that phrase, so undefined are the limits of human possibility, so akin is genius to divine creativeness, so intimately may the life of God blend with our humanity. In every man in whom the heavenly fire has been kindled, the two natures blend in the indissoluble harmony of a single person; and if the will were entirely surrendered, and never jarred against the will of God, the Divine Spirit would be continually manifested in the midst of human limitations, some divine thought would be expressed through the perennial activity of a human life. “A mere man,' therefore, if we understand the phrase, not in some vulgar and irreverent fashion, but in the sense of pure and absolute man,-man, according to the Divine ideal of him, is a being of unfathomable greatness, who, instead of dragging down our minds to what is earthly and common, lifts them to the Father from whom he has been born, and whose eternal life he manifests, even as the dewdrop may exhibit in its tiny sphere the splendour of the sun.

That Jesus himself attached the greatest importance to teaching, and to the truth which he uttered, is apparent not only from occasional sayings, but from the whole course of his public ministry, of which

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teaching was the principal part. The Sower was the sower of "the word," and it was the word that sprang up, and bore fruit according to the nature of the soil in which it was planted. It was those who listened to his words, and practised them, that were like a wise man who built his house upon a rock. The blessed are "those who hear the word of God and keep it." According to the report of the fourth Evangelist, Christ came into the world in order to bear witness to the truth. The earliest disciples, although, as we shall see, they were swayed by another force, were not indifferent to this. Christianity is repeatedly referred to as "the word of God" or "of the Lord," "the word of the Gospel," "of salvation," "of reconciliation," or simply as "the word." Paul declares that Christ was "a minister on behalf of the truth of God."2 He himself was most anxious to maintain "the truth of the Gospel." It is said that the word of God's grace is able to build men up, and give them an inheritance among all those that are sanctified.a James declares that God has begotten us "by the word of truth," and that this word is able to save 1 John xviii. 37. 2 Rom. xv. 8. 3 Gal. ii. 5, 14. 4 In Paul's speech at Miletus, as recorded in Acts xx. 32.

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the soul;1 and Peter says we have been regenerated "through the word of God."2

It is apparent, then, that the truths or ideas which Christ impressed upon the world were felt to have in themselves a power of renewal and elevation, and to be capable of producing great individual and social changes. And how could it be otherwise when, in the name of God, Christianity placed itself in direct antagonism to the Jewish and heathen worlds amid which it took its rise? It is easy to collect an anthology of wise sayings, which will bear some superficial resemblance to Christianity; and the Christians themselves were not slow to recognize the inspiration of the Prophets of Israel, and the voice of eternal Reason in the finest utterances of the "divine Plato" and other philosophers of Greece. But that the faith contained something startlingly novel and revolutionary is evinced by the almost universal hatred with which it was regarded. And, indeed, it drove its ploughshare through the Jewish vineyard, and laid its axe to the old tree of heathen superstition. To step forth from the ancient enclosure, and feel that Jew and Gentile alike were members of the great

1 James i. 18, 21.

2 1 Peter i. 23.

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family of God; to renounce the sanguinary and exclusive worship of the temple in Jerusalem, and offer up spiritual sacrifices to the Father of all in the temple of the universe; to lay aside the venerable Law, which had been the hedge of monotheism and morality against the assaults of idolatry and sin, and to substitute for it a spirit within the heart, which might seem to the outsider an excuse for every kind of subjective caprice, though to the believer it expressed the immutable mind of God,-this was indeed a momentous change, and the idea of Divine sonship which brought it about was quick and powerful, alike from its newness and its grandeur. Still more thrilling must the truth have been to the heathen, when, from polytheism and idolatry, from degrading rites and low conceptions of morality, he came to believe in one holy God, the Father who had sought him with forgiving love, and claimed him as his child; and had nothing more been involved than beholding what manner of love the Father had bestowed upon him, that he should be a child of God, this faith alone would have enabled him to overcome the world, and to purify himself from

its evil.

The intellectual side of Christianity, therefore, must

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not be forgotten or undervalued. False views, which are the offspring of a perverted spiritual apprehension, tend to deteriorate the life; truth which has been discerned by a pure spiritual vision helps to restore and elevate it. So far it is a matter of no consequence by whom the truth was discovered, where or how it was first proclaimed; and if the origin of Christianity were buried in complete oblivion, the truth which was taught by Christ would remain unimpaired, just as the arts and sciences live on, though their beginnings are lost in the darkness of a pre-historic age, and only the greatest names have survived the ravages of time. We are indeed glad to remember and honour the names of great discoverers; but knowledge of the men in no way alters the effect of their discoveries. So, it may be said, we might have an historical interest in the Founder of Christianity; but if we had never heard of him, the truth which he announced would remain, and our religion would be uninjured. I am far from wishing to deny that there is a large element of truth in this view; and it is useful to remember it at a time when so many are shaken in their old faith by the uncertain results of historical and literary criticism. If it could be shown that we knew nothing of the origin