The Christ of history : an argument grounded in the facts of His life on earth

Front matter

Class __„ /aj i O

Book ^ ^ /

^40 .

Preface

This book appeals to those wlio are prepared to treat, if with severe, yet also with dispassionate criticism, one of the gravest subjects of human inquiry. It is not formally controversial, but it is virtually so, and is offered as a humble contribution in aid of other more elaborate efforts to correct and repel an indiscriminating infidelity.

The argument, in its idea, certainly in its construction, differs materially from those by which the truth it would establish has usually been supported. It is also purposely cumulative, and — ^if the conception be just and the execution answer at aU to the conception — it must increase in force with the successive steps, and will be the weightiest at the close.

A profound mystery is here commended to

the judgment and conscience of honest and thoughtful men, but a mystery which is full of glory and light and life. There is One Wonderful Personality, only One, of all that ever dwelt on this earth, who had more immediate, constant and perfect access to the Infinite Fountain of Being, than was possible to the constitution of a mere creature.

ANALYSl

INTEODUOTIO^^

0Biia^ Form of the Argument. — Another Species of Proof. — Earthly Life of Jesus, not sufBciently investigated. — His Humanity alone, assumed here. — Inspiration, not essential in this Argument. — General historical Validity of the Gospels assumed. — The Life they record, not mythical, but real. — " Behold the Man" 19

BOOK FIEST.

THE OUTER CONDITIONS OF THE LIFE OP CHRIST.

Part I. His Social Position

His Mother, her views respecting Him, and their Origin. — ^The Lifluence of these on Him. — Nothing else in the early Life of Jesus, favorable to his subsequent Elevation. — His Poverty, Hindrances in this to His Ministry. — " The Carpenter." — His want of Formal Education, and of Patronage .

PART n.

THE SHORTNESS OP HIS EARTHLY COURSE.

Duration of His Ministry.— His Death.— Earthly Causes of it. — Intolerance of the World, and His own unconquerable Will. —

: ANALYSIS.

PAoa

Shortness of His Life in Eelation to the Form of His "Work. — In Eelation to His Influence on succeeding Ages . . • _41

PART ni.

THE AGE AND PLACE IN WHICH HE APPEARED.

Moral Condition of the Age. — Gentile World. — Judea. — Galilee. — Nazareth.

Mythical Theory.— Irreconcilable "vnth the outer Conditions of Christ's Life.— These, undouhted Facts.— Not Myths. — Not founded on Messianic ideas, , , .60

BOOK SECOKD.

THE WOEK OF CHEIST AMONG MEN.

PART I.

HIS OWN IDEA OF HIS PUBLIC LIFE.

His Puhlic Position, an Act of His own Will. — ^His Claim to Meseiahship. — His Idea of Messiahship. — Not Temporal hut Spiritual.— Not National hut Universal.— Jesus, in this Eespect, alone in His Age, His Country, the World . . . .67

PART n.

THE C^OMMENCEMENT OF HIS MINISTRY.

Dealt -with the Age and the Country, collectkiely. — Their character.— Christ the Incarnate Conscience of both. — He, not conscious of personal Gmlt —Began by rebuking, in order \ :> reform Iflie Nation ... ...... 67

ANALYSIS. XI

PART ni.

THE MARKEtJ CHARACTER OF HIS PUBLIC APPEARANCES.

PAGB

L Severity. — Moral Condition of Palestine. — Scenes of His early Ministry. — Scribes and Pharisees. — Formalism, Hypocrisy. II. Tenderness. — Instances and Source. III. Simplicity. — General character of His Life. — Eelation of His Teaching to Times, Places, I'ersons. — His Words and Illustrations. IV. Authority. — Testimony of His Hearers. — Claim to Connection with God 77

PART IV.

HIS TEACHING.

CHAPTER L

fRELIMINART, GENERAL VIEWS.

Record of Christ's Teaching.— No formal Account of it prepared. — Mind of Christ, sole Fountain of the Truths announced in the Gospels. — Summary of His Teaching. — A universal spiritual reign of God on Earth. — " Kingdom of Heaven," etc., etc., etc 91

CHAPTER n.

THE SOUL. 8EOTI0N I. — EEALrrY AND GREATNESS OF THE SOUL.

Ignorance of Matter and Spirit. — Idea of the Soul Intuitional. — Universal Indifference to the Soul. — Jesus reveals it. — Ko formal proof of it. — His Teaching based on it. — Origin of the Soul. — Attributes. — Gospels teach its unutterable Worth. — ^Determines Man's Place in the Scale of Being 104

SECTION II. — THE soul's ACCOUNT ABILrTY AND IMMOETALITY

Accountability belongs to the Kational and Moral Nature. — Activity, Unconscious, Instinctive, Intelligent, and Voluntary. —

XU ANALYSIS.

PAOB

Groujd ot Kesponsibility.— The Doctrine in Christ's Teaching. — Last Judgment. — Immateriality and Inmaortality. — Moral Conditions of Life. — Perdition of the Soul. — Sin and Death. — ^Element of Eternal Life.—" Life and Immortality brought to light by the Gospel." 112

CHAPTER IIL

SBcnoN I. — god's spnuTUALiTT, ujsrrry, and moral pebfection.

Foundation of all Eeligion. — ^Being of God assumed in the Gospels. — An original Intuition. — ^Proof in our Nature of Divine Spirituality. — Angelic Souls. — Spirituality includes Life and Intelligence. — Vegetable, Animal, Intellectual, Moral Life. — The original parental Life. — Infinite Intelligence. — Christ at Jacob's Well. — One Infinite, accounts for existing Phenomena. — More than One, contradictory. — Dualism. — ^Polytheism. — A Supreme among the Gods. — Christ proclaiming Unity. — Heathen Sentiments and Presentiments. — Gods of Paganism, their Character. — Jewish Misrepresentations. — The God of Christ, perfect Excellence 121

SECTION II. — god's PATEBNITT.

Type in Men, Eeahty in God. — Childship of all Souls. — In Soul alone, a Likeness to God. — Authority in God. — Love. — Great Family of God. — Introduction of Moral Evil. — Fatherhood of God in the Teaching of Jesus. — Parental Love, the moving Power of the Universe, 135

CHAPTER IV.

THE RECONCILIATION OF THE SOUL AND GOD.

Departure from God, Root and Essence of Evil. — ^Ever-widening. — Retributive Character. — Ruin of Spiritual Nature. — Union and Separation of Minds. — End of Christ's Mediation, of His Death, and of His Life in Reconciliation, . . 144

ANALYSIS. xm

PART V.

THE ARGUMENT FROM HIS WORK TO HIS DinNITT.

PAGH Human Systems of Eeligious Truth. — Mohammedanism. — Hindooism and Buddhism. — Talmudism.— Ancient Jewish Scriptures. — Stoicism, earlier and later. — Errors and Excellences. — Socraticism or Platonism. — Philo-Judaas. — Life of Socrates. — ^His Death. — His Faith and Hopes. — Christian Views of them and him. — Christianity contrasted with Teaching of Socrates. —Solution, Christ's true Divinity 153

BOOK THIED.

THE SPIEITHAL INDIVIDUALITY OF CHEIST. PART I.

HIS ONENESS WITH GOD.

Communion between the created and the uncreated Mind. — Human Side of the Doctrine. — Effort to conceive of God. — Faith in His Nearness tons. — In His Love. — Sense of Dependence. — Veneration. — Trust. — God listening and responding to the Soul. — To Christ, God the greatest Eeality. — Christ alone with God. — Habitual, original Union. — Walked with God . . 191

PART ir.

THE FORMS OF HIS CONSCIOUSNESS,

Nature of Consciousness. — Its Universality. — ^Value of its Testimony. — Christ's Consciousness. — Its Highest Development.— Expressed to the Last.— -Interpietation of it.— Proof of Validity of his Claims. 203

XIV ANAYLSIS.

PAET m.

THE TOTALITY OF HIS MANIFESTATION BEFORE THE WORLD.

PAOB

True Mail. — Peculiar Susceptibility. — Sufferings and. Provocations. — Unconquerable Patience. — Absolute spiritual Perfection. — Simplicity and Fresbness. — Uniform Perfection. — Jesus a Manifestation, not an effort -A pure Original, not an Imitation. — Alone in History 216

PART lY.

THE MOTIVE OF HIS LIFE.

Absence of Selfisbness. — ^Presence of pure and lofty Motives. — His active Goodness. — ^Views of tbe Soul. — Love of Man^ as Man. — Gave His Life, a Sacrifice 235

PART V.

HIS FAITH IN GOD, TRUTH AND THE REDEMPTION OF MAN.

Foreknowledge of His deatb. — ^His Solitariness. — Never disappointed. — Trutb a Provision fo tbe Wants, Cuj-e for tbe Evils of tbe World. — Attributes of God. — Expressions and Proofs of Cbrist's Assurance. — Institution of tbe Supper. — Interpretation of tbese Facts . 242

PART VI.

THE ARGUMENT FROM HIS SPIRITUAL CHARACTER TO HIS DIVINITY.

Moral Aspects and outward Facts of Cbrist's History. — A Cbaracter sucb as His, not once realized. — Interests of Trutb and Virtue. — Moral Condition of Mankind, cbarged upon God. — Humanity in Cbrist peculiarly conditioned. — Idea of Incarnation universal. — A Primitive Eevelation. — A universal Want.—

ANALYSIS. XV

PASB

Provision for this "W ant made once for all — Higher nature in Christ, not higher office merely. — His absolute Divinity. — This secured Aids and Influences, incommunicable to others . . 243

CONCLUSIOK

Incarnation of Jesus sheds Light on all the Wonders of His History. — Supernatural Birth. — Eesurrection and Ascension. — Miracles of His Life. — Spiritual Meaning. — Typical Character. — Sophistry of Strauss. — Extraordinary Tokens of Divinity Demanded. — ^Voice of God. — The World summoaed to hear and believe .......*... 253

THE

CHRIST OF HISTORY,

IN THREE BOOKS,

Book I The outer Conditions op the Life op Christ. 11. The Work op Christ among Men. IIL The Spiritual Individuality op Christ.

Introduction

CTsual form of the argument. — ^Another species of proof. — Earthly life of Jesus not sufficiently investigated. — His humanity alone assumed here. — Inspiration not essential in this argument. — General historical validity of the Grospels assumed. — The lifo they record not mythical, but real. — "Behold the Man."

A CHANGE in the form of the argument for the proper deity of Jesns Christ seems to be demanded in our day. Accepted and familiar proofs may not have lost their strength, but they have lost their freshness, and they are wanting in adaptation to the peculiar intellectual culture and structure of the present age. Sacred criticism, directed to the historical, prophetical, and devotional books of the Old Testament, and to the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament, has long submitted its methods and their results to the judgment of the world. Dogmatic theology, also, connecting itself closely with the reigning logic and metaphysics, has long announced its expositions of sacred truth. Argu ments on this subject have been accumulated in as tonishing number, and have long maintained aik acknowledged prescriptive authority. But it is conceivable that an excess of resources may prove, in certain cases, hardly less fatal than a palpable deficiency. Men are provoked to resist that which, instead of asking favor, commands and compels submission. It is sometimes wise to take not the very highest ground which it is po&sible to maintain, but the lowest ; and if, on this lowest ground, we can succeed in producing an unlooked-for amount of materials, the feeling of surprise concilia,tes the heart, and assists, instead of obstructing, the mental process which issues in conviction. Perhaps the earthly life of Jesus, apart from subtle criticism and jfrom systematic, metaphysical theology, may be found to offer original and extraordinary evidences of His divinity ; evidences which, by their number, their harmony^ and their force, shall amount to positive proof of this great mystery. This region, owing to the productiveness of others better known, has never been cultivated with the pains which it deserves. But the peculiar kind of proof, nevertheless, which it yields, we presume to think is at once the most intelligible and the most convincing which on such a subject can be offered to reason and conscience.

A temperate and conciliatory spirit is demanded toward those to whom we present the claims of religion ; and the exhibition of such a spirit can not injure or endanger Christianity. With perfect safety we may forego, for the time, the inheritance

FORM OF THE ARGUMENT. M

of evidence and of argument bequeathed from tlie past, bj th.e researclies and tlie erudition of enlightened men. Demanding nothing more than the simple humanity of Jesus of Kazareth, we shall venture from this platform to assert and expound his true divinity. Dismissing all preconceptions, however fondly cherished, and however long adopted into the faith of the churches, assuming nothing which is not virtually and even formally admitted by enemies as well as friends we hope to show that the manhood of Christ, as it appealed to the senses and the minds of the men of his own times, supplies and sustains the proof of his godhood.^

A still larger sacrifice, in the same spirit of conciliation, will be found compatible with safety and honor. The inspiration of the Christian records is not to be demanded here. No collection of writings has passed through a fiercer ordeal than the books of the New Testament. The severity of criticism, it may be safely said, the venomous malignity with which they have been assailed, has no parallel in the history of literature, or of the re-

* The pre-supposition (voraussetzung) with which Neander commences his Life of Christ is certainly fatal to it as an argument, although its value as an exposition of the Gospels, and a critical defense of their authenticity, is in no degree affected by this circumstance. What he calls "the Christian consciousness" (das Christliche Bewustseyn) is not innate but acquired, the result of education, and therefore of no authority. — Das Leben Jesu Ghriati, Hamburg, 1855, Einleitoig s. 4.

ligions of the world. The facts, the chronology, the references to contemporaneous history, to political and social interests, to science and philosophy, the doctrines and the ethical principles of the New Testament, the honesty, intelligence, and capacity of the writers, and the character of their production as a whole, have been subjected to the scrutiny, often intensely prejudiced, of all nations and of all orders of intellect for eighteen centuries. It is at least grateful to think, that, owing to this very cause, an astonishing amount of power, otherwise unrevealed, has been evoked and effectively put forth in defense of these holy writings. But the inspiration of the New Testament, as that is popularly understood, shall not be insisted on in the present argument ; and it shall suf&ce for us, if this book be allowed to stand only not lower than other equally ancient productions. Whatever abatement from its historical validity can be plausibly demanded on account of the remoteness of the period, the character of the age, or the position of . the writers, it shall be conceded. For the sake of argument, though only for this, it shall be granted that the Evangelists were not secured against mistake, and that therefore the justice of all their sentiments, and the accuracy of all their details, are not unquestionable. We go farther ; let all in these sacred records which belongs to the sphere of the miraculous be ascrbed, for the present, to the

VALIDITY OF GOSPELS ASSUMED. 23

habit of the Jewish mind, to the influence of their national history, or to the common tendency to exaggeration. We assume nothing more than this, that the Grospels, in a broad and general sense, are historical and veritable ; and this, in point of fact, is virtually granted by all.

By fa"* the ablest of the modern adversaries of the validity of the New Testament^ who has subjected it to the most severe analysis, and has brought to his task the largest amount of learning and of philosophic power, has admitted at least a basis, even a broad basis, of historical truth in the Gros pels. He concedes that Jesus of Kazareth lived on earth, and that his character, saving the miraculous element so largely blended with the delineation of it, substantially was what it is represented to be by the Evangelists.* This admission indeed can not be withheld, without encountering even graver difficulties than are created by conceding it. The antiquity of the records being granted — and it is granted at this day by all who have seriously investigated the subject, and who, on the ground of scholarship and of intellectual and moral compe-

* " Das Leben Jesu." Even Germany now consents that this attempt to place the Christian Gospels in the same category with heathen mythologies is only an ingenious fallacy, an elaborate defeat. One thing we must be permitted to mark : Strauss begins his criticism by aiming to create a prejudice, at all events a prejudgment. Surely th's cannot be too severely reprobated ; it is unscientific, it is unphilosophical, it is morally wrong.

tency, are entitled to consideration — one or other of two hypotlieses is -unavoidable. Either such a man as Jesus of ISTazareth really appeared on earth about the time which the Christian records fix, or the writers of the Gospels gave form and life to a mere idea which never had an outward realization, and existed no where but in their minds. No third supposition is conceivable on any rational ground ; one or other of these two must be accepted ; and in truth there is no choice between them, for the difficulties involved in the latter are wholly insurmountable. On the supposition that Jesus of Nazareth never actually existed, it is not within the range of rational belief that the idea of such a being was formed in that country^ that age^ and in the minds of such men as the Evangelists are held to have been, and as in point of mental endowment and culture and social rank they certainly were. When it shall have been fully ascertained what that being who is presented to us in the Gospels really was, the evidence will be irresistible that this is not within the range of rational belief, but is so unlikely and unnatural as to be morally impossible. It would contradict all experience and all legitimate induction from experience, and be as utterly out of the course of human things as any miracle ever recorded. It is abundantly demonstrable, and the evidence will accumulate as the present investigation advances, that the Evangel

THE LIFE NOT IDEAL. 25

ists, instead of embodying a conception of their own minds, must have witnessed the life wliicli they describe, never could have conceived it unless thej^ had first witnessed it, and were able to represent it in the manner they have done, only because it had actually passed under their immediate and frequent observation.

The Grospels, then, contain the history of a life once actually spent on this earth. The writers relate on the wliole what they saw and heard, and on the whole convey the impression v/hich was left on their minds by a real, living being. It is enough. This lowest stand-point is enough. Take only the earthly life of Christ, suppose only that in a broad general sense it is faithfully represented — behold only the Man— He shall indicate and demonstrate union with absolute Godhead. Such a Humanity as his is utterly inexplicable, except on the ground of true Divinity,

Book First. The Outer Conditions Op The Liee Of Christ

IN THREE PARTS.

Part I. His social Position,

II. The Shortness of His earthly Course. in. The Age and Place in which He appeared.

That life on wHcli it is proposed to found an argument for Divinity was singular in the materials and the mode of its formation. The outward and the inward aspects of every earthly course are mysteriously related to each other. The age, the . country, the physical organization, education, society, and the like, exert an acknowledged influence in the intellectual and moral development of a human being. Native force of character may rise above the accidents of birth and early position and all the external conditions by which the soul is limited, so that it can never be predicted with certainty^ from any given circumstances, what a man's future life shall be, because we can never foresee how the action of these circumstances may be modified, and what jriinute and delicate influences may either neutralize or assist their effect in the progress of years. But the fact of dependence and of moral causation, nevertheless, has almost the constancy and sovereignty of a universal law-

The seeds of that definite form which each individual life eventually assumes will be found to lie within its early history. The future is never accidental and capricious, a void filled up with materials, gathered according to no principle and disposed without order or law. It is rather the natural product of elements which existed and acted in the earlier period of life. The present and the future stand almost in the relation of cause and effect. Events, influences, incidents in the one largely contribute to make the other what it ultimately becomes. -Usually a man's early life and position will be found to contain the germ and to furnish the true interpretation of his future character in history.

PAET I.

S SOCIAL POSITION.

His Mother. — Her views respecting Him and their origin. — The influence of these on Him. — Nothing else, in the early life of Jesus, favorable to his subsequent elevation. — His Poverty, hinderances in this to his Ministry. — " The Carpenter." — His want of formal education and of patronage.

It will be proved that the common formative principles whicli have just been referred to utterly fail to explain the life of Jesus. His life^ we shall find, stands out a mysterious exception to all the ordinary laws that govern the destiny of men. What He ultimately became, so far from harmonizing with his early course and his outward condition, was reached not because but in spite of all the inflaences descending upon him from both of these regions. It was not a natural result of the circumstances amid which he grew up, but one which, unless to some hidden antagonist force, these circumstances must have rendered absolutely impossible.

We can recognize one specific agency, indeed, though only one, which undeniably had an effect in preparing Jesus in Ms earlj life for the position to wliicli he eventually rose. There was one person, nearer to him and dearer than any other, who must have exerted an influence in the formation of his character favorable to the peculiar development which it was destined to reach.. That person was his mother. The Yirgin Mary entertained from the first very exalted notions respecting her Son. The origin of these notions can not be unfolded here, because we have consented to surrender for the time all that is supernatural in the New Testament records. The mystery of Christ's birth, the vision of the shepherds of Bethlehem, the visit of the Chaldean sages, the prophetic words of Simeon and Anna in the Temple, must therefore be left out of the discussion. Perhaps it will be found by and by, that facts of this nature beautifully harmonize with the calmest and soundest views which can be taken of the Christian writings. But no use must be made of them here, and they must not be suffered to influence either the narrative or the argumentative part of this investigation.

Twelve years after the birth of Christ, an incident occurred, which is the more remarkable, because it forms the sohtary piece of intelligence which is communicated to us respecting a period of his life, extending over nearly thirty years. On the occasion of the Passover, the child Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem after Mary and her

YOUTH OF CHRIST. 3^

husband Josepli had left to return home, and at the end of three days he was found by them in the Temple, sitting at the feet of the teachers of the Law, listening to them and asking them questions. The circumstance, of Jesus being so long separated f:om his earthly guardians without their knowledge, is easily accounted for by the usages of the Passover-time. Even his being found with the teachers of the Law is not out of harmony with the history and manners of the period. The Jewish historian relates something of this kind, which happened to himself when he was about fourteen years of age.* All which this incident can reasonably be supposed to convey is granted freely. It is granted also that the words of the child to his mother, when she rebuked him for tarrying behind, " Wist ye not that I must be on my Father's business ?" indicated a maturity of mind, a thirst for knowledge, a love of truth, a faith in the being, presence, and favor of God, very extraordinary. It is granted that these words must have sunk into the heart of Mary, must have renewed the impression created by the occurrences of his infancy and childhood, perhaps recalled her first views in their mysterious power, and revived all her early hopes. But after this in-

2* cident other twelve years passed by, and lialf that number more, and all the while not a sign of any kind appeared. In the long and dreary interval must not impressions and hopes so utterly unsupported as hers have gradually faded, and at last altogether perished? We can only conjecture what opinions Mary for herself entertained, whether at an earlier or at a later period, respecting the rank and office of the Messiah ; but in all probability, they partook of the ignorance, and prejudice, and error of those of the Jews in general in that age. It is willingly conceded that, at the least, she must have believed that her Son was destined by God to a position of great saoredness and dignity, and this faith, no one can doubt, must have influenced her behavior toward him and her method of treating and training him. Certainly she would strive to impart her own views to his mind, and fix within him the idea of his destiny, as she herself understood it.

But tJiis^ be its value what it may, was the solitary agency in the early life of Jesus helpful to his subsequent elevation ; and except this, not a single friendly element can be discovered throughout the history. All else is not only not auxiliary, but thoroughly obstructive. When the whole of the conditions under which the destined development of his character and his life was effected shall have been carefully examined, it will then appear, we

EARLY CONDITION UNFAVORABLE. S5

presume, that that character and life were not a natural growth for which his circumstances, according to the ordinary laws of providence and of the human mind, sufficiently account, but, on the contrary, were originated and sustained in spite of circumstances with which no earthly force could have contended, and therefore must have had theii? real foundation in a force which was preternatural and Divine.

The New Testament makes no secret of the place which Jesus occupied in the social scale. The family from which he sprang belonged to the lower ranks of life ; Joseph, the husband of Mary, being a working carpenter. His birth-place, the wanderings of his infancy, his home in such a village as Nazareth, his humble occupation for many years, his dependence afterward on the labor of his disciples and the charity of other friends, are affecting evidences of the poverty of his condition through life. The fact is noticeable in itself, but it is profoundly interesting to those who find in his later manifestations a Being who irresistibly draws toward himself their veneration, their trust, and their hope. They believe him to be the Eedeemer of the world, and they are astonished that, wheri on earth, he was ranked with the ignoble and the. poor. But the fact, as they dwell upon it, becomes suggestive and quickening ; they see that it is fitted to shed marvellous peace into the bosom of the humblest sons of men, and to reveal a tender and holy bond of sympathy between Jesns of ISTazareth and them. He endured the humiliations, the burdens, and the straits of poverty, and is he not, therefore, in a touching sense the brother of the sorrowing and the poor ? It gives to poverty a singular sacredness and dignity. The principle, "not new in itself, acquires new impressiveness that social rank is not the standard of social worth, or of personal excellence and power. The great les- Is pronounced with unexampled solemnity in the hearing of the ivorld^ that men and things are not always in reality what they are in appearance. It is taught that justice, truth, love, and moral and spiritual worth, must be reverenced in whatsoever associations they are found. The accidents of outward condition do not alter the essential character of good or of evil. Poverty and ignorance, and still more poverty and vice, are not inseparable either in fact, or in the judgment of right-thinking men. They do often co-exist, and there are very obvious causes which at once explain why they should often CO -exist. But the connection is not uniform, and it is not inevitable. On the other hand, great wealth is seldom found associated with the highest forms of spiritual excellence. Certainly the love and the high estimation of wealth, rarely separated from the possession of it, are utterly incompatible

THE HINDEKANCES OF POVEETY. 37

with elevation, expansion, and deep spirituality of character.

But the prevailiug sentiment of mankind is not to be mistaken. Even if this sentiment were not hostile, it is plain, on other grounds, that a poor man must necessaril}^, just because he is poor, encounter peculiar and numerous hinderances in forming and executing any purpose, however modest, for the good of his race. His knowledge of the world, for example, his acquaintance with books, and his intercourse with able and cultivated men, must in the generality of cases be exceedingly limited. By the necessity of his condition, he is shut out from much that is quickening and liberalizing, and fitted to impart comprehension, self-reliance, and freedom. But in addition to real hinderances of this nature, he has to struggle against a deep and almost universal prejudice. It is not supposed that any thing great or good can originate with persons like him. Such is the evil effect of social distinctions, that it is almost felt that nothing great or good ought to originate with persons like him ; and that, if it did, this would almost amount to a crime against the usual course of the world. The contrast between his condition and his aims is painfully present even to himself, but still more to others ; and the more aspiring these aims are, this contrast operates the more oppressively and injuriously. The instances are rare indeed, in which a poor and unknown man lias risen above neglect and prejudice and the pressure of his condition, and alone has worked out a great idea which his mind had conceived. An unknown amount of obstruction to his work and his triumph was thus involved in the mere fact that Jesus belonged through life to the lower ranks of society.