in the Form of God" who became a servant that He might raise the lowly, give them of His own life, of His own spirit, and eternal happiness. Few understand the mystery and power of self-denial, or have full faith in the might of self-sacrifice. Jesus is the sublimest of all who ever trod the earth. No one is equal to Him—-no ideal man has been found worthy to carry His shoes. Natural selection would extinguish the feeble, blighted, maimed forms of life-by crushing them out: Jesus saves, strengthens, and ennobles them. The worldly man says, as were it a law not to be overcome—" the weakest goes to the wall;" whereas, men with the Spirit of Christ, the holy, pure, and able, know that every act of wise self-sacrifice for the weak and the miserable, is a transfer from their own strength, wealth, happinessis a breathing of their own life, love, spirit, into the feeble-by which these are raised and strengthened to see God. Self-denial by the rich, and not by the rich only, is the best means that we can use for the prevention and cure of misery; the most efficient and, probably, an absolutely necessary instrument for elevating our race to intelligent sympathy with the Holy Mind and Will.

If not in accordance with pure reason and the high expectations of our race, that the Everlasting should give Divinity to self-denial-manifest Himself in our flesh-be a Divine Humanity, why did all nations believe that the great and pure hero is a God-like man? Not that it ever entered either Jewish or Gentile mind, apart from Revelation, that it was a work peculiarly Divine for the great man to lower himself in efforts to rescue from ruin the ignorant and degraded; and that it

specially belonged to the holy to make other men partakers of perfection; nevertheless, the hero-principle unconsciously verifies the divine promise of a Deliverer —one absolutely unselfish. Read the Gospels, again and again; you cannot detect any fault or touch of. selfishness either in His actions or teachings. His character was a manifestation of something superhuman which, finding the latent in man, called it forth to act with might. He proved what men had dimly thought -high sacrifice partakes of Divinity. Ancient mind was full of conceptions concerning gods coming as men, but the Christ, whom Christians adore, surpasses all that is merely human; His Incarnation affirms the twofold truth that, in some way exceedingly beneficial to us, God is like man, and the true man is like God. "We have no other word wherewith to express it; we speak after the manner of men; nor could we understand if we heard any of those unspeakable words which express the Divine Nature in its proper essence; therefore we must make allowances, and great ones, when we apply words of our nature to the Infinite and Eternal Being" (Leslie, "Method with the Deists"). It is nearly two thousand years since the actual historic manifestation; but the miracle, though more fully believed in, is rather greater than less. We are more capable of discernment as to the reality: for now, that we scientifically regard the universe as a whole, we see that it is also, in every atom, that material garment with which the Eternal clothes His energy. In the intelligence of creatures, in genius-science-art-literature-design -are manifestations of the Supreme Mind. One step in truth is one step from sin, one step from sin is one

step nearer to Heaven. It was Plato who said, "Truth is the body of God. . . Light is His shadow." We discern somewhat more clearly than did our forefathers, that human nature, as conscious of God, is in itself an incarnation; grandly, beautifully, sacredly, summed up in Christ. The three great Revelations of God—in the World, in Literature, in Flesh-stand plainly before us in Creation, in Scripture, in Christ.

Time did not call Christ forth, nor was He the creature of circumstance. An event not evoked by nature is a miracle, and an event not caused by the moral forces of the universe is a moral miracle. Time often calls loudly for great men, many wish that spirits came from "the vasty deep," but there are none to answer; and Circumstance often diminishes the great one if he comes, and makes him like the many small. If Time and Circumstance could always discern and find a great man, the world need never go to ruin.

4

Jesus, then, the God-man, was not an evolution. In outward condition a peasant, born and nurtured amongst a people whose narrow exclusiveness provoked contempt from the ancient world, His supreme attractiveness of character, spiritual illumination, and mental power, could not have been merely human. If they were human, it is a miracle that men who reject all tyrannies call Him Lord, and say, “Jesus is perfect: He stands alone in unapproachable grandeur, nineteen centuries roll away and His character so lives that He inspires millions of men with impassioned love. Other men may seem to be children of their surroundings, He became what He was despite surroundings, and is the only one who can say in truth and holiness-'Do as I have

Ꮓ

done.'" Great men, the inventors of useful arts, prophets, poets, do not, as a rule-although strength is to the strong and wisdom to the wise-produce extraordinary children; they rather exhaust the honoured family. It is frequently found that great men are not children of the great. Atavism, meaning the occasional reappearance of rare forms and powers, does not explain it only states the fact. Without any adequate assignable cause, great men appear by an interruption, a suspension, or an elevation of our nature. The earth may not tremble at the birth of a gifted infant, nor the face of heaven shine with fiery portents, but a mighty thing has happened, and the mystery—a work of Providence-presents an enigma to science. See the grand moral presented in the Prometheus of Æschylus. Neither the shaking earth nor rending heaven, not the rock without nor vulture within, could cause regret for past good deeds, or terror of future evil, or envy of the dishonourable prosperity possessed by his insulter.

As to Christ-He, the ideal, the perfect of our race, appeared in an age when such an ideal could not have been developed in act-could not have been conceived in thought. In the Theory of Development, the perfection of humanity is the final result of man's history ages hence; Christ, therefore, is the great miracle which more than any other establishes the fact of miracles. Christ, Himself, is proof of His own miracles. "On the general fact that Jesus wrought wonders as well as spoke wisdom, there can be no indecision without an entire surrender of the whole Gospel History as no better than Arabian Nights' Tales . . . when S. Mark wrote down his account of marvellous occurrences, he

simply recognized God's hand stretched forth in them" (Griffiths, "Studies of the Divine Master ").

Christ is not only mysterious, as are the greatest of men; He marched over the dead and living of all our race to a marvellous material, spiritual, moral, victory. He alone, of all men in the world, has inspired the heart of humanity with an impassioned love. He, the highest pattern of virtue and the highest incentive to its practice, has exerted so deep, so mighty, so universal an influence; that three years of His active life have done more to enlighten, soften, elevate mankind, than all the disquisitions of philosophers, than all the exhortations of moralists. Whatever is holy and true in Christian life comes from Christ. Despite the sins of the false and the failings of the true, amid the pride, presumption, and errors of the priest, notwithstanding the worldliness that creeps into every congregation, Christ remains in His nature, character, example, work, that enduring principle of life whence springs all regeneration. In Him humility was exalted to sublimity, and the profoundest depths of misery were fathomed and sanctified by personal suffering and sympathy. As a man of sorrow-yet the Son of God, All Holy-He lived and dwelt with us who are impure. He united essential grandeur with voluntary lowliness in taking upon Himself our life and death and sin. Poverty manifested-not debased humility. Temptation tried His nature, but shook not the inner temple of His mind. All that He loved failed Him, but He never murmured; His own virtue was all-sufficient. We glow in the contemplation of His character. Who, that has looked at Him, thinks that virtue to be loved must