterdays, that hape no part Or portion in to-day ! Dry leaves that rustle, That make a little sound, and then are dust ! " " A carpenter's apprentice ! A mechanic, Whom we have seen at work here in the town Day after day ; a stripling without learning. Shall he pretend to unfold the Word of God To men grown old in study of the Law ? " Longfellow's divine Tragedy. This view illustrates Book First, Chapters Two and Three. 23 On His Way to Jerusalem. Painted in 1876 by Mengelberg. 0. Mengelberg was born in Dusseldorf in 1817. He was a pupil of Dusseldorf Academy. Subjects, history and portraits. -SH^t-S- We are to think of Jesus as making this three days' journey nearly threescore times before he began his public ministry. "Palestine in that day as in this had more than three hundred different sorts of birds. They cooed in the groves, and twittered in the branches, and flitted among the rocks, and warbled in the sky, and skimmed the hillsides, and darted over the meadows, and vied with each other to make the Son of God welcome and happy." Geikie. The artist represents the holy family at the moment when Jesus sees Jerusalem for the first time. His eager attitude is that of a leader. " Jesus, still lead on, Till our rest be won. Heavenly Leader, still direct us, Still support, console, protect us, Till we safely stand In our Fatherland." Count Zinzendorf, 1721. This painting illustrates Book First, Chapter Three. 25 XA'V #lte5 :\^ ■' ^r H^ .4! <'■ J % '■ '■ » \' ^ ■ ^ ^ ■■11 W. ■' rd V \--~~ \ %^ '^aPV I ^1. w In the Temple. Hofmann. The original painting is in the Dresden Gallery. Helnrioh Hofmann was born in Darmstadt, 1824. Studied at Dusseldorf, Antwerp, Munich, Dresden, and four years in Italy. He is a professor in the Dresden Academy. i-^Hr-y- "The legends of early Christianity tell us that night and day, where Jesus moved and Jesus slept, the cloud of light shone round about him. And so it was ; but that light was no visible Sheehinah; it was the beauty of holiness; it was the 'peace of God.' " Dean F. W. Farrar. This thought is indicated by the artist in the glory which glorifies the figure of Jesus, even in his child-life. This illustration pertains to Book First, Chapter Three. 37 Jesus and John the Baptist E. Winterstein. The original painting hangs in the Dresden Gallery. -3-«-f- " Antra deserti teneris sub annis." * "In eaves of the lone wilderness thy youth Thou hiddest, shunning the rude throng of men, And guarding the pure treasure of thy soul From the least touch of sin." "There to thy sacred limbs the camel gave A garment coarse; the rock a bed supplied; The stream thy thirst, locusts and honey wild Thy hunger satisfied. " Breviary in Lyra Catholiea. This painting illustrates the period in the life of Jesus that is alluded to in Book First, Chapter Three. 29 Christ's Farewell to His Mother. Plockhorst. The original of this painting is owned by Mr. H. L. Dousvian, of i^t. Louis. H-*-S- This work of art represents Jesus at the moment when he was leaving the home of Mary to enter upon his public ministry. Mrs. Jameson in her "Legends of the Madonna," alludes to a beautiful belief concerning the continued influence of Mary upon the later life of Jesus .- — "The theologians of the Middle Ages insist on the close and mystical relation which they assure us existed between Christ and his mother : However far separated, there was a constant commun- ion between them; and wherever he might be, in whatever acts of love, or mercy, or benign wisdom occupied for the good of man — there was also his mother present with him in the Spirit." 31 Peter Walking upon the Water. Plockhorst. -i-^-i "Lord save me." "Short prayers are long enough. Not length but strength is desirable. A sense of need is a mighty teacher of brevity. All that is real prayer in many a long address might have been uttered in a petition as short as that of Peter. " Charles H. Spurgeon. This painting illustrates Book Third, Chapter Two. 33 Raising the Daughter of Jairus. Gustav Riehter. This painting^ executed in 1856, is now in the National Gallery in Berlin. Gustav Eichter was born in Berlin about 1822. Aprofessoritithe Hoyal Academy of Arts in Berlin, and a member of the Academies of Munich and Vienna. Died, 1884. -3-*-S- " Maiden, arise! See, she obeys his voice ! She stirs ! She lives ! " Longfellow's Divine Tragedy. This illustration relates to Book Third, Chapter Six. 36 The Good Shepherd. Ploekhorst. -3-*-j- Art in the early Christian centuries delighted in picturing Jesus as the Shepherd, youthful and majestic, caring for his sheep in every season. " Come, wandering sheep, come ; I'll hind thee to my breast ,- I'll bear thee to thy home, And lay thee down to rest." Lyra Catholiea. Spanish Hymn. " When in clouds and mist the weak ones stray, He shows again the way. And points to them afar A bright and guiding star. Hallelujah ! " Krummaeher. This painting illustrates Book Five, Chapter Three, and Book Ten, Chapter Three. 37 Jesus and the Woman. Emile Signal. Emile Signal was born in Paris, 1804. At twenty-six he gained as a prize the privilege of studying three years at Borne. A member of the Institute and an officer of the Legion of Honor. Many of his works are at Versailles. The original of this illustration, painted in 1840, is at the Luxembourg Museum. i-*-1 This story of Jesus' pity for the woman and his indignant rebuke of her sinful accusers, is one of the earliest of the traditions concerning Christ ; and it is probably authentic, even if unrecorded in the earliest Gospel manuscripts. Jesus was that sort of person that a sinful woman would bathe his feet with her tears and a learned rabbi would seek him in the night upon the slopes of Olivet; the religious extremes in Judea finding in Jesus a sympathizing friend. Spurgeon relates the story of a wicked, yet half-penitent woman in Dublin who greeted the clergyman who called on her, by saying "If Jesus Christ had been here so long as you have, he would have called on me long ago." This painting illustrates Book Five, Chapter One, the story of the Woman of Samaria ; also Book Six, Chapter Five, Jesus' contact with the Pharisees. 39 \A-' The Penitent. Ploekhorst. -3"*-S- This picture represents the return, not perhaps of a prodigal, but of a young man recognizing his need of Christ's friendship, and the answering sympathy of him " who looking earnestly " upon the young man, is said to have "loved him." The angel faces peering out of the cloud indicated the joy in heaven, "over one sinner who repenteth." It is the approachableness of Jesus which led Robertson to say, "He who stood in divine uprightness that never faltered, felt com- passion for the ruined, and infinite gentleness for human fall. Broken, disappointed, doubting hearts in dismay and bewilderment never looked in vain to him. Very strange, if we stop to think of it, for generally human goodness repels from it evil men; they shun the society and presence of men reputed good. But here was purity attracting evil; that was the wonder. The Son of Man was ever standing among the lost, and his ever predominant feelings were sadness for the evil in human nature, hope for the divine good in it and the divine image never worn out." This painting illustrates Book Five, Chapter One, Jesus as a Pastor; and Book Six, Chapter Five, the Gentleness as well as the Severity of Christ. 41 The Sermon on the Mount. Edouard Dubufe. -!-«-l- The Beatitudes. "If we estimate character moie by the standard of Christ's Beatitudes than what we shortsightedly call ' results,' we shall find some of the sublimest fruits of faith among what are commonly called passive virtues : — "In the silent endurance that hides under the shadow of great affliction; in the great loveliness of that forbearance which 'suffers long and is kind'; in the charity which is not easily provoked; in the forgiveness which can be buffeted for doing well and take it patiently ; in the smile upon the face of diseased and suffering per- sons, a transfiguration of the tortured features of pain brightening sick rooms more than the sun ; in the unostentatious heroisms of the household amid the daily dripping of small eares ; in the noiseless conquests of a love too reverential to complain ; in resting in the Lord and waiting patiently for him." Bishop Huntington. This painting illustrates Booh Five, Chapter Three. •^3 Preaching from the Boat. Hofmann. The original of this painting is in the National Gallery at Berlin. ^-*-l- This painting illustrates Book Five, Chapter Three. It was said by Jesus, "I have not come to heal the sick, but to preach the Kingdom of God. " In these preaching tours, we are to think of the preacher as adapting his words to the hour and the scene. He who upon the land told the story of the Sower, may have told his water- side hearers about the Mustard-seed, since the lake shores were lined with this plant, or he may have spoken of the Goodly Pearl from the waters of the Arabian Gulf, which he saw a caravan mer- chant seeking to sell at Capernaum. The story of the Fishers and the drag-net might have illus- trated a transaction going on in the sight of his hearers at that very moment. We can but think of the privilege of those who listened to the preaching of Jesus. " Certainly," says St. Jerome, " a flame of fire and starry brightness flashed from his eyes, and the majesty of the Godhead shone in his face. " 45 Casting out the Money-Changers. F. Kirehbueh. -i-*-S- This painting, which illustrates the reference to this scene in Book Fivff Chapter Two, and in Book Seven, Chapter One, is based upon -the story in the Gospels of the two cleansings of the temple-, ■ orie.at the commencement of Jesus' public ministry at the April Pass- over after his baptism in January, and again at the beginning of the Passover week. The need of such acts has been well stated by Dean Farrar, which I present in condensed form. , -^ " In the court of the Gentiles were penned flocks of sheep and . &em, while the drovers and pilgrims stood bartering around them; there were the men with great wicker cages filled with doves ; and under the shadow of the arcades, the money-changers, with tables covered with small coin. This Court of the Gentiles, which was a witness that the temple should be a house of prayer to all nations, had been degraded into a place for foulness, like shambles, and for bustling commerce, like a densely crowded mart, while the lowing of oxen and bleating of sheep, the babel of language, the huckstering and wrangling, and clinking of money might be heard in the adjoining courts, disturbing the prayer of the priests and the Levites' chant." 47 His Entry into Jerusalem. Plockhorst. -5-*-l- "A great multitude of people Fills all the street ; and riding on an ass Comes one of noble aspect, like a king ! The people spread their garments in the way, And scatter branches of palm trees ! Blessed Is he that eometh in the name of the Lord ! Hosanna in the highest. " The Divine Tragedy. This painting illustrates Book Seven, Chapter One. 49 In Gethsemane. E. K. Liska. -S-*-!- " According to all the consenting testimonies, the Lord of Glory went through death, to save us from it. He drank the cup of hitter woe, that we might quaff from heavenly chalices the wine of life. Allfaintness and gloom which his mysterious being could know, he folded around, he took within him, that we might walk celestial streets with palm and harp, in robes of white. " R. S. Storrs, LL.D. This painting illustrates Book Seven, Chapter Three. 51 The Arrest. Charles F. Galahert. Charles F. Galabcrt was born at Nimes, 1819. A pupil of Delaroche. An officer of the Legion of Honor. -J-*-j- " What lights are these ? What torches glare and glisten Upon the swords and armor of these men ? And there among them, Judas Iscariot ! " The Divine Tragedy. This painting illustrates Book Seven, Chapter Four. 53 Leaving Pilate's Hall. Gustave Bore. Paul Gustave Dore was born in Strashurg, 1833 ; died, Paris, 1883. -5-«-!- This work of art which illustrates Booh Seven, Chapter Five, was painted in the years 1867-1872. It was not completed when the Franco-German war broke out, and during the Siege of Paris the canvas, twenty feet by thirty, was buried for security against injury by shot and shell. This painting was included in the American Exhibition of Dore's works. 55 John and Mary Returning from the Tomb. Plockhorst. This painting is in the Lowenstein Gallery^ Moscow. H-*-!- Stabat Mater Dolorosa. " Who, on Christ's dear mother gazing, , Pierced by anguish so amazing. Born of woman, would not weep ? Who, on Christ's dear mother thinking. Such a cup of sorrow drinking, Would not share her sorrows deep ? " From the Latin of Jaeopone de Benedietus, a Franeisean monk, oh. A. D. 1308. 57 The Women at the Tomb of Christ. Plockhorst. This painting which illustrates Book Eight, Chapter One, was a Medal work at the Berlin Exhibition. -f-*-H PONE LVCTVM, MAGDALEN A. " Mary ! leap for joy and gladness, Christ has triumphed o'er the tomb ; He hath closed the scene of sadness, He of death, hath sealed the doom ; Whom thou late in death wast mourning. Welcome now to life returning. " From the Latin. Lyra Catholiea. 59 On the Way to Emmaus. Plockhorst. The original painting is owned by Mr. H. L. Dousman^ of St. Louis. H-*-f- " From this episode I learn that Christ is willing to he the com- panion of my life-journey, until I reach the heavenly home. He that walketh with Jesus, walketh surely, his journey will be safe and he will never miss the right road." A report of Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler's words upon this incident. To illustrate Book Eight, Chapter One. 61 The Ascension. Gottlieb Biermann, Berlin. -5-*-!- ' Rise, glorious Conqueror, rise, — Into thy native shies, Assume thy right. And where in many a fold The clouds are backward rolled — Pass through the gates of gold, And reign in light." Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges. To illustrate Book Eight, Chapter Three. 63 ]j), I stand at the Door and Knock. Karl Sehonherr. Karl Sehonherr was born in Saxony, 1824. A professor at Dresden Academy. -H-*->- In the Chapel at Wellesley College there is a memorial window presented by Governor Claflin of Massachusetts, which represents Jesus knocking at the door of the heart. The very first Sunday it was seen, one student, who had hesitated long to undo the door, yielded to the Pilgrim knocking and let her Saviour in. "Jesus Christ is no burglar," said a loving pastor, and when he said that, one, who had been long waiting for the knocking Christ to break through, yielded, and opened the door for Christ to enter. " In the silent midnight watches. List — thy bosom's door • How it knocketh, knocketh, knocketh, Knocketh evermore. Say not 'tis thy pulses beating, ' Tis thy heart of sin ; 'Tis thy Saviour knocks and crieth, 'Rise and let me in.'" A. C. Coxe. 65 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. What Our Elder Brother is to JVIe. «s*s> IF every disciple in every age were to report what Jesus Christ is to him, he would but describe the link by which he is united to God in Christ, and the very variety of these personal impressions would more fully set forth the character of the Son of Man in its adap- tation to the wants of all men in all ages. The fact that there is a four-sided Gospel story encourages the painters, poets, and teachers of the world to attempt the portrayal of certain attributes of Jesus, which are dwelt upon by the imagination of the artist, the singer, or the moralist. What Jesus Christ is to me is my message to the world. It is my individual answer to the question, " What think ye of Christ ? " To contribute one's own impression of the Gospel portraiture, to present the evangel in its modifi- cation of personal life, is one's best contribution to the thought of his generation. " What I was as an artist once seemed to me of some importance," said an eminent Eng- lishman, " but what I am as a disciple of Christ interests me now." What think ye of Christ, sets aside all other questions as of secondary import. He alone whose art or calling is the expression of his view of Christ is the happy 66 WHAT JESUS CHRIST IS TO ME. man : I am indeed content in drudgery since I know that my Lord was uncomplaining and faithful as a hand-toiler ; or I am with great joy an artist, since he too loved the green earth and the blue sea, and made everything beauti- ful. Or, if this is not correctly stated, it is to be said that he is the happy man who is always picturing to himself what Jesus Christ said or did, or would say or do in one's own circumstances, — who is always seeking to conform his life to the Divine Ideal. When this is the main thought in life, all else is dignified, and one as truly leads an artist life as Raphael or Angelo, in his attempt to depict the char- acter of the Invisible. "Who, indeed," asks Herder, "could venture, after John, to write the life of Christ ? " If however our poor, awkward, uninspired words can give no true idea of that mysterious Person as he was in Galilee and Judea, yet in thoughtfully contemplating the character of Jesus as it was unfolded in his earthly mission, and seeking to form a mental likeness of the Saviour and delineate him for the eyes of others, our own mental conception of him is likely to be more perfectly formed, and our picture will have an individuality about it, — not perfect, but for immediate purposes more perfect than if we had never attempted it. Desiring, therefore, as we do, more than all things else, a growing likeness to the character of the Nazarene, we must, for our own delight and profit, look again and again at this story ; and question about it, and talk about it, till it glows before us in colors fresh as the first light of the morning, which never wearies us. 67 OUR ELDER BROTHER. Nor is the true character of the Master seriously misrep- resented by the attempts made by a great and varied host of writers, to set forth, each in his own way, what Jesus Christ is to him. As we get new ideas of the glory of the sun, by its very power to shine out through the mists or clouds which often intercept its beams at its rising, so every effort to set forth the glory of the Sun of Righteous- ness affords a new illustration of his power, in that his shining is not hindered by the multitude of words which are — so vainly — said to illustrate his life. There is there- fore some advantage in the attempt of different persons to report how they read the story of Jesus, as the very day- dawn is varied by the different combinations of atmos- pheric phenomena morning by morning. But it is the clouds which receive glory, and not the sun ; no cloud adds to the light, but it receives from the light that which makes us glad to gaze upon it. So those who seek to describe the life of Jesus add nothing to his glory, save as they receive from the contemplation of his character that spiritual quickening which leads men to glorify him. It is the hope of gaining this spiritual advantage which leads us to turn again and again to the story of Jesus of Nazareth. "If," says Dr. R. S. Storrs, " the early legend had been true, and the napkin of Veronica had kept the imprint of the Saviour's face as he wiped with it the bloody sweat on his way to the Cross, the city which con- tained it would have been, by means of it, the center of concourse for mankind." To reproduce his likeness has been the unutterable longing of those who have loved him 68 WHAT JESUS CHRIST IS TO ME. in all ages. It is of perennial interest, to paint the Lord Jesus in accordance with one's own ideal of him ; and the world's galleries of art have been crowded in each new generation with a new series of the Madonna and the Holy Child, or new portraiture of the scenes in his life. New thoughts arise concerning him, new kings arise to do him homage, — let then his life be reproduced anew, for every new generation. Like the magnetic mountain in Arabian story, the cradle in Bethlehem attracts all travelers whose ships pass that way ; and the study of his life becomes the center to which the devout mind is more and more drawn with irresistible influence. It was said by D'Aubigne to a doubting student, that the main question to decide was the Incarnation : with that, all diiiiculties are easily resolved, — without that, there is no need of resolving any. To know God and Jesus Christ is enough, — to know God through Jesus Christ ; since it is easier to know much about an incarnate Deity in human' limitations, than to know a little about the First Cause in the attributes characteristic of God. If, there- fore, we seek to know God through Jesus Christ, let us exult with Faber : "To think, to speak, to write perpetu- ally of the grandeurs of Jesus, — what joy on earth is like it ? That which is to be our occupation in eternity, usurps more and more with sweet encroachment the length and breadth of time. Earth grows into heaven, as we come to live and breathe in the atmosphere of the Incarnation." 69 BOOK ONE. -»5:S-J|e-?$(- Otir Pattern in YouLtti. -^MW-^ Chaptek 1. Page 71. The Nlanger Child.. Chapteb 2. Page 81. The Home at Nazareth. Chaptek 3. Page 91. The Boyhood of Jes\as. CHAPTER ONE. The Nlanger Child. U T O other event in the history of the world has so aroused 1^ the enthusiasm of poets and painters, philosophers I and religious devotees, statesmen and men of affairs, as the birth of Jesus Christ. To this the world is never weary of turning; childhood, youth, early manhood and womanhood, and mature years, — all ages interested in the Babe of Bethlehem. The angels in heaven, too, found in this event new occa- sion for song, and their melodious voices were heard upon the earth. "It came upon the midnight clear, That glorious song of old, From angels bending near the earth To touch their harps of gold : ' Peace to the earth, good-will to men From heaven's all-gracious King.' The earth in solemn stillness lay To hear the angels sing." — E. H. Sears. " Hark, how all the welkin rings, — Glory to the King of Kings ! Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled. [Book I.] 71 OUE ELDER BROTHER. Joyful, all ye nations, rise, Join the triumph of the skies ; • Universal nature, say, — ' Christ the Lord is born to-day. ' ' ' — CiiAKLEs Wesley. " Peace on earth, good will from heaven, Reaching far as man is found ; Souls redeemed, and sins forgiven, Loud our golden harps shall sound. Hallelujah !" — John Cawood. "Glory to God in the highest :" this is nothing else than the first table of the moral law, — love to God. On the earth peace, good will to men : this is nothing else than the second table of the law, — love to man. This is the angelic interpretation of the Advent. The apostles are spoken of as " preaching peace through Jesus Christ." Their message was " the Gospel of peace." The New Testament benediction, fourteen times repeated, is " Peace be with you." "These things," quoth the Master, " I have spoken unto you that ye might have peace." " Peace I leave with you ; my peace I give unto you." The holy child Jesus came as the Prince of Peace. " ' What means this glory round our feet,' The magi mused, ' more bright than morn? ' And voices chanted, clear and sweet, ' To-day the Prince of Peace is born." " ' What means that star,' the shepherds said, ' That brightens through the rocky glen ? ' And angels, answering overhead. Sang, < Peace on earth, good will to men.' " — James Russell Lowell. 72 THE HOLY CHILD. " Yet with the woes of sin and strife, The world has suffered long ; Beneath the angel-strain have rolled Two thousand years of wrong ; And men, at war with men, hear not The loVe-song which they bring : Oh, hush the noise, ye men of strife, And hear the angels sing. " Still through the cloven skies they come, With peaceful wings unfurled ; And still their heavenly music floats O'er all the weary world : Above its sad and lowly plains They bend on heavenly wing. And ever o'er its babel sounds The blessed angels sing. ' " O ye, beneath life's crushing load Whose forms are bending low ; Who toil along the climbing way With painful steps and slow, — Look now, for glad and golden hours Come swiftly on the wing : Oh, rest beside the weary road, And hear the angels sing. " For lo, the days are hastening on By prophet-bards foretold, When with the ever circling years Comes round the age of gold ; When Peace shall over all the earth Its ancient splendors fling, And the whole world send back the song Which now the angels sing." — Edmund H. Sears, D.D. THAT the birth of the Good Shepherd, who was to lay down his life for his flock, should be made known first to the shepherds near Bethlehem, accords well with 73 OUR ELDER BROTHER. the story of the manger. The world's people as such abide to-day in the fields, in pastoral or rural calling ; four or five out of every six of the population of this globe to-day, being interested in caring for sheep and cattle. And as to their present average condition, two out of every five would esteem the cave where Jesus was born, a very palace ; living, as they do, in circumstances more humble than the wayfarers who sought hospitality on this memo- rable night at Bethlehem. So true is it that our Lord took to himself the state of the average man. The poor man's child in lonely lot, — In field, perchance, or hovel cot, — Is dear to Him of humble birth ; His cry the sweetest sound on earth. Can e'er the Manger-Child forget The -woes of earth His lambs beset? The piteous bleat of anguished hours Is heard by Him in heavenly bowers, — And light divine for new-born child Illumes the night, howe'er so wild. •J OY to the world, the Lord is come : Let earth receive her King ; Let every heart prepare Him room, And heaven and nature sing." — Isaac Watts. ' All iny heart this night rejoices. As I hear. Far and near, Sweetest angel voices : ' Christ is born,' their choirs are singing, Till the air Everywhere Now with joy is ringing." — Paul Gerhaiidt, lf)5i). 74 THE HOLY CHILD. Save on the west, there are deep valleys around the village of the Manger ; fertile vales that favor the flocks. Aroused from their devout and withal sleepy medi- tations, by the glory gleaming from the opening skies — as if the celestial gates had been flung back and the eyes of the angel hosts were flashing through the night to search the dark streets of Bethlehem upon its ridge — the shepherds with faces now aflame with heavenly radiance, swept noiselessly onward in search for the cradle of Christ ; and everywhere wings of gold were down sweeping, and the night was illumined by the glory of the Lord shining about their feet, as they advanced with tuneful step. " What sudden blaze of song Spreads o'er the expanse of heaven ; In waves of light it thrills along The angelic signal given : ' Gloiy to God,' from yonder central fire, Flows out the echoing lay, beyond the starry choir." — John Keble. THE Romans little noticed it ; they were all absorbed in noting the youthful prince Augustus. Yet the birth of Jesus forms the grand turning point in the world's history : the centuries which had gone before, were now sealed up ; and the doors were closed on all ages since Adam : henceforth men began to count the years anew,— as if the true life of the world had just commenced, and a new order of time was now to unfold upon the earth, the 75 OUR ELDER BROTHER. years of our Lord.* And this grand era had its beginning-, not as we would have ordered it. We would have had the new-born King laid in a cradle decked with diamonds, in a temple radiant with silver and gold and gems of every hue : but he brought with him no splendid house from heaven, choosing the rather a manger in a chamber hung with spiders' webs. The religious pole of the globe, that attracts the thoughts and guides the steps of all who wander over its surface, is found in a stable at Bethlehem. Yet vain it is, O man, that Christ were born in Bethlehem, if never born in thee. Has not the inn of his birth become the shrine of all nations, and does he not receive all comers ? w ISE were the men who came, when they saw the beams of the star out of Jacob. " 'Tis now fulfilled what God decreed,^ ' From Jacob shall a star proceed ' : And lo, the eastern sages stand, To read in heaven the Lord's command." — Latin hymn translated by .T. Chandler. * The Christian era, instead of the Roman year, was first used by the Venerable Bade, early in the eighth century ; and was soon after used by the kings of France ; and it was in error by four years, bping so much later than the bii'th of Christ. Edersheim thinks that the birth of the Saviour is more likely to have occurred the 25th of December than any other date, and that it could not have been later than the beginning of February. Geikie says, between December and February : Geisler, Feb- ruary. Other authorities suggest different dates. All the old chro- nology is difficult. No one pretends to know when Alexander the Great 76 THE HOLY CHILD. As celestial voices had guided unlearned men to Christ, so now a finger of light directed the magi. As the devout shepherds had been eagerly watching for the coming Mes- siah, so these wise men, by Jewish books scattered in the East, knew that the set time had come for the appearance of the King of kings upon this earth. The imaginative Bede says, that Caspar was a ruddy youth, who brought frankincense for the infant Saviour's worship ; and that Melchior was an old man with a long white beard, who brought a gift of gold, as if tribute to a king ; and that Balthasar was very dark, with a heavy beard, who brought myrrh, as if for our Lord's burial. Yet the soul's adoration on the part of any poor disciple in this day, is worth more than all the gifts of the magi. When we reflect upon this strange story of myrrh and frankin- cense and gold from the Orient, we cannot but follow in imagination those men endowed with heavenly wisdom, — fire-worshipers, pagans as we should say, seeing the Invisi- ble God through the fire, — who journeyed far to greet the infant King of the Jews. And we can never forget the sweet story of the ancient church which declares that Christ's doubting disciple found the magi in the distant east a few years after Christ's resurrection, and there told was born, as to the month or the year : that he conquered the world is known. Upon the whole the Christian world is right in singing : — " Chime, ye bells of Christmas tide, Let the joyful chorus -peal : Gates of heav'n are open wide ; Low before our Lord we kneel." 77 OUE ELDER BROTHER. them the full story of Jesus, and baptized them ; and that they went forth into more distant countries preaching Christ and him crucified ; and that like so many of those early Christians they died as martyrs, — receiving thus heavenly crowns from the Babe of Bethlehem in return for their early gifts, and their life of faith. So early did the Gentiles begin to gather at the feet of Jesus, — the Oriental magi, the Syrophoenician, and the Greeks ; all in token of days to come. And the wise men of the Gentiles have come in all ages bearing gifts to the Holy Child.* THE magi inquired of the rabbis in Jerusalem, where Christ should be born. "And," says Jeremy Taylor, ' ' they told them right ; but the wise men went to Christ and found him, and the doctors sat still and went not." And later on these same blind and perverse doctors, who were bound to reject Jesus anyway, said, "We know this man whence he is ; but when the Messiah cometh, no man knoweth whence he is." As a child, Jesus was rejected of men. Strange was the contrast between the conduct of humble shepherd, devout philosopher, holy man and maid in the temple, and that of *"We all know," says Gbikie, "how lowly a reverence is paid to him in passage after passage by Shakespeare, the greatest intellect known in its wide, many-sided splendor. Men like Galileo, Kepler, Bacon, Newton, Milton, set the name of Jesus Christ above every other. Spinoza calls Christ the symbol of divine wisdom ; Kant and Jacobi hold him up as a symbol of ideal perfection ; and Schelling and Hegel, as that of the union of the divine ^nd human." 78 THE HOLY CHILD. bloody Herod. But he who had already slain his own brother and his own wife and three of his own sons, and he who ordered a massacre of the heads of many distinguished families for the day of his funeral so as to cause general mourning, found peculiar joy in causing lamentation among the mothers who dwelt near Bethlehem. And although the slaughter of the innocents could not have comprised a very great number in the region of so small a village, yet the mandate was one which would not scruple at mere numbers whether a score or a thousand, if anything were to be gained by multiplying victims. These holy children, the first of that great multitude who have been slain in the name of Jesus, have been pictured by Hunt, in cherub forms, hovering over the path- way of the Holy Family in their flight to Egypt. This " Triumph of the Innocents," is a poem as well as a paint- ing, — and a prophecy, too, dear to motherhood so oft stricken by the hand of violence. WHILE men thought the Wonderful Infant slain, the Lord was hiding himself in the ancient home of Israel in the valley of the Nile. And it were nothing very strange if there were some truth in old story, that the flight was so sudden, the family suffered from poverty in a foreign country ; * that he who afterwards had not where to lay his head, now wore fine flax gathered by his mother seeking * On the other hand, Dk. T. De Witt Talmage suggests that the gold given by the wise men was of timely service in this journey. 79 OUR ELDER BROTHER. charity from door to door. Neither were it strange, if Mary had some forebodings of a life of persecution and sorrow for her son, whose painful wanderings began so early. The visiting angel did not reveal to the mother that her son was to be "The Man of Sorrows" ; but, torn from her home by persecution for his sake, she might now have begun to suspect it. I can hardly wonder, therefore, that the men of early times, who reflected on these hours in Egypt, should have represented the mother of Jesus with mind prepared for every grief, and becoming acquainted with the future life of her son, baptism and temptation, scourging and cross, — through the prophetic inspiration of a poor woman of Egypt, who treated the holy family with great courtesy, and who begged as an alms the gift of true repentance and eternal life. That such a scene should come down to us in the paint- ings of the early Church is only an indication of the popular belief that the peculiar glory of Christ, nianif ested in the strange portents of his birth, was made known in the land of his exile. Setting aside old traditions, we know that Joseph did wisely in seeking his acquaintances, and perhaps his kin- dred, in Egypt ; there being, it is said, about a million of his countrymen settled there at the time. Yet a voice was heard from heaven : " Out of Egypt have I called my son." And Jesus henceforth abode in Nazareth. 80 CHAPTER TWO. Tine Home at Nazareth.. I HAVE often wished that I could picture to my- self the early home of Jesus, and see what the wondering eyes of this boy saw when they first opened to notice the surroundings of his village and the wider scenery of his native country. The Mosaic law speaks of the -desolation into which the Holy Land would fall if the Jews were unfaithful to their religious privileges ; and there is represented "a stranger from a far country going to see the plagues of the land, .and the sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon it." Yet, even in its decay, travelers from all lands find that in Palestine which makes it the joy of their lives to visit it. The physical characteristics of the ancient home of God's people are such that it has been sometimes called a " Museum Land," in which may be found choice specimens of almost every kind of scenery in the world. Within limits no larger than one of the smaller states of N'ew England or a single county of one of our western or south- ern states, we find a hundred and fifty miles of wild sea- coast ; and mountains rising eight or ten thousand feet [Book 1.] 81 * OUR ELDER BROTHER. above the sea ; and the swift Jordan makes its bed in the bottom of a ravine some three thousand feet deep, — in the first part of its course running through lakes among the hills which are marvels of beauty, and losing itself at last in the salt sea. The climate is as varied as the face of the country ; both unmelting snows and tropical heat in the land of promise. And there was in former ages a great variety in the products of the soil. Palestine is like a platform, or stage, standing apart, for the display of the dramatic life of the Saviour of men. It is like an upland islet, or rather peninsula pushing down from the north, between the Mediterranean on the west, the Jordan ravine and seas of sand on the east, and the south- ern desert toward Egypt. West of the Jordan the northern portion of this platform is but twenty miles wide, and only twice that on the south opposite the Dead Sea ; and it is in length less than sevenscore miles from Dan to Beer- sheba. A long plain extends along the coast, narrow at the north, and widening toward the south. It was once wooded in part, and a part was cultivated. All Palestine is a table-land, from fifteen to eighteen hundred feet above the sea, cut here and there by east and west water courses. Jerusalem and Olivet, Hebron and Bethel, Ebal and Geri- zim, are from eight to twelve hundred feet higher than the general face of the country. This hilly Palestinian plat- form is nowhere level, in any considerable area, except in the red plain of volcanic soil called Esdraelon, of some twelve by fifteen miles, near Nazareth. 83 THE HOME AT NAZARETH. THE upland basin of Nazareth is twelve hundred feet above the sea. It is surrounded by fifteen gently- rounded hills, from four to six hundred feet high. The valley between them may be described as star-shaped, about a mile across, with five fingers thrust between eminences on every side. The walls of these hills make an amphitheater, folding like rose leaves, and they shut out the winter winds from the sunny nook which offers garden sites to the Nazarenes. The brown bottom lands are very rich ; and we see flocks of goats or sheep nibbling in the green hollows, or we see fields of barley or wheat, — and there are oranges, pome- granates, fig trees, and mulberries, and so many olives that the rabbis say, " the Galileans wade in oil." The pear or apple orchards are sometimes inclosed by hedges of prickly pear ; and there are stone walls like those in New England. Among brilliant flowers, we recognize the lily, the tulip, the anemone, the poppies, and the wild geraniums. The skirts of the hills are covered with gardens,^ — citrons, cab- bages and carrots, lettuce, mustard and peas, growing everywhere ; and the heights are clad with vineyards. Among the birds with which Jesus must have been familiar in his boyhood, we note the linnet, the goldfinch, the yel- low hammer, the thrush, the lark, the house martin, the wren, the blackbird, and the robin. The narrow streets of Nazareth run along in irregular terraces upon the southern slope of one of the highest of the hills ; perhaps two hundred feet from the bottom, and four hundred from the top. There is no distant view on 83 OUR ELDER BROTHER. account of the surrounding hills ; but one sees the fertile valley and the green slopes, with here and there sharp ledges breaking roughly out of the mountain sides, like that from which the Nazarenes once tried to cast down Jesus to kill him The bald limestone ledges, from which the soil has been washed, are snow-white ; and the dwell- ing houses look like cubical blocks of yellowish limestone, low and flat-roofed, dazzling in the sun, with walls occa- sionally relieved by a climbing vine. There are no win- dows, — light comes in through the door ; and there is need to light a candle, if a piece of silver is lost in a corner. A rich man's house, however, has an inner court and more freedom for light. Down upon the hillside below the city a bubbling spring bursts forth from a fissure in the limestone. The water is as sweet to-day as when Mary, the mother of Jesus, went there. It runs so copiously as to make a brooklet — once, if not to-day, running wild — racing along among the reeds and tall grasses, the willows and the alders, to water the vale below. It is the home of the hyacinth, the yellow water-lily, the sweet marjoram, the mint, and thyme ; just as they appeared to the Babe of Bethlehem, when carried in the arms of his mother along the singing, sparkling waters eighteen hundred years ago. THE GLORY OF MOTHERHOOD. " Tl*^ upon the stainless skies /I Peaceful hangs tlie uew-boru sun ; So upon thy bosom lies, Mother pure, thy Holy One. 84 THE HOME AT NAZARETH. Ah, how lovely that repose, Mother with the Infant fair, — Twined, as with the tender rose, Violet and lily are." — Latin hymn of the 15th century. It was in the family of his mother that Jesus learned the life of love, and very largely his human wisdom. Mary was peculiarly fitted to aid his early life, and to prepare him for his future work : " Mary, the meekest and lowliest of maidens, — it is her sweetness, her grace, her modesty, which is the fitting ornament in her peerless work." * " It was long," says an English preacher, f " long before she revealed to anyone the message of the angel. Her silence is, next to that of Christ, the naost remarkable thing in this history. She was a woman of quiet thought, of solitary prayer, of tacit power. It is impossible to get rid of the belief that this had its natural influence on the development of the human nature of Christ. We see at least that in the highest and noblest way our Saviour's life embodies this strength of waiting, this silence of growth, this love of lonely meditation." The highest degree of mental force is exhibited by Mary's hymn of thanksgiving. And it seems likely that she bore a part in Bible making, by relating the details of Jesus' birth, as they are recorded in the Gospel of Luke. It has been also urged by one of our most suggestive writers! that Mary showed herself a woman of remarkably ♦Canon H. P. Liddon. tSxopFORD A. Beooke, D.D. {Horace Bushnell, D.D. 85 OUR ELDER BROTHER. well balanced character, from her ability to commend herself to Joseph under circumstances peculiarly trying ; her calmness and composure of spirit under the strange ordeal confirming in his mind the dream he had of her integrity. Then, too, that the mother should keep all the wise say- ings of her son in her breast, was a mark of rare wisdom. She was quiet, and praised God silently, instead of gadding among the neighbors boasting of her strangely precocious child. "Had Christ's mother," says Bushnell, "been a forward and loud woman, advertising always her miracu- lous child, reporting his strangely phenomenal acts, re- peating his speeches and telling what great expectations she had of him, it really seems that she might have quite spoiled his Messiahship. At any rate he must have under- taken his ministry at an immense and almost fatal disad- vantage." Mary's expectancy as to the character of Jesus must, however, have led her to tell him, as child or youth, the story of the angelic annunciation, and of the kings out of the Orient ; which could but have excited inquiry in the mind of Jesus, and prompted his search for the meaning of that law which he was to fulfill. That Christ appreciated the character of her who bore him, we have every reason to believe ; and the even bal- ance of his character leads us to look in on Mary's home in the early manhood of Jesus, as a place of peculiar com- fort to the mother in the companionship of her beloved and loving son. And in the miracle at Cana no reprimand is 86 THE HOME AT NAZARETH. implied in the Greek words used, though our translation seems a little harsh to our occidental ears.* It is, however, clear enough that Christ understood his kingdom to be founded on no peculiar honors to Mary. Everywhere the idea of obedience to God was set forth as the first thing, and the highest honor possible to anyone was to be found only in that. When, therefore, a woman, after the oriental manner of speaking, uttered a blessing upon his mother, Jesus said, " Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it." And directly after, his mother was said to be standing on the borders of the crowd, which had packed itself into the court where he was, and Christ said to those about him, " Who is my mother ? " "Who are my brethren ? " And after a pause, when he had looked round about on all those who were near him, drawing the eyes, of all to himself, then he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, with eyes full of love, and lips of gentle accent, "Behold my mother, and my brethren : They are these which hear the word of God and do it. For whosoever shall do the will of God my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother. " So far only as Mary was a holy woman, was she nearly related to her own son. Doubtless in those days when the zeal for his Father's house consumed him, Mary herself joined in with the rest of her family in fearing that Jesus was beside himself. *This episode indicates that the hour had come, in which Jesus was to act, not merely as the son of Mary, but as the Messiah. 87 OUR ELDER BROTHER. That was what they said, — that he was out of balance. They could not appreciate the greatness of his mission, nor the means he thought necessary for carrying it out. And her heart sank and almost broke, when he, whom she knew to be the most prudent and thoughtful* of men, went clash- ing against the religious authorities of his people, — against scribe and Sadducee, Pharisee and priest, the high priest of God, and all revered rabbis of the holy people ; and entered into that path which led to a slave's death on the cross. When the loving son, in dying, gave the care of his mother as a legacy to John, the beloved disciple in taking her to his own home did not glorify her and worship her. Christ, not Mary, is the prominent figure in the Gospel.* In the days following the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, we find the mother of the Lord among the disciples, of like faith with them, and with them counted as being next of kin to the glorified Redeemer, f " Say of me as the angel said, ' Thou art The blessedest of women.' — Blessedest, — Not holiest, not noblest ; no high name, — Whose height, misplaced, may pierCe me like a shame When I sit meek in heaven." — Mrs. Browning. * John, with whom the mother of Jesus lived, and who survived her, said nothing of her death or life ; and no New Testament writer outside of the Evangelists ever spoke of her. t Acts 1 : 14. The last time Mary is spoken of in the Bible, was when she attended a prayer meeting. Yet, having said so much, the fact remains that the mother of Jesus has in the world's love so warm a place, that universal manhood is loyal 88 THE HOME AT NAZARETH. IS it not hard for us with our knowledge of our Ee- deemer's later life and his death and his glory, to think of Jesus as a child at home in the house of Mary and Joseph ? How strange the scenes, if, with all our present ideas of Jesus and his disciples, we could have looked about in the time of his childhood ; — to see that rough and ready young fisherman Peter, swearing up and down the shores of the lake, or drawing stout nets full of fish from its waters ; or to see the lad Saul in Tarsus learning the tentmaker's trade in view of the snowy Taurus, and after- wards studying as a young man in Jerusalem ; or to see the child John the beloved, or that John who lived as a hermit in the deserts meditating on God's promises to give Messiah to Israel ; or if we could have seen the Messiah himself, a boy in house and carpenter's shop at Nazareth, — as the early painters depict him when a little child, amused at handling shavings in the shop of Joseph. Brothers were there, first to play, then to toil in the shop. Gibbon, the historian, relates that in the reign of Domi- tian, A. D. 81-96, two grandsons of Jude, the brother of to her, -and womanhood has for her inestimable reverence. She came once, as a stranger, says the legend, to a German village, and lived among the people as if she had long been one of their neighbors ; her guise being adapted to every age and class. To the aged women her kindly features looked old ; and to the maidens she was a light hearted girl ; the young matrons believed that she was a happy mother ; but when a, child clung to her clothing and looked up into her eyes of infinite affection, the little one discerned what no one else knew, that she was Mary the mother of Jesus : age after age the world will be always a little child, and the world's heart will love her. 89 OUR ELDER BROTHER. Christ, were then living on a farm of twenty-four acres near Cocaba, and that their hands were hard with toil. They were brought before the Koman authorities and accused of being descendants of the ancient kings of Israel. And they confessed that they were the sons of David, and relatives of Jesus ; but they declared that the Messiah's kingdom was spiritual : and it seems not unlikely that they thought the Messiah had come. This incident makes it the more real to us that our Saviour had boy playmates whom he called brothers, Jude for one. And his later life of unspeakable dignity had its beginning in a life among the lowly. He who was to found a new household of faith was first obedient to the laws of domestic life. And he, in whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed, learned as the oldest child to prove a blessing to younger children in the house of Mary ; and upon the death of Joseph to assume thie burden of maintaining the house- hold by his handicraft. That '"there was in him all that was most manly, and all that was most womanly, the strength and wisdom and authority of manhood, with the tact and delicacy and intuitive discernment of womanhood," * was due, doubtless, in part to the human hand of a revered mother, as well as to the divine-human instinct of his own unique character. And it is the glory of humanity that Jesus came as the Divine Incarnation, born of a woman, born under the law. *11knry M. Goodwin, D.l). 90 CHAPTEB, THREE.. Ttie Boyhood, of Jesus. ir~^! ^. «j#<= .+. '^ CaVF the medley of squalid homes for the poor, that con- J I stitutes the most notable feature of the Galilean vil- 1 1 lages of to-day, does not picture to us the Nazareth which Jesus saw, yet he must have found there the chattering, jangling vegetable dealers and merchantmen or workmen at their trades, all in the roadway opposite their open shops or stalls, and the obtuse donkeys and patient camels, the chickens ands the children, — the streets full of motley crowds, — • just as to-day. The population was then four or five times as large as now; Doctor Selah Merrill, our foremost authority, estimat- ing it from fifteen to twenty thousand. It was indeed a small city rather than a large village. Three commercial or military roads brought strangers through the town, or at the foot of the hill ; or they passed not far behind the town. The caravans of Midian, or from Damascus, or Egypt, and the great religious pilgrimages, and the Roman legions, and the retinues of foreign princes, were moving hither and thither within sight of the Saviour in his boy- hood. In going up to Jerusalem at twelve year^ old, there was [Book 1.] 91 OUR ELDER BROTHER. first a sharp ascent over a stony path, then a descent of a thousand feet through narrow passes to the plain of Esdra- elon. All the way southward, past green Tabor and the lesser Hermon, clambering along the white limestone hills, or passing between cactus hedges that guarded patches of arable ground, pausing under a palm tree or sycamore, or gathering daisies or dandelions, amid the sage, mignonette, or thistles and brambles, up journeyed the lad : with his questions for the rabbis at Jerusalem. Bright eyed chil- dren, with the joy of the hills in their faces, went with him, and with him they sang the pilgrim songs. It was the first journey he had made, when old enough to take notice. He saw the city of the Great King, and the pilgrims ; the Greeks too, and the Romans, the wild men of the desert, and travelers from the East and from the Nile. And here he heard discussions upon the national theology. He had already thought of those questions which the rabbis debated, and he was drawn at once to the aged men as they sat asking and answering questions ; acutely listening and aptly asking, but not yet himself teaching with authority above that of the scribes. In childlike simplicity he presented to the most learned men of his nation those problems he had been weighing in his obscure home among the hills. He who was so sharp in questioning and answering with the. doctors in later life had no small skill at it now. If childhood is always asking questions, the inquiries of Jesus were not unlikely followed up with method and pui-pose, like the simple and effective questioning of Socrates. 93 THE BOYHOOD OF JESUS. These dry doctors, however, mindful of their own fame, forgot the Wonderful Child, when this religious prodigy was again concealed under the brow of the high hill at Nazareth.* IT was said by Irenseus that Jesus sanctified childhood by passing through it ; and by Bonaventura that we are to become little with the " Little One," that we may increase in stature with him. It is strange indeed that the God- man increased in wisdom, that there was a time when he * " Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's house? " Jesus ■won- dered that Joseph and Mary did not seek for him first of all in the temple. Did thejf not already know his passion for learning of spiritual things, and his interest in the ritual of worship? That Joseph and Mary should have rested in comparative ease during a day's joui'ney, before they sought for him, shows that they were in the habit of trusting the lad out of sight. He had shown proof that he could care for himself. It shows also that Jesus was companionable at that age, and found often with other chil- dren. He knew the childhood plays in the market towns. Dr. Tristram suggests that Joseph thought that Jesus had gone with the women and children, who usually traveled an hour or two in advance ; and that Mary supposed him to be with the men of the company, coming an hour or two later. At twelve, Jesus had become a " Son of the Law " ; and at the syn- agogue phylaotaries had been put upon him as a mature person. It was at this period that the journey to Jerusalem was made, wherein he gathered food for long meditation in first meeting the sages of his people. And though he was probably not yet fully conscious just who he himself was, his relation to his heavenly Father seemed henceforth the nearer and dearer. It is Luke alone who relates this story of the child in the temple, and he alone who emphasizes the fact that he was ' ' subject to his par- ents." NoTA Bene The visit of Jesus as a lad at the temple is the topic of a valuable Article by Bishop Hestdeix in Chapter 1, of Book xi. 9.3 OUR ELDER BROTHER. was less wise than afterwards, that his wisdom developed as he grew in stature ; and that he increased in favor with God, that the divine manifestation ■ — the out-gleaming of the Light of the World in these boyhood days ^-was less at» first than afterwards. The nature of Christ was developed in a manner not unlike that which characterizes human- ity.* It seems likely that the Divine Personality, the In- dwelling Godhead, was manifested in him, in a manner analogous to the action of the Holy Spirit upon human nature now, and that the human powers of Jesus responded perfectly to the Divine ; it being, in effect, much as if the Holy Spirit without measure were acting upon human powers, and the human were in perfect accord with the divine monitions. The perfection of his human nature is illustrated by his coming a little at a time, into a knowledge which he did not have before. Amid common grieving and rejoicing, sleeping and waking, he advanced from wisdom to wis- dom, and from grace to grace. His advance, however, was not from folly, not from wrong ideas, not from graceless- ness. His mental development was powerfully aided by the right determination of his character : his spiritual life favored his perception of the truth ; and his apprehension of what was true, was so related to the executive part of * " He had only the same means as the rest of us, of becoming con- scious of his relationship to God. Foi- if this were not so he is no ex- ample to us, he was not tempted like as we are. " — Thomas Hughks. 94 THE BOYHOOD OF JESUS. his nature, that he willed to act according to the truth he saw. So he came into possession of wisdom, if not of book or rabbinical learning. He tested the doctors when he was twelve years old, and concluded not to add to the elementary instruction of the synagogue, any longer term of sitting at the feet of the scribes and Pharisees.* IT is clear enough, however, that he learned from Moses, if not from those who sat in Moses' seat. The law was taught to Jewish children so early that they began to re- peat it, at five years old. The poorest of the people had portions of Holy Writ. Jesus must have seen all the rolls of the Law and the Prophets in the synagogue, or in the houses of the wealthy, when he was a child. The Son of David must have studied well the ancestral Psalter. The sacred songs of his people, the old proverbs, and the Hebrew history were conned by him who spake as never man spake. The warmth and illustrative power of the inspired preachers of old, the seers and prophets of the earlier dispensation, were caught by him. As a youth he came into sympathy with the stalwart saints who had made venerable his native country, — the heroes and patri- archs, poets and kings. * Jerusalem was the city of fashion, of wealth, of luxury, of culture. The relatively illiterate people of the towns were held in contempt. The Hebrew pronunciation of the Galileans subjected them to ridicule. " Perish the sanctuary," cried the educational zealots, " but let the chil- dren go to school ; " "the breath of the children who attend school is the strongest safeguard of society." 95 OUR ELDER BROTHER. It was written of the law, — " thou shalt meditate therein day and night." In these days of his youth and early manhood, Jesus reflected upon the principles underlying the sacred text. He knew that anger was murder (Matt, v : 31, 23) ; that sin consisted in a wicked look (Matt, v : 37-29) ; that the spirit of the third commandment comprehended more than its letter (Matt, v : 33-37) ; and he threw light upon what the Sabbath was for, by citing the usage of David (Mark xi :15-19). He liberalized the national mind as to retaliation, and the forgiveness of injuries (Matt, v : 38, 39, Matt, v : 43-45) ; he so sharply discerned the mean- ing of Moses, that he could set the Pharisees to rights as to divorce (Matt, xix : 3-9) ; he could silence the Sadducees by ancient texts (Matt, xxii : 23-33) ; and by ancient texts win the approval of the national conscience in twice cleans- ing the temple (Mark xi : 15-19, John ii : 16). To the rabbi Nicodemus (John iii : 10), he explained the meaning of Ezek. xxxvi : 26, 27, and Jer. xxxi : 33. It was his life mission to expound the spirituality of the law, which the scribes and Pharisees had missed (Matt, v : 17-20, Rom. x : i), and to fulfill it : and to become the Lawgiver of new ages. These points indicate plainly that from a child he knew the Holy Scriptures. WE know, too, that the Holy Child had an exquisite sense of color, as he considered the lily in royal array; or with unfeigned humility he considered the worm, which symbol- ized the poverty of spirit of him who was the reproach of 96 THE BOYHOOD OF JESUS. men and the despised of the people. The white and moss rock-roses, and the pink phlox, so abundant near Nazareth, often greeted him in his walks along the lonely glens or upon the hilltops. The wildest panorama in all Palestine, un- surpassed even by Mount Tabor, is seen from the top of the eminence upon whose slope the city is built. Snow-crowned Hermon is a score of miles distant upon the north ; and the dome of Tabor, with its sturdy oaks, is upon the southeast ; in the south and southwest, is the plain of Esdraelon ; in the west is the long ridge of Carmel, — and, twenty miles away, the blue sea ; and in the foreground are the rough backs and precipitous ledges of the hills which surround the vale of Nazareth, and five hundred feet below is the city itself. Clambering the rough hillsides or walking here and there amid growths so familiar, the sage, the nettles, the horehound, appeared the Holy Child in his boyhood, as he studied with the psalmists and prophets of his people the out-of-door revelation. NOR can we rid ourselves of the notion that amid walnuts and maples, the tamarisk, the acacia, the ash, the juni- per and pine, the Son of Mary must often have thought of his higher kinship and his Father's house. The sumac, the ivy, and the hawthorn must have seen him, when, for the hour, he forgot the Nazarenes, and would fain repose upon the bosom of Jehovah. He was no Pharisee to pray upon the street corners, but in the morning, rising up a great while before day, or upon the approach of evening, when the holy mountains were OUR ELDER BROTHER. casting lengthening shadows across the vales or table-lands, and the shepherd boys were bringing in their flocks, and the vineyards and fields were sending home their laborers, then Jesus went forth into some solitary place to commune with Him who seeth in secret. He who loved Olivet began by loving the hill behind Nazareth. The gloom and the glory of the nights of Palestine were well known to him ; whether the black tempest was seen rising from the Medi- terranean, or the constellations were clear. The low mountains upon an inland sea were less damp at night than the elevations of our Atlantic seaboard, and warmer than the dry hills of our high altitudes, so that the conditions were favorable for entering into the closet of the night when the door of the day was shut. And in the silent and solitary watch, the light of heaven shone upon him who in the days of his flesh offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears. He who thought it needful to abide forty days in the desert at the beginning of his public ministry, early abode certain days and nights removed from society and the home circle. For was this strange, when we consider that he had already made such an amazing remove from heights above, coming to this lonely and savage outpost of creation, where the most loving friend could scarce remind him of the society of heaven. When Jesus came at last to be conscious who he was, was there no homesick feeling ever rising in the heart of the God-man, as he wandered about by night on the Nazarene hills often gazing heavenward ? The habit of spiritual communion was well flxed, long 98 THE BOYHOOD OF JESUS. before he prayed in the holy hour of baptism, and long before the fashion of his countenance was altered as he prayed in the hour of transfiguration, and long before he stood at the silent tomb of a friend, testifying, " I know that that Thou hearest me always." It was in early life that his perfect moral nature so coincided with the Divine Mind, that he knew the perfect use of prayer, — dwelling in the secret place of the Most High, and abiding under the shadow of the Almighty. 30ME morning, when returning to his lowly home, there must have dawned upon him that idea which is ex- pressed in Rev. xxii : 16, that he himself was the bright, the Morning Star. Dawn it did, uponsome happy morning, the thought that he himself, at the carpenter's bench, was the Messiah, — the theme of hope and prophecy for four thou- sand years. It was the study of the Messianic texts, to- gether with meditation and prayer, that led him to this conclusion. And his mind was mainly led to it, by the unfolding of his Divine Nature, as he increased in wisdona and stature and waxed strong in spirit ; this Divine Life acting upon his personality in a manner analogous to the manner in which the Holy Spirit acts upon the human soul, or as the Holy Spirit would act upon a character already morally perfect. The grace of God was upon him, and in him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily ; and he was calm and content, as if he had no great work to do. 99 BOOK TWO. -»5:5-*-t^- Outr Brothier in T^oil. CuAPTEB 1. Page 101. A. Ivlaster at the Work:=Benchi. CiiAPTEK 2. Page llj. Hxs Work: Withiotjit KlaA?v. Chapter 3. Page 126. Ttie Nazarene Neigtibors. CuAPTEB 4. Page 132. IVIystery of the Wilderness. CHAPTER ONE. A. Nlaster at the Work:=Bench.. 5Qj/j HETHER the Messianic idea dawned upon the Saviour of men early or late, there appeared no smack of boyish self-conceit, nor lack of youthful modesty, nor impropriety of manly action, nor lack of such dignity as might befit the extraordinary claims he was about to make for himself. It is much, in view of the problems of the present cen- tury, to know that the singular balance and proportion of character attained by Jesus Christ, — which call upon all unbelief to " come and see " whether any good thing can come out of Nazareth, — was wrought out, in its rudiments, in the life of a common laborer. If he watched the coming of the crocus and the mallows, if he observed the water-cress, and the shaking reeds of the brook ; if he wandered among the gardens,- — tbe gourds and the pumpkins of Palestine ; if he noted the sugar-cane, the cotton, and the rice ; if he saw the almond tree and the lime, the date palm and pistachio ; — yet was this man no dreamer, no aimless wanderer in the night watches, and no CBOOK II.] 101 OUR ELDER BROTHER. predestined rhetorician to paint the aspects of nature. He handled rather the level, the plummet, the square. Allowing for the moment the claims he made for him- self, and that the ages have made for him, it would have been extraordinary if he — in whom all prophecy was ful- filled and to whom was applicable every name of the Holy One of God which was revealed in Old Testament song or story — had appeared in any other guise than that of a day- laborer. Had he contravened the average lot of the race, he would have been no Son of Man. Jesus would have been but an alien if in the commonwealth of Israel he had failed to learn a trade : manual work being so honored among God's ancient people, that every rabbi could earn his living by labor ; and it was a Jewish proverb that " he trains his son to be a thief " who teaches him no regular trade. " The tradesman at his work," said the Talmud, " need not rise before the greatest doctor ; " and " the most ordinary laborer, who is of the seed of Abraham, is the peer of kings." And it was told in old tradition that when David thought himself perfect, Nathan reminded him that he had no handicraft : the king therefore learned to handle the tools of an armorer. Jesus, as the Son of David, disciplined his eye, and skilled his fingers in handicraft ; glorifying the work-bench, and hallowing the implements of toil. He, in his highest nature, did this, to identify himself with the race he sought to benefit, much as the Russian Czar served his people best by plying the tools of a ship-carpenter. It is notable that the painters in recent years have been attracted by this 103 THE LEVEL, THE PLUMMET, THE SQUARE. artisan story, finding Jesus in sympathy with the toilers of to-day. Through him the dignity of labor is seen, in its true relation to the grandeur of human life and destiny. The oriental carpenter, in the time of Jesus, was some- times a wagon smith, or he made plows and yokes. Shelves, cupboards, chests, or wooden ware for the house- holder, and carved work came from the carpenter's shop. Sometimes, too, he wrought in metals. The old paintings depict Jesus as a child playing with shavings in the shop ; and Jesus and Joseph are sometimes seen on the ancient canvas building boats, or making fences. * From his after skill in dovetailing argument and illus- tration with subtle doctors or the carping multitude, he must have early gained rare skill in joining things together in workmanlike shape ; and his sharpness in dealing with lawyer, and scribe, and Pharisee, betokened early aptitude in handling edge-tools. Plato, who would exclude bad workmen from an ideal republic, lest they exert an evil influence upon youth, would have spoken of Jesus as exert- ing a salutary, influence, like a breeze bringing health, f With hard hands, toughened by toil, Jesus was ready to take his turn upon the Sabbath day in handling the roll of * The stone mason did most of the house building in Nazareth. The carpenter shop in the time of our Lord was of arched stone, or it was a cave cut out of the limestone hillside. The mechanics were usually seated at their work, — there being no work-bench in the modern sense. fit is impossible to think of him as doing his work so ill that it needed to be done over again ; or of being a mechanic unmanly in his private and social habits. 103 OUR ELDER BROTHER. the law in the synagogue, and as ready to expound Moses and the prophets as to vie with the artisans of his age, who decorated the house of God with vines of gold, or added luxuriant features to the splendor of oriental architecture. No trait of Jesus' character was more marked than the prudence begotten by his sober and well balanced life as a craftsman. He was one apt to count the cost before build- ing. It is likely that his competency and faithfulness were in such demand that he earned good wages, and provided for his own house, and laid up money against the time when he should lead a life of wayfaring. * If, indeed, the question is raised what Jesus was doing in thirty years before his public ministry began, it is to be answered, that he was manufacturing a character to take out into the world with him ; he built up that which was nobler than a,ll the famous buildings of Athens, he made Nazareth more memorable than Rome. OATIENCE was a strong element of his character. The ^ hand which plied the tools might have been laid on the eyes of the blind. His voice, expended in kindly speech to his mother, might have been calling the dead to life, or silencing the winds upon the mountains. And only five miles from Nazareth was Nain, where many widows buried, their sons, and were inconsolable. Jesus learned first of all the lesson of patient waiting, — abiding his time. * This is implied in the story, as to the first part of it. The record in Lake viii : 1-3 refers to tlie second preaching tour. 104 THE LEVEL, THE PLUMMET, THE SQUARE. He who was conscious of the highest kind of power, was content for the time with his trade ; and this while he had a nature so enthusiastic that when he had once entered upon his great work he was said to be " beside himself." His ability to curb his mighty forces during all these early years has led one to say that " Christ's greatest miracles were wrought within himself."* That calmness which characterized him afterwards was learned in the carpenter shop, where he gained the invaluable discipline of doing a regular day's work — year in and year out ; and he was patient in toil, which one would think might have easily seemed irksome. Did the Son of Man, coming to the earth, need to make fences and plows for years ? He who was designing to make himself the central figure of the World, drawing the love and service and worship of all men, and giving laws to all, was self- possessed, and content with the simplicity of his life. He who was to be so energetic in public life was not apathetic but calm, with a certain orderliness of living : " There are twelve hours in the day ;" "My time is not yet come." This deliberation, this determination not to be hurried, is characteristic ; and it is closely connected with the grand schooling of the work-bench, and persistent attention to the duty of the hour, and present faithfulness. Another characteristic of Jesus was his Humility. He who made himself of no reputation — by renouncing for the hour his heavenly reputation — was unmindful of the petty * Henry Ward Bbechek. 105 OUR ELDER BROTHER. triumphs of the ambitious youth of a Galilean village ; and he was content with such inconveniences as pertained to his earthly condition. This was not bred of any craven spirit ; but was due to his perception of the true proportion of life in its relation to things unseen and time unending, which gave him a certain regal bearing and courage to contrast with his lowliness. He who said that men must become as little children in order to enter the kingdom of God, kept within himself a little child's heart, docile, simple, straightforward, artless. When he was laying the deep foundations of the kingdom of love, " he came," says Dean Farrar, " to teach, that con- tinual excitement, prominent action, distinguished services, brilliant success, are no essential elements of true and noble life ; and that myriads of the beloved of God are to be found among the insignificant and the obscure." This is a lesson worth making fences for, — dignifying the common employments of men. Another characteristic of our Lord was his Sympathy with the Poor. He who was to learn what hunger is, and who was to be without a place to lay his head, needed to exercise no condescension in visiting the poor.* He held *He who promised to his disciples heavenly mansions, now moved about among hovels unclean as well as uncomfortable. Where there was no limestone, the house-walls were of mud, with a roof of poles and a thatching of reeds and layers of earth. There was only one room. At their meals the poorer people sat on the floor, the ground bare and hard ; having to eat, a thin sheet of barley bread baked in a neighborhood oven, figs, olives, and dates, and perhaps fish cooked in oil. There were no windows, unless two or three little openings, seven inches by nine ; and 106 THE LEVEL, THE PLUMMET, THE SQUARE. no earthly rank, and there were none to be classed below him in condition. He was surrounded by men of simple life, with few wants, and much leisure for rude speech and the invention of uncouth interpretations of Scripture. The Son of Man came to be known as the friend of the poor, when as a class they were friendless. Another element in the character of Jesus was that Sociability which must have been manifested in early life, — making him a good neighbor in Nazareth. A certain deli- cacy, refinement, gentleness, and geniality made him a welcome guest, even in a house where the master was out of sympathy with the spirit of Jesus. Yet there was no levity in his vivacity. Capable of forming intimate friend- ships, he could be both social and solitary ; leaning hard upon human helpers, and much alone with God. In an age of religious ascetics, he never disdained the solaces of mortality ; and when banqueting with the opulent he had no scruples in diet. He did not teach abstinence, but ■ virtue ; he did not reprove enjoyment, but vice. He prac- ticed self-denial, yet never tortured his body by needless austerity. Then, too, a certain Serenity of spirit, tranquillity amid the rage of his enemies, was well settled as a characteristic in those years when his life was like sunshine in the house of Mary. His seriousness never degenerated into melan- choly. He was sorrowful yet always rejoicing. The man the door was four feet high. There was sometimes a seat extending round the interior, which was used for the bed, — each sleeper with a rug. 107 OUR ELDER BROTHER. who perhaps hardly ever smiled, declared a joyous, gleeful child to be the image of the kingdom of heaven. The sad man died bequeathing joy to his disciples,— " that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves." Nor can one even glance at the Gospel story, without discerning in Jesus qualities that make for Leadership. His calmness as well consisted with thunder peal and light- ning stroke, as the blue of heaven with cloud and tempest. He who was as sensitive as a woman was as bold, aggres- sive, and fearless, as a warrior. His sobriety was balanced by enthusiasm. Dignified, sincere, benignant, just, right- eous, and true, he pursued life's pathway in one unalterable course, — breaking men off from antique notions, and or- ganizing the world anew. With caution and firmness, and with faith in God, he bearded the ecclesiastics who mis- represented the religion of his people.* His executive qualities were aided by his Knowledge of Men, first ac(5[uired at Nazareth. The townsmen had little idea of what eyes were peering out upon them from that carpenter's shop. His acquaintance yfith human nature astonished his disciples. "He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of men ; for he knew what was in man." Year by year he attended the feasts at Jerusalem, undazed by the pretensions of the reputed sages of his peo- *" Jesus Christ was, in some respects, the most bold, energetic, and courageous man that ever lived ; but in others he was the most flexible, submissive, and yielding:" the one course pertaining to his Father's business, the otlier to his own personal welfare. — Jacob Abbott. 108 THE level', the PLUMMET, THE SQUARE. pie. He was a discerner of motives, the intents of the heart. With penetrating insight, he could read the hearts of covetous or vacillating inquirers, of impulsive disciples, of wondering crowds ; nor was he angered at men's misap- prehension of his own life and work, — unless at such mo- ments as called for righteous indignation against crafty and hypocritical foes, who were destroying Israel. As a Patriot he mourned over the doom of Jerusalem, as if the predestined fall of a sparrow, noted by infinite love. He was a pattern of civil obedience, and veneration for authority ; being mindful of the claims of Csesar — sharply separating between State and Church — and par- taking of no political fears under the eagles of Eome. His life he devoted to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. To be Spiritually Helpful to others was the passion of his life ; his friendly and affectionate instruction by day being supplemented by solemn hours of prayer in the night. THE elements which go to make up the full Proportion of our Saviour's Character cannot be referred to with- out detailing his whole life ; it would be needful to go over the story step by step, to observe him as a child at home, as a youth, as a laboring man, when met by temptation, when healing the multitude, in his career of self-sacrifice, in his qualities as a teacher, preacher, pastor, in his sufferings and death, — at every turn, whenever, wherever we see him, we discern qualities that lead us to speak of him as perfect in the symmetry and equipoise of his charac- 109 OUR ELDER BROTHER. ter. And this character, in its majestic and matchless fulhiess, was formed when Jesus was working as a com- mon carpenter, — his three years' ministry being but the development of powers already existent and ready for service. How new it all was to the world, appears in the remark of an eminent art critic, that ancient art knew no lines of suffering or of pity aside from the face of Jesus. * In him we find both resolution and resignation. He was courageous, and he had fortitude to bear. There was in him no distor- tion. We often say of one that he was a legalist, — not so Jesus ; or a recluse, — not so the Nazarene Carpenter. He was not an extremist : neither an abnormal pietist, nor an austere man. " We cannot," says Philip Schaff, " properly attribute to him any one temperament : he was neither sanguine like Peter, nor choleric like Paul, nor melancholy like John, nor phlegmatic as James is sometimes repre- sented." " The symmetry, grace, and ease " of the character of Jesus, says Conder, in his Basis of Faith,\ "conceal from us its colossal proportions. Saints, heroes, sages, the lights of human history, occupy their separate departments of greatness. None of them is great all round. We are not surprised to find the loftiest wisdom unsympathetic, and impatient of conceited ignorance ; the most spotless purity, cold and ascetic ; the most ardent love, partial and jeal- *The Rev. F. H. Allen. f Page 367 ; compare p. 359. London, 1877. 110 THE LEVEL, THE PLUMMET, THE SQUARE. ous ; the most tender-hearted benevolence deficient in righteous indignation, the purest zeal in tolerance, the deepest humility in nobleness. But in Jesus we can find no exaggeration, no deficiency." So perfect was the combined strength and purity and moral beauty of the life of Jesus, that we are wont to believe him to have had every attribute we would desire to see in a friend. This is based on the Scripture representa- tions concerning him. His life was steadfast as the sun, and as well proportioned ; a round orb, shining with even strength. The more we know of him, the more we behold the perfection of his character. And like the sun, his perfection is manifested to all beholders. ' ' He is tran- scendently beautiful and glorious to the rudest aspirant after goodness, and no'less so to a Fenelon, a Martyn, an Oberlin, a Judson ; the ignorant woman who can hardly spell out his story in her Bible can imagine no other being so lovely, so adorable, — and he seems no less the highest type of humanity to Milton, Newton, Locke, Bunsen, Fara- day." * In seeking phrases to depict the lights and shades of spiritual beauty in the character of the Son of Man, I cite two sentences : — *Prof. a. p. Peabody, of Harvard College. The testimony of President Mark Hopkins is so phrased as to bring to us again the image of the sun: "Take away, if you will, the vital element of the air, disrobe the sun of its beams, but remove not from me this life of my life ; leave to me the full-orbed and unshorn brightness of the character of Christ, the Sun of Righteousness." Ill OUR ELDER BROTHER. " Once in human history, we meet a being who never did an injury, and never resented one done to him, never uttered an untruth, never practiced a deception, and never lost an opportunity of doing good ; generous in the midst of the selfish, upright in the midst of the dishonest, pure in the midst of the sensual, and wise far above the wisest of earth's sages and prophets ; loving and gentle, yet immov- ably resolute, and whose illimitable meekness and patience never once forsook him in a vexatious, ungrateful, and cruel world." * " We behold him in every conceivable variety of position, mingling with all sorts of persons, and with all kinds of events ; we follow the steps of his public life, and we watch his most unsuspecting and retired mo- ments ; we see him in the midst of thousands, or with his disciples, or with a single individual ; we see him in the capital of his country, or in one of its remote villages, in the temple and the synagogue, or in the desert or in the streets ; we see him with the rich and with the poor, the prosperous and the afflicted, the good and the bad, with his private friends, and with his enemies and murderers ; and we behold him at last in circumstances the most over- whelming which it is possible to conceive, deserted, be- trayed, falsely accused, unrighteously condemned, nailed to a cross : but wherever he is and however placed, in the ordinary circumstances of his daily life, ,or at the last supper, or in Gethsemane, or in the judgment hall, or on *.ToHN Young, LL.D. 112 THE LEVEL, THE PLUMMET, THE SQUARE. Calvary, he is the same meek, pure, wise. Godlike Be- ing."* So perfect was the equilibrium of his powers, that he was a model in conduct: "A model," says Dr. Albert Barnes, "for kings and princes, sages and philosophers, the humble, the unlearned, the lowly, the down-trodden : in prosperity and in adversity, in joy and in sorrow ; in benev- olence, in purity, in gentleness, in the love of truth, in the love of justice ; in childhood, in youth, and in middle age ; under obloquy and reproach ; in dealing with crafty and unprincipled men ; in abandonment and persecution ; in the severest form of death, and under all that could shake the firmness of virtue : — where has there been such a character, except in the person of Jesus Christ ? " It is this absence of anything like one-sidedness in the character of Jesus, that has led James Martineau to say : "To have neither restlessness nor apathy, — but to pass freely between energy and repose, at the call to act or the need to suffer ; to bind wounds, without indulgence to the sins of men ; to have no tearSj but those of pity ; to utter no reproach, but as the true interpreter of conscience ; to send forth no cry, that does not soften into prayer ; to mingle with the beauty of the world, yet find it but the symbol of a more transcendent glory ; — only brings us somewhat nearer to that marvelous life, in which the contradictions of thought and the conflicts of feeling formed the very har- mony of a nature lifted into perfect peace." * Compare Young's Christ ofHiitory, p. 227. 113 8 OUR ELDER BROTHER. So far as may be observed in his recorded action, Jesus was without imperfection in the attributes of his character. So nearly does he represent an ideal character, that Mr. J. Stuart Mill has made the approval of Jesus the rule of' virtue, even for unbelievers.* " Jesus is the ideal of virtue," said Coquerel ; " so per- fect that all the efforts of the most delicate conscience, the most fertile imagination, the most expansive charity, can- not add to it the least trait." * ' ' Nor, even now, would it be easy for an unbeliever to find a better translation of the rule of virtue, from the abstract unto the concrete, than the endeavor so to live that Christ would approve his life." 114 CHAPTER TWO. His Work: Wittiout Klaw. -ae^^^fcf^^ias. (^ I HE well-rounded orb of the character of Jesus was i I surrounded by the halo of a Sinless Life. So perfect ^j— was his life, that, amid a world full of evil men, Jesus was like a lily in purity. Amid the perverse children of a crooked generation, he had none of the faults common to childhood. And as a man, he never confessed guilt or made a profession of repentance. Contrast his course in this respect, with all the saints in the Old Testament and the New. "I have need to be baptized of thee," said John by the river side, when he saw the Lamb of God, without blemish and without spot. This was said concerning the former character of Jesus as a holy man, already known to John, and before the Holy Dove descended to mark the Messiah. Belonging, as Jesus did, to a race perpetually repenting and making new resolutions, he boldly challenged the world, "Which of you convinceth me of sin ?" Jesus claimed that he always did those thipgs which are pleasing to the Father. Did sin never break in, to make these pretensions absurd ? Did he never sin in some small degree, violating [Book n.] 115 OUR ELDER BROTHER. the holy law in one point, so being guilty of all ? What man of our race has been known to sin in so slight a meas- ure that none have discovered it ? * Had Jesus been guilty of sin, been a sinner by habit or been once betrayed into it, would not the enemies of Christ, searching through all these centuries, have been able to find it out ? And yet to-day no voice is raised save against such faults as his cursing a barren flg tree, or denouncing hypocrites, or cleansing the den of thieves that defiled the temple of God. But had he never taught his disciples the sin of profession without possession by cursing that pretentious fig tree, the enemies of Christ would be now saying that his teachings lacked emphasis, and that he gave no stern rebuke to hypocrites. And if he had never denounced the Pharisees, it would have been said that his character was imperfect, in that he had no holy wrath against such sins as theirs. If he could have lived by the side of such people, and never denounced them, he would have been imperfect. Ye that love the Lord, hate evil, f And if he had failed to scourge the unclean beasts from the courts of God's house, and to drive out the money changers by his severe look of author- *" While Moses, the meekest man, sinned in anger; and Abraham, the father of the faithful, in unfaithfulness ; and Peter, the fearless, in cowardice ; and John, the apostle of love, in vindiotiveness, — Jesus alone never sinned."— E. H. Perowne, D.D. t It is not recorded that Jesus was angry when the Nazarene mob sought to kill him, or the Jews to stone him, or when he was falsely accused at his trial ; his righteous indignation was justly aroused by hypo- critical ecclesiastics, who were morally unclean. 116 WOKK WITHOUT FLAW. ity, it would be said that he had no courage and no leader- ship such as would have been becoming in the Messiah. His enemies when he was alive had every chance to know him ; but both Pilate and Judas declared him inno- cent,* and they who stood taunting at the cross could only say : " He trusted in God ; " " He saved others."f Said the Messiah, — They hated me without a cause. No malignity could find stains of sin upon him. And those who best knew him, who leaned upon his bosom or learned the full story of his life from his intimates, declared that in him was no sin, that he was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, who as our high priest needed not to offer up sacrifice for his own sins. X Yet this sinless being, of infinite purity, expressed deep sympathy for those overborne by storms of passion ; indig- nant at wrong, he was patient with the wrongdoers ; in- * How gladly would Judas have comforted himself in his anguish, if he had betrayed guilty blood. f " For three long years, the Pharisees were watching their Tictim, — mingling in every crowd, hiding behind every tree; they examined his disciples, cross-questioned all around him ; they looked into his ministerial life, his domestic privacy, his hours of retirement : and they finally came forward with the sole accusation, that he had shown disrespect to the Roman governor ; and the Roman j udge pronounced this accusation void. ' ' — F. W. RoBEKTSON, Sermons, compare p. 685. New York, 1870. t The followers of Jesus believed him so supernaturally pure and holy, that they were ready to allow the claim he made for divine honors. He was to them the Just One, the Righteous, the Holy One ; neither was any guile found in his mouth. " He who sees him," says Oosterzee, " has seen the Father, since no troubled sea can thus clearly reflect the image of the sun of the fii-mament." 117 OUR ELDER BROTHER. tensely abhorring iniquity, he was moved by a profound pity for those trained to sin from early childhood ; nor was his sanctity ever divorced from practical benevolence, out- pouring a divine affection for the offspring of human wretchedness. It is this personal love, bestowed alike upon the good and the victims of evil, that has evoked the strongest kind of testimony to the sinlessness of Jesus, — as if he were the moral ideal of the race. Modern unbelief has sharply distinguished between Christ and Christianity. The objec- tions are never against him ; his character is always com- mended. It is. those who have imperfectly followed the Saviour, who have been attacked by unbelief. Even when their opposition has grown out of a practical dislike to the moral ideal set forth in Christ's life, the consciences of men have commended his life ; commended that which their evil passions have kept them from following.* So severely did Jesus spiritualize the moral law, and so rigidly did he set forth a life of self-sacrifice for others as the ideal, and so thoroughly did he enforce these teachings by his example, that the world stands condemned by his life. No prophet has seen in vision so holy a character as that of Jesus of Nazareth ; nor has any sage conceived of it. The great heathen philosophers declared that no one could lead a perfect life. And eighteen hundred years have not * As it is said that Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and holy ; so the worst men have always had a sense of moral separa- tion between themselves and Jesus. 118 WORK WITHOUT FLAW. furnished a disciple so holy as the Master ; whose life was pure as a sunbeam, though it shone in foul places. The appearance of this Sinless One upon the earth, makes that whole period in which he lived luminous with hope for man, in spite of the sinfulness that slew him. WITHOUT raising now the inquiry whether the Deity was manifested as an incarnation in Jesus of Naza- reth, it is to be stated as one of the points of perfection, that there was nothing derogatory to the divine nature in the records of his life : this illustrates the proportion of his character. The consistency of his life, more perfect and beautiful even than his words, suggests nothing hypocritical or pre- tentious. There was indeed a magnanimity of spirit, and an indifference to neglect and to despite against his person, a meekness and majesty of bearing, and a looking forward into future ages, that comport well with the highest claims he put forth as to his real relation to the human race; his even balance of character sustaining in every way what he said in regard to his own mission. He maintained with per- fect consistency the character of a personage as perfect as the Heavenly Father. Therefore it is, that he draws all men unto him. There is a natural gravitation of souls, says Archbishop Trench,* which attracts them to mighty personalities, — an instinct in man which tells him that he is never so great as when * Compare p. 155, Christ the Desire of all Nations. Philadelphia, 1854. 119 OUK ELDER BROTHER. looking up to one greater than himself ; that he is made for this looking upward, — to find a nobler than himself, and to rejoice and be ennobled in it : it is the natural basis on which the devotion of mankind to Christ is built by the Spirit. THE Jewish Messiah, however, was no Jew ; "he has no race mark." * He did not, in his character, set forth the typical attributes of any one nationality, although the artists of all ages have betrayed their own limitations by painting him as Jew, Greek, or barbarian. The galleries are full of Italian, German, Dutch, or French Christs. But Jesus was the Son of Man, standing for the race, f This fact shows, at the least, that his character was no myth made up by several Jews, each taking a turn at it, and writing independently. " The invention of it," said Eousseau, "would be more astonishing than the hero." * Hugh Miller Thompson. t "The Christian type of character, if it was constructed by human intellect, was constructed at the confluence of three races, the Jewish, the Greek, and the Koman, each of which had strong national peculiarities of its own. A single touch, a single taint of any one of those peculiarities, and the character would have been national, not universal ; transient, not eternal : it might have been the highest character in history, but it would have been disqualified for being ideal. Supposing it to have been human, whether it were the effort of a real man to attain moral excellence, or a moral imagination of the writers of the Gospels, the chances, surely, were infinite against its escaping any tincture of the fanaticism, formalism, and exclusiveness of the Jew, of the political pride of the Roman, of the intellectual pride of the Greek. Yet it has entirely escaped them all." — GoLDwiN Smith, D.C.L. 120 WORK WITHOUT FLAW. The creation outright of such a character, as a literary feat, would have made the fishermen of Gennesaret the intellectual leaders of the world. None but a Jesus, said Theodore Parker, could fabricate a Jesus.* A character so unique as that of Jesus cannot be ac- counted for upon the same grounds as those upon which we account for the upspringing of the world's great men : Jesus Christ is of another order, there is only one Christ, f Looking at the Gospel story merely as literature, it is to be accounted for. The most rational theory, in accounting for it, is that it is true : the ideas underlying the character of Jesus had at that time no existence outside of himself. "If any man can believe," says Jenyn, "that, at a time when the literature of Greece and Rome, then in their * " It is of no use to say that Christ, as exhibited in the Gospels, is not historical, and that we know not how much of what is admirable has been superadded by the tradition of his followers. . . . Who among his disciples, or among their proselytes, was capable of inventing the sayings ascribed to Jesus, or of imagining the life and character revealed in the Gospels? Certainly not the fishermen of Galilee ; as certainly not Paul, whose character and idiosyncrasies were of a totally different sort ; still less the early Christian writers. About the life and sayings of Jesus there is a stamp of personal originality, combined with profundity of insight, which must place the prophet of Nazareth, even in the estimation of those who have no belief in his inspiration, in the very first rank of men of sublime genius of whom our species can boast." — John Stuart Mili,. t Compare Principal C. A. Row's Bampton Lectures, p. 97. London, 1877. " The character of Jesus," says Dr. Channing, "is wholly inexpli- cable on human principles." "The person of Christ is the miracle of history." — Philip Schafp, LL.D. 131 OUR ELDER BROTHER. meridian luster, were insufficient for the task, the son of a carpenter, with twelve of the humblest and most illiterate men, his associates, unassisted by any supernatural power, should be able to discover or invent a system of theology the most sublime, and of ethics the most perfect, which had escaped the penetration and learning of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero ; and that from this system, by their own sk- gacity, they had excluded every false virtue, though uni- versally admired, and admitted every true virtue, though despised and ridiculed by all the rest of the world ; — if any one can believe that these men could become imposters, for no other purpose than the propagation of truth, villains for no end but to teach honesty, and martyrs, without the least prospect of honor or advantage ; or that if all this should have been possible, these few inconsiderable persons should have been able, in the course of a few years, to have spread this their religion over most parts of the then known world, in opposition to the interests, pleasures, ambition, prejudices, and even reason of mankind ; to have tri- umphed over the power of princes, the intrigues of states, the force of custom, the blindness of zeal, the influence of priests, the arguments of orators, and the philosophy of the world, without any supernatural assistance ; — if any one can believe all these miraculous events, contradictory to the experience of the powers and dispositions of human nature, he must be possessed of much more faith than is necessary to make him a Christian, and remain an unbe- liever from mere credulity." 123 WORK WITHOUT FLAW. NO moral theory or precept is so eloquent as this life, presenting as it does an ideal of character imitable in its human perfections, and inspiring a moral ambition to become complete in Christ Jesus. Bishop Colenso, in his Natal Sermons, makes the point, that since there are many relations in life which Jesus never sustained, and many circumstances in which he never was placed, the Imitation of Christ cannot be to copy his acts, but to imitate the spirit of the Master : — " We appeal to Christ's example as the perfect model, because we appeal to the spirit of his life ; to the principle which ruled it, to that conformity to the perfect will of God, the desire to please his Heavenly Father, the surren- der of his own will to God's will, which he manifested on all occasions. It is to the spirit of his life that we must appeal if we would 'put on Christ.' In the life of Christ, the leading idea is of one who lived wholly for others, to comfort and to heal ; to bring home to God the lost sheep, to awaken penitence in the sinner, and to assure the peni- tent of pardon and peace. And if the history in the Gospels is but a sketch, it is in a measure filled up by the lives of the members of the body of Christ in every age." * If we may not take the square and the level and the plummet, and imitate the Divine attributes of our Lord, we * Compare Vol. I., p. 317, Vol. II., p. 325. London, 1886. For these citations and many others, I am indebted to the references found in Whitmore's Testimonies of Nineteen Centuries to Jesus of Nazareth, Nor- wich, 1888. 123 OTTK ELDER BKOTHEE. may at least hew to the line of the mind that was in Christ, so far as relates to his human characteristics, — and it would be heaven upon earth if all the sons of men would imitate the human attributes of our Lord. He who will make a good copy of a painting must keep his eye on the subject, else he will daub or make bad lines, and have to make the attempt over and over again. If the eyes do not turn away from Christ, but if we are always looking unto Jesus, we shall have the more success in becoming like him, — and we shall be satisfied when we awake in his likeness.* * IT. B — This whole topic of the Imitation of Christ is discussed at some length, in the Special Articles presented in Book XI., Chapters 2, 3, 4 ; the different phases of the subject being presented by Bishop Vincent, President Capen, and Dk. Horr. 124 CHAPTER THREE. His Nazarene Neigtibors. ^^-^ HAT else was to be noted in Nazareth? The light of God shone upon those hills ; but the darkness comprehended it not. The sage old men gathered in the synagogue upon the Sabbath day and read the Messianic prophecies, and asked : Where is the promise of His coming ? When will He appear ? They never dreamed that a lad in their own congregation was to be the Saviour of the world. And the young men of the village were so uncouth and wicked, that it passed into a proverb, — Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ? And it never occurred to them that the pious youth whom they jeered at as a juvenile saint, was He who should rule the world some day, and at last call all men before His Judgment seat. When the multitudes went thronging into the valley of the Jordan to be baptized of John, some of these wise old men, and young scapegraces, and that rough, hard-featured class which made up the middle life of Nazareth, went [Book II.] 125 OUR ELDER BROTHER. down into the wilderness to see. Had Elijah returned ? Had Messiah come ? * The valley of the Jordan is a strangely twisted gorge from two to three thousand feet deep, ploughed like a ditch into the face of the country, its fiat bottom being from six to twelve miles wide, almost desert and barren, save where the line of green thickets extending far up and down the valley marks the ordinary channel of the foaming waters. Wild beasts make their dens in these leafy coverts close by the stream ; and the voice of the lion is lifted up when he is roused from his lair by the Jordan in high flood. "Wild men make this valley their home ; the tent of the Bedouin causing fear, as if he were fierce and untamable as the beasts of prey. Into this valley came crowding to John's Baptism all they of Jerusalem, and all the land of Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, proud Pharisee and unbeliev- ing, mocking Sadducee, scribe and rabbi, bloody soldier, and hard dealing publican, — a generation of vipers fleeing * The preaching of John stands like a preface to the Gospels, and we hastily pass over it to read the story beyond. He was but a voice : " Be- hold the Lamb of God." Had he stood by himself, as an Old Testament prophet, he would have been one of the greatest of them all ; but appear- ing as the morning star — bm-ning and shining light — of the new dispen- sation, his light was quenched in the sunrise. Yet neither the flaming Isaiah, nor Ezekiel with his mystery, nor Jeremiah with his tears, nor Elijah always standing before Jehovah, made so straight for the sinner's conscience as he whose words rang out through the whole country, empty- ing every house by his call. It was, says Edkrsheim, a Sabbatic year, A. U. C. 779, when the people were at leisure. 126 THE BELOVED SON AND THE NAZARENE NEIGHBORS. from wrath to come ; and among the vipers came the old neighbors of Jesus, turbulent Nazarenes who had made their town infamous in all the nation. And they saw with their own eyes the Dove of God descending and resting on the Carpenter's Son, or they heard the strange story from those who saw it. But they could not believe eyes or ears. Yet somehow there floated back to the village on the hill- side rumors that Jesus the son of Joseph had been pro- claimed by John to be the Lamb of God, — whatever that might mean. And then they heard that their Carpenter was fashioning eyes and limbs for blind and halt down by the sea ; but they doubted him. When his journeyings (fifteen months after his baptism) took him again to Nazareth, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read ; and they gave him the book of the prophet Isaiah ; and he opened the book and found the Messianic prophecy, and read, — read with some strange emphasis, as if what he was reading was true : — " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor ; He hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, To preach deliverance to the captives, And recovering of sight to the blind. To set at liberty them that are bruised. To preach the acceptable year of the Lord." And then he closed the book, and gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. There was something in his voice and manner which led them to look 137 OUR ELDER BROTHER. at him with earnest expectation. "When all were gazing and eager to catch his words, he began to say unto them : " This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." And all bore witness to the truth of what he said, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. His sermon was fitting to the text, — good news for the poor, heavenly healing for those whose hearts were breaking, liberty to bruised captives, light for those in darkness ; a new era of mercy from the Lord, who was now fulfilling the cherished hopes of God's people during all the cen- turies since Adam and Abraham. But they could hear no more ; they could not get rid of the memory of that work-bench where he once stood. They asked one another, — "Is not this Joseph's son?" And he turned on them suddenly, suggesting what was in their thoughts, — unbelief down at the bottom, and curios- ity to know whether he would not perform in their sight such miracles as he was said to have wrought in Caper- naum. And he announced to them that the Lord showed mercy to whom he would, and strongly implied that it was not the divine purpose that he should perform miracles among that people, who had already seen the most wonder- ful miracle of all, his sinless life, and heeded it not. And here they were — interrupting his gracious words, by ask- ing about his father and family. It was what they had always said. And all they — in that packed and ill- ventilated syna- gogue,— when they heard him talk of God's acting accord- ing to his own secret purpose of mercy toward Naaman and 128 THE BELOVED SON AND THE NAZAEENB NEIGHBORS. the widow at Sarepta, were filled with wrath ; and rose up, and with all the fury of an oriental mob thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down head- long. But he passing through the midst of them went his way. When he made his next visit to the place where he was brought up, their unbelief had so far given way that when they heard him in the synagogue on the Sabbath, they ad- mitted that he had performed miraculous deeds, and that he had a spirit far above the common. Hearing him they were astonished, saying, "From whence hath this man these mighty works, and this wisdom ? And what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?" But that carpenter's shop then broke in on their vision. And they asked the old question by which they had always excused themselves from receiving his example or advice, " Is not this the carpenter, the carpenter's son, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Jude, and Simon ? And are not his sisters all here with us ? Whence then hath this man all these things ? " They began then to doubt whether he had all these things. They believed him when they heard what he was doing on the seashore, but now that he was with them again, and they could look at him and get a sight at the very hands which once plied the hammer and nail and saw, they could not believe any longer. There must be some mistake about all this, — they said. And he could there do 139 9 OUR ELDER BROTHER. no mighty work, because of their unbelief ; save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. And even Jesus, knowing the Nazarenes as well as he did, mar- veled because of their unbelief. They were harder than he had thought. With all his knowledge, he learned as a new lesson the truthfulness of the proverb he had already repeated to them more than once, that a prophet is not without honor, — but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. If he had come from some far country they might have received him. Says an English preacher: "They might have worshiped the ' great unknown ' ; they might have received a prophet with whose antecedents they were unac- quainted ; but to suppose that the representative of the Highest should be a Nazarene, that the special messenger of God should belong to a family of neighbors, that the revealer of the kingdom of heaven, the bringer in of the great jubilee, should have been their playmate ; this vio- lated their fleshly reason, and they were offended in him." * Jesus had worked as a plain man at the carpenter's bench so many common sort of years — eighteen of them — that the high hopes which his own kinsfolk early cherished had perhaps died out of them ; and it was only of late that Mary and his brethren saw life and vigor im- mortal and infinite, indicating what manner of man he was. How then could these neighbors yet receive the idea *The Rev. A. J. Mokris. 130 THE BELOVED SON AND THE NAZAEENE NEIGHBOES. which SO slowly dawned on even his chosen followers, that he was indeed the Messiah ? These young men were not yet prepared to believe that they had been day by day walking with the Infinite Son of God. But tlie lowly car- penter's Son rose, crying, "I am the bread of life ; he that Cometh to me shall never hunger." And the Nazarene mechanic is the central figure of the world's history. 131 CHAPTER FOUR. Nlystery of ttie Wilderness. -«3fl5J>C»-<- HIS story — the drama of the desert — came into the Gospel record, either through its relation by Jesus, or as a vision from the Holy Spirit to the writers. That Jesus related it is most likely. He was not, however, given to telling stories about himself for the mere amuse- ment of his auditors. He told it briefly, pointedly, like a parable, to instruct his disciples in regard to his mission. When they had not been long with him, on some day when it was apparent to them that Jesus was journeying without seasonable food, he may have discerned their thoughts or heard hints that he should make bread from the stones ; and he would by the story of the temptation teach them the true use of miracles. And in their ignorance of the real design of Jesus in performing wonderful works, they may have expected deeds perhaps athletic, that would literally astonish the nation, and demonstrate at once his supernatural gifts. If they did not hint so much, if even they thought so, he knew it ; and would intimate that it was a suggestion of the adversary. And in respect to the third temptation, it is well known [Book n.] 132 THE MYSTERY OF THB TEMPTATION. that the disciples expected their Messiah to set up a visible kingdom ; and Jesus would rebuke the thought. IT is plain that our Saviour's relation of the brief story of the temptation would tend to correct the ideas of the disciples upon the points alluded to. He may not have told it so formally to the whole company of disciples, as to lead the evangelists to rehearse it as a parable. If he told it, perhaps more than once, or perhaps part at one time and part at another, to this disciple or that, as need might require, it is easy to see how the story would appear in the Gospels without being designated as a parable. The dis- ciples undoubtedly understood the story to be not parabolic, but historical ; standing for a fact in the life of Jesus. So standing, it is a mystery. It is to be classed with the mystery of the two natures. We do not, and cannot, under- stand the mysterious union of the human and the divine in the person of our Lord ; nor can we understand how in any proper sense he could have been tempted of the devil. We do best to take the story as we find it, and we are not to insist too much upon explaining it at all points. This accords with a rule in exposition which we apply to the parables of our Lord : they are designed to teach one principal lesson, and an interpretation is not to be de- manded for every detail,— "a parable is not to be made to walk on all fours." The main design of this story of the temptation of Jesus is to show, that he believed, as it appears also elsewhere, in a personal devil ; and that in his own life, after his baptism, 133 OUR ELDER BROTHER. before the beginning of his public ministry, he had to decide once for all whether he would conduct his ministry in such a manner as to please the devil and the Jews ; and that in deciding upon the course to be pursued, he elected to follow the mind of God as expressed in the tenor of the Scripture. * He chose a course counter to the Jewish thought, and it ultimately led him to death by Jewish hands. In it all, however, he fulfilled the Scripture ; he ought, as he told the Emmaus disciples, to have suffered. WHEN Jesus as a child inquired in the temple, he may have asked the learned doctors whether the Messiah would be a suffering Saviour. When therefore a divine voice, in the hour of baptism, put an end to all questioning as to his own Messiahship, " Thou art my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased," he had to make up his mind as to the course that he would pursue. For six winter weeks following, he roamed over wild hills and in desert places, prayerfully planning the details of his mission, so far forth as to fix once for all the principles upon which he should proceed ; deciding (among the limestone cliffs and caves of the wilderness f near Bethabara) just how to use and how not to use his miraculous powers, and deciding to contra- * ' ' Jesus saw the shoi-t, Satanic path to Messianic domain, but chose Gethsemane and Calvary." — Roswell D. Hitchcock, LL.D. f According to Stanley and Edersheim It is a strip of country thirty-five miles by ten ; a region sorely shaken by earthquakes, and torn by winter torrents, an appalling desolation of deep rifts and rocky ridges, — sometimes a cut thirty feet wide and a thousand deep. 134 ■ THE MYSTERY OF THE TEMPTATION. vene the Jewish devil that urged him to set up a visible kingdom. Thenceforth, with the baptism of suffering be- fore him, he was straitened till it should be accomplished. It is clear that the divine voice related to his Messianic work, and that the temptations related to it. The Messianic idea was developed a little at a time in the mind of Jesus, and now the hour had struck ; and he must be alone with the Father and the angels, and must repel unscriptural sug- gestions that threatened his Messiahship. He who knew what was in man, had now arrived at so clear a conception of the wickedness of the world, that he could foresee at a glance what would come to him if he should continue to please God rather than those who misrepresented God in the Holy Land.* The breath of hate, the curses of wrong- doers, the shameless faces, the beginnings of woe, caused the Saviour to shudder, as he anticipated them in the wilderness. The fall of the Mosaic system was impending. He could see that it would bring him to the cross, f We do not understand that Jesus saw Satan, when the devil desired to sift Peter as wheat. And whether sleeping or waking he may not have seen the grim adversary among the wild beasts of the desert. Bleak were the ledges where he felt the weight of demoniacal suggestions ; and where * Visiting Jerusalem thrice annually during eighteen years, he had come to well settled convictions concerning the unscriptural administration of Judaism by priests and rabbis. f " Jesus took upon himself the sentence of death in the wilderness," says BuSHNBLL, " and bowed himself in consecration upon it ; coming out to live martyr-wise." 135 OUR ELDER BROTHER. he decided that they were demoniacal and unscriptural views of Messianic work. And the drear scenery shone with new light, when he was visited by the angels of God. It need not be thought that if Jesus was tempted in all points as we are, that the' trial was in the desert. He was tempted in all points before and after ; tempted " vehe- mently," tempted to say and do unwisely, impatiently. Here it was temptation relating to his Messianic work. When the Saviour afterwards spoke of the sufferings he was to endure, and Peter said, " That be far from thee," Jesus knew that this was the old Satanic suggestion to seek his kingdom in a way not laid down in the law and the prophets. The unholy legions of the prince of the power of the air were alert when Jesus came, and it was a part of his hu- miliation that his divinity was so concealed that Satan might venture to question it. The head of the serpent that had trailed through Eden, was now crushed in the desert. Conscious of a will of his own * Jesus sought not to do his own will, but to please God ; and the brightness of his holiness was never tarnished. " Thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle." * " If from the constitution of his person it was impossible for Christ to sin, then his temptation was unreal and without effect, and he cannot sympathize with his people." — Charles Hodge, LL.D. A quaint German writer says, that as the Lord went with the angels to behold the sin of Sodom with his own eyes, so the Lord came in the flesh to know by his own experience if the temptations of men were as difficult as David and the men of the Old Testament had often represented •them in their prayers. 136 THE MYSTERY OF THE TEMPTATION. " The Lord God will help me ; I shall not be confounded : therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed." Had the demon assailed a rock in the desert, he could not have been more completely foiled. So the lily asserted itself amid desolation, the desert bloomed as the rose, and the wilderness became a paradise. The Devil's Bread. JESUS had not tested his miraculous powers ; he was tempted to test it privately for his own convenience. Since, however, he had taken upon himself our human nature, and the common lot of man, he decided not to forsake this line of life at the outset of his mission. Instead of get- ting his own living by miracle, he decided to endure hardship, leading the life of a wanderer, hungering often. It would have violated the very condition of the Incarnation, if he had not been subject to the state of ordinary humanity. Unless he was ready to enter on a life of privation he would never reach the cross. If he had begun his Messianic work by a miracle to allay his own hunger, he would have ended it by calling on the twelve legions of angels to destroy his enemies. And his disciples would have desired to establish no self-denying church ; and they would have been tempted to sustain its ordinary wants. by miracle, and to be very particular as to the quality of their bread. Had the Christ set out not to deny himself, he would not have left the glory he had in worlds on high. Yet, having come, he suffered Satanic taunts upon hungering in his Father's house. 137 OUR ELDER BROTHER. " He sitteth there in silence, worn and wasted With famine, and uplifts his hollow eyes To the unpitying skies." — Longfellow. " If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread," was the same kind of appeal that was made by the demons who crucified him :" If he be King of Israel, let him come dowh from the cross, and we will believe him." Satan tempted Adam, and he did eat : not so Jesus. It was his meat to do his Father's will. He was himself that Bread which came down from heaven. The lust of the flesh found no response in the Redeemer. His godlike powers were not set to getting for himself a good living. " Man shall not live by bread alone." The leeks, the onions, the flesh pots of Egypt, the quails, the manna, the loaves, the fishes, — these be thy gods, O Israel : this was a demoniacal suggestion. An Acrobatic Leap, UPON the face of the story the account in Luke is more climacteric than that in Matthew, at least from the modern point of view ; the flight from the temple heights and the upbearing of angel arms being a more famous thing than sitting uneasily upon a throne. The authorities however have decided that Matthew has the right of it ; * so that if the second temptation had succeeded we should have seen the strange spectacle of the Carpenter's Son executing somersaults, or leaping through the air, f aUing from dizzy * Trench, Faekae, et al. 138 THE MYSTERY OP THE TEMPTATION. heights as once Satan fell from heaven : * and if this pro- posal was rejected as unwise in the Messiah, then many capers that are cut by grotesque disciples in different ages nre quite inexcusable and blameworthy. Ther^was at least religious common sense in the decision of Jesus ; and the Founder of our faith gave no countenance to foolhardy ex- ploits in the name of piety. To jump at demoniacal suggestion, to seek personal dis- play and the pride of life, to begin a Messiahship by capti- vating the crowd, to exercise a rash faith, to use divine powers for gaining the applause of men, to appear as an athlete in an age of gladiators and physical prowess, — ac- corded not with the dignity and method of the Lord of Nature, who began his earthly mission quietly, calling his disciples one or two at a time, and making himself little prominent : " consciously dissolving self in God's glory." f In the first temptation, Satan had said, " Distrust Provi- dence " : now he appeared with a Bible under his arm, . saying, "Trust Providence ; and if you do, then leap^ — to the surprise of the Jews, — God will bear you out in it." The ninety-first Psalm is justly esteemed one of the finest in the whole collection. The unknown author could, however, have had no thought when he penned these words that he would become so famous an author as to be read in hell ; yet the devil learned a part of it by heart, and used it * The pinnacle was at the eastern end of the southern colonnade, four hundred and fifty feet above the Kedron valley. t J. A. Picton's phrase. 139 OUR ELDER BROTHER. to entrap the Saviour of men. He did not, however, quote the thirteenth verse, — the trampling upon the dragon. It had been said in ancient prophecy that Messiah would come suddenly to his temple ; and the Jews Iboked for his appearing in the open heavens, down-flying, and alighting among the worshipers of the temple. And this notion was presented as a possible way for opening the Saviour's mission. Its rejection involved the traversing of rabbinical interpretation, which appears to have been suggested by the arch-d^nemy. A Temporal Kingdom. REMEMBERING royal robes on high, and with no small experience in decking out the kings of this world, the prince of the power of the air laid claim to the owner- ship of our globe ; displaying the most civilized part of it, as if upon a magic mountain. Fresh from the workshop at Nazareth, Jesus was now brought face to face with the pomp and glitter of Rome and the gorgeous East. Satan had bought many a man at less price.* It was a temptation to avoid self-sacrifice, and find some easy path to the throne of the world, t It was a temptation to favor the lust of the eyes, — * " A matter of half-a-crown, or ten groats, a pair of shoes, or some such trifle." — Bishop Andrews. ' ' The temptation in the wilderness turned on the question what sort of a kingdom he should set up, and by what sort of agency ; and he rejects every Satanic proposal to establish an outward kingdom by force, even by his own miraculous power." — Samuel Harris, LL.D. t " The people from whom Jesus had sprung, had lost under the Roman yoke the remains of then- ancient nationality ; hatred of Rome was then at its height among them, and in the deserts and mountains of Judea _ 140 THE MYSTERY OF THE TEMPTATION. a temptation typified in the triumphal entry into Jeru- salem. Jesus, the descendant of ancient kings who had borne sway over many generations, he who spoke and acted as one having authority, had, however, a Kingdom appointed unto him, — a Kingdom in which no tears should flow, in which none should sit in darkness, in which all wrongs should cease, and in which the truth should go forth unbound. He would still his heart, and bide his time. And it has been proved that he was able enough to establish the Kingdom of God, without asking help of the devil. Instead of being drawn to the world, he drew the world to himself. bands of liberators were daily formed under some patriot distinguished for his boldness or some other characteristic. These movements were seconded by celebrated prophecies, which had long announced a chief and Saviour to the Jewish people. The relation of these ideas and interests to the new kingdom, the coming of which Jesus Christ proclaimed, was evident. Nevertheless, so far from conniving at and employing them, he trampled them under feet. " — The Rev. P4;ke Lacokdaibe. 141 BOOK THREE. .^j=:.^K-:=<<-. Our Divine Helper. my^-s^- Chapteb 1. Page 143. At Home by the Sea. Chaptek 2. Page 149. Stilling the Angry Waves. Chapteb 3. Page 153. The Nladmah of the Tombs. Chapter 4. Page 157. The Htingry Thousands Fed. Chapter 5. Page 160. The Divine Healer. Chapter 6. Page ig4. New Life for the World. CHAPTER ONE. A-t Home by ttie Sea. tS>-i H a. ''(.Y'F we look in upon the home of Jesus by the sea of Galilee, we find that when he came and dwelt in Capernaum, he left behind him at Nazareth his carpenter tools, and appeared as a Divine Mfe- chanic. " God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power : who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil ; for God was with him." These words contain an epitome of Christ's life: he went about doing good. "And great * Introductory Note That Jesus was the Master of laws super- natural is assumed in the Gospel story ; nor is it more needful to question how, than to interrogate the Mystery of the Two Natures of our Lord, or the Philosophy of the Atonement. The Apostles assume an Atonement of some sort, properly so called, without philosophizing upon it ; and the Incarnation, without attempting to explain it ; and the miracle-working power of our Lord, without debating upon the harmony or clashing of natural and supernatural law. It does not accord with purposes of this book (which is devotional rather than controversial or even expository), to do otherwise than fol- low the New Testament trend, in assuming that the miracles were per- formed in accordance with laws unknown to men, by a Divine Mechanism which the Nazarene Carpenter understood. [Book ni.] 143 OUK ELDER BROTHER. multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet ; and he healed them insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see : and they glorified the God of Israel." The intensity of the excitement caused by these miracles is better understood by recalling the narrow limits within which they were wrought. Palestine, even including the region beyond Jordan, was not so large as the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut, being a trifle larger than Vermont ; and the " sea " of Galilee or Tiberias was but a lake, Genesareth, eight or nine miles wide and eighteen long. The lake lies low in a deep basin more than six hundred feet below the level of the Mediterranean. Rather tame looking limestone hills, with steep sides and round backs, rise to a height of from one to two thousand feet on every side. Approaching from the west we do not see the water till we are near by, and then we look down upon the bright blue waves about ten hundred feet below us. We now see that the hills do not anywhere advance into the water, and that there are no meadows near the shore and no trees to speak of. A few scattered palms rise not far from the brink ; and almost the whole coast of the lake is lined by low shrubs of thorn. There is a little beach of dark-brown sand extending the entire circuit ; and many bare isolated bowlders, some black, some light, are seen on the margin. We discover no sails upon the waters. 144 AT HOME BY THE SEA. In one part of this sink among the hills there is a plain five miles wide and six or seven long. And descending to this level we find the sun pouring down upon us with great power, shut in as we are by the high rim of limestone ledges which rise on either side. The soil here is very fertile, and watered by four abundant springs, which pour their streams across the plain. And lifting our eyes we find ourselves, as if in a vast garden : — Oleanders, in clumps thirty feet in diameter and twenty feet high, are blooming on the shore of the lake ; and bright colored birds are fiit- ting through the air, filling the sky with song, — and they fiy over a lake that is shaped like a harp ; on every side we note the date palm, the sugar cane, the pomegranate, the indigo, the cotton plant, and the rice fields ; and we gaze in delight upon the green grass and the fields of wheat and barley, patches of citrons and choice melons ; and upon the lower steps of the hills we see olives and vineyards. Snow is scarcely ever known here, so that the valley has the advantages of a semi-tropical as well as a temperate zone. This is the plain of Tiberias : and in former ages the shores were more densely clad with trees ; and by careful culture, grapes and figs if we are to believe the old his- torian were in fruit ten months of the year. And the same authority has delighted to dwell upon the peculiar charms of this home by the Galilean sea. " Its nature," he says, " is wonderful as well as its beauty; its soil is so fruitful that all sorts of trees can grow upon it, and the inhabitants ac- cordingly plant all sorts of trees there ; for the temper of the air is so well mixed, that it agrees very well with those 145 10 OUR ELDER BROTHER. several sorts. Particularly walnuts, which require the coldest air, flourish there in vast plenty ; there are palm trees also, which grow best in hot air, fig trees also and olives grow near them, which yet require an air that is more temperate. One may call this place the ambition of nature, where it forces those plants that are naturally enemies to one another to agree together ; it is a happy contention of the seasons, as if every one of them laid claim to this coun- try."* This region was once volcanic, and to the northwest of the lake is found an ancient crater three or four hundred feet long and one hundred wide ; with steep sides of lava, forty feet deep. Seven earthquakes have shaken these hills, and rocked the waters of this sweet sea. Sixty years ago, a thousand people perished on this plain of Tiberias by the earthquake's shock. This therefore is a region where we may look to find hot springs. And it is believed that the springs of Tiberias would attract great attention in Europe ; while those of Gadara, just across the water, were ranked as second in the whole Eoman empire. This valley was therefore a famous watering place in the olden time. If now we could have entered the vale of Genesareth in the time when Jesus went to dwell there, we should have found the whole western and northwestern shores crowded with the life of six cities ; whose ruins still remain. Bedouin flocks and herds are feeding there to-day among the pros- trate columns ; sculptured capitals are overgrown by thorn * JOSEPHUS. 146 AT HOME BY THE SEA. and brier. And, in the springtime, bright flowers are rising from the ground where these fair dwellings once stood. Here stood Capernaum ; its present site hard to identify.* The streets were not more than six feet wide ; the window- less outside walls of the houses giving shade from the heat. The dwellings were of lava stone, each with one room, twenty feet square and six feet high. There were three or four thousand people here when Jesus was a citizen. The road from the sea to Damascus passed through this city ; and the caravans, that halted here, carried the words and deeds of Jesus to Syria, Arabia, Babylon, to Egypt, and to Greece and Rome, f At the time these cities were standing, the lake naust have been often white with the sail of fishermen jj who drew out of the blue deep a wonderful store of food for the multitudes. And pleasure seekers, to gain relief from the heated shores, had their choice of riding on the cool waves, or of seeking the breezes which swept the hilltops. So Christ one day gathered the people upon the top of one of * Dk. Selah Merrill and Dr. Geikie say at Khan Minyeh ; others, four miles away, at Tell Hum. t The people of Tiberias comprised Persians, Arabs, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, as well as Jews ; a great multitude of Gentiles in Capernaum. t JosEPHUs gathered two hundred and thirty ships near Tiberias. Tarichea, on the south, was famous for shipbuilding. Farkar estimates some two hundred scores of boats and ships upon this inland sea, in the time of our Lord. 147 OUR ELDER BROTHER. the peaks overlooking one part of the lake, and there pro- nounced the Beatitudes. Or he sat upon the waters of Genesareth in a floating pulpit : and as we walk the shores there to-day we find little inlets where streams come down from between the hills, good places for the fishermen's craft to ride near the shore, and we see, on each side the mouth of the creek, basaltic rocks which afford pleasant seats, where sometimes the people sat while Christ taught them from out the ship. And there are wild ravines and elevated table-lands favorable for days or nights of prayer, and great solitudes on the east of the lake. ' ' I have created seven seas, saith the Lord, but out of them all I have chosen none but the sea of Genesareth : " so said the rabbis. Yet if we walk those shores to-day, and dream of them as they were in their days of glory, we find ourselves forgetting the beauty of the foliage, the gen- erous growths of the harvest, the pleasant homes of the thronging multitudes, — and we think only of Jesus who • came from Nazareth to dwell there ; and if we can walk the paths he trod, and climb the hills where he overlooked this sea, and move over the waters which so often upbore him, we find more comfort than in all other history and all other beauty of this favored spot. Jesus left his inland home and came hither, and at once it was said that "the people which sat in darkness saw great light " ; he rose upon these homes by the sea like the dawning of the morn- ing kindling in the east, glancing on the waves, and bright- ening their hillsides. 148 CHAPTER TWO. Stilling the Angry Waves. ^S5 TTjS we lift up our eyes and see the mountain wall that l\ surrounds us not far away on every side of the lake, one of the first things we notice is the break between the hills, through which the cool breezes sweep in upon the heated valley. The Syrian sun is singularly fierce in this enclosed area, and the low shores and the plain of Tibe- rias glow with furnace heat ; but when the sun sinks in the west, the winds from the mountains begin to blow' through the gorges as if they were tunnels or blow pipes, — sometimes in a short squall, or again they roar through the ravines all night. Occasionally by day we may look out upon the waters, when all is serene on the shore, and see sheets of foam, — a sudden tempest boiling in the midst of the sea, shaking the fishermen's boats and terrifying those who are tossed on the boisterous waves. This is caused by some heavy wind coming down from a high rift in the mountains, striking the surface of Genesareth, stirring up a fury, then glancirig off, and striking the opposite hills high up, leaving either shore of the lake quiet.* *If we go to Mount Desert, upon the coast of Maine, where moun- tains rise directly out of the briny waves to a height of from a thousand [Book III.] 149 OUR ELDER BROTHER. The apostolic fishermen of the Galilean sea were there- fore often in peril. And one night they received Jesus into their ship, " even as he was," weary with his labors ; and he was at once lulled to sleep by the music of the waters rippling against the sides of their ship, — resting his head upon some rail or block for his pillow.* And there came down a storm of wind on the lake, "and the waves beat into the ship," so that it filled. "The ship was covered with the waves," and they roused the sleeper, saying, "Lord, save us: we perish." But as an ancient Roman general once rebuked his boatmen for being afraid to launch out upon a stormy flood when he was to go with them, so now Christ, the true Lord of the seas, said, "Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith ? " So says Bengel, " Jesus calmed first the minds of his disciples, then the sea." He arose and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, " Peace, be still." And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm ; and then in that strange calm, he again asked, " How is it that ye have no faith ? " Whether or not the remainder of the night was filled with songs we know not : but we can easily imagine the rough sailors singing, as they bailed out their boat, one of the old Hebrew hymns : "The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters ; yea, than the mighty waves to eighteen hundred feet, we find similar phenomena ; so that it is need- ful there to caution the unwary against the fierce arms of the wind, which may at almost any moment sweep out from a cleft in the hills, to overturn the barks of those who think to sail serenely along that savage shore. *0r the steersman's leather cushion Farrak. 150 STILLING THE ANGRY WAVES. of the sea." And perhaps there were angel bands hovering over them also singing, " The Lord sitteth upon the floods ; yea, the Lord sitteth king forever." Upon another night, when the purple sunset shadows were falling upon the lake, after a day of great toil, Jesus departed into a mountain to pray ; yet his eye was often turned from out his wild closet to watch the billows which were breaking against his sinewy disciples, as they tugged heavily at their oars in rowing against a contrary wind almost all night. Black scuds were flying across the sky, half obscuring the light of the stars or the paschal moon ; and Jesus, sheltered from the wind in some pocket of the crags on the mountain side, often looked out to see what headway was being made by that dark boat dimly seen, which bore his own loved ones. And at last he went down to the shore and stepped forth upon the uplifted waves, and walked as firmly over their rough backs as when he trav- ersed ragged rocks of the hard hillside. With light and easy motion he trod the fickle sea ; the wind tearing at his garments, and the waters rising and clapping their white hands about him, yet serenely adapting himself to the changing surface, like a bird in mystic motion upon the rising and falling waves. It is no wonder that his disciples cried out for fear at the strange apparition, visible in a patch of silvery moonlight. As presumptuous Peter went forth to meet him, the noise of the wind in the rigging and the dash of the water caused his confidence to collapse ; yet Jesus soon placed his feet upon the ship's planks, — bearing with him the drenched 151 OUR ELDER BROTHER. Peter. And the wind suddenly ceased. We do not wonder that his disciples in their stress "were sore amazed in them- selves beyond measure ; and that they, that were in the ship, came and worshiped him who had spoken, " It is I, be not afraid." "Of a truth," they said, " thou art the Son of God." Then swiftly plowed their keel the waves, as. if breathed upon by a gale from heaven, so that " immedi- ately the ship was at the land whither they went." 152 CHAPTER THREE. Ttie Nladman of ttie Tombs. sSi^-sSs UT more wild than the raging of fierce sea waves was the tempest which tore the souls of lunatics, h^^ who once dwelt in the tombs upon the hither shore of these waters of Galilee : nay, the mad- men are dwelling there to-day.* A recent traveler descend- ing one of the mountains east of the lake, tells us that, as he passed through a Moslem cemetery in the night, he found a naked maniac fighting with dogs for a bone ; and the wild man seized his horse's bridle, and almost forced him off the brink of the cliff. Could we have crossed the lake in the Saviour's time, going a few miles inland, we should have seen the city of Gadara hanging aloft upon a rough and high mountain ridge, with sides so abrupt and with top so sharp that it would seem, says the historian, the city must fall down by its own weight ; the southern part of the mountain rising to great height like a citadel. It was compactly built, per- *The modern region is so like the ancient that Renan calls it "A fifth gospel ; mutilated, but legible still." [BOOK ni.] 153 OUR BLDBK BROTHER. haps half a mile east and west, and a fourth of a mile north and south. The city was in some sort unique. An amphi- theater was cut out of the living rock. The main street was forty-five feet wide, lined each side with a row of Co- rinthian pillars ; and it was paved with blocks of black basalt, — the pavement remaining to this day, and showing the marks of chariot wheels which rolled that way eighteen hundred years ago. In the sides of the limestone ridge on which the city stood, many of the ancient tombs remain, affording rooms perhaps twenty feet square, in which the modern Gadarenes have their homes. Similar tombs are found in many places away toward the lake side ; and it was among these tombs that Christ found the madman, — after he had stilled the waves of the sea in the day of tem- pest. And it was from this city on a hill, whence the astonished people came to see the maniac and his Saviour. The evangelists give a wild picture of the man. He had devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in any house, but in the tombs. And no man could bind him, no, not with chains : because he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asun- der by him, and the fetters broken in pieces : neither could any man tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, crying, and cutting himself with stones. And he was exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way. "In the paroxysms of his huge woe," adds the commentator, * "he tore apart the massive fetters as * Gkorgb Shepard, D.I). 154 THE MADMAN OF THE TOMBS. though mere flaxen strings, and then ranged abroad in a horrid freedom, uttering shrieks and yells, that reverber- ated among the mountains and echoed over the sea, so that no one dared pass that way ; thus infuriate was he with the demons and the hell within, and bloody all over with the gashing stones." Do you ask, What was a demoniac ? I answer in the words of an English preacher, * " A spiritual burglar bro- ken into a man." And this man had a legion of demons raging within : "a legion," like a squadron of Eoman sol- diers in fierce battle array. But Jesus came near ; and as he had subdued the sea waves, so now he subdued the storm in the mind of the madman, — Peace, be still. And the man quieted himself, and sat at the feet of Jesus ; while the demons raced down the mountain side upon the legs of swine, f The one out of whom the devils were departed, besought Christ that he might be with Him ; he felt safe only by the side of the Saviour. But Jesus taught him that the way to *Eev. a. J. Morris. f The Author, in the text, has followed the average commentator as to the Gadarenes. Fakrar, however, locates Gadara some distance south of the lake, and thinks the miracle took place near Gergesa ; the Gersa, or Kerza of the modern Arab. This notion is favored by Thomson's Land and Book. If so, the Gadarenes, it is likely, had Joined the multitude that thronged wherever Jesus appeared. As to the swine, the Gergesenes preferred their swine to their Sav- iour ; as, at a later period, the rabble voted to rescue the robber Barabbas, instead of their Messiah. A quaint commentator upon this miracle gravely tells us,^ — "It is self-evident that a herd of swine could not be confederate in any fraud." 155 OtTR ELDER BROTHER. be rid of evil spirits was to go to his friends proclaiming his new Master, telling how great things the Lord had done for him. And it would seem from the record that the Holy Spirit henceforth possessed him, and used him with great power. Returning again to Capernaum, we find Jesus casting out a devil in church : for demons had dared to enter the synagogue. So the Lord of heaven, in wild waste places or in cities, in tombs or in meeting houses, rebuked the spirit- ual foes of man. SlfB, 156 CHAPTER FOUR. Ttie Hungry Ttiousands Ked. ^*<«- IF now we go forth again by the lake side, we shall find Jesus thronged by five thousand people hunger- ing for the bread of life, and before they left him hungry for the bread which perisheth. And he spread a table there and fed them all. It was in a desert place to which he had gone to find rest ; but the multitudes crowding on their way to the feast of the passover at Jerusalem were bent upon tasting first this Bread which had come down from heaven, and they restlessly sought till they found him. Mothers with their children and with their own aged parents, were made to sit as if around their own home table. High limestone cliffs rose not far off, but here the grass was green, and Jesus, who was thought by Mary after the resurrection to be the gardener, now ar- ranged the people, according to Mark, in "garden plats." The artists of the world have greatly delighted in painting the appropriate scenery of this miracle, with its crowds of oriental people. It was in the month Nisan, when the fields were aglow [Bookhi.] 157 OUR ELDER BROTHER. with flowers ; and the gay colors worn by this oriental crowd made a great impression upon Peter, when the red and the yellow and the blue were seated in little companies of fifties and hundreds. Perhaps, as one has suggested, they were arranged in two semi-circles : having, in the outer, thirty bands of one hundred ; and, in the inner, forty bands of fifty ; each company being placed upon three sides of a square, with the fourth side open — according to the eastern form of laying tables : thus the whole throng of five thousand could be easily waited upon without con- fusion. So Christ was an organizer, a general, a natural ruler ; and we behold him reigning in the desert over an orderly town suddenly rising out of the wilderness. We can hardly wonder that after they had tasted his heavenly bounty they wished to take Jesus by force and make him a king ; which he thwarted by wandering off into the mountain solitudes alone. The people had followed Christ, taking literally no thought as to what they should eat or what they should drink, and now all things were added unto them. Jesus had boundless resources, and they did not need to go away ; they found all things in him, as if he were "the world's housekeeper."* '"Give ye them to eat." "Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it," said he " who had the key of heaven's garner at his girdle." Christ set herein an eminent example to feed the hungry *JosEPH Parker, D.D. 158 HUNQEY THOUSANDS FED. on something besides tracts and theology. Yet he gave them simple diet, bread and fish.* Doubtless the power which multiplied these could have fed them with more toothsome food than barley, which was distinctively the food of the poor ; but he made no attempt to please their palates with pastry. That the bread was good, not spoiled in the making, seems evident from the relish with which they took it. From what followed, we know that the people thought the feast good enough to come from a king. So Christ digni- fied the business of bread making : to do that work well is a true heavenly gift. But it is written that Jesus did not undertake it without first praying over it : so all the evan- gelists particularly notice. Prayers rising from the kitchen must be therefore acceptable to God. So good a woman as Mary Lyon said she always spoke to God about topics she should be ashamed to speak of to earthly friends. To pray over burnt biscuit and save one's temper is pleasing to God. Cooks as well as kings are heard in heaven. Moreover the bread was increased in the distribution, and they had more left at the end of the feast than at the beginning. Yet he who made so much would not tolerate wasting : if he was bountiful, he was economical, — saving the fragments. * John vi : 1-4. The fish were dried or pickled, to be eaten with bread. The Greek term indicates minute knowledge of the lore of Gali- lean fisher-folk ; showing that the fourth Gospel was written by one know- ing well Genesareth. Vide Edersheim's Life of Christ. Vol. I., p. 682. 159 CHAPTER FIVE. The Divine Healer. ' O find we this poor Mechanic from Nazareth, the Carpenter's Son, making a great stir in the neighborhood of the shining Galilean sea ; everywhere performing wonderful works, ex- citing the minds of people and drawing together immense multitudes to receive the blessing which by word and deed he bestowed on all freely as the sunshine or the dews of night. Crowds of men and women and children turned out of their homes with all their sick folk ; * and they surged through the streets of Capernaum searching for Jesus, or they gathered, waiting at the gates of the city to see him coming home from nights of prayer or errands of mercy in the country round about. And strangers from afar left their common employments, and journeyed to this city by the sea ; and the whole population was in movement to behold the Lamb of God to whom John pointed, — as, a few months before, they had all flocked *Archbishop Whately said that Jesus only twice made bread, lest the supply of want multiply want ; but often healed the sick, which would not increase the objects of charity. [Book HI.] 160 THE DIVINE HEALER. to the banks of Jordan to receive baptism at the hands of the forerunner of Christ.* There was something in the face, the eyes, the appearance, and words of Jesus, which led the needy to confide in him, and bear to him their diseased. Whether in the narrow streets, or without in desert places, they came to him from every quarter. St. Mark declares that at one time Jesus ' could no more enter his own city openly, on account of the numbers who thronged about him whenever he was seen. How often I dream about it, and wish I could have been there a little before sunset. In the cool of the day the Saviour came forth from retirement, and according to the saying of the prophet, "himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses." It is said that he laid his hands on the sick and healed them all. His heart was full of sym- pathy ; and it is emphatically said again and again that he * The swift succession of stirring events in the life of our Saviour appears in the chronological sequence of certain events connected with this story. It was upon the sixth day of the week that Jesus left Capernaum 'by boat at noontide. A multitude followed around the shore to meet him at his landing. Jesus, however, sought to be alone with his disciples ; but the great gathering crowd moved him to compassion, and he took up again his burden of teaching, and healing the sick. Then followed the miracle of the five loaves and two fishes. Jesus then disappeared, and the people re- tired to their villages before the Sabbath should begin. The disciples by command of Jesus attempted to return to Capernaum by water, and worked nine hours against the wind. Then Jesus walked on the water, rescued Peter, and the wind ceased at three in the morning. At Capernaum, Jesus visited the synagogue, and the greatly excited elders questioned him. Then followed the discourse in the eighth of John ; and many who de- sired the day before to make him a king, now forsook him, — upon his claim to be himself the Bread from heaven. 161 u OUR ELDER BROTHER. touched the diseased, placing loving hands upon them, even when a word would have done as well. He had com- passion on a loathsome leper, and drew near, and reached forth the healing arm to him. His fingers were put upon the eyes of the blind, and in that day the eyes of the blind saw out of obscurity and out of darkness. It came to be understood that his touch was life, and that the very fringe on his garment — by which as a child of Israel he was re- minded to keep the commandments of God — had healing in it. It is said, therefore, that '" they pressed upon him to touch him, as many as had plagues " : and again it is said that "the whole multitude sought to touch him, for there went virtue out of him and healed them all." Jesus felt the power going forth, even if one touched him secretly ; and he was exhausted by healing, and worn down by sym- pathy.* To many of the sick, new spiritual life was imparted in their healing. For he asked, Believest thou that I can do this ? and according to their faith it was unto them. By faith, inwrought, they rose to life everlasting. The figures of these obscure persons have come down to us through *Iu illustration of this point, Dr. George F. Pentecost has related that a beautiful and pure woman went into a New York prison, where she saw a miserable wretch, wrecked by a life of licentiousness and debauched by drink. She approached to speak to her, and as she did so, stooped down and kissed her polluted lips. The woman sprang to her feet as though she had been touched with fire, and then, bursting out into great sobs of penitence, fell at the feet of the Christian woman who had kissed her. " Do you come to me in the name of Christ ; and do you kiss me for his sake? Then he who has put such pity in your heart will save me." 163 THE DIVINE MBALEE. eighteen centuries, photographed upon the Gospel page, be- cause for one moment the blessed Light of the World shone upon them ; all their former and their later lives unknown to us. Some of them doubtless have names now well known in heaven. And we ourselves may some day take these pic- tures, and stand beside them ; and see if we can identify a maniac who sat at the feet of Jesus overlooking Genes- areth, or certain Roman rulers who pleaded with Jesus to save a son or a servant. 163 CHAPTER SIX. NeA?v Life for ttie World. ONE day in Capernaum, Jesus went into the chamber where a dead maiden was lying : but he looked on death as a mere sleep, and by a word awakened her to life again. So upon another day, going forth from his home by the sea, he walked toward Jerusalem to attend the passover : and when he approached the hillside on which stood the city of Nain, — walking a path we now may tread to the very gateway,— he, the Consolation of Israel, met a great procession ; for the light had gone out from the wid- ow's house, and they were making mourning for an only son, most bitter lamentations. And when the Lord saw the mother, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, " Weep not." Jesus wiped away all tears from the eyes of the mourners, and there was neither sorrow nor crying, for there was no more death : so was fulfilled upon the earth a promise made for the heavens. Christ touched the bier, and they that bare him stood still : no nearer to the grave should he be borne. And Jesus said, " Young man, I say [Book m.] 164 LIFE FROM THE DEAD. unto thee, Arise." And he that was dead sat up, and be- gan to speak : and he delivered him to his mother. Then came fear on all : and they glorified God saying, A great prophet is risen up among us ; and God hath visited his people. THESE scenes in the neighborhood of Jesus' home by the sea, are only specimens of an unwearied activity ex- tending throughout his entire public ministry, and manifested in almost every place trodden by his sacred feet. Let any person read St. Mark's Gospel at one sitting — it will take only about an hour — and see the whole won- derful panorama of Christ's life unrolled at once, and he will be ready to use the hyperbole of St. John, and believe that if the works of Jesus had been all recorded in their fullness the world itself would not hold the books written. "Evil spirits," says Chrysostom, " everywhere fled and started away from him. Satan covered his face and re- tired ; every kind of infirmity was loosed, the graves let free the dead, the devils those whom they had maddened, and diseases the sic^. One might see eyes fashioned, palsied and distorted limbs fastened and adapted to each other, dead hands moving, palsied feet leaping amain, ears that were stopped reopened, and the tongue sounding aloud which before was tied by speechlessness. For having taken in hand the common nature of man, as some excellent workman might take a house decayed by time, he filled up what was broken off, banded together its crevices and 165 OUR ELDER BROTHER. shaken portions, and raised up again what was entirely fallen down." So wrought the Carpenter's Son: "Jesus of Nazareth, anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power, went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him." 3 UGH deeds we expect to find manifested by God's own Son. The Incarnation was the great miracle, and the works which we admire were his natural deeds.* He could touch the secret springs of nature, and by one flash of the Almighty Power set the world to wondering. He who filled the grapevines year by year with fruit could easily change water to wine in a moment. And men who never heeded the divine power in common things were ar- rested by the unusual acts of Christ, as if they heard celes- * Minor miracles are not wisely contended for : if Christ is truly the Son in the Holy Trinity, the deeds of wonder-working are cred- ible, being wrought by the fiat of One who knew how to .handle the forces he had made ; i£ he was not, then no miracle is worth debating about. The question of the Incarnation itself does not depend on the verity of the minor miracles ; it is settled upon other grounds. As evi- dences, the miracles do not prove the Deity of Christ ; although they sealed his Divine mission, as the miracles wrought by prophets and apostles attested their calling. ( Compare Isa. xxix : 18, 19 ; and xxxv : 5, 6 ; and Ixi : 1 , 2, with Matt, xi ; 2-5, and Luke vii : 19-22. The true use of the story of the miracles, to-day, is for showing the philanthropic, or what Edkrsheim calls the theanthropic, ministrations of our Lord. 166 LIFE FROM THE DEAD. tial music sounding in the skies, and calling them to hear the voice of God's only beloved Son. YET I hear a strange voice resounding among the Galilean hills or echoing on the shores of the sea. It is a voice of cursing, "Woe, woe." It is Jesus himself denouncing those cities in which his mighty works were done, for their unbelief. " This upbraiding," says the commentator,* "is the prelude to the Last Judgment." And may we not fear lest we ourselves stand in the line of these curses, if like the lepers we are unthankful recipients of mercy, and unmoved by the gracious deeds of the Saviour of men : or if we are moved by them only to place ourselves as tools in the hands of Christ's enemies ; like him who waited for the disturbing of the water, halting through years of infirmity, and then, when the Saviour drew near, having no faith, and not knowing who healed him, — and when knowing, betraying him to persecuting foes. We can, if we will, misuse all the loving deeds of Christ in our behalf, and spurn him as a mere carpenter's son of common lineage. If so, let us beware lest it be more tolerable in the Day of Judgment for Sodom than for us. Were all things created by Christ, and we by him ? All things created for him, and we not for him ? *J. A. Bengel, D.D., 1752. 167 OUR ELDER BROTHER. YET I also hear the voice of Jesus saying, " Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." And I am glad that I never saw him, and that I stood not with his disciples when their bread was increased, or when their nets brake with miraculous multitude of fish, or when he touched the blind or raised the dead ; for, seeing not, I have believed, and I may therefore claim a greater benediction than belonged to his own loved ones by his side. We live, moreover, in days when Christ is working with more power than in the ancient times, healing now the souls as once the bodies of men. And we may carry to him our aged parents, or little children, sisters, brothers, com- panions, and friends ; and we may bear to him our own infirmities : and we hear to-day his voice, " Him that cometh to me I will in nowise cast out." We will arise and go to him, forcing a way through all obstacles, breaking through the roof where he is, and lowering our friends at his feet ; or, if men charge us to hold our peace, we will cry the more a great deal, "Thou Son of David have mercy on me," — crying again and again, till Jesus stands still, and the disciples say, "Be of good comfort, for he calleth thee " ; or if Christ himself seems to turn us away as we have long despised him, yet in the hour of our need we will go out to meet him, and plead like the foreign woman for the crumbs that fall from his table, till he shall say, "Great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt." Will the world never learn the lesson taught by the blue 168 LIFE FROM THE DEAD. waves and high shores of Genesareth ? Are you tempest tossed on life's sea ? See to it that Christ walks the waves beside you, or sleeps in your ship. Do you wander in deserts or in mountain solitudes ? Invite then Christ to go with you, contending with evil spirits and praying amid the mountains. Are you burdened with many cares ? Go, day by day, and tell Jesus : seek his society, his friend- ship. Every day we will read over the words, and weigh them as we read : * •" I need thee, precious Jesus, I need a friend lilce thee — A friend to soothe and pity, a friend to care for me : I need the heart of Jesus, to feel each anxious care, To tell my every trouble, aiid all my sorrows share. " I need thee, precious Jesus, for' I am very poor, A stranger and a pilgrim, I have no earthly store : I need the love of Jesus to cheer me on my way. To guide my doubting footsteps, to be my strength and stay. " I need thee, precious Jesus, for I am very blind ; A weak and foolish wanderer, with dark and evil mind : I need the light of Jesus to tread the thorny road, To guide me safe to glory, where I shall see my God." — Rev. Frederick Whitfield, Vicar of St. Mary's Church in Hastings. * These were the lines found in the pocketbook of the late Gover- nor DcxLAP, of Maine, after his death ; precious words, borne by him in journeyings far and near. 169 BOOK FOUR. .-»j=:-*-::^«- Oi_ir Hxanaple In Self=RentJ.ncia.tion. -^^W^ Chaptek 1. Page 171. A. Singular Life of Service. CiiArTER 2. Page 178. A.n Unselfish Ideal. Chapter 3. Page 182. The Hovel and. the Palace. ClIAPTEB 4. PAUK 185. Nloral Nllraales. CHAPTER ONE. A Singular Life of Service. -»»-M*«-«- sometimes speak of the miracles of Christ as being a most striking exhibition of the divine power. And we are pointed to them again and again as the great wonder in the strange hfe of the Nazarene Carpenter. There is, however, another thing more remarkable than all the wonderful works of Christ. It is the spirit in which he wrought — a spirit of self-sacri- fice. That Jesus should have been so self-sacrificing when he had the power to perform such miracles was a marvel in his lifetime ; and the wonder has increased in all the ages, — the greater wonder as men have better known the true char- acter of the Nazarene. If the miracles in number and character were new to the world, the unselfish life intro- duced as a practical power among men was still more memorable. It is written that even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. His leading aim was to minister to others, and to give up life itself to this end. Self-sacrifice was his sole purpose, — living for others, dyiiig for others ; [Book IV.] l^l OUE ELDER BROTHER. and his miracles were only incident to this great plan. They appear in the scheme of his life only as the tools he used in his self-sacrifice for others.* ' Theologians have disputed whether Christ's li^e and death was the more to honor the divine law and satisfy the divine justice, or whether it was the more designed for an example of self-sacrifice to men. That the atonement wrought by Christ's humiliation throughout his entire life and by his death, answered both these ends is true. It is the unselfish example of Jesus, of which I now speak. This self-sacrifice seems greater on account of the mirac- ulous power which accompanied it. Jesus performed no miracles for his own relief. He took the common lot of weariness and of sorrow ; no one made bread for him when he hungered, or calmed the storms of heaven when they beat pitilessly upon his head. He was a wanderer from town to town, depending on the charity of his friends, while he bestowed heavenly favors in return for the earthly. Said Edward Irving : " For a piece of bread he could restore an injured limb ; for a meal of meat he could recover a parent from the very article of death ; for a night's accommodation he could cast out a devil; and a good reception in any city he. could conciliate by the recovery of all its sick and disabled peo- ple." Yet, in spite of these gifts, he was sometimes hungry ; and he, who fed multitudes by miracles, was himself com- * " It is probable that the whole system of miracle worlcingwas rather a condescension of our Lord ; that it looked to him as but an inferior ministry." — Bishop Huntington. 172 MY EXEMPLAR IN SELF-SACRIFICE. pelled to gather heads of standing wheat for eating, as he passed through the fields. It was in memory of these strange contrasts in the life of Jesus, that Augustine set him forth as the great example of self-sacrifice, saying : " The Bread came down, that he might hunger; the Fountain came down, that he might thirst ; the Way came down, that he might be wearied in the way ; the Life came down, that he might be slain : and dost thou refuse to labor ? Seek not thine own.'' So St. Paul says : "Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich." Think, for a moment, how low a condition he took among men. And, in illustration of it, read one or two sentences from one of the most eminent of American preachers, preaching now through his books to a far wider congrega- tion than he ever reached by his voice. "If Jesus," it is said, " had come as one born of a good family, if he had been a considerable owner of real estate, if he had made his journeys in a chariot, and lodged at night with distinguished senators and persons of consideration, if he had been a great scholar among the rabbis, or had been familiar to the people in the livery of a judge, or a priest, winning great popularity by the profuseness of his chari- ties, and' exciting even applause by his attention to low people and his tender ministry to their diseases : dying finally by some of the modes that are common, to be fol- lowed to his burial by multitudes that came to weep their loss at his grave — if, I say, he had lived in condition, and died as one admired for his excellence, the real depth of his 173 OUR ELDER BROTHER. virtue could never even have been conceived. No, it was only as he waived the honors of condition in his birth, and the comforts of property in his life; became a footman, hungered often ; slept under the sky, shivering with, cold ; spent himself daily in exhausting sympathies, and got almost no sympathy in return ; met the looks of crafty messengers and spies on every side, and scarcely found a place, except in the lone recesses of the mountains, where his ear was not all day, perhaps all night, saluted by the carping sounds of bigot voices quarreling with his doc- trine ; ending finally his hunted, hated, weary life, by a slave's death on the cross, — this too, even for enemies, as truly as for his friends, — it is here that we begin to really look down into the very depths of his bosom, depths holy and divine, that no mortal plummet has sounded." How strange is the story of the Gospels, that the Lord of all the worlds had not in this world a place to lay his head. He who made the birds and the foxes, and gave them an instinct for making homes for themselves, volun- tarily chose to have no home that he might serve those who had homes. Besides the privations incident to his own choice of ceaseless wayfaring, the malice of men some- times deprived him even of common hospitality. Did not the Samaritans refuse to give Jesus a lodging ? They so agreed in one thing with their enemies, the Jewish bigots, in maltreating Christ ; Jesus being left to go forth as the bridegroom in the Canticles, saying, "My head ♦Horace Bushnell, D.D. 174 MY EXEMPLAR IN SELF-SACRIFICE. is filled with the dew, and my locks with the drops of the night." We are not to forget the physical exhaustion connected with unremitting toils of the Saviour. Did not the multi- tudes throng about him, so that there was no time even to eat? Was it not said that he was beside himself — being consumed by zeal ? " The day is short ; the work is great ; the Master presseth : " exclaimed the teacher of the holy law. So also Jesus said : "I must work the work of him that sent me while it is day :'' " My meat and my drink is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work : " "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straightened till it be accomplished." Are we not apt to get narrow views of Christ's character from the record of his work in certain lines ? Do not his miraculous deeds make us forget his skill in teaching ? Do not his words of wisdom make us forget the propor- tion of his gifts ? It is only by some care in observing the story of his life, that we gather hints which show him to have been great on every side. Were we to make a cata- logue of the elements of character which we associate with human greatness, we should find in the Evangelists our warrant for believing that the Christ — had he chosen to do so — could have excelled in various departments of thought and action. But he deliberately subordinated all things to his one work of self-sacrifice for the good of others. For example, we know that Jesus had moral wisdom such as never appeared upon the earth before. And he had great persuasive power over men. He could, therefore, as 175 OUR ELDER BROTHER. an instructor, have added much to what we now know, and have blessed all ages with a boon of heavenly wisdom. Yet instead of giving himself solely to this, a large part of bis ministry was devoted to relieving the wants of suffer- ers ; as if to benefit his own neighbors in his own day was worth more than his teachings could be to coming genera- tions. He could easily have given us a few more chapters of his instructions in the Gospel, but instead of Bible-mak- ing he went about to heal the blind, cleanse lepers, and cheer the sorrowing. He preached, and taught in conversa- tions, the doctrines which underlie the Kingdom of heaven. But instead of enlarging on these teachings as he might have done, as we should think with infinite profit to all after ages, he chose rather to show what his religion would do in a life. It seems as if his declaration of the doctrines of his new Kingdom was merely incidental, while his absorb- ing purpose was to give an example of the spirit which ought to pervade that Kingdom. In short, Christ was determined to illustrate his own doctrines by his own deeds ; and he who went about doing good, found that his commands that other men should live unselfishly, would have double weight when enforced by his example. So that, even as a teacher, he was wise in affording so many good deeds for record by his biographers. Not till we enter the heavenly world, shall we behold Christ's character as it is, in all its proportions. In this world all his attributes gave way to the one purpose and passion of self-sacrifice. God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son. And he led upon the earth a life 176 MY EXEMPLAR IN SELF-SACRIFICE. of pure benevolence, and crowned it all by giving life itself, a ransom for many. We think it heroic, if we take calmly the suffering that comes unexpectedly upon us. But Jesus saw the sorrow, and went forward. He steadfastly set his face toward it, knowing what he must endure. He selected the path of sorrow, for the sake of conferring infinite advantage upon the souls of men. All the particulars of Christ's life, — his nights of prayer and days in the wilder- ness, his hours of teaching and hours of healing, his con- tending with foes, and his bitter death, ^ are all explained by this great purpose, expressed in his own words, that the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. 177 ^ CHAPTER TWO. An Unselfisti IdLeal. -^^ -# UT one thing is still more wonderful than the fact of Christ's personal self-denial for the sake of others. It is, that he introduced the unselfish life as an ideal in the moral world ; and first made it a practical power in the lives of men. Outside the scheme of redemption revealed in the Old and New Testa- ments, there had been no great prominence given to self- denial for the sake of others, as the fundamental moral principle on which to live ; or if the idea had been suggested by other religious systems, none ever succeeded so well as the plan of which Christ is the central figure in making unselfish living the leading aim of multitudes of men. To live for others is the demand of the moral law : supreme love to God, and to love other men as one's self, is the Old Testament doctrine. This law was a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ. And Jesus emphatically taught the same lesson by precept, and taught it by his own example. A life of unthanked self-denial was put forth as the Christian ideal.* Jesus did not teach men to despise the body, or, on *"Love as God loves, regardless of merit and of the reciprocity of love." — C. J. Vaughan, D.D. [BOOK IV.] 178 AN UNSELFISH IDEAL. the other hand, to seek pleasure as the end of life, not even moral pleasure ; but to serve God and man unselfishly, and thus to gain the greatest joy without seeking it. And the fact that our Saviour himself led this life has proved a great power in leading others to do it ; the disciples have sought to be like the Master. When we look at him calmly moving on his life-journey toward the cross, dispensing blessings on all he met or passed in the way, we must conclude that we shall imitate him only as we deny our- selves. We can imitate the earthly life of Christ only by seeking to have a spirit like his. "And stricken be these feet ere they despise The path the Master trod." We see the ultimate influence of the precepts and example of Jesus in transforming human character in the case of James and John, who sought high honor in Christ's King- dom. Jesus said to them : " Whosoever of you will be the chief est, shall be servant of all." They wanted to get the leadership, and Christ told them how to do it. He demanded that they should be unselfish, though they should die for it. They were baptized with the baptism of Christ, they gave life itself : James baptized with his own blood, drawn by a sword, and John baptized in boiling oil. So had they high honor in the Kingdom. As a principle for the conduct of disciples in all after ages, none are left in doubt what to do. We have citations from two of the apostles. It is said by Peter, "Hereunto were ye called, because Christ also sufPered for us, leaving 179 OUR ELDEK BROTHER. US an example that ye should follow his steps." And it is said by John, " Because he laid down his life for us, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." This is not only a pretty sentiment, to be admired as an ornamental Christian motto, but a principle to guide the life. Self- devotement, not self-development, is the aim of a holy life. The leader in the Church of God is the one who leads in self-sacrifice. " He that is greatest among you," said the Master, " let him be servant of all." The example and the words of Jesus make it clear that if one seeks to live entirely for others, he is a leader in the Church of God. Is any one ambitious ? Let him excel all men in self-sacrifice. This astounding principle, announced by Jesus, so reverses the world's standard of aggrandize- ment,* that there is, somewhere in the world to-day, one standing at the head of the human race ; not one great in the eyes of men, but the angels know him to be the leader of all men in self-sacrifice for others. We talk about one's capacity to do this or to do that. He who has the greatest capacity for self-sacrifice is king in the moral universe. Did not the Lord of the moral universe become incar- nate, bear the cross, and suffer crucifixion that he might save others ? By it, he has made us to know that this is the only thing worth living for — that we are poor, base, mean and contemptible, unless we are striving for this more * ' ' The Gospel brings new measurements ; new standards of value ; new reckonings of much and little, high and low, humble and exalted, strong and weak." — Bishop Huntington. 180 AN UNSELFISH IDEAL. than for everything else, — to live wholly for others. The voice of Christ is constantly calling his disciples to greater sacrifices — to become living sacrifices. * A contempt of life in following a holy purpose is the very thing Christ had ; he carefully conserved his life against his enemies till his hour came, and then he gladly laid it down. It was so taught, that the only use in prolonging a disciple's life one moment is to work for Christ, — to carry through the proj- ect of bringing men and women and little children to Jesus, that he may heal them : so living a life of self-sac- rifice for others, if one lives at all. * " Let us listen," says St. Bernard, " to no one, neither to man nor to spirit, who would persuade us to come down from the cross ; let us persist in remaining on the cross, let us die on the cross, let us be taken down by the hands of others and not by oui- own, after his example, who said on the cross, ' It is finished. ' " 181 CHAPTER THREE. Ttie Hovel and th.e Palace. ^O truer word has been spoken than that of Mr. H. M. Alden {God in His World) : "If we have set ff) ^ out to find the palace of our King, resolv- ing that we will enter in and live with him, we are not in the right way, and shall never see the palace, nor find the King : he is serving our poor brothers in wretched hovels numberless and near at hand, and if we will join him in this service, we shall find him there, and every hovel will seem. to us his palace." "The fact that life is a battle," it is said in Harris' Kingdom of Christ on Earth, "demands of every Christian the spirit of martyrdom. There cannot be a Christian life without it. He who has not learned to value duty, fidelity, the Kingdom of Christ, more than property, reputation, or life, has not learned the first lesson of Christian living." " Whoever," says Dr. Storrs, " conceives of Christian serv- ice as consisting chiefiy in hearing sermons, enjoying the pleasant society of good people, cultivating taste and a kindly temper, passing temperately through a prosperous life, and giving occasionally, of an overabundance, for re- [BooK IV.] 183 * THE HOVEL AND THE PALACE. lief of the needy, has certainly missed the grandest idea of his religion concerning true worship." These affirmations offer but other ways of stating the grand central truth of Christianity, that life's languor is to be broken up by the introduction of the living Christ, the man Divine, — with a moral enthusiasm so contagious as to set fire to every heart, and with a wisdom so far reaching and practical as to change the face of society. The Church of God can never fulfill its mission as the world's cross- bearer — the living indwelling Christ of to-day — by the adoption of vaporing resolutions that express sentimental- ity indisposed to exertion, or a mere verbal interest in the world's woe. To imitate Christ, who pleased not himself, to lead a true altar-life, is needful for the salvation of man- kind. The child of Christ, the partaker of the free gift, the heir of heaven, the pilgrim, the stranger, the bearer of the Cross, the follower of the Meek and Lowly, is God's ap- pointed visitor to the hungry, the naked, the sick, the im- prisoned. He was appointed to " remember the forgotten. " Self-denial costs no struggle in a soul thoroughly disciplined in the school of Christ. It was the plan of Jesus, to establish his religion solely upon the idea of a Divine unselfish love as the rule of human life ; making self-sacrifice for the sake of others, the normal action of all men. And in this he set the self- sacrificing example, — as the Good Shepherd finally laying down his own life for the sheep. No other great religion was ever so founded. 183 OtJK ELDER BROTHER. This is the condition precedent in all the work wrought by the Master. His preaching and teaching are not to be considered as topics that are separated from his life of self- renunciation, but rather his self-sacrifice for others is the main fact, and all the anecdotes of his ministry are but incidental. This doctrine of setting aside all private in- terest as the main object in life and taking a course of singular devotement in promoting the good of other people is at the foundation of all else in the Saviour's life and in the Kingdom he sought to establish : self-sacrifice for others being but a term to express that unselfish love which led God to give his only begotten Son, and which is the primal element of that renewed character which con- stitutes discipleship. It is the imitation of this Christ-character, inwrought in disciples by the Holy Spirit — the sanctifying, energizing Christ present to-day — that is the main instrument God uses in propagating this Christ-idea of unselfish love throughout the world : " Sacrifice conscious and uncon- scious for the life of others," being, in the words of Robertson, "the grand law of the Universe " ; the harmony of all the spheres of God being in accord with this note. 184 CHAPTER FOUR. JVLoral JVEiracles. iSi'^f^SJ IT is this idea of disinterested love and unthanked self- denial, as the mainspring of conduct — which has become the rule for myriads of lives throughout the Christian ages — that is more wonderful than the miracles of Christ : it is itself more astounding than the incarnation, since it has transformed multitudes of human lives, making them in a measure divine in aspiration, inspiration, and in the performance of acts in accord with the divine mind and which fulfill the divine purposes. It is the outcome of the transcendent self-sacrifice of the Son of Man. He planned to die ; his dying but a part of his ever living — his unending influence and present power on the earth. It is the triumph of a new commandment of love to lay down life itself for one's friends, and to befriend every child of humanity by seeking to develop in him a like unselfish loving life, and those dormant spiritual energies which he has in his own soul as a child of God. What was the life of Christ but the creation of a spirit that will carry the world for Christ ? What is carrying the world for Christ, but a moral miracle greater than any which Jesus wrought in the realm of nature ? What is the spirit [Book IV.] 185 OUR ELDER BROTHER. of self-sacrifice, but a moral miracle in a selfish world ? What is this, but the germ of all human progress ? The quelling of storms on the sea is not so great an ex- hibition of the divine power, as that which has appeared in the quickening of the human intellect under Christian civilization ; by which men have made the powers of nature serve in sending glad tidings of peace from nation to nation. The power of Jesus in multiplying bread is not so wonder- ful as the spirit of Christian beneficence which has so largely blessed the population of the globe, and not more wonder- ful than the Christian thrift which is raising the world out of the reach of famines. And the miracles of healing de- moniacs and men with palsy, are only figurative of a higher power growing up under Christianity, by which madmen and the sick of divers diseases are being systematically healed in multitudes ; while the restoring of sight to the blind and power of foot to the lame, are not to be mentioned with the moral miracles wrought by the divine power in the very ages in which we live. So a mediaeval missionary to Sweden, when told that his prayers had healed the sick, said that if his supplications had power, he desired only this miracle, that God would make him a good man, which would be the greatest miracle of all, — a miracle that has been wrought every day since the Resurrection and the Pentecost.* * " Is it possible for us to ignore the fact that civilization, in all its more conspicuous phases and forces, is distinctively energized by the prin- ciple of self-renunciation? Not from the pulpit alone or even chiefly, but from the myriad voices of the press, — from the moral writers of every 186 MODERN MlKACLES. Christ came to do a deed and to organize a work that should carry the world, — taking to himself a Kingdom ; and the principle of self-sacrifice was the one fitted to his use. By it, moral miracles are changing the face of the world ; removing sorrow, the curse of sin, and sin itself, the source of all our ills.* IN the topics succeeding in this volume, it remains to examine the methods by which the self-sacrificing spirit of Jesus wrought in performing the moral miracles con- nected with his mission: the adaptation of his influence to individuals and to men in large companies ; and his forth- putting of ideas that are related to the principle of self- sacrifice ; and certain phases of his life and his death, which illustrate his self -devoted love to mankind. school, from essayists in politics and public economy, from the drama and the stage, from the editorial columns of the most venal newspaper, from the realms of fiction, — the truth is unceasingly affirmed and illus- trated, that a life of self-surrender and sacrifice is the only true life for man on earth." — S. E. Heerick, D.D. *" Greater works than these shall ye do." — "It was historically the work of Christ to expel cruelty, to curb passion, to brand suicide, to punish and' repress infanticide, to drive the impurities of heathendom into dark- ness ; to rescue the gladiator, to free the slave, to protect the captive, to nurse the sick, to shelter the orphan, to elevate woman, to shroud with a halo of innocence the tender years of childhood ; to change pity from a Edman vice into a Christian virtue, to change poverty from a curse to a beatitude, to change labor from a vulgarity into a dignity and beauty, to sanctify marriage, to reveal angelic purity, to create charity with a world- wide horizon." — Compare Farrar's Life of Christ, pp. 420, 421, Vol. II. 187 BOOK FIVE. •^S**-P^t- Oiar Pastor and Preacher. '^■«^- Chaptee 1. Page 189. A Lesson at the Wellside. Chaptee 2. Page 205. His Nlanner in Attracting Attention. Chaptee 3. Page 217. His Rhietorlcal Power. CHAPTER ONE. A Lesson at the Wellside. ^ * -^ IF the Holy Land is the background of all pictures of our Saviour's life, the best introduction to our Lord's pastoral ministration is found in the vale of She- chem.* Travelers in the Holy Land represent this vale as a paradise. Those who approach it, — wearied with the glittering, fiery light of an atmosphere which carries no moisture, and entering now upon a region where the morning and evening air is laden with vapor, — find pre- sented to their eyes a charming picture, which is rendered still naore beautiful by the haze through which it is seen. Regions bare and uncomely, mountain sides with little verdure, give place to rugged hills with green slopes, and gardens made musical by living waters. For a mile on the north of the city, the road runs between cultivated lands. The fig, almond, walnut, apricot, mulberry, pomegranate, olive, and the orange grow in orchards upon the banks of running brooks. The grapevines bear heavy clusters, and *N. B The convemation of our Lord with the woman, of Samaria, is the topic of a very suggestive Article by Dr. Edward Everett Hale, Chap- ter 5, Book xi. [BOOK v.] 189 OUR ELDER BROTHER. the mulberry trees grow to an immense size. Picturesque olives gather in groves, and their slender leaves of gray green, rippling in every breeze, are always a delight to the eye. Hosts of song birds enliven the air ; the voice of the nightingale recalls, to the European tourist, memories of home. Dr. Robinson, our sober American professor, not apt to go into ecstasies over anything, declared that this valley was a " scene of fairy enchantment." This vale — a mile wide and six in length, — is eighteen hundred feet above the sea, and the city is built on the watershed, where foun- tains are springing and rills are flowing. If we pass out of the eastern gate of the city, we shall move along the valley under the frequent shade of olive trees, until we reach the ground made memorable by the patriarchs. When Abraham first entered the promised land he set up his tent and altar under an oak at Shechem.* It was in this valley that Jacob bought a piece of ground, dug a well, and bequeathed it to Joseph. And when the patriarch made his home in Hebron, his sons led their flocks into this rich vale of Shechem. It was not far from here that Joseph was sold to the Ishmaelites. Jacob's well is one of the best identified of the holy places in Palestine. One of the most eminent Biblical scholars has stated that he would rather stand there than upon any other spot, * It was under the shade of this ancestral oak that Jacob buried cer- tain idols, charms and earrings, brought by his family from Padan-aram. In the latter times when your true Jew wanted to ridicule the men of Shechem, he would say, '< The relics which our father Jacob buried under the oak, were dug up and worshiped by your pagan ancestors." 190 THE LESSON AT THE WELLSIDE. being most sure that he planted his feet upon the very ground trodden by the Saviour of men.* Would you love to stand by those stones made holy by the feet of Jesus, and place your feet in his very steps ? No, I v7ould not go there till I should first dig deep for a well here, — I would at my own door raise the water of life ; I would go out into a quiet valley or upon a secluded hill- side near my own home, and there pierce for spiritual waters. Unless I can meet Jesus himself, and obtain from him such drink that I shall never thirst again, I have no wish to go to a spot where Christ talked with another eighteen hundred years ago. To make holy places by meeting our Saviour in this country is more needful than travel over sea : faith is Olivet, love is Galilee. WHEN" Jesus approached the well he seems to have been moved by a holy constraint ; he must needs go that way. Traveling north he sat by the wellside, as if about to continue his journey by passing along the eastern slopes of Ebal without entering the city. He waited there while his disciples went into the town to buy bread. It is *There is a pit ten feet square, lined with stone, and in the bottom of this pit is the mouth of tlie well. The well mouth is arched, and about two feet in diameter at the top, and nine feet wide below, out down through the solid rock. It is now about seventy-five feet deep ; once much deeper, it has been partly filled with the rubbish of thirty-six hundred years. The curbstones are worn with deep grooves, cut by the ropes of the water- drawers. In the month of March there is a depth of fifteen feet of water in the well ; there is often less, and it is sometimes dry. 191 OUR ELDER BROTHER. probable that our Saviour sat with his face toward the city, and he may have seen the woman coming out. The town, it is likely, at that time, extended somewhat nearer to the well than it does now ; the modern town is a mile away. When we know the eastern customs we find nothing incred- ible in the record that the woman left a city of fourscore springs and fountains to go a little distance to the ancient well ; nor need we think that the sacred associations of the place were the main ground of her going there. Those long residing in the East tell us that the orientals have such notions of the purity of water, that they frequently bring it a long distance for drinking, sometimes from a fountain miles away ; though they draw water for other purposes from the deep wells of cities and villages. The wild Arabs are as particular. as horses as to the water they drink. If Jacob's well had a reputation for furnishing what an oriental taste pronounced to be good water, that would account for the woman's journey. Or, indeed, the woman's work in the field may have been near the well ; and, it being six in the evening, she may have gone to this ancient well to fill her water jar before returning to her home in the city. We behold now the Lord of Israel asking water at Jacob's well. And here he opened another fountain, a well of living water. He of whom it was said that " he receiveth sinners and eateth with them," would now drink with a Samaritan woman with whom no Jews would have deal- ings. Jesus, however, forgot his own thirst in trying to satisfy the soul of her who came to the well. He announced himself as the fountain of life. 192 THE. LESSON AT THE WELLSIDE. "Art thou greater," asked the sneering woman, "than our father Jacob ? " When, however, the eyes of Jesus pierced her through and through, and when she felt that Jesus was grieved at her sins, she believed that such sympathy and such penetra- tion indicated the presence of a divine teacher ; and she was ready to question with him on matters of faith, per- haps at first to divert Jesus frona talking about her loves and domestic experiences. But as he spoke, she was so struck with the solemnity of his words to her, that her conscience was aroused ; and she believed that Jesus had revealed to her the central idea of her life, and had ex- posed to her all her sins. And when she referred to the coming Messiah (her ideal being in advance of that the dis- ciples had, they thinking of a king but she of a teacher), she was ready to hear the voice of Jesus : "I that speak unto thee am he." * At this point the disciples returned, as if by their bread- loaves they would choke the outflowing of the words of life, in the very moment when the fountain was sweetest. Words had been uttered more astonishing than their ears had ever heard, — "I that speak unto thee am he:" and they came in, marveling that Jesus should exchange a word with a woman, and she a Samaritan ; and they began * Jesus charged Peter, at a certain time, to tell no man that he was the Messiah. It was no departure from this policy, to tell the great secret to the woman at the well, and the whole Samaritan city ; since the Jews had no ordinary dealings with the Samaritans, — still less did they credit their religious affirmations. 193 1* OUE ELDER BROTHER. to disturb the heavenly feast by talk of the bread they bought in the city. The disciples in going to the city to buy bread did not speak to the Samaritan woman, if they met her or saw her ; it is no wonder then, that they won- dered at Jesus, that he should talk with her. The meat Jesus had eaten, the doing of his Father's will, they knew not of. The disciples were as blundering as the woman ; they knowing not the meaning of the meat upon which he fed, as she could not tell what he meant by the living water. Kest and power came to Jesus through his attempt to heal spiritual disease, to enlighten the dark mind, and to lead one who was out of the way. He had the joy of an angel over the woman's repentance ; or the joy of the shepherd in finding the lost. So it is not strange that he forgot his weariness and his thirst and his hunger. Thus the weary one, at the wellside, gave rest to the heavy laden one, who had come unto him. And such spirit- ual activity was imparted to this woman, that henceforth it was her meat and drink to do the will of the Master. She forgot her errand at the well of Jacob, having found the true fountain of life. Chrysostom declares that she was more zealous than the apostles : " They when they were called, left their nets ; she of her own accord, without the command of any, leaves her water pot, and winged by joy performs the office of evangelists. And she calls not one or two, as did Andrew and Philip, but having aroused a whole city and people, she brought them to him." And it is remarked by Cyril, that Jesus at the beginning told her 194 THE LESSON AT THE WELLSIDE. to call her husband, and at the end she called all the men of the city to come to Christ. She proclaimed him who had revealed her sins ; she would not hide her manner of life, if by it she could reveal Christ. And as the Samaritans crowded out to meet him, Jesus said to the disciples, " Lift up your eyes, and see the fields white for the har- vest." The Jews often gathered to behold the miracles of Christ ; the Samaritans now came out by the cityf ul merely to listen to the words of a teacher. The fields were indeed white for harvest. And Jesus began to reap ; and the people believed on him, not on account of the words of the woman, but because they themselves drew the water of life from the Heavenly Fountain. And they said, " Now we believe, for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." elE, see a man which told me all things that ever I did : is not this the Christ ? " The woman of Samaria was astonished at the adaptation of the words of Jesus to her personal character and spiritual wants. This unpretending work of Jesus in talking with this woman by the wayside was — if we look at it in its full bearing — more important to the world than the work of many a warrior or statesman in some splendid action that has filled the world with its fame. This wellside talk illustrates the habit of Christ's life : his most vital teachings were put forth, not in elaborate sermons, but in conversations. When Jesus conversed with Nicodemus alone by night, 195 OITE ELDER BROTHER. he announced one of the most important doctrines of our faith. As the noble Jew searched the slopes of Olivet that night, to find the lowly roof which sheltered Jesus, it would not have been thought beforehand, that the words he was to hear would be proclaimed henceforth from the house- tops,* and that the thought given in that secret place in the silent hours of darkness would change the face of the world — " Except a man be born again." It was probably this adaptation of the Saviour's conver- sations to the individual wants of men, which preserved his words to all generations. They made in their utterance an impression which could not be forgotten. Those with whom he conversed felt their own needs so thoroughly met by his words that they repeated them to all the world, that all men might profit by heavenly wisdom. Jesus' habit of teaching by conversations led him uniformly to say the right thing in the right place ; to fit the truth snugly to each case, — to utter in every ear the words which the hearer most needed. It was this which made the lesson by the wellside so impressive. The woman heard what she must hear or fail of salvation. Nicodemus, master in Israel, needed to be born again. The stirring Martha, drawn about, distracted by cares, needed to learn quiet- ness. Another element which contributed to the preservation of what we should call the casual conversations of Jesus, * This conversation itself was most likely on the housetop : the gray- headed man and the youthful Jesus alone with God under the stars. 196 THE LESSON AT THE WBLLSIDE. was the sympathy and kindness of heart manifested in his teachings. The woman at the well had the confidence within an hour to trust him as a friend. A living, loving teacher could win to obedience those who would not heed the cold, stern, written code of the divine law. He was known to be the Friend of sinners. Men who deemed the law an iceberg, thought of Jesus as the sun. The Master proved himself to be a personal guide to men and women who found little inspiration and little winning power in mere book directions to holy living. The Redeemer of men sought out wandering sheep ; he searched for the lost dili- gently, as one would for silver lost in the house. He would not willingly leave a fallen woman to perish at last in the depths of despair. He came to call sinners to repentance ; and he associated with them that he might lead them to follow his call. He loved ntien when he hated their sins. He accepted the hospitality of the Pharisees, even when he rebuked their hypocrisy. There must have been some- thing genial and winning in the society of Jesus, or the hospitality of his enemies would not have been urged upon him. He was approachable. The children loved him ; and the most learned asked him their hardest questions. If the rich sought him and invited him to feasts, the poor also were with him always, His eyes were full of love. Men and women could read in his look a warm affection to the human soul. He looked earnestly on men, loving them. As men use the eye for sin — sin by a look — Jesus had, on the other hand, a godly use of the eye. His heart sought every avenue to express its affection for the souls of the 197 OUR ELDER BROTHER. perishing. The author of an early Apocryphal book writes : " None but the Father could so love his own chil- dren as Jesus loved men. His great sorrow was that he must be striven against by those in their ignorance, for whom he strove as his children ; and yet he loved them that hated him, and he prayed for his enemies ; and these things he not only did himself, as a father, but also taught his dis- ciples to pursue the same course of conduct toward men as their brethren." THE scene at Jacob's well, setting forth as it did Jesus' readiness to enter into religious conversation, and the appropriateness of his teachings fitting the truth to every one with whom he dealt, and the marked love and sympathy with which he wrought upon the souls of men, make it proper to speak of our Saviour as engaged frequently in what we call Pastoral Work, as distinguished from the work of preaching. So far forth as the life of Christ was that of a public teacher, he made prominent the parochial care, the personal ministry to individual^. So personal was all the preaching of Jesus, and so profound and far reaching were the principles which he announced in private conversation, principles adapted to the wants of men in every age, that it is difficult for us to classify the sayings of the Saviour, and speak of some as being sermons and others as conversations. The most elaborate discourses of Christ were conversational, and the words he uttered from house to house or by the way are not less weighty and ener- 198 THE LESSON AT THE WELLSIDE. gizing than those words which were spoken in the ears of the multitude. Whether we consider the full or the frag- mentary teaching of Jesus, they all bear the marks of being spoken for the hour, and so deal with the case in hand, that it would be impossible to arrive at any correct apprehen- sion of the proportion of his teachings, the adaptation of his words to all men, modifying all extremes of character, without reading page after page of the words of him who spake as never man spake. Then indeed we discover that he addressed to every man a word in season. Do we not, to-day, behold the Son of Man approaching us, or sitting by the way, as once by the wellside, where we may greet him in the midst of our common avocations ? And is he not ready, to-day, to satisfy the peculiar want of every soul ? It is by becoming intimate with Jesus that we shall be molded and changed till we become like him. There is nothing so pleasing in human friendships as the modifications of character that are wrought by intimacy. Better than martial victories are the '"'silent triumphs of wisdom," as souls are quietly turned off from unseemly ways and led to a loftier life. This occurs often in domes- tic life. If then we become the intimate friends of Jesus, we may expect singular modifications of character to arise from the very variety and proportion of his characteristics. WE do not always think how great a diversity of charac- ters our Lord met in his daily ministry; and he sought to right up every man on the side where he most 199 OUR ELDER BROTHER. needed it. This gives an almost contradictory appearance to the collated sayings of the Saviour ; the words are how- ever but epigrams easily remembered, that tend to straighten out the crooks of ill-balanced people, first one, then another. Is not Jesus the Word ? His very life is eloquent in its appeal to us. Whether we.read his discourses, or his words by the way, or study the lessons taught by his miracles, in whatever way we approach the life of Jesus, we find the Saviour speaking to us personally, and addressing to us just those words we most need, as if he were the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls. If on6 were inflated by wealth, Jesus would appear to him as having no home to rest in. If, on the other hand, a man were oppressed by poverty and pinched by want, Christ would approach cheering him with the hope of heaven and the golden crowns. To the rich he said. Go, sell that thou hast. To the poor in spirit, he promised treasures in heaven. To a hoarding man, Jesus would say. Labor not for the meat that perisheth. Of a wasteful man, Christ would demand care in gathering up fragments. If one should become a friend of Jesus and retain a proud spirit, Christ would ask him to bear cups of cold water, and wash the feet of his disciples. If, on the other hand, the man were lowly arid discouraged, Christ would appear to him promising thrones and dominions. To the high-headed and ambitious, Jesus would say, Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the king- dom of heaven. But he would point the humble and shrink- 200 THE LESSON AT THE WELLSIDE. ing to John the Baptist, and say to them, that the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. Jesus took men out of fishing boats, and made them kings and priests unto God. But when men approached him who sought for the highest places in the Kingdom, he asked them to share his baptism of suffering. To those who are light and joyous, Jesus appears weep- ing over the dooms of the lost. To those who are oppressed with grief, Christ draws near, as in the solemn hours of his last supper with his disciples, — Jesus, in the silence of mid- night, singing the Hallel, the great song of praise to God. To those who indulge in too much gayety, Christ is seen holding out his crown of thorns to check unseemly mirth. But to a man in great despondency, Jesus comes bidding him rejoice and be exceeding glad, though in the midst of persecutions. We are of disproportionate life, and if we fondly cling to new graves, and refuse to take up again the burden of life, we hear the Son of Man roughly declaring, Let the dead bury their dead, follow thou me. Or if we straight- way forget the dead, and are cold and unmoved by opening tombs, we see our Saviour weeping at the grave of a friend, or touching the bier of the only son of a widow. We are disproportionate ; and if our souls are cold, and turn away from human friendships as of no use, — we see Jesus visiting at the house in Bethany, or we behold him on the cross, commending his mother to the care of his beloved disciple. But if our souls are tangled, and too much wed to earthly friendships, we hear a stern voice, 201 OUR ELDER BROTHER. demanding that we hate father and mother and all relation- ships, and bidding us forsake all to follow him. We are disproportionate. Christ then exhibits himself as tender or rough to suit our peculiar need. If our souls are fearful and trembling, he will quench no smoking flax. If our souls are bold and fiery, he appears scourging hypo- crites from his temple, and denouncing Sadducee and Phari- see. If our souls love peace, Christ is the Prince of Peace. But if our souls are valiant for fight, he comes not to the earth to bring peace, but a sword. If any man asks Jesus about his kingship over the nations, his answer is. My Kingdom is not of this world. But if men are spiritless in the great exigencies of life, we hear the same voice com- manding, If any man have not a sword let him sell his garment and buy one. To those who are fevered and impatient in his service, Jesus appears, saying, Sleep on now and take your rest. But if any are drowsy in hours of peril, we hear the Saviour questioning, What, could ye not watch with me one hour ? Is one too dependent on others ? The Messiah is seen treading the wine press alone. Is a man lonely in warfare with evil powers ? The Son of Man appears, declaring that twelve legions of angels are in waiting. If a man is legal, and clings to the old Mosaic economy and the traditions of men, Jesus stands before him, rejecting the letter of the law and overturning old ceremonies. But if the man is of a careless order of mind, and would riot in unholy liberty, Christ is discovered, declaring that not one jot or tittle of that stern law shall fail. When Jesus saw men careless of 202 THE LESSON AT THE WKLLSIDK. the law, he bade them do as they — vile Pharisee and vain Sadducee — qommanded, for they were in Moses' seat : — " Whosoever shall break one of these least command- ments, and teach men so, shall be least in the kingdom of heaven." Yet Jesus plucked corn on the Sabbath, and bade men beware of the leaven of Pharisee and Sadducee ; and he purified the temple of Jehovah, after men had de- filed it under the sanction of revered teachers. Were any disposed to render to earthly governments the praise that was justly his due, Jesus bade them never to deny him when brought before governors and kings. But if any gave not honor to those in rule over them, Jesus commanded them to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. " See that thou say nothing to any man," said Jesus ; " neither go into the town nor tell it in the town :" — this, when men were naturally too bold, or the Kingdom needed prudent heralds. Again, he turned on a man who would quietly follow him with a dumb tongue, and commanded him to leave his company, and go everywhere proclaiming how great things the Lord had done for him. If any were full of light and careless talk, Jesus would remind them that they must give account for every word in the Day of Judgment. But some, who were slow of speech, were so quickened by contact with him, that they filled the world with the fame of Jesus, and were prepared to sit down at his right hand in the last dread Day. To men of timid mind, Christ taught the most invigorat- ing and terrible doctrines. To those of uncompromising, 203 OUR ELDER BROTHER. severe, and cold intellects, Jesus showed how he could die for his enemies. Thus the whole human race find their most profound wants met in Jesus, and the character of every man may be rounded to perfection through the modifying friendship of Christ. Jesus, then, is the Friend we most need, to modify and shape us ; we, complaining so much, and having so much to complain of, in ourselves, — with disproportionate lives moved by divers passions, — we need the molding hand of Christ upon us. In this very hour, the Saviour of men is waiting by the wayside, and he is ready to enter into conversation with us ; and if we will go to him, and confide in him, he will open to us a fountain of living water. And the very words of Jesus will be fulfilled in us, — "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst." 204 CHAPTER TWO. His Ivlanner In Attracting Atten.tlon. I VEN if it is difficult, among the words of Jesus, to find formal discourses and call them sermons, it is plain enough from the Gospel text, that the conversational proclamation of the truth in three tours about Galilee were called preaching services ; and it is not unlikely that our Lord at times addressed the mul- titudes at some length, even if informally, upon other occasions than that of the Sermon on the Mount, which is the only public discourse reported that modern usage would designate as a sermon.* If we cannot therefore speak of the manner or action of Jesus as a preacher in any modern sense, we may suitably ask what the Gospels say of his manner or action in securing attention to the truth and enforcing his words. '7T;N illustration of the manner of Jesus is found in an in- * V^ cident that occurred at the beginning of Passion Week. It is said that Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and *The words of Jesus to his disciples at the institution of the Lord's supper were of the nature of a farewell address privately uttered. [BOOK v.] 205 OUE ELDER BROTHER. into the temple : and when he had looked round about upon all things, and now the eventide was come, he went out unto Bethany with the Twelve. It was near the close of the day of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and the day before the second cleansing of the temple. When he came into Jerusalem all the city was moved, saying : " Who is this?" And the shouting multitude answered : "This is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth." According to Matthew, the blind and the lame then came to Jesus in the temple, and he healed them. And the Levite chorister boys in the temple sang : " Hosanna to the Son of David." As it came near nightfall, the songs ceased, and the prophet of Galilee ceased from works of mercy ; and he surveyed in silence the temple, with searching eyes looking about upon the den of thieves, upon the traders in sacrifices, and upon the money changers, as if wondering that the lesson he had taught them once before was now forgotten, and medita- ting on his repetition of the lesson on the morrow. In that solemn eventide his external appearance so impressed the people, that Mark, in gathering up the story of that day, forgot all about the songs of the children and the miracles of healing, as if the only incident of the day, after the triumphant entry, was the silent walk of Jesus about the holy house, with unspeakable dignity in his mien, and with eyes which probed the consciences of the guilty men who had dishonored the temple of the living God. He had entered the city like a king in triumph, and there was something regal in his bearing as Jesus seemed to fill the Father's house with a presence which drew men's eyes off 206 THE MANNER OF CHRIST AS A PREACHER. all else ; as if they beheld the glory of the only begotten Son of God. The very presence of Jesus seemed at times to glow with supernatural power, producing effects so astonishing that some writers have spoken of this as if it were miraculous. While we need not resort to such a theory to account for the marvelous results, we may admire that air of ineffable authority and justice and might which was manifest when the Son of Mary gathered up a handful of the rushes that were used for bedding the cattle on the floor of the temple courts, and made a scourge, and then by word and act scattered the oxen and owners, the doves and the brokers, from the house of Jehovah, — which they had no right to invade with their unholy and unclean traffic. The moral sense of the sinners themselves and of the gathered multi- tudes applauded the deed ; and the appearance of the prophet of Nazareth somehow enforced his claims to bear rule in that hour. Did not John say of the glorified Son of Man that his eyes were as a flame of fire, and that his countenance was as the sun shining in his strength ? When therefore those who came to apprehend Jesus in the hour of betrayal fell to the ground, they may have seen in his face and bearing an exhibition of the true character of the man Christ Jesus, the Incarnate Jehovah.* * " He of -whom John bore witness as the Christ ; he whom the mul- titude would gladly have seized, that he might be their king ; he whom the city saluted with triumphant shouts as the Son of David ; he to whom women ministered with such deep devotion, and whose aspect, even in the 3or OUR ELDER BROTHER. It seems clear from such incidents in the life of the Saviour that there was something in the manner of the man which drew attention to himself. And we may therefore well believe that in his ordinary work, as a prophetic Teacher and Preacher, he spoke with authority and not as the scribes. A singular story is recorded in the tenth chapter of John, when the Jewish mob took up stones, to stone Jesus. Even as their hands were raised, they were arrested by some- thing in the bearing of Christ, as he turned upon them, ironically asking them for which of his good works they were about to stone him. And for the moment he held them, till he finished his talk, and then escaped. This tact, this dignified and emphatic demeanor, this ability to quell a mob by the eye and voice, was one of the characteristics of Christ's power as a public teacher and preacher. IF we inquire into what is called the manner of Jesus as a mere rhetorician, the action as distinguished from the voice, we find him making great use of the eye ; " looking troubled images of a dream, had inspired a, Roman lady with interest and awe ; he whose mere word caused Philip and Matthew and many others to leave all, and follow him ; he whose one glance broke into an agony of repentance the heart of Peter ; he before whose presence those possessed with devils were alternately agitated into frenzy or calmed into repose, and at whose question, in the very crisis of his weakness and betrayal, his most savage enemies shrank and fell prostrate in the moment of their most infuriated wrath, — such an one as this could not have been without the personal majesty of a prophet and a priest." — Dkan F. W. Fabkar Life of Christ "It is plain," says Keim, "that his was a manly, commanding, prophetic figure." 208 THE MANNEK of CHRIST AS A PREACHER. round about," as once in the temple. When the rich young man went away grieved, it is said that Jesus "looked round about," and having drawn all eyes to himself he said, "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God." And in the story preceding, it is par- ticularly noticed that Jesus fastened his penetrating, loving eyes upon the young man, " beholding him." So when Peter, upon one occasion, took Jesus and began to rebuke him, saying, " Be it far from thee, Lord : this shall not be unto thee," — it is said that there was an em- phatic pause, as well there might be when a man upon the earth would take it in hand to rebuke the Lord's Anointed ; and the eyes of the Saviour were fixed on the disciples, securing their attention to a rebuke they would be likely to remember. "But when he had turned about," it is said, " and looked on his disciples," he rebuked Peter. This was purely rhetorical ; he might have said it to Peter, with- out dramatic action. This " looking round about " made a great impression upon Peter, who was Mark's mentor in preparing his Gospel ; and it is in Mark alone (save one in- stance in Luke) that we find reference to this trait in the manner of Christ as a teacher. Peter remembered the eye of Jesus, whicb was fastened upon him in the judgment hall, when the disciple denied his Master. So, too, in that memorable instance, in which Jesus said that his disciples and all who did the divine will were next of kin to him, he first " looked round about " to give the greater emphasis to what he was about to say. Such instances lead us to believe that what may be 209 14 OUK ELDER BROTHER. called the " action " of Jesus the preacher, was remarkably well adapted to secure attention to the truth, and to enforce his words. And it seems likely that his elocution was equally striking. One so thoughtful of his manner must have been mindful of tones and modulations appropriate to his words. Was there not a winning, convincing voice, as well as matchless phraseology, that led to the affirmation, " Never man spake as this man " ? We get little idea of the power of Demosthenes, and of the great orators whose fame has come down to us through the ages, from the words reported to us. We get little idea of the popular influence of Jesus as a preacher, from his reported words. JESUS' habit of emphatically drawing attention to what he was about to say or do, appears in some of his miracles. For example, when the sick of the palsy was let down through the roof, Jesus merely said, " Thy sins are forgiven thee : " — as if the sick man was more grieved for his sins than for his palsy. And then the Master waited, to give time for the scribes and the Pharisees to turn over these words a little ; and when they began to say in their hearts that Jesus was blaspheming, in presuming to forgive sins, he again took up his work. " That ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed." And imme- diately he arose ;. and departed, glorifying God. The miracle was thus made to say, "Jesus, having power to heal the sick, is, also, clothed with authority to forgive 210 THE MANNER OF CHRIST AS A PREACHER. sins." This was the great lesson and object of the miracle : one was healed, but multitudes have been forgiven. Then, too, take the case of healing the withered hand on the Sabbath day. The Pharisees, referring to a former miracle on the Sabbath, had asked Jesus whether it was lawful to heal on that day ; and Jesus, at first, appeared not to notice their question. But they watched him, it is said. There was something in his manner which kept their eyes on him, and he knew their thoughts. There is something very dramatic about the healing which then took place. Jesus said to the man which had the withered hand, "Rise up, and stand forth in the midst." And then, as he stood, Jesus questioned the Pharisees — and this was his true answer to their former question, — " I will ask you one thing : — Is it lawful on the Sabbath days to do good, or to do evil ? To save life, or to destroy it ? " There was then a pause, and his enemies, on their part, did not answer a word. Then Jesus began again to question them, — " What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into the pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out ? How much, then, is a man (this man) better than a sheep ? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath days." And then, it is said, there was another long silence, in which the Saviour " looked round about on them all with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts." Then unto the man, who had been standing there all this while as the text for a sermon to the Pharisees on Sabbath keeping, Jesus said, "Stretch forth thine hand." And the Pharisees were filled 211 OUR ELDER BROTHER. with madness at this strange logic ; and they went out, and plotted to kill him. They could not stand those searching eyes, and that emphatic dramatic rebuke of their false notions of the Sabbath, and of their cumbersome tradition concerning the ceremonial law, and of their malicious hatred of the Messiah. It was the manner, the emphasis, of Jesus' preaching, which made it such a power in bringing men to a decision for or against himself. Jesus, moreover, in giving instruction, not only used his miracles for emphasizing his words, but they were some- times made the very occasion of peculiarly fitting words, as if their main design was for a sort of object teaching. Take for example the sixth chapter of John. The feeding of five thousand was followed next day, when everybody was talking about the miracle, by a weighty discourse on the Bread which cometh down from heaven, as if the earthly might lead to apprehend the heavenly. IT is related that upon one occasion, Napoleon told an ambassador, that if his sovereign did not do so and so, the French armies would dash the Austrian power into a thousand pieces. And as he said it, he struck with sharp blow a beautiful vase upon the -desk by which they were standing, and shivered it upon the marble floor ; just so would he break the Austrian empire. The use of symbols for enforcing the words spoken, was common with the prophets of Israel ; horns, yokes, girdles, broken bottles, were used : and the prophet of Nazareth plied like instru- 212 THE MANNEfe OF CHRIST AS A PREACHER. ments in his teaching. The curse upon the barren fig tree is an example, — a curse on profession without possession, a symbol of Israel. . Look for a moment at another illustration of the unique style of teaching which Jesus adopted. While it can hardly be called object teaching, it has in it the use of a symbol, and also much of the dramatic element. One day after the Saviour had been beset by Sadducee and Pharisee, he thought to warn his disciples against their teachings ; but he did not say it out straight, as most of us would have done. He knew that when they left the wicked and adulterous disputants, and entered into a ship to go over the lake, the disciples had forgotten to provision their vessel, and had with them only one loaf of bread ; and he waited, therefore, till, tossing on the uneasy waves, they were getting hungry, — when he abruptly said, " Take heed, and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and 'of the Sad- ducees, and of the leaven of Herod." And then he was silent ; as if he was waiting for his words to work in their minds, like leaven in meal. And they, it seems, went to talking about it among themselves, wonder- ing what he meant. And finally, when they — first rum- maging among their luggage — missed their bread, they came to the sage conclusion that he was warning them against getting anything edible of bakers, Pharisaic and Sadducean. It just accorded with the spirit of that age, — if they did not like a man's doctrine they would not trade with him. They said, " It is because we have taken no bread." 213 OUR ELDER BROTHER. And then, after a little, Jesus reminded them that they need not feel troubled about bread, so long as he was with them. " ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread ? When I brake the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up ? " They said unto him, " Twelve." "And when the seven loaves among the four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up ? " And they said, " Seven." And he said unto them, " How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to y6u concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees ? " " Then understood they," says the story, "how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees." He did not tell them plainly that he meant doctrine, though he did say that he did not mean bread. And they got it through their skulls at last, that it was a figure of speech he was using ; and when it got through, it stuck fast. The rough fishermen never forgot it. They steered wide of Pharisaic and Sadducean doctrine after that. But we do not read that Jesus multiplied their one loaf to satisfy their well whetted appetites. He went hungry, and allowed them to do so, — save as they lunched on this pre- cious morsel of wisdom, to give dangerous doctrine a wide berth. 214 THE MANNER OF CHRIST AS A PREACHER. Now this was a little drama, taking considerable time for its unfolding. Perhaps Jesus thought of it when they were passing over in the ship, — just how he should teach this lesson the most effectively. Most of us would have merely spent the time going over, in petulantly scold- ing about the Sadducees and the Pharisees ; and telling the disciples in round terms to look out for their doctrines, — for they were bad heretics. Certainly the course the Saviour took was the more dignified and impressive ; and the lesson stands out on the Gospel page to-day, attracting us to it by its unique presentation, and we ourselves are careful to " beware " as did those who first heard it. WHEN upon one occasion our Lord omitted the cere- monial washing before eating, and so violated the usage of good society, it was to draw attention, and to give emphasis to the rebuke he was about to administer to those, who, though pure in their own eyes, were not washed of their filthiness. And when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, his deed gave weight to his affectionate command that they should have the same spirit which actuated him. A medi- aeval exposition renders it thus : — " I will not serve the Creator," says man. " Then I," saith the Creator, " will serve thee, man. Do thou sit at the banquet ; I will minister to thee, and I will wash thy feet. Do thou rest ; I will bear thy sicknesses, I will carry thine infirmities." 215 OUR ELDER BROTHER. Jesus did not need to speak many sermons, since he acted so many. Indeed his whole life was such as to add emphasis to every word he uttered. So thoroughly did his example enforce his precepts, it has been justly said that " Christ came not to speak the Gospel, but to be the Gospel." *' When Jesus said, " Follow thou me," men were invited to imitate one, who though he was rich yet for the sake of men became poor, that they through his poverty might become rich. By the life of self-sacrifice, by the laying down of life itself, he spoke to the human race, declaring the hatefulness of sin, and manifesting the love of God. This example is never worn out, it is a story the race will hear with new wonder age after age : — " God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish, but have everlasting life." *Alex. McLaren, D.D. 216 CHAPTER THREE. His Rhetorical Power. -■ -ie>i^iiii!i,.^^X3i IT was remarked by the late President McCosh of Princeton, that "Plato and the Greek philosophers spoke and wrote only for the educated, and never thought of addressing the great mass of the people, who were in fact despised by them ; but of Jesus it was said that the common people heard him gladly : this constituted a new era."* Among two millions of people, Jesus made three preach- ing tours, going from village to village, besides the instruc- tion he gave outside of Galilee. " The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand," — this was his message ; " repent ye, and believe the Gospel." When he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion, because they fainted and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. The Holy Land was full of synagogues, yet the truth was not adapted to the people by the rabbis ; who dis- cussed trifling nicety of forms, and captious questions. The common people heard Jesus gladly, and the hearts of the poor thrilled with new hopes, and high and holy aspirations. * Christianity and Positivism. Compare p. 279. New York, 1871. [Book V.] 317 OUR ELI>EK BROTHEK. THE prophet of Nazareth appealed to the Scriptures, to the Divine authority, and to the human conscience ; but everything was informal, — nothing more sermon- like than his farewell discourse to his disciples, or his words upon the Mount. He presented no dry and argumen- tative processes of reasoning. His plain and simple words were easily understood. And he was skilled in gaining the people's attention. He put the truth into such shape as to suit the story loving, story telling Orient. He made a single parable more eflfective than many a book full of our modern the- ology or sermonizing. His brief and pointed lessons have passed into the proverbs of the nations. The world can never forget the wonderful story of the love of God as it is expressed in the words we often use, — " the returning prodigal." Seeing a man going forth to sow, — since the man did not become one of our Lord's hearers, — Jesus straightway seized on him, and made him a text for his sernion ; nor will the story ever pass from the memory of mankind. The everyday similes of our Saviour have obtained such hold on the common mind that their very titles seem to suggest infinite riches of wisdom and knowl- edge. The Pearl and the Hid Treasure, the Leaven, the Tares, the Unmerciful Servant, the Wicked Husbandmen, the Marriage of the King's Son, the Talents, the Ten Vir- gins, the Good Samaritan, the Rich Fool, Dives and Laz- arus, the Lost Sheep, the Unjust Judge : — these are the words we prize more than the great libraries of the world. 318 THE RHETORICAL FORMS ADOPTED BY JESUS. JESUS made a great deal of use of familiar objects to illustrate his instructions. Grass blades and wheat fields, fig trees, and miles of yellow mustard trees along the lake shore or stretching far over hills and plains, became his preachers. He looked out on regions clad in living green, and then as the scorching south wind swept over the country for a day or two, turning every living thing into the color of ashes, he spoke of that grass which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven. Jesus had watched the reeds by the brookside, shaking in the wind. " The birds of heaven, and the lilies of the field," says Lange, "become, through him, the thoughts of God." He spoke of God's care of the birds ; he noticed their nesting. He alluded to the fowls of the air, and the harmless doves upon the flat roofs of Nazareth. The color of the evening sky appeared in his discourse, the rising of shower clouds, and the lightning from east to west as he had seen it on the hills of Galilee, — these illustrated the points he made. The grapevine is constantly appearing and reappearing. * Mr. Beecher, in his comments upon the Life of Christ, has called our attention to the fact that in his comparisons, Jesus did not make use of nature wild, so much as nature cultivated : " There are in the Gospel narratives no waves, storms, lions, eagles, mountains, forests, plains." " It was the city set upon a hill that our Lord selected, not the hill * It is not needful to suppose that John xv was spoken near the vine- yards in the valley ; it might have been suggested by the cup at the Lord's Table. 319 Our ELbteR iBROTHEft. itself, or a mountain ; vines and fig trees, but not the cedars of Lebanon, nor oaks." " Human occupations furnish the staple of his parables and illustrations." "The plow, the yoke, the seed-sowing, the harvest-field, flocks of sheep, bar- gains, coins, magistrates, courts of justice, domestic scenes, — these are the preferred images of our Saviour's discourses." While our Lord was greatly moved by the beauty of the earth, he drew men's attention only to the homely facts of the daily life, — if by them he might make an entrance for the truth. He watched the shepherds, till he was certain that it was the voice of the Master which led the sheep to obey him, and that no change of dress could cheat the wise flocks ; living speech being the index of the soul, while robes and ornaments may be shifted every hour. Fishers and fish nets preached for him, and laborers debating over their wages ; and he knew the time for the reapers to go forth. As a young mechanic at Nazareth, he had seen excavations made, sometimes thirty feet below the surface, to reach the underlying ledge, and then arches built up to the super- structure ; and when he spoke of that which he had seen, some house that was not founded on a rock, swept away by a sudden rain pouring in torrents down a hillside, all the ages hearkened to his words, and " a house on the sand " is a phrase in the mouth of every one. Not Socrates himself, who was forever talking about some craftsman, placed so great honor as did Jesus upon the everyday activities. He remembered the housewife's broom ; and the search for some small coin, in the ordinary dark house, without a window. He knew about leaven, and 220 THE EHBTORICAL FORMS ADOPTED BY JESUS. at the morning hour he had watched the women with their bread ready for the baking, going forth to the public ovens outside his home in Nazareth. He noted in memory the ill judgment of men who put new wine in old goatskin bottles. And either in the house of Mary his mother, or in the house of the careful Martha, he saw that it was bad economy to patch old garments with new cloth, and he straightway put that homely illustration into one of his sermons ; and the poor of the earth, and good housewives — the uncounted multitudes who have had to mend old clothes, and withal to mend their soul's garments, — have always remembered it. Nor did Jesus fail to utilize his observation of the amusements of little children, and turn the illustration against chronic fault-finders. Feasting and music and dancing were introduced as rhetorical embellishments of the most serious of his parables. His illustrations throughout give the impression that Jesus had a genial and a human interest in all human af- fairs ; and this gave him favor with the multitude, ^ lis popularity as a preacher and teacher was enhanced f1 by resources so varied, that he was without a match, in points quite outside of his miraculous power. He not only grounded his instructions upon the Holy Scriptures, which were known and accepted by all ; he not only took texts out of the history of his people, as when he talked about manna at Capernaum, where the very carving over the door of the synagogue suggested it ; — but he was so familiar with the Old Testament history and poetry that 221 OUE ELDER BROTHER. he always had an answer at hand for his adversaries, and he had the tact to use his information in a telling way. He was moreover so well versed in the whole category of principles which underlie universal human conduct, that he could instantly solve difficult questions by announcing some general rule, that would obviously apply in all ages, settling the matter definitely and forever. As a master in logic, singularly skillful in irony when occasion required it, he yet exercised a studied calmness of utterance, and rarely used invective. He had the rare art of combining what appeared to be informal or colloquial statement, and exactness of phrase- ology ; as if he had thought out every conceivable topic, — through and through, — and could in a flash give an expres- sion of his thought that would require no mending at any subsequent age of the intellectual progress of mankind.* "Every sentence which he utters," says Dr. Thomas Armi- tage, " is a masterpiece of uniqueness, as well in its litera- ture, as in its philosophy and spirituality. There is nothing ill-balanced or embarrassed, feverish or disjointed, in his conversation and discourses. He is ever tranquil, measured, exact, pungent, and self-possessed." Then, too, while his sayings are notable for their power in understatement, he was apt at judicious exaggeration, when by it he might fix things in memory, and stimulate * Pascal noticed this : " Jesus has said things so simply, that it seems that he has not thought of them ; and so precisely, that we see clearly what he thought of them. " 222 THE RHETORICAL FORMS ADOPTED BY JESUS. inquiry. And sometimes, for like reason, his words were riddles for subsequent solving. He caught at the proverbs of the people, and when he said that those who gained power with God in prayer could plant trees in the sea and move mountains, he meant just what the common people meant when they expressed the might of their teachers by saying of a favorite rabbi, — he plucked up mountains by their roots to-day. By sayings short, sharp, and personal he made new apothegms, and led men to turn about quickly in their spiritual career, to act for or against him. The sayings of Jesus were well adapted to a keen proverb-making people, and his words have gone out to the ends of the world. His words are eminently quotable ; making complete sense in snugly put, portable phrases, adapted to pass from one to another like coin of the realm. To, crown all : in respect to longevity of influence, looked upon solely as a rhetorical merit, all the wisdom of Jesus, — appealing as it does to all mankind, and so attractive, per- tinent, and usable, — is so compact that every man can carry it in his vest pocket ; all the recorded words of JesuS, prior to his ascension, being not more than, say, one fifth longer than a single oration of Demosthenes.* *De Corona : the words of Jesus are to this oration as thirty-six to twenty-nine. N. B. — The topic of Jesus as a preacher and teacher is presented more fully in an Article by Pkofessob W. C. Wilkinson, of Chicago University, Book xii., Chaptek 1. 223 BOOK SIX. ••«:**-S5fr« Otir Teachier. Chapteb 1. Page 225. Ttae Pvlaster and His Pupils. Chapter 2. Page 238. His Originality in Ttiouiglit. Chapter 3. Page 242. His Self= Assertion.. Chapter 4. Page 2B2. A. Kingdom to Establish. Chapter 5. Page 269. His Gentleness and Severity. Chapter 6. Page 279. Ttie World's Great Teachier. CHAPTER ONE. Tine NIaster and His Pupils. -- (^ HE pastoral work of the Saviour leads us to think of 4 what he did in training others to become pastors ^-M— and teachers of the new dispensation ; a work car- ried on niainly by conversations, and by the example of Jesus. The students of the Pastoral College were selected to be eye and ear witnesses of the life and resurrection of our Lord. They were fishermen, — patient, careful, skilled, pru- dent, cunning to catch and to cure, versed in curious lore, able to adapt themselves to the intricate necessities of their business, bold and ready for enterprise in all weathers, men willing to toil all night ; men ever busy, mending their nets when not fishing ; men of wit to live, watching the markets. We have left all, quoth Peter. He had nothing to leave but a boat and a net. The fish, the ship running before the wind, or a ship's anchor, were favorite symbols in the early church, engraved upon gems, or worn as talismans. And they sang songs in which Jesus is set forth as the Divine Fisherman : — [BOOK VI.] 235 15 OUR ELDER BROTHER. " Fisher of men, the Blest : Out of the world's unrest, Out of sin's troubled sea, — Taking us. Lord, to Thee." — Clement op Alexandria. "The Magi," says Bengel, "were led by a star; the fishermen by fishes to Christ." It was the miraculous draught that filled their nets, that led Peter to an emphatic acknowledgment of the divine power manifested by Jesus. The apostle might have become an opulent fish dealer, and a local religious leader noted for a certain rude eloquence of speech : but when he let his lines go, and let go of such ecclesiastical prejudices as were already fastening upon him like barnacles, and when he followed Jesus, — he became one of the foremost powers upon this globe.* The zeal and leadership of Peter ; the ambition and native force of James, the son of Zebedee ; the philosophic head, the loving heart, of the robust and manly John, — and his fiery temper brought under wise control ; the doubt- ing and enthusiastic nature of Thomas ; the eagerness to lead men to Christ which characterized the simple and * " We find, in tracing Peter's career, that his zeal was mixed with many inconsistencies. Inconstancy compromised his ardor ; temper lurlced in close alliance with his impetuosity ; and violence of speech was a morti- fying appendage to his vehemence. But Christ saw that he had in him the noble material of a vital and victorioiis apostleship, and it is most inter- esting for us to see how the benignant spirit of the new faith worked upon him, till it finally purged out the old, bitter leaven, refashioned him into a self-commanding as well as an eager champion, and at last made him first and foremost of the twelve companions of his Lord." — Bishop Huntington. 32U THE TRAINING OF THE TWELVE. plodding mind of Philip, — Philip sought out by Jesus and first called of all that company ; the guileless life of Bar- tholomew * ; the rigid morality of James the Just ; the practical talent of Matthew ; the nameless virtues of Simon Zelotes, and of Jude, f and of that strong man Andrew, always one of the four leaders in that band of twelve ; and even the economical turn of Judas Iscariot, carrier of the bag, — were all needed to complete the College of the Apostles. The full eyes of Jesus read these men, and com- prehended at once the use they would be to him, and of what use he could be to them. This, indeed, is a wonderful story. To say nothing of the spiritual relations which these men sustained to the begin- nings of the new religious era, we find that out of some thousands of Galilean fisherfolk a little handful of obscure men became the followers of our Lord, — and in virtue of it, their names in after ages headed the list of the world's great men ; they came, indeed, to be designated as patrons of princely merchants, warriors, and kings ; cathedrals were called after them, and churches among all races of naen ; and their names were placed upon geographical landmarks in every quarter of the globe. A single one of these men, who went, it is said, upon a mission to the Scythians, is now the patron saint of one-sixth of the entire land surface upon this planet. Whether or not St. Philip, in his youth, had been a chariot driver, whether St. Bartholomew had been a gardener, whether St. John had been more often rebuked * Natlianiel. -f Lebbeeus, the stout hearted. 337 OXJR ELDER BROTHER. by Jesus than any other except Peter, — it all matters not ; their names were set apart to be honored during all ages. The Itinerancy. THE most that the disciples learned from the Master was acquired in a life of ceaseless wandering, — the peri- patetic school of a divine philosophy. When the peculiar mission of John the Baptist was ended, Jesus began to preach, and to call for followers, and to organize his Kingdom among men. He did not, like John, seek for lonely wastes, but he was oft in the crowded cities and densely peopled villages. His progress through the country was heralded by wonderful works, that called the multitudes together to hear his wonderful words.* A retinue of the wretched sought him by rugged paths, as he walked hither and thither, — perhaps in the winter when snow was falling like wool, or the hoar frost was scattered, or when the ice and cold possessed the land. The robin redbreasts, the lark, and the nightingale, were acquainted with all hi^ ways ; the swallows, too, the spar- rows, and the willow wren. And Jesus, a little in advance * These preaching tours made a great impression upon the mind of Humbert de Romanis, General of the Order of the Dominicans, in the thirteenth century : — " Christ," he says, "celebrated the mass (the Lord's supper) but once ; heard no confessions ; seldom administered the sacraments ; did not em- ploy himself much in the liturgical adoration of God ; but he was con- stantly engaged in prayer and preaching. Indeed, after he had once commenced preaching, he spent his whole life in that employment, much more than in prayer." 228 THE TRAINING OP THE TWELVE. of his company, sometimes saw the foxes hastening to their holes, when he himself had no place for repose. He in whom were hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge often entered into the synagogue, * or he taught by the side of the sea, or upon a hilltop, or upon the street, or in the open court of some private house. Rembrandt pictures our Saviour as standing upon a millstone preaching to the people, — to an unhappy woman, to a wretch con- victed of guilt by his own conscience, to a mother and child, to an old man, to a group seated upon a bench near by, to unbelievers and critics. In 'great part, these homilies were never reported f ; yet * There were four hundred and eighty synagogues in Jerusalem. The synagogues throughout the country were open daily for morning worship, and for a continuous afternoon and evening service. The most devout Jews were in frequent attendance. Then, too, the second and the fifth days in the week were observed as such seasons of special worship as to call in the country people. It was therefore always easy for Jesus to find people ready to hear his words. fSee, for example, Mark i : 21, .38, 39 ; and ii : 2,1-3 ; and vi : 2,34 ; and Luke V : 3. These unrecorded sayings of Jesus must have entered into the speech of the times and the traditions of the early Christian generations. One such saying is quoted in Acts xx :-35 : " Kemember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said. It is more blessed to give than to receive." Do we sometimes regret the loss of those precious words, and try to imagine with what parables and pithy sentences the vacancy may be filled? But we are like the men who could not with the wealth of a kingdom finish one window which the genii had left incomplete when they built a palace. Yet our Saviour affirmed, "In secret have I said nothing." His words that we now have, contain the germs of all we need ; like grains of celestial wheat, to satisfy the whole world with that bread which oometh down from heaven. 229 OUR ELDER BROTHER. we know that he everywhere proclaimed those principles which should underlie the everyday life of those who would live as the sons and the daughters of the Almighty. And every day, whether walking between the cactus hedges, or plucking the grain that crowded the path, the Master was tutoring his learners : "Why are ye so fool- ish?" "Do ye not understand ?" "Know ye not this parable ? " " Have I been so long with you, and yet thou hast not known me ?" Sincere, faithful, and impartial was the Master ; nor did he foster their pride and lack of reason. So affectionate was the Son of Man that his disciples dared be familiar with him in some moods, — so much so as to tempt him with evil suggestions. So Peter in his carnal weakness once took Jesus to task, and began to rebuke him for not doing as his disciples wanted to have him do. Sometimes, however, Jesus bore a forebidding aspect, or manifested a certain divine dignity of bearing, which kept men from venturing too near ; so fending off familiarity and needless questioning, that at times no man durst ask him further questions. So came the disciples to know that there was a distance which could not be bridged by words, between them and their Lord. As a Teacher, his sayings now manifested unspeakable tenderness, then sharp sever- ity; so he timed his words to the needs of those who followed him. The main secret of the influence of Jesus over his disci- ples was in the fact that they found in him, 330 THE TRAINING OF THE TWELVE. Not a Doctrine to be Believed, BUT A PERSON TO BE LOVED. THEY believed his doctrine by first loving his character. They loved his character by being first drawn by his personal love to them ; a love which they learned to look upon as divine, — as God's love : "In this was mani- fested the love of God toward us," said the apostle John, " because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son." Love is the universal solvent. Having drawn men to himself, Jesus fastened them to himself by the cords of love. And then he introduced the truth into their minds a little at a time. Not otherwise could he have handled those young men, some of whom were so rash, and others of doubting disposition, and all slow of heart. His warm personal afEection appeared in his desire to have three disciples near him when he was in bitter sorrow ; and when he encouraged one to repose his head upon the bosom of his Lord. He was tender, sympathetic, charitable, and patient ; nor was he " ashamed " to call them brethren, although they were ignorant, and selfish and cowardly. Did he not affirm that they had kept his word, when they had merely tried to keep it ; and that he was glorified in them, when his glory was but imperfectly refiected ? He accepted the will for the deed, and he knew that they de- sired to glorify him. He upbraided them not because they 231 OUR ELDER BROTHER. forsook him and fled, but because of their unbelief in his resurrection. Ought they not to have expected it ? We shrink from trenching upon the personality of another, — from so much as touching his person ; only among intimate friends is there more freedom. It was a token of great affection that Jesus said to Thomas, " Handle me, and see." It was this personal love of Jesus Christ that awakened a personal love to him, " He first loved us." *, The disciples were attracted to the person of their Mas- ter. They believed in him, although they did not compre- hend the full scope of his mission. It was not until after some years of reflection, and of spiritual enlightenment, that the new ideas they obtained from Jesus gained such power over their lives that they became Christians, instead of being Jews devoted to their Messiah. They learned through love, they found the embodiment of the truth in Jesus t ; his sublime precepts and simple rules of conduct, and the clear theological principles upon which they were based, were easily understood, and so prac- tical as to be realized in his own life ; he lived perfectly, — as if indeed God were the common Father, the God of love, * " The hold which Christ has, is chiefly dependent on those personal affections and the reverential regard, which souls, that receive Christ, entertain towards him." — President Woolsey. f " Jesus Christ and his message are so interwoven and interlaced in such a fashion, that you cannot get rid of him and keep the message. He himself is the truth — Christ is Christianity." — Alexander Maclaren, D.D. 233 THE TRAINING OF THE TWELVE. and all men bi;ethren with a golden rule of conduct between them. Does not the sword of the Spirit require a handle ? Must not the truth, sharp, bright, keen-edged, and piercing be embodied in somebody's life f The truth of God was con- crete in the life of Jesus. Hence his leadership of the twelve, and of all the hosts of the people of God throughout the ages. This embodiment of the truth in a life has proved to have in it a motive-power never found in mere abstrac- tions. The consistency of the character of Jesus gave such power to his teachings as to quite transfigure the world of dogma. In him, we now see that the vital principles of truth are related to life, as soul to the body ; the ethical .truths uttered by Jesus being so set forth in his own life as to present the most lovable character known to history. It is this which has gained for him the adherence of a great variety of personalities, no one of whom has discovered anything lacking in the proportion of his attributes. Mankind is strongly moved by sympathy, they take to truth when bodied in a life. Mankind has great imitative powers ; a life can be imitated, — while many cannot tell beforehand how abstract truth would look in a life. The personality of Jesus had its effect upon the twelve apostles and the five hundred other disciples of Jesus. They were fair representatives of the average man, sym- pathetic, imitative ; and the principles of the New Testa- ment at once appeared in some hundreds of lives, — and a new era was so entered upon. If the Christ-like character 233 OUR ELDER BROTHER. has to-day any foothold upon the earth, it is traceable from the hundreds of millions back to millions, and from millions to thousands, and from thousands to hundreds, and from hundreds to the twelve, and to Jesus himself. The heroisms of Christendom began in Galilee, in "the personal following of a personal leader. " * The moral struc- ture of the Kingdom of God in the world to-day, exists through the personal imitation in all ages of the character of Christ, who is to mankind the very vision of God. The personal fascination or personal magnetism of the charac- ter of Jesus, is through his manifestation of the positive and well proportioned moral character of God, who loved us before the foundation of the world. To the blunted perceptions and perverted taste of the age in which Jesus lived, he was without form or comeliness. A few indeed saw the beauty of his holy and self-denying life, and called him Master and followed in his footsteps ; and * Rt. Rev. Phillips Bkooks, D.D. In his sermon on the Living Christ, the Bishop also says of the twelve apostles: "These men, living close to Jesus all the time, deep in the secrets of his nature and his life, — they needed no miracle to tell them what he was. He was their constant miracle." This thought is ampli- fied by Professor J. R. Seeley, in Ecce Homo (Compare pp. 176, 177) : " Some men have appeared who have been as levers to uplift the earth and roll it in another course, — Homer by creating literatiire, Socrates by creating science, Csesar by carrying civilization inland from the shores of the Mediterranean, Newton by starting science upon a career of steady progress ; but these men gave a single impact, like that which is conceived to have first set the planets in motion : Christ claims to be a perpetual at- tractive power, like the sun which determines their orbit ; they contributed to men some discovery, — Christ's discovery is himself." 334= THE TRAINING OF THE TWELVE. to their praise will it forever stand on the heavenly record, that the Son of God on earth was not utterly unappreciated nor utterly misunderstood. No men ever lived who added such glory to humanity. The vast and imposing array of poets and sages, prophets and kings, throughout the world's whole history, have not added such nobleness to our race as did the humble friends of the wayfaring Christ, in that they were his friends. For that was an age when men bound heavy burdens and laid them on other men's shoulders ; that self-seeking age would not know a self- denying Redeemer. It is the one saving feature of such an age, that there were in it a handful of men who dared be Christ's disciples. The nobility, the grandeur, of the work carried out by the apostles is closely connected with the instruction they received from the Master ; from his direct tuition in words, as well as from his charitable, patient, catholic life.* It is expressly stated that the apostles gathered themselves to- gether in their peripatetic academy, and told Jesus not only what they had done, but what they had taught, f This rehearsal, whether it originated with them, or was sug- gested by him, indicates the relation of pupils and Master. They learned his lessons. However imperfect their learn- ing, and imperfect the exhibition of his character in theirs, God used these imperfect instruments for working a socio- logical revolution in the world ; bringing in an era when *Matt.xviii:21,22. Luke ix; 54, 56. John iii : 16,17. Markxvi:15. t Mark vi : 30.. 235 OUR ELDER BROTHER. the sick and the sorrowing were to have fair consideration in the kingdoms of the world, — of which the devil then claimed the ownership, possessed, as the kingdoms were, by robust leaders, prosperous, hardhearted, and selfish. When Jesus drew men to himself, centered -their lives upon himself, making himself their Master,* they found not only rest in imitating his meekness and lowliness, but his yoke so easy as to be related to their spiritual lives as a bird's wings are, — a burden indeed, but light and helpful in soaring heavenward, f Jesus inspired common men to do uncommon deeds ; the weak were made mighty, the cowards bold and ready for martyrdom. Men who fled at sight of his cross, readily ran to their own crosses. Those who walked with the Nazarene, were so filled with the spirit of their Master that men took knowledge of them, and knew that they had been with Jesus. "Follow thou me:" forsaking all, we follow, — to be loved by him, disciplined by him, nourished by his teach- ings, trained to his service, — calling to our brothers through- out the earth, " We have found the Messias." "Jesus calls us, o'er the tumult Of our life's wild, restless sea ; Day by day his sweet voice soundeth, Saying, Christian, follow me." — Cecil Frances Alexander. * Matt, xxiii : 10. f Suggested by a simile of St. Bernard. 236 THE TRAINING OF THE TWELVE. " Jesus, I my cross have taken, All to leave and follow thee ; Naked, poor, despised, forsaken, — Thou, from hence, my all shall be. Perish, every fond ambition, All I've sought, or hoped, or known ; Yet how rich is my condition, — God and heaven are still my own." — Hbnky Francis Lyte. Kollo^?v NIe. Comfort those who weep and mourn. Heal the wounds by sorrow torn ; Walk the path that I have worn, — Follow me, follow me. Mercy now to all proclaim ; Sinful man to save I came : Call the guilty in my name, — Follow me, follow me. Bend with me, on prayerful knee ; Bear thy cross, and thou shalfc see Laurel crown the shameful tree : Follow me, follow me. Never yet was I alone, God in love I've ever known ; List and hear, of love the tone, — FoUow me, foUow me. 237 CHAPTER TWO. His Originality in Xhougtit. -- IF men are divided into two classes, — those who stamp their own impress on society, and those who are merely molded by society, — then Jesus was the most eminent personage who has ever appeared upon this globe ; since no one has contributed so much of original vital force as he to the formation of new social conditions. Various social classes are affected by this or that leader, but Jesus reaches every class. His unique personality was actuated by powers within, calling him, impelling him, to a certain course. He needed no prompting or direction from the ecclesiastical authorities of his times ; but his divine nature manifestly appointed him to his work, — and, in it, he was animated by ideas native to his mind. Save in respect to boldness, faithful- ness, unselfishness, humility, and in his attitude toward moral evil, he had nothing in common with John the Bap- tist. He had not the ordinary rabbinical book lore. The sages of the far east he knew not, nor the wise Greeks ; and the far western paganism had as little to offer him as the barbarians of the Orient. He was not a man limited by his [Book VI.] 338 THE ORIGINALITY OF JESUS. own times, or his own country. His thought was as free, as if from heaven. The entire substance of his teachings is so familiarly known to us, that we think of his maxims as being mere truisms ; yet in his own generation they excited the utmost astonishment. It is expressly stated, that it was his "doctrine," at which they were astonished.* The Sermon on the Mount was not apparently more surprising to his hearers than the words he uttered upon many other occa- sions : " His word was with power," " He taught them as one having authority." His teaching was wholly religious, f and it was wholly in accord with the Scriptures of his people. " To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." He seized upon many points in the Old Testament, that the scribes and Pharisees had missed, or misapprehended ; taking out certain great principles of life and faith, and making them the principal dogmas of the new dispensation. And in doing this, he acted as the Word, the authoritative expression of the Di- vine Mind ; so, when compared with the scribes and rabbis, he was original and independent, — pouring new light upon the ancient ritual and upon the holy hymns of earlier ages. One of the ideas which Jesus made prominent was that *Matt. vii: 28,29. Mark xi : 18; and vi : 2. Luke iv : 32. t " He never refers to secular history, poetry, rhetoric, mathematics, astronomy, foreign languages, natural sciences, or any of those branches of knowledge which make up human learning and literature." — Philip SCHAFP, D.D. 239 OUE ELDER BROTHER. of the Fatherhood of God. There are more than three times as many allusions to the Heavenly Father in the Sermon on the Mount, than there are in the whole body of Hebrew Scriptures ; and the Gospels call God our Father more than thirty times as often as the entire Old Testa- ment. It was a new era opening to mankind, when God appeared under this familiar designation of human love. Its scanty use in the Old Testament seemed like one of many poetic terms, — Jesus brought it into common use; and henceforth the love of God — affirmed by a few in the elder time — was now trumpeted from the housetops. This prepared the way for a living spiritual worship, in the place of a defunct ritualistic service. The personal hab- its of Jesus, his " wont " to pray, had great weight with his followers. And his comments upon prayer are of distinct and unique value in the Biblical texts relating to the topic. Closely connected with this, is the emphasis Jesus placed upon man's sonship of God, quieting man's unrest, and leading him to apprehend that which is the greatest in life. Jesus taught men that if they are relatively ignorant of God, or even prodigals, yet are they sons, who need spirit- ual renewal and a prompt return to filial love and service. From this grows out the doctrine of the brotherhood of man : the rights of man, equality before the law, equal chance in the competition of life, brotherly love, mercy, the forgiveness of injuries, benevolence, the right use of wealth, the Golden Rule,* — all these are involved in our * " A rule as portable as our self-love." — John Harris, D.D. 340 THE ORIGINALITY OF JESUS. Saviour's teaching upon this point. It was this which tended to break down the difference between the Greek and the barbarian, the bond and the free. It tended also to repress intolerance, and sometimes to count outsiders as disciples. Jealous sectarians were changed by Jesus into the most charitable and catholic of men.* Then, too, in making luminous the relation between man and his Maker, Jesus placed so much emphasis upon the doctrine of a future world, that it passed into a proverb that life and immortality are brought to light through the Gospel. An idea to which little reference was made in the Old Testament, now came to be one of the great factors in the new dispensation. There are two other points relating to the originality of Jesus that invite consideration : the one, what Jesus said about himself ; the other, his idea of the Kingdom he was about to establish. * ' ' My neighbor is neither my fellow-sectarian, nor my fellow- countryman, nor my fellow-churchman, but man in need." — Rev. C. A. Row, in his "Jesus of the Evangelists." 241 CHAPTEK THREE. His Self = Assertion. iSii fHE principles announced by Jesus, then so new to the world, proved, under the Holy Spirit, and through the instrumentality of the early disciples, to be the historic beginning of a new age in the realm of ideas. This religious movement centered about the proc- lamation of Jesus, that he was to receive the undivided homage of every human soul, and that his followers must prepare for him a Kingdom throughout the earth. St. Paul did not say, " If ye love me, keep my command- ments," or "If any love not Paul let him be accursed." Yet Jesus made this claim for himself. Others might seek the truth, he was the truth ; and the allegiance of all lovers of the truth was due to him alone. The other doctrines of Jesus, and all his maxims, found their authority in the central truth, that he would draw all men personally unto himself. The self -central charac- ter of Jesus' teaching is illustrated by our finding forty-six references to himself in one chapter of the Gospels. [Book VI.] 243 THE SELF-CENTERED SAYINGS OF JESUS. UPON the truth of his Messiahship he would build his Church. "Christ was the Eock," says Augustine, "upon which Peter himself was built." After this confession of Peter, for prudential reasons, lest he need- lessly antagonize his enemies, Jesus charged his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.* And in the next verse, it is said, from that time he began to show his disciples what he should suffer, and his death. Yet when the end came, he uttered before the high priest, in that solemn hour in which he was condemned to die for it, the same truth that had been first made known at Jacob's wellside.f There can be no difference of opinion upon this point, — that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, and that he looked upon it as his mission to be the Saviour of the world. As the Messiah, or the Son of God, he claimed to be the source of spiritual life, through whom men would come to the Father. J He did not bid the weary and heavy laden go to God with their burdens, but to come to himself. § He represented himself as the living Bread from heaven, of which if a man eat, he will live forever. || He claimed to be the spiritual light of the world. 1 Jesus taught that he himself was the center of the moral universe, in such sense that all men were to come to him for salvation. He pardoned sin, and claimed authority to do *Matt. xvi:20. t Mark xiv : 61-64. Matt, xxvi : 63-66. Luke xxii : 67,68. t John xiv : 6. § Matt, xi : 28. | John vi : 51. 1 John viii : 12, 243 OUE ELDER BEOTHBR. it.* In his conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus taught the master in Israel " heavenly things," " known " and " seen " by the Son of Man, concerning the scheme of salvation : — God so loved the world that he gave his Son ; who must be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish: that the world through him might be saved. \ In accord with this, Jesus demanded supreme love, and cross bearing in his service, t And he bade his disciples celebrate his self-sacrifice for the world's salvation, throughout the church, during all ages, in the maintenance of the Lord's Supper. § THERE are several particulars in which Jesus associated his claims with the claims of Jehovah, as if classifying himself with God. Take, for example, the passage (John xiv : 1), " Let not your heart be troubled ; ye believe in God, believe also in me " ; words uttered under the shadow of the cross, and with a vision of his sepulcher at next door. In John V : 17-46, Jesus claimed to have a share in the unceasing energy of God in his providential care and all sustaining force, — " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." And then, when the Jews thought his words blas- phamous, he entered into a more detailed statement ; claim- * Matt, ix : 6. Mark ii : 5,10. t John iii : 11-17. The same thing in substance is stated in John vi: 87-40. tMaijt, x: 37,38, § Mark xiv : 22-24. Luke xxii : 19, 20. 244 THE SELF-CENTERED SAYINGS OF JESUS. ing power to raise the dead,* to judge the world, f to carry on the works of God, and aflBrming that this was the Scriptural teaching concerning the Messiah. The record in John x : 24, 25, 30, 33, 36-38, leaves no doubt that the Jews understood Jesus as classifying himself with God as to his claims. J Jesus said many things which affirm his pre-existence. § Jesus associated himself with the Father, |1 in the promise of a future-abiding with his disciples. He who had no place to lay his head, affirmed that he would prepare a place in heaven for his disciples. Jesus associated himself with the Father, as the prayer- hearing God.T Jesus associated himself with the Father in sending the Holy Spirit.** He associated himself with the Father, and with the Holy Spirit, in the baptismal formula. Jesus claimed all authority in heaven and in earth, and that his mandates ft were to be observed in discipling all nations, tt *In John X : 18, Jesus says that he has power to lay down his life, and to take it again. f This claim is elaborated in Matt, xxv : 31-46. {Jesus' claim, in Matt, xii : 6, 8, to be Lord of the Sabbath day, and greater than the temple of Jehovah, must have seem.ed blasphemous to his enemies. §John iii:13; vi : 33, 35, 50, 51, 62; viii : 58 ; x : 36 ; xvi:28; xvii: 5. II Johnxiv:23. IT Johnxiv: 13, 14 ; xvi: 23,24. *»Johnxiv: 16, 26. f f What Jesus taught, as in John xiv : 28, about his mediatorial office, and his subjection therein to the Father, does not coniliot with all the affirmations he made as to his essential nature. ttMatt. xxviii : 18, 20. 345 OUE ELDER BROTHER. IF such words were found in Socrates, in Plato, in Aris- totle, in Pliny, or in Cicero, it would be said that divine honors were claimed. And the very least that can be said of the public ministry of Jesus of Nazareth is this : that he lived every day upon the assumption that he was to be the Redeemer of the world. It was the main thing about him. If it was a delusion, it was interwoven with all his thoughts and all that he did. If his pretensions Avere ill- founded, the idea indicated intellectual disorder. There was, however, a certain calmness and even balance in his daily living, such as we associate with sanity of mind. If we lay aside for a moment the question of his Messiahship, and take up the character of Jesus in its ordinary manifes- tations, and consider what he taught, and what he did, and what he was in the well-rounded proportion of his intel- lectual and moral gifts, — and then if we take one glance along the ages, and consider what benefits have accrued to mankind through the influence of Jesus, it does seem credi- ble that a beneficent Providence should connect such a life and such an influence with insanity in the mind of Jesus. It would be out of analogy with the usual divine operations. The universe is not the outgrowth of unreason ; and " God in history " has not so ordered it that the most progressive part of mankind during two thousand years has derived its most helpful infiuencesf rom a mind hopelessly insane in its principal intellectual conception. " If," says Professor Tal- cott, " if there ever was a sound human intellect, clear, 246 THE SELF-CENTERED SAYINGS OF JESUS. well-balanced, and raised above every influence that could disturb or cloud its operation, it was the intellect displayed in the recorded life of Jesus of Nazareth."* Still more preposterous would it be to think of Jesus as deliberately setting out to impose on his contemporaries and after ages, by attempting to imitate God so closely that man would credit the deception. He taught, that all men should honor the Son as they honored the Father, f Did he seek to lead men into idolatry ? He did nothing to rebuke the belief, taking root in the minds of his disciples, that he was the Son of God. Would he not have done so, if he had been merely a good man ? Jesus was not sincere, if he was not divine ; not unselfish, not humble, not honest, if he was not the Son of God. Peter frankly said to Cornelius, " Stand up, I myself am also a man." If Jesus was merely * ' ' The Christ of the Gospels shows not the faintest trace of fanaticism or self-delusion. On the contrary, he discouraged and opposed all the prevailing carnal ideas and hopes of the Messiah, as a supposed political reformer and emancipator. He was calm, self-possessed, uniformly con- sistent, free from all passion and undue excitement, never desponding, ever confident of success even in the darkest hour of trial and persecution. To every perplexing question he quickly returned the wisest answer ; he never erred in his judgment of men or things : from the beginning to the close of his public life, before friend and foe, before magistrate and people, in disputing with Pharisees and Sadducees, in addressing his disciples or the multitude, while standing before Pontius Pilate or Caiaphas, or sus- pended on the cross, — he showed an unclouded intellect and complete mastery of appetite and passion ; in short, all qualities that are the very opposite of those which characterize persons laboring under self-delusion or any mental disease." — ^Philip Schaff, D.D. tJohn V :23. 247 OUR ELDER BROTHER. a man, should he not have frankly told Peter so, when the disciple confessed his Master's Messiahship? The silence of Jesus was fraudulent unless he was the Son of God. " See thou do it not," said the angel to Saint John, "for I am thy fellow servant: worship God."* Was the angel more honest than Jesus ? Jesus was not " the faithful and true witness,"! unless he was what he claimed to be.| Un- less Jesus was what he claimed to be, his denunciation of hypocrites would have recoiled upon himself. Yet, " a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." "It cannot," says Dr. Joseph Parker, "be an easy task hypocritically to represent God upon the earth, without now and again letting the mask slip aside. How can the finite steadily carry the Infinite, when the Infinite is at war with him ? Christ must be more than a good man, or worse than the worst man." "The only alternative," says Professor Talcott, "that remains to us is : — either, to accept him for what he declares himself to be ; or, to ascribe to him with- out any qualification, the boldest, the most arrogant, the most blasphemous of all impostures, yet an imposture stead- ily directed to the promotion of the highest style of good- *Rev. xix : 10. f Rev. iii : 14. t"If Christ is not truly God, then Mahomet would indisputably have been a far greater man than Christ, as he would have been far more veracious, more circumspect, and more zealous for the honor of God, since Christ, by his expressions, would have given dangerous occasion for idolatry ; while on the other hand not a single expression of the kind can be laid to the charge of Mahomet." — Lessing. 248 THE SELF-CBNTBRED SAYINGS OF JESUS. ness, and connected with a life which, except upon this revolting supposition, is a life of sinless perfection, and the only such life, that has ever been lived upon earth."* It is very common to say of a man who is well known to us, that he is " not the kind of a man " who would do so and so. The study of the character of Jesus Christ shows that he was neither insane nor wicked, — he was not that kind of a man. "If," says the author of Ecce Homo, ''if his biographers have delineated his character faithfully, Christ was one naturally contented with obscurity, wanting the restless desire for distinction and eminence which is common in great men, hating to put forward personal claims, disliking competition and disputes ' who should be greatest,' finding something bombastic in the titles of royalty, fond of what is simple and homely, of children, of poor people, occupying himself so much with the con- cerns of others, with the relief of sickness and want, that the temptation to exaggerate the importance of his own thoughts and plans was not likely to master him ; lastly, entertaining for the human race a feeling so singularly fra- ternal that he was likely to reject as a sort of treason the impulse to set himself in any manner above them. Christ, it appears, was this humble man. When we have fully pon- dered the fact, we may be in a condition to estimate the force of the evidence, which, submitted to his mind, could induce him, in direct opposition to all his tastes and instincts, per- * Christianity and Skepticism: Lecture by Professor Daniel S. Tal- COTT, D.D. 249 OUR ELDER BROTHER. sistently, with the calmness of entire conviction, in opposi- tion to the whole religious world, in spite of the offense which his own followers conceived, to claim a dominion more transcendent, more universal, more complete, than the most delicious votary of glory ever aspired to in his dreams." When we "look at his unaffected and all-pervading piety, at his universal and self-sacrificing benevolence, look at his purity and elevation above the world, listen to his prayers for his murderers on the cross," * we cannot think of Jesus as being the kind of a man who would be easily deceived in regard to his own mission, or who would deceive others. It is much more reasonable to suppose that God revealed himself in the person of Christ, than to suppose that he who was the highest realization of earthly excellence, was secretly proud, and self-seeking and hypocritical ; or self- deceived, and deceiving others throughout fifty or sixty generations of men. "Jesus," says Pascal, "spoke so simply of the greatest things, and even of divine things, that we feel that he must have been familiar and at home with them." His character confessedly accorded with his high claims. And the most pure and elevated among mankind find that in his charac- ter, which still stands before them as an unattained ideal perfection. "In his person, speaking human language, ♦Pkbsident Makk Hopkins, LL.D. 250 THE SELF-CENTEEED SAYINGS OP JESUS. mingling freely in human society, the world saw that which permanently raised its idea of God." * The Infinite Majesty, the Creator of the ends of the earth, was never more alone in the universe, than was Jesus Christ upon the earth, in his nature and in his activi- ties, — forever solitary, and forever occupied in the new creation : both equally manifesting God in his self -revela- tion in the physical and in the spiritual creation. Is it not the chief study in earthly lore, to learn to know God aright, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent ? * Professor Dods, Essay upon Trustworthiness of the Gospels. 251 CHAPTER FOUR. A Kingdom to Establish. '^,9-^. HE teaching of Jesus concerning the Kingdom of God, was, like the other ideas he put forth, but the ^^-L expression of a thought with which he had become familiar in studying in Hebrew history, poetry, and proph- ecy, in early manhood at Nazareth. His originality con- sisted in more sharply outlining the nature of the Kingdom, in its principles, and in giving great prominence to the idea in his teaching, and in making definite plans for realizing the visions of ancient seers by establishing the spiritual reign of God among men in world-wide relations. The old dispensation had made it clear that there was a perfect moral providence ruling over the world, yet the Jewish system was essentially provincial ; and Jesus threw aside the old religious machinery,* and gave to the relig- ious spirit of his people new forms through which to work — forms adapted to the whole world. There is no lack of originality in this scheme, — a Naz- arene Carpenter setting out to redeem the whole human * This was the final effect of his teaching, when connected with the providential movements pertaining to the fall of Jerusalem. [BookVI.] 352 THY KINGDOM COME. race by spiritual ideas of such a nature that they could be carried to every part of the globe. The novelty of it, when the scheme came to be understood, and when men knew what the ideas were, was well fitted to enlist the interest and enthusiasm of the choicest spirits in the Hebrew and the Gentile world. It was a deliberate plan to outreach the grave, to pass on beyond it, to seize upon limitless years, to project his per- sonality upon all coming time. It was connected with a vital movement, that had been already working during some centuries : and Jesus took up the work of the most clear- sighted and devout priests, prophets, and kings of the elder world, — and what he did was with reference to the entire sweep of after ages. Soberly, serenely, he did what God had been doing in the moral government of mankind ; and the goal he set for himself was not one to be reached in his lifetime, but after a long series of centuries. And in doing what he did in his brief years, he took nothing from his con- temporaries, but to such as received him he imparted such power as they needed for carrying forward the Kingdom of God, — " I appoint unto you a kingdom." He no sooner said this, than he came to the end of his life ; but his work was successful, in that there were men so imbued with the spirit of their Master as to be prepared to reign in a spiritual kingdom. It was to be a reign of righteousness, of love to God and man ; and it was to be advanced by moral means. It was this thought, which, like an undying seed, was planted in the hearts of a few disciples. The rabbis had thought the Messiah would bring to them 253 OUR ELDER BROTHER. political freedom ; and Jesus was misunderstood at first by the apostles, and they sometimes doubted the expediency of his course, and they were disappointed at his death. But the heart of Jesus knew no discouragement, he was confi- dent of future days ; and he calmly acquiesced in the sub- jection of his people to Eome, and wept over the sorrows of that national dissolution which he foresaw. He foresaw also the universal dominion of truth, purity, and peace, among men ; and when he was about to die, he assumed that his Gospel would be preached throughout the world, and that deeds of kindness and fealty to him would be spoken of in far away realms and climes. So in that despairing age, Jesus proclaimed the final triumph of the truth, and the subjugation of mankind by force of ideas and the power of love, rather than through the conquest of arms. OUR Saviour taught that the Holy Spirit would be the divine instrumentality for carrying forward this work. When we consider the contribution of Jesus to the world's thought, we are, for one thing, to note this : he took the doctrine of the Holy Spirit from the Old Testament, and gave new force to it ; portraying certain characteristics of the dispensation of the^Spirit, and leading his disciples to rely upon the Holy One, as in effect the present Christ in all ages, — so baptizing them with the Holy Ghost and with fire. " God permitted," says Chrysostom, " the single temple at Jerusalem to be destroyed, and erected in its stead 25i THY KINGDOM COME. a thousand others of far higher dignity, — ' Ye are the temples of the living God.'" "He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you," said Jesus. When, therefore, Luther was tempted, he took refuge in the words of Jesus, saying to the adversary, "Martin Luther does not live here, Jesus Christ lives here." When an eminent, modern seer tells us, " I see not any road of perfect peace which a man can travel, but to take counsel of his own bosom," we wish to add, " Blessed is that bosom in which the Mighty Coun- selor abides." " I dwell with him that is of a contrite spirit," saith the high and lofty One who inhabiteth eter- nity. Thou God of prophet's fire, To Thee our souls aspire : We cry with tongues unclean. We cry with anguish keen, For touch of living coal To cleanse the life and soul. To Thee is our desire, O penetrating fire ; Our hearts for Thee aglow, We kindle Thee to know, Thou God of prophet's flame, — - The Heat, the Light, Thy name. Baptizing fire, descend, — The light of God to lend To lisping tongues of fire ; Our lips shall never tire Thy name to sound on earth, — Thou Fire of Heavenly birth. 255 OUB ELDER BROTHER. IN selecting the twelve, Jesus did not first call the rich or the scholars of the nation ; he took men as he found them, not men of genius but of common sense. He set out to establish his Kingdom, as to its human instrumental- ity, by the activity of the average man, of ordinary diligence and thoughtful thrift, — working men, baptized and sancti- fied, in whom the Holy Spirit was indwelling. The influence of Christianity in uplifting the world can- not be accounted for, on the theory of a mere human life of Christ, or by the ordinary operation of human activity. What perpetuated the influence of Jesus, and what gave efficiency to the apostles of the new faith, was the power of the Holy Spirit. The life and work of Jesus, and of his disciples in all ages, but represent a part of that mighty movement which had been begun of old time, and which has been carried forward through hoary centuries until now, and which will continue while sun and moon endure, — the activity of Inflnite Love in redeeming mankind, in perfecting the moral evolution of the race, in recreating man in God's image. It is only by the doctrine of the Kingdom of God that we can account for the outcome of the relatively obscure life of Jesus. The very fact that he was, upon his own theory and in the sober judgment of vast multitudes of men, in some proper sense the incarnation of the Infinite Power that makes for righteousness, avails us nothing, in accounting for the amazing results of his mission, except as it is connected with what went before and what came after in the moral govern- 256 THY KINGDOM COME. ment of the God with whom w'e have to do. Unless the words of Jesus are true that " the Father worketh hitherto, and I work," and unless it be true that the Spirit of the living God has worked during all subsequent ages, and is to work until the average man upon this globe is in the image of God and in harmony with him, and until society is regulated by the law of love, the life of Jesus was that of a carpenter with- out significance ; and, upon the other hand, if it be credible that God has so made the world that he can continue to have to do with it, and so made man that he can influence him for good, and if God is governing this world, then it is altogether credible that God was in Christ in such sense as to make good the affirmations of Jesus in regard to his mission, — and if so, then the life of Jesus appears in its historic relations, God with us, as he has been since the beginning, is now, and evei' shall be. It is in this light alone that Jesus' choice of the apostles seems reasonable, or defensible. It was a choice made in accordance with God's design to use and to honor the average man, and to fit him for high place now and in ages unending. If Jesus had not been confident that his work was of a piece with what went before and what was to come after, in its divine energy, then he would have bungled at his work like an awkward carpenter patchin'g up God's moral world through the instrumentality of wealthy extortioners, and prejudiced, learned, and cruel ecclesiastics. The contrast between the circumstances under which the teachings of Jesus were uttered, and the blaze of glory 257 17 OUR ELDER BROTHER. which afterwards surrounded his words, has been by no one better set forth in two paragraphs than by Mr. J. M. Lowrie : — " We have here brought before us a young man born in lowly life, having no advantages of position, or even edu- cation, to lift him above the mass of men ; and contenting himself by instructing, with the voice merely, the humble classes in society in one of the meaner provinces of the Roman Empire. For three or four years he spent his time in these pursuits ; he gathered about him a meager band of disciples, not above his own state ; he awakened only per- secution and contempt among the influential men of his own nation ; and before he reached the middle age of life, he was condemned as a malefactor, and put to a violent and shameful death. " After his death the most remarkable and permanent power belonged to one whose life, up to its latest moment, had been full of humiliation. His were the mighty words of the world. They were living and life-giving principles, which took hold upon men with regenerating power. There was nothing in his claims, his teachings, his promises, to inflame or to gratify the ordinary passions of men ; no honors to be won, no ambition to be gratified, no sensual pleasures to be enjoyed. Yet his words were powerful as no other teachings have ever been upon the earth. They went forth from the narrow boundaries of Judea, and attacked the hoary prejudices and superstitions of the pagan world ; and in a few centuries, the Gospel of the de- spised man of Galilee became the avowed faith of the 258 THY KINGDOM COME. Roman Empire. And now for many ages, during which hosts of great men have risen and been forgotten, his words, wherever received in their simplicity, have had a power to ■ cast down superstition, to change the aspect of human society, to teach men the true principles of freedom, to awaken impulses that refine and strengthen and elevate humanity, and to support true morality and true piety, — that seems strangely in contrast with the feeble attain- ments of his life \york, and with the apparent triumph of his foes in his death upon the cross." There is no way in which this can be accounted for, except by the truth of the doctrine of the Kingdom of God, which reveals to us the work of Jesus as one part only, the most vital part, of the scheme of human redemption, which began before the Christian era, and which has been actively carried on by the Holy Spirit in the later centuries. If the Kingdom of God is credible, then the Incarnation is credi- ble ; and the historic effects attributed to the life and work of Jesus are easily explicable. And the chief effect is seen to be the elevation of the average man, through awakening in him the moral energies that constitutionally belong to him by his being made in the image of God. IT is in the light of the doctrine of the Kingdom that we understand the method of man's moral evolution, — slowly unfolding during the cycles of human history. Man's moral redemption is not wrought out by formally following book directions ; it is wrought out through ideas which transform the life. Jesus first of all bound his dis- 259 OUR ELDER BROTHER. ciples to himself by ties of personal affection, — and then, after that, revealed to them the crosses they should bear as his disciples ; adapting his words to their minds, by an orderly progression of thought, — first shadowing, then clearly showing, one by one, the fundamental ideas of his Kingdom. At first, he was easily understood ; then the minds of his disciples were tasked, as the Master went for- ward. His early claims seemed so simple, that it was like continuing the work of John the Baptist ; yet he ended with demanding the undivided homage of every human soul. At first, his comments on the Mosaic code showed the spirituality of the law ; afterwards he proclaimed him- self to be the Lawgiver, equal with the Father. He first led a life of self-sacrifice, and taught others to do it ; and then he explained that his death upon the cross was needful to fulfill the Scriptures, — that a suffering Messiah must found a new Kingdom of Love. He tempered his words to the ability of his disciples to profit by them, — " I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." In the minds of the disciples, the Messianic ideas were developed gradually ; and the timeliness of his teachings is a lesson to all after ages. Jesus has never been surpassed as a teacher ; he knew how to draw out the mental force of his pupils. He did not do all their thinking for them. Nor did he impart too much information, but left something for the scholars to do. He aroused their thinking faculties, and taught them principles of world-wide application. He gave them seed-thoughts ; vital like the seeds of the mangrove, which sprout before 260 THY KINGDOM COME. they fall, and are so weighted as to fall with the sprout uppermost, — so that they begin to grow as soon as they touch the ground. Jesus was far more than a carpenter ; he did not under- take to govern the lives of his disciples through measuring lines, — chalking out states of mind by compass and square. He announced, rather, certain principles of conduct,* by which they could and must regulate their practice, — so making them independent and trustworthy. Their atten- tion was not directed to sinnings, but to sin ; they were to contend against that selfishness which is the essential ele- ment is all wrong doing. He developed individual manli- ness, by putting upon each one the responsibility for his own self -making or marring. Jesus taught no casuistical mechanics, — a living by forms, ceremonies, and states of mind ; but he gave to every disciple ideas by which to govern life, and then bade him shift for himself like a man. He addressed himself to con- science, and led men to attempt to do the will of God ; and he trusted that in such an exalted life they would have power to regulate their common affairs in a moral manner, without minute directions from him. A striking illustration of the method of Jesus is found in his political teachings : he did not teach politics, — yet he taught moral principles which overturned empires. He appeared to be regardless of external circumstances, or im- * "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone : " this is a very Christlike anecdote, even if not authentic. The principle is, that those who would enforce the law must obey the law. 261 OUR ELDER Brother. mediate events, — fixing his mind rather upon some far off age when righteousness and justice would be meted out, and when the oppressor would cease to do evil ; and he set to work to insert in the minds of men righteous and just ideas by which ultimately to right all social wrongs. Another illustration of his method of promoting freedom of development in his Kingdom, is found in the fact that Jesus formulated no creed, but gave his disciples such ma- terial that they could make one. Would it not have been easy for the Master to give a definite creed in a few words, and so silence the sound of controversy in all ages ? Yet, he did not saw and hammer his dogmas, to make them fit men square or round. His disciples were kept in tow, not by mere theological leading strings, but by intellectual and moral leadership. He chose to have men study, he would discipline them in thinking. Many of his words were to be understood only by taking time for refiection. His phrases were of deep and philosophic import, far reach- ing, and fruitful of students in all generations ; so that the Christian Church has furnished the intellectual leaders of mankind, — men able to formulate and to defend their symbols of faith, and to set forth the results of Christian thinking, age after age. THE very idea of a Kingdom of God among men, implies the conduct of operations during many ages of his- tory ; and it implies an Infinite Patience, self-control, kind dealing, and the repetition of line upon line in giving in- 262 THY KINGDOM COME. struction. N"o one can read over the details of the encoun- ters Jesus had with his disciples, his crafty enemies, and the rude multitudes, without being impressed with his self-pos- session, his long suffering, his meekness, and the iterative element in his teaching. Nor can one read the story with- out being impressed at every turn with the coolness and the even balance of Jesus under all circumstances. Nothing could be farther from the temperament of an enthusiast, or a deluded fanatic. He was wholly possessed by a great idea, and he was governed always by principle, never by impulse ; his years of public ministration being marked by the same degree of patience that was exercised in his calm waiting, during thirty years of carpentry. An illustration of this occurs in St. Mark's Gospel (i : 32-39), where Jesus refused to do good. When all the city was at his door, he rose up, long before day and went into a solitary place ; and his disciples searched for him, saying, "All men seek thee." But he turned a deaf ear, — saying, " Let us go into the next towns." That is, he choose his work ; rejecting this, and electing that. Not attempting to do it all, he sacrificed the less to the greater. He went into the next towns, that he might preach there also. In one town, or one small city, he might have stayed as a physician ; and might even have given to that district immunity from future disease. But he took the broader, wider way. Again in St. Matthew's Gospel (x : 5,6), Jesus narrowed the direction to his disciples, — " Go not into any way of the Gentiles, and enter not into any city of the Samaritans." 363 OUK ELDER BROTHER. Why did he not manufacture disciples by miracle, raising up enlightened and zealous children of Abraham out of the stones, so that the Samaritans and the Gentiles might have heard the Gospel news without delay ? Nothing erratic, however, was there about his ministry ; he planned to carry on his work a little at a time, in an orderly manner, — by a natural development like that from seed to fruit. It was connected with a Kingdom, in which moral evolution is marked by slow and sure processes ; like the work of God in creating, developing, and sustaining the physical universe. We can see therefore why Jesus should walk patiently with perfidious Judas, and those who were slow of heart. He did not expect them to be rooted and grounded in love, except by the inworking power of the Holy Ghost. The unbelief, and misbelief, and prejudice, of narrow-minded disciples called for patience on his part. "If I had a friend," says Dr. Bushnell, "who was always miaking me to appear weaker and meaner than I am, putting the fat- test construction possible on my words and sayings, pro- fessing still, in his own low conduct, to represent my ideas and principles, protesting the great advantage he gets, from being much with me, in just those things where he is most utterly unlike me — I could not bear him even for one week, I should denounce him utterly, blowing all terms of connection wiih him. And yet Christ has patience large enough to bear us still." So, too, in dealing with the ecclesiastical leaders of Jewry, Jesus proceeded upon the principle that it would be 264 THY KINGDOM COME. long before his mustard seed would grow into a tree. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. What an inexpressible disappointment it would have been to Jesus, if the main end of his life had been to gain the good will of his contemporaries. " Consider him who endured such con- tradiction of sinners against himself." In the discourse in the eighth chapter of John, Jesus was ten times captiously- interrupted, unfairly contradicted, or reviled. In the midst of very solemn words, one of his hearers broke in, asking a question about division of property. He was taunted as a suicide, when he spoke of his home in heaven. The eye and lip of scorn were familiar to him. Yet there was about him nothing abject, nor did he swerve from his supreme purpose on account of Pharisaic sneers. The kindly light, so clear, and piercing like a sunbeam, shone in darkness ; and the darkness comprehended it not. The fickle multitude were ready to feed from his bounty, or to crucify him, according to the mood of the hour. Having eaten to satiety their barley loaves and fishes, they left the crumbs scattered about, and had no appetite for the Bread that came down from heaven. Only a handful of men, easily counted, took up the cross to follow him. At the very highest estimate, out of five thousand seated about his miraculous table, not one in ten became a disciple in the lifetime of Jesus. When the Son of God came to earth, he had a right to expect a good greeting ; but he was not so successful, in the immediate results of his preaching and teaching, as we should have thought beforehand that the Son of God would be. It was a part of his humiliation ; ab5 OUR ELDER BROTHER. the God-man consented to be unsuccessful in pleading with men. He saw men turn their backs on him. Did not Capernaum admire his miracles, then treat his moral man- dates with cold neglect ? Nazareth had no faith in his miracles, no patience with his words ; and the rabble, who had known him when a boy, took him up behind the city, and tried to throw him off a precipice. He made three preaching tours in Galilee, and had a great following ; but the crowded villages rejected his doctrine. Did not the man who was cured of a disease of thirty-eight years' standing, use his new strength in leaguing at once with the enemies of Jesus ? It would be easy to believe that his voice, too, joined in the bitter cry — " Crucify him, crucify him." Yet Jesus was moved by compassion, whenever he saw a crowd ; as if they were sheep without a shepherd. Jesus knew that his humbling religion would be long in conquering the proud race of man ; that his lofty precepts would find slow entrance into minds groveling in the dust. He knew that his gentle religion would find it difficult to win rough men to believe on him ; and that so severe a religion would be slow to lead men to believe in such justice. Yet he knew that at last, all the meek of the earth and all the just of the earth would be attracted to himself. He did not wildly lead a rebellion against Roman oppression ; but he steadily worked to promote that holy life, by which his countrymen might be free indeed. He put forth those principles which remodeled society. Jesus did not fret in the midst of a wicked world. During four thousand years a violent race had run riot over the globe. Jesus came ; 266 THY KINGDOM COME. uttered a few parables, healed a few sick, — and died. Four years after, Caligula reigned. Twenty-one years after, Nero reigned. Galba, Domitian, Decius, Diocletian, and such creatures reigned for three hundred years ; then the principal figures in history were cunning and worldly minded ecclesiastics, and petty puppet kings, for twelve hundred years more. Did not Jesus know that this would be so ? Could he not see the line of coming kings ? Did he not know that it would be hundreds of years before his religion would get to the throne, and take a great part in history ? Yet Jesus did not fret ; nor was he anxious for the success of his doctrine. Day by day, he was speaking the words that were spirit and life ; yet he knew that they would fall powerless on the ears of the masses of mankind for many generations, — as snowflakes falling on the sea. A voice from heaven said, ' ' This is my beloved son, hear ye him," but Jesus knew that men would not hear him. Yet he spoke right on every day, and his words had the vitality of the thoughts of God. Fretting is no part of the work of reform. Amid the intolerable reign of Satan, Jesus bore up and began his own reign. N'or was he out of heart in the midst of apparent , disaster, the ignominious failure of what seemed — to con- temporary Jewish and heathen historians — an insignificant career. It was this sublime patience that attracted the attention of St. Paul, a patience connected with the reign of God : " I am also your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the Kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ." 267 OUR ELDER BROTHER. So there was founded upon the earth that phase of the Kingdom of God now known as the Church of Jesus Christ :— " The Church of apostles and martyrs, of fathers and confessors ; in catacombs and in prisons, in deserts and caves of the earth, in palaces and cathedrals ; in exile and in missions, in all ages the one flock of God, the Church of the past, the Church of the present, the Church of the future, chanting ever the same faith, holding ever the same Christ, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end." * " Our God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come ; Our shelter from the stormy blast. And our eternal home : Under the shadow of thy throne The saints have dwelt secure ; Sufficient is thine arm alone. And our defense is siire." * Joseph P. Thompson, D.D. ;.^(iS CHAPTER FIVE. His Gentleness arid Severity. -:S; 'OH]Sr the Baptist apprehended only the severe side of the Saviours character, — " Whose fan is in his hand " ; gathering the wheat, and burning the chaff. His own speech was of sharp and stinging quality. Yet the fierce men of war became meek ; lawyers learned new lessons ; priests and Levites were taught by him ; the debased and hopeless found new life, and formed new purposes. So the friend of the Bridegroom prepared for the coming of a spiritual Kingdom. THE teaching of Jesus in regard to advancing the King- dom of God, implies a state of warfare, in order that men of good will may be at peace : " first pure, then peace- able." Jesus never taught that it was a matter of indiffer- ence how men were related to him ; they must decide against him, or be on his side. Jesus joined issue with the world, the fiesh, and the devil.* * " The factious disputing of Pharisee and Sadducee, the wild fanati- cism of the zealots, the eccentricities of the Essenes, the worldiness of the priests, the profligacy, the domineering, hard-hearted ambition of the Roman world, the effete rhetoric of the Greek world, found their proper level in the presence of an influence which ran counter to them all." — Dean Stanley. [BOOK VI.] 269 OUR ELDER BROTHER. With a majestic self-assertion of his claims, with great boldness identifying himself with the work of the Father and Moral Governor of mankind, and setting himself up as the attested representative of the Highest, he spoke with authority, with a certain urgency, in an aggressive spirit, bringing matters to a crisis in respect to personal allegiance or hostility. Did he not test the multitudes with such doc- trines that many left him ? He sifted them. Men were to be attached to him by the truth or not at all. " Come unto me," he said, "take my yoke upon you." But they had to leave Mammon behind them ; he would allow no divided service, — " He who is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad." The teaching of Jesus was preeminently incisive. His appeals were direct, personal, pointed, practical ; inviting men to immediate action for, or against, the Kingdom of God. Take, for example, Luke ix : 59, 60 : — The man was called a disciple by one evangelist. He probably talked of becoming one : but when Jesus spoke to him about actually doing it, his hollow heart was dis- covered, and he was off, — "Suffer me to go [having de- parted] to bury my father ; " as if already out of sight of the Saviour. Jesus read the character of the man at a glance, and bade him decide now or never.* *To care for his father's old age was his intent. Or, if a buiial was imminent, the Nazarite la^v (Numbers vi: 6, 7) would direct him to fol- low Jesus at once. Thei man expressed no purpose ever to follow (com- pare Elisha, I. Kings xix: 19, 20) ; had he been ready to go, his name might have been added to the honorable roll of those who soon went forth everywhere to preach him who was the Resurrection and the Life. 270 GENTLENESS AND SEVERITY. So, too, when an eager young man, with a heart full of unrest, came "running "for eternal life, — he aimed high, and then refused the means of reaching what he sought ; having learned that his money was his master. Zaccheus decided instantly to give up all : yet this young nobleman lacked one thing, amid all his treasures. Upon another occasion, Jesus startled his hearers by turning round in the face of a crowd who were following him, and saying abruptly, " If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." This was his text, and the men pricked up their ears to hear the short and pithy sermon or explanation he made of the text. They were given to understand that this business of chasing round in a crowd after a popular favorite, was a very different thing from taking up the true work of disciples. He would not have a wavering unreliable mob at his heels, when they ought to be at the work of godly decision and self-denying service. And he finished up his remarks to thena on that occasion, by using what seems to have been a favorite form of speech with him : " Salt is good : but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be seasoned ? It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dung hill ; but men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." Then he went on his way again. That his hearers should make good use of their ears, and hear pungent things, he was determined. He made the men about him know what they would be at. If they 271 OUR ELDER BROTHER. would follow him, he said that he had not so much of a home on this globe as the foxes had. No man putting the hand to his plow was permitted even to look as if he would go back. Whoever would build must first count the cost and do it intelligently. He that was not ready to forsake all he had could never become a disciple. " Seek ye first," said Jesus, "the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness" : God first, and man second ; or there is no disciple. When Jesus saw crowds gathering together in the name of religion, he knew that they might side with the enemies of God when there should come up test questions ; and he would have men out and out his, or not his, — " Whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. " It was this close and sharp personal preaching, that separated out from the aimless multitudes a handful of men, who began to conquer the world for their Master. IT is plain enough, therefore, that Jesus could not get on with the Pharisees, — they were too wicked. He might have tolerated their jealousy and their misinterpretation of Messianic Scriptures, and all their sanctimonious puerilities, but he could not do otherwise than utter in tender words of inexpressible sorrow his condemnation of those moral vipers, who crawled in and out of his Father's house, defil- ing it. True workman as he was, he still might have borne with them for shirking their share of life's burdens, yet their devouring widow's houses invoked his wrath. He did not object to their building tombs to the prophets, but that 272 GENTLENESS AND SEVERITY. they should themselves be like whited sepulchers called down his curse. Jesus was the " Friend of Sinners," yet, in his character he was "separate from sinners" ; and when the Pharisees could not be led by love, he turned upon them : " I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins : whither I go ye cannot come." Beholding their foredoomed capital, he wept over it, but the tears of Jesus did not hinder the march of the legions. He wept over the precious stones of the city ; but he did not revoke their doom, nor was one stone left upon another in all Mount Zion. The rabbis were all Pharisees, and they sat in Moses' seat, as the true successors of prophets and patriarchs. There were, of the Pharisees, six thousand heads of house- holds in Judea, in the time of Herod the Great; forming an overwhelmingly strong party of wary and wily dispu- tants, ever ready to quote the elders in Israel of preceding generations, ready in the technique of ritual observance, learned in mystical lore, and as a class perverting the law to unrighteous uses. * They found in Jesus more than their match ; one whose words they could not take hold of before the people. Contact with rigid Pharisee and subtle Sadducee did not lead Jesus into wild statements concerning spirits in the other world, or to a lax interpretation of the law ; he was * In the time of Herod, no Jewish intellect was permitted even the slightest political activity ; and all the pent up energies of the ablest men in the nation were given to formulating definitions and directions as to the Mosaic law. 273 18 OUE ELDER BROTHER. guarded in his words and of well-balanced mind, observing due proportion in the truths he announced. He was, among the sophists, still straightforward ; and he was free from all taint of the hoary superstitions that were fostered and per- petuated by the bigots of his people. He rudely shocked the oriental notion that the old is always sacred, that custom is law even in morals, that the new is revolutionary. The spirit of the East was devout in the ritualistic worship of an unseen God, testifying for him in an age when idolatry occupied the throne of the world : it was the miracle of Jesus' life that he set free this religious spirit ; breaking, for many in Jewry, the rigid and rusty shackles of venerable formulas, which had been rubbed up and riveted anew by each new generation of the scribes and the Pharisees. With the scribes and Pharisees, their malignity was religious, — it was piety in them to slay Christ : this was the standpoint they occupied. Finally, all that was worst in Judaism came to be considered but a synonym for Pharisee ; until the very name of Pharisee became such an abomina- tion that it was definitely dropped out of Jewish nomen- clature after the fall of Jerusalem. * * Hating Jesus, his' name and his memory, yet they gave in their bitter testimony to the facts of his life ; the Talmvid, says Dean Fakrar, contains a score of references to Jesus, confirming his stay in Egypt, his Davidic descent, his miracles, his apostolic following, his excommunication by the Sanhedrin, his crucifixion, and even his innocence. 274 GENTLENESS AND SEVERITY. 'Tt.S a training for the Twelve, and for the disciples of i\ Jesus in early ages, the aggressive spirit of the Master had to do with the great success that attended the proclamation of Christ and him crucified in the years next following the resurrection. It was affirmation, not nega- tion, that attacked the Roman empire. Meek and lowly were those who had been with Jesus, yet they proclaimed the full and fair proportion of the Sav- iour's character, which was modeled on the study of those Messianic texts upon which he had meditated during a score of years in his workshop at Nazareth. They knew that their Lord had read of old time, that he who was anointed to preach good tidings to the meek, to bind up the broken hearted, to comfort all that mourn, should also pro- claim liberty to the captives and proclaim the' day of God's vengeance. The Hebrew hymns, in his childhood, had taught Jesus that the Messiah should redeem the poor and needy from the hand of deceit and violence. And in the book of the law, he had read that he who was merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands of generations, for- giving iniquity, transgression and sin, would yet by no means clear the guilty. So it came about that the Rose of Sharon was not thorn- less ; and that he, who had been named in ancient song as the Lily of the Valley, had been also called the Lion of the tribe of Judah. And men, too, were warned lest they pro- voke the wrath of the Lamb of God : " For whither should 275 OUR ELDER BROTHER. we go for refuge, save to him ? If we find wrath with him, with whom shall we find ruth ? "' Christ was manifest as the Infinite Conscience, to main- tain Moral Law among men. Was he loving and tender ? Was he not also stern and sometimes filled with righteous indignation ? Did not both meekness and majesty abide in his face ? Is not the law of love a two-edged sword ? Is not the Moral Governor of the universe the enemy of all who persistently oppose the law of love, all who attempt, so far as they are able, to break down the well-being of all worlds ? , To love holiness is to ■ hate sin ; nor can love do otherwise than be the enemy of all that is inimical to the object of love. If any one does not hate evil, how can he love goodness ? Jesus would never quench smoking flax or be unmindful of the least sign of celes- tial fire, yet he would bring forth justice to victory. Did not his goodness have edge to it, to wield against badness ?* Electricity is present in a myriad beneficent forms in na- ture, yet there are conditions in which it will rend the sky 'and tear the earth. Therefore it is written: "He that hath the Son, hath life ; and he that hath not the Son hath not life;" "Whosoever shall deny me, him will I also deny ; " " He that disbelieveth shall be condemned." * ' ' Your goodness must have some edge — ■ else it is none. ' ' — EiMkrson. 276 GENTLENESS AND SEVERITY. THE manifest mercy — the gentleness as well as the severity — of the mission of Jesus is set forth as a scheme of redemption. It was no mere ethical system, however sublime : the life and death of Jesus meant far more. It exalted self-sacrifice into a world-wide principle, for the practical conduct of men : and it made God and man to be at one. When Thomas Aquinas asked Bonaventura to show him the library whence he had derived his stores of knowledge, in answer he pointed to the crucifix. "The Incarnation," says Faber, " is the point of arrival and departure of all his- tory. The destinies of nations, as well as of individuals, group themselves around it." The salvation of the world has been wrought out by a spiritual Messiah, a suffering Saviour. Men are to be saved through faith in Christ and him crucified. Jesus came to the earth as the expression of God's love to men, to teach that the Almighty is the All-merciful. Nor did the All-father ever upbraid a penitent prodigal be- fore receiving him. "When Christ saith, 'Come unto me,' he does not say, ' First love, and then come.' ISTo, ' Come ' to him, — that you may be made to love him. He does not say, ' Come,' because you are melted into contri- tion ; but that you may be : ' Come,' not because you have a deep conviction of sin, but that it may be made deep." * " I am that wounded man ; blessed Samaritan, heal me : *Dean W. F. Hook. 277 OUE ELDER BROTHER. I am that wandering child, that is not worthy to be called thy son ; Father, make me thy meanest servant : I am the lost sheep, O seek and save me ; bring me home, Lord, unto thy heavenly fold." * " Thou art in the heart of those that confess Thee, and cast themselves upon Thee, and weep in Thy bosom, after all their rugged ways. . . . With inward groanings, I knock at Thine ears, and, with a settled faith, cast my care on Thee."t " I have sinned," it is said in the prayers of St. Anselm, " I have sinned, and Thou hast suffered it ; I have offended, and yet Thou endurest me. If I repent. Thou sparest ; if I return. Thou receivest me ; yes, moreover, while I defer, Thou waitest for me. Wandering, Thou recallest me ; re- sisting Thee, Thou invitest me ; slumbering. Thou awak- enest me ; returning, Thou embracest me ; ignorant, Thou teachest me ; grieving. Thou soothest me ; when I am down, Thou raisest me up ; fallen, thou restorest me : Thou givest to me asking. Thou art found of me seeking, Thou openest to me knocking." All this faith and hope and love, — this penitence, this grieving, this self-abasement, this bringing the heart to God, this loud and importunate calling after the Father to receive his sinning child,— this is the outcome of the mission of Jesus, in its gentleness and in its severity. * Christopher Sutton, D.D., a.d. 1600. t Saint Augustine. 278 CHAPTER SIX. The World's Great Teactier. EAVEN and earth, saith our Lord, shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away. If we take the hundred great men of history, and "^~""^^ select from them all, those who have been great in the department of which Jesus made a specialty — the religious ; if we write down these names ; and if we then compare, one by one, their sayings with the words of Jesus, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, we shall find him unnaatched in the purity of his ethical system, the sublimity of the truths he announced, in depth and breadth of reasoning upon the highest themes, in logical clearness, in insight into the moral wants of man- kind, and in fervent love for humanity, — a standing mira- cle of moral wisdom out of heaven, the shadowless light of God. And even all this is but a part of what the apostle has called the unsearchable riches of Christ. The poets, the philosophers, the sages, are notable for this excellence, or for that, but there is no one whom we can for a moment compare with the Man of Nazareth. [Book VI.] 379 OUR ELDER BROTHER. "Without writing a single line," says Schaff, "he set more pens in motion, and furnished themes for more sermons, orations, discussions, learned volumes, works of art, sweet songs of praise, than the whole army of great men of ancient and modern times." The longest of the Gospels is little more than two-score pages octavo in good type, and the four with all their repe- titions of the same things comprise not a hundred and fifty pages, — and yet we will match them against the libraries of the world for their moral and religious influence upon mankind. He was not an author, nor a scientist, nor a philosopher, nor a statesman, nor a warrior, but he was morally and intellectually unique in this, — that men have never found one error in his teachings, nor have they in eighteen centuries of amazing intellectual activity added one iota to what he advanced upon moral and religious sub- jects ; and if any one challenges this, let him point out from all other sources the first ray of moral or religious truth that has been added to the teachings of Jesus.* The words of Jesus never grow old, — they were fitted to the times in which he lived, but they are equally applicable to all lands in all ages. Neither was his instruction at that time so far in advance of men's moral needs, as to lose its pertinency. The words of Jesus were like the light from heaven, adapted to the morning or to the evening of the world. * For this sentence, the Author is indebted to Christ and His Work, by Cyrus D. Fobs, New York, 1878. It is a condensed statement, based on what is said upon pages 49 and 51. 280 THE world's great TEACHER. It is a far reaching truth, that sweeps away all rival claims for the moral supremacy, when we say of Jesus that he is "the eternal contemporary of us all." * " You never get to the end of Christ's words," says Dean Stanley. " There is something in them always behind. They pass into proverbs, they pass into laws, they pass into doctrines, they pass into consolations ; but they never pass away, and after all the use that is made of them they are still not ex- hausted." t WHAT has been said, however, in the preceding section is not to be insisted upon. What is truly unique in the teachings of Jesus is that which is behind his words, — his personal character, his life, and his death of self-sacri- fice ; in fact the very appearance of Jesus upon this globe was in expression of God's disapproval of sin, and his love for the sinner. It was the work of Jesus, first and last, to institute a scheme of Redemption, to bring back to God his wayward and wandering children. And when we speak * This is the happy phrase of Frances E. Willabd, LL.D. t This chapter is for testimony. I will, therefore, cite Dr. George Putnam's Sermons. Jesus, he says, commends himself to the most thoughtful men of all ages : " Nearly all the most eminent thinkers and ■writers in literature, philosophy, and religion, are not hostile in spirit to Jesus Christ. They do not wish to diminish his influence. They are most serious and earnest, if not devout 'men. They are not scoffers. They profess the highest appreciation of Christ, and regard themselves as promoting his true cause, his real and legitimate influence. The spirit which actuates them is not hostile to religion, or to Christ as its highest represent^itive. " 281 OUR ELDER BROTHER. about the ultimate success of the teachings of Jesus, through- out the ages following his death, we put this foremost, that as a scheme of Redemption it has found no match for moral influence, among schemes originating with either or all of one hundred of the most eminent religious, moral, and philanthropic leaders of mankind. We can never get the full measure and sweep of Christ's teachings, except as we take into view their relation to the dreary ages of history. The primitive man was brutal. During untold years, violence had reigned in the earth. This Nazarene peasant showed his relationship to the Eter- nal God — who foresaw the end from the beginning — when he brought a message of peace on the earth to the men of good will. And although ages swept onward before his ideal had a perceptible influence upon the nations, yet the illuminating spark of divine fire had fallen upon the earth. The Hebrew dream of a golden age to come, taking definite shape in the mandates of the Son of Man upon the horns of Hattim, marks an era in moral evolution which gives un- speakable dignity to Jesus, and sets him apart as the Moral Leader of mankind. The advancement of the Kingdom of God in the world so carries with it the influence of Jesus, that his name is exalted above every name. This arises mainly from the fact that in God's naoral government of the world, the government was upon his shoulders, and Jesus was made the King of kings. The appearance of God in history, marked and decided as it was in the old dispensation, was so pronounced in the new age, that Jesus may be spoken of as the chief exponent or THE world's great TEACHER. executive of the Kingdom of God for after times. He ex- pounded its theory, he made clear the principle of love which underlies every part of its movement. He established the Kingdom, as the leading power among the principali- ties of the world. It was the empire of righteousness, gain- ing sway in every quarter of the globe. " In all nations above the line of semi-barbarism," says Professor Talcott, "his law is to-day the acknowledged standard of right ; and in his name, professedly at least, kings reign and princes decree justice. Through influences going forth from him, whole races of men have been brought up from the depths of savage life. The annals of all time may be searched in vain for the record of such a change accomplished by any other agency. Every step of substantial moral progress recorded in the history of man- kind since his time, has had its origin in his teachings. This position which Jesus occupies in general history, is a position for which the whole preceding history of the world was a preparation. He is the central figure of all ages. Is it conceivable that such a position can have been allotted by an overruling Providence, or even by blind chance, to an imposter, or a fanatic, or a being that never existed but in fiction 9 " His Kingdom was to be established primarily in the hearts of individual men. To individuals the call was addressed to become his subjects ; to love him with a supreme affection, — and to take his life of labor and sacri- fice for the good of others as the model for their own lives. Individuals were brought under the influence of that love, 283 OUR ELDER BROTHER. which was manifested in giving his life a ransom for many. In whatever part of the world the words of Jesus have been made known, there have always been found hearts ready to receive them ; and to these they have become the me- dium of a new life. A New Style op Character has come into existence, — a character to which nothing more than a distant approximation has ever been witnessed in lands unvisited by revelation, and even that but rarely, — a char- acter the controlling element of which is supreme love to Christ, and love to man for Christ's sake, and which is uniformly referred, by all in whom it is exhibited, to the power of Christ working in them. This character, in its distinctive features and in its practical manifestations, is essentially the same in every land, and has been so in every generation. The personal experience connected with it is corroborated by the testimony of millions upon millions, living or dead, representing every century, every race of men, every grade of cultivation, every form and aspect of human life ; all agreeing in this one thing, — the spirit of loving trust in Jesus and of hearty obedience to his law." * If I may still cite testimonies, let it be Frances Power Cobbe :— " The coming of Jesus was to the life of human- ity, what regeneration is to the individual. The world has changed, and that change is historically traceable to Christ." * These two paragraphs are adapted to these pages, from a series of valuable articles in the Christian Mirror, a few years since, by Professor D. S. Talcott, D. D., of Bangor Seminary. 2S4 THE world's great TEACHER. " The moral civilization of the world," says Professor Andrews Norton, "the noblest conception which men have entertained of religion, of their nature, of their duties, are to be traced back directly to Jesus Christ." * " In him is centered all that is good and exalted in our nature. Whatever may be the unlooked for phenomena of the future, Jesus will never be surpassed. His worship will grow forever. All ages will say, that among the sons of men none has ever been greater than Jesus." f " The idea of Jesus," says Bishop Brooks, " is the illumi- nation and the inspiration of existence. Without it, moral life becomes a barren expediency, and social life a hollow shell, and emotional life a meaningless excitement, and in- tellectual life an idle play and stupid drudgery. Without it the world is a puzzle, and death a horror, and eternity a blank. More and more it shines as the only hope of what without it is all darkness." Well then may we say, that " Christ can no more be expelled from the course of history than the sun from the circle of the sky. Skepticism about Christ is also skepti- cism about history itself ; unbelief in him is unbelief in the controlling ideas by which men have been inspired, and in the chief objects for which men have hitherto lived." J *" I believe in Christ, the life: I think that is my whole creed." W- D. HOWELLS. " At the basis of our modern civilization lies the thought of Jesus." — Db Pressens:^. t The close of Kenan's Life of Jesus. t Professor Henry B. Smith, D.D. 385 OUR ELDER BROTHER. " Christ," says our Germanic American scholar, Philip SchaflE, "is the glory of the past, the life of the present, the hope of the future."* There can, indeed, be no more fitting simile than that of Dr. Samuel Harris : — "A god of the Scandinavian mythol- ogy was challenged to a race and was outrun ; his competi- tor in the race had been Human Thought. In all which pertains to man's moral and spiritual life, Christ has been tested in the race with human thought for eighteen hundred years, and has been always in advance ; and by his spiritual quickening of men, it is he himself who has given to human thought its power and speed." JESUS did not angrily chafe, nor contend with ignomin- ious contemporaries who contradicted his doctrine ; he left the truth to do its own work, to be energized by the Divine Spirit, and to win its way. The words of Jesus in Galilee, in Judea, on the coasts of Sidon, were powers such as had never appeared before upon this globe. Jesus calmly waited in view of their final triumph. Within the bosom of the Son of Man dwelt the peaceful Dove of God. A Divine Life reigned in all his human faculties. "Every man," said Jesus, "that hath heard, and hath *■ ' ' Whatever progress mankind may make, they can never outrun the teaching of Christ." — E. S. Gannett, D.D. "Humanity, as it passes through phase after phase of historical merit, may advance indefinitely in excellence, but its advance will be an indefinite approximation of the Christian type. " — Goldwin Smith, D.C.L. 286 THE WORLD'S GREAT TEACHER. learned of the Father, cometh unto me." The men who are attracted to God, and who have religious longing, and who are taught of the Father, will certainly go to Christ as the religious leader of the world. The Golden Rule will yet cut off all the tyrants and all oppressors, and bring in the Golden Age. As the drops of rain and the sunbeams make the grass blades and leaf and flower and fruit adorn our raw hillsides, and clothe the naked earth, so will the wilderness and solitary place be glad for the words of Jesus as for the water of life ; and the desert shall blossom as the rose. Distant rivers of the earth, with uncouth, savage names, will roll as with the sweet music of Jordan in a purified world. And places of worship, sacred as the hill of God, will rise among the barbaric villages of far off continents. So all the world is looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith ; he who was the beginning and the ending, which is, and which was, and which is to come.* * N. B. — For further illustration of this topic, Jesus as a Teacher, the reader is directed to the Article by Professor Fisher upon the Seed-like Character of the Teachings of Jesus, — Book xi., Chapter 6. 287 BOOK SEVEN. — ^**':=s«-< Otir Suffering Sa.viou.r. -• >&.^^«^ Chapteb 1. Page 289. Entering the Stiacio-vvs. Chapteb 2. Page 299. The Heavenly Vine and Bread. Chapter 3. Page 309. . Amid the Olives. Chaptek i. Page 320. The IVIidnight Hou.r. Chapteb 5. Page 326. A Triumphant NIob. Chapter 6. Page 338. The Darkness at Noonday. CHAPTER ONE. Entering the Stiadows. (^ I HE shadow of the cross was never far from falling i I on the footsteps of Jesus. The conflict of ideas ^^-i- between the Man of Sorrows and those who were in authority, began before the twelve were chosen, and before the second preaching tour through Galilee. It related to works of mercy upon the Sabbath day. Glimpses of Gieth- semane, the betrayal, and the judgment hall, began to dawn dimly * upon the mind of Jesus, long before he went up to Jerusalem — as if going into the valley of the shadow of death. Nor did he flinch from the baptism of suffering, which awaited him.f When an eager and sanguine disciple could ill bear the thought that his Master should be manifested as a suffering Messiah, the great lawgiver of Israel and the chief of the * Jesus as a child came to his knowledge a little at a time, growing in wisdom ; it must have been so in his manhood. Before he began his ministry he did not know so minutely as he did after a year or two, just the effect his teaching would have upon the enraged rabbis. f Luke xii : 50. Consult also John iii : 14 ; Matt, xvi : 21 ; and xvii : 22, 23 ; Mark x : 32 ; Matt, xx : 28 ; and xxvi : 2 ; John xii : 23, 24 ; and vi : 51. [Book vn.] 289 " OUE ELDER BROTHER. prophets appeared in a flood of celestial glory, upon the slopes of Hermon, to converse with Jesus about his decease so near at hand ; thus surrounding that dread event with ineffable light. To this grand climax of the centuries of Jewish history, the Law and the Prophets had pointed. In ascending from Csesarea Philippi, Jesus and the three disciples had picked their way amid the vineyards, the wheat fields, and the orchards ; and in the falling day, ere plunged into a ravine with its screening oaks, they paused to look at the rose and red of sunset, and the light on the western sea. In the early part of the night the disciples slept, while Jesus prayed. When they were awake, they saw his glory, and his very garments shone like heavenly raiment. So were the chief apostles strengthened, against the time when their faith would be sore tempted. And in the morning light they returned to the Eoman city, where pagan images stood upon the street corners : and here Jesus cast out devils ; not however casting out that Roman devil, which later on served as the instrument of his crucifixion. THERE is a tragic interest in the story of the Feast of the Tabernacles in the autumn before the death of Jesus. He had already begun to avoid his enemies by retiring to northern Galilee, in order that he might be free to give fur- ther instruction to his disciples, and fulfill his mission — until his time should come. He went privately up to the feast. And there he cried earnestly : "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink " ; and again, he pro- claimed himself "the Light of the world." 290 THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS. It was an hour of peril. His enemies, again and again, sought to take him. And in his encounters with tJrem, he alluded to their seeking to kill him, and even to their cruci- fying him ; and he had finally to conceal himself, to avoid being stoned.* WHEN the springtime approached, the resurrection of Lazarus brought about a crisis. The secluded home at Bethany had become a house of sorrow. Jesus was beyond Jordan. The domestic servants had often gone down the road looking eastward, to see if Jesus were coming up from the wilderness. When our Lord approached the town, he saw, amid scattering olives, oaks, and palms, certain tombs that had been cut from the limestone ledges near his pathway ; and there were broken bowlders, and shrubs of the almond, or the pomegranate. And here he waited the coming of the mourners, that he might see them apart from professional wallers, whose sharp outcries and conventional lamentations jarred upon his sense of fitting serenity at the graveside. Nor did Mary need to go to her brother's grave, to weep there, since he, who was the Resurrection and the Life, had also come hither. Jesus wept ; being troubled, and groaning in spirit, — tak- ing upon himself domestic sorrows. He, however, who wept as a man, now spoke like a God, f calling in a loud * John vii : 30, 44-46 ; and viii : 40 ; xxviii : 59. t AncitBisHOP Lbighton. 291 OUR ELDER BROTHER. voice to awaken him who was sleeping. And he that was dead came forth. Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, believed on Jesus ; "they had come as the merciful, and they ob- tained mercy." Yet some went away to the Pharisees, who would not believe on Jesus, though one rose from the dead. They did not deny the miracle,* but they were politicians, affirming that if Jesus gained a greater following, it would displease the Eomans ; and they decided under the counsel of the high priest to put him to death whenever he might be found, — and it was thought that he might appear at the passover. This miracle so notable, placing beyond all doubt the divine calling of Jesus, f determined the adversaries of the Messiah to put Jesus to death : and, a little later, to kill Lazarus also, through whom many went away to believe on Jesus. CROM that day forth, it is said, they took counsel together 1 to put him to death. Jesus, therefore, walked no more openly among the Jews, but went thence into a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there ♦John sir 47-50, 56, 57. f The raising of the daughtei- of Jairus, the son of the widow of Nain, and of Lazarus, proceeded upon what Archuishop Trench has called "an ascending scale of difficulty"; since it was, in Bengel's phrase, raising the dead " from the bed, the bier, the grave " (Matt, ix : 25 ; Luke vii : 14 ; John xi ; 44), — one just dead, one about to be buried, one after the funeral. This was conclusive, clinching testimony, to the message of Jesus. 293 THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS. continued with his disciples. It was a day's journey thither, upon the Jordan road north ; along the eastern slope of the table-land of Palestine, — between the populous villages and the river ravine. Although there were vines and fig trees, with now and then an orchard of olives, yet for the most part the obscure and crooked path passed over bare ledges or along ragged cliffs, sometimes under the shadow of towering crags, — a world of stone. They encountered bowlders, fragments of rock, or areas of smoothed pebbles ; and when they paused by the wayside, it was to find some rocky tomb, or a cave that had been the haunt of robbers, or used as a hiding place from invaders. They sometimes crossed wild ravines upon glistening and slippery rocks, where winter torrents were pouring. It was everywhere a lonely landscape, made memorable by ages of Jewish history. Yet these desolate hills were less inhospitable than Mount Zion. They found the miniature city, with its tower and its houses of stone, occupying the top of a conical hill ; and here Jesus remained with the twelve, for forty days. After which, the time having come when all things that were written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man should be accomplished, Jesus told the twelve what was about to occur,* and that it was in accordance with the ancient prophecies of a Suffering Saviour. Yet the mock- ing, the scourging, and the spiteful treatment, his death and resurrection, that he told of, they could not understand. It was, they said, sOme parable of occult meaning. *Luke xviii: 31-34. 293 OUR ELDER BROTHER. As they passed through Jericho, upon their way to Jerusalem to attend the passover, Zaccheus became a dis- ciple, and Bartimeus was healed. These lessons of sharp decision, and of inaportunity, have made the site of Jericho memorable throughout the world.* " To thy garments we will cling, All our need before thee bring ; Son of David, hear our cry, Pass not, pass not by. ' ' At Bethany, Jesus was anointed for his burial. She who had sat at Jesus' feet to learn of him, and who had fallen at his feet in her hour of grief, now poured upon his feet that precious ointment, whose odor has gone forth throughout the world, f "While the victories of many kings and gen- * " It is now difficult," says Dr. William Hanna, " to determine the site of the city ; so little is left of it, — its hippodrome and amphitheater, its towers and its palaces. Its gardens and its groves are gone ; not one solitary palm tree for a blind beggar to sit beneath, nor a sycamore for anyone to climb. The City of Fragrance it was called of old. There remains now but the fragrance of those deeds of grace and mercy done there by him, who in passing through it closed his earthly journeyings, and went thence to Jerusalem to die." f "Mary arose and fetched an alabaster vase of Indian spikenard, and came softly behind Jesus, and broke the alabaster in her hands, and poured the precious perfume first over his head, then over his feet ; while the atmosphere of the whole house was filled with the fragrance." — Dean Farrar. The sharp comment of St. John (xii : 4-6) upon the speech of Judas on this occasion, has led the Scotch preacher. Dr. John Ker, to say : "Judas the thief takes the side of poverty that he may plunder it." And and it also led the quaint Queenel to say (referring also to John xvii : 12, 294 THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS. erals," says St. Chrysostom, " are lost in silence, and many who have founded states and reduced nations to subjection are not known by name, the pouring of ointment by this woman is celebrated throughout the whole world ; the memory of the deed hath not waned away." THE first day of that week, which has been so fittingly called the holy of holies of Christ's life,* was the day when the Mosaic law set apart the paschal lamb for sacri- fice, — fitting day to designate in some marked manner the Lamb of God, for the coming sacrifice. It was the day of the triumphant entry into Jerusalem ; an expression of the popular applause for the raising of Lazarus,! which left now no room to doubt that the Messiah had come. It was the only time in which Jesus bore part in a great public dis- play : it was to draw the more emphatic attention, by con- trast, to what was so soon to follow. J " Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates. Behold, the King of glory waits ; The King of Kings is drawing near, The Saviour of the world is here."§ and John x : 28, 29) : " Christ trusts a thief with his money, because he sets no value on it ; but he keeps souls in his own custody. He suffers his money to be stolen from him, but never his sheep." *Olshausen. f This is particularly noted, — John xii : 17,18. J " What he was then, when he rode in triumph into Jerusalem, that is he now to us this day, — a king, meek and lowly, and having salvation, the head and founder of a kingdom which can never be moved." — Charles Kingsley. § Geokg Weissei,, 1630. Lyra Germanica. 295 OUR ELDER BROTHER. In riding over the southern slope of Olivet, Jesus could not see the "City of the Great King," till he reached that point where the path turns north. The glory * of the city moved the Redeemer to tears for its pending doom, f The Shechina, said the rabbis, t had retired to the Mount of Olives, and there for three years had called in vain to the people to repent ; and had then withdrawn forever. As Jesus when a child had seen the birds of prey, so now he saw the gathering of the eagles of Rome about the devoted city. '' Thou shalt be oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee." For Jerusalem are tears ; Thus for man God's love appears : Warning words the sinner hears. * " The great wall of the temple enclosure," says Geikie, " now bur- ied under a hundred feet of rubbish on the east side, stood up fresh from the hands of the builder, in its vast height ; the eastern side of Mount Moriah and the bed of the Kedron were rich with vegetation, and the slopes around were dotted with great mansions embosomed in verdure ; the broader level below the pool of Siloam was a paradise of waving green ; and the temple courts rose, one over the other, in dazzling white, — the temple itself, of snowy white set off with flashing gold, surmount- ing all." I " Upon Palm Sunday, when he rode triumphantly into Jerusalem, and was adorned with the acclamations of a king and a God, he wet the palms with his tears, sweeter than the drops of manna or the little pearls of heaven that descended upon Mount Hermon ; weeping in the midst of this triumph, over obstinate, perishing, and malicious Jerusalem." Bishop Jeremy Taylor. { Referring to Ezk. xi : 23 : " The glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city." 396 THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS. Haste, Jerusalem, to turn, — Lest thy gates in anger burn ; Penitent, thy lesson learn. Thy Redeemer's tears have wet Cheeks where love and grief have met : Haste to pay, of love, thy debt. Love unknown, — 'tis mercy's hour ; Clouds above thy head now lower : Do not crown with thorns God's power. Doom for sin has loud out-pealed ; Fate for sin is ever sealed : Penitent, — thy sins are healed. THE second cleansing of the temple occurred the day following. And for it Jesus was sharply questioned by the rabbis next day, Tuesday of passion week. " All the world is gone after him," they said ; and they demanded by what authority he took such a course. And all day long, he foiled his adversaries in sharp question, and quick reply.* All the people came early in the morning to him in the temple ; and they heard the parable of the two sons, of the wicked husbandmen, and of the wedding garment, — and they heard the Saviour's condemnation of the Pharisees. When certain Greeks desired to see him, Jesus thought at once of the far reaching influence of his passion in *Johnxii: 19; Matt, xxi : 23; and xxii : 15-46. 297 OUR ELDEK BROTHER. drawing all men to himself.* Yet his soul was so full of his approaching sacrifice, that he was speechless through sorrow ; nor could he continue to speak without first break- ing forth into an agonized prayer like that of Gethsemane. Upon returning to Bethany at nightfall, Jesus paused upon the ridge of Olivet, and looked back upon the city, and told his disciples of the woes to come upon it, and pro- nounced judicial condemnation upon the leaders of the people. The day following, while Judas was plotting to betray innocent blood, Jesus remained at Bethany ; where he abode until near the evening hour of Thursday, — when he went to Jerusalem to observe the feast of the passover with his disciples, f * It has been noted by Gerhardt that the wise men of the Orient came to see Jesus at the sunrise of his life ; and that now these men of the Occident came, desiring to see him, as his sun was about to set. f For Bishop Ryle's remarks upon the Lord's Supper, which was insti- tuted at this feast, vide Article in Book xii, Chapter 2. 298 CHAPTER TWO. Tine Heavenly Vine and. Bread. ■^^'^ "PON the rising of the paschal moon, a fire was kin- dled upon the Mount of Olives, and corresponding fires were instantly kindled upon hilltops eastward, — till a line of fire flashed from Jerusalem to Babylon. During a thousand years, the smoke of the paschal sacrifice had ascended from the sacred city. Josephus reports the number of paschal lambs sacrificed, between three and five o'clock in the afternoon, to be inore than a quarter of a million, and the attendance upon the feast of the passover more than two and a half millions of worshipers. Tents and booths and the gay colors of the children of the Orient covered the entire region, — the gardens, the vineyards, the olive groves, and the sides of the mountains round about Jerusalem. The air was filled with the songs of Zion : "Let Zion rejoice ; let the daugh- ters of Israel be glad." All this multitude of people rose up one day, and sacrificed Jesus as the Paschal Lamb. They were for the moment of one accord, with few dissenting voices, — a few hundreds out of the millions. As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. [Book VU.] 299 OUR ELDER BROTHER. It was the boast of the city that no one ever failed of finding a hearty hospitality, and the disciples of our Lord found an upper room, where they might eat their bitter herbs and unleavened bread, — while contending who should be greatest in the Kingdom of the Messiah now so near at hand. Here too their Saviour taught them concerning the spiritual nature of his Kingdom ; and gave them a lesson in humility by washing their feet, so travel sore in his serv- ice, — and even washing from the feet of Judas the dust which he had gathered by walking between the murderers and their victim. Jesus, who knew what was in man, who perceived the thoughts of his adversaries, had long ago read the char- acter of Judas, — and he had spoken of it a year and a half before the betrayal ; indeed, says John, Jesus knew it from the beginning.* " Now is the Son of Man glorified," said Jesus, when Judas went forth to perform quickly what he had the heart to do. For the Master had said to him, "That thou doest, do quickly." So (says John Angell James), "Jesus made haste to the cross, impatient for the hour of sacrifice." * St. Cypkian has called attention to the patience of Jesus, in not openly pointing out Judas by name, when he knew that he was a traitoi'. Edersiieim and others note that the conversations at the paschal table, relating to Judas, were uttered in a low tone, — jNlatt. xxvi : 25, and John xiii : 26. "Jesus knew from the beginning," — that is, from the beginning of Judas' thought to betray his Lord. It does not refer to the time when Jesus — after a night of prayer — chose Judas for one of his disciples ; he would not have deliberately picked out a traitor. Vide John vi : 64, 300 THE PASCHAL FEAST. IT was after this, that the Sacrament of our Lord's Supper was instituted witli the eleven. How tenderly they loved him. The mutual affection between Christ and St. John and its attitude of familiarity was of no sudden growth. If Jesus had not placed his arm about the reclin- ing John, and drawn him tenderly to himself, the beloved disciple would hardly have ventured on so close approach, — with loving eyes looking up into the loving eyes of Jesus. Christ was upborne, and carried forward by the love of his disciples. Yearning for the voice of kindness and the touch of friendly hands, he whom the world hated was com- forted by the manifestation of human love. "With desire," said Jesus, "I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer." " And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and gave to them, saying, and compare verses 60, 61 ; by which it appeara that the true character of certain disciples was now — by their own conduct and choice — discovered to themselves and to Jesus. John xiii : 18, 19, is to be explained in the same way. It was when Jesus foresaw the despair of Judas, that he quoted from the book of Enoch, which was then much read, declaring that it would have been better for him if he had never been born. But he who had akeady washed the feet of Judas would have pardoned him, if, instead of hanging himself, he had appeared at the cross in true penitence and faith like the dying thief. There is a touch of pathos in the record of John, that when Judas had received the sop from his Master, he "went immediately out, — and it was night." It was indeed night, a chill falling upon all the world. "A night," says Quesnel, "the most criminal, dreadful, and dark, and yet the most holy, hopeful, and bright." 301 OUR ELDER BROTHER. This is my body which is given for you, this do in remem- brance of me. "And he took a cup, and gave thanks, and gave to them, saying, Drink ye all of it ; for this is my blood of the cove- nant, which is shed for many unto remission of sins." The significance of these words was better understood after his death. He spoke of a present transaction, or one about to be : " This my body," is being given, is being broken. " This my blood," is being shed.* As the disciples had failed to understand repeated allu- sions to his death, so now our Saviour's instruction had to be limited to the capacity of his hearers to comprehend his words. When, however, he spoke of his blood as the token of a new covenant, shed for many for the remission of sins, they must have classified this saying with his giving his life a ransom for many ; f that is, as the blood of the paschal lamb redeemed the ancient people of God, so now his own blood would have redemptive power in a new cove- nant adapted to world-wide sinners. Thou Wine of God, in red outflow, Now quench in me my thirst so deep ; Ilong at last my God to know, As o'er my sins I sigh and weep. Thou Bread of God, so sweet thy taste, Tn hunger keen I seek for thee ; All other food I count but waste, — Thy strength supports and comforts me. *EdER8HEIM. t Matt. XX vi : 28 ; Matt, xx : 28. 302 THE PASCHAL FEAST. The simple rite instituted by Christ has no more literal significance than when he said, " I am the vine," or " I am the door." This sacrament was our Lord's own comment upon that discourse which so stumbled the Jews,* about eating his flesh and drinking his blood : no feast of kings, no feast of angels, so costly as this. One element in this new covenant is that of binding the disciples to each other and to their Lord. Eating bread to- gether, they are to stand by each other, and to stand by Christ, and he by them, f The Lord's Supper, in its first observance, marks the birthday of organized Christianity. This with its corre- sponding symbol. Christian baptism, holds us "in com- munion with all the people of God in times past and present, amid changes of all other customs." J The world-wide sweep of this ordinance, established by Jesus upon the night before his death, is illustrated by a communion service held not long since in India, in a chapel of the American Board. Here a Brahman sat beside a pariah, a representative of the English nobility and mili- tary officers in full dress by the side of men whose clothing was not worth half a dollar ; here were the lame, and per- sons from an almshouse, and converted Mohammedans, and * John vi: 54. f Dr. William Thomson, the Syrian missionary, suggests this ; who adds, that the orientals complain of the occidentals for having no "bread and salt covenants," — of whose virtue, as a bond between men, romantic tales abound in the East. X Nehemiah Adams, D.D. 303 OUR ELDER BROTHER. Scotchmen, and Americans ; some wore turbans of various colors, and some left their sandals at the door ; some sat on the floor, some on benches, and some sat cross-legged ,- and there was one man there who had committed perhaps twenty murders, — and yet the blood of Christ availed for all ; and it was a common bond between them, as well as between them and their Lord. "As oft as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come : " — " Until the trump of God be heard, Until the ancient graves be stirred. And with the great, commanding word. The Lord shall come." * "The body of Christ," says Calvin, t" is not brought down into the sacrament ; but the soul of him who par- takes thereof is raised by faith towards heaven, and is there brought into contact with the body of Christ, and thus naade a partaker of the divine life." These words are however but another way of expressing the spirituality of Christ's own words. Those who have love in their hearts will behold him in the breaking of bread ; and they will receive from him the priceless treasure of his love. So an oriental king is said to have given precious gifts to those who discerned him, when he went into a company in form invisible to ordinary sight ; it being said that those favored ones could see him, because they had love in their hearts for him. *LyRA EUCHARISTICA. t t A summary of his words, by Planck. 304 THE PASCHAL FEAST. THE artless * discourse of Jesus after the supper, and the prayer he uttered, are kept in the affectionate remem- brance of God's people in all ages, being the dying words of that Friend which sticketh closer than a brother, f Many of these words of Jesus could not have been clear to the disciples at the hour. Not yet did . they apprehend that their king would be crucified ; but now they knew that they would be separated from him for a time at least. His allusions to the Father's love, and to the privilege of prayer, they did understand at once. It is believed that the upper room where they were, was the same room where the pentecostal descent of the Holy Spirit took place, — in the house of the mother of St. Mark. Whether this be so or not, the promise of the Comforter, by him who was a comforter beyond any the world had seen before, is one of the most notable things he uttered ; indi- cating, as it did, that the present work of Jesus was but an initial one, that the Kingdom of God was to be carried to a triumphant issue by the Holy Spirit, — who was to be a way-leader J into all truth, — testifying to the Christ, who ♦The simplicity of this farewell address is illustrated, says Tholuck, by John xiv : 2, 3, 16, 18, 21, 23 ; and John xvi : 23, 24, 26. f In John's Gospel, the 14th chapter appears to have been spoken at the table ; chapters 15-17 were uttered, it is likely, in the same room, rather than upon the street or even in some secluded spot upon the slopes approaching Gethsemane, where they would have been liable to early dis- turbance. Indeed, a solitary place outside of the garden itself must have been hard to find, amid the booths and tents of passover week. t Edeksheim. 305 20 OUK ELDER BROTHER. had come forth from the Father and who was about to return to the Father. It is the total impression of this farewell discourse, that it is of a piece with the Old Testament in its representations of the love of God. The disciples must have recalled those precious words : — " I have loved thee with an everlasting love." " Can a women forget her suckling child ? She may forget ; yet will I not forget thee." "I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands." " I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." " In thine affliction, I am afflicted." Jesus stood for the unity of God's self -revelation of love inexpressible : God is love.* And at this supreme moment Jesus imparted to his disciples his own joy and deep seated peace, — "my peace I give unto you." \ And then, just as he was going forth to agonize with the Father alone in Gethsemane, he uttered those triumphant words, "I am not alone, because the Father is with me." * It is impossible to emphasize this point too strongly. Jesus himself was but the expression of God's affection for the human race. The entire mission of the Saviour, his life, his death, was a failure, unless in it there was brought into the world the idea of a loving Father, anguished over the sins of men. ' ' In Christ, God reveals his love as entirely seK-moved. Man is not required to do anjrthing to kindle loving-kindness in the heart of God ; if loving-kindness and mercifulness are not eternal in God, nothing which man can do could create them there : he might as well suppose that it depends on him to kindle sunbeams in the sun ; God's love in its over- flowing fullness pours forth like the sunshine, illuminating and quickening the universe, and therein revealing God." — Samuel Harris, LL.D. f " These are last words, as one who is about to go away, and says ' Good night, ' or gives his blessing. ' ' — Luther. 306 THE PASCHAL FEAST. And he who had been born in a stable now made to his disciples a promise of heavenly mansions. And he who was to die on the morrow at the beck of more than two millions of his countrymen, addressed a small band of his followers who were to be scattered- within an hour, — " Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." He had indeed conquered ; and the victory was to be his, throughout all ages, until time shall be no more. THE seventeenth chapter of John was read to John Knox daily, during his last sickness ; and Bossuet had it read to him threescore times, when upon his bed of dying.* It is the only prayer of Jesus, on record, — unless of one clause, or in the Lord's prayer. The hour had come ; his mission as the Giver of eternal life — the knowledge of God — was now about to be finished : conscious of the glory that should follow his sacrifice, his words read like a snatch from a poem out of paradise ; filled as it is with thought at high range, befitting the Son of God. He prayed for the unity of his disciples, and for their sanctiflcation in the truth, and for those who, in all after ages, should believe through their testimony. And in this prayer, Jesus anticipated the vital union of the disciples with himself in future eons of bliss ; a union * These incidents beautifully illustrate the 20th verse, "Neither pray I for these alone." When Knox became a Protestant, he said that he first cast anchor in the seventeenth of John ; here he found something for his troubled soul to hold by. 307 OUR ELDER BROTHER. appropriately symbolizedby the Unity of the Blessed Trinity, "As thou art in me," "that they may be one in us " : so should they be made the sharers of his glory. "Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given me, be with me where I am." Day has touched the heavenly hills, We are free from earthly ills ; Death is o'er and life begun, — Life is hid in God's own Son : Hallelujah. Time is past, and every sin, Through the gates we enter in ; Sing we then the newest song, — Praising Christ in tuneful throng : Hallelujah. 308 CHAPTER THREE. Amid, ttie Olives. I IS midnight ; and on Olive's brow V The star is dimmed that lately shone ; 'Tis midnight ; and in the garden now, • The suffering Saviour prays alone. " 'Tis midnight ; and from all removed, Immanuel wrestles lone with fears : E'en the disciple that he loved Heeds not his -Master's grief and tears. " 'Tis midnight ; and for others' guilt. The Man of Sorrows weeps in blood ; Yet he that hath in anguish knelt Is not forsaken by his God. " 'Tis midnight ; and from ether-plains Is borne the song that angels know ; Unheard by mortals are the strains That sweetly soothe the Saviour's woe." * * William B. Tappan, a.d. 1819. [BOOK VII.] 309 OUK ELDER BEOTHEE. HEN Jesus had spoken these words,* and when they had sung an hynin,f he went forth as he was wont, over the brook Kedron to the Mount of Olives ; and his disciples also followed him. Then Cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, where was a garden, into the which he entered, and his disciples. The present site of the garden, with its eight olive trees, sixteen or seventeen hundred years old, if not the original location, is but slightly to the south of it. In reaching it, the company came down four or five hundred feet to the valley, crossed the stream, and then ascended perhaps two hundred and fifty feet. It was a private garden, whose honored and unknown owner was friendly to Jesus, who went there so often that Judas knew the place. There were sheepfolds on the slopes of Olivet, near by, bereft of their lambs for the passover ; and here he who was to be led as a lamb to the slaughter, soiight to be alone for prayer, to fortify himself for the dread hour ; and that he might not be surprised at his devotions by the arrest so imminent, he set Peter and James and John to watch. And he was him- self so constantly upon the lookout, that whenever he had been alone a little while, he approached his sleeping night- guard to see whether Judas was not there too. * John xviii : 1 . ^-.^n-~-vx-^^^x-v^^.-v,^ t Probably the last part of the 118th Psalm, the close of the Hallel, the great song of praise to God, comprising Psalms cxv-cxviii, which was sung at the close of the passover ; as Psalms cxiii-cxiv were sung at the beginning. 310 THE GARDEN OF THE LORD It seems likely that the disciples, within earshot, were so drowsy that they heard but a fragment of the broken prayers of Jesus, yet the keynote of the petition was thrice uttered ; though, after the first time, in slightly modified form. Even before he was quite alone with God, it is said that he began to be "sore amazed" or "troubled" (the word means separation from home ,at a time of trial), and "desolate" or "very heavy"; and he saith unto his dis- ciples, " My soul is exceeding sorrowful [" encompassed on all sides by grief," as if all God's waves had gone over him], even unto death." It was, says Bishop Lightfoot, a "confused, restless, half-distracted state which is pro- duced by physical derangement or mental distress."* He poured out his soul unto death. Incoherent anguish he knew, else could he never have been a sympathizing Sav- iour for groaning, sobbing human wretchedness, helpless and uttering piercing outcries to God. " The experience of Jesus," says President Dwight,t " in its contrast with other hours before and after, the change of feeling from triumphant confidence and victorious calm- ness, is wonderful but not inexplicable. The closing hours of his work and life must, as it would seem, have been filled with thoughts moving outward and forward toward the great triumphs of his Kingdom in the coming years and ages, and also with thoughts of that mysterious trial of soul *Pkojfe8SOE Edwards A. Park speaks of our Lord, in this hour, as "moving to and fro, now walking, now standing still, now falling down, now uttering broken prayers." f In the Sunday School Times. 311 OUR ELDER BROTHER. which was so soon to be undergone. The alternations from one to the other must have been frequent and sudden. The dark hours and the light hours must have drawn closely- together." "As an exegetical question," says Dr. Samuel T. Spear,* " there can be no reasonable doubt that he referred to the cup of his sufferings and death on the cross, which he saw to be imrhediately impending, and of which he then, for some reason, had a vivid, appalling, and overwhelming vision. His human nature, for the moment, shuddered and shrank under that terrible apprehension, and was moved to its pro- foundest depths." The sensitive mind of Jesus foreknew his end, and all the fore-shadows fell upon Gethsemane. Amid the dark brown trunks of the olive trees, and their quivering gray leaves, in the light of the full moon, he saw that scene so soon to appear on Golgotha. There was a physical shrinking ; arising perhaps from physical exhaustion, f A lifeless pallor overspread his face, as he stood before God alone, in the dimly lighted darkness that shrouded Gethsemane. No argument of reason, no strength of faith, nor ardor of hope can remove the instinctive horror which repels the thought of personally undergoing death ; which in the case *In The Independent. f Jesus entered his work as a hai'd-handed and rugged day laborer, in the full maturity of early manhood ; yet, says Bushnell, "he put himself into his great ministry with such momentum and constancy, giving so much counsel, expending so much sympathy, suffering so great waste of sorrow, that he died like one ripened by full age." 313 THE GARDEN OF THE LORD. of Jesus was death in the midst of life, death by violence, death bj protracted torture ; death associated with betrayal by one, denial by another, desertion by all, death accom- panied by calumnious accusation, malignant spite, and murderous frenzy, — death moreover as the representative of sinful men. In some mysterious manner he bore our guilt ; upon his spirit weighed the burden of our sinfulness, of which the most terrible proof was being given in his re- jection and murder. "The Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all." Death, too, in what seemed desertion by God, as though heaven was closed against him, — man murdering him, God forsaking him. His sensitive humanity shrank from such a cup.* This story is too true. It would never have been made up by men creating a myth ; it would have been deemed inconsistent with what went before it and the triumphant issue. If divine, Jesus was also human ; f and he broke down utterly. "The flesh will quiver, when the pincers tear:" and notwithstanding all the high courage of the Redeemer of the world up to the close of his public ministry, and the . private discourse with his own, yet when he took a little time to be alone before the armed mob should be upon him, * This entire paragraph should be credited to the Rev. Newmaij Hall, LL.B. ; being culled, condensed, and adapted from the Doctor's paper upon " Christ's Prayer in Gethsemane, " published in the Congrega- tionaiist some years since. f " If Jesus Christ seemed to fear death, it was because he conde- scended to all the weakness of humanity ; his body trembled, but his soul was immovable." — Voltaire. 313 OUB ELDER BROTHER. he could but let fall drops of sweat, as if great drops of blood, and thrice beseech the Father, if possible, that he might be spared drinking the bitter cup of sorrow ; yet never failed this Son Divine to qualify his words in sweet submission, " As Thou wilt." WHEN Jesus, as child, youth, and man, began to enter- tain the idea of his Messianic mission, he knew that he was to be heavenly minded ; but he did not, at first, know that he would be killed on that account. He was a holy child, pure as a lily, when he first encountered the rabbis at Jerusalem ; nor did he, for some time, suspect that his very innocence was against him, among the leaders of Israel. He never did a wrong act or was conscious of sin, — little apprehending that he would die between two thieves. He comforted every mourner, and he bore about with him light and love ; nor did he think at first that he would be buffeted and spit upon by the " people of God." He came ultimately, however, to understand fully what would befall anyone who dared live at cross-purposes with the high priest and his unholy clique. And his gentle, lov- ing spirit recoiled in horror at the deliberate wickedness of hypocrites who thrust aside the rightful heir, and claimed God's heritage as their own. He who could look on no sin with allowance, he who was of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, was clad in human form, with fleshly limitations ; and he recoiled from the ignominy of being caught like a 314 THE GARDEN OF THE LORD. criminal by a night search, and he shrank from encounter- ing demons who delighted in torture. What other was Gethsemane than the awaking of Jesus to the horrors of his situation ? While the disciples slept, he was wide awake to the reality of that which he had been dreaming about for years, — that human guilt, which had now gone so far.* He had been steadily looking forward to it, and now the children of Abraham had rejected their Messiah ; and their wickedness was to be consummated in that very hour. And the Friend of sinners could but be grieved that he found the earth in such condition ; since he knew that the ghastly cruelty of Rome, the ghoulish conduct of Jewish rabbis, and the satanic treachery of a disciple, were but an insignificant part of the woes of the world, crying unto heaven in ages past, in ages to come. Was it not this which gave a deadly sickening odor to that cup, which Jesus was now to refuse — or to drink? Well might he have deliberated a little, whether to commis- sion the twelve legions within call to come wheeling down upon the earth and make an end. He chose rather to suf- fer wrong, and he drained the cup. As the Son of the Highest, it remained for him to fulfill God's part, — the dis- play of ineffable love, patience, longsuffering, self-sacrifice. And this he did ; meeting with divine meekness the wrath of those sinners, into whose bloody hands he was falling. * " It was the burden and the mystery of the world's sin which lay heavy on his heart ; it was the tasting, in the divine humanity of a sinless life, the bitter cup which sin had poisoned." — Dean Farrar. 315 OT7R ELDER BROTHER. OEEHAPS Gethsemane stands for far more. A veiling 'jT mist hangs low over the garden of our Saviour's sor- row, and all that passed we cannot know. He was interlocked with the guilt of the world. He alone knew what was in man, knew the depth of human sinfulness, and what it would lead to. Was there nothing more than grieving over the wickedness of the Jews in shedding innocent blood ? Was there nothing more than the agony of slighted love, the unmerited hatred of those he had sought to save ? Conscious of coming out of the eternities into time, and subjecting himself to earthly condition, did he find nothing worse than a bigoted Church ? He was no Jew, even at Gethsemane. The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was made sin for us ; at least in being treated like a sinner by men, and apparently for a moment abandoned by his God. The most guilty of the race could not have had, at the hands of God and man, any greater earthly punishment than was put upon him who was called the Lamb of God. We need not seek for the mysteries of the Atonement in the deep shadows of Gethsemane. The at-one-ment be- tween God and man, wrought out by the life and the death of Christ, is a far wider work than that expressed by the pangs of a moment in the Garden or upon the Cross. These incidents in the life of Jesus are but a part of one long humiliation, of sorrow unto death, to express Infinite horror and Infinite displeasure for the sins of men ; and Infinite love in bearing men's sins, in entering into the fel- 316 THE GAKDBN OF THE LORD. lowship of all human wretchedness. A clear apprehension of this wrath of man in its vain contest with Infinite justice and love, was one of the constituents of our Saviour's cup at Gethsemane. IF it be possible," " If Thou wilt," cried Jesus. Had it been possible, it would have been done. The death of Jesus, prefigured in the paschal lamb, was needful to complete the Atonement. This was the message of the angel, if one appeared to strengthen Jesus ; indeed, the angel was depicted upon canvas, some centuries since, as exhibiting the cross to our Redeemer in the garden. * This is indicated by a certain acquiescence in the second prayer : " O my Father, if this cup may not pass from me, except I drink it, thy will be done."' The depth of the Saviour's anguish is indicated in that his resignation in the second prayer needed to be wrought over again in the third ; he whose voice had quieted the storms of Gen- nesaret, now calling upon God to still the tempest in his heart. So, St. Paul says, Jesus " learned" obedience by the things which he suffered. Aside from the Temptation of our Lord, he passed through no trial that so touches upon the experience of every disciple as this. The Garden, too, * Lute xxii : 43, 44, are left out of manuscripts most ancient. " We may, ' ' however, ' ' well believe that every listening angel around the throne was melted to tears, when three times ' O my Father, if it be pos- sible,' escaped from the lips of the Son of God." — J. L. Withrow, I).D. 317 OUR ELDER BROTHER. throws light upon the Wilderness. He must have had a certain shrinking from becoming a Man of Sorrows, when he laid out his course as to the conduct of the Messianic Kingdom. Yet he never wavered in loyalty to the Father's will and the ancient Scriptural text. Indeed the most marvelous part of this story is the record * that Jesus, after his arrest, bade Peter put up his sword, reminding him of angelic succor hard by, — "But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be ?" "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?"f This shows conclusively what was the nature of the "cup," as well as the settled determination of Jesus to leave the squadrons of angels in the sky, while he himself should be "cut off" according to Daniel ix : 26 ; and fulfill the remarkable prophecy in Isaiah liii : 5-9. 1 When we ask then as to Jesus in Gethsemane, — " Will he not lift up His lips from the bitter cup ; His brows from the dreary weight. His hands from the clenching cross ? " § we know what will be the outcome. His mental discom- posure passed by. This was the form in which the Father answered his prayers. || " The real purpose of that prayer," * Matt, xxvi : 52-54. f John xviii : 11 . J. Compare Mark ix:12; and Luke xxiv : 2tj, 27 ; aud 44-46; also Acts xvii ; 2, 3 ; and xxvi : 22, 23 ; I. Cor. xv : 3. § Elizabeth Barrett Browning, — The Serap/iim. II Compare Hebrews v.: 7, where it is said that the prayer of Jesus was heard. 318 THE GARDEN OF THE LORD. says Bascoin, ' ' was inner strength, a renewed sense of the divine presence, a thorough reconciliation to the divine method." God took the bitterness out of the cup ; removing the sharpness of the agony, and granting him a quiet mind ; yet leaving him the cross. He was delivered from the fear of the cross. "A stream of eternal peace," says Lange, " wells forth from his most arduous conflict in Gethsemane ; the accursed tree itself becomes a mark of honor, when his holy hand touches it." * The last words of Jesus at the Lord's Table were virtually the last in Gethsemane, — "That the world may know that I love the Father ; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do." After Gethsemane, the worst was over, — until he came to drink the dregs of the cup, in the dull and hopeless physical pain, and the spiritual bereavement of his last conscious hours upon the cross. * So what the first Adam lost in the garden of Eden, the Second Adam gained in the garden of Gethsemane. — Suggested by Edersheim. 319 CHAPTER FOUR. The Nlidnight Hour. (^ HE inexpressible distance between Jesus and his dis- i ciples is indicated by the sleep of Peter, James, and ^^LL. John, when they were on guard in the garden of the Saviour's sorrow. His human nature had sought their sympathy ; in the hour of darkness that could be felt, he desired to know that friends were near.* Yet Jesus needed not to say, " Sit ye here, while I go yonder and pray." In those desolate moments, he would have been as much alone with them, as apart. " I looked for some to take pity, and there was none." " I have trodden the winepress alone." It was near midnight, after a hard, exciting day ; and the disciples were grieved and stupefied by the fact that * Commenting upon these events, President Dwight has emphasized the point that Jesus desired Peter to be with him, even though he had but a moment before warned the apostle that he would deny him before morn- ing. " The denial would be but a temporary, even a momentary, lapse; the great movement of life would go forward notwithstanding this, and beyond this. Jesus could keep near to himself, in the darkest hour, one who was to say, with an oath, ' I know not the man.' The line which separated Peter from Judas, — how cleai-ly Jesus saw it." — Article in Sunday School Times by Timothy Dwight, LL.D., Yale University. [Book VII.] 320 "I AM HE." their Lord was soon to be separated from them, they hardly knew how. They were sleeping for sorrow, says St. Luke. They could not have been aware of the pending arrest of Jesus ; although John knew that Judas would betray him, and Jesus had told them at the brook crossing, "All ye shall be offended because of me thig night, for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered."* The apostles were full blooded men, muscular, hearty, with the vigor of scores of years in them, and their eyes were heavy ; they could sleep on the Mount of the Trans- figuration of Jesus, or on the greensward of that holy ground set apart for his exquisite grief. The Master has made their apology, "The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak." "Ye are they," Jesus had said, "which have continued with me in my temptation." And he had more patience with their human infirmity, than has been mani- fested by the sleepless disciples of subsequent ages, f THE rude band of the chief priests and captains of the temple, the elders, and the multitude with them, and the clattering Roman soldiery, now broke into the holy of holies, the praying place of Jesus in the garden. The full moon did not answer and they bore torches to search for * It is noteworthy, that Jesus gave this warning in no reproachful spirit ; but as an occasion for making an appointment for a future meeting with his disciples in Galilee. fMatt. xxvi:45, 46; Markxiv:41. "Sleep on now:" "Rise, let us be going." There was a little interval of time between these two expressions ; the latter referring to the approach of Judas Edersheim. 331 21 OUR ELDER BROTHER. him, as if Jesus were likely to run away and hide himself. Then, too, they were well armed.* And Judas was armed with a kiss. We shudder, when we think that he may have kissed Jesus before that, — so affectionate and approachable was the Son of Man. He might have indicated the person of Jesus by some other token ; he had the heart to do it in this way. Nor did Jesus spurn the embrace of the son of perdition, f WHEN Jesus was sought for to be made a king," says St. Bernard, ' ' he escaped ; but when he was brought to the cross, he freely yielded hinaself." " Whom seek ye ? " he asked ; and as soon as he said unto them, " I am he," they went backward and fell to the ground. " He," saj^s Dr. Withrow, "at whose words wild winds immediately stilled to a great calm, and stormy seas smoothed out as lakes of silver, had but to look on the armed company and the attending rabble, and they fell, as if an electric cloud had been discharged upon them all." There was probably something in the appearance of Jesus which smote the armed band with terror, even if there was no forth-putting of miraculous power. They knew his power, and feared it. * " So also might butchers do well to go armed, when they axe pleased to be afraid of lambs by calling them lions." — Bishop Jeremv Taylor. f The blood money, says Faeeak, bore an olive branch, the emblem of peace ; a censer, the emblem of prayer; and the legend, "Jerusalem, the holy." 322 "I AM HE." Olshausen has said that they were "held by the viewless bands of the Spirit." * He who might have replied by fire and whirlwind, an- swered in a still small voice : " I have told you that I am he. If therefore ye seek me, let these go their way." So he provided for the flight of his disciples. ' ' Foi-sake the Christ thou sawest transfigured. Him Who trod the sea and brought the dead to life? " f Jesus had said, "Of these which thou gavest me, have I lost none." He therefore planned for their escape ; I lest the college of the Apostles be broken up. They had not earlier fled, although warned of it two days before, and again warned an hour before. They citing to him, till Jesus suggested their flight. Peter, however, set out to make good his word,§ "If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee." Had there been any virtue in swords, he would have made good his word. When, however, Jesus bade him resist not, and when his Master did not call on twelve legion of angels, and when he put forth no self-defense but meekly yielded, then Peter knew that the armies of Eome would prove too much for * Dean Farrar has remarked in this connection : ' ' The savage and brutal Gauls could not lift their swords to strike the majestic senators of Rome. ' I cannot slay Marius,' exclaimed the barbarian slave ; fling- ing down his sword, — and flying headlong from the prison into which he had been sent to murder the aged hero. " t Mrs. Browning. J John xviii : 9. § John xviii : 10; compare Mark xiv : 29-31. 32:3 OUR ELDER BROTHER. him alone unaided by the power of his Lord : then fear so unmanned him that he was ready to quail at the approach of a servant girl ; and he quite forgot the voice out of the cloud, "This is my beloved Son." Within sound of the mockery of his enemies, and with their binding cords about him, Jesus was not agitated ; and he still made high claim to control the movements of the armies of heaven. * The calm reliance of Jesus upon celes- tial aid, if need be, instead of raising a mob when he might have done so, to attack his foes, shows that Jesus was no ill-balanced enthusiast. He voluntarily laid down his life, that he might take it again. There is in the Vatican a painting of this wild scene in the garden when the soldiers bore Christ away. A fierce Koman captain is represented as dragging Christ away by grasping at his robe. And a soldier has him by the arm, and a rope is about the Saviour's neck. Another soldier, with clinched fist raised, and who appears to be uttering a loud cry, is close behind our Lord, and spears and battle axes rise on every side like a thicket. In the background, two disciples are running away between the tall trees. In the foreground Peter, with drawn sword, is bending over the prostrate Malchus. And behind him is seen the figure of Judas fieeing, — with his hands clasped, as if he were about to wring them in great agony ; and with a sad, earnest face, as if now at last he were conscious of the great wrong he had wrought, and were now setting his face towards the door of despair. * Matt, xxvi : .53. 324 "I AM HE. Yet the grand figure in the picture is that of Christ him- self, whose face is full of pity for a sinning race ; having the look of one who has just risen from agonizing prayer for the perishing millions, — and now so full of pity for the whole human race as to be scarcely conscious of the acts of those who are bearing him away. And we know that in a moment he touched the wound of Malchus, and went forth to meet his death, led like a paschal lamb to the slaughter. 325 CHAPTER FIVE. A. Trlumptia.nt Nlob. NCE within clutch, the adversaries of Jesus made short work with him ; doing so much in the dark- ness that they had him nailed to the accursed tree by nine o'clock in the morning. There were twenty thousand resident priests in Jerusalem ; and among them all, there were enough who were ready to plait thorns for the Saviour's brow. The tribunal before which Jesus was tried, did not try him at all. It was only a form for announcing what they had long intended to do, — to murder him in some author- ized form. There was no charge substantiated, save that to which he confessed then and there, and of which, before that time, they had often heard him speak, — that he claimed to be the Messiah. Jesus was really condemned for free speech, which those who then sat in Moses' seat did not allow, except on their own side. Corrupt and wicked as they were, they would not have objected to his Messiahship, had he been at one with them. Jesus, as a teacher, became a martyr to in- [BooK VII.] 320 THE CROWN OF THORNS. tolerance.* It was feared lest his foes lose their grip on the perquisites of the Mosaic system. Bitter and malignant were these wicked husbandmen, who rose and slew him whom they should have reverenced, that they might claim his inheritance. They had been waiting an occasion when they could slay the Saviour in safety to themselves. If at any time they had stoned him for blasphemy, they would have offended the people and Pilate. Since the resurrection of Lazarus, they had taken counsel together ; and they had planned it all out. And now they were going to give the Paschal Lamb a " trial," before butchering him : it was not a question of guilt or innocence. The high priest's office was much sought for, affording peculiar privileges for trading in the temple, and for mak- ing gain through various oppressions connected with the political relation of the high priest to the Roman power ; when he was subservient, he virtually ruled Israel, and greatly enriched himself. Resolute and calm stood the Saviour of men before the high priest of his nation, with face downcast as might become one in the presence of him who represented the Mosaic ritual ; and over against him stood the violent and mitered priest,— disturbed, and eager for condemning his victim to the paschal sacrifice. At about four o'clock, upon this morning of the seventh of April, the Sanhedrin ap- * ' ' Champion of a divine morality, he drew the world after him ; he had but to speak the word, and his enemies were no more. But he who came to destroy intolerance, refrained from imitating it." — Kousseau. 327 OUE ELDER BROTHER. peared. And he who was called the "Faithful Witness," was now accused by false witness, — but those testifying did not agree, and nothing came of it ; nor could the high priest have been greatly surprised at the " peace " of Jesus in answering nothing, — " as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth." Then came the main question : , " I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of the Blessed." In answer to this, and quite in con- trast with his silence upon false accusation, Jesus at once affirmed his Messiahship ; this was true, and he empha- sized it.* More than once, the Jews had taken up stones to stone Jesus for saying the same thing ; f but his death was re- served till the high priest might oflRcially offer him up at the passover. Caiaphas now solemnly rent his clothes, saying, J " He hath spoken blasphemy. What need we of witnesses ? What think ye ? " They answered, and said, " He is guilty of death." So he was made sin, who knew no sin ; so far at least as to be treated like a sinner, — a blasphemer. The truth is, however, that the crime of the high priest and the council of seventy is divested of all dignity, and defense ; even if they believed, contrary to the Scriptures, that the Messiah was to be human, § they stand convicted and condemned for having treated the Christ like a com- *Matt. xxvi:63, 64. f John viii : 59 and x : 31. JMatt. xxvi : 65, 66. ^Vide article Son of God in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible. 328 THE CROWN OF THORNS. mon blasphemer, utterly ignoring the miraculous tokens — which they admitted * — of his divine mission, and cavil- ing at his claims, because his teaching undermined their own position. Even Pilate could discern their motives, knowing that the chief priests had delivered him for envy, f The consent of Pilate was needful in order to put Jesus to death ; and until the Roman governor could be found, the high priest and distinguished masters in Israel took the time for insulting Jesus. In the house of the high priest, he who had denounced hypocrites was now set upon as a hypocritical pretender to the Messiahship. He who had opened the eyes of so many of the blind, was now blind- folded ; and those cheeks, which had been wet by tears of sympathy for mourners, and tears for Jerusalem, were spit upon. He who had healed the withered hand, was now struck by hands which he would not wither in return. Such miraculous power abode in him, that healing went forth from the hem of his garment, and his " voice could command every element of destruction, and add thereto legions of invisible spirits ; and yet he had to bear the contumely of every worthless menial, who could sharpen his tongue or lift up his heel against him." | When reviled, he reviled not again. He manifested no impatience toward the scowling priests. He made no murmuring and uttered no complaint when they buffeted •John xi : 47. f Matt, xxvii : 18. t These quoted words are from Edward Irving. 339 OUR ELDER BROTHER. him. He met their taunts with holy resignation. He drank the bitter cup, enduring the contradiction of sinners against himself. " He was not," says Edersheim, "defenseless but undefending, not vanquished but uncontending, not help- less but majestic in voluntary self-submission for the high- est purpose of love." By the very conditions of his holy nature, he could resort to no human weakness even if backed up by divine power in avenging himself, but he committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.* THE chief priests now bound Jesus and delivered him to Pontius Pilate. The governor's quarters were in Herod's palace, whose magnificence is portrayed by Jewish historians. The broad avenues leading thither were thronged by the mob ; and the trees with cross-like arms overhung the Man of Sorrows, and the cool waters of arti- ficial streams gurgled mournfully at the world's great grief, as Jesus walked beside them between the Roman soldiers. It is grimly and grotesquely related f that the priests piously kept themselves out of Pilate's precincts, lest they be defiled by his heathen hall of justice. They, too, who had sought repeatedly to stone Jesus, now took great pains to inform J Pilate that it was unlawful for them to put any- *I. Peterii; 23. What, however, human ■weakness would usually do, can be seen by consulting Dante's Inferno, where he speaks of the fate of Judas, and the eternal crucifixion of Caiaphas. f John : xviii : 28. | John xviii : 28. 330 THE CROWN OF THOBNS. body to death ; and they wanted him to kill Jesus for them. At this stage of the proceedings,, however, these persons, so scrupulous to observe strict law and equity, were careful not to tell Pilate what was the real charge against Jesus ; that they looked on him as a malefactor ought, they said, to satisfy the governor. They knew that Pilate would never kill Jesus upon the original charge of his claiming to be the Messiah. This throws light on the character of the Seventy who " tried " and condemned Jesus. With them it was, truly, not in the slightest degree a question of guilt or innocence ; it was a question of how to get Jesus killed. It was no " defile- ment " for them to lie ; they could swear falsely, and then go on with their passover undisturbed. They said that Jesus perverted the nation, forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King. Pilate questioned Jesus therefore as to his kingship. He found him indeed a king, self -poised, with no quickening of heart beats in the presence of Eoman power and Roman cruelty. Jesus claimed to be a king, but not of this world, having no servants to fight, — a, king in the realm of truth,* winning conquests age after age in all lands. Here in the very presence of his executioner, Jesus " expected to lift his crumbling arm out of the grave, and sway with it the living world." f * " What is truth, asked Pilate ; and he stayed not for an answer. " — Bacon's Essays. ■f Samuel Harris, LL.D. 331 OUR ELDER BROTHER. As to a carnal kingdom, the attack of the Jews upon Jesus was grounded upon this : that Jesus was not a politi- cal king in the sense that they supposed the Messiah would be ; and yet, at their instigation, Pilate cut him off on the pretext that he aspired to be a political king. * After Pilate's first examination of Jesus, however, in his "trial," the vacillating Pilate pronounced Jesus inno- cent. The Jews then rallied with new charges, accusing Jesus of many things. Yet Jesus was silent in the judg- ment hall, and he answered nothing to their false witness. And when the astonished Pilate asked, " Answerest thou nothing ? " Jesus still answered nothing ; he would not put himself on a level with liars, to affirm or deny, f When, however, Pilate gave his verdict upon their "many things" of accusation, "I find no fault in this man," the chief priests were. the more fierce, saying, "He stirreth up the people, from Galilee to this place." This Pilate caught at, and sent Jesus to Herod, who happened to * " They laid information against him before the Roman government as a dangerous character ; their real complaint against him was precisely this, that he was not dangerous. Pilate executed him on the ground that his Kingdom was of this world ; the Jews procured his execution pre- cisely because it was not. ' ' — Ecce Homo. t The Roman governor evidently thought Jesus would wrangle and retort, as was common in the Orient. But it did not occur to the Son of God that this would comport with his sonship ; one of the tokens of which was a dignified and Divine silence. " My Father honoreth me, "he had said ; and he little heeded what the chief priests and elders were saying. Making no reply to their false accusations, he was content with hearing celestial voices that bestowed upon his name honor, and glory, and bless- ing. 333 THE CROWN OF THORNS. be in town, and who had jurisdiction over matters Galilean. So Pilate and Herod, who had been at enmity, now shook hands over the condemnation of Christ. Herod on his part was glad to see Jesus, hoping he would exhibit before him some miracle, and " he questioned with him in many words," but not one word did he get in reply from one who held him beneath contempt. Then the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused Jesus. Herod, how- ever, after hearing them, made up his mind that Jesus as a pretender to a kingship was not a seriously dangerous char- acter. Herod and his valiants spent their time, therefore, mocking at Jesus as an innocent fanatic ; and they arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, to suit his kingly claims, and sent , him back to Pilate, — who thereupon said that he would re- lease Jesus, since both he and Herod found in him nothing worthy of death. Even if the governor played fast and loose with the principal priests, he was, however, as a politician, bound to content the masses of the people whatever might happen to Jesus. According to custom, the offer was now made to the multitude to release Jesus, or Barabbas who was in prison for sedition and murder. The chief priests and elders persuaded the mob to ask Barabbas and destroy Jesus. So was the Messiah despised and rejected of men. Now Pilate, willing to release Jesus, spoke again, " What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called Christ ? " Nor did it occur to him to ask, " What will this man called Christ do with me ? " Then arose that dread cry,"Crucifyhim," "Crucify him." 333 OUR ELDER BROTHER. Pilate had reason to fear a Jewish mob. When he had once taken the Roman standards, surmounted with the idolatrous image of the emperor, within the sacred pre- cincts of the temple, the mob had shut up the governor five days in his palace, till he removed them. Zealots for the law, the hard-hearted, the sanctimonious Pharisees, and the fickle mob gathered by the festal days from every village from Dan to Beersheba — including the rude Nazarenes, who had always said that Jesus was an im- poster, — were now all in full cry, " Crucify him," " Crucify him." Yet Pilate argued with their leaders : " Why ? What evil hath he done ? " So, for the third time, he pronounced Jesus innocent. And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he "took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person : see ye to it." Vain it was that he washed his hands : he did not wash them in innocency.* * Impressive are the words of an English primate, tiie Archbishop OF York : — " Of one who represented for eleven years the horrible might of Rome to the prostrate Jewish people, it may be said that almost nothing is now known except that he put to death One whom the Jews spoke of as the Carpenter's Son, In ten thousand congregations every Sunday this crime is commemorated. There is something strange and awful in this unsought 334 THE CROWN OF THOKNS. , Loudly cried the Jewish people in answer to their Roman ruler, ' ' His blood be on us, and on our children " : a curse so horrible in its fulfillment, that its prescience had already moved their rejected Messiah to tears. Then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him ; and his sol- diers stripped him, and put on a scarlet robe, and they plaited a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and a reed in his right hand, and they bowed the knee, and mocked him as a sham king ; and they spit upon him, and took the reed and smote hina on the head. He who had plied the scourge in cleansing his Father's house, now yielded his back to the smiters.* Yet no word of complaint arose from the patient sufferer. He had al- ready foretold these very indignities ; f and since they were all subservient to the death before him, he " hid not his face from shame and spitting." So was Jesus made a curse for us, — treated as an accursed one. The crown of thorns, the bleeding brow, be ours ; if pre-eminence in infamy. There is something awful in the fact that a crime "which he sought to disavow was really perpetrated through him ; that it proved to be the greatest wickedness which the world has ever seen, although Pilate knew it not ; and that this unhappy man, after he had ended his earthly troubles by the death of a suicide, should never be allowed to sink into the dark oblivion that he courted for himself when he ended his spoilt and frustrated life. Down all the ages echo the words of condemnation — ' Crucified under Pontius Pilate, crucified under Pontius Pilate.' " *Th9 gore of criminals lately scourged, still marked the pillar to which our Lord was fastened by an iron ring ; blood, too, upon the leather thongs, with their cubes or hooks of bone. fLukexviii: 31-33. 335 OUR ELDER BROTHER. by being mocked at, we may honor his name, or serve the souls for which he suffered shame. Pilate could but be moved by the spectacle of our Saviour's meekness and majesty under torture and insult ; and he again protested the innocence of Jesus, as he brought him forth, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe : "Behold the man." And there stood Jesus amid the spears of the soldiers, amid the clamoring priests, amid a human surging sea ; and again his ears were pierced with the maddened cry, " Crucify him," " Crucify him." Pilate once more protested his innocence : "I find no fault in him." Then the chief priests, seeing that their charge of political offense had utterly fallen through, finally told Pilate the truth, " We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God." Upon this recurrence to the old charge kept secret till now, Pilate examined Jesus anew ; * this charge being new to him. It seemed credible to Pilate that his prisoner had rule in a spiritual kingdom, and he was afraid to go for- ward.! He asked Jesus whence he came : but there was no answer. " Speakest thou not to me ? I have power to crucify thee, or to release thee." " Thou couldest have no power against me, except it were given thee from above : therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin." Caiaphas was worse than Pilate. *Johnxix: 8-11. f His wife had already warned him to have nothing to do with that just man. ilatt. xxvii : 19. 336 THE CROWN OP THORNS. Thenceforth, it is said, Pilate sought to release him.* But Caiaphas was equal to the emergency. He knew Pilate better than Pilate did ; he knew that he was a politi- cian : — "If thou let this man go, thou art not Csesar's friend. \ This was touching the governor at a tender point. If Jesus with his amazing influence were to be spared, the Jews would accuse their governor at Eome. It was a threat, and it succeeded. The order for crucifixion was signed. J The result of this trial for Jesus was to establish his innocence. As the Paschal Lamb, he was without spot or blemish ;§ and as such he was offered as a sacrifice by the high priest at the passover. * " Contemporary historians tell us that Pilate was an b,ustere and cruel man, a man of firm resolves, and one who shrank not from the de- struction of human life : but we see here, that for once the cruel man be- came merciful; for once, the man of resolve became timid." — - F. W. Robertson. t Those who made boast to Jesus that they were never in bondage to any man, now claimed no king but Caesar. J The "trial " of Jesus was really the trial of Caiaphas and of Pilate, by which the world has. condemned them. It cannot be said that it was a matter of indifference to Pilate whether Jesus perished ; yet it was not in him to risk becoming a political martyr to save the innocent. And the bigotry of the Jews and the malignity of the chief priests did not lead him to think the religion of Judea better than the heathenism of Rome, so that he decided according to a Roman standard : Caiaphas knew better, save as he was blinded by the god of this world. (II. Cor. iv : 4.) § Exodus xii : 5 ; and repeated with ceaseless iteration in the Hebrew books. 337 ^ CHAPTER SIX. The Darkness at Noonday. g '^wj OLGOTHA was a dome-like ledge, or slightly ris- I ' ^ I ing rocky ground with summit rounded like a V£_^I~ skull, nigh to Jerusalem, and a little north of the city, where criminals were commonly executed, — and there our Saviour suffered like a condemned thief. Sad indeed was that funeral procession, when Jesus was led forth : a soldier first of all, bearing a legend publishing the crime of Jesus, his earthly kingship they said it was ; then came four soldiers and their centurion, and they bore the wicked hammer and the cruel nails ; and Jesus walked between them, staggering under the weight of that rugged beam, which as the true cross was now distinguished from all other trees of earth, — he walked silently with blood stained garments marked by thorns and scourge ; then came the two robbers, each with his own cross, and each with soldier guard ; then walked the triumphant chief priests, the scribes and Pharisees, learned rabbis and the elders of Israel, and that malignant mob, whose outcries for crucifixion had prevailed, and Barabbas perchance so early released now joined the throng, and perhaps that recreant whom Jesus had healed that he might enter into league with the enemies [Book vn.] 338 THE PROCESSION TO CALVARY. of our Lord ; then, struggling along after the motley multi- tude had gone by, came a wailing and lamenting company,* and St. John and Mary the mother of Jesus among them. Then there came — who shall say that they did not come — an innumerable company of angels — not now needed to defend the Christ ; those angels who sang at his birth, his guardian spirits who had sustained Jesus when distressed in the wilderness or moaning and sobbing in the garden, those principalities and powers who were to bear their part in the tragedy of the crucifixion, rending the rocks and hanging the skies in black, those faithful ones who were to stand beside the Roman soldiers at the tomb of Jesus, — they were all here, with folded wings and tearful eyes, with martial step and hands upon their sword hilts, ready to rescue the patient sufferer if he should choose not to lay down his life for a guilty world. All the way was a Via Dolorosa, " The Way of Sorrows, traversed by Jesus in pain and agony, watered with his tears, bathed in the blood which flowed from his sacred veins." f Was there no devout and sympathizing child to wipe the bloody sweat from the Saviour's face ? Was there no curse for gross insults offered to the Lord of glory ? He who upheld the worlds by the word of his power, now fainted under the weight of his cross. The torturing wood, the instrument of cruelty from Asia, was now laid by *Luke xxiii : 27-31. "Daughters of Jerusalem," said our Lord, " weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children." A prophetic saying, fulfilled in the lifetime of many of them. t Padre Agostino da Montbpeltro. 339 OUR ELDER BROTHER. a European mandate, upon strong shoulders from Africa, — the continents so bearing a part in the Saviour's crucifixion ; the executives and the soldiers of Rome, the accusers of Judea, and the merciful Cyrenian, representing the known world. " When Simon came out of the country to Jerusa- lem, one April morning, he was an obscure and unknown man : but when the cross of Jesus was laid upon his shoul- der, his patent of nobility was secure ; and wide as the world, and lasting as the ages, is the fame of the man who bore the Saviour's cross." * Edersheim interprets Mark XV : 32, as indicating that Jesus, who had not tasted food or drink since the paschal supper, now needed to be supported during the remainder of the way. THEY reached the place, says Mark, at nine o'clock ; perhaps not twelve hours after our Lord had broken the bread, and tasted the cup, with his disciples : so great was the haste of the friends of Judas. The Roman cour- tesy of a draught of drugged wine, to deaden sensibility, Jesus rejected. And now was fulfilled the Messianic words that Jesus had pondered in the carpenter's shop, " They pierced my hands and my feet." It had been written, that unto Christ every knee should bow, and every tongue should swear. Yet in the place of allegiance, men stood up, and nailed him high ; and moved *Rbv. H. L. Hastings. The sons of Simon are named by St. Mark, — as if they were known as Christians. 340 THE PROCESSION TO CALVARY. their tongues to curse the anointed of God. How strange the fulfillment of prophecy : of Christ it had been written, " Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things " ; yet the right hand of Christ was pierced with nails. The hand that wielded the scepter of the universe was stretched out empty. The hands that had wrested the victims of death from his power were now made fast by the messengers of death. Those feet that were to bruise the head of the serpent, and press the neck of man's immortal enemy, were torn by the rough iron spikes. ' ' Those blessed feet were nailed For our advantage on the bitter cross." Then was fulfilled the prophecy concerning the Messiah, that he should bear the sin of many, and make interces- sion for the transgressors: "Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they do."* The hammering soldiers knew nothing of the character and dignity of our Lord ; who was praying for them, — as the friend of the un- friendly. " I believe that prayer was answered," says D wight L. Moody. " We find that right there in front of the cross, a Roman centurion was converted. It was probably in answer to the Saviour's prayer. The conversion of the thief, I believe, was in answer to that prayer of our' blessed Lord. Saul of Tarsus may have heard it, and the words * " Christ forgave Ms murderers before his blood was cold on their hands." — President E. D. Griffin, LL.D. 341 OUK ELDER BROTHER. may have followed him as he traveled to Damascus; so that when the Lord spoke to him on the way, he may have recognized the voice. One thing we do know ; that on the day of Pentecost some of the enemies of the Lord were con- verted. Surely that was in answer to the prayer, " Father, forgive them."* The patient suffering of our Lord, and his prayer for his murderers, melted the centurion's heart ; and the strange portents that accompanied the death of Jesus satisfied him that he had crucified a righteous man, — nay, "the Son of God " ; an acknowledgment of divinity that came too late. The most wonderful part, however, of the Saviour's patient thoughtfulness and petition, relates to his true murderers, the Jews, who stood behind Pilate: "Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they do." f The prayer of Jesus was not for God's wrath, but for God's pity upon his foes. I So Jesus, says Alford, " inaugurates his interces- * " Biinyan in his Jerusalem Sinner Saved," says Mr. Moody, " sup- poses Christ, after his resurrection, sending Peter to all sorts of men. Go, Peter, and tell that man who spat in my face that I forgive him. Go and tell that man who placed the crown of thorns upon my head, that if he repent I will forgive him and grant him a crown of glory with no thorn in it. Tell that man who struck me with the reed and sent the thorns into my brow, that I wiU foi'give him and give him a scepter in my kingdom. Tell that man who smote me with his hand I forgive him ; the man who took the spear and pierced my side, that my blood cleanseth from all sin. ' ' t So Peter (Acts iii : 17) said, " I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also yom- rulers." And St. Paul (I. Cor. ii: 8) affirms that " none of the princes of this world knew ; for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." t S. Bauinq Gould contrasts this passage with Psalm cxviii : 11, 12. 342 THE PROCESSION TO CALVAKT. serial office, — his teaching ended, his high priesthood begun." * Not yet were the eyes of cruelty moistened,not yet were priestly consciences stirred by remorse. But the prayer was answered on the day of pentecost next following. St. Stephen, too, heard the prayer of Jesus, and in the hour of his own martyrdom he kneeled, and cried with a loud voice, " Lord, lay not this sin to their charge " : and when he had said this, he fell asleep. WHAT kind of a man Pilate was, appeared in the false inscription he put up, — knowing that Jesus claimed only a spiritual kingdom ; yet having wronged his con- science by crucifying the innocent, he now advertised to the world that Jesus was after all a political offender. " Pilate gave Christ the title of king, and crucified him as a thief." f He, too, placed the malefactors on either side of the inno- cent, — the holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners ; so numbering him with the transgressors. Now Jesus saw that he ^was already numbered with the dead, since his only earthly store, his travel-worn clothing tattered and stained by his contact with the mob, was now divided out under his eyes. And when he saw them part- * In respect to this divine spirit of our Lord, how true are the thought- ful words of Rousseau : "If the life and death of Socrates ai'e those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God." f Antonio de Guevaka. 343 OUR ELDER BROTHER. ing his garments among them, and casting lots upon his vesture, he could but call to memory that ancient Hebrew hymn, which must have seemed to him, in his early man- hood when he began to discern that the Messiah would be a Man of Sorrows, the song of his own crucifixion. * And then Jesus saw the careless soldiers, faithful in their guard, sit down at the foot of the cross to watch his life away. "They looked at the sufferings of Christ, and saw nothing. These rude legionaries gazed for hours on what has touched the world ever since, and saw nothing but a dying Jew. They thought about the worth of the clothes, or about how long they would have to stop there, and in the presence of the most stupendous fact in the world's history were all unmoved ; and tramped back at night to their barracks utterly ignorant of what they had been doing. We too may gaze on the cross, and see noth- ing." t There were not, however, wanting certain friendly eyes t to watch their thorn-crowned Saviour; going forth unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. Angelic spirits, too, were waiting, bowing their sad faces, * The garment without seam, woven from the top throughout, was, to Jesus, some friendly token. Did it come from the grateful home of Jairus? Was it made by one who found healing in the hem of his garment? Was it the gift of Mary of Magdala? A soldier won it at dice. Did he wear it in scenes of shame and violence? Was it soon rolled in blood? Was he softened, and saved by it, and made meet for heaven? f Alexander McLaren, D.D., in the Sunday School Times. X Luke xxiii : 49 ; Heb. xiii : 13. 344 THE PROCESSION TO CALVARY. as Jesus extended his arms upon the cross to bless the world from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof. " No rod, no scepter is Holden in His fingers pale : They close instead upon the nail, Concealing the sharp dole — Never stirring to put by , The fair hair peaked with blood, Drooping forward from the rood Helplessly — heavily — On the cheek that waxeth colder, Whiter ever, — and the shoulder Where the government was laid." * " Bound upon the accursed tree, Faint and bleeding, who is He ? By the eyes so pale and dim, Streaming blood and withering limb ; By the flesh with scourges torn ; By the crown of twisted thorn ; By the baffled, burning thirst ; By the drooping, death-dewed brow — Son of Man, 'tis Thou, 'tis Thou." f UN'FRIENDLY faces, too, had gathered to watch Jesus, when his life was slowly ebbing away, — the weight of the body ever tugging at the pierced tendons of the hands, and pressing upon the broken bones and pierced muscles of the feet. It would appear that wicked hands were rubbed in glee, as if demons had become priests of * Elizabeth Barrett Browsting, — " The Seraphim." t Quoted by Tholuck in Light from the Cross. 345 OUR ELDER BROTHER. Israel, upon the "preparation day" for the passover Sab- bath. Ghastly was the merry making of those who wagged their heads, in derision of exquisite anguish. We can but shudder at the elaborated terms of derision employed by the chief priests ; words caught at by the coarse and savage soldiery. Coming and going on the high road not far away, there was a constant succession of passers-by, from the vast con- course present at the passover, to heap affronts upon the silent sufferer. He who of late was moved by compassion at seeing the multitude as sheep without a shepherd, now half forgot himself in grieving over the surging throngs about the cross ; and the guilt of the jeering priests dis- tressed him more than their sarcasms. They admitted that Jesus had saved others, and knew not that it was to save others that he was now lifted up. They taunted him with inability to save himself and come down from the cross. He could have done it : it was his divine love, and not the nails, that fastened him to the shameful wood. " In that breast wrung by mortal agony," says Tholuck, " there still dwells the consciousness that he is a king, who voluntarily submits himself to all the out- rage and suffering his rebellious subjects put upon him." Do you exalt the greatness of man ? Behold his guilt. Josephus says, " I believe that if the Romans had not come upon this wicked race when they did, an earthquake would have swallowed them up, or a flood have drowned them, or the lightnings of Sodom struck them. For this generation was more ungodly than all that had suffered such punish- 346 THE PROCESSION TO CALVARY. ments." "Had I been there," cried Clovis, "I would have avenged Christ's wrongs." * It is written : " Cursed is every one that hangeth upon the tree." The cross was a public shame, attracting the eyes of the millions as could not have been done had Jesus been stoned by a mob. It was like dying, in these days, upon the gallows, f It subjected one to the scorn of the blind and brutal populace. Yet Jesus endured the cross, despising the shame. The sufferings of crucifixion were not intense enough to cause unconsciousness ; but the long continuance of the torment made it unendurable, or it was as horrible in every way as could be endured. It is possible that the Crucified One, at first, before dizziness made it impossible to think connectedly, may have attempted, by force of will, to divert his thoughts from centering on himself, by mechanically running over the Psalms he had learned in * It was so said, when St. Remy fij-st rehearsed the story of the Pas- sion at the French Court. The black and silent cross of Calvary was, however, avenged : it being probable that some of those who abused Christ in that dread hour, were afterwards crucified by the Romans ; who, thirty years after, con- demned thirty-six hundred citizens of Jerusalem, — crucifying many of the most prominent people. And, a few years later, so many were exe- cuted that, day after day, four or five hundred new victims were seen upon the crosses near the city. There were not crosses enough for the victims, or places to stand the crosses, says the historian. t The gospel story of the crucifixion shows that its details are true ; the death was so shameful, that it would have been slightly spoken of, if it had been made up, — since the same writers claimed for Jesus the brightest honors of a divine life. It was Jesus who conferred renown upon that which had been a symbol of dishonor. 347 OUR ELDER BROTHER. youth. If SO, the twenty-second must have been one, since it illustrates this tragedy at so many points that it is re- peatedly referred to in the story : — "I am a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn ; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying. He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him, — let him deliver him. * The assembly of the wicked have inclosed me. Be not far from me, for trouble is near ; for there is none to help. Be not thou far from me, O Lord : O my strength, haste thee to help me." For sympathy, as for anyone in the jeering crowd, Jesus was almost alone, f " He looked for some to pity. There is none. All pity is within Him, and not for Him ; His earth is iron under Him, and o'er Him His skies are brass : His seraphs cry ' Alas ' With hallelujah voices that cannot weep ; And man, for whom the dreadful work is done — Is crying with scornful voice 'If verily this be the Eternal's Son.' " { * Compare Luke xxiii : 35, 37. •j- ' ' Many i-everenced his miracles ; few followed the ignominy of his cross." — Thomas A Kempis. " Christ's circle narrowed down : first, the multitudes left him ; then, many so-called disciples; then, the twelve." — Moody's i\^o(es /rom My Bible. " I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with me." — Tsa. Ixiii : 3. JFrom The Seraphim, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 348 THE PROCESSION TO CALVAEY. THE chief priests and the impenitent thief were in full sympathy in their abuse of Jesus : it was the penitent criminal whose conduct was in contrast with Caiaphas. Faintly listening to the mocking crowd below, Jesus forgot, for a moment, the horror of his situation, in hearing the prayer, " Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." The penitent was better instructed than Pilate, as to the nature of Christ's Kingdom, and he had faith in Jesus when all the world rejected him. He had perhaps long plied his trade among the crowds that followed Jesus ; hearing his words, noting his miracles, — and pilfering.* Some word or look of Christ may have been like an arrow of conviction in his soul ; and now he repented, and professed his faith. " On me, as thou art dying, Oh, turn thy pitjdng eye : To thee for mercy crying. Before thy cross I lie. Thine, thine the bitter passion, Thy pain is all for me ; Mine, mine the deep transgression. My sins are all on thee." "TLND now the night of the cross began to fall, — that /\ supernatural blackness of the sky which blotted out the noonday sun : and, ere it was dark, Jesus saw that his mother, and his own beloved John, had come near to the cross. He scanned her sorrowing face, as she recalled the * JosEPHUS, in writing about the times a little later than Herod the Great, has much to say about thieves and their crucifixion. 349 OUR ELDER BROTHER. words of St. Simeon to her in the temple when Jesus was a babe, " a sword shall pierce through thine own soul." And in that supreme moment Jesus remembered her tender watch and care in his childhood, and asked John in his own place to bestow watch and care upon the mother of Im- manuel. " By the cross, sad vigil keeping, Stood the mournful mother weeping, While on it the Saviour hung ; In that hour of deep distress, Pierced the sword of bitterness Through her heart with sorrow wrung. " Oh, how sad, how woe-begone. Was that ever-blessed one, Mother of the Sou of God. Oh, what bitter tears she shed Whilst, before her, Jesus bled 'Neath the Father's penal rod." * And now the darkness was settling down, and Jesus knew that the end could not be many hours away. In the anticipation of a further indefinite period of physical an- guish, with every nerve in torture, Jesus could not sleep, — even although the earth had come to its nightfall at the sixth hour. Was it not written of old time : "I will clothe the heaven with blackness," "The sun shall be dark." "And from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth houiSj" ? It was that darkness which preceded * Stabat Mater. — Lord Lindsay's translation. 350 THE PROCESSION TO CALVARY. the coming earthquake.* Did not the enemies of Jesus cease to mock ? And did not the soldiers experience a sense of unwonted awe ? The paschal festivities in the city, feasting, song, and mirth, were shrouded in the gloom of lowering skies f ; when the angelic mantle of darkness was thrown over the earth like a burial pall, — as if to hide the shuddering limbs upon the cross. The cry, " I thirst," now broke out upon the still air. It was uttered by him who, in the last great day of the feast of tabernacles, had stood up, and cried, saying, " If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink." He who had dispensed the water of life at the well in Samaria, was how " supplicating his executioners for a draught to miti- gate his thirst." X WITH the deepening shades, the silent Son of Man now fell off into a mental stupor and desire to sleep, but he was kept from it by sense of utter physical exhaustion, and distress of his wounds. Then, too, the drapery of the sky seemed to him to shut off his vision of God. Perhaps, however, it was not so. In the agonized dreams of pro- tracted hours of torture, the words of the holy hymns that *" Examine your own annals," says Tertullian's Apology, "and there you will find that in the days of Pilate, when Christ died, the sun disappeared in full day, and the mid-day light was interrupted." t This effect of the noonday nightfall upon Jerusalem has been pictured in one of Doric's great paintings. X This is Tholuck's phrase. " The vinegar, and the gall were thine," says Flavbl, "that the honey and the sweet might be mine." 351 OUR ELDER BROTHER. he had learned at his mother's knee constantly recurred ; and there came a time when he could not but cry out in the language of the Messianic psalm, " My God, my God, why hast THOU forsaken ME ? " * It may not have been a dream of despair, a sense of desertion, the bitterness of woe ; yet the angels who heard it must for the moment have rendered thanksgiving to God in an undertone, in sympathy with that cry of desolation. He who made no answer to the high priest, no answer to Pilate, no answer to the sentence, no answer to those who mocked him at the cross, — after his long hours of silence before God, could but now expostulate with heaven. Never a complaint had fallen from the lips of Jesus at the treachery and cruelty of man, yet now in the thickening obscuration of nature, now in the ordinary course of progressing death by crucifixion, now when dizziness dimmed the clearness of his mental operations, he could but have a sinking sense that God's face was lost from sight in the murky skies of Golgotha. If we may not say, in this climax of the Saviour's suffer- ing,— " That on his sinless soul, Our sins in aU their guilt were laid, That he might make us whole," yet we must say that all the waves of God had gone over him ; and that he, who had called to himself the heavy * Psalms XX : 1,2. Compare Matt, xxvii : 46. Dr. Jacob Mayer says that the phraseology is that of the Targum Jonathan, an exact be- gmning of that psalm so applicable to Jesus in the horn- of his passion. 352 THE PKOCESSION TO CALVARY. laden, was now broken down by sorrow. God had said, "This is my beloved Son, hear ye him." Did God himself refuse to hear him in the last cry of his mortal agony ? Did God forsake him, when darkness clothed the sun ? WHEN Jesus " poured out his soul unto death," he was made "an offering for sin," and "the chastisement of our peace was upon him"; "he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death;" he "died for our sins according to the Scriptures."* We need not weigh all these words, or try to find their exact import in connection with the sufferings of the Paschal Lamb. Another voice was heard from out the dusky cloud that had settled on Calvary : "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit." And now, from out the deep obscurity, again the dying Saviour's voice was heard : "It is finished." And he bowed his head, and dismissed his spirit. So Christ our passover was sacrificed for us ; the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, f Jesus died, it is said, of a broken heart ; J caused by the agony of the garden and the cross. It was our sins * Cited in a paragi-aph from an article upon the Passion of Christ in the Independent, by S. T. Spear, D.D. t John six : 30. I. Cor. v : 7. Rev. xiii : 8. That Jesus died so soon indicates great bodily sufferings ; and a body weakened before he came to that hour ; and an impairment of his early vigor, through his ministry. The disciples made much of the fact that when Jesus was sacrificed as the Paschal Lamb "not a bone was broken." John xix : 36. Ex. xii : 46. Num. ix : 12. Ps. xxxiv : 20. J Vide Lyman Abbott's Life of Christ, and recent authorities. 353 23 OUR ELDER BROTHER. that slew him, not that spear by which the blood of the true Vine was poured out for us. " A thief upon My right hand and My left ; Six hours alone, athirst, in misery : At length in death one smote My heart, and cleft A hiding place for thee." * NATURE mourned when Jesus died. The sea had been glad to obey him ; the sun had been glad to pour light into the eyes he opened ; the graves had been glad to give up their dead. Nature had been glad even to curse a barren fig-tree which offered him no fruit. When Jesus died, Nature sought to hide the shame. In the darkness, the body of Jesus hung upon the cross : his white dead face was seen through the gloom ; men only dimly saw his wounded side, and nailed hands and feet. This preternatural darkness was the precursor of that quaking of the earth, which rent the veil of the temple in twain, as if the Lord of the temple would rend the garments of his house ; and the rocks were rent, and the dead turned out of their graves. Are human hearts unmoved, and harder than the rocks ? ' ' The rocks were rent : theii' swift reply To Thy wild words that rent the sky, ' Eli, Eli, Sabaohthani, ' That rent the rocks." " The rooks were rent : yet can I bear To look on Christ without a tear. And calmly see the nails and spear, — Though rocks were rent? " * Christina 6. Rossetti. 354 THE PROCESSION TO CALVARY. " TTjLL the people that came together to that sight, be- i\ holding the things which were done, smote their breasts, and returned." Who can tell the disap- pointment, the despair, of his followers, now that Jesus, by his voluntary self-sacrifice, had frustrated the hopes they had centered in him ? All his acquaintance, and the women that followed him from Galilee, had stood afar off, beholding these things ; and now they were heartbroken. The preparations for the burial of Jesus had to be com- pleted before five o'clock, since the Sabbath would begin at six. Sleep for the Weary. O heart of pity, cease to beat ; To-day repose, O weary feet. Thy lips are mute, — Thy words of peace ; Thy folded hands, their blessing cease. O Thou, who didst o'er sinners weep, — Thine eyes are closed in blissful sleep ; Thou whose ears were anguish-torn, — In silence deep. Thy corse is borne. The Saviour rests from work to-day ; In darkness dense. His form we lay. The sun has set ; now falls the night, And earth is shrouded from the Light. Thy gates, God, fling open wide, — And haste, ye angels, to His side : He is not dead, — He rests in sleep ; In vigil watch, — His grave to keep. O Light, come forth, to break the gloom ; Thy grave bereft, — a vacant room. O Life, in triumph, live again ; Thou Hope of earth. Thou Life of men. 355 BOOK EIGHT. .-»^.*->s«- Otir Risen Redeemer. -*S"^^ IN the evening, Jesus appeared to ten of the apostles, as they were all together, after Cleophas and his friend had returned to Jerusalem. They had not believed the uncertain inference of John that our Lord must have risen, nor the words of Mary.* There was some chance that they would not go into Galilee, where they were to meet their Master. Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, had confirmed to them the words of Mary of Magdala; but their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not. f Yet some- tinae during the day, Jesus had appeared to Peter ; | and now they said, "The Lord is risen indeed." Still, these disciples, who were so soon to turn the world upside down, were slow, and cautious. They would not be convinced unless they themselves should become eye-witnesses. Some hesitated even now, after they had heard the stories of the embalming women, and the loving half-faith of John, — and the stout ringing affirmation of Peter, whom they more »Johnxx:8. Markxviill. t Luke xxiv : 10, 11. JI. Cor. st:5. [Book VIII.] 364 THE FORTY DAYS. or less doubted. Their faith was not yet firmly settled. And when the disciples from Emmaus came in,* " Neither believed they them." As they thus spake, came Jesus himself, as they sat at meat, and stood in the midst of them. The doors were shut for fear of the Jews, f They were terrified at the apparition of their Master, supposing that they saw a spirit. He saith unto them, ' ' Peace be unto you. " And when they were still affrighted, they were convinced that it was a genuine appearance of Jesus, by his upbraiding them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him. And then he said. Why are ye troubled ? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself : handle me, and see ; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands, and his feet, and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord. And yet they could not believe, for very joy. , And while they wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here meat ? And they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and of a honey- comb ; and he took it, and did eat before them. These cautious, careful men, slow to believe, hard of heart against mere idle tales, had those characteristics which make good witnesses. And when they were once convinced that Jesus had really arisen from the dead, there was no power in the world that could s'hake their *Luke xxiv:3o. t Luke xxiv : 36-43. 365 OUR ELDBE BROTHER. belief. They stood, they went, they flew, they filled the world with their testimony every hour, " The Lord is risen indeed." It was not to be thought of, they said, that he would rise. The centurion had been questioned, and Jesus had been legally proved to be dead. And now he was alive. He had laid down his life, and taken it again. Here was something beyond the ken of Caiaphas, and of Pilate. There must be a God in Israel. Their Messiah had come. Jesus had great respect for the honest doubters. They had perhaps understood and believed in the promises he had made concerning his resurrection,* as well as they had understood and believed many other affirmations of Jesus : that is, they had not immediately believed them. They were sayings that the disciples had laid up, to be pondered over. The great ideas by which Jesus had set forth the truth of the Incarnation, they were slow to understand and believe. And when the doubters did believe them, no mor- tal man could shake their testimony, f St. Thomas is commonly slandered, as if he were a pre- eminent doubter. The fact is that Jesus had already satis- * Matt, xvi : 21 ; and xx : 19 ; John ii : 19. f " We must be careful to let nothing come between the doubter and Christ. The mighty concession that Christ himself gives to a soul in doubt is fuU of meaning : he did not allow Mary to touch hia crucified body, yet did not withhold it from doubting Thomas. Let us lead every doubting soul straight to Christ, to his life, to his death, and, if need be, to his crucified and risen body." — Pubsident W. J. Tucker, D.D. 366 THE FORTY DAYS. fied ten of the apostles, by the same test that Thomas asked for : by his feet, his hands, and his side.* Or, if it be chronologically true that this occurred a week or eight days later, and if Thomas had refused to be satisfied with the testimony of ten apostles, as the ten had been unwilling to credit others,. — then this emphasizes the more the value of the Doubter's testimony, when he was once convinced ; and it illustrates the wisdom of Jesus in the choice of so cautious a disciple. In laying the foundation for a kingdom to endure throughout the ages, and in selecting eye-witnesses to testify upon so important a fact as his own resurrection, it is much to the point that Jesus picked out men of hard good sense. They were not poets or enthusiasts, — not one of them. They were men who could sleep soundly, even at critical junctures ; f and who could not be imposed upon when they were wide awake. Had it been otherwise, other men would not have believed their testimony. They were credible witnesses ; inspiring confidence in average men like themselves. Well did they repay the patience of the Master, who surrounded them with the arms of his all-encircling love. Bruised reeds, he forbore to break ; smoking flax, he never quenched. He found the least sign of celestial fire. Having loved his own, he loved them unto the end. J » Luke xxiv : 39, 40 ; John xs : 24-28. f As upon the mount of transfiguration, and at Gethsemane. t John xiii : 1 . 367 OUR ELDER BROTHER. WE come now to a strange part of this critical period in the instruction given by our Saviour to the apostolic college. He had to teach them, not too abruptly, a further lesson as to the true relation between disciple and Master. " Not one of them before his death," suggests Dr. William Hanna, " had risen to any thought or belief in his Divinity. They had to be raised to the belief, that it was the very Lord of heaven and earth with whom they had been hold- ing converse." Did not this, he asks, forbid " a return to all the old familiarities of his former intercourse" ? It has been suggested by others, that Jesus intended to discipline the apostles in relying on themselves before his ascension. This was exactly what he did not do. If he had, — they would have gone a-fishing. He taught them, rather, to rely on the Paraclete ; and to pray for the Para- clete ; and to go forth to testify concerning himself, and to disciple all nations, — when they were endued for this work by the appearance of the Paraclete. On the whole, perhaps, the suggestion of Dr. Hanna is a good one. ' And it is certain that nothing could be better fitted to the end sought than the course Jesus took. He no longer "abode" with his disciples, as to his physical pres- ence. In forty days there are only six instances recorded of his appearance, after the day of the resurrection ; and all these interviews appear to have been brief. There is a mystery about it ; as if he had no abode.* " We get from * The one point proved is that he had the same body, now healed, that had been crucified. Yet his mode of life was like a miracle. AVhen dm THE FORTY DATS. the New Testament," says Dr. Eoswell D. Hitchcock, " in regard to these forty days, an impression of unobtrusiveness on the part of Christ, a certain reserve and remoteness, almost semi-spiritual and shadowy, as evinced in sudden, unexpected appearings and disappearings, changes of form, and silent gliding in and out of secluded and fastened chambers ; as if the feet, which were so soon to tread the yielding air ascending to the Father, were already lighten- ing their pressure upon the solid earth.* 3UCH a course as this, on the part of Jesus, had its effect upon intensely practical men, like Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, James, and John. Without su- perstition as to the comings and goings of Jesus, they were competent men in a business way ; and if there was some uncertainty as to the course they should take as disci- ples, they could at least return to their former calling, upon the sea of Tiberias, f Peter seems to have been the leader in this movement. He needed further instruction, and he multiplied bread, the bread he made was substantial. When he con- tinued his life, during forty days without apparent fixed abode, it was a true carnal life. There was no spiritual body till the Ascension. "During those forty days," says Faerar, "his body was not liable to merely human laws." *It is Tholtick who says : "He does not appear to be of the earth, for he comes only ' many times ' to the disciples : and where is he when not with themV The twilight envelops our Lord, but it is morning twilight. The night lies behind him." f John xxi : 1-14. 369 24 OUR ELDEK BROTHER. proof of the true character of Jesus. After the Ascension, he fished no more, except for men. After Jesus had dined with the seven upon the old familiar shore, occurred that questioning of Peter * by our Lord, which betokened his own confiidence and love, and indicated the work the apostle was to do in the place of fishing. " With the threefold denial," says Tholuqk, " corre- sponds the triple hammer-stroke of this question on the heart of Peter: "Lovest thou me?" It is but the same searching question that anticipates the Judgment for every man. " Follow thou me," said Jesus to Peter, as his closing injunction. And then, when Peter sought to make one more diversion,! before implicitly following, our Lord re- plied, " What is that to thee ? Follow thou me." A war- rant, indeed, for every man to imitate Christ. TT-GAIN Jesus met the apostles, upon some Galilean moun- l\ tain,t by special appointment ; and here most likely the five hundred brethren referred to by St. Paul,§ — who affirmed that the greater part of the five hundred were living and testifying twenty years after. Indeed, there were so many witnesses, and the tests were so decisive as to the reality of Jesus' bodily presence, and the reappear- ances were so frequent during the forty days, that St. Luke * John xxi : 15-23. f John xxi : 19-22. t Matt, xxviii : 16. §1. Cor. XV : 6. 370 THE FORTY DAYS. has written that our Lord "showed himself alive after his passion, by many infallible proofs." * The proof rested upon men hard to be convinced, but who were convinced. At this point, says St. Luke, f Jesus explained to the eleven and to a large company of his followers the Mosaic, lyric, and prophetic Scriptures that related to himself, and that it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day, — as he had already spoken to the same point in conversing with the disciples of Emmaus. Either here upon the mountain, or at his subsequent appearance to all the apostles, I Jesus commissioned his disciples to go forth into all the world, preaching the Gospel of repentance and remission of sins through his nanae, teaching all nations to observe all things whatsoever he had commanded, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. § This startling mandate gave Peter other work than fishing. Yet its performance was not to depend on poor Peter. It was to depend upon the Paraclete. In leaving his disciples, they were to tarry in Jerusalem until the coming of the Paraclete. || They were not to be diverted, the Master said, by curious questions as to Israel and a *Actsi: 3. f Compare Acts i : 3, with Luke xxiv : 44-48. i At about this time, Jesus was also seen of James, alone. I. Cor. xv: 7. § Matt, xxviii : 18-20. Luke xxiv : 47, 48. Acts i : 4-8. I. Cor. XV : 7. II Luke xxiv : 49. Acts i : 4-8. 371 OUR ELDER BROTHER. king ; but they -were to await the coining of the Paraclete, and then they were to go forth, witnessing what they had seen and heard, testifying concerning his own life and death and resurrection. Henceforth, the discipling of the whole world was to be the main business of the followers of Jesus, endued with the power of the Holy Ghost. Henceforth, an angel was to fly over the awakening earth, having the everlasting Gospel, to preach in every nation and kindred, and tongue, and people.* Henceforth, it would be seen and known that the death of Jesus was really no interruption of his life mission, and his ceaseless influence among men, till all earthly empires should be included in his kingdom. And now, in the baptismal formula, in what he had said concerning the Holy Spirit in the hour before his betrayal, and in what was said at this moment, he indicated his own unity with the Power by which they were to be endued, ' ' Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."! A.l"wa.ys A?vrlthi Us. " With us, when the storm is sweeping O'er our pathway dark and drear ; Waking hope within om- bosoms, Stilling every anxious fear." *Rev. xiv : 6. t Matt, xxviii : 19 ; John xiv : 16-18, 26 ; and xv : 26 ; and xvi : 7, 13-15 ; Matt, xxviii : 20. 372 THE FOETY DAYS. Forsake Nle Not. Forsake me not, Thou life of life to me ; Though death and sin Attempt within To chain and reign, and never set me free. To Thee I ever cry. To Thee I haste and fly ; On high I mount in thought While low I bend the knee, — Forsake me not, forsake me not. Forsake me not. Thou death of sin in me : Wilt Thou draw nigh To crucify My body's sin, of sinful soul the key ? I ask for nail and thorn, — And resurrection niorn ; To die arid live, my lot; In both I cling to Thee, — Forsake me not, forsake me not. 373 CHAPTER THREE. Opening the Heavenly Gates. "PON the eighteenth of May, the apostolic company * was led forth by their Master to the eastern slope of Olivet, and there upon highlands above Bethany, yet hidden from it by a ridge, upon a site looking out far over the wilderness, within sight of the Jordan and its southern sea, Jesus lifted up his hands and blessed them ; and it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and a cloud received him out of their sight. It is a mystery. He was changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye ; his corruptible put on incorruption, his mortal put on imnaortality, mortality was swallowed up of life, and alive he was caught up in the clouds, f "Jesus moved upward, as if lifted from the earth by some celestial attraction." J "As he floats upward through the yielding air,"' says Dr. Hanna, "his eyes are bent on the uplook- ing men ; his arms are stretched over them in the attitude * Luke xxiv : 50, 51. Acts i : 9. 1 1. Cor. XV : 51-53. II. Cor. v : 4. I. Thess. iv : 17. Phil, iii : 21. J Alexander B. Bruce, D.D. [Book Yin.] 374 OPENING OF THE HEAVENLY GATES. of benediction, his voice is heard dying away in blessings as he ascends, till the cloud closes the earthly comnaunion be- tween Jesus and his disciples."* From earth to sky, he upward soars ; The host on high, in triumph waits ; Lift up your heads, O heavenly gates ; Swing back, O everlasting doors, f " God is gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet." He who bowed the heavens, and came down, has now ascended up where he was before. " I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive forever- more." He hath ascended up to heaven, who came down from heaven, the Son of Man which is in heaven ; and he is there surrounded by a great multitude which no man can number of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands. That body so worn by cares, so exhausted ^j bloody * " Man in the form that rises, God in the power that bears Him to his Father's throne." — Bishop Ellicott. t " O thou Man of Sorrows — O Lord Jesus, thou who wert a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, we rejoice that thy sorrows are past. All the privations of thy life on earth are past. The contradiction of sinners against thyself, which thou didst endure, is past. Thine agony in the garden, thy bloody sweat, thy sufferings on the cross, thy slumber in the grave, — all are past. And thou hast_ ascended triumphantly, attended by convoys of angels, and the heavenly gates were lifted up, and the ever- lasting doors gave way, whilst thou, the King of Glory, didst enter and take possession of thy throne, God over all, blessed forever." — Frag- ment of a public prayer hj Dr. Lyman Beechee, Boston, Oct., 1851. 375 OUR ELDER BROTHER. sweat, so lashed by cruel blows, so bruised and speared be- fore he died, is now adorned with the robe of heaven's King. Those feet that bore messages of peace over the moun- tains of Israel, that walked on the sea to rescue his dis- ciples, those feet that bore him to midnight prayers on the hilltops, those weary feet that walked in the garden and were torn by the spikes, those feet now have the earth for a footstool and now bruise the head of the Serpent. Those hands that broke bread for the famishing multi- tude, that healed the eyes of the blind, that blessed little children, that wielded the cords and scourged traders fron:! God's holy house, those hands that once took hold of the cross and were too weak for the burden, that were stretched and pierced on that cross, those hands now hold up the heavens and to-day rescue the needy, and to-day bear the scepter of the universe. Those lips that hungered in the wilderness and were parched on the cross, those lips that opened to bless the multitudes and to curse hypocrites, those lips that were pressed by traitorous Judas, and that tasted the vinegar and the gall, those lips now give wisdom to the angels and cheer the redeemed forever. Those eyes that wept over Jerusalem, and that pitied the multitude, and that closed in death, now shine clear as the lights of heaven and gladden that world where there is no need of the sun and where there is no night, where the Lord is the light thereof. Those ears that once heard the cry of the needy, and 376 OPENING OF THE HEAVENLY GATES. listened to the complaints of disciples, and that were pierced with the cry of the furious multitude, " Crucify him, crucify him ! " now hear the praises of the angels and the new song, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing." That face which was so often charged with pity, or righteous anger, or holy sorrow, that face which was spit upon, is now radiant with the joy of heaven, and the per- fect bliss of Infinite Holiness and Infinite Love. That head on which the Dove of God descended, that head which had no place of rest, which was smitten, and which wore thorns, and hung helpless on the cross, now wears the crown of everlasting joy. "As this Man then," says the Bishop of Chartres, * "Jesus Christ, restored to his country, returns, as it were, by the right of recall, — the whole city, the heavenly Jeru- salem, goes out to meet him with the Father ; the whole multitude of angels, the thousand thousands that minister to him, and the ten thousand times ten thousand that stand before him, — they embrace his feet, and bear him up on their shoulders to the throne of heaven. For thus it is written in the Psalms, ' The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels ' ; and the Lord is among them as in the holy place of Sinai. O the joy, the solemnity, O the triumph, O the jubilation, O the exulta- tion, O the everlasting gladness ! * At the beginning of the twelfth century. 377 OUR ELDER BROTHER. "Some exclaim, 'Be thou exalted, Lord, in thine own strength.' Others, ' Arise, O Lord, into thy resting place, thou and the ark of thy strength.' "Some, 'Who is the King of glory?' Others, 'The Lord of hosts, the Lord strong and mighty in battle.' "Some, ' Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah ? ' Others, ' He that is glorious' in apparel, traveling in the greatness of His strength.' " And so the songs echo and re-echo throughout all the heavenly country ; and the most distant spheres are glad, and the morning stars again sing together, and all crea- tion rejoices, and triumphal hymns are resounding in all parts of Christ's dominion. Nor were these happy hymns of everlasting joy wanting in the temple of Jehovah at Jerusalem, — for the apostolic band first "worshiped him" who had been parted from them, and then they "returned to Jerusalem with great joy ; and were continually in the temple, praising and bless- ing God."* They kept no longer in hiding for fear of the Jews : they had Jehovah at their back. They stood before him, the representatives upon earth of his mercy in Jesus Christ. Did not Moses and Elijah, too, stand by them ? " Two men stood by them in white apparel, f From them, they heard the proclamation of a second coming : and they at once set about preparing the earth for their Lord, — creating it anew through the power of the Paraclete. To this work *LukexxiT:52,53. f Acts i : 10, 11. 378 OPENING OF THE HEAVENLY GATES. they went forth with exceeding joy, for they had seen the hands of Jesus stretched out to bless them : " Wherever they stood, wherever they went, the blessing hands were before their eyes." * Collect for Ascension Day. " /^RANT, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that as we vl believe thy only begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens, so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and .with him continually dwell, who liveth and reigneth \yith thee and the Holy Spirit, One God, world without end. Amen." * Tholuck. m ^ ^^^^^ 379 CHAPTER FOUR. Confident ^?Vltnesses. !S>- HETHEK or not St. Thomas intended to give their full import to the words, "My Lord and my God," it is certain that the disciples of Jesus and the apostolic Church interpreted the prophecy of Isaiah concerning the Holy Child, quite literally : that he should be called the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, as well as the Prince of Peace ; and that Jesus, as the Messiah, was so far the great God as well as Saviour,* that it was suitable to pray to him, and to worship him, who was to be the omnipotent Judge of the Universe, f They reached this conclusion from our Lord's exposition of the Messianic Scriptures ; and from the affirmations made by Jesus, con- cerning his own relation to the Father, and to the Holy Spirit. In beginning the very first verse of his Gospel with a divine personage, rather than a babe at Bethlehem as the other evangelists did, the apostle John " opened his treatise with a peal of thunder," as St. Augustine has said. " So, through the thunder comes a human voice." { * Titus ii : 13. "^ fActs i: 24, and ix: 13, 14, 21, and xxii : 16; Komans x : 13 ; I. Cor. 1:2; Heb. xiii : 21 ; II. Pet. iii : 18 ; Rev. v : 12, 18, and vii : 10 ; Col. i : 16, 17 ; II. Tim. iv : 1 ; Romans xiv : 10 ; Acts xvii : 30, 31. t Robert Browning. [BOOK IX.] 401 26 OUR ELDER BROTHER. It is the voice of God's love, the Word, the expression of God ; Christ being what God is, as to moral character. In knowing Christ, we so far forth know God ; and that, too, not only as an expression of God's love to man, but in some proper sense as God himself, limited by human conditions. The teaching of St. John, throughout his entire writings, concerning Jesus as the Life, the Love, the Light, has been emphasized and enlarged upon by Canon Liddon ; and he has fortified his position by referring to more than a score of texts.* The New Testament indicates that the Incarnation, or God in Christ, was the leading apostolic doctrine, and that theological inquiry in regard to other points began here, f ONE of the most eminent of our novelists has written of the "Blessed influence of one true loving human soul on another. Not calculable by algebra, not deducible by logic, but mysterious, effectual, mighty as the hidden *I. John iv : 8 ; John iii : 35 ; and v : 20 ; and x : 17 ; and xv : 9 ; and xvii : 24 ; and xiv : 23 ; and xvi : 27. I. John i : 5. John i : 7, 9 : and viii : 12 ; and xiv: 6. I.John ii ; 8. John xiv: 31. I. John iii : 16. John xiv : 28 ; and xi : 25 ; and xvi : 6. I. John v : 20. John 5 : 26 ; and i:3,4. I. Johni:l. f It has been remarked by Dean Farrak : ' ' There is not one syl- lable in the Gospels or in the Epistles respecting the appearance of His form or face. Nor is there the vestige of any reference to it in the literature of the first two centuries. The fact itself is deeply significant. It is impossible that the earthly aspect of Christ should have been so completely forgotten if the early Christians had centered their thoughts on the Human Sufferer, the Man Christ Jesus, and not much more on the Risen, the Ascended, the Glorified, the Eternal King, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God." 4oa IMMANUEL. process by which the living seed is quickened, and bursts forth into tall stem and broad leaf, and glowing tasseled flower. Ideas .... pass athwart us in thin vapor, and cannot make themselves felt ; but sometimes they are made flesh, they breathe upon us with warm breath, they touch us with soft responsive hands, they look at us with sad, sincere eyes, and speak to us in appealing tones, — '■ they are clothed in a living human soul, with all its conflicts, its faith, and its love. Then their presence is a power, then they shake us like a passion, and we are drawn after them with gentle compulsion, as flame is drawn to flame." Is it not true that when we are most conscious of our moral imperfections, we feel the need of an incarnation of the Divine Love, a Divine Friendship in some historic mani- festation ? It is so, even if we cannot easily analyze what is wrought for us by a personal friendship which enshrines the love of God, that cannot be wrought by love as an abstract idea. Self-renunciation for others as an ideal of life seems more practicable, when we see it in a person. Con- scious of faculties in which we are morally constituted like God, we can better develop the divine image in ourselves by being intimate with Divinity limited by human condi- tions, as in Christ, than by merely contemplating a list of moral attributes. "Whenever," says Bishop Huntington, " the soul is most deeply stirred by penitence, or strained by agony, or kindled into holy aspiration, the spiritual na- ture craves a more intimate communion with God than would be possible if that God had not mysteriously mani- 403 OUR ELDER BROTHER. fested himself in the flesh : not a Sovereign in the skies, but a beating and friendly bosom in Bethany. " Our twofoM nature is met and satisfied in its highest longings only by a sympathizing God, — God with us. A mortal immortal — a man on the earth who will soon die — the man who will live forever — needs for a friend, not only a mortal like himself and God in the skies, but he needs Immanuel. Man is too spiritual to be satisfied with a friendship that pertains to this earth alone : he is too carnal to be satisfied with the friendship of a mysterious Infinite Force, who has never actively sympathized with the condition of man. * Behold then your needed Friend, — God Himself descending. IN the self -revelation of God, his moral attributes are re- vealed to us in Christ, and in that course of history and of literary production which are pertinent to Christ. The Incarnation is not otherwise than a device of the All- wise God to make finite beings understand His love, and * " The glad tidings is not that a remarkable and unique man, named Jesus, lived a holy life, realized the ideal man, and died a martyr in Palestine eighteen hundred years ago It avails little for us that one man in ancient times showed in his cliaracter all the rich and beautiful humanities which can adorn a human life, all that can be worthy and admirable in man. What we need to know is that these beautiful humanities have their archetypes in God ; that he is touched with the feeling of our infirmities ; that he has come to us in the beauty and glory of the divine love drawing us to him to make us beautiful and glorious in his likeness. And this is the glad tidings of great joy, that all in Christ which is pure and strong in righteousness, which is tender and sympathizing in compassion, which is beautiful, attractive, and winning 404 IMMANUEL. lay hold upon it ; it is heaven bending to the earth, eternity to time, God to man. We learn to think of God as the In- finite, yet as a personal Friend. "We see the chasm be- tween the finite and the Infinite bridged over by a member of our human race " * The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. He who displays His glory in flowers on drear mountain sides, or in the coral groves which grow beneath the salt sea waves, has thought it not detracting from the dignity of His nature to appear upon the earth, being made like unto those men whom He would fain call brethren, that He may save them from their sins. Forasmuch then, it is written, as the chil- dren are flesh and blood. He — the Father through his Son — also himself likewise took part of the same. The greater part of mankind are poor and ignorant, and all are spiritu- ally poor and spiritually ignorant ; and they cannot grasp the Divine friendship as a practical thing unless that friend- ship take the form of flesh and blood. We have, not so much a system of truth to be believed, as a Person to be loved ; and the truths are those which center in Him, which lead us to Him, and which make us try to bring all the world to Him. in love, is the revelation of God Himself as he comes to seek and save the lost." — Professok Samuel Harris, late of Yale University, in his work upon Ood, the Creator and Lord of all. * Frederick Godet. John Calvin expressed the same thought, affirming that even if man had not fallen, yet he could never have been united to God, so much above him, without a mediator. 405 OUR ELDER BROTHER. " OVERY revelation of God," says Dr. Samuel Harris, I " must necessarily be a hiding of him ; the only way in which it is possible for God to manifest himself is in circumscribing himself." Clearly this is so in the material creation, — a singular limitation of Himself, if it were to be thought that this were all. Yet the First Cause is far more than a Chemist and a Mechanic. If the Infinite will reveal himself to the finite mind of man — so ignorant and low-conditioned, — it rhust be done by a finite manifestation of His own mental and moral qualities in circumstances that finite minds can apprehend. We can- not know Infinite Perfection, but we can know what is perfect within our sphere of human life. "The Incarna- tion," says Drummond, "is God making himself accessible to human thought." * This point is well presented in two paragraphs from Canon Liddon : — " God willed in his condescending mercy to place him- self within the reach of his creatures ; he willed to give a palpable proof of the saying that ' His delights were with the sons of men.' He, the Immaterial, became related inti- mately and visibly to a material body ; he, the Infinite, con- descended to take upon him a finite form ; he, the Creator, entered into indissoluble alliance with the nature which was the work of his hands ; and thus St. John writes in * " The perfecting of the self -revelation of God is nothing other than the Incarnation of God." — Dorneu. The anthropological representations of God in the Old Testament accord with the Incarnation in the New. 40G IMMANUEL. ecstasy of ' that which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld and our hands handled, of the Word of Life ; for the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us ; that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you.'* And thus the remote, inaccessible God was really within reach. ' The Word was made flesh ; ' he was seen and handled ; he was laid in the manger of Bethlehem." " Instead of presenting us with some fugitive abstraction inaccessible to the intellect and disappointing to the heart, the Incarnation points to Jesus. Jesus is the Almighty, restraining his illimitable powers ; Jesus is the Incompre- hensible, voluntarily submitting to bonds ; Jesus is Provi- dence, clothed in our own flesh and blood ; Jesus is the Infinite Christ, tending us with the kindly looks and tender handling of a human love ; Jesus is the Eternal Wisdom, speaking out of the depths of infinite thought in a human language ; Jesus is God making himself, if I may dare so to speak, our tangible possession ; He is God brought very nigh to us, in our mouth, and in our heart : we behold him, we touch him, we cling to him, — and, lo, we are partakers of the nature of Deity through our actual membership of his body,t — in his flesh, and in his bones : and we dwell, if we will, evermore in him, and he in us." Principal Caird has said in view of this self -revelation * I. John i : 1. f H- Pet. i : 4. Eph. v : 30. 407 OUR ELDER BROTHER. of God in Christ : "No longer need the soul wander forth through eternal solitudes, vainly longing amid the vastness and the grandeur for the sound of some familiar voice to break the stillness, or the sight of some sheltered spot in which it may nestle with a sense of friendliness and se- curity. No longer in our hidden joys and griefs, in our gratitude and contrition, in our love and sorrow, when the full heart longs for a heavenly confidant to whom, as to no earthly friend, it may lay bare its want, — no longer need we feel that God is too awful a being to obtrude upon him our insignificance or to offer him our human tenderness or human tears. ' Come unto me,' is the invitation of the Blessed One, so intensely human though so gloriously di- vine ; ' Unto me,' in whose arms little children were em- braced, on whose bosom a frailmortal lay ; 'Unto me,' who hungered, thirsted, fainted, sorrowed, wept, and yet whose love and grief and pain and tears do but express emo- tions which are felt in the heart of the Infinite God. ' Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' " IN the self-revelation of God in Christ, the Saviour is spoken of as the image of the invisible God. " By him," says Clement of Rome, " we look up to the heights of heaven ; by him we behold, as in a glass, the immaculate and most excellent visage." " The unrepresented One per- fectly represents himself, the imageless One takes an exact image of himself in the Incarnation. The unapproachable light of the Infinite One passing through the softening 408 IMMANUEL. medium of our humanity, becomes bearable to human eyes. While we accord him the reverence and adoration which belongs to God, we have in him a tangible, material, tender friend and Redeemer ; one we can actually ap- proach, clearly know, understandingly trust and love." * No man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath revealed him.f It is this popularization of the idea of God, — the God who loves man and is lovable by man, and who commands men to love him and to love each other, as the sum of reli- gious duty, — which has changed the face of the world since the era of the Incarnation.^ It is this which led Lord Macaulay to say, that " God the uncreated, the incompre- hensible, the invisible, attracted few worshipers. . . . It was before the Deity, embodied in a human form, walk- ing among men, partaking of their infirmities, leaning on their bosoms, weeping Over their graves, slumbering in the manger, bleeding on the cross, that the prejudices of the synagogue, and the doubts of the academy, and the pride of the portico, and the fasces of the lictor, and the swords of thirty legions were humbled in the dust." * The Rev. W. T. Chase, D.D., in The Watchman. fJohn i : 18. "The divine justice, and mercy, and goodness, and compassion, and truth, all the elemients of holiness, all the qualities which constitute moral perfection, are revealed to us in him, as they were never revealed before." — R. W. Dale, D D. t " It is the God incarnate, more than the God of the Jews or of na- ture, who, being idealized, has taken so great and salutary a hold on the modern mind." — JoHif Stuart Mill. 409 OUR ELDER BROTHER. THE Incarnation involves a purpose on the part of God, to reveal his moral attributes to man in a Unique Per- sonality — "the God-man," or, more happily, "God in Christ," and in Scriptures that pertain to him ; as truly so, as he purposed to reveal other attributes in the material creation. This has been admirably set forth by President Francis L. Patton of Princeton University.* The Incarnation is not to be thought of so much as a theological tenet, as the unique expression of God's love to mankind, for the purpose of developing their spiritual facul- ties, so that those who are made a little lower than the angels may become partakers of a divine life. The Old Testament sets forth this yearning of a Father's heart. And Jesus, who said, "the Father himself loveth you," is "the perfect representation of the Father's character, of the Father's compassion for sinners, of his love for the penitent and believing, of his patience, sympathy, and eternal faithfulness in all his promises, f Salvation from sin is made possible through the atone- ment provided ; yet we are practically led to rely upon Christ's atonement and to work out our own salvation in connection with the intimate friendship we personally form with Christ. By his love to us and our love to him, we are * Vide Book xii, Chapteii 3 : Auticle upon the Idea of the Incarna- tion in the Scripturei>. t Compare comments upon John xiv : 8, by Professor Henry CowLES, of Obeiiin. 410 IMMANUEL. led to renounce a selfish life ; and to make God's will — an unselfish love toward God and toward man — the supreme choice of the soul. So it is that he saves his people from their sins. Loving-kindness, personally administered, is the hinge of the door between God and man, — and it is God who turns the hinge ; it is for man to walk through the open door. If a man, like a penitent and pardoned criminal, hesitates, he may know that the Moral Governor is his Friend, and that he has made perfect provision for the pardon of the penitent. It is actionable under human law if a pardoned man is reproached for a crime that is for- given ; and if a sinner attempts to lead a new life, the Divine Friend stands by the penitent. This warm sympathy between God and man is the means of spiritual salvation. It is wrought through love, as the common factor ; and on God's part, the Incarnation is the manifestation of this self- sacrificing love. By it the Father and his erring children are brought together : God's care and helpfulness ; man's love and obedience. Now this is the kind of friendship the world needs : In- finite, Divine, yet thoroughly human ; a reconciling friend- ship, the love of God so appearing that it can be taken hold of by sinners, — so that they may thereby become sons and daughters of the Almighty. 411 CHAPTER TWO. JV Su-pertiuman Nlystery. V^ V^ del ITHOUT trenching upon the domain of a dog- matic treatise, it is suitable, in the interests of devotion, to make certain memoranda in re- gard to the mysterious personality of him who united in himself the human and the Divine. J I OW can these things be ? We do not know. Nor need 1 4 we attempt to solve it, until we first solve other prob- lems that are as mysterious : What is matter ? What is gravitation ? What is the life principle in a grain of growing corn ? Until these questions are answered, we will accept the facts : — the growth of corn, — the existence of gravitation, of matter, and of the Incarnation. We pass through life with many problems unsolved, and even if we share the exultant hope of the dying Melanch- thon, " Now, I shall know the mystery of the two natures," yet Jesus has said, " No man knoweth the Son, but the Father," and it is part of an old Hebrew song, " Thou art a God that hidest thyself, God of Israel, the Saviour." SBOOK IX.] 413 THE TWO NATURES. COR the purpose of illustration, the Incarnation may be, J^' in mode, conceived of as the omnipresence of God manifest in Christ so far as this : that while Jesus was, in the language of the Nicene symbol, Very God of Very God, yet there was in no sense a vacating of the throne of the universe, or any intermitting of the reign of the Highest.* Ood in Cinrist. WE are not to say that there were two souls, a God-soul and a man-soul,— not to say there were two personali- ties in one body ; but two distinct natures, God's nature and man's nature, mysteriously united without confusion or mixture in one person, and losing by the union no attribute of either nature, — forming a unique being who may be most suitably called the God-man, or God in Christ. Jesus Christ was the God-man : that is, God was in Christ acting under the limitations pf proper humanity. To use the illustration of Lessius : — " Fire pierceth through all the parts of iron, — it unites itself with every particle, bestows a light, heat, purity, upon all of it ; you cannot distinguish the iron from the fire, or the fire from the iron, yet they are distinct natures ; so the Deity is united to the whole humanity, seasons it, yet the natures still remain distinct. And as during the union of fire with *It is quaintly said by St. Augustine, " When Christ came forth from the Father, he so came into the world as not to leave the Father ; and he so left the world and went unto the Father as never to leave the world." 413 J OUR ELDER BROTHER. iron, the iron is incapable of rust or blackness, so is the humanity incapable of sin : and as the operation of fire is attributed to the red hot iron (as the iron may be said to heat, burn, and the fire may be said to cut and pierce), yet the imperfections of the iron do not affect the fire ; so in this mystery, those things which belong to the Divinity are ascribed to the humanity, and those things which belong to the humanity are ascribed to the Divinity, in regard of the person in whom those natures are united." The Highest Style of IVIan. /RESITS acted as the highest style of man would act, thought as he would think, and yet was lifted above his condition by virtue of his own Divinity, which operated in a manner analogous to the action of the Holy Spirit on prophets and good men in all ages. This is the meaning of the prophecy, that "the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and un- derstanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord " ; and also of the assertions of John the Baptist, that " God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him " ; and also the saying of the Evangelist, that "the grace of God was upon him." * * I find in Professor Edwards A. Park's Discourses, references to three classes of texts : — I. Tlie relation of the Divine naturo to the human. John i : 1-18 ; and iii : 11, Li. Hebrews i : 2-4 ; and ii : 1-4. John iii : 34 ; andvii : 16-18 ; and viii : 20-29 ; and xii : 44-50 ; and xiv : 10, 24 ; and xviii : 8. II. The influence of the Spirit, or the Divinity, upon the God-man. 414 THE TWO NATURES. The Divine Nature. THE Divine Nature of our Lord was so apprehended by him that he could say, "Before Abraham was, I am " ; and allude to his own former glory in the heavenly state, as a matter familiar to him.* And sometimes his manner awed men into standing apart for the time ; and his life work as a whole was as solitary as if he had come from some distant star, to touch for a moment upon this planet, to set into motion certain divine plans which no dis- ciple could then understand and which have not yet been perfectly comprehended as they have unfolded age after age. He it was " who being the holiest among the mighty, and the mightiest among the holy, lifted with his pierced hand empires off their hinges, turned the stream of the cen- turies out of its channel, and who still governs the ages." f Day by day he lived with no uncertain sense that this would be so ; and that the ages would honor the Son even as they honor the Father. "By Thee," says Saint Anselm, "the Col. i : 19 ; and ii : 9. Luke iv : 1, 14. John i : 32. Luke ii : 40. Isa. xi : 1-4 ; and xliii : 1-4. III. The relation of the Holy Spirit to Jesus. Matt, iv: 1. Luke iv : 1, 14. Isa. Ixi : 1. John i : 1, 32, 33 ; and vi : 27. Acts i : 8 ; and vi : 5-8 ; and X : 38. Rom. viii : 14. Phil. ii:7. Col. ii;9. II. Cor. i:21, 22. I. John ii: 27. * " He speaks of saving and judging the ■world, of drawing all men to himself, and of giving everlasting life, as we speak of the ordinary powers which we exert. " — William Ellery Channing. f Jean Paul Richteb. 415 OUR ELDER BROTHER. Seraphim burn, by Thee the Cherubim shine, by Thee the Thrones judge." Tlnoroiaghily Htaman. J TE was, too, so thoroughly human, that in early life l\ he learned for himself those virtues which mean so much to us in our low estate, — and which, we think with pride, may be of use to us in the world to which we hasten, — such virtues as Temperance, Contentment, Can- dor, Courage, Gratitude, Prudence, Fortitude, Economy; and Jesus as child, a youth, a young man, was content to grow, — developing his faculties, and his consciousness of his Messiahship, a little at a time ; and there was also a limita- tion of his knowledge, — many things being known to the Father only. * Welcome indeed must it have been to his Divine Nature to be brought into sympathy with a well proportioned human life, — whether to weep in the house of sorrow, to appear as a happy wedding guest, or to be re- proached for feasting. He who instructed men in the most profound religious teachings, also taught Peter where to catch fish. And he kindled a fire, and laid fish thereon, and said to his disciples, "Come, and dine." Has it not been an unspeakable boon to the Church universal, that the human side of the life of Christ has been given more prominence in recent generations, and that the modern disciples have insisted upon the imitation of the human virtues of the man Christ Jesus ? * This sentence is suggested by Bushnell's Sermon on " Our advan- tages in being Jinite," 416 THE TWO NATURES. The Son of Nlan. WITH all his consciousness of a Nature Divine, Jesus delighted to ca,ll himself "the Son of Man," the term used by- the prophet Daniel. 'In John's Gospel, our Lord calls himself upon four occasions,* the Son of God ; a term not unknown to the Jewish books, f And there are thirteen other passages in which Jesus speaks of himself as the Son of God, without using the precise phrase. The three earlier Evangelists all agree that Jesus acknowledged himself as the Son of God, in reply to the question of Caiaphas, at his trial. Yet the term Son of Man, Jesus applies to himself eighty- one times in the Gospels ; there being sometimes a dupli- cate record. The Divinity of our Lord thus put honor upon his humanity. The Divine Nature was united to man, to human nature ; Jesus was the Son of Man, rather than a son of Abraham. The heroes of the earth have been Jewish, Greek, Roman, Anglo.-Saxon ; but Christ belonged to all the race, — standing related to the whole human family, in all the ages of its history. Jesus was pre-eminently the Son of Man, in the sense that in his character we find the essen- tial elements of humanity in their perfection, and he stood as a Man ; and we may use the words of Robertson that in Christ " all the blood of all the nations ran." *Johniii; 18; and ix : 35,37; and x : 36; and xi : 4. f Enoch cv : 2. IV. Esdras xiii : 32 ; and xiv : 9. 417 , 27 OUR ELDER BROTHER. So impressed were the disciples with this favorite phrase of their Master, that Matthew, Mark, and Luke use the term " Son of Man " altogether, in citing the words of Jesus, — although they in no wise omit his claim to the Divine Sonship, as expressed in other phrases, and emphasized be- fore Caiaphas. To them, Jesus was first of all a man ; nor did his Divine Sonship appear to them with overwhelming evidence until he had risen from the dead. " In the Being, so simple, lowly ; in that most gentle Companion, that kind, ever accessible Friend ; who wandered by their sides in the same daily journeys, and retired at night to the same slumbers of exhausted nature ; who looked like themselves, was hungry and weary like themselves, wore the same raiment, partook of the same meals : in that intensely real human nature, how almost impossible for them to realize what a transcendent presence was ever near them. Death must dissolve the illusion of familiarity, and gather around the Man of Nazareth the mystery and awe of the world un- seen, before they could rise to the apprehension of his awful greatness, and see in him at once the Son of Man and Son of God." * *The Rt. Rev. F. D. Huntington, D.C.L. 418 CHAPTER THREE. Contrasts In the Divine Self =Sa.crlf ice. -»«*- IT was said that no man hath seen God at any time ; yet the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. The glory which Christ had with the Father before the world was, he laid aside for his subordinate mediatorial service. The scriptural contrasts in the story of the God-man relate to his proper Divine Nature, and the experiences incident to the earthly mission of our Lord. They illustrate the Divine love as it is manifested in Jesus Christ, in whom the Divine Will and the Divine Power so abode, that he constantly represented himself as one with the Father, and so eternally related to the First Cause of all things in essential life as rightfully to apply to himself the Divine name, and claim for himself the honor due to God. He who in his low estate was ignorant of many things relating to the future of the Jews, claimed to represent the wisdom of God and to be the searcher of hearts. He who made himself of no reputation, but took upon himself the [Book IX.] 419 OUB ELDER BROTHEK. form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of man, was yet in the form of God, and claimed to be his equal ; and he said to those around him, "Ye are from beneath, I am from above : I came forth from the Father." HAD it not been asked of old time, "Will God indeed ^ dwell on the earth ? Behold the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee." Yet he who said, "I am the beginning and the end, the first and the last," took to himself the name, "Immanuel"; and in him the An- cient of Days became an infant of days. Is it possible in the words of an old English preacher, " to contract divinity to a span" ?* Yet he that built the heavens was now, as the most lowly human child, born in a barn. ' ' Firmitudo infirmatur ; Parva fit immensitas, Laboratur, alligatur ; Nascitur aeternitas." f That is : Eternity is born ; Immeasurableness becomes small, and suffers, and is bound ; and Strength becomes weakness. He of whom it was written that the government shall be upon his shoulder, the Counsellor, the Prince of Peace, was also said to be born a child, — Unto us a Son is given. He, * Bishop Jf.rkmy Taylor. f Chmtmas Carol, Luther. 430 CONTRASTS IN THE DIVINE SELF-SACRIFICE. of whom it is written that he stretcheth out the heavens like a curtain, that he layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters, was now content as any child of humanity, with a roof for housing wayfarers, man, and beast. The Desire of all nations appeared in one of the cattle caves of Beth- lehem. He who covereth himself with light as with a garment, the Saviour, Christ the Lord, was wrapped in swaddling bands. "Ye shall find a babe," it was said: " He whose goings forth have been from of old, from ever- lasting." He that sent forth stars, as seed from the hand of a sower, now like a babe of every day stretched out a tiny hand asking pity. But that babe arose from the man- ger, and declared. Before Abraham was, I am : Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else. He who was called the Power of God, was said to be sub- ject to Joseph and Mary at Nazareth ; and he who was called the Wisdom of God, was said as an earthly child to increase in wisdom, — and he sought wisdom from earthly rabbis. He who made the sea and the mountains and all the glittering worlds that hang on high, who made all things, neither without him was anything made that was made, he who was appointed of God the heir of all things, now, as a Nazarene Carpenter, took hold on the tools of a mechanic, and handled the hammer and the plane, and men were offended in him. Yet we hear the voice of the unpretend- ing Jesus saying, Behold a greater than Solomon is here. And the obscure Nazarene cried with a loud voice, so that all men might hear him, "I am the Light of the world." 421 OUR ELDER BROTHER. If I were hungry, quoth the Hebrew song, I would not tell thee : yet it is recorded in the Gospel story, that the hunger of Immanuel was known even to the great adver- sary. God cannot be tempted of evil ; yet our Lord was tempted in all points as we are. sf TE to whom we make our prayers was himself often all * l^ night praying, and, adds the commentator,* as he was going to the mountains to pray, " The sparrow, not knowing its Creator and Protector, flew away from his coming. His form cast its shadow, as he passed, over bush, and flower, and grass, and they knew not that their Maker overshadowed them." The High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, that dwelleth in the high and holy place, said to his disciples, "I ana meek and lowly in heart." He who built the many mansions of his Father's house, and who prepares a place for every one of his people, had not himself a place to lay his head. What house will ye build me, saith the Lord, or what is the place of my rest ; heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool : hath not my hands made all these things ? Yet men turned the Son of God out of their villages at nightfall, as an outcast. The Lord of all the worlds has walked this globe ; and while his weary feet moved through dusty Galilee, unseen angels bowed before him. * Henry Ward Beecher. 422 CONTRASTS IN THE DIVINE SELF-SACRIFICE. He who walked the waves of the sea, was fain to hide himself near the shores of the sea, that he might rest from the importunities of the thronging multitude. He who quieted the storm on the lake, was just before asleep through weariness. The Creator of the ends of the earth, who fainteth not, neither is weary, who giveth power to the faint, was said to be weary with his journey, and to sit in repose at a well- side. He who meted out heaven with a span and measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, he who had made the rivers and the fountains, saith to a woman of Samaria, " Give me to drink." And he who was athirst, now be- stowed the living water. He who inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, who dwelleth in the high and holy place, was said also, in tab- ernacling with men, to receive sinners, and to eat with them. Who hath first given to God ? asks the Apostle. Yet it was said by St. Luke, that when he who was called " God with us " went preaching the glad tidings of the Kingdom, many persons ministered unto him of their substance. Concerning the Ancient of Days it was said, that thou- sand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him ; yet, on the earth, as the Son of Man, he came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and he was among men as he that serveth. He who knew that the Father had given all things into his hands, laid aside his garments ; and he who knew that he was come from God, and that he went to God, washed the 433 OUR ELDER BROTHER. feet of his disciples, and wiped them with the towel where- with he was girded. He who commands the princes of heaven, now gathers the outcasts of Israel. He who counts the numbers with- out number of the hosts of heaven, now carefully enumer- ates the hairs of our heads ; and cares for things minute, which are of moment to his disciples. It was said in Exodus, when the Lord came to Sinai : Set bounds unto the people round about : take heed ; go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it : whosoever toucheth the mount shall surely be put to death ; there shall not a hand touch it. Yet it was said in the Gospel story, that a woman which was a sinner, stood at the feet of Immanuel, weeping, and washing his feet with tears, and wiping them with the hairs of her head. Severe as justice, he was yet gentle as a woman, and one disciple dared lean his head on the bosom of the Incarnate Jehovah. IN the words of the old Hebrew song, " The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein : but when he came unto his own, his own received him not. Although the world was made by him, yet when he was in the world, the world knew him not. Who is this, asked the prophet, that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments, glorious in his apparel ? It was he, who became a proverb in the mouth of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and who made sackcloth his garment. Isaiah, 424 CONTRASTS IN THE DIVINE SELF-SACEIPICE. who is called the evangelistic prophet, saw in vision the worship of the seraphims, who cried one unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts ; the whole earth is full of his glory. Yet John the Evangelist has written that the Jews said, concerning the Representative of the Highest, that he hath a devil. God had said, " This is my beloved Son : hear ye him." And Jesus said, " Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world; then, concerning the Jews, he said, "They hated me without a cause." Was there not a prophetic vision, of a certain man whose loins were girded with fine gold, and his body, his face, his eyes, his arms, his feet, brilliant with light and precious stones and gleaming metal ? Yet there was another vision, showing that men would despise him who was the chiefest among ten thousand, as a root out of dry ground, without form or comeliness or beauty that any should desire him. " Thou hast made him blessed forever," sang the Psalmist : yet the Lord was rejected of men, and they esteemed him not. " Thou hast made him exceeding glad with thy countenance," sang the Psalmist : yet men hid their faces from God's Anointed. "I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him," said he who was the personification of the Divine Wisdom : yet in Judea and Galilee, the Teacher of the world was but a Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief. 425 OUE ELDER BROTHER. THE infinite pathos of the Divine self-renunciation appears in the later story of our Saviour's life. Did not John the Revelator see one sitting upon a great white throne, before whose face the earth and the heaven fled away ? Yet it is recorded that the face of our Lord was once so agonized, that great drops of blood fell down to the ground. He who had been called the Strength of Israel, needed at Gethsenaane an angel from heaven to strengthen him. Before the day was, I am he ; and there is none, saith the Lord of Israel, who can deliver out of my hand ; yet, in the night, was the Lord of Israel delivered into the hands of men. He that doeth according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, so that none can stay his hand, was now taken by a band of Roman soldiers, and bound as a captive. He whom God had highly exalted, and given a name above every name, was confronted by false witnesses, to put him to death. It had been written of old, " Grace is poured into thy lips ; therefore God hath blessed thee for- ever : " yet he was accused by the high priest, of speaking blasphemy. Then the Judge of the universe was haled as a prisoner before Pilate's bar ; and for him whom God had crowned with glory and honor, they platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head. The darkness, it is said, hideth not from Thee, but the night shineth as the day, the darkness and the light are both alike to thee : so runs the old Hebrew song. Yet, con- cerning Immanuel, it was written, that when they had 426 CONTRASTS IN THE DIVINE SELF-SACRIFICE. blindfolded him, they struck him in the face, and asked him, saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee ? as if he saw them not. Concerning our Lord it was written, that as all things were created by him, so all were created for him, — all things that are in heaven, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, principalities or powers. Yet concerning our Lord it is also written, that they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe ; and put a reed in his right hand ; and mocked him ; and they spit upon him ; and they led him away to crucify him. He who had said, " I am the Way," now weakly faltered on the way to Calvary : and he who had said, "I am the Life," was soon dead. Despairing men fled from the pres- ence of him, who is called the Alpha and the Omega, when he died ; and weeping women gathered round the tomb of him who is the First and the Last.* * I can but add a paragraph of contrasting phrases by Dr. R. S. Storrs, in his introduction to Eddy's Immanuel: — " In his meekness and his majesty, in his patience and his power, tempted yet triumphant, insulted yet serene, scoffed at by men but wor- shiped by angels, with the world at his disposal, yet making himself the poorest in it, submitting to the crown of thorns the head which wore many diadems, allowing the nails to be driven through the hands whose touch had before unloosed for others the bars of death, — so comes before the illumined thoughts this Son of the Eternal ; this Prince and King of the kings of the earth. " 427 OUR ELDER BROTHER. "/\ THE height and depth of this super-celestial mys- \J , tery, that the infinite Deity and finite flesh should meet in one subject, yet so as the humanity should not be absorbed of the Godhead, nor the Godhead con- tracted by the humanity, but both inseparably united : that the Godhead is not humanized, the humanity not deified, both are indivisibly conjoined ; yet so conjoined as to be without confusion distinguished." * Let us, therefore, day by day, join in the praises of Jesus, — using the language of Milton, — " Because thou hast, though throned in highest bliss Equal to God, and equally enjoying God-like fruition, quitted all to save A world from utter loss ; and hast been found By merit more than birthright Son of God." God with us, "Immanuel": This precious name we will write upon the walls of our closets ; and we will in- scribe it on our household furniture ; and we will wear it on our garments, bearing it as the precious talisman, at noonday or morning or evening or midnight, in childhood and in old age, — " Immanuel, God with us," our life's motto till we ourselves abide with God. The Victor's Cro-wn. Lift up, lift up the golden gate ; The Christ is here in regal state,- — Triumphal crown for Him doth wait : Hallelujah. * Bishop Joseph IIall. 428 CONTKASTS IN THE DIVINE SELF-SACRIFICE. All kings lie low beneath His feet, — All courtiers hasten Him to meet ; All hosts prepare His glorious seat : Hallelujah. All earthly knees before Him bow, — All earthly lips to Him make vow ; — All place the crown upon His brow : Hallelujah. 429 BOOK TEN. .-»>:;^;e=s«- Thie Wonderful Name. -SS'^j^- X "CERTAIN heretics in the early church had a beauti- I V-r^ ful tradition that a cross of Light appeared in ^^Is place of the body of Christ in the tomb after his resurrection, and that a divine voice full of sweetness issued from the cross, saying, " The cross of Light is, for your sakes, called sometimes the Word, sometimes Christ, sometimes the Door, sometimes the Way, sometimes the Bread, sometimes the Sun, sometimes the Resurrection, sometimes Jesus, sometimes the Father, sometimes the Spirit, sometimes the Life, sometimes the Truth, sometimes Faith, and sometimes Grace." Let us, for the hour, gaze on the cross of Light, and listen to the heavenly voice which recites the Wonderful Names of Jesus. And we are to remember that the Old and the New Testaments are one in revealing God the Redeemer ; so that we may suitably give to Christ many terms which are applied to " The Lord," as he is called in the Old Testament. [BOOK X.] 431 OUR ELDER BROTHER. efSIDER the relation in which Christ stands to God in the work of Redemption. The name of Christ is spoken of as the ineffable name of the Lord. This is the name above every name, a tower into which the righteous may run, the name through which we are saved : God with us ; Messiah, the Gift of God, — he is the perfect gift. He is God's Anointed, anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows. Christ is the elect of God, in whom my soul delighteth. He is represented as the Angel of the Covenant, a Messenger from God to men. He is the Righteous Servant, among you as one that serveth, of no reputation. Christ is the Lamb of God, the Lamb that was slain, Innocence atoning for guilt, the High God our Redeemer, redeeming from the curse of the Law, — himself made, as it is said, a curse for us. He is the Mediator; he is the Saviour, saving to the uttermost. He is Priest, abiding continually. He is Prophet, declaring the mind of God. He is King, and King of kings ; a Shepherd King ; a King with a reed for a scepter, and thorns for a crown, and a cross for a throne ; reigning and prospering till all the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord. Jehovah is our King, Christ is revealed as the Arm of the Lord. All things were created by him, as for him. By the work of his fingers the heavens were made. His fingers touch the mountains and they smoke. The Arm of the Lord reaches into the 433 THE SCRIPTURAL SYMBOLS OF CHRIST. depths to rescue His chosen. That Arm upholds the faint. That Arm is stretched on the cross, offering mercy. That Arm is uplifted to crush foes. It is written, Awake, Arm of the Lord, and put on thy strength. If I speak of strength, lo, he is strong. He is represented as the Almighty, which is, and which was, and which is to come. Behold, I have given him for a leader and conamander to the people. He is the Captain of our salvation. He stands for an Ensign of the people. And he, too, is set forth as the Lion of the tribe of Judah. It is in respect to these regal and military qualities, that he is also called the Lord of glory, the King of glory, in whom God makes all His glory to pass before us. 'TT.GAIN let us consider the relation in which Christ stands i\ to man. He is not only the Head over all things to his Church, and the Desire of all Nations, but as the Second Adam he is the only real beginning of complete manhood on the earth.* The first Adam failed of fulfilling the ideal image of God ; and although men may develop many hu- man faculties none will be perfected till they become new creatures in Christ Jesus. God has therefore set forth Christ as symbolized by various things in nature, and in the different employments of men, and in the things men use ; * It was a remark of St. Augustine that the whole history of the world revolves around the first Adam and the Second. » 433 28 OUR ELDER BROTHER. and as the peculiar Friend of man ; and as related to man in delivering from the power of sin ; and as standing near at death and the judgment. Christ is thus represented as in every way satisfying human wants : and all this variety of imagery is used only the better to express the Infinite Love of God to man, as it appears in the man Christ Jesus. 434 CHAPTER TWO. His Name Reflected, in Nature. EAR then the Wonderful Name of Jesus, as it is uttered by the voice of Nature. Do we gaze on rocks, or rivers, or growing "^""^'^ things, or raise our eyes to the sweet light of morning, — we are always reading the choice names of our Saviour. Christ is called the Rock ; a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation ; more unchange- able than the everlasting hills and stronger than they. He is the Rock of Refuge, a hiding place from the storm. " Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee." Christ is represented as the River of God, with which the earth is visited, watered and greatly enriched ; a River opened in a high place, that causes fountains to spring in the midst of the valleys, that makes the wilderness a pool. Christ is the true Wellspring from on High ; it is of un- measured depth, forever flowing. Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. My soul thirsteth after God, the living God. Go to drink at other waters ; they are stagnant. Go to wash in other streams ] they do not [Book X.] 435 OUK ELDER BROTHER. cleanse the soul. But the voice of Jesus is heard, "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean." Again, the Lily of the Valley, the Rose, the Pearl, and all things beautiful lend their names to Christ. Let the Rose of Sharon adorn your houses : wear that Rose next your breast. Again, behold, there appears the Branch of the Lord, beautiful and glorious. Again, Christ is a Vine, rejected by some as if with un- comely root out of dry ground, yet a Vine climbing over a Cross, a Vine extending his branches far over the huts of the poor and the gardens of the wealthy, a Vine shading and feeding. Are we branches of that Vine, having life of his life, and no life separated from him, having the same spiritual affections and aspirations and purposes with the Son of God ; living in him, crucified with him, dying with him, buried with him, quickened with him, and rising with him ; complete only in Christ ? Again, when we gaze on Christ, we behold him dawn- ing upon Us as the Sun of Righteousness, the Light of the World, a Light to lighten the Gentiles, the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.* God said, Let there be light, and Christ was the Light breaking in upon moral darkness ; the source of all move- ment and all power, under which graces may bloom and * " What the sun is to that flower, Jesus Christ is to my soul. He is the sun of my soul." — Lord Tennyson: as reported by a friend with whom the poet walked iu his garden. 430 EMBLEMS IN NATURE. virtues grow. He who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts by the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. When will that Dayspring appear ? When will that Morning Star ascend the heavens ? When night doth round me close, Ere eyelids seek repose — I look to Thee afar : When morning rises fair, To Thee I lift my prayer, — To Thee, my Morning Star. 437 CHAPTER THREE. Emblems In Human. Life. -^ E behold Christ as a man among men ; figured as taking part in our common avocations. To the nomads of the East he appears as the Shepherd, leading to good and fat pastures upon the moun- tains of Israel ; Christ unwearied in gently bringing home wanderers. He it is who leaves the ninety and nine, — in the heat of the day or during the chill of the night, — to search for the lost. He shall gather the lambs with his arms, and carry them in his bosom.* ' ' Yet none of the ransomed ever knew How deep were the waters crossed ; Nor how dart was the night that the Lord passed through, Ere he found his sheep that was lost. Out in the desert he heard its cry, — Sick and helpless and ready to die." The lamb torn and bleeding does not fling himself into the arms of the Shepherd ; the Shepherd knows that the * It is related of the Italian patriot Garibaldi, thathe once searched all night upon the mountains near his camp, to find a lamb lost by a Sardinian shepherd. In the morning, he was found sleeping late in his tent, — with the lamb in his bosom. [Book X.J 438 EMBLEMS IN HUMAN LIFE. lamb is wounded, he listens to his bleating, and takes him in his arms. Trembling and powerless under the paw of the roaring lion, the lamb has no strength to go to the Shep- herd, but he who is mighty to save snatches him from the power of the enemy. He it is who layeth down his life for the sheep ; and they shall never perish, — neither shall any pluck them out of his hand. His sheep he knoweth by name. To the common eye there is no individuality in a flock. The shepherd knows them, perhaps, by their defects. "You see that sheep toes in a little," said one shepherd, "that other one has a squint ; one has a little piece of wool off ; another has a black spot; another has a piece out of its ear." The Chief Shepherd must at least know the individual fail- ings of his flock ; and his watch over thena is with par- ticularity, by a separate, discriminating love. He calleth them by name, — your name, my name, as to our personal needs. This text, says Dr. William Hanna, indicates a living, personal, peculiar interest : our Saviour, with inflnite ten- derness, watches each doubt, fear, trial, temptation, fall, rising again, conflict, victory, defeat, — every movement by which progress is advanced or retarded ; he watches each and all, with a solicitude as special and particular as if each were the object of the exclusive regard of the Saviour's loving heart. "The Christian soul lives on Christ; he is fed and guarded, he is kept and made peaceful, he is safe and quiet, 439 OUR ELDER BROTHER. as a trustful lamb under the faithful care of a kind shep- herd." * And the shepherd knoweth his own ; and he calleth them by name, — since the sheep are all marked ; marked in the ear, and in the foot, — they "hear'' and they "fol- low." t " The calling and leading," J says Dr. Alex. Kaleigh, "are always united ; he calls that he may lead. The Shep- herd is in movement ; he comes to abide with us, but not to keep us abiding in the same states and circumstances." • N"or do the sheep, says the Rev. Hudson Taylor, tell the Shepherd which way they want to go, and get him to help them ; but the Shepherd leads them. " Like bells at evening pealing, The voice of Jesus sounds o'er land and sea; And laden souls by thousands meekly stealing, Kind Shepherd, turn their weary steps to Thee." Of all the titles of Christ, says Dean Stanley, this was the most popular with the early Christians : their religion was that of the Good Shepherd; "the kindness, the courage, the love, the beauty, the grace, of the Good Shep- herd, was to them, if we may so say. Prayer Book and Articles, Creed and Canon, all in one ; they looked on that figure, and it conveyed to them all they wanted." § * Professor Henry Cowles. f The comment made by an English preacher, upon John x : 27. t John X : 3. § It was written upon one of the early Christian tombs : " I, Abercius, am a disciple of the Pure Shepherd ; whose eyes look on all sides, as he feeds his flocks on the mountains and plains. " 440 EMBLEMS IN HUMAN LIFE. If Jesus appears as a Shepherd to the men of the Orient, he appears as a Teacher to the cultivated men of the West ; a Teacher, apt, attractive, tender, firm, thorough, earnest, — training kings and priests unto God. Again, Christ comes among men as a Refiner, purifying till his own image is seen in the place of dross. The compassionate Jesus is also the Great Physician, himself without blemish, and healing the body and the soul. Wherever feet are weary, Christ bears up the infirm body. When the eyes are dim gazing on the earthly, Christ reveals heaven to the soul. When Jesus walks the earth, avenues of the wretched open before him : while be- hind him stand those with eyes newly opened, gazing on him ; tongues just loosed, speaking his name ; ears just opened, hearing his praises ; arms lately withered, now lifted to heaven in thanksgiving ; feet lately infirm, now running after him. Bodies worn with disease, thrill with new life at the words, " I will, be thou clean." With balm, and with healing leaves from the tree of life, he comes into the sick chamber : himself represented as the sun to bring good cheer ; himself a fountain to cool the air ; himself the lily and rose to bring beauty into the presence of decay ; himself wine and bread and meat to nourish the failing powers. We need no earthly physician so much as we need Christ. THE Saviour appears to us in connection with our com- mon affairs, as if to serve us in the things we most use and need. 441 OUR ELDER BROTHER. It is as if we were to find him in the path we daily tread, seeing in him the new and living Way ; the way of life, the way of truth, the way of holiness, the way of peace, the way of salvation. So Christ is the Truth ; and he is the Word, the expression of the truth. And if he is the Way and the Truth he is also the Life ; we live in him, and move in him, and have our being in him. He is the light of Life, the breath of Life, Life from the dead. He is the tree of Life, the water of Life, the bread of Life, the Prince of Life. He that hath the Son hath Life. And day by day, as we go in and out of our homes, let us know that Christ is the Door, — the Door of heaven which opens from within. And for the earth, the Door of the coming Eden. When will the human race, trying for sixty centuries to regain the joys of paradise, enter through that Door ? * And if Christ is the Door he is also the Key, the Key of David. " Draw nigh, draw nigh, O David's Key, The heavenly gate will ope to Thee, ^ake safe the road that we must go, And close the path that leads below, f And if Christ is the Door and the Key, he has also been our Dwelling Place in all generations. He opens to us a Rest, a Home ; and calls into it all who labor and are heavy laden. *" Christ said himself , lam the door. What is the door for — to look at? However exquisite its workmanship, when you have got through looking at it, you push it open and go in. Christ is the door through which God came in to the human race, through which the human race comes in unto God." — Lyman Abbott, D.D. f Medieval Advent Hymn. 442 CHAPTER FOUR. The IVEystlcal Union. -***-t:^«- ^OST wonderful yet, of all the wonderful names of Jesus, we find Christ entering our homes to abide with us as our most intimate Friend. He comes in upon those sad days when we bury our dead ; for he bears the name the Man of Sorrows, and he is acquainted with grief. He stood as if chief mourner at the grave of Lazarus ; and — most com- forting fact — his weeping was in mere sympathy with sorrowing sisters, although he knew that the brother would at once arise. His heart of love beats therefore the more warmly toward us, because we are sinners needing his love and his friendship. He was called the Friend of Sinners. We accept the charge, and make it our boast and glory. Christ was the Friend of the vilest of men ; all men vile before him, — and yet his love fastened to them all as if by the nails of his crucifixion. Are we prepared, therefore, to hear another name, and to believe that Christ is also to us the Heavenly Guest, promising to abide with his disciples ? He knocks at the [Book X.] 443 OUR ELDER BROTHER. door, and if any man opens, he will come in unto him and sup with him. This man rejecteth — no receiveth — sin- ners and eateth with them. Behold here the Hidden Manna, the Bread which cometh down from heaven. * Coming from his noble toils and high enterprises in saving a race, he spreads a table under our lowly roof, and feasts with us until we are ready to renounce the earth as a wilderness and the things of the world as dreams and go forth to follow Jesus only, and to go home with him at nightfall. The Bible is full of this idea of a personal presence abiding with us ; f and we open this Book in vain/l till we find Jesus coming to be our Guest, — abiding in us. He enters our homes with a word of greeting, and interests himself in our affairs, I and folds our children to his arms. I need not wander over the mountains of Judea vainly seeking the footsteps of the Lord ; Christ is within. Day by day, therefore, I sing St. Bernard's Hymn : — " I seek for Jesus in repose, When round my heart its chambers close : Abroad, and "when I shut my door, I long for Jesus evermore." WHEN, ho^yever, we speak of the term Friend, as being the most wonderful of the titles borne by the Saviour, we ought to seek to sound its depths, and know what the * " Without Thee, my table is unspread. " — Thomas i Kempis. t II. Cor. xiii : 15. Gal. iii : 20, 28. 1. Cor. xi : 15, 19. , Rom. viii : 9,10. Phil, iv: 13. J "A rule, I have had for years, is to treat the Lord Jesus Christ as a personal Friend. " — Dwioiit L. Moody. 444 THE HEAVENLY BRIDEGROOM. Scripture really means by it. How strange then are the words we hear. Christ is to us not only a sympathizing Friend, and the Friend of Sinners, and a Heavenly Guest, but he enters our homes, claiming to be one of the members of the family, nay, the very Head of the house. Every gentle name Christ bears. Every name we love Christ bears. Every kind relation he sustains to us. Who- soever shall do the will of my Father which is heaven, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother. There is a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother.* As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you. As a father pitieth his children, so this our Everlasting Father pities us, and is delighted with the prattling of his children. He has loved us with an everlasting love. And best of all, most wonderful of all, it is written : Thy Maker is thine Husband ; the Lord of Hosts is his name, f The Heavenly Bridegroom left his Father's house, that he might cleave to his bride, the Church. Is not this thy Friend, O daughter of Jerusalem ? " Saw ye him whom my soul loveth ? I sought him, but I found him not." Yet even now I hear his voice calling : J " Behold, I have pre- pared my dinner ; my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready : come unto the marriage." If human * Prov. xviii : 24. It is this text that has given to our Lord the title OtiR Elder Brother, so scriptural in its thought, if not in its words. f Isa. liv : 5. Compare Hos. ii : 19, 20. I will betroth thee unto me forever ; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving kindness, and in mercies. % Matt, xxii : 4. Comp. Rev. xix : 7-9 ; xxi : 2, 9 ; xxii : 17. 445 OUR ELDER BROTHER. love makes us so happy in our common life, how happy shall we be if the Son of God loves us. With the joy of the bride- groom, it is written, shall thy God rejoice over thee. The strongest phrases known to human lips for the expression of the heart's aflEection, are thus used in the Bible to set forth the Divine love to man, — love before we were born, from the foundation of the world. No bridegroom is so full of joy as God rejoicing in his love for those who love him. No bride is so joyous as that soul to whom God manifests his love. Neither death nor life upon the earth, nor angels and principalities in heaven, nor anything present or future, in the heights above nor the depths below, can separate Christ from His love to us. * He is to us, therefore, the Fairest of the Sons of Men, the Chief among Ten Thousand, and the one altogether lovely ; whom not having seen we love, and in whom, though we see him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. It is written, thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty : and we will take up the words of Rutherford, " I want nothing now, but a further revela- tion of the beauty of the unseen Son of God." Yet what is this that St. Bernard is saying ? " O hard and hardened sons of Adam, not to be softened by such kindness, by such a flame, by such great ardor of love, by so eager a Lover, who expends precious treasure for the *Rom. viii: 38, 39. When a dying soldier was asked by the chap- lain, of -what persuasion he was, he replied, "I am persuaded that neither death nor life can separate me from the love of God, that is in Christ Jesus. ' ' 446 THE HEAVENLY BRIDEGROOM. vilest wares." Is Christ the Beloved, and do you love him not ? Who are they, amid all the votaries of this world's fashions, who are preparing their wedding garments, and making ready to sit down at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb ? Have you a home ? It is no home, till Christ is in it. Till you call God " Father," you are an orphan : till you call Christ "Brother," you are friendless. You need no love so much as you need the comforting love of Christ. 447 CHAPTER FIVE. Alpha, and Omega. IN considering the relation in which Christ stands to man, we find that in the Wonderful Name of Jesus he is called the Intercessor. We hear therefore a voice from heaven, the voice of prayer, Christ inter- ceding for his people. According to the Bible, Christ's present activity in be- half of his people is of a twofold nature : He " abides with" his disciples upon the earth, and he bears their names before his Father's throne in heaven, interceding for them. Or, to put it in another way : As God the Creator is now engaged in sustaining, preserving, and governing the forces of the universe, so God the Redeenxer, the Incarnate God, is still carrying on the work begun in the new creation. Christ has explicitly told us that the Father himself loveth us, and God in Christ is now carrying to completion the work begun in his earthly mission. We may then take great comfort with Paul in thinking of the present love of Christ for his people, as set forth under the figure of one ever living to make intercession for us. As once upon the Judean hills, so now in the heavenly hill country, he prays for all who shall believe on his name ; [Book X.] 448 ALPHA AND OMEGA. interceding for us, as really as if he had a closet in our own house, into which he should go day by day to pray for us. When therefore we ask the relation which Christ bears to man's salvation, we may believe with Origen, that Christ becomes all things to all men, " according to the necessities of the whole creation capable of being redeemed by him " : "Happy," therefore, "are they, who have advanced so far as to need the Son of God no longer as a healing Physician, no longer as a Shepherd, no longer as the Eedemption ; but who need him only as the Truth, the Word, the Sanctifica- tion, and in whatever other relation he stands to those whose maturity enables them to comprehend what is most glorious in his character." And in the relation which Jesus bears to man, he is set forth as our Eighteousness, through whom we are treated as if we had never sinned. So that we hide behind Christ, the expression of God's Mercy, and the Divine Justice looks not upon us but upon the Lord our Eighteousness. Christ is therefore to us the true Passover, by which the angel of spiritual death is made to pass by. And when we come to the great change from life to life, Christ is the Eesurrectioh ; and he shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, when we know him and the power of his resurrection. And when we come to the Great Day of Trial, as Christ is the Coun- ' selor of God, so he is the Advocate of man. Is he the Wisdom of God, wonderful in counsel ? We therefore may boldly put in our claim on that dread Day, " Lord, under- 449 29 OUR ELDER BROTHER. take for me." And when that Day dawns we shall behold him, — our nearest Friend, our Heavenly Guest, our Bride- groom, who is our own Advocate, sitting in the place of the Supreme Judge of the assembled universe.* THE Scriptures thus reveal Christ as all and in all to the believer ; or, to put it in the words of the beloved John, Christ is to us the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End : Christ, Alpha, * " The moment Christ appeared, he became a judgment, or a judge. There was no visible bench, no formal sentence. He was ever anxious to remove the impression that condemnation was his earthly errand. He said, ' I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. ' Xeverthe- less the judgment comes, and by a law inwrought in all our souls. No one of us can ever be as if Christ had not appeared on the earth. To hear the name of Christ alters the relations of every human being to the highest facts, — to God, to eternity. It was not so much any special say- ing ; it was his character, his very nature, that was judicial. As soon as he was manifest, the whole world of men about him fell apart, and souls took their places, on the right hand and the left. It was as if that divine presence located instantly every human life on earth. And so he added : ' Though I came not into the world to judge it, though that is not my special mission here in the body, but to manifest God to you ; yet after- ward, in the world to come, and in consequence of that manifestation, judgment will come, solemn, awful, inevitable, sudden as a thief in the night. The word that I speak unto you, that shall judge you. ' "The question, then, for the individual is this: Do we see Christ? Do we see and recognize our Lord? Whether he has come, where he is, whether he can be found, is not the matter we have to consider ; nor whether we belong to him. He has come : he lives : he is visible to the eyes of faith : his life goes forth into the race forever, flowing into all hearts that will open to receive it, making them sons and kings and priests to God." — Bishop F. D. Huntington. 450 ALPHA AND OMEGA. promised to the first family ; Christ, Omega, the Last, in whom all the families of the world will be blessed : Christ at first revealed as the Crusher of the Serpent, and at the last revealed as having all things put under his feet : Christ, Alpha, figured in the first sacrifice ; Christ, Omega, the last Great Sacrifice : Christ at first driving guilty man from Eden with a flaming sword ; Christ at last burning the world, and by fire cleansing the foul places of sin : Christ the Author, Christ the Finisher of faith : Christ the Alpha, the name we utter in our prayer at the beginning of every day ; Christ the Omega, the name in which we pray in the evening of every day : Christ the name pronounced over the newborn child, that the blessing of Alpha may be on him ; Christ the name pronounced over the hoary man in dying, that the blessing of Omega may be upon him. The first voice of heaven is, Blessed be Alpha ; and there will never cease a voice in heaven crying. Blessed be Omega, the Beginning and the End. Omega, Alpha, First and Last, Holy One in ages past, God of cycles yet to come, — Stones to praise Thee are not dumb ; Stony heart Thy glory sings, Broken heart with praises rings. ^pns old Thy mercy's birth, Ere foundations of the earth Rose from ancient gloom and night ; Ages endless in their flight Mark Thy love, Thou First and Last, — Binding me secure and fast. 451 CHAPTEE SIX. The Royal Diadem. tOU may learn Christ through and through from Alpha to Omega, all his titles, all his honors, his riches, his powers, his praises, his countless glories ; count up all his royal names ; deem him honorable. You may gather his many crowns and royal gems, his purple robes and the garment that was made red when he trod the winepress alone. You may find all songs and every kind of music, and praise him whose powers are without limit. Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, from ever- lasting to everlasting. "Bring," "Bring," said a dying soldier. " Bring what, father ? " asked his daughter. " ' Bring forth the royal diadem, And crown Him Lord of all.' " All these Scriptural Names of Christ are windows, through which we gaze in, and see the beauty of Christ. The character of Christ shines out through these names, — a character of Infinite Love ; God rejoicing to display his love to them who love him in the most varied phrases that finite beings can comprehend, as if he were never weary of [Bookx.] 452 THE ROYAL DIADEM. inventing new forms in which to show forth Christ the expression of the Divine Love to men. The variety of character revealed in the Wonderful Name of Jesus is a theme for never ceasing praises. As in every way we seek to please those dear to us on earth, and satisfy all the long- ings of human friendships, so our Saviour represents him- self as seeking in every way to please those who have committed themselves to him. The various names of Christ are the different phases of his-love to men. These are his diadems : these are the many crowns he wears, each of peculiar glory. Yet the name which underlies them all is Love : God is Love. All the colors of nature are resolvable into certain primary colors ; and as the brilliant bow of promise, the arch of glory, rising in the eastern sky after a shower upon a summer's afternoon, is built by the mingling and blending of the three primary colors, — so the resplendent beauty of these names of Christ, arching our common life like a bow of heavenly promise, is all built upon God's Love to man, that love wearing an almost endless variety of form and color and name. ' This, then, is what is meant by the voice of the old Hebrew prophet, when he cried out concerning the Messiah, " His Name shall be called Wonderful." I ONCE saw a little model of ancient Jerusalem a few feet square ; but however accurate the measurements and exact the imitation in miniature, I could never feel that I had seen the City of the Great King. So the glory of Christ, 453 OUR ELDER BROTHER. as it is, can never be set forth even by the delineation of his character in the very words of Holy Writ. But such hints as we get, are to be used ; that we ourselves may be conformed to his image. The Bible gives us no hint of Christ's physical features, but we have a portrait of his soul ; and this is to stand before us, the ideal character, like the divine pattern for Hebrev/ building once shown in the mount of God. "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider Christ Jesus." " Consider," "intently gaze," as one who seeks to copy. We are changed in beholding him : as it is written, " But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord." As we intently gaze on Christ, seeking to copy his character, the Spirit gives us first one glory, then another, till we become like him — when we shall see him as he is. Imitation of Christ is in no way so successful as when it is pursued with a passion of love to Christ. We cry in the words of St. Francis, " Let me die of love for Thee, O God of Charity, who hast expired for love of me. " We love him because he first loved us. How, then, shall the love of Christ constrain us, that we may willingly toil in weary service, and all the years seem as nothing to us for the love we bear our Saviour ? * It is * ' ' Love lightens the heaviest burdens, makes difficulties easj', and smooths the rugged ways of duty, and takes out the bitterness of suffer- ing." — Thomas A. Kempis. 464 THE ROYAL DIADEM. the love of Christ which constrains us. We serve, says St. Bernard, " in that love which casteth out fear, feels no toils, thinks of no merit, asks no reward, and yet carries with it a mightier restraint than all things else. No terror so spurs one on, no reward so strongly attracts, no demand of a due so pressingly urges." Let us, therefore, see to it that we love Christ more than everything else. Let us for the moment cease to talk and think of duties done, or work to do. Let us become ab- sorbed in simply loving Christ. Thus we shall gain the greatest possible motive-power to impel us in leading a successful Christian, Christlike, life. Since Christ is all and in all to us, let us, like the disciples after the trans- figuration, lift up our eyes and see no man save Jesus only. We will with joy adopt for ourselves the words of John, the forerunner of Christ, and delight in bearing for our name the sweetest of earthly titles, "The friend of the Bridegroom." We will take up the words of the Apostle and make them our own, and whatsoever we do in word or deed, we will do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. In the wakeful hours of the night we will sing the words of the old Hebrew songs : With my soul have I desired Thee in the night ; and when I awake I am still with Thee. And in all the hours of the day we will bear about with us Christ. "If," says Gregory Nazianzen, "I have any possession, health, credit, learning, — this is all the contentment I have of them : that I have somewhat I may despise for Christ, who is the all-desirable one." And we hear the voice of 455 OUR ELDER BROTHER. St. Augustine, saying, " My origin is Christ, my root is Christ, my head is Christ." And we see one of the old martyrs raising his flaming hands to heaven shouting, " None but Christ ! None but Christ ! " * Is Christ all and in all to us ? Do we see Jesus only ? Do we ourselves day by day seek to live the very life of Christ ? Can we lay aside our prejudices, and even many of our friends, and enter into that strange and solitary kind of life which he led, and learn to look on this world and all its maxims as he did ? If Christ is to us all that we need, and if we love him with a passion of devotion, we shall be approaching, little by little, the life he led in the flesh, be- coming more and more like our Lord. And this is the only * " The name of Jesus," says St. Bernard, " is not only light, but also food ; it is likewise oil, without which all the food of the soul is dry ; it is salt, unseasoned by which, whatever is presented to us is insipid ; it is honey in the mouth, melody in the ear, joy in the heart, medicine to the soul ; and there is no charm in any discourse, in which his name is not heard." The Prayer of St. Patrick, as he was going to, Tara to preach before the king and nobles when he feared lest he be killed at Tara, is called, St. Patrick's Armor or Breastplate : — " At Tara, to-day, the strength of God pilot me, the power of God preserve me ; may the wisdom of God instruct me, the eye of God watch over me, the ear of God hear me, the word of God give me sweet talk, the hand of God defend me, the way of God guide me : Christ be with me, Christ before me, Christ after me, Christ in me, Christ under me, Christ over me, Christ on my right hand, Christ on my left hand, Christ on this side, Christ on that side, Christ at my back ; Christ in the heart of every person to whom T speak — Christ in the mouth of every one who speaks to me — Christ in the eye of every person who looks upon me — Christ in the ear of every person who hears me at Tara to-day." 466 THE ROYAL DIADEM. thing worth living for. Vain is it that Christ has appeared upon the earth with Wonderful Name and Infinite Love, unless we are drawn by his love, and run after him, seek- ing to make his life our life, a life of service to God in self- sacrifice for man.* * The Special Articles by Evangelist D. L. Moody, Rev. H. M. Wharton, D.D., and Dr. F. A. Noblb, numbered as Chapter 8, Book xi, and Chapters 4 and 5, Book xii, pertain to the topic treated in this Book. 457 BOOK ELEVEN. s-»-s — The IVIaster and His Message. Contributed Chapters. .^5=;.*-t^« Irxtroductory Note by the A-tj.tTrLor. In the interest of the reader it has seemed better to separate these contributed chapters from the narrative of our Lord's life by the Author, giving them suitable prominence in special books. As a Lad. in. the Temple. Cii.n^ptki! i. page 459. By E. R. Hendrix, LL.D., Bishop of the ]M. E. Chui-ch, South. A.S a Pattern, of To-d.ay. Cn.ii-rEit 2. page 463. By J. H. Vincent, D.D., Bishop of the M. E. Church. The Guide of Life. Chapter 3. Page 466. By E. H. Capbn, LL.D., Pres. Tufts College. Our Innltation. of the IvIaster. Chapteu 4. Page 472. By Geo. E. Horr, Jr., Editor " The Watchman," Boston. The Church in. Samaria. Chapter 5. page 475. By Edward Everett Hale, D.D., Boston. A. Story of SVcill. Chapter 6. r.\^GE 4S0. By President W. M. Barbour, D.D., LL.D., Montreal. Character of His Teaching and "Work:. Chapter 7. Page 486. By Geo. P. Fisher, LL.D., Prof. Yale University. The Ivlaster, the Ivlessage. Chapter 8. page 500. By Augustus H. Strong, D.D., LL.D., President of Rochester Theological Seminary. Not Law, but Love. Chapter ». Page 506. By John S. Sbwall, M.A., D.D., Professor Bangor Theological Seminary and late Professor Bowdoin College. CHAPTER ONE. As a. Lad. at ttie Temple. By Rev. E. R. Hendri.x, S.T.D., LL.D., Bishop M. E. Church, South. NE of the felicities of the Revised Version is the making clear what our Lord meant in his reply to his mother after her anxious search everywhere else but in the temple, for her missing son. A sword pierced through the heart of the virgin mother as it had not done since she heard of Herod's slaughter of the children of Bethlehem in his mad effort to slay her first born. As Joseph and Mary missed the boy Jesus, they left the caravan which had protected them both in their ap- proach to Jerusalem and thus far on their return journey. They now began to experience some of the difficulties to which Jesus might have been exposed, during his separa- tion among "the wild elements of the warring nationalities which at such a moment were assembled about the walls of Jerusalem," due to a revolt against the Romans which had begun only two years before under Judas of Gamala. Their mental agony increased with every hour of their fruitless search. Like all large cities, Jerusalem had its snares for youth- [ Book XI.] 459 OUE ELDER BROTHER. ful and unwary feet. Would the lad, if otherwise safe, be drawn by idle curiosity to those quarters of the city where human nature was to be seen most in ruins and daily be- coming more bestial ? What evil associations might leave their scars upon the very soul of the boy Jesus if he unwit- tingly wandered near scenes of vice? Is the promise to be made of none effect after all, through the carelessness of the mother of Jesus ? "A wounded spirit who can bear ?" So the very power of thought seemed suspended amid her self-reproaches, and the place which Mary should have searched first of all was the last to be visited. "Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's house ? " How much the Lord's house must have been a theme of conversation between Mary and Jesus. From her lips he had doubtless learned those hymns of ascent which he was to sing with the multitude, when, from the slopes of Olivet, the temple should burst full upon his youthful vision : "I was glad when they said unto me, let us go up to the house of the Lord ; " "I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains whence cometh my help ;" " My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth." How the story of the royal builders had been told to this Son of David, and how must his wondering eyes have sought every expression in those maternal eyes which looked into his again, as she pondered anew these things in her heart. Had she not taught him reverence for his Father's house, and explained to him the meaning of every court and altar, and the sym- bolism of every vestment and of every sacrifice ? How he must have asked about the Holy of Holies, and the blood 460 BY BISHOP E. R. HENDRIX. with which the High Priest sprinkled the mercy seat, ere he knew that He was the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. O Virgin Mother, where couldst thou expect to find thy son but in the temple, whose courts he had already learned to love and which he first began to tread but a few brief days ago ? It is here where his first recorded words are to be ut- tered, "Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's house ? " What other place could have charms to win him from such a mother's side ? Was not this the place, of all others, which she had taught him to love, and had she so little faith as to doubt that henceforth he would show a passion for his Father's house ? Through its stately courts he was to move once at the beginning, and then again at the close of his public ministry — with scourge of plaited cords to drive out those buyers and sellers and money changers who had made of his Father's house a house of merchandise and a den of thieves. " The zeal of thine house had eaten me up." We lay much stress upon las,t words, though they be spoken in weakness and pain and are scarcely intelligible. We still think them characteristic, and cherish them. But not more characteristic were Christ's last words, tenderly caring for his mother or praying for his murderers, than these first words, showing his passion for his Father's house. What questions had not been answered for him there, in that atmosphere where moral and religious ques- tions are always best settled for souls bent on having them settled right? Reverence is the basis of true character. The youth of our Lord, with all the temptations to indolence 461 OUK ELDER BROTHER. and self-assertion which mark that critical period of life, was kept pure and unmarred, and was stimulated into holy activity, by his reverence for sacred things. While religion is not free from the law of habit, so that what passes for religious conduct may be due to the force of habit and need not be the expression of a deep personal conviption, let us note that with the help of the grooves of habit our very minds and hearts may be kept where gra- cious influences may mould them aright. Our divine Exemplar nowhere sets us a more helpful example than when in youth he preferred the house of God above his chief joy. 462 CHAPTER TWO. As a Pattern of To-Day. By Rev. John H. Vincent, D.D., LL.D., Bishop M. E. Church. IF Jesus of Nazareth were to appear in any of our American cities in this good year One thousand, nine hundred and ninety-seven, one wonders what impres- sion he would make. One need not wonder. First of all, he would not come in oriental garb, with long hair and with flowing robes after the manner of the Orient, and as he probably appeared in the first century of the era which bears his name. His wisdom is too great, his knowledge of human nature too thorough, his reverence for the law of adaptation too profound to justify the eccentricities of a costume entirely foreign to the age which he might come to influence. We know too well the value of complete adjust- ment to environment in order to the right control of that environment in the higher interests of life, to imagine Christ as coming in any fashion which might excite preju- dice or mainly attract attention. Therefore, if Christ were to come to us in this nineteenth century, we m.ight expect [Book XI.] 463 OUR ELDER BROTHER. to find him dressed as other men dressed, living as other men lived, and mingling with the people of this age in business and society as he did in the age to which he his- torically belongs. I doubt exceedingly whether he would come even in clerical costume. Our friend, Mr. Dwight L. Moody, who so worthily represents the Christ he serves, in his love of righteousness and in his loyalty to the Christian faith, would furnish a much more probable model of cos- tume for the living Christ in the nineteenth or twentieth century than would any clergyman or priest of any Chris- tian church. The imitation of Christ in the nineteenth century must be an imitation in quality of character, in aim of life, and in method and spirit of service. As it is not necessary that Christ should come in the flesh again in order to do his work in the world, it is sufficient that his followers possess his spirit, hold his truth, love with his love, help as he helped, and order their lives by the standards which he set up both by teaching and example. The larger control, the wider sphere of influence char- acterizing the modern Christian, extends very widely the field of his activity. In the day of Christ neither the Master nor his disciples could have any immediate influence upon the social and political conditions of the world. To- day matters are very different. The Christian stands at the very center of civilization. He helps to make the forces which control political life. He has his hand on the social activities of the times. The opportunity is to-day a Christian (J^portunity, — to edit papers, write books, deposit 464 BY BISHOP J. H. VINCENT. ballots, control public sentiment, promote righteousness. He is not under a scepter which he cannot influence. He himself holds the scepter that represents all the power the world has. Therefore, the field of his activity is wholly different from that occupied by the Christ in the days of his incarnation, and all this is because of what Christ did during his incarnation and what he continues to do through the means of his truth and spirit in the world. With this conception of the Christian's responsibility, how important it is that children and adults should be taught the nature of Christian life, and the necessity of imitating Christ, not by the life of the hermit, not by ec- clesiastical symbolism and ceremony, not by anachronistic eccentricity, but by conformity in aim, motive, spirit, and methods adapted to the age, a conformity calculated to im- press society with the value of righteousness, self-sacrifice, unselfishness, and faith in eternal things. How important it is to build up the "Kingdom of God" as more than an outward kingdom, rather as a family united by regenerative power, gracious adoption, and the indwelling, witnessing, victorious spirit which is revealed in the four Gospels as the spirit of Christ. To imitate Christ in this age, each Christian believer must in this age be like Christ in personal character. 465 30 CHAPTER THREE. The Guide of Life. By Rev. Elmer H. Capen, D.D., LL.D., President of Tufts College. NE of the most instructive phases of our religion is its universal, perennial, human interest. The Bible makes its appeal to living men in every age and under every conceivable condition. The characters of the Old Testament, Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon, become our teachers because they are so like our- selves : we are interested in reading the story of their lives, because we see not only our own frailties reflected, but our possibilities of high thinking and noble action. And when we open the pages of the New Testament, we find in Jesus a spotless character, yet he is human at every point ; and his perfection is not an impossible perfection. He does nothing which we do not feel that we could do, if our wills were strong enough and our feeling of self-interest were suflBciently in check. So that Jesus becomes the object for imitation in every life. One indeed may say, when he is casting about for the true standard of human conduct : " My life Is American, and it is in the nineteenth century ; how then can Jesus, [Book XI.] 466 BY PRESIDENT E. H. CAPEN. whose life was in the midst of a Jewish and Greco-Roman civilization, furnish any criterion for me ? " The guidance, however, which we are seeking pertains to the spirit. It is the teaching of the New Testament that we should walk according to the spirit and not according to the flesh. It is the spirit of Jesus with which we have to do. We are to meet life's duties in the spirit of the Master. JESUS is the guide as to the aims of life. All human life must have an aim to be significant. If there are any with a disposition to drift about and take what comes, if they have no set purpose and only live from day to day, they do not follow the method of the Master. " "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business ? " was the all searching question which he put to his mother even in boyhood ; and from that hour to the moment when he bowed his head on Calvary and said, " It is finished," there was not the slightest deviation from his purpose to fulfill the will of God. It is possible, in this respect, for every person to walk in the steps of Jesus : and to determine, through careful consideration, by what course he can best accomplish the demands of the Creator upon him ; and then to pursue it steadfastly and unfalteringly to the end. And in making this decision, if we would follow Jesus, our aims must be pure. They must not end in temporali- ties. If, for example, a man seeks wealth, or fame, or power for its own sake he is certainly not in the way of Christ. Jesus sought simply to do the will of God as it 467 OUR ELDER BROTHER. was disclosed to him in Galilee and Judea in the time of Tiberius Caesar. In the same way men may find out here and now what God wants and proceed to do it. In doing it, they may, indeed, acquire wealth, honor, and the mas- tery of the world, — this, perhaps, because they are obedient to the will of God ; but if these things captivate the heart or serve in any way to obscure the clear vision of the divine will, to that extent they obstruct and defeat the ends of a true life. A pure purpose is what Jesus teaches ; and if that be attained, outward conditions do not count. JESUS may be a guide also in our conduct, as to the common everyday life which often seems dull and petty. In great crises, men of common mould often rise to sublimity of action ; the circumstances in which they are placed stimulating them, and calling forth their best powers. Many of us feel that if we were on a platform broad enough and high enough so that we could stand in the public gaze, and that if we could perceive the far reaching consequences of our efforts, we could then avoid meanness and servility, and really do great things. So we find it hard to obey the highest law in things petty, common- place, trivial, and unnoticed. Yet, if we turn to the great Example, we find obedience possible, even in this lower way. Men may ask themselves, in the humblest form of service they are called on to render, however obscure and ordinary the duty : " What would Jesus do if he were in 468 BY PRESIDENT E. H. CAPBN. my place ? " And the answer will come with convincing certainty to the inner consciousness. If we are candid with ourselves we can never be in doubt as to the way in which we ought to walk. It is Jesus who discloses the spirit for the right discharge of daily duty, so that it will no longer be deemed mere drudgery, so that those who are punctilious, and conscien- tiously faithful in performing homely duties, may find their souls uplifted and strengthened by the service. The only way to bring heaven down to earth, the only way to trans- figure toil, the only way to convert the world into the king- dom of God, is to carry the spirit of devotion into that which is trivial as well as that which is exalted. In this way the sordid work of sweeping and dusting, sowing and reaping, selling merchandise and casting accounts, is glorified, not less than leading an army to battle, or swaying a senate, or preaching the Gospel to the poor. O UT above all Jesus is the guide of men in the varied I J relations which they sustain to their fellows. No man can hold his life in isolation. We touch human- ity at every point. Our duties are not single but involved. Environment is often the determining factor in conduct. The withdrawal of men from contact with the world, which has been practiced under every religion, finds no real war- rant in Christianity. Every person is a member of the family into which he is born, of the social circle where his work lies, and of the state to which his allegiance 469 OTTR ELDER BEOTHBB. is due. His duty, therefore, is not necessarily what he may desire within himself. His inclinations and tastes, nay, his aspirations and longings, may point unmis- takably in certain directions. Yet he may be withheld from the realization of his inward purpose, because the circumstances in which he finds himself, and which he cannot control, absolutely forbid. He must remember therefore that this is the law of nature. It is likewise the law of Christ. His life was amongst men. He was no ascetic, but " came eating and drinking," and he was the "friend of publicans and sinners." In other words he met every class in the community and discharged his full obligation towards them. No man who calls him Lord can do otherwise than to meet the complete demand of domestic and social and civic duties. So, too, Jesus teaches the spirit that must pervade all human relationships before his kingdom can prevail. It is not what we do with and for men, but the motive from which we do it, that determines whether we are the disciples of Christ or not. "He went about doing good." He did good to all classes of people, and kept right on doing it, though he said that his fidelity must end in his crucifixion. The example of Jesus, then, teaches us not to do this particular thing or that particular thing, but to forget ourselves in what we do. Self- denial must be our attitude in all our relations with the world. It may be very gratifying to those who have per- formed heroic deeds to have the adoration and applause of countless hosts. . But the real test comes, when to do the 470 BY PRESIDENT E. H. CAPEN. right involves hatred and contumely. This is Christ's law. Do for men what ought to be done for them, and never falter whether such action brings applause or scorn. This law changes not with the lapse of time. It is just as per- tinent in the nineteenth century as it was in the first cen- tury ; and when all the centuries shall have been counted up, it will still remain the law of human life. 471 CHAPTER FOUR. Our Imitation of the IVt aster. By Rev. George E. Horr, D.D., Editor of Tlie Watchman. ' TRICTLY speaking, the Christian is to be a dis- ciple rather than an imitator of Christ. He is not to seek slavishly to copy the acts of Jesus, but to take the Master's principles and temper and apply them in a great variety of circumstances in which Jesus himself was not placed. Paul clearly suggests this when he exhorts the Philippian Christians : " Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." And he proceeds to show how the self-denial which actuated our Lord in his mission should prompt the conduct of his disci- ples. The Christian resembles the navigator who, under some instructor, has thoroughly mastered the principles of navigation. The instructor does not describe ever}'^ possible combination of circumstances in which the master of a ship may be called to act, but he gives him sound principles which will lead the pupil to act wisely in any circumstances. But Christ is not simply an instructor, or an historical and external model. The New Testament teaches that he LBooK XI.] 472 BY EDITOR G. E. HORR. is a vital force in the souls of those who have spiritually responded to him. In the written Word we see the out- ward ideal ; but when the Christian looks within his own soul he discerns the present example of Christ. The impulse towards goodness, the conviction as to the course of duty, the aspiration toward God, indicate what we should do to follow Christ. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling," says Paul, "for it is God which worketh in you." The reason for "the fear and trembling" is that in our own souls we are touching the Divine life. We need not be in doubt as to what we are to do to follow Christ. In the written Word we have the external model ; in the impulses and promptings of the Christian heart the special and definite directions. If we implicitly follow this inner leadership, in subordination to the written Word, we shall find practical guidance for the imitation of Christ in everyday life. Far more than a new theology the world to-day needs fresh and noble conceptions of Christian character such as come from the submission of personal life to these principles. One of the urgent questions of the time is what manner of man would Christ be if he to-day were a statesman, an employer or employee, a professional ntian, an artist, a mechanic, or farmer. The man who, in his calling and circumstances, is acting as Christ would act, is rendering most effective service by illustrating the Christian life. Too many of our ideals of Christian char- acter have been derived from the mediaeval monasteries, or the intense language of the prayer meeting or the revival 473 OUE ELDER BROTHEK. service. There is no greater need than for practical illus- trations of the imitation of Christ in the homely ways of daily life.* *Note added by the AtJTHOK. I can but add to the three preceding Articles, and to what has been said in earlier pages of this volume, a brief extract from Dr. Samuel Harris' book, "God the Creator and Lord of all, " relating to the Imitation of Christ : ^- " We do not properly say that in any given case we are to do jnst what Christ would have done in the same circumstances. As the Divine Redeemer of men his action in many particulars must be different from that of ordinary men. Living in a distant country and age, with a becom- ing conformity to peculiar customs, he would do what it would not be becoming to do now." The reader who studies carefully the preceding three chapters, and what was said by the Author, particularly in Book ii., Chapters 1 and 2, and in Book iv., will conclude that we best imitate our Lord by conform- ing our lives to the spu-it of the Master. 474 CHAPTER FIVE. The Church In Samaria. By Rkv. Edwakd Everett Hale, D.D., LL.D. (^ HIS woman of Sychar has the half-heathen idea of i her Messiah as of a messenger sent fromi a far-off ^^-L king on a distant throne. He is to come with heralds and body-guards ; he is to prostrate Rome, and he is to tell us all things. " He is coming, and, he will tell us all things, — he, the anointed." "Woman, he has come. I who am talking to you am he. Dusty and tired with my journey, with no herald be- fore me and no train behind me, glad to drink from your pitcher because I am faint, — all the same, I am the child of God, and his present messenger to you. I who speak unto you am he." I do not wonder that the painters are so fond of the subject. But one wishes that they did not care so much for the mountains and the well, and cared more for him and for her. That he should have swept away all her prej- udices — prejudices born from twenty centuries ; that he, a dusty, tired, lonely wayfarer, should in five minutes make her know that he is God's son, and is speaking God's word to [Book XI.] 475 OUR ELDER BROTHER. her, — this shows what manner of man he was, and what it is in him which makes him Saviour of the world. And she, on her side ? That in those five minutes every cloud should have rolled away from her heaven ; that all dust of man's travel, and all smoke from the sacrifices of priests, should have been cleared away, so that she can see that her God visits her and helps her, and that she is a child of God. Let the artist express that emancipation, and we shall know what is meant when they say, "All things are become new."' This is what the words "New Testament " mean. In a word, she saw what Nicodemus could not see. When this same word had come to him, — 'You must be born again"; "I don't think we can," was his reply. But she went Hp into the village, and told her people that this man had told her everything. His other disciples join him and the Samaritans from the village. He stays two days in this Sychar, — the typical city of the Gentile, to the eye of a bigoted Jew. And here he establishes the first church in the world. Many of the Samaritans believe on him, because they have seen him and heard him. " We have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world." What they heard in those two days we cannot tell ; but the central thing in it — to be remembered when all this was written down at the end of threescore years or more — was this ; '■ My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work." " The fields are white to the harvest, though it is early springtime." The doctrine of this gospel 476 BY DR. E. E. HALE. to the Samaritans is that man is of God's nature, and that he is a fellow- worker together with God. In one and another mood of meditation — looking back- ward and looking forward — we ask ourselves what Jesus Christ would do for us to-day. I dare say this no-named woman of Sychar had asked herself the same question that morning. This is sure, that our answer would come as hers did. Perhaps our surprise would be as great as hers. Let us hope our eyes would open as quickly as hers. It is not in a chariot of fire descending from the clouds that her Saviour comes. It is not with legions of white- winged angels, or the clarion tones of cherubim before him and behind him, that he comes. It is a lonely, tired man, — dusty with travel, and sitting on the wellside, — whom she finds, and who is to tell her all things. So you and I will hear our gospel, not in any voice from the sky, and not in any legend written among the stars, but in the midst of the dust, and sweat, and travail of to-day. Pure religion and undefiled is for everybody, — black, white, gray, red, and brown. Now, as then, whoever Jesus met would most likely put the old question : " Please, where should you like to have me go to church ? " After eighteen or nineteen centuries the reply is just what it was. Woman, it is not here, it is not there. It is not the place of worship : it is the quality of worship. " God is a spirit, and they' that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." And how shall we worship ? With this prayer or that hymn ? With these articles or that creed ? Answers now 477 OTTR ELDER BROTHER. as then : Look on the fields. They are white to harvest, — January, March, July, or November, it is all one, they are alv^^ays white to harvest. God did not finish his world. He is here now. He is in and with his children now — that with him his children may go harvesting now. Those join in worship of him rightly, who rightly and bravely go to work with him. They show they are truly his, if they go about their Father's business. And this is the sum and substance of pure religion. If the world seeks a monument of the place where was first proclaimed the truth which has made the world of today, that monument exists already in the old well at Sychar. "Jesus spoke here," says Renan, "for the first time, the word on which will stand the building of the eternal religion. Here and then he founded the pure wor- ship, without date and without country, which will be the religion of all noble souls to the end of time. The religion of that word and that day is not only the religion good for humanity, it is absolute religion. And if other planets have inhabitants endowed with reason and the sense of right, their religion cannot differ from this of Jacob's well. Grant that men fall back from it ; that they only cling to the ideal for an instant. It was a flash— this word of his — in the thick darkness ; and in eighteen hundred years the eyes of mankind (alas, of an infinitely small fraction of mankind) are used to it. All the same, full light will come ; and after the full circle of wandering, man will come back to this word as to the immortal expression of its faith and its hope." 478 BY DR. E. E. HALE. The four mottoes for the new frieze of a new church of the Good Samaritan might well be these four texts : — " Not in this mountain, nor at Jerusalem," because ours is a universal religion : " God is a spirit," — this for its statement of God ; " I who speak to you am he," — this for its statement of Christ, — that he is a weary wayfarer, sitting thirsty in the midst of his day's work : " My meat is to finish God's work, and I send you to the harvest," — this for man's place and duty, because man is a child of God. But you and I can do better things than to design mottoes ft for the walls of a church at home. Paul's word is as true as it ever was, " Know ye not that the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are ? " These texts are not for one place or another place. They are truths for you and me to carry wherever we go. This title-page to the gospel is not illustrated when we go on a pilgrimage to the vale of Sychar ; it is when we lift up our eyes and look upon these fields that we illustrate it. It is when we go to work to accomplish our Father's work. It is when we thus bring to the Life of Lives, to th« God who is the spirit of all life, the only worship, which is the worship of spirit and of truth. Then and only, we know what these words mean, "I that speak unto thee am he." They will speak in the midst of daily duty. He who speaks will be dusty and travel-worn ; but when we have heard him for ourselves, we too shall know that this, indeed, is the Saviour of the world. 479 CHAPTER SIX. A Story of Skill. By the Rev ^^' . M. Barbour, D.D., Principal of the Congregational College of Canada, and Late Chittenden Professor of Divinity, Yale University.