entirely like His in the best lives round about us. We should probably be struck first of all by certain outward dissimilarities. Thus He was not only poor, but He did not resent poverty—He beatified it. The things for which men naturally, and, as we think, laudably strive, such as a settled position in society and the consideration of others, He did not think worth seeking at all. He made no use of His abilities for private ends, which has been the common principle of social life since society began. He asked nothing of the world, being apparently convinced that nothing which the world could give Him was worth having. Strangest thing of all in one who must have been conscious of His own genius, and of the value of His teachings to mankind, He made not the least effort to perpetuate these teachings. He wrote no book, provided no biographer, did none of those things which the humblest man of genius does to ensure that distant generations shall comprehend and appreciate his character and message. He was content to speak His deepest truths to casual listeners. He spent all His wealth of intellect upon inferior persons, fishermen and the like, who did not comprehend one tithe of what He said. He was the friend of all who chose to seek His friendship. He discriminated so little that He even admitted a Judas to His intimacy, and allowed women tainted with dishonour and impurity to offer Him public tokens of affection. In all these things He differed absolutely from any other man who ever lived beneath the public eye. In all these things He still stands alone; for who, among the saintliest men we know, has not some innocent pride in his ability, or some preference in friendship, or some instinctive compliance with social usage, or some worldly hopes and honourable aims which he shares in common with the mass of men?

But these outward dissimilarities of conduct disclose a dissimilarity of soul. Men live for something; for what did Jesus live? And the answer that leaps upon us like a great light from every page of the Gospels is plain; He lived for love. If He did not care for praise or honour; if He regarded even the preservation of His teachings with a divine carelessness, it was because He had a nobler end in view, the love of men. He could not live without love, and His supreme aim was to make Himself loved. And yet it was less a conscious aim, than the natural working out of His own character. Fishermen by the sea saw Him but once; instantly they left their boats and followed Him. A man sitting at the receipt of custom, a hard man we should suppose, little likely to be swayed by sudden emotions, also sees Him once, and finds his occupation gone. A beautiful courtesan, beholding Him pass by, breaks from her lovers, and follows Him into an alien house, where she bathes His feet with tears and wipes them with the hairs of her head. Mature women without a word spoken or a plea made, minister to Him of their substance, and count their lives His. When He sleeps wearied out upon a rude fishing-boat, there is a pillow for His head, placed there by some unknown adorer. The men He makes apostles, all but one, count His smile over-payment for the loss of home, of wife, of children. Countless throngs of ordinary men and women forget their hunger, and are content to camp in desert places only to listen to the music of His voice. Wild and outlawed men, criminals and lepers and madmen, become as little children at His word, and all the wrongs and bruises inflicted on them by a cruel world are healed beneath His kindly glance. Does it matter greatly what He taught? This is how He lived. He lived in such a way that men saw that love was the only thing worth living for, that life had meaning only as it had love. And this is the imperishable tradition of Jesus:

  This is His divinity,
  This His universal plea,
  Here is One that loveth thee.

What then is a true Christianity but the accurate reproduction of this spirit of love, the creation of loving and lovable men and women, who attract and uplift all around them by the subtle fascination of the love that animates them? What is a Christian Church but a confraternity of such men and women? What is a Christian society, but a society permeated by this spirit, and bringing all the affairs of life to its test? And what place have social superiorities and inferiorities; pride, scorn, or coldness; harsh theologies, breeding harsh tempers and infinite disputes; the egoism that wounds the humble, the strength that disregards the weak, the vanity that hurts the simple, in any company of men and women who dare to wear the name of such a Founder? It was as a Bridegroom Christ came, anointed with all the perfumes of a dedicated love, and until the last bitter hour of His rejection, He moved with such lyric joyousness across the earth, that life became festive in His presence. It is as a Bride the church exists on earth, and if no festive smiles are awakened by its presence, and no gracious unsealing of the founts of love in human hearts, then is it not Christ's Church, for He has passed elsewhere with another company to the marriage-feast, and His Church stands without, before a barred and darkened door.

THE JUSTICE OF JESUS

HOW HE CAME

  When the golden evening gathered on the shore of Galilee,
  When the fishing boats lay quiet by the sea,
  Long ago the people wondered, tho' no sign was in the sky,
  For the glory of the Lord was passing by.

  Not in robes of purple splendour, not in silken softness shod,
  But in raiment worn with travel came their God,
  And the people knew His presence by the heart that ceased to sigh
  When the glory of the Lord was passing by.

  For He healed their sick at even, and He cured the leper's sore,
  And sinful men and women sinned no more,
  And the world grew mirthful hearted, and forgot its misery
  When the glory of the Lord was passing by.

  Not in robes of purple splendour, but in lives that do His will,
  In patient acts of kindness He comes still;
  And the people cry with wonder, tho' no sign is in the sky,
  That the glory of the Lord is passing by.

III

THE JUSTICE OF JESUS

One strong peculiarity of the teaching of Jesus—we might even call it its outstanding feature—is that it is frequently disclosed in a series of incidents. Unlike most teachers He philosophizes little about life. A single chapter of the Gospels, or at most two, would contain all the maxims about life which He thought necessary for wise and lofty conduct. His method is rather to put Himself in relation to the crucial occurrences of life, and to reveal the true way of regarding them by His own attitude towards them. When He would teach the beauty of humility it is by putting a little child in the midst of His arrogant and vainglorious disciples, that the child may become the living and memorable parable of His sentiments. When He would teach humanity, He does so by His own conduct to lepers. When He would discredit and expose the barbarism of the Mosaic Sabbatarian laws as interpreted by scribes and Pharisees, He does so by healing the sick and blind upon the Sabbath day. He is all for the concrete, teaching not by theory, but by example. The method is novel, and its advantages are obvious. The best conceived discourses on humility, mercy, or sympathy, might be forgotten, but no one can forget the child among the disciples, nor the raptured gaze of the blind man when his purged eyes open to behold the face of his miraculous Physician, nor the picture of Jesus touching without fear or disgust the leper whose unclean contagion made