Jesus Christ, the divine man: His life and times

Front matter

Gass.

Book

ST

Chapter I. Page

The Desire of all Nations i

The life of Jesus the earthly manifestation of the Divine life of Jehovah — Historical character of that life upon the basis of the "Four Gospels definitely accepted — The doctrine of development historically applied — The prceparalio Eva?igelica — The unsatisfied spiritual desires of nations — The Roman unsatisfied by power, the Greek by thought, the Jew by Rabbinism, the Buddhist by Nirvana — The Desire of all nations the fulfilment of unsatisfied spiritual needs, individual, national ; and His religion alone universal — Jesus the Universal Ideal and Example, and the universal and only moral dynamic.

CHAPTER II. The Messianic Hope within the Canon o

Divine differentiation selecting from the woman's seed a nation, a tribe— Typical characters and offices foreshadowing different aspects of the Son of Man — Spiritual and devotional preparation — The Ideal of the Prophets — The King — The Suffering Servant of God — Post-exilian hope — The priestly hope — Minor ajid relative ideals contribute to the fulness of the complete hope — Unique hope in history — The Divine Man a fulfilment of multitudinous foreshadowings.

Chapter III

Debased period-Hope persistent — In Apocrypha impersonal and national — In the Apocalypses personal and national — In the Talmud — Rabbinism — Christ's work to re-create and transform as well as fulfil the Messianic Ideal — What might have been.

Chapter IV

The country priest's home— Zachariasin the Temple — The Angel of promise to the priest— The Angel of promise to the Virgin — The meeting of the holy women — The spiritual songs — The journey to Bethlehem — The holy Nativity — The angelic anthem — The visit of the shepherds.

CONTENTS.

Chapter V

fAGB

The Epiphanies of the Divine Infant . . . . 38

The Epiphany of the Divine Infant in the Temple — The Epiphany of the Divine Infant to the Gentiles — The flight into Egypt — The return.

Chapter VI

The Divine Boy. The Divine Youth « , . ^4

Nazareth —Physical environment — Home influence and education — Epiphany of the Divine Boy — The Father's house — The tender Plant — The Divine Young Man — The simple home — Experience of men — Communion with nature — God's silences of preparation.

Chapter VII

The Prophet Baptist. The Divine Baptism . . .58

John in the Wilderness — The Great Renunciation — The Cry of the Kingdom — The Flow of Penitents— Jesus Baptized — Why?

CHAPTER VIII. The Divine Temptation ,66

Personal Tempter, external and real ; not an internal process — First offer — Supposed Buddhist resemblance — Second offer — Third offer — Temptations recurrent — Temptation representative.

Chapter IX

The Lamb of God. The Divine Son of Man at the Social Feast. The Divine Reformer in the House of God. The Divine and the Human Rabbi 71

The first disciples — Sense of sin supreme factor — The Lamb of God — The Son of Man — The Cana wedding ; its promise — First Messianic passover — The Reformer — The Casuist.

Chapter X

The Baptist's Farewell Testimony. The Saviour and the

Samaritaness. The Nazarene 80

Jesus on the Baptist's ground — The Prophet's last testimony — Jesus in Samaria — The Well of Jacob — In Galilee again — In Nazareth again.

CONTENTS. Vll

CHAPTER XL

PAGE

Capernaum — The unknown feast at Jerusalem — Galilee in Christ's time and now — Galilean labours.

Chapter XII

The Divine Apostle. The Divine Moralist . . 96

The selection of the Twelve — Organization of the Divine society — Organization of the life — Code of the New Kingdom in its past, present, and future relations.

Chapter XIII

The Divine Art Teacher. The Divine Nature-worker.

The Divine Missionary 106

Capernaum — Nain — The Baptist in Machaerus — The Saviour and the lost woman — Divine self-assertion — Spiritual industry — Parables of Divine art interpret Nature — Miracle of power over Nature — Demonism — Incessant labours — Mission tours — The martyr of Machaerus — The Feeding of the Five Thousand — The Bread of Life — The stormy lake — The contradiction of sinners — Passover retreat — Back to work.

Chapter XIV

On the way to Caesarea Philippi — The Petrine confession — The Rock — The Divine sign — The excellent glory — The descent — The return — The predictions.

Chapter XV

The Ascension journey. The Divine Missionary in Per^a. 131

The days of going up — Peremptory claims —The Feast of Tabernacles — The adulteress— The Light of the World — The Shepherd of Israel — Pastor pastorum — Perasan Mission — The seventy missionaries — The Good Samaritan — The devout home scene — The prayer of prayers— Peraean work resumed — The Feast of Dedication— Return to Peraea — Incarnate energy— Missionary Parables — Parables of the Unseen World.

Chapter XVI

The resurrection of Lazarus — Back to Peraea — Divorce and marriage — The rights of woman — The rights of children — Behold, we go up to Jerusalem ! — Jericho — Zacchaeus and the service of man — The blind healed— The pilgrims in debate— The Sabbath rest and unction.

Vlll CONTENTS.

Chapter XVII. Page

The Messianic Entry. The Contradiction of Sinners . 160

The Triumphal Entry — The Devil's stand — The Second Temple cleansing — The barren figtree — The " Day of Questions" — The Divine Controversialist — The Divine Apocalypse — Jewish Eschatology.

CHAPTER XVTII.

Judas traitor — Wednesday in retreat — The Last Supper — Gethsemane — The arrest — The Divine Prisoner before Annas, before Caiaphas, before Pilate, before Herod — Judas's end — Before Pilate again — Ecce Homo ! — Round the Cross — The Seven Words — The Atonement.

CHAPTER XIX. The Divine Sabbath 187

The marred Body — The Soul free among the dead — Easter Eve.

Chapter XX

The Resurrection — Magdalena dolorosa — The Resurrection unexpected, a Divine must be — Emmaus — Appearance to the eleven apostles and other brethren — Differentiation of offices — Doubter Thomas — Messianic critical difficulties — Celsus's objection — Vision hypothesis — Galilee again — The fishers on the sea again — All authority — Undetailed appearances — The great Forty Days — Divine organization — Development of order — Development of faith — Continuity, both of soul and body — The four distinct Evangelic reports.

Chapter XXII

The Character of Christ. Christ as a Moral and

Spiritual Worker 214

Miracles morally conditioned— Jesus Christ a spiritual miracle — Strength of right will — His originality, negative and positive — Authoritativeness — Placed humanity upon the throne of the cosmos, and made moral and spiritual interests supreme — Gave a moral ideal, and a moral dynamic — Individualism— Universalism — Women — Children — Practical every-day morality — Consistency — New virtues and graces — Faith — Hope — Love — Humility— Truth — Religion of the Body — Unification of religion and morality — Prayerfulness — Self-assertion of sinlessness.

Chapter I. The Desire Of All Nations

"Thirst came upon the worshipper, though he stood in the midst of the waters" ( Rig- Veda vii. 89.4).

The life of Jesus the earthly manifestation of the Divine life of Jehovah — Historical character of that life upon the basis of the Four Gospels definitely accepted — The doctrine of development historically applied — The prcBparatio Evangelica. — The unsatisfied spiritual desires of nations — The Roman unsatisfied by power, the Greek by thought, the Jew by Rabbinism, the Buddhist by Nirvana — The Desire of all nations the fulfilment of unsatisfied spiritual needs, individual, national ; and His religion alone universal — Jesus the Universal Ideal and Example, and the universal and only moral dynamic.

Jesus Christ is God over all, Blessed for ever. The earthlylife of Jesus was the manifestation in a single province of God's universe of that Divine life which was, and is, and is to be, above and beyond, before and after all the universe, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. The life of Jesus Christ is a fragment of a great whole. That whole is the Divine life eternal, which was seen by men's eyes, heard by men's ears, handled by men's hands for one-third of a century. The study of the earthly life of Christ is the divinely revealed mode of approach to the knowledge, and, through the knowledge, to the possession of the Divine life. In the work and teaching of Jesus Christ, the Divine work and teaching were exhibited under the limited conditions of earthly life. The Divine character was translated into earthly forms to be seen and read of all men.

The appearance of Christ amongst men was the greatest event in human history ; the relations of God to man and of man to God and of man to man underwent a change. This change was not due to any alterations in the unchangeable character of God, but was the effect of a new approach, long foreshadowed and prefigured on God's side to man. The incarnation of the Son of God introduced to man a new character, a new force, a new example. That character, that force, that example, were the revelation of the Divine under all the varying conditions of human life. The Divine Life stooped down from heaven, humbled itself to the level of its own creatures, submitted to death for its own high purposes. Nature is not conquered but by obedience. The self-humiliation of God is another illustration of the truth of the Baconian epigram. To conquer human nature, to lead it in a willing triumph, the Word became flesh. As the old Fathers have loved again and again to express it, God became man that man might become God. The Divine became human and emptied itself of its glory that the human might be glorified into the Divine.

Reader and writer alike of the life of Jesus Christ do well to remember that every deed and word and thought recorded in the memoirs of Jesus Christ are God's. The contemplation of Christ's life is an act of worship. Worship is the only possible attitude of the soul as it stands before the mystery of the revelation of the eternal God. Here, the absolute and the relative, the infinite and the finite, the unseen and the seen touch hands. The creature can only apprehend and understand the Creator under its own conditions. God has made Himself knowable, intelligible, loveable, by the works of His hands. To impart that knowledge to the creature which is eternal life, to make the children of men children of God, the Son of God became, and continues for ever, the Son of Man. To increase the knowableness of God, Christ manifested Him under directly and immediately knowable conditions.

The idea of development is the most important intellectual discovery of nineteenth-century thought. Under the dominion, and sometimes the exclusive tyranny, of this thought, all our historic investigations have been reconsidered. The application of these principles to every department of life and thought is an intellectual necessity. And the Christian welcomes the

THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS. 3

scientific revelations, wherever and however misunderstood or perverted, as an inspiration from the God of truth.

Read in this light the life of Jesus Christ becomes full of manifold Divine light. All pre-Christian history is seen to be marching from stage to stage to this consummation. All Christian history is seen to be the gradual development of the work of Jesus Christ. The life of Christ is recognized as absolute and unique in itself, but in strict relation to the whole chain of God's eternal purpose. What led up to, and what followed, that life may be regarded as the natural movements of Divine causation, supernaturally born in the bosom of God's thought, and supernaturally conditioned by His will. Then the manifestation of the Christ is viewed as the personal entry of the Divine Being upon a scene long prepared and having before it a long, but unknown, future.

The coming of the Son of Man was not an absolutely isolated event in the history of mankind. There was a long preparation, a continuous development, a gradual differentiation through the ages. Prince after prince, ruler after ruler, prophet after prophet, man of God after man of God, were sent. They were forerunners : they were types : they were links in the chain. They all pointed onwards and prepared the way for the coming Prince, Ruler, Prophet, the Man of God. The gifts, the powers, the excellencies, the glories of all, were to be combined in one. He was to be Crown and Flower as He had been the root of all. All the events in all the ages were marching forward to this culmination. Conscious and unconscious prophecy reached its fulfilment ; its partial fulfilment as the earnest of the higher fulfilments to be.

Roman, Greek, and Jewish worlds lay in the shadow of death. The old order was everywhere changing ; the birth of the new creation was at hand ; the world was sick and weary. Nothing in life could give satisfaction to the human spirit. The cry of the child of Vedic India, " Which of all these gods will hear our cry, and be favourable unto us ? Who will come down and deliver us?" 1 was the reverberated wail, or the unexpressed sigh, of an infinite wilderness of hearts.

The Roman conquest had brought into the field of religion a number of competitors, none able to hold the sceptre of

1 Rig-Veda x. 64. 1, quoted by De Pressense, " The Ancient World and Christianity," p. 187.

the strongest. The conquest resulted in a fusion of national gods and religions, a synthesis, not unlike that seen in some of the developments of the Indian Brahmo Samaj. All religions were thus put upon an equally relative footing ; and none could claim an absolute sanction. Religions which may be equally true will be equally false, and to such a position thought was actually drifting. The attempt to enforce religion by State policy inevitably tended to destroy any claim to higher than human sanction. " Honour the gods," said the Roman statesman Maecenas, " according to national custom ; and compel others to honour them likewise." x

The only god possible to humanity, when all divinities were dethroned, was some anthropomorphic attribute, or combination of attributes. The god of the Roman world was power — his impersonation the Caesar. He was power and human selfworship incarnate. His name was deified. His apotheosis began to take place in his lifetime. But " permanent and habitual admiration " (according to a modern, but wholly inadequate definition of worship) of embodied power could not satisfy the cravings of the human heart for anything but hero-worship, Still the conception of a Divine Caesar might have assisted some minds in the Roman world to admit into the shrine of their hearts a Divine man, who claimed to be the incarnation, not of political power only, but of moral and spiritual power, of power over Nature, of power over the heart and conscience, over the temporal destinies of nations, and the eternal destinies of men ; and not of power only, which may be worshipped and dreaded, but not loved ; but of love, holiness, wisdom, righteousness, which constitute what is loveable as well as what is admirable. A true Roman was prepared to admire Order and Law Incarnate. And the works of Supernatural Order, Law, Power, were just those which were set in the Roman Gospel of Mark for his instruction. The impersonation of Law, Order, Power set upon a new basis, robed in a different uniform, the Imperial purple of His own blood, and wearing a Crown but of thorns, and breathing the new and wholly strange atmosphere of unspeakable love and infinite humility, was the new Divinity who claimed whatever of loyalty, of adoration, of reverence, was left in the debased religion, whose gods were humanised and whose human beings were deified. Here, as 1 Quoted by Pressense from Boissier.

THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS. 5

always and everywhere, Christ came to recognize, transform, and elevate all pre-existent good, as well as to crush and destroy all pre-existent evil. The disintegration of national divinities resulted in the integration of Caesar-worship, the actual religion of the Roman world when Christ came to institute a new religion.

The Greeks of the day were merged in the Roman world. The worship of the Greek had been anthropomorphic. Plato indeed had theistic moments. Aristotle had theistic moments. But for both God was a bare abstraction. God was the Thought of Thought, but out of relation, not in relation, to the object of thought. Kwel a>g ipuixtvov, not Kivtl u>g tpCjv ; i.e.. He moves the universe as an object of love, not as loving it, as transcending it and out of relation to it. Such a God could only be, and was, to the popular mind a negative quantity, similar to the Brahma of Hinduism.

The real divinity of Greeks was Thought, in its various incarnations of philosophy, art, literature. But even intellectual salvation and mental satisfaction had not been reached, and one inadequate system gave way to another, and left humanity with the whole head sick and the whole heart faint.

On the moral side, Socrates and the Socratic school had created a desire for moral ideals, and so far as ethical systems could gratify the appetite had provided the best of fare. But talking about virtue could never manufacture it. The moral dynamic was wanting, and the concrete impersonation of abstract moralities. Socrates was the nearest approach to the latter. A remarkable passage in the Symposium of Plato indicates that his personality had upon some of his disciples the effect of creating moral self-dissatisfaction, distinct from the mere jealousy of moral or intellectual inferiority. "When we hear any other speaker, even a very good one, his words produce absolutely no effect in comparison. . . . And if I were not afraid that you would think me drunk, I would have sworn as well as spoken to the influence which they have always had and still have over me. ... I have heard Pericles and other great orators, but this Marsyas has often brought me to such a pass, that I have felt as if I could hardly endure the life which I am leading. . . . For he makes me confess that I ought not to live as I do, neglecting the wants of my own soul, and busying myself with the concerns of tne Athenians ; therefore

I hold my ears and tear myself away from him. And he is the only person who ever made me ashamed, which you might think not to be in my nature, and there is no one else who does the same." r

If any of the Socratic school did as much as this they did a great deal ; they created such a thirst as prompted the question of certain Greeks, " Sir, we would see Jesus," and paved the way for those conversions of proselytes to the Israelites, especially in the dispersion, in the search after a real and righteous God, or from the synagogue of Israel to the Christian Hellenist.

The Jewish world was self-limited, self-centred, and selfabsorbed. It was, too, in a state of subjection. How could political degradation but affect the nation, and nullify any extra-national prestige and influence, even if it were claimed ? And it was claimed but partially. " Be of the disciples of Aaron (the peaceful) ; loving peace and pursuing peace ; loving the creatures and bringing them nigh to the Thorah" 2 — beautiful words of Hillel's, as Kuenen justly remarks ; " but," as he asks rightly, " how, when the theory has to be put into practice, and it appears that this ' Thorah,' with its ' hedge ' raised by the Sopherim, and made yet stronger and higher in accordance with the seven rules drawn up by Hillel himself, is inaccessible to the ' creatures ' who are to be brought to it ? " 3 No, Pharisaism itself, which was the Jewish religion of the day when Christ came, as one says who has done it at least justice (if not, much more than justice), at "its own most flourishing period, proclaims loudly and unmistakably enough its own insufficiency. Within, and still more around it, in the life of the Jewish people, all manner of phenomena might be noted which, to any one capable of observing and fathoming them, could admit of no other interpretation than this." 4

Judaism left to itself could never ascend to an international, to an universal religion. The best proof of which may be found in modern Judaism, which is the natural development of unchristianized Judaism. Modern Judaism never extends its borders, never makes converts, or tries to.

1 Symposium, 215, 216, Professor Jowett's translation ; cf. Trench, " Hulsean Lectures," p. 251.

2 Pirke Aboth. i. 13.

3 Kuenen, "National Religions and Universal Religions," Hibbert Lectures, 1882, p. 214. 4 Ibid. p. 211.

THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS. 7

If neither Greek, nor Roman, nor Jew, could provide an universal, a satisfying religion, we need hardly pursue our investigation far into the Oriental religions. No civilized nation has ever adopted any of these religions, nor could any without denationalizing itself. Whatever truths were in them they had neither vitality nor force to preserve their own believers from falling into the rear of nations. Nor would it require much demonstration to prove that all of them, without exception, had long been on the path of deterioration and decay, even within the limits of their own obedience. 1 One great Oriental religion, that of Islam, destined to play a great part in the world, had not yet appeared in the stream of competition ; and when it did appear, it was " as a side branch of Christianity, or, better still, of Judaism." 2

Buddhism will be noticed at various points later on. But, as a satisfaction of the desire of all nations, it pronounces its own hopelessness by turning away from the world instead of redeeming it, by expelling desire instead of satisfying it, by pointing to nothingness as the crown of existence, and the consummation of developments. Confucianism again has little room for a doctrine of God. " Whatever of this kind is found in these {i.e., the Shu and the Shih) exists only in shreds and patches" ; 3 and its worship is carried on representatively only by the Head of the State, unshared by the multitudes of the people.

All religions, all teachers had failed, had vanished in turn. The Roman, the Greek, the Jew, the Oriental, had made their several contributions, positive and negative, to the development of a new faith. The time was come for an universal religion and an universal Person. An Ideal Man was the secret answer to spoken and unspoken needs ; an Ideal Man who should take up, consecrate, and complete all previous moral ideals ; an Ideal Man who should be universal, not fashioned after particularist national idiosyncrasies, who was not a Roman, a Greek, a Jew, an Oriental. He must be a Son of Man.

Nor was an Ideal Man sufficient. He would satisfy the craving for a moral ideal ; but the standard would be as unattainable as ever. Example would be a source and centre of

1 Taoism is an example after the death of Confucius. Legge, " Religions of China," p. 179. 2 Kuenen, p. 53.

3 Legge, " Religions of China, " p. 248.

moral attractiveness. But example in itself had been again and again tried and found wanting ; and even examples such as Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Buddha, had never raised others to their own level after the image of their life had faded into the dark silence. Power of imitation was required as well as an object to imitate. And this could only be given by one who could communicate the power. Jesus Christ claimed to be the ideal Son of Man, and claimed to give the power to His spiritual children to become the sons of God, His brothers in work, in life, in character, in glory. Jesus claimed to supply moral dynamic ; to heal the inveterate, chronic, universal disease of enfeebled will, as well as to supply an absolute and universal standard of character and life.

The Desire of all nations came then to fulfil that desire. He came to raise mankind to the levels of their own ideals, as well as first to transform their ideals. He came, the Son of God, in the uniform language of the Fathers, to make men the sons of God. He came to spiritualize, to divinize, to deify ; and so to give the true expression, and the higher conservation, even the infinite promotion, to all the works and workers of righteousness, truth, holiness in all the kingdoms and sub -kingdoms of thought and life. He came to make men feel they were loved by the Supreme Love, and must love the Supreme Beloved.

And the earthly scene chosen for the theatre of Divine manifestation fulfilled the long-ripening process of God which had differentiated one people and country for Divine purpose. It was well fitted, too, apart from antecedent preparation, being the meeting-place of East and West, of many nations, cultures, civilizations, faiths.

Chapter II. The Messianic Hope Within The Canon

" E'n now the shadows break, and gleams divine Edge the dim distant line."

J. H. Newman.

Divine differentiation selecting from the woman's seed a nation, a tribe — Typical characters and offices foreshadowing different aspects of the Son of Man — Spiritual and devotional preparation — The Ideal of the Prophets— The King— The Suffering Servant of God — Post-exilian hope — The priestly hope — Minor and relative ideals contribute to the fulness of the complete hope— Unique hope in history — The Divine Man a fulfilment of multitudinous foreshadowings.

The beginning of the coming of the Christ must be looked for where there is no beginning, in the eternal thought of the bosom of God. The Lamb was slain, and, if slain, sent, from the foundation of the world. The protevangelium, or primal germinal gospel, is contained in the first word of Divine revelation. The gospel of hope is contained in the promise of the victorious seed of the woman. The gospel of suffering conquest is implicitly foreshadowed in the vision of conflict with the Serpent. From the world-wide family of the woman to the seed of Shem according to the blessing of Noah passes the first Divine specialization, or selection of grace. From the race of Shem the Divine finger points to the family of Abraham, the servant of the Lord. In the father of the faithful a Messianic person as well as a Messianic nation is distinctly foreshadowed. Abraham's character forms an important stage in the ethical development of the Messianic idea. For his faith became the model of all faith. His character as the servant of God estab-

IO JESUS CHRIST.

lished a spiritual idea. Such a faith could never die out of the world for ever. Abraham was justified by faith. The gospel of justification by faith in Christ underlay, as it preceded, the law, and was never disestablished. The spiritual forwardlooking and upward-looking faith of the father of the faithful constituted a moment in the spiritual history of a world, desiring redemption, peace with God, reconciliation internal and external.

Moses is the next link in the chain of purposive selection- The Lawgiver himself is a suggestive type emphasized by his own promise of a greater Prophet than himself. The Mosaic legislation is a new departure in the Messianic development. Floods of light converge upon the Promise of the ages. The laws, the worship, the institutions of Israel moved towards one central hope, the Ideal Servant of the Lord, 1 the ideal sacrifice, the ideal priest, the ideal teacher and lawgiver. However imperfectly realized the Ideal Sufferer was with graduated distinctness typefied. Judges and rulers paved the way for a single ruler, and suggested the heroism, the manliness, the conquering majesty, which should be finally embodied in the fulness of the Divine formula, the Son of Man.

Great characters, great national movements, evoke and interpret great ideas. As the fortunes and dignities of Israel rose the ideals of Israel ascended.

From the house of Israel the differentiating energy of the Lord selects the tribe of Judah, and from the tribe of Judah the family of David. The prophecy of Nathan is the next landmark in Messianic development. The hope of Israel is a royal hope. The person of the Messiah is brightening into a clearer splendour. The anointed of the Eternal wears a Davidic crown. The servant of the Lord is a sovereign of man. The Messianic idea and the Messianic ideal step by step, subject to relapse and retrogression, become fuller, more definite, more concrete ; not shadowy abstractions, nor hazy poet dreams. From first to last the personal and impersonal elements are interwoven ; the Messiah and the nation blend in though and feeling never wholly distinguishable. All Israel is ideally a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, a Messianic body ; and remains so to the last breath of prophecy and to the post-canonical vaticinations.

1 Cf. Edersheim, " Prophecy and History in relation to the Messiah" (p. 187) on " The Ideal Destiny of Israel." .

THE MESSIANIC HOPE WITHIN THE CANON. II

God uses every national development to advance spiritual development. Slowly, but surely, the links in the chain of the Divine philosophy of history unwind. The spirit of the age is moulded to His own uses by the activities of the Spirit of God. The monarchy embodies and accentuates the monarchical aspect of the Messianic hope. An ideal king, an ideal kingdom, point the golden stream. Often the kingdom is expected in the near future, and the kingdom is only a magnified edition of known kingdoms. Wave after wave of disappointment do not submerge, but tend to unsecularize the Messianic loyalty. Psalm rolls to psalm its welcoming " God save the king" to the music of a royal march. Deeper down in the heart of the people sinks and waits the royal hope. Even if the psalms of the directly Messianic royal hope be reduced to but ten or eleven, there are many latent aspirations and inexpressive heart vaticinations feeling towards this centre. Unquestionably the royal portrait of the Messiah was the most popular one to the end. The higher, the deeper, sacrificial beauties of life, of work, of character, appealed to the higher and deeper natures taught of God in the school of devotion and sacrifice. Power and glory are always worshipped in the world. Habitual veneration for power and domination is a notable characteristic of Orientalism. To this day the not real, but superficial, absence of power in the ethical portrait of Jesus constitutes a barrier to His acceptance by the Indian mind.