BT 205 .C684 1869 
 Coulin, Frank 
 The son of man 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 https://archive.org/details/sonofmandiscoursOOcoul 
 

 
 J* 
 
 
THE SON OF MAN : 
 
 Discourses 
 
 ON THE 
 
 HUMANITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 FRANK COULIN, 
 
 D.D., 
 
 Minister of the National Church of Geneva,. 
 
 (Cran^tatefc toitf) tfte Sanction of tfje ?tutf)or. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 CLAXTON, REMSEN, AND HAFFELFINGER, 
 
 819 & 821, MARKET STREET. 
 
 1869. 
 
4 
 
 TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE. 
 
 It has been said, that “the secret of oratory lies 
 not in saying new things, but in saying things 
 with a certain power that moves the hearers;” 
 and by another writer, “that that preacher will do 
 well, who, by new combinations, or a happy style 
 of illustration, shall cause men to look upon 
 old truths with a new interest.” It has been 
 thought that the writer of these Discourses has, 
 in an eminent degree, attained this power, and 
 has succeeded in giving a new interest to old 
 truths. No apology, therefore, is required for 
 offering them to English readers, for whom they 
 are no less adapted than for his hearers at Paris 
 and Geneva. 
 
VI 
 
 TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE. 
 
 It is by the special desire of the Author that 
 the Address on the Teaching of Jesus Christ 
 accompanies the other Discourses. It was deli¬ 
 vered at the opening of the Salle de la Reformation, 
 at Geneva, in September, 1867. 
 
 JANE STURGE. 
 
 North fleet, March , 1869. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. JESUS OF NAZARETH. j 
 
 / 
 
 II. THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 III. THE MAN OF SORROWS .105 
 
 IV. THE RISEN ONE. jr 2 
 
 $ 
 
 V. THE KING.210 
 
 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST.263 
 
THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 i. 
 
 3!estts of Jl3a?arctf). 
 
 “ The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which 
 
 was lost .”—Luke xix. io. 
 
 I y 
 
 “ T AM that which has been, and which is, and 
 JL which is to be, and my veil no mortal hath 
 yet drawn aside.” This is the inscription which 
 ancient Egypt had engraved on the pediment of 
 one of its most famous temples to describe the 
 Divinity. It testifies at once to the universal 
 desire of man to seek an unknown God, and the 
 mysterious silence which awaits him when left 
 
 B 
 
2 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 to his own powers in the search. “ Who is He 
 then ? ” has been asked in turn by all nations; 
 “ who is then this almighty and invisible Being, of 
 whose glory the heavens speak, who fills all space 
 with His presence, who makes the universe His 
 temple, from whom all things proceed, to whom 
 they all return, who is, who has been, who will 
 be?” He asserts His existence, He awes us, He 
 has sanctuaries built for Him everywhere; but 
 His face is mystery, and no mortal has yet been 
 able to draw aside His veil. 
 
 My brethren, eighteen centuries ago there ap¬ 
 peared a mortal who affirmed that He had drawn 
 aside this veil for ever; who even declared that 
 He presented the likeness of the invisible God in 
 His own person to those who contemplate Him. 
 A Son of Man once dared to say to His fellow- 
 creatures : “ No man knoweth who the Father is, 
 but the Son;”* and to add, “He that hath seen 
 me hath seen the Father.”! This pretention of 
 Jesus of Nazareth is unique in history, and it is 
 
 f John xiv. 9. 
 
 * Luke x. 22. 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 3 
 
 assuredly awful, if not founded in truth. He 
 stated it without reserve, and in all its enormity, 
 first to the disciples, then in presence of the 
 people, then before the rulers, then before the 
 world. He maintained it without flinching during 
 all the vicissitudes of a life ended by the greatest 
 sufferings; and, on quitting the world, He left to 
 
 i 
 
 the human race panting in the pursuit of the true 
 God, as a unique and definite article of faith: 
 “ He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting 
 life.”* It is true that this pretention recalls and 
 pre-supposes another still more extraordinary. 
 He was, He said Himself, in the beginning with 
 God, in the bosom of God, the only Son of 
 God, and only became man for the precise pur¬ 
 pose of removing every veil from the eyes of man, 
 and of showing him the face of God. In the 
 beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 
 God, and the Word was God. In him was life, 
 and the life was the light of men. And the Word 
 was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we 
 
 * John iii. 36. 
 
4 
 
 THE SON OF MAN 
 
 beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten 
 of the Father, full of grace and truth.* 
 
 Thus does one of the historians of His life ex¬ 
 press himself, the most intimate confidant of His 
 thoughts and of His teaching. 
 
 A complete study of the person of Jesus Christ, 
 would perhaps require the establishment of this 
 pre-existence, and the evidence of this divine and 
 supernatural character before everything else. 
 
 My design, however, is not to attempt the 
 demonstration of this. Need I say that I consider 
 the point to be established, and I make no secret 
 of my conviction. But I wish to place myself 
 with you on the level of those who do not share it, 
 and I propose to speak to you in these discourses 
 as of a man, the Son of Man. 
 
 I shall go forth to meet Him on the high road of 
 history. I shall take His name as I find it in the 
 annals of the human race in the genealogical tree 
 of our common family. If He has a more noble 
 parentage, so much the better! The light of it 
 
 * John i. 1,2, 4, 14. 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 5 
 
 will be reflected upon us. I shall not clasp His 
 hand less warmly when I call Him my brother. 
 
 Do not imagine that I am embarrassed by con¬ 
 fining myself to this special point of view. Quite 
 the contrary; for if Christian doctrine is founded 
 upon the person of Jesus Christ, you will observe 
 that it implies two things, of which there is, in 
 my opinion, equal proof. The first is His real and 
 evident humanity, the second that this humanity 
 is stamped with such a seal that it is impossible 
 not to go higher in order to explain it. Even the 
 title that He gave Himself, and which we have 
 inscribed upon our banner because it always 
 endears Him to us, this title of the Son of Man, if 
 it does not designate a man, is nothing but a 
 lie ; and if it designates only a man, who is not 
 
 i 
 
 recommended by anything particular to the 
 special attention of other men, it is a vain and 
 .foolish title. 
 
 The Son of Man; He is unique among men, al¬ 
 though really and fundamentally a man. I take, 
 then, this perfect humanity of Jesus Christ as a 
 
6 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 starting point, and in exhibiting the exceptional 
 character of it, my aim will be to conduct you 
 to the conclusion proclaimed in the Gospels, that 
 “ God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto 
 Himself.”* 
 
 This is the course we shall pursue. We will 
 begin by taking a general view of the historical 
 personage, the study of whom I submit for your 
 consideration. We will observe the man, His 
 plan, His method. This will be the subject of 
 the first discourse. 
 
 If well conceived, it will lead us to demand the 
 moral perfection of one who presents Himself on 
 the theatre of the world with a programme like 
 that of Jesus of Nazareth. We shall see in the 
 second discourse whether He complies with that 
 condition. 
 
 In a world in which sin and suffering reign,, 
 perfect holiness could only sustain itself with 
 respect to sin on condition of bearing the weight 
 of suffering in all its intensity. It is in suffering 
 
 * 2 Cor. v. 19. 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 7 
 
 and by suffering that it receives and renders its 
 highest testimony. 
 
 The immolation of the Holy One and the Just, 
 His voluntary descent into the abyss of grief, of 
 death and malediction, will be our third subject 
 of discourse. 
 
 The history of the Son of Man then arrives at 
 the culminating point of interest. An absolute 
 struggle takes place, a thrilling question arises. 
 Which shall be the victor ? The power of sin by 
 the triumph of death, or the power of life by the 
 triumph of the Holy Victim ? It is a question 
 of fact which will oblige us to examine closely 
 the chief event of the Gospel history, the resurrec¬ 
 tion of Jesus Christ. This is the key-stone of the 
 arch. I tell you so beforehand. Then, in a final 
 discourse, we shall see presented the title, or 
 rather the fact of a true royalty, arising from 
 the character of the Son of Man, and from 
 His triumphant manifestation in the bosom of 
 humanity, in other words, from all the travail of 
 His soul, such as it will have been disclosed to 
 
8 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 us; a royalty which will establish its seat in our 
 consciences and in our souls, and after having 
 gathered the Church together upon earth, will 
 judge the world in eternity. 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth, the Holy One and the Just, 
 the Man of Sorrows, the Risen One, the King; 
 it is a drama in which everything is united by a 
 connecting link, and the denouement of which 
 relates to nothing less than the destinies of 
 humanity according to God’s plan, who gave 
 His only Son unto the world, that whosoever 
 believeth in Him should not perish, but have 
 everlasting life.* 
 
 You will certainly agree with me that such a 
 subject recommends itself to us by its sublimity 
 as well as by its practical character. I approach 
 it with trembling, fearing the compromising' con¬ 
 tact of my infirmity for the solid foundations of 
 our faith. Nevertheless, I approach it with joy. 
 
 To speak of Thee, of Thee only, O Jesus, my 
 beloved Master, and to follow the path which 
 
 * John iii. 16. 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 9 
 
 Thou hast Thyself chosen of manifesting Thy 
 glory beneath the mantle of Thy humiliation, is 
 it not enough to make a heart leap which loves 
 Thee, and for which Thou hast done so much ? 
 
 You will join in our efforts, my brethren, you 
 will sustain us by earnest and sympathetic at¬ 
 tention ; but, above all, we will together ask for 
 the help of that Spirit of which the Son of Man 
 said to His disciples : “ He shall glorify me, for he 
 •shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you.”* 
 
 I have said, my brethren, that it is a drama with 
 which we are concerned; perhaps I ought to 
 begin by recalling the scene of it. In order to 
 to this, you must picture to yourselves in turn, 
 the ancient city of Bethlehem on the hills of 
 Judah, the inn, the stable, then the little town of 
 Nazareth, gracefully placed above the slopes of a 
 green valley, with its eastern dwellings, and in 
 the midst of them the house of the carpenter 
 Joseph; then the shores of the lake of Tiberias, 
 its towns and villages; then Jerusalem the Holy 
 
 * John xvi. 14. 
 
IO 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 City; on this venerable theatre, consecrated already 
 by so many touching recollections, and now to be, 
 the scene of more touching events still, a life, 
 began similar in every respect to other lives. A 
 little infant comes into the world, is wrapped in 
 
 linen, and utters those cries by which new-born 
 
 \ 
 
 man proclaims his misery and his infirmity.. The 
 child grows, he has a mother, in whose heart the 
 history lived, so many times repeated yet always, 
 new, of the first step, the first word r the first 
 question, of those first rays of light which an¬ 
 nounce the dawn of intelligence, the beginning 
 of reflection in the heaven of the soul. 
 
 Do not imagine, however, any greater prodigy 
 than the prodigy of the development of all infancy.. 
 He to whom the beautiful name of Jesus,, which 
 signifies Saviour, was given from His birth,, was., 
 subject to His parents and pleased therm in alii 
 things. Do not hesitate to imagine Him on 
 Mary’s knees, hearing for the first time of the 
 God of Abraham and the story of Israel,, or im 
 Joseph’s workshop, learning to handle the tools. 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 ii 
 
 of his trade. He probably lost Joseph at an early 
 age, for in the early days of His ministry, when 
 He came to preach in His own country, they said 
 of Him: “Is not this the carpenter, the Son of 
 Mary?” “As of Him,” says Bossuet, “whom 
 they had seen keeping the shop, maintaining a 
 widowed mother by His labours, and conducting 
 the little business of a trade which supported them 
 both.” 
 
 We like to collect characteristic details of the 
 childhood of great men, that we may trace the 
 first indications of their superiority and the first 
 pledges of their future glory. If but little has 
 been preserved to us about the childhood of Jesus, 
 is it not that it offered less than most for this sort 
 of illustration, because it was so natural ? How¬ 
 ever this may be, we must respect the obscurity 
 in which the early years of Him are wrapped who 
 was to enlighten the world, and we must start 
 from the day when He quitted His retreat to 
 manifest Himself to the world. One thing is 
 clear, that His childhood and youth must have been 
 
12 
 
 THE SON OF MAN . 
 
 of perfect and transparent purity, for otherwise, 
 His subsequent life would have been inexplicable. 
 Every wound that affects the soul leaves a trace, 
 a sear, for which you will search in vain in the 
 soul of Him who could say with a clear con¬ 
 science : The Prince of this world hath nothing 
 in me !* 
 
 He increased in wisdom and stature and in 
 favour with God and man. This is all we know. 
 
 The Jesus whom we know in fact, we know 
 from scarcely anything else than the three years 
 of His public ministry, and yet, as has often been 
 remarked, if there is in history a living and fa¬ 
 miliar figure, it is His. The evangelical biographies 
 embrace but a very short space of time, comprised 
 in a very few pages. But they have a merit, bor¬ 
 rowed doubtless from their hero Himself, that of 
 a marvellous and unsurpassable sincerity, I will 
 not only say that they bear the stamp of being the 
 testimony of eye-witnesses, but so vividly is He of 
 whom they speak presented to us, at the distance 
 
 * John xiv. 30. 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 1 3 
 
 of eighteen centuries, that in reading them we 
 almost imagine ourselves to be eye-witnesses. 
 You go with Him from place to place; you mix 
 in the crowd which surrounds Him; you follow 
 His steps with His disciples; you acknowledge 
 the force of His unexampled moral authority; 
 you are touched by the blessings He confers; 
 you are enlightened by His words; He transports 
 you into and keeps you without effort in the region 
 of the sublime; you cannot escape the conviction, 
 that never was there a man above this man; but 
 at the same time you receive an impression, that 
 never was a man more entirely a stranger to any¬ 
 thing of an assumed character, or who remained 
 so spontaneously to the end what He was in 
 Himself, and what the original gifts of His in¬ 
 dividuality made Him. Voluntarily or involun¬ 
 tarily all men act more or less; He never did. 
 And if, in order fully to express my idea, I may 
 use an expression perhaps a little pretentious, I 
 should say, He was the most unsophisticated 
 man that ever lived. Socrates was a philosopher,. 
 
14 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 Csesar a soldier; Jesus—is Jesus of Nazareth. 
 There is nothing more to be said. 
 
 I do not know that anybody ever undertook 
 to demonstrate that any historical personage, 
 Socrates or Caesar for example, really belonged 
 to the human race; but suppose such a demon¬ 
 stration had to be made, how would one set 
 about it ? I suppose by searching underneath 
 the special traits of character and destiny, 
 which distinguish these heroes from the rest of 
 humanity, for those which they have in common 
 with it. It might be said of Caesar, although he 
 was a soldier, very ambitious, and a great poli¬ 
 tician, still, in the feelings of his heart and the 
 experiences of his life, he shares like a common 
 mortal our human nature. 
 
 What shall we say of Jesus? You will try in 
 vain to find out to what class He belongs, to rob 
 Him of His costume, to define Him first, that you 
 may afterwards compare Him with others. You 
 will seek in vain in this case for the man under- 
 
 i 
 
 neath the hero, for the hero is the man himself. 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 15 
 
 Now, as He appears to us in the extreme sim¬ 
 plicity of His personality, what of the essential 
 •experience of human life is wanting to Him ? 
 
 Need I say that He has a body like our own; a 
 body which eats, drinks, sleeps, is fatigued, suffers, 
 which faints, which dies. Need I say either that 
 He has a heart which loves, which vibrates with 
 all our affections in turn—those of the family, of 
 friendship, the love of country, and, above all, to 
 those of humanity. 
 
 He has a spirit, which is moved, which trembles, 
 which fears and hopes, is agitated and indignant, 
 which is acquainted with the thrill of joy, and the 
 -agony of grief. He is a son; a citizen ; He has 
 been a carpenter; He is poor; but, above all, He 
 is a man, and so completely a man, that men of 
 'every age, and every clime, recognise Him as a 
 brother. In fact, we all feel more attracted to 
 Him than to any historical personage whatever ; 
 before regarding them simply as men, we think of 
 them as Greeks, Romans, or men of ancient or of 
 modern times. The Roman poet has said: “I am 
 
THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 16 
 
 a man, and nothing which is human is foreign to 
 me.” I know of but one figure underneath which 
 these words might be inscribed with perfect truth, 
 and that is the figure of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 But I have just remembered a reservation 
 which occurs to you. There is one thing you 
 say which He has not experienced. There is one 
 mark which He has not received, and which is 
 enough to isolate Him absolutely from the rest of 
 the human race. We have searched well, but 
 have not been able to find if. What is it ? Sin. 
 Sin; yes, I cannot deny this is a family trait 
 which we all have in common. Take man in the 
 past, in the present, in every stage of civilisation, 
 in every latitude, take him from among the noblest 
 of the race, as well as from among the most de¬ 
 graded, everywhere you will find the ineffaceable 
 mark of the original stain, everyone receives his 
 share of the lamentable heritage, which the gener¬ 
 ations of men have transmitted from age to age. 
 
 Everyone who opens his eyes to the light of life 
 comes dowered beforehand with this wealth of 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 17 
 
 ■sorrow. Not one escapes his lot of misery and 
 infamy. Jesus is a stranger to it, it is true. You 
 will not recognise Him by this sign. 
 
 But is this, then, the sign by which man recog¬ 
 nises his species ? Is it one of the essentials, 
 without which he would cease to be what his 
 Creator made him? Will you say, that the more 
 closely a man follows the law of his development, 
 the more he will infallibly develope the germ of 
 every vice ? Will you say, then, that the more a 
 man disgraces and degrades himself, the more he 
 is a man ? Has anyone ever said that physical 
 deformity was one of the signs of our race, and 
 that he is wanting in the characteristics of man¬ 
 hood, who is neither maimed nor lame ? And do 
 you not see that moral deformities remove us still 
 further from our original state, in the same sense, 
 but far more than physical deformities ? Lan¬ 
 guage has endorsed this fact, my brethren, for the 
 indulgent qualification, which it applies to our 
 passions and our vices, is to call them failings. 
 
 II. They are, indeed, the disgrace, the weak- 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 ness of the soul. But the human mind, thank 
 God, degraded as it is, has features by which it 
 may be recognised, besides its failings and infir- 
 
 i 
 
 mities. If the mass of men were reduced to a 
 crowd of invalids in a hospital, would they refuse 
 to acknowledge as a brother the healthy visitor 
 who came to dress their wounds ? No, my breth¬ 
 ren ; if Jesus appears to be exempt from the ills 
 that afflict us, let us seek a better sign of His 
 
 fraternity with those whom He came to seek and 
 
 ♦ 
 
 to save. It is on our good side that He resembles 
 us. I will show you this sign, my brethren (for 
 we have not fallen so low as not to apprehend the 
 legitimate evidence of it): it is the noble and holy 
 liberty of a soul, which knowing no other law than 
 the sovereign and righteous will of God, carries 
 on His work here below in the path which God 
 has marked out for Him, and without being 
 subject to anyone, by a natural ascendancy, He 
 subjects all things to Himself. 
 
 Independent of the flesh, He subjugates the 
 lower parts of His nature, never suffering them to 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 19 
 
 rule Him. Like us He has a body to serve Him, 
 but never does He, like us, become its slave; He 
 fatigues Himself to the point of suffering, never 
 to that of discouragement. He loves with a 
 tenderness that has never been surpassed, but 
 which never gives rise in the transparent atmos¬ 
 phere of His soul to the most imperceptible shade 
 of sensuality. 
 
 Independent of men, He rules the society of 
 His fellow-men, while serving them with the most 
 absolute devotion. He is the best citizen among 
 the people, without ever partaking their prejudices 
 or their passions. Of all masters He is the 
 gentlest and most humble, without ever allow¬ 
 ing Himself to be restrained in His course 
 by His disciples—those most impressionable 
 men. 
 
 He receives the most enthusiastic ovations, 
 yet not a hair of His head is moved by the breath 
 of popularity. The most implacable enemies 
 conspire against Him, without occasioning Him 
 to make the slightest concession to them through 
 
20 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 cowardice or fear, even when the tempest raged 
 most violently. 
 
 Independent of nature, as the spirit is inde¬ 
 pendent of matter, He rules creation, and exerts 
 an empire over it, which excites astonishment 
 and admiration, and which, while to every candid 
 mind it manifests the intervention of the invisible 
 God, is no less an evidence of the regal power 
 conferred on man in the beginning, but of which 
 he lost the secret in his fall. 
 
 Simple and true, humble and great, without 
 preparation or effort, His soul filled with God, 
 He is at home in God’s universe like a child in 
 his father’s house. Now, fix the eye of your mind 
 on God’s thoughts at the moment when He said 
 to Himself: “Let us make man in our own 
 image;” then fix it on Jesus Christ, and I defy 
 you to repress the exclamation, “ Behold the Man I ” 
 
 I have told you, my brethren, that I will speak 
 to you in the second place to-day of the plan of 
 the Son of Man. 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 21 
 
 The life of every man on earth answers to an 
 internal picture which the mind contemplates 
 within itself. It is what is seen within that de¬ 
 termines the spectacle that is presented to others. 
 From the day when we begin to be conscious of 
 our existence, we behold within ourselves an 
 image, an ideal apparition of the drama of the 
 future. At first it is but a faint and fugitive 
 
 sketch, but it attracts us more and more, cap- 
 
 / 
 
 tivates us, invites us to complete it, until all our 
 faculties are engaged upon it, as if to fix upon an 
 invisible canvass this first sketch, which seems 
 to have been traced by some invisible hand in 
 order to evoke our activity. 
 
 The idea changes, the design becomes com¬ 
 plicated, the colours change, the starting point 
 can no longer be recognised. But never mind ! 
 during every moment of existence, every one has 
 something or other which he contemplates within 
 him. This something is the plan of his life. 
 We draw it with one hand, while we carry it 
 out with the other. 
 
22 
 
 THE SON OF MAN ,. 
 
 If you wish to know what a man is, ask what 
 
 he contemplates within himself. 
 
 * 
 
 We are in the year 1782. I will lead you to 
 the Military School at Brienne, and show you a 
 child with a passion for study, but whose one idea 
 is to apply the knowledge which he acquires from 
 books to the art of war. The games to which he 
 incites his comrades and in which he excels, are 
 nothing but mock sieges and battles. 
 
 Let us observe the child. 
 
 Twenty years later he is a man, he has taken 
 
 - 1 1 
 
 Toulon, has gone through the Italian campaigns, 
 and conducted the expedition to Egypt. In the 
 uniform of a General, with a pensive and dreamy 
 air, he is pacing the alleys of a park close to the 
 gates of the capital of France, which already 
 belongs to him. What is the future Emperor 
 thinking of? Twenty years later, dying upon a 
 rock in the ocean after long years of captivity, 
 the same man, just before yielding up his spirit, 
 only interrupts the lethargic silence into which he 
 has sunk to utter the words: “ Tete de l’armee ! ” 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 23 
 
 What is the illustrious dying man thinking of? 
 If you could see the series of pictures which have 
 successively engrossed his attention unrolled be¬ 
 fore your eyes, you would know more of the great 
 Napoleon than from all the detailed recital of the 
 wonders of his history. 
 
 Now, my brethren, I would fain know what 
 occupied the thoughts of the Son of Man. A 
 trait of His childhood shows Him already to be 
 under the influence of a pre-occupation which 
 increased and became exclusive and absorbing. 
 His parents took Him to Jerusalem; He was 
 present at the great solemnity of the Passover; 
 He saw the crowd assembled in the temple 
 court; He has visited the city which killed the 
 prophets; He has listened to the doctors ; He be¬ 
 came lost in thought. When asked the reason 
 of a stay which seemed inexplicable, He replied: 
 “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s 
 business ? ” 
 
 Afterwards, when the business of His trade took 
 Him back to Nazareth, near the companions of 
 
24 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 His childhood, in order to unfold to them the 
 character which He attributed to Himself, He 
 unrolled in their midst the book of Isaiah, and 
 read these words : “ The Spirit of the Lord God 
 is upon me ; because the Lord hath appointed me 
 to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath 
 sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to pro¬ 
 claim liberty to the captives, and the opening of 
 the prison to them that are bound ; to proclaim; 
 the acceptable year of the Lord.” * 
 
 Many times, in the midst of the crowds as¬ 
 sembled to listen to Him, or during His intimate 
 intercourse with His disciples. He spoke words 
 of sublime simplicity and of unfathomable depth,, 
 which betray, so to speak, the deep springs within 
 His souk 
 
 His aim was to found the Kingdom of God. His. 
 desire is, that all may be one in Him, as He is one 
 with the Father. “ The Son of Man is come to* 
 seek and to save that which was lost.”t To 
 what interior views, to what perspectives of the. 
 
 * Isaiah lxi. i. 2. f Luke xix. 10. 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 2 S 
 
 soul do these utterances respond ? What is it 
 that He meditates on in the secret sanctuaries of 
 thought? 
 
 I imagine myself present during one of the 
 scenes of His life. I stop to contemplate Him 
 as He sits on Jacob’s Well, waiting for His 
 disciples, who had gone to the neighbouring 
 town. He is alone and pensive, His eyes fixed 
 on the fields white already to harvest. 
 
 I see Him surrounded by a multitude, who- 
 bring to Him their sick, their afflicted, their 
 children ; He is silent; He reads the expression 
 of the various countenances; but His heart is 
 touched, His breast heaves, and His disciples, 
 depict Him as moved with compassion. 
 
 Arrived at the end of His earthly career, nailed 
 upon the cross, absorbed in solemn thought of 
 His work which is drawing to a close, re¬ 
 curring to the past, taking possession of the 
 future, He exclaims : “ It is finished ! ” What is 
 'it, then, at these moments, and at various others, 
 which you can add for yourselves (for no other life 
 
'26 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 presents such a uniform pre-occupation), what 
 is it, then, that He is meditating upon ? 
 
 But it is not enough to enquire into His life in 
 •order to understand His thoughts. 
 
 After all, His life is so simple, it made so little 
 noise, it throws so little external light, that it is 
 possible to overlook the unheard-of proportions 
 of the pre-occupation which filled it. We have not 
 the usual modes of estimating it. The men who 
 have made their mark in history are known by the 
 eloquence of their discourses, the depth of their 
 writings, by the tumult of the political or social 
 agitations which they led. In their case we must 
 see the picture in its frame, and it seldom extends 
 beyond the limits of the contemporary age. But 
 what characterises the Son of Man, on the con¬ 
 trary, is that His simple life appears to be the 
 expression of an idea more vast and more pro¬ 
 found as ages roll on, and as the human race 
 advances in the path of its destinies. 
 
 What wonders there are, of which we are 
 constrained to say to-day, they entered into 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 2 7 
 
 His thoughts, though never suspected by His 
 contemporaries; and what wonders there doubt¬ 
 less are which we do not yet see, but of which 
 cur descendants will say: “ He foresaw this also.” 
 The history of the world during these eighteen 
 centuries is but the transcription, scarcely yet 
 begun, of what He saw. And all that He did 
 foresee will not be made manifest until the 
 world’s history shall have passed through all the 
 stages of its development. 
 
 But let us try to catch a glimpse of what He 
 saw, although we cannot see it wholly. There 
 are in the soul of the Son of Man two pictures, 
 which appear to me to have been both habitually 
 before His mind. First, the view of human 
 misery. He met, as we meet, with pain and 
 suffering, in His course through life ; but while 
 in our case it only causes a temporary distraction 
 from our ordinary thoughts, it was so impressed 
 upon Him, that nothing could efface the stamp 
 of it, and nothing could exceed the depth and 
 correctness of the view He took of it. At every 
 
28 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 step, He was touched by the scenes of suffering, 
 unfolded before Him ; but within, His emotion: 
 spread, and overstepped the limits of His country,, 
 to embrace sufferers in every clime; it over¬ 
 stepped the limits of the present, to embrace all 
 the losses, all the catastrophes, all the desolations, 
 of the future. In a word, He leant His ear to- 
 the universal concert of distress which arises, 
 without interruption from the surface of our 
 globe, and not only so, but He saw the tragic 
 significance and the untold depths of it. He saw 
 evil not only in the infinite variety of its external 
 manifestations, but in the sinister fecundity of its. 
 principle ; He saw in sin the fatal source which 
 affects all mankind, and pours into every life the 
 double poison of death and curse. These are 
 abysses, my brethren, which it makes us giddy to 
 look down. He was constantly measuring the 
 extent and depth of them. 
 
 But there was another picture which was also- 
 continually before His eyes: that of humanity 
 raised and restored to perfection. He saw within 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 29 
 
 Himself our Father which is in heaven, His name 
 hallowed, His kingdom come, His will done on 
 earth as it is in heaven. He saw idols every¬ 
 where deposed, and the true God everywhere 
 adored. In this universal worship, He saw the 
 principle of a genuine fraternity, the barriers 
 between nations thrown down, the chains of the 
 slave unloosed, the hostility between rich and 
 poor abolished, the weapons of war transformed 
 into implements of peace, the wolf lying down 
 with the lamb. 
 
 He saw peace enter into all hearts with pardon, 
 and with pardon a joy that nothing can take 
 away. He saw God as all in all, all united 
 in God. 
 
 A sage of Greece has written a book, in which 
 he drew the plan of an ideal society, such as he 
 conceived it in his philanthropic dreams. You 
 know that I allude to the Republic of Plato. 
 
 Jesus did not write His republic, but it was 
 traced in His soul; and He had it all His life 
 before His eyes. We can form an idea of it, very 
 
30 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 imperfect, no doubt, but still an idea, if we. 
 imagine what society would be, constructed on 
 the ideal of Gospel perfection, a society where all 
 were of one heart and of one soul, and where these 
 maxims were in force: “ Blessed are the meek;”* 
 “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye 
 love one another, as I have loved you ; ”+ “ God 
 is a spirit, and they that worship him must 
 worship him in spirit and in truth.” J We call 
 this ideal; but know that our ideal can never be 
 anything but a pale reflection of the realities of 
 the future, as it was contemplated by Jesus in 
 the recesses of His soul. 
 
 Humanity sunk into the abyss of evil and 
 misery; humanity raised up to bliss and glory— 
 these are the two pictures which absorbed Him 
 in contemplation. 
 
 The first, the view of what is, but will soon no- 
 longer be ; the second, the view of what is not 
 yet, but which is preparing for us in the future. 
 A supreme and total change'is about to be ac- 
 * Matt. v. 5. f John xiii. 34. X John iv. 24. 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 31 
 
 complished in the destinies of the human race ; 
 
 \ 
 
 after darkness, light; after death, life ; after the 
 bondage of Satan, the glorious liberty of th& 
 children of God. 
 
 He sees it, He proclaims it, He is there to 
 preside over it. It is His work, more clear before 
 His eyes than any other work ever was to any 
 one called to undertake it. 
 
 This pre-occupied Him even in His childhood. 
 This was His Father’s business which claimed 
 His care. This was the kingdom of God of 
 which He proclaimed the advent. These are 
 the good tidings which He will charge His 
 disciples to announce to the world, after having 
 been Himself in turn their apostle and martyr. 
 The greatest efforts of the greatest geniuses and 
 of the purest minds had not, before He came, 
 attained to anything more than to lending a voice 
 to the groans of man’s conscience ; they despaired 
 of relieving them. “ Unless it please God to send 
 us some one from Him to instruct us,” said 
 Socrates to his pupil Alcibiades, “ do not hope 
 
3 2 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 •ever to succeed in reforming the morals of men. 
 The best course we can take is to wait patiently.” 
 “Yes,” he went on, “we must wait till some 
 one comes.” 
 
 Jesus takes care not to say that we must wait, 
 He asserts that the thing is done ; He asserts 
 that some one is come, and that it is He Himself. 
 This is what He cried in the streets, and pro¬ 
 claimed upon the housetops. 
 
 There is a formidable test, my brethren, in 
 store for anyone who announces great designs: 
 that of answering to great expectations. Now, 
 when the Son of Man appeared in the world, He 
 was expected ; for, low as humanity had sunk, it 
 never in its darkest hours despaired of improve¬ 
 ment. It was always looked for, and it is one of 
 the greatest spectacles of history to watch the 
 dawn of this great hope, vague at first, but 
 becoming more general and more definite, which 
 was spread throughout the world, of seeing some 
 day an ambassador from God, one who would bring 
 a revelation, a what shall I say? one sung by poets, 
 
JESC7S OF NAZARETH. 
 
 33 
 
 longed for by sages, and baptized beforehand by 
 the touching name of the “Desire of all nations.” 
 
 Nothing would be easier than to accumulate 
 testimony to this fact. The traditions of all 
 nations agree in it, and in the writings of the 
 philosophers how many words there are similar 
 to these of Socrates just quoted, which express 
 the highest aspirations of the ancient heathen. 
 
 But, above all, you know the oracles of the 
 ancient prophets of Israel, so numerous, so pre¬ 
 cise, so universally known and venerated. They 
 are like the voice which sustains the melody of 
 this vast concert of nations, while the aspirations 
 of the Socrates, the Platos, the Virgils and the 
 Ciceros, the dreams of all the mythologies, and 
 the figurative symbols of the false religions are 
 only the obscure and distant accompaniment. 
 “ All the east,” says the Roman historian Sue¬ 
 tonius, “ was full of the report of this ancient 
 and profound opinion, that it was destined that 
 some one should arise in Judea about this time, 
 who would rule the universe.” 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 It was a solemn moment in history, unique and 
 without precedent, and which will never occur 
 again. Silence reigns. The world is waiting. 
 The scene is prepared. It only remains for some 
 one to come and occupy it. 
 
 Who will venture to come forward ? Let him 
 appreciate the magnitude of the enterprise. Let 
 him listen to the fluttering expectation of every 
 heart. Let him ponder well, and ponder again 
 and again, what he feels within him that can 
 satisfy it. Who will venture to say, Here I ami 
 It is I? The temptation was great—ambition 
 succumbed to it. More than one audacious person 
 appeared, who dared to say, It is I. Judas, the 
 Gaulonite, Barchochebas, Dositheus. History 
 has preserved their names as the most illustrious 
 examples of human folly. 
 
 If in this assembly there is any scoffer, who for 
 want of knowing Jesus Christ has not yet bowed 
 the knee to Him, I only ask one thing of him, 
 that he will cast his eyes on the form of the Son 
 of Man, presenting Himself with His halo of 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 35 
 
 sublimity in answer to the universal expectation. 
 That from this distance of time, he will consider 
 the picture of the meek and lowly Master as He 
 appeared upon the threshold of history, in the 
 midst of humanity, then agitated with unusual 
 grief, and announcing with that calm authority 
 which is peculiar to Him, Here I am ! It is I ! 
 Do not look for another. I have given ear to 
 the voices which were calling me. I have 
 probed your wounds, and am come to heal them. 
 I am come to make all things new, and in 
 proclaiming the acceptable year of the Lord to 
 bring life and immortality to light. 
 
 My brethren, centuries have passed; twenty 
 times already the date of the world has been 
 renewed since the manifestation of the Son of 
 Man, and time, which brings down and buries 
 one after another the great ones of the earth, has 
 been for Him a pedestal, the base and height of 
 which have been ever increasing. Now, consider 
 what a prodigy it was to base His idea upon time, 
 and consider the clearness, the wisdom, the con- 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 fidence in Himself which are pre-supposed when 
 He said to Himself before saying it to the world : 
 I am the Redeemer! 
 
 Every plan implies the adoption of a system of 
 means to insure its realisation, and when an 
 enterprise is presented to us like that of the Son 
 of Man, we have a right to ask what are His 
 resources, and how will He set about His task ? 
 He had but one resource, my brethren, and if 
 you have a right to be amazed at the audacity 
 of the end, you may well be much more amazed 
 at the audacity of the means. For the means 
 were Himself. “ I am the way,” He said, “ I am 
 the way, I am the means.” And it is worthy of 
 remark that His entire life was consequent on 
 this strange pretension. Every one here below 
 pursues a method of his own. Learned men 
 dogmatise, conquerors fight battles, politicians 
 build up constitutions. Consider what He did. 
 He manifested Himself. I have spoken of His 
 method. He has no method but that which light 
 has : to enlighten by shining. If He speaks, it is 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 37 
 
 to unfold the wonders of His soul; if He is 
 prodigal of benefits, it is to teach the world His 
 infinite goodness; if He suffers, it is to show His 
 meekness ; if He gives His life, it is to show His 
 devotion; if He takes it again, it is to manifest His 
 power. He arose above the horizon of humanity; 
 a man amongst men, He displayed Himself 
 majestically at His entrance into life, pursued 
 His course in a straight line to the summit, and 
 arrived at the zenith, at the point where there 
 are no more clouds, and whence His rays fell 
 perpendicularly ; He declared His work accom¬ 
 plished, and was able to say: “It is finished.” It 
 was not the mission of His disciples after Him to 
 found empires or republics in His name, nor to 
 construct a new system of things according to 
 His ideal, nor to publish to the world any secret 
 doctrine, but simply to bear witness for Him. 
 Ye shall be witnesses unto Me, unto the utter¬ 
 most parts of the earth; * and lor this He 
 promised them no other aid than His own 
 
 * Acts i. 8. 
 
38 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 spiritual presence within them. “ I will not leave 
 you comfortless.” * “ I am with you alway, even 
 
 unto the end of the world.” t They preached, 
 but what was their doctrine ? “I determined 
 not to know anything among you,” wrote St. Paul 
 to the Corinthians, “save Jesus Christ and him 
 crucified.”^ And to the Galatians: “ Before 
 whose eyes Christ hath been evidently set forth, 
 crucified among youӤ And St. John: That 
 which we have seen with our eyes and heard 
 with our ears and our hands have handled of the 
 word of life, that declare we unto you. || 
 
 They wrote books, but what books ? The 
 simple narrative of their intercourse with Him 
 during the days of His flesh, or the enthusiastic 
 expression of their spiritual intercourse with Him 
 when they had ceased to know Him after the flesh. 
 They founded an institution, but what kind of an 
 institution ? The Church, which they call the 
 body of Christ, animated by His spirit, the vivid 
 
 * John xiv. 18. f Matt, xxviii. 20. J 1 Cor. ii. 2. 
 
 § Gal. iii. 1. || 1 John i. 1, 3. 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 39 
 
 % 
 
 reproduction of Christ, in order to continue His 
 
 work by making Him known to the ends of the 
 
 » 
 
 earth, and to the end of time. 
 
 Do not exclaim against it as a paradox, my 
 brethren, the Son of Man has instituted no other 
 means of salvation than Himself. That there is 
 much that is astonishing in it I am quite willing 
 to agree; but it is a fact, nevertheless, which we 
 must prove. With this end in view, I will recall 
 some of the needs to which He responded, and 
 bring before your view some of the promises 
 which He has made to us. 
 
 In the first place, there are promises for minds 
 that have gone astray in seeking after truth. O, 
 how He anticipates with tender and sympathetic 
 compassion the wants of those noble seekers after 
 truth, whose gaze, like the eagle’s, tries to 
 penetrate the clouds in order to gaze on the sun ! 
 How He calls them around Him in order to 
 satisfy them! Come, then, you who have devoted 
 your lives to the sacred labours of thought. Here 
 is a Doctor who will teach you what you want 
 
40 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 to know. He is come, He says, to bear witness, 
 to the truth. But assuredly you have not listened 
 to any doctor like Him before. 
 
 He has no school like your philosophers: His 
 school is the highway, the public streets, the 
 dwellings of the poor, the temple of the Lord, the 
 shores of the lake, the slopes of the mountains,, 
 the earth itself beneath the vault of heaven—the 
 world, in fact. He has no system like those who 
 have before professed to guide you. What He 
 offers you will not have been arrived at by con¬ 
 tinuing the labours of those who have gone 
 before, by building up His lucubrations upon 
 theirs. He will offer truth to you which flows 
 from the very source of truth, and which sheds 
 its light alike on minds of the most common 
 order and of the highest genius, a truth which 
 less instructs as a science than clothes as a 
 character, but which is no less the truth, the sole, 
 central, sovereign truth, the truth which sages, 
 have searched for in vain, and which without 
 Him would never have reached the heart of man. 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH . 
 
 4i 
 
 To Him who possesses it, all things are made 
 new, the darkness is past, the problem of our 
 
 destiny is solved, and light and immortality are 
 
 % 
 
 brought to light; the face of God is revealed in 
 all its glory, and the soul has but to plunge and 
 replunge eternally in the inexhaustible spring of 
 all wisdom and knowledge. “ Ye shall know the 
 truth,” He said, “and the truth shall make you 
 free.”* But what, then, is the meaning of this 
 almost mysterious promise ? 
 
 Permit, O Master, that once more at least, we 
 ask Thee with all sincere and honest souls : What 
 is truth ? Listen, I am the truth ! Is not this 
 the answer ? 
 
 The Son of Man has promises for broken hearts. 
 Need it be said that He has the most tender com¬ 
 passion for all sufferers. Behold how Pie loves 
 them. But what distinguishes Him from others 
 is, that He is far from expressing His sympathy 
 with that tone of patient resignation which cha¬ 
 racterises the helpless pity of even the best of 
 
 * John viii. 32. 
 
42 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 men. On the contrary, He presents Himself 
 with a serene and indestructible confidence in 
 the sovereign and universal efficacy of His 
 remedies. 
 
 “ Come unto me,” He cried in the highways 
 and public streets, “ all ye that labour and are 
 heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Come, 
 then, all ye innumerable people who are afflicted 
 of the Lord; come hither ye poor, sick, orphans, 
 inconsolable widows; you with blighted lives; 
 you who have been deceived, perhaps exasperated, 
 to whom earth has offered nothing but dust to 
 quench the thirst which devours you. Here is 
 One who at least will not deceive you. Your 
 bruised heart, shuddering within you at the blast 
 of trial, like the leaf blown about by the tempest, 
 “ Let not your heart be troubled,” you shall have 
 peace, a peace which the world cannot give, a 
 peace which will surpass your comprehension. 
 As far as you extend your gaze towards the 
 horizon, you will only discover an ocean of grief, 
 the pitiless waves of which beat against and sub- 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 43 
 
 merge you without ceasing. There you will be 
 immersed in perfect joy, which nothing henceforth 
 can take away. Your griefs themselves shall be 
 turned into joy, your cries of despair into songs of 
 gladness. Convinced to despair of the inexorable 
 nature of the sorrows which afflict you, you have 
 stopped your ears and have cried out: Woe to 
 those that mourn, for there is certainly no conso¬ 
 lation. He said: “ Blessed are they that mourn ! ” 
 Blessed ! for there is consolation ; and consolation 
 so great that the most perfect earthly happiness 
 is not to be compared to the most bitter grief, if 
 it has the effect of procuring it for you. 
 
 Only accept from the hands of this new Phy¬ 
 sician, the balm which He offers for your wounds, 
 and you will no longer have anything to wish for, 
 nothing to ask of any one, you will have neither 
 regrets for the past, deception in the present, nor 
 anxiety for the future, no more sighs nor scalding 
 tears, you will have done with all these things ; 
 supreme happiness, heaven itself will fill your 
 heart. You will be at the source of inexhaustible 
 
44 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 satisfaction, and will have nothing to do but to- 
 take long draughts from it both in time and 
 eternity. But what then, 0 Master, is Thy in¬ 
 fallible remedy ? Listen ! I am the spring which 
 rises in life eternal. “ If any man thirst, let him 
 come unto me, and drink! “ He that drinketh 
 
 of the water that I shall give him, shall never 
 thirst.”+ Is not this His answer ? 
 
 But there is something yet more astonishing. 
 The Son of Man has a remedy for burdened con¬ 
 sciences, and do you not see that it is in these 
 cases that we behold His most tender compassion? 
 
 Listen, then, ye sinners, and men of evil lives; 
 ye who bear the load of crime and shame, dregs of 
 our race, crowds of degraded people, to whom the 
 society of your equals offers no alternative but the 
 mire and despair. 
 
 Listen attentively, for here at last is One who* 
 will not fear to soil His hands by contact with 
 yours. He says that He came not for the 
 righteous but for sinners. He came to seek and 
 * John vii. 37. f John iv. 14. 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 45 
 
 to save that which was lost! Lost! You hear 
 what He says, and in His mouth, the word 
 signifies lost women, lost malefactors, lost in the 
 dens of vice, and on the verge of execution. He 
 is come to seek you, but what has He to offer 
 you ? He has the means of absolutely effacing 
 your lives, repulsive as they perhaps have been. 
 He has for your degraded profaned souls, a vir¬ 
 ginity more pure than that of the new-born babe. 
 For your livery of infamy, He will give you a robe 
 of righteousness, compared with which" the stars 
 are not pure; though your sins be as scarlet and 
 your conscience black as hell, He will render all 
 within you as white as snow, and as pure as the 
 heavens. 
 
 These at least are His promises, and you know 
 that I do not exaggerate them. Indeed they go 
 much further still, for He declares that the same 
 regeneration is necessary for the most honest and 
 honoured among men as for the reprobate. You 
 may well be astonished, but it is not I that speak, 
 it is He. 
 
46 
 
 THE SON OF MAN . 
 
 Such are the offers that He makes to the 
 worst, that they may well be the envy of the 
 best. 
 
 Such is the beauty of this new righteousness, 
 with which He clothes the wretched, that all 
 other righteousness must appear like filthy rags 
 which make him who wears them blush. Come, 
 then, the most eminent among the people, the 
 righteous, the refined, who are trying, but without 
 success, to rear the tottering edifice of your 
 assurance before God. He invites you to pull 
 down all this scaffolding, that you may rely upon 
 the assurances which He Himself gives liberally 
 to all. No more illusions, no more pretensions,, 
 no more false semblances of innocence. Let all 
 masks be torn off, and the garments be removed 
 that the wounds may be seen, and your hearts 
 laid bare. You, too, are lost: do you not feel it to. 
 be so ? You cannot stand before the eye of God. 
 But you also will be saved. But what then is 
 this new secret, O Master, by which Thou wilt 
 resuscitate those who are dead and dying of sin ? 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 47 
 
 Listen! “ I am the way.” “ He that hath the 
 Son hath eternal life.” 
 
 “ I am the way ! I am peace ! I am the truth L 
 I am the way! ” But who is it then who thus, 
 speaks, and what place does He assume amongst 
 us ? 
 
 There is but one sun in the natural world which 
 can say, It is I who diffuse light and warmth; it 
 is I who make day after night, and spring after 
 winter. Look at me all ye creatures, look and ye 
 shall live. Is there not then also a sun in the 
 spiritual world; and is not His name Jesus? 
 
 My brethren, we must know what we are to 
 believe. We will closely question Him who comes 
 to us with enormous and exhorbitant pretensions. 
 It was His will to manifest Himself to the world. 
 We will pause before this manifestation; we will 
 look at it from all sides. This is but fair. We 
 will question Him as to His rights, I promise you. 
 Inasmuch as we are men, we have conditions to 
 propose to this Man before according Him the 
 homage to which He lays claim. There are three 
 
43 
 
 THE SON OF MAN . 
 
 of them. First, we must watch Him face to face 
 with sin, then with suffering, then with death; for 
 from His attitude before this triple abyss into 
 which we have all fallen, our attitude in His 
 presence depends. It is not we who have pushed 
 the question to this extreme; it is He Himself, as 
 you have heard. Such is the way in which He 
 presents Himself to the world, that either He 
 must fall into the dust, or we must fall into the 
 dust at His feet. He is everything or nothing. 
 He is but what you are, my brethren, what I am, 
 less indeed, unless to Him belongs the kingdom, 
 the power, and the glory ! 
 
 It is clear that I have no right to anticipate 
 to-day, a conclusion which involves a long and 
 conscientious study on your part and mine before 
 it can be established. Nevertheless, there is an 
 order of consideration which I have intentionally 
 excluded from our subject, but from which, I may, 
 perhaps, be permitted to borrow something in con¬ 
 cluding this first discourse. I propose to speak 
 of experience. Whatever be the legitimate right of 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 49 
 
 the Son of Man to our entire confidence, or to use 
 the language of the Gospel, to our faith, the fact 
 remains that, during eighteen centuries, faith in 
 Him has accomplished marvels. Our memories 
 are full of them. I will cite one or two examples. 
 
 A pastor, whose name I could mention, related 
 one day in my presence the following fact:—“A 
 few years ago a woman died in my parish, whose 
 history I had followed from her youth. She had 
 known happy, even brilliant days. But trials 
 gradually came and crushed her. From a posi¬ 
 tion of ease she was reduced to destitution, so far 
 
 i 
 
 as to be dependent on charity—so cruel a trial to 
 sensitive minds. She had not at once been robbed 
 of all the objects of her affection, but one by one, 
 
 all those who had solaced her sufferings and con- 
 
 » 
 
 duced to her happiness, died. Alone and deso¬ 
 late, as a climax to her troubles, she was attacked 
 b}' one of the most cruel maladies which afflict 
 humanity: for months she languished upon a 
 bed of torture, with nothing to look forward to 
 but a gradual aggravation of her sufferings, pre- 
 
 E 
 
5 ° 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 vious to a painful and inevitable death. One day, 
 on entering her miserable abode, my heart pained 
 beforehand at the idea of so much suffering con¬ 
 centrated in one person, I found her in tears, 
 which she in vain endeavoured to hide. Thinking 
 that some new trouble had arisen— 4 My poor 
 friend,’ I said, taking her hand, 4 what has hap¬ 
 pened?’ 4 Oh sir!’ she answered, smiling at my 
 mistake, 4 it was for joy I was weeping, not for 
 grief, for as you came in I was thinking of my 
 Saviour.’ And this joy never forsook her to the 
 hour of her terrible, but tranquil departure. 
 Now I can attest,” added my friend 44 upon my 
 conscience, that of all the miserable beings that 
 I have met with during the forty years of my 
 ministry, this woman was the most unfortunate.” 
 Perhaps this incident has one defect which may 
 prevent it from striking you: that it is too 
 common, for there is scarcely a minister, be he 
 ever so young, who could not relate similar cases 
 from his own experience. Is there one Christian, 
 is there one man amongst you who could not say 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 5i 
 
 from his own experience, I have known such 
 persons loaded with misfortune and yet weeping 
 or joy. 
 
 Here is the other case which I have promised 
 you. In 1662, near Paris, the life of one of the 
 greatest geniuses which have adorned our race was 
 brought to a close. He was well acquainted with 
 all the seductions of science, and all the intoxica¬ 
 tion of early fame, but also with the torments of 
 thought and the agonies of doubt. In the flower 
 of his age, at thirty-nine, just when his splendid 
 faculties were fully developed, he died like a saint. 
 There was found amongst the treasures which have 
 given him the first rank amongst the most eminent 
 men, a paper, entitled “Confession.” It expresses, 
 in language sublime in its candour and simplicity, 
 a perfectly contented state of mind, breathing 
 nothing but peace and love—heaven itself; and it 
 concludes with these words: “These are my 
 sentiments, and every day I bless my Redeemer 
 who inspired me with them, and who has made 
 a man, full of weakness, misery, concupiscence, 
 
52 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 pride and ambition, exempt from all these evils, 
 by the power of His grace. To Him all the glory 
 is due, for of myself I have nothing but misery 
 and error.” If there were any need to seek for 
 the explanation of this, it would be found in 
 another paper, which he was in the habit of 
 religiously carrying about with him, in memory of 
 a memorable night, during which, in his opinion, 
 the eternal fate of his soul was decided. These 
 are the last words traced in letters of fire: “Jesus 
 Christ ! Jesus Christ—I have separated myself 
 from Him, I have fled from Him, renounced Him, 
 crucified Him—may I never again be separated 
 from Him! Entire and sweet renunciation!” 
 Only one thing is wanting to make this instance 
 as common as the other: that there should be 
 a larger number of men comparable to Blaise 
 Pascal. 
 
 Such, however, is Jesus Christ. Traverse with 
 Him the heights and depths of humanity. Follow 
 Him into the lowliest places of the earth, and you 
 
JESUS OF NAZARETH. 
 
 S3 
 
 will see the lowest, the most wretched of men 
 arise in turn from the dust or the pallet to utter 
 songs, and shed tears of joy at His approach. 
 And if thence, still in company with Him, you 
 ascend the most lofty mountains, you will hear 
 genius stammer forth before Him, words of humble 
 gratitude and entire reconciliation. I may there¬ 
 fore say to you henceforth, without fear of mis¬ 
 leading you—Go to Him ! Amen. 
 
II. 
 
 Cfre J£)olp HDne ano tfre 3ust. 
 
 “The Holy One and the Just .”—Acts iii. 14. 
 
 OST and sinful man has a right to enquire 
 
 -I—^ into the moral worth of Him who comes to 
 seek and to save him. This is our subject to-day. 
 
 Everything is so closely blended in the august 
 person of the Son of Man, and so rapidly does 
 He radiate light, that I might already refer you 
 to our first discourse. I have only, as yet, in¬ 
 troduced Him, but I have not been able to speak 
 of Him without inundating you with light. 
 
 In trying to present to you the striking 
 humanity of His person, I have been constrained 
 to bring forward the most pure and noble traits 
 
THE HOT Y ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 55 
 
 of humanity itself. (Are not the most pure and 
 noble traits always the most human ?) 
 
 In giving you a glimpse of the inmost thought 
 with which He presented Himself to the world, 
 and of the plan which He came to realise, I have 
 been constrained to direct your attention to a 
 mind, the sublimity of whose views naturally 
 implies the sublimity of the mind itself. If grand 
 ideas come from the heart, and if a great design 
 can only originate in a great heart, the most holy 
 and vast of all designs could only have originated 
 in an extraordinarily noble and holy heart. 
 
 The idea of proposing Himself to the human 
 race as an object of faith, that is to say of love, 
 admiration, and adoration, supposes a conscious¬ 
 ness of such pre-eminence, or the alternative of 
 such absurdity, that one is constrained to re¬ 
 cognise in Him who propounds it, a presumption 
 at least in favour of His right to the adoration 
 
 and faith of the human race. This, however, I 
 
 » 
 
 freely acknowledge, requires demonstration. 
 
 The pretensions of the Son of Man are too 
 
THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 56 
 
 great to be sustained of themselves in this way,, 
 and the conscience to which they are seriously 
 presented can only admit them on one imperious, 
 condition: that of finding the ideal of perfection 
 realised in Him in all its fulness. If a single 
 individual of those whom He professes to save 
 
 t 
 
 could cause Him to cast His eyes to the ground 
 by looking Him in the face ; if a single individual 
 of those to whom He says, “ Come unto me,, 
 and ye shall have life,” could reply to Him: “ I 
 am better and greater than thou,”—if such a 
 thing were possible, we agree that nothing more 
 would be required to annihilate Him, and to 
 expose the whole enterprise to derision. We 
 have seen the golden head of the statue: let 
 us assure ourselves that the feet are not of clay. 
 
 I begin by calling attention to one point—that 
 we are in the presence of a well-attested fact. 
 
 When we put the question respecting the moraL 
 worth of Jesus Christ, we have at once to face 
 
 ^ VI 
 
 M % 
 
 a whole hierarchy of witnesses, who, without 
 hesitation, unite in ascribing absolute perfection 
 
I 
 
 THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 57 
 
 to Him. The first of these witnesses is Himself. 
 Every one has a certain impression of his own 
 character, and the further advanced a man is in 
 the path of holiness, the more you will generally 
 find him disposed to condemn himself, because as 
 he trains himself his conscience becomes more 
 enlightened, and discovers fresh abysses which 
 separate him from the end in view. “ I do not 
 know what the heart of a villain may be,” said the 
 Count de Maistre, “ I only know that of a virtuous 
 man, and that is frightful! ” St. Paul goes still 
 further in describing himself as the chief of sinners, 
 given up to sin, one in whom dwelleth no good 
 thing. And to speak generally of this estimate, St. 
 John declares that if any man say that he has no 
 sin, he deceiveth himself, he is the dupe of an illusion. 
 
 The fact, nevertheless, is, that Jesus, the most 
 humble and clear-sighted of men, did assume 
 perfection. Not only did He utter such words 
 as these : “ The prince of this world hath nothing 
 in me ; ”* “ The Father hath not left me alone ; 
 
 * John xiv. 30. 
 
58 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 for I do always those things which please him ; ”* 
 “ And now, 0 Father, glorify thou me ; I have 
 finished the work which thou gavest me to do ; ” t 
 but never, during the whole of His life, can you 
 surprise Him in a moment of doubt or hesitation 
 about His moral sovereignty. 
 
 He presented to His disciples the duty of 
 perfection with the majesty of law itself. He 
 said quite naturally: “ Light is come into the 
 world; ” “ I am the light of the world ; ” “ And 
 hath given him authority to execute judgment 
 also, because He is the Son of Man.”J; 
 
 He who began His ministry by crying out, 
 “ Repent and be converted,” who thirsted for the 
 repentance of the whole world, and assumed that 
 all consciences are sinful before God, never had 
 the least suspicion that He could stand in the 
 slightest need of repentance Himself. He bore 
 within Him a virgin conscience, glorious, immacu¬ 
 late. He was radiant with inward peace, and 
 the sound of His footsteps, the tones of His voice, 
 # John viii. 29. f John xvii. 4. X John v. 27. 
 
THE HOL Y ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 59 
 
 the mute language of His aspect, seemed to 
 murmur incessantly this refrain: Holy, harm¬ 
 less, separate from sinners, made higher than the 
 heavens.* Add to this the impression produced 
 upon those around Him by His majestic appear¬ 
 ance. The evidence of this has been preserved 
 for us. I do not speak only of the crowds of 
 people whom He subjugated, and kept enchained 
 by an unexampled ascendancy, of their simple 
 admiration, or of that boundless trust in Him 
 which attached the weight of truth itself to the 
 words which fell from His lips. If we could have 
 sat on the shores of the Lake of Tiberias, or on 
 the slopes of the hills around the valley, while 
 He opened to the multitude the treasures of His 
 mind, we should not have escaped the enthusiasm 
 which made even the most prejudiced exclaim: 
 “ Never man spake like this man.” But we all 
 know that it is not much to see the attitude of a 
 man in public when all eyes are upon him, and 
 perhaps the natural thought would have occurred 
 
 * Hebrews vii. 26. 
 
6o 
 
 THE SON OF MAN 
 
 to us, that in order to know Him thoroughly we 
 must follow Him into private life. We know by 
 experience that no man is a hero to his valet r 
 and still less, alas ! is any man a perfect saint ta 
 those who share the hazards of his private life. 
 Now, my brethren, we have the evidence of men 
 who were nearer to Him than a servant to his 
 master, a child to his father, a traveller to his 
 companion. These men were His disciples. It 
 appears as if it had been their providential mission 
 to study Him thoroughly, to bring His soul to the 
 light of day in the most varied situations, the 
 most solemn as well as the most common. They 
 heard what He said in confidence as well as in 
 His public discourses; His most familiar sayings 
 as well as His most solemn declarations. They 
 were with Him, their eyes were upon Him before 
 He went out in the morning, when He returned 
 in the evening, even during the hours of rest. 
 Nothing in His life, absolutely nothing, could 
 escape them. Now, the more closely we see them 
 brought into contact with Him, the more do they 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 61 
 
 appear to be prostrated before Him with an 
 admiration which has no parallel in the world. 
 The perfection of their Master struck them with 
 an instantaneous and ever-increasing persuasion. 
 ■The brightness of the sun was not more evident 
 to their eyes. They were at His feet, and drew 
 the world after them. We have but the reflection 
 of the effect it produced on them, and yet that 
 reflection subjugates us. And it is not, as you 
 know, that they launch out into exclamations of 
 enthusiasm, it is not that they endeavour by any 
 ingenious art to make the conclusions apparent, 
 at which they have themselves arrived respecting 
 their Master. So far from it, they would think it 
 derogatory even to appear to praise Him, whom 
 they call the Lord. They content themselves 
 with saying, this is what we have seen and heard. 
 They narrate the life of the most extraordinary 
 personage as stories are written for children. 
 Their pens appear to have been dipped in that 
 gentle light which shone around them. Their 
 conviction is so entire, so absolute, that it 
 
62 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 becomes as it were transparent, and only com¬ 
 municates itself by the character of the evidence 
 which it communicates to its object. The more 
 one thinks of it, the more one is struck by the 
 immense value of such testimony. 
 
 I am not likely to forget, that if the Son of 
 Man had disciples He also had adversaries. 
 
 Does this surprise you ? Do you not suppose 
 that holiness always has its assailants here below. 
 Jesus had them and will have through all time. 
 All the passions, all the vices, all the opponents 
 of the salvation of man were His enemies. So 
 long as sin is incarnate in human nature, so long 
 will it array its armies against Jesus Christ. 
 As long as there are voluptuous, proud, ambitious,, 
 and hypocritical people—as long as there are 
 souls preferring darkness to light—so long will 
 there be men eager to confound Him, and whose 
 interest it is to blacken Him. This also is 
 homage, splendid and necessary homage. Far 
 from being surprised that He received it, we 
 should have great reason to doubt His character 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 6 3 
 
 if He had not. From that time until this we 
 have seen men of pleasure incensed against Him 
 by His purity, false zealots by His sincerity, 
 selfish men by His love, formalists by His 
 spirituality. Alas! every species of adversary 
 that He has had since, was already assembled 
 
 around Him at Jerusalem, to extinguish Him had 
 
 \ 
 
 it been possible. They formed the most formid¬ 
 able league against Him, and conceived the most 
 skilful plot in order to confound Him. With a 
 clear-sightedness and an astuteness that could 
 only have been inspired by hell, they saw that the 
 only means of ruining Him was to surprise Him 
 into some error. “ If this man make a single 
 
 faux pas ” they said to themselves, “ it is all over 
 
 % 
 
 with Him ; ” and they were right. Observe them 
 then about His path; spying out all His proceed¬ 
 ings, putting a meaning upon every action, 
 watching every word to see if they could not 
 find in it the semblance of a pretext for accu¬ 
 sation. 
 
 And not only so; they set the most cunning 
 
THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 "64 
 
 snares for His steps; they tried to make Him 
 contradict Himself, to put Him into difficulties 
 from which there was no escape. For three 
 months they did their utmost to tty to catch Him 
 in His talk. But they were utterly frustrated. 
 Their growing exasperation is sufficient proof of 
 this. They looked for faults in Him with such 
 obstinacy and craftiness, because they could not 
 detect one. 
 
 What did they care for one sinner more or less 
 among the people, whom they called accursed ? 
 But one acknowledged by all to be a saint, a king 
 of souls and consciences, was what they could 
 not tolerate. It was the lustre of His innocence 
 that especially provoked their rage. And if they 
 ever succeed in defeating Him, it will only be by 
 bearing a new and supreme testimony to Him in 
 their own fashion. Even at the moment of their 
 triumph, Jesus could say to them with His 
 habitual calmness: “ Which of you convinceth 
 me of sin ? ” Pilate, while giving way to their 
 ■violence, said in his turn, while washing his 
 
THE HOL V ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 65 
 
 hands : “ I am innocent of the blood of this just 
 person.” 
 
 The thief crucified with Him was converted 
 solely by the evidence of His moral sovereignty. 
 A Roman centurion who had watched all these 
 events, when all was finished, exclaimed: “ Cer¬ 
 tainly this was a righteous man.” 
 
 Thus, admiration has survived ignominy, and 
 the disgraceful death of the Son of Man, far from 
 abasing Him in the esteem of men, has only 
 served to give stronger testimony to the un¬ 
 precedented impression which has been produced 
 by His life. For the disciples of Jesus Christ, of 
 whatever age or country, the perfection of their 
 crucified Master is the axiom of axioms, an article 
 of morality as well as an article of faith. It is not 
 only the corner stone, it is the very condition of 
 their existence as an association. 
 
 You have heard of the palaces of ice which are 
 sometimes built in Russia, the work of a season, 
 to disappear in spring. They are real habita¬ 
 tions presenting every appearance of harmony and 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 solidity; but one condition is necessary for their 
 existence, and when this is wanting, all melts 
 away, and some fine day not a vestige remains 
 of this chef d’ceurve of art. The Church is this 
 edifice, my brethren; it subsists only on one 
 condition (more stable in truth than the tem¬ 
 perature). Suppose, to imagine an impossibility, 
 the discovery of a gigantic imposture, the dis¬ 
 covery of a vice, of a single failing in the life of 
 Jesus Christ, such as we may find in our own 
 lives by hundreds, and this magnificent edifice in 
 which so many generations of men have found 
 shelter, I will not say it melts away, but it is 
 eclipsed. Nothing remains of it—not an atom 
 worth preserving; you take it up, it crumbles 
 away in your hand. Here, then, are millions of 
 millions of men, of every class and of every shade 
 of culture, including the most profound thinkers 
 and the most subtle moralists, who for eighteen 
 centuries have been contemplating the face of 
 Jesus Christ, reading His soul and weighing His 
 character, and they proclaim unanimously, in the 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 6 7 
 
 face of the world, not only that they have not 
 been able to find a trace of imperfection, but that 
 they cannot find a grandeur or moral beauty 
 which does not find its definite and realised type 
 in Him. 
 
 You yourselves, whoever you are, whether you 
 will or not, instinctively obey this impression. 
 We have, in fact, made Jesus Christ the law of 
 our moral world; we have learnt to rate and 
 verify everything according to Him; we feel that 
 to depart from Him is to depart from good ; to 
 approach Him is the highest and purest expres¬ 
 sion of the law of duty. It is a unique fact 
 which raises Jesus Christ to an incomparable 
 height above the men who have bequeathed their 
 memory to the admiration of their fellows. 
 
 In every sphere of human greatness, the name 
 of a great man immediately evokes the names of 
 other great men, his peers, with whom we in- 
 voluntarily compare him. But in the sphere of 
 perfection, if the name of Jesus Christ is pro¬ 
 nounced, every other name remains in shadow; 
 
68 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 He has neither equal nor rival; and this Being 
 so true, so natural, so human, appears to us in 
 the very bosom of humanity, in mystic isolation, 
 solely from the radiance of His human beauty. 
 
 My brethren, I take this impression for what it 
 is—a fact. And pausing here, I cast a rapid 
 glance over the first results arrived at from our 
 study. We are now in possession of three traits 
 which constitute provisionally what I will call 
 our characteristics of the Son of Man. 
 
 We know that He conceived the most extra¬ 
 ordinary project which ever entered into the mind 
 of man—a project compared with which the most 
 gigantic enterprises, inspired by the most gigantic 
 ambition, are mere child’s play. He saw that 
 the world was not going on well, He conceived 
 the idea of setting it to rights; He saw that 
 humanity was in suffering, He resolved to cure 
 it; He saw that sin was the source of all evil, 
 and He said to Himself: “ I will take away the 
 sin of the world.” Besides which, we know that 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 69 
 
 for the accomplishment of this unheard-of design, 
 He did not pretend to employ any other means 
 than Himself. Creating a new world on the 
 ruins of the old, He was willing to take the 
 whole weight of it on His shoulders. It was 
 by manifesting Himself, and proposing Himself 
 for universal contemplation, that He stirred 
 men’s consciences, conquered their hearts, and 
 transformed their ideas and morals ; in a word, 
 that He made all things new. We know, further, 
 that, Himself believing in the absolute perfection 
 of His moral character, He impressed this con¬ 
 viction on the minds of His immediate contem¬ 
 poraries, and has made it a fundamental article 
 of faith with an immense and ever-increasing 
 posterity. I repeat that these are facts, and that 
 the man to whom they refer did really live. 
 Now suppose for a moment that we were totally 
 ignorant of the details of His life. 
 
 Try to reconstruct it by an effort of imagina¬ 
 tion. What idea would you form of it ? 
 
 You will agree that this is a historical problem 
 
70 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 which will occasion us strange perplexities. When 
 I hear of a conqueror, of a man who wishes to 
 enthrone his dominion in the world, I immediately 
 picture him at the head of his armies, issuing 
 commands to his marshals, gathering the people 
 together, and making the earth tremble beneath 
 the steps of his legions. If I hear of a benefactor 
 to mankind wishing to introduce some salutary 
 reform on a grand scale, I immediately think of a 
 philantrophic prince enthroned in his capital, 
 surrounded by his ministers, and covering his 
 states with new and beneficient institutions. But 
 a man who conceived the idea, both of making 
 himself the centre of the world and of reforming 
 it—What fabulous expeditions will he undertake ? 
 What capital will he choose for his residence ? 
 What gigantic springs of administration will he set 
 in motion ? On the other hand, when I hear of a 
 man who aspires to perfection and whose name 
 survives him, as we say, in the odour of sanctity, 
 
 I immediately think of a contemplative recluse, 
 engrossed in mortifying the flesh in order to en- 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 7 i 
 
 franchise the spirit, fleeing temptations, fasting, 
 meditating, absorbed in solitude and silence. But 
 a man possessing from the first and preserving to 
 the end a state of absolute sanctity, a man 
 indisputably reputed perfect—what impassable 
 barriers did he contrive to place from his infancy 
 between the world and himself; with what triple 
 cuirass of brass did he protect his heart? One 
 would think he must be a man whose eyes saw 
 nothing, whose ears heard nothing, whose flesh 
 never shuddered, whose heart never beat quickly, 
 whose feet, for all I know, never touched the 
 earth. 
 
 When I hear of a man who designs to dazzle 
 his fellow-men, to fill them with admiration by 
 attracting their attention to himself, I imagine 
 some mortal crowned by nature with all her 
 favours, and making a parade of her gifts; or 
 some sage of solemn aspect, gathering other sages 
 around him in order to make even the distinction 
 accorded to him by his disciples a pedestal in the 
 eyes of the profane vulgar. But a man, aspiring 
 
72 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 to nothing less than to constitute himself the sole 
 object of contemplation for the human race, a 
 man who said: “ Look unto me and ye shall 
 want nothing, you will enjoy complete satisfac¬ 
 tion”—in what fantastic costume will he clothe 
 himself, and at what respectful distance will he 
 hold the common herd of mortals by his mysterious 
 majesty? But how can all these things be re¬ 
 conciled ? I confess that my mind is lost, and 
 after stumbling over impossibility after impos¬ 
 sibility, and contradiction after contradiction, I 
 limit myself to concluding, that if the earth really 
 has been the theatre of such an existence, it has 
 witnessed the most extraordinary, the most pro¬ 
 digious, and most unheard-of thing that can be 
 imagined. 
 
 After this I open the Gospel, and read again 
 that simple and touching history of the carpenter 
 of Nazareth. Ah ! grant that at the head of those 
 things which would never have entered into the 
 heart of man, must be placed this extraordinary 
 prodigy of simplicity. 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 73 
 
 The Son of Man has appeared—you ask in what 
 capital; you will be told in turn of Nazareth, 
 Cana, Nain, Capernaum, villages and little towns 
 of an obscure province. You enquire about His 
 costume—Ah ! He only wears the dress of an 
 artizan of His country. You will imagine Him 
 surrounded by a staff of great personages: His 
 companions are Peter, James and John, boatmen 
 and fishermen of the shores of the Lake of 
 Galilee. You will open your eyes to behold the 
 brilliant actions with which He will astonish the 
 world, and inaugurate the great revolution which 
 He foretells : His brilliant actions are to converse 
 with a woman of Samaria as He sat on the well 
 whence she came to draw water; to console a 
 desolate mother by restoring to her the son for 
 whom she weeps; to feed a famished multitude, 
 but at the same time taking care to remind them 
 that there is spiritual food more to be desired than 
 the bread which perisheth; His great actions 
 are to evangelise the poor, to weep with those 
 that weep, to answer all those who ask for Him, 
 
74 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 to anticipate the wants of those who are not 
 seeking Him. 
 
 Will you seek Him ? Do you wish to speak to 
 Him? Ascend the hill near Jerusalem; enter 
 that comfortable house, you will find Him in 
 company with a brother and two sisters who 
 are His friends—or knock at the door of that 
 more humble abode, it is that of the mother-in- 
 law of Peter, His disciple; the poor woman is 
 ill, and wished to be visited by the Master, who 
 has compassion on His kind. Or, again, enter 
 that upper chamber at Jerusalem ; He has come, 
 according to the ancient usage of His people, to 
 celebrate the Passover in the Holy City; He is 
 supping with His disciples; one of them leans upon 
 
 i 
 
 His breast, while they listen to words, the gran¬ 
 deur and sublimity of which penetrate and delight 
 us to this day, as they doubtless delighted them, 
 when they fell for the first time from His lips. 
 
 One abandons oneself unconsciously to the 
 charm of freshness which is exhaled from the 
 Gospel, and which is always surprising every time 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 75 
 
 that one recurs to it. What is the Master doing 
 to-day? He has received an invitation for Himself 
 and His disciples to be present at a wedding feast 
 in the house of friends in Cana in Galilee. He 
 knows that among His people these times are 
 occasions of rejoicing, at which they indulge in all 
 the hopes of life. But this will not be with Him a 
 reason for refusing: He will go; and, mark well, He 
 will not go as an ascetic, to protest by a crabbed 
 countenance against the joyfulness of the com¬ 
 pany; He will take a part in it by joining His good 
 wishes and felicitations with theirs; above all, He 
 will go to sanctify it by something (I know not 
 what) within Him which extracts from every occa¬ 
 sion a perfume, as it were, to the glory of God. 
 Another time, what is it that I see ? The Master 
 is sitting in the midst of His disciples—He is 
 teaching, and an attentive crowd are hanging upon 
 His words. Some mothers (they are the same 
 everywhere, and have but one idea), some mothers 
 agree to break the ranks, pushing their little 
 children before them ; they wish to present them 
 
76 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 to Him. This naturally causes a disturbance. 
 The disciples reprove these indiscreet women. 
 Jesus interferes. It is said that He was much 
 displeased. “Suffer the little children to come 
 unto me, and forbid them not!” And see, He 
 occupies Himself with them, caresses and blesses 
 them, then looking up, He said: “Whosoever 
 therefore shall humble himself as this little child, 
 the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven; 
 and whoso shall receive one such little child in 
 my name receiveth me.”* 
 
 Did He not in truth sometimes forget Himself ? 
 Happy parents, who are preparing for the nuptials 
 of your sons and daughters; happy mothers, who 
 gaze upon your first-born in the cradle with those 
 far-reaching thoughts of the heart, do you not 
 shudder at the bare idea of what would be wanting 
 in the Gospel without the narrative of the mar¬ 
 riage of Cana in Galilee, or that of the blessing of 
 little children? 
 
 But I allow that these are isolated incidents, 
 
 * Matt, xviii. 4, 5. 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 77 
 
 and it is true that His heart more often led him to 
 sinners to proclaim pardon to them, and to the 
 unhappy to lavish His consolations upon them. 
 One might even say that there was something 
 like a hidden virtue in Him that attracted them. 
 The routes along which He passed were crowded 
 with them, and as soon as He arrived at a place, 
 they everywhere hastened to bring them to Him. 
 He was then seen as it were to multiply Himself, 
 to dispense His benefits, without ever neglecting 
 an opportunity of speaking to souls, to call them 
 to repentance and pardon; and always in a manner 
 at once so apropos and sublime, that His words 
 were precisely appropriate to each particular case, 
 precisely those which should be heard to the ends 
 of the earth, and which will endure when heaven 
 and earth shall pass away. 
 
 But it is time to introduce some order into the 
 reflections to which the spectacle of his life natur¬ 
 ally gives rise. Jesus proclaimed the extraordinary 
 character which true holiness should present : 
 
 “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except your 
 
78 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of 
 the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven.”* “For if ye 
 love them which love you, what reward have 
 ye ? do not even the publicans the same ? ” t 
 All His precepts tend to perfection, and 
 consequently protest against that luke-warm 
 morality, that mediocrity which is content in 
 respect of goodness with having neither poverty 
 nor riches; He even went so far as to declare, 
 without fear of paradox, that the publicans 'and 
 sinners were nearer the kingdom of heaven, as 
 being more disposed to entire conversion, than 
 respectable and self-satisfied worldlings. But when 
 men affect extraordinary sanctity, they voluntarily 
 make themselves conspicuous, and make a good 
 bargain of it. They separate themselves, affect 
 singularity, pass their lives apart from the lives of 
 common men, try to unhumanise themselves ; but 
 they often retain, alas! too large a portion of the 
 sad heritage of which they affect to renounce the 
 * Matt. v. 20. t Matt. v. 46. 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 79 
 
 form. The pride of the stoic, as has been said, 
 may be seen through the holes in his mantle. The 
 ordinary life which is sinful is seen through extra¬ 
 ordinary appearances. 
 
 Jesus did exactly the contrary. In His case, 
 it was a radiance from within, never from with¬ 
 out, which shone upon everything around Him. 
 He did no violence to any of the forms under 
 which life presents itself, but He gave life to 
 them. He did not re-arrange anything; He 
 transfigured everything. 
 
 Life was the path to which God had directed 
 His steps. His first act of wisdom was to accept 
 it, the second to walk in it without hesitation or 
 mistake. His extraordinary holiness never shone 
 except through the most ordinary conditions of life. 
 
 You will never, for example, see Him yield to 
 the temptation of making Himself the exclusive 
 representative of any one class of society. And 
 so true is this, that if you wish to represent Him 
 in an unnatural way, you have only to assign this 
 part to Him, which is so common among men 
 
8 o 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 who propose to exert by their example or teaching 
 a reformatory influence upon the morals of their 
 species. He lived in poverty; He loved it; He 
 raised its condition for the sake of the poor, whom 
 He loved and longed to raise. He speaks with 
 tenderness of the little ones ; He loves them in 
 proportion to the privations they have to endure; 
 but try to make a mendicant monk of Him, or a 
 tribune of the proletariat ! 
 
 On the other hand, He did not shun the society 
 of the rich: He lodged in the house of Lazarus, 
 He took a meal at the house of Simon the 
 Pharisee, He bore an admirable testimony to 
 Zaccheus the publican ; but try to make Him a 
 patron of prosperity, or the bribed defender of the 
 rights of the rich ! 
 
 He lived in celibacy, and honoured marriage ; 
 He was a Jew, and bore testimony to the Gentiles; 
 the most profound doctors came to consult Him, 
 and He thanked God for having placed wisdom 
 within reach of less cultivated minds. It was 
 necessary that He should occupy one place in the 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 81 
 
 world and not another ; He could not be at the 
 same time rich and poor, learned and ignorant, 
 man and woman, old man and child. But does 
 it not appear to you as if a radiance was shed 
 from Him on every condition of life, and you 
 see men from them all in turn bow down before 
 Him, and rise up endued with a new grandeur 
 which pervades and glorifies them. 
 
 There is a prejudice against holiness which 
 accuses it of narrowing life, and of closing the 
 heart against the generous vibrations of nature; 
 a saint, it is thought, is a man who constructs a 
 cell for himself here below, and who dares not 
 expose his delicate soul to the contact of the fresh 
 air. This surely is a prejudice which must fall 
 to the ground on meeting with Him whom we 
 Christians love to consider as the model of 
 perfect holiness. What life bloomed more freely 
 or shed its light more profusely than His ? 
 
 Shall we speak of His relations with others ? 
 Watch Him with His disciples, to whom He was 
 at once Companion, Master, Father, Brother, and 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 who furnished Him at every step with the means 
 of testing the feelings of a heart which overflowed 
 with friendship. 
 
 I have already spoken of the unexpected and 
 surprising grace of His manner with little chil¬ 
 dren, that touchstone of true natures. What 
 might not be said of His relations with women, 
 that touchtone of truly pure natures ? Do you 
 know that He counted among His friends some 
 of the chiefs of the people, Nicodemus and 
 Joseph of Arimathea, at the same time that He 
 was taunted with His novel and beneficient rela¬ 
 tions with publicans and sinners. Who, I ask, 
 did He exclude from His society ? Who did He 
 despise ? With whom did He find Himself ill at 
 ease ? Who was too degraded for this Being so 
 pure, or too vulgar for this Being so noble, or too 
 great for this Being so humble, or too insignificant 
 for this Being so sublime ? 
 
 Shall I speak of His activity ? A famous sect 
 of antiquity summed up the rules of conduct in 
 these two words : Bear and forbear ! 
 
THE HOL Y ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 8 ' 
 
 A noble motto, the austere severity of which our 
 conscience salutes in passing; but how far is it 
 surpassed by that of the Son of Man, which might 
 be summed up in two other words: Sanctify and 
 diffuse thyself. It is not He who would say: 
 “ When my hand is full of truths, I will not open 
 it.” Every impulse in Him is to action. If He 
 has not a place where to lay His head, it is 
 because He is going incessantly from place to 
 place to do good. The crowds which press 
 around Him are like a land watered by His gifts, 
 and His gifts are Himself; He gives Himself 
 in every form, His sympathies, His virtues, His 
 strength, the treasures of His heart and soul. It 
 is an open fountain, which is never dry, because 
 it is always fed from I know not what hidden 
 spring, which seems to possess benefits enough 
 to submerge the world. 
 
 Shall I speak of the substance of His teach¬ 
 ing? It is not only His body, but His mind 
 which wanders unceasingly amidst the various 
 scenes of existence. What knowledge of life and 
 
 G 2 
 
8 4 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 penetration are displayed in His parables, which 
 always represent man as he is, in the most 
 familiar as well as the most dramatic situations. 
 He speaks but of heaven, of God, of the eternal 
 destiny, of immortal souls; but He always speaks 
 as a man who has seen the shepherd leading His 
 flock to the pasture, the sower scattering the 
 grain in the furrows, the woman making bread, 
 the fisherman casting his nets, the father weeping 
 over the excesses of his wandering child, or the 
 happy celebration of wedding festivals. On the 
 other hand, what prodigious fecundity of applica¬ 
 tion in His words. Every word that falls from 
 His lips contains a living germ of indefinite 
 progress. He says: “Render unto Caesar the 
 things that are Caesar’s,” and settles the basis 
 of the distinction between two societies. He 
 says: “Our Father, which art in heaven,” and 
 sows the seeds of universal fraternity. He 
 speaks, and gives out, as if accidentally, the in¬ 
 fallible programme of the only true civilisation. 
 Kings may learn a novel policy, and the people 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 85 
 
 a new manner of associating on the stage of the 
 world. He speaks, and at the distance of eighteen 
 centuries His words will soften the manners of the 
 cannibal, while at the same time they reform our old 
 
 codes of laws, and transform our ancient institutions. 
 
 * * 
 
 Finally, my brethren, consider the attitude of 
 the Son of Man in danger. There is a twofold 
 temptation for great minds. Some, intoxicated by 
 their power, and actuated by an instinct more 
 noble than prudent, seem to take a pleasure in 
 confronting danger gratuitously. 
 
 We have a memorable example of this in one 
 of the apostles, Peter. Simon Peter subjected 
 himself to a trial which did not lie in his 
 path. Now Jesus pronounced on such as he, a 
 sentence worthy of note, when He said that 
 "Those who take the sword shall perish with the 
 sword.” And with the precept, as in other cases, 
 He furnished the example. Whatever conscious¬ 
 ness He had within Him of strength to sur¬ 
 mount temptations, you will never see Him seek 
 or despise them beforehand. 
 
86 
 
 7HE SON OF MAN. 
 
 But there is also a temptation to simplify the 
 conditions of holiness by flying from trial. It is 
 easy to be humble in solitude. Show me your 
 humility amongst the crowd, alternately en¬ 
 thusiastic and hostile. It is easy to be good, 
 when we can make choice of our society. Show 
 me your goodness in the face of indifference, 
 ingratitude, and hatred. 
 
 Now, Jesus, exempt alike from temerity and 
 presumption, submitted to, without courting the 
 trials of life. And whether He was spared them 
 or not, you know. Would you not say on review¬ 
 ing His short history, that in order to exhibit 
 exceptional holiness, the elements of exceptional 
 trial, complete without example, have been given 
 us ? 
 
 He was in temptations, my brethren, He was 
 sifted as we are, indeed, not one of us is sifted as 
 He was. I do not only allude to that mysterious 
 scene which is recounted by the evangelists which 
 presents Him to us as preluding His ministry, by 
 a threefold and solemn victory, over the lust of 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 87 
 
 the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. 
 Enter with Him into that career which should 
 touch so profoundly the feelings and passions of 
 every heart. It is all trial, increasing trial, trial 
 gradually pushed to an extreme, but always 
 surmounted by a calm strength, master of itself, 
 gradually so exalted as to leave on the mind the 
 impression of Almighty power. 
 
 What a test of humility, to begin as He did, by 
 being for a time the idol of the crowd, and to 
 excite at last the unjust contempt of the hypo¬ 
 critical Pharisees. Now, review His life from the 
 cradle at Bethlehem, to the cross at Golgotha; 
 not only will you not find the slightest shade of 
 self-love either encouraged or repressed, of pride 
 or ambition, but not even the most imperceptible 
 deviation from that unique character which caused 
 Him to be called the Master, meek and lowly of 
 heart. What a test of goodness to see the most 
 generous devotion repaid by the blackest ingrati¬ 
 tude, and instead of gratitude to meet with that 
 hatred and cruelty which ended by glutting itself 
 
88 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 in the sufferings on Calvary. Now, review His 
 life again; I do not ask you whether you find the 
 least trace of rancour or egotism, but whether in 
 the whole world you can find a type of charity to- 
 compare with that which you have seen increasing 
 in Him, until the hour when the trial was at its 
 height. Always equal to His burden, even when 
 He has the whole world upon Him, He proves 
 to all observers that the prince of this world had 
 indeed nothing in Him. 
 
 Now, my brethren, turn your thoughts inward 
 for a time, and collect your impressions. I may 
 be mistaken, but it seems to me as if something 
 strange, unusual, something almost mysterious, 
 must produce a prodigy before your eyes, as if you 
 were present at a sort of transfiguration. 
 
 Consider well this career of three years, these 
 remarkably simple events, and by degrees you will 
 see the Son of Man come out of His frame, and 
 grow and grow and grow, until His proportions 
 surpass the limits not only of your experience, but 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 89. 
 
 of your imagination. As for myself, I cannot 
 desist from studying this phenomenon ; it attracts, 
 it moves, it almost fascinates me. I see at first 
 the most inconspicuous of mortals, passing his 
 days in the most inconspicuous conditions of life. 
 I fix my attention on the humble figure of this 
 carpenter going forth from His abode in the garb 
 of a working man, gathering a few friends around 
 Him, going from place to place by the common 
 ways, bearing the burden of life as it is presented- 
 to Him; without ambition, without eclat, without 
 success, struggling, suffering, dying. Then by 
 degrees this envelope vanishes, and what does it 
 leave before my eyes ?—it is a spirit, but a spirit 
 that knowing neither time nor space, suddenly 
 fills the horizon of my thoughts, as when God 
 said : “ Let there be light, and there was light.” 
 
 Doubtless, the carpenter of Nazareth knew but 
 three days of life upon the earth, but what does 
 that signify ? His spirit has nothing to do with 
 the reckoning of days; and I feel that it exists 
 from age to age, overshadowing all the generations 
 
90 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 of men. He lives as much to-day as He did 
 two thousand years ago, and will not be more 
 changed in the days of our remotest posterity. 
 He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. 
 
 Doubtless, the carpenter of Nazareth did but 
 cover with His shadow an imperceptible point of 
 our globe. But what does that signify? His 
 spirit knows no bounds, and I see Him communi¬ 
 cating Himself to one place after another, passing 
 the limits of states, crossing mountains and 
 oceans, enveloping the whole earth with a new 
 atmosphere, and I understand the words: Ye 
 shall be witnesses unto me, unto the uttermost 
 parts of the earth.* 
 
 Doubtless, the carpenter of Nazareth knew but 
 one, and that the least brilliant of the ten thousand 
 forms in which human nature is clothed. But 
 what does that signify ? His spirit is not united 
 to any form; it is compatible with every con¬ 
 dition ; rich and poor, learned and ignorant, the 
 aged, women and children, all are elevated by 
 
 * Acts i. 8. 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 9i 
 
 Him; He reigns beneath the purple of the 
 sovereign, just as He illumines the hut of the 
 slave; and I understand St. Paul when he says : 
 In Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, male 
 nor female, bond nor free.* 
 
 Doubtless, the carpenter of Nazareth only ex¬ 
 perienced some of the trials of life. But what 
 does that signify ? His spirit is equal to every 
 contest, there is no victory beyond His powers; 
 He will sustain the criminal who repents, and the 
 martyr who succumbs, the child who tries to 
 please its mother, and the mother who weeps at 
 the tomb of her child; and I comprehend the 
 words of the apostle : “In all these things we are 
 more than conquerors.”t “ I can do all things 
 through Christ which strengtheneth me.”f 
 
 I have searched in vain in imagination, and I 
 can find no situation, nor time nor place nor 
 extremity in which man may not be changed to 
 the very depths of his. being, by being clothed with 
 that spirit which I see emanate in all its force and 
 * Coloss. iii. 11. f Romans viii. 37. \ Phil. iv. 13. 
 
92 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 glory from the miserable envelope of the obscure 
 career of the Son of Man on earth. Now, if this 
 spirit is the spirit of holiness, we must conclude 
 that Christ has given us proof of perfect holiness, 
 for I should not call any holiness perfect which 
 could not be attained by other men. What, then, 
 is this spirit? To understand it thoroughly, we 
 must carry back our thoughts to the earthly life of 
 the Son of Man; for it was then, and at no other 
 time, that it was manifested in its plenitude. 
 This is the focus, the centre from which light is 
 radiated in the world. The real, the living Christ 
 —the Christ the Son of Man—will always be the 
 treasure of humanity, happen what may. 
 
 Now, the trait which would first strike a super¬ 
 ficial observer is His human charity. Some of the 
 forms of love had been known before He came; 
 there had been intelligent minds enamoured of 
 truth; mothers, who lived but for their children; 
 citizens, who died for their country; noble minds 
 had even consecrated all their efforts to find out 
 the supreme good, in order to give it to mankind 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 93 
 
 But this love, so sure of itself—equable, constant, 
 universal—for which the new word charity has 
 been created, is only truly to be seen, and has 
 only become conscious of itself in the soul of the 
 Son of Man; it has the value of an absolute dis¬ 
 covery. We who have received it as a heritage 
 since it appeared in the world, cannot fail to 
 recognise in it the law of perfection. But let us 
 remember that if the idea now belongs to us in all 
 its sublimity, it is because the reality, more sublime 
 than the idea, has been placed before our eyes. 
 We may say that charity has two modes of 
 expressing itself; to one we give the name of 
 abnegation, because it forgets itself; to the other, 
 devotion, because it gives itself. Now, consider 
 charity as it is in Christ; you may find the form 
 of it, but never the limit. 
 
 The limit of His abnegation ! You will have 
 found it when in any part of His life you can trace 
 a thought of Himself—a selfish regret, a breath of 
 pride, a spark of ambition, a trace of any self- 
 seeking whatsoever. You can study it for your- 
 
94 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 selves, you have the Gospels in your hands; you 
 know how man is skilled in the ingenious art of 
 returning to the centre, self, by a thousand feints 
 and a thousand circumlocutions—but as for Jesus, 
 I defy you absolutely ever to find Him in fault. 
 
 The limit of His devotion ! Try to find any 
 form of goodness which can be carried further 
 than it was by Him. Be it compassion, when He 
 was moved by the crowds which followed Him ; 
 benificence, when He consoles the miserable; 
 forgiveness, when He prays for His executioners; 
 lenity, when He raised up the sinner, or the 
 woman taken in adultery—holy indignation against 
 injustice. Mercy, love of enemies, love of souls, 
 spirit of sacrifice. Consult the Gospels again ; 
 you may search, but you will not find one. 
 
 These things cannot be demonstrated; they are 
 felt—and it cannot be that you have not felt them. 
 It is the inexhaustible, absolute, infinite character 
 of His charity which constitutes the originality of 
 the Son of Man. We may search for a few drops 
 of it at the bottom of our own hearts, with Him 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 95 
 
 the vessel is always full to overflowing. But we 
 will not stop at the surface, we will go to the 
 foundations. Having discovered the course of the 
 stream, we will go back to the source. To under¬ 
 stand the outward man who astonishes us, let us 
 penetrate to the inward man, and ask for His 
 secret. The inward man did I say ? Is this the 
 language we must employ ? As soon as I pene¬ 
 trate into the sanctuary of His soul to discover 
 the invisible guest, I find myself arrested by an 
 unexpected meeting. I expected to find Him 
 alone. But it is not so. Another is with Him— 
 always with Him. “I am not alone,” He said, in 
 speaking of it; “when all abandon me, I shall 
 not be alone, for he is with me.” While the 
 earth, moved at His presence, kisses His footsteps 
 
 or meditates upon His words, He holds converse 
 
 * 
 
 within Himself with the confidant of His soul, 
 whose invisible face He contemplates. There is 
 a heart open to all the effusions of His heart, a 
 mind which interprets His thoughts, a language 
 which answers to His. It is not solitude; there 
 
96 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 is intercourse in His inner life to such an extent, 
 that in solemn moments, like a man thinking 
 aloud, words escaped Him which were not intended 
 for our ears, and which are but detached fragments 
 of the mysterious colloquy within. “I know that 
 thou hearest me always,” He said at the grave of 
 Lazarus; and at Gethsemane: “If it be possible, 
 let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not as I 
 will but as thou wilt.” And on the cross: “Why 
 hast thou forsaken me?” You would say that 
 there was another self, above Him, and yet equal, 
 whom He silently addresses,— whom He loves 
 above all, and by whom He is loved with the love 
 that said: “We are one.” 
 
 But why so much mystery, when there is nothing 
 that seems so congenial to His heart as that of 
 this inward intimacy to which He is pleased to 
 confide everything. The subject is never exhausted 
 when He explains to His disciples the ineffable 
 relations which unite Him to the Invisible One; 
 more living, more present, more familiar, more 
 visible to Him than any one amongst them. 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 97 
 
 A « 
 
 4 ‘My Father” (it is thus that He calls Him) 
 “ loveth me.” “As the Father knoweth me, even so 
 know I the Father.”* “The Son can do nothing 
 of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for 
 
 the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all 
 
 % 
 
 things that himself doeth, and he will shew him 
 greater works than these, that ye may marvel.” t 
 “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me.”J 
 “My Father and I are one.”§ But I shall never 
 have finished. Rather read the whole Gospels 
 again for yourselves. But who, then, is this 
 intimate friend, this ineffable confidant of His soul, 
 this other self whom He adores—in a word, this 
 Father? In order to explain it to you, my brethren, 
 perhaps it will suffice to recall some occasions 
 when Jesus does not speak of Him as His Father 
 only, but as ours also. “When ye pray, therefore, 
 say ‘our Father.’” It is God, then ! My brethren, 
 if there be a God, it can be but He. If man were 
 a mere machine, a God who was a machine might 
 
 * John x. 15. f John v. 19, 20. % John iv. 34. 
 
 § John x. 30. 
 
 H 
 
9 S 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 perhaps suffice him; if man were an idea, perhaps 
 a God who was an abstraction might do for him; 
 hut, man!—do you not feel that man is a being 
 who thinks, who loves, who wishes, who lives. 
 Man must have a God who understands, who 
 loves, and directs him. Man is a solitary being, 
 and if he is sometimes tempted to forget it, life 
 and death are there to recall it. Give him, then, 
 a God who lives with him, a God who is his 
 Father! Now, this is the very foundation of the 
 moral nature of the Son of Man, the key to His 
 character, and to all the marvels of His manifest¬ 
 ation; it is that penetrating into His soul we find 
 ourselves face to face with the true God, so much 
 sought after, so much desired, so much misunder¬ 
 stood. We find Him there in all the brightness 
 of His glory—that is to say, of His goodness. 
 The presence of the sun is clearly seen from the 
 least of his rays. However short and obscure 
 may be the appearance of a Being always with 
 God, thinking always as God thinks, loving only 
 what God loves, having no will but the will of 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUS1 
 
 99 
 
 God; such a being can truly say,—“He that hath 
 seen me hath seen the Father.” His spirit—since 
 we have used the expression—His spirit is the 
 Spirit of God Himself. You will seek in vain for 
 shadows there ; it is the spirit of a perfect being. 
 
 It is from this, my brethren, that arises that 
 incomparable harmony, which makes the figure 
 of the Son of Man always shine with equal splen¬ 
 dour, and renders it impossible to trace His like¬ 
 ness. You will observe that I have not even 
 attempted it. We have walked round Him, we 
 have contemplated Him, but we have not taken 
 His likeness. Every feature that I might have 
 delineated would have been immediately eclipsed 
 by another no less striking. You will find every 
 quality in Him, never what we call the defect of a 
 quality; always the perfect reconciliation of con¬ 
 tradictions, every virtue in equilibrium, bringing 
 
 \ 
 
 out and illuminating each other, and producing 
 infinite reflections which defy all analysis. There 
 is no other limit to His goodness, than the limit 
 of goodness itself. 
 
 H 2 
 
IOO 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 It is from this also that that peace arises, com¬ 
 pared with which all other peace seems false and 
 fictitious. Notice the contrast of it to the tumul¬ 
 tuous passions which rage around Him. The air 
 is troubled, He alone is calm. He may be com¬ 
 pared to a lake, the surface of which always 
 remains calm in spite of the storm, and which, by 
 some unknown enchantment, continues to reflect 
 the blue heavens amidst the commotions of nature. 
 Just when He was about to quit His disciples; 
 just when He had announced to them the trials 
 that awaited them; just after having said: “In 
 the world ye shall have tribulation : they shall 
 bring you before the judgment seats; the time 
 cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that 
 he doeth God service;” just when He was about 
 to be delivered into the hands of sinful men, to be 
 made the butt of their execrable hatred; when the 
 fearful storm, called His passion, was already 
 approaching,—He retreated into Himself, sounded 
 the depths of the peace within, and finding it 
 infinite, with the same voice that calmed the 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 IOI 
 
 tempest, He addressed to them these parting 
 words: “ Peace I leave with you, my peace I give 
 unto you : not as the world giveth, give I unto 
 you. Let not your heart be troubled!”* How 
 grand this figure is, my brethren, how holy, how 
 pure ! How every conscience is arrested and 
 trembles before Him. 
 
 I am seeking for a point whence we can have a 
 last look before leaving Him. But do not fear 
 that I shall disparage others in order to aggran¬ 
 dise Him. Far from it. If you wish to contem¬ 
 plate the monarch of our mountains in all His 
 glory, you quit the valley, you ascend the slopes 
 of the Jura, and the higher you rise the better you 
 will see the gilded summit of the king, triumph¬ 
 antly elevated and isolated in his sublime majesty. 
 Then when you have attained the most elevated 
 spot, you will say—“This is the place, let us stay 
 here.” 
 
 I also will quit the flat country where the crowd 
 is moving, and seek the heights. I will draw 
 
 * John xiv. 27. 
 
102 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 near to some of those great and noble minds, whose 
 names are preserved among men with just respect; 
 and, struck with their beauty, I begin to love and 
 admire them enthusiastically. Then I make 
 choice among them. I pause before two or three 
 of the most illustrious, amongst whom I distin¬ 
 guish one that attracts me the most. It is the 
 sage of Greece, the master of Plato. There is 
 something in this man, who spent seventy years 
 in struggling with a rebel nature, whose conscience 
 served him as a law, and who with a most 
 unprepossessing exterior, subjugated a people 
 enamoured of beauty, solely by the beauty of his 
 mind; there is something which speaks to my 
 heart; I should like to have known him, to have 
 told him that I loved him. I will go straight to 
 him, and, seated at his feet, with so many noble 
 disciples on the steps of the Prytaneum, I say to 
 myself, this is the place for contemplating the form 
 of the Holy One and the Just. O Socrates ! why 
 wast thou not born five centuries later, that I might 
 direct thy steps as well as my own towards this 
 
THE HOLY ONE AND THE JUST. 
 
 103 
 
 unique model of greatness and peace. How 
 would’st thou, who groaned during thy life-time 
 on account of thy miseries and imperfections, 
 have contained thy admiration in the presence 
 of this perfect Being, in the presence of man, such 
 as He is in God, with God, and in the likeness of 
 God? 
 
 Thou who despaired of success in thy noble 
 design, so nobly pursued, of reforming the morals 
 of a handful of thy contemporaries, what would’st 
 thou have said when this Spirit was presented to 
 thy mind—the repairer of all breaches, radiating 
 light from His heart as from an inextinguishable 
 focus, to penetrate all hearts, and to transform 
 them from glory to glory into the likeness of His 
 adorable image ? Ah ! would not thy knees have 
 bent, as one day the knees of all will bend before 
 Him, who does not cease to draw all men unto 
 Him? 
 
 And we, my brethren, who have known Him 
 so long, but have perhaps misunderstood Him, 
 will not our eyes be opened ? Shall we refuse 
 
104 
 
 THE SON OF MAN 
 
 Him the homage He demands ? The homage 
 He demands is the homage of our hearts, which 
 He will glorify and sanctify by His spirit. He is 
 a man; let us not forget this. What is His is 
 ours. His greatness, His holiness, His peace is 
 ours, as His God is ours. It is for us to raise 
 ourselves to the fulness of the stature of Jesus 
 Christ. This is the glorious calling of the 
 Christian, by the twofold work of faith and re¬ 
 generation. Amen ! 
 
III. 
 
 Cfie agan of ^ortoto.s. 
 
 “A Man of Sorrows .”—Isaiah liii. 3. 
 
 I MAGINE, my brethren, the days of the Son 
 of Man flowing calmly on in the course of a 
 
 9 
 
 happy existence; imagine Him culling the flowers 
 of life along His path, quenching His thirst at 
 every spring, reposing in the shade, and attaining 
 at last the hoary summits of old age, only to 
 behold His sun set in glory at the end of a 
 cloudless day—you will have annihilated Him. 
 You will have made Him but share the common 
 lot, and at the same time you will have deprived 
 Him of all His rights and titles. Although He 
 
I 
 
 106 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 might cry: “Look unto me,” henceforth no one 
 would deign to turn round to ask who He is. 
 
 Having claimed righteousness, perfect righteous¬ 
 ness, for His character, to-day, by a natural transi¬ 
 tion, we shall claim suffering as His destiny, and 
 we will say at once, the perfection of suffering. 
 
 If no man can say to Him : “ I am better than 
 Thou,” neither must any man be able to say to 
 Him : “ I have suffered more than Thou hast.” 
 
 If you reflect a moment, you will soon see that 
 these two requirements have more relation to each 
 other than at first sight appears. When sin 
 appeared upon earth, God immediately drew 
 sorrow out of His treasuries. With a wisdom 
 which transcends our thoughts, He gave it a 
 double end. He first, doubtless, made it the 
 wages of sin, but He afterwards made a crown of 
 it, to adorn the head of humiliated righteousness. 
 I know not what would have replaced it in an 
 abode of innocence. I know not what halo might 
 have shone resplendent around perfect holiness 
 there. But this I do know, that in a world where 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 107 
 
 evil reigns, it is from the hands of suffering that 
 holiness receives her supreme consecration; so 
 much so, that if it ever attains the highest 
 exaltation it will only be by being crucified. 
 
 This was so well understood by the sages 
 of antiquity, that Plato, wishing to represent 
 righteousness incarnate in a truly holy man, 
 expressed himself in these terms: “ Let him be 
 despoiled of everything, even of the semblance of 
 righteousness, and only righteousness itself be 
 left him. Irreproachable, let him be suspected of 
 every crime. Let us test his virtue. I would 
 expose him to infamy and its torments. But let 
 him walk with a firm step to the tomb, en¬ 
 compassed by false accusations, yet still virtuous. 
 Let him be beaten with rods, subjected to chains 
 and torture, and after having endured all these 
 sufferings, let him expire at last upon a cross.” 
 
 Thus does the conscience of mankind express 
 itself by the organ of genius. It demands that 
 the Holy One and the Just shall be baptized by 
 the name of the “ Man of Sorrows.” 
 
ioS 
 
 THE SON OF MAN 
 
 And this programme, drawn up by a heathen 
 four centuries before Christ, corresponds so well 
 with His history, that, called upon in this third 
 discourse to show you the greatness of the Son of 
 Man by the greatness of His sufferings, I am 
 almost tempted to take it for the basis of my 
 discourse, and, with your permission, to preach 
 upon a text from Plato. 
 
 You will agree that this will be to conform 
 strictly to the spirit of these discourses, in which 
 I undertake to glorify my Saviour by showing you 
 the perfection of His works simply by the per¬ 
 fection of His humanity. Only the execution will 
 surpass the programme, and do not be surprised 
 at this; for to this accumulation of ills which the 
 Athenian philosopher has heaped upon the head 
 of his righteous man, to subject him to a 
 decisive trial, one thing is wanting. 
 
 He has given free scope to his imagination in 
 inventing the most atrocious situations, he has 
 created tortures and monsters to load him with 
 suffering; but he could not add the final touch 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 109 
 
 to what He really suffered • who was to be made 
 perfect through suffering. The Spirit of God 
 alone could predict what Christ must needs 
 suffer. 
 
 Nevertheless, let us borrow three traits from 
 the remarkable picture which I have just shown 
 you, and we shall see how absolutely they were 
 realised, and in a way impossible to be foreseen, 
 in the tragic history of the Son of Man. 
 
 Plato proposes that his righteous man should 
 be despoiled of everything, in order that his virtue 
 alone should appear. 
 
 He proposes that he should be the victim of a 
 furious persecution, unjust and victorious, in 
 order that his virtue may be brought out in most 
 striking contrast. He proposes that he should 
 be subjected to infamy and its torments, doubtless 
 in order that his triumphant virtue may efface 
 the infamy; in other words, expiate it by sub¬ 
 mitting to its tortures. 
 
 There certainly is in this a threefold trial which 
 constitute a complete proof. And in conducting 
 
I IO 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 the enquiry, the solemnity of which you will 
 admit, we shall rapidly review the career of the 
 Son of Man, to assure ourselves that He really 
 did suffer all those things which it was necessary 
 that He should suffer. 
 
 The first point is that He should be despoiled 
 of everything. 
 
 Following the plan I have laid down, I shall 
 not mention that greatest of all deprivations 
 which contains the germ of all the rest, and 
 which is expressed by St. Paul in the words : 
 “ Who being in the form of God, thought it not 
 robbery to be equal with God; but made himself 
 of no reputation, and took upon him the form of 
 a servant, and was made in the likeness of 
 men.”* We take no account of that voluntary 
 deprivation which is called the incarnation. 
 
 He is a man, and must accept humanity, pure 
 and simple, as the point of departure. The 
 destitution of Bethlehem is only the sign by 
 
 * Phil. ii. 6, 7. 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 111 
 
 which we know Him. “And this shall be a sign 
 unto you, ye shall find the babe wrapped in 
 swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger.”* 
 Neither will I speak of His childhood passed in 
 deprivation and obscurity. But there must often 
 have been a painful contrast between His aspira¬ 
 tions and the obtuseness of those around Him. 
 
 The first time that He spoke to Joseph and 
 Mary of the occupation with His Father’s 
 business which began to engross His mind, the 
 Evangelist tells us that they understood Him not. 
 
 How often must He have been conscious of 
 that absolute isolation to which His thoughts 
 condemned Him, in the midst of His relations ! 
 What a travail there must have been in His soul, 
 bearing upon the question of His life, without its 
 being possible that any one should, I do not 
 say guide, but even comprehend Him ! But 
 the obscurity of Nazareth was only a pre¬ 
 paration for Him, and it really seems as if He 
 was subjected to it for thirty years in order to 
 
 * Luke ii. 12. 
 
112 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 give His name the infallible opprobrium of an 
 unfortunate origin. Woe to him who comes from 
 a place with a bad name! Woe to Him who 
 comes from Nazareth ! 
 
 It appears as if He was to be despoiled of 
 everything on His entrance into life, that would 
 have created an impression in His favour. 
 
 Search around Him for any spot that is not 
 devastated; search in His life, I do not say for 
 anything superfluous, but the bare necessaries of 
 earthly happiness which are spared to the most 
 desolate. That hearth where the poorest of the 
 poor finds consolation for the desolation without. 
 
 I will explain my meaning. 
 
 To understand the deprivation of the Son of 
 Man, we must cast aside all ordinary notions of 
 riches and greatness, and begin by getting rid of 
 “ that illusion about apparent good, of that foolish 
 and ridiculous belief that exists in every heart, 
 that happiness consists in those external things 
 which we call honour, riches, and pleasure.” It 
 
 ✓ 
 
 is from Bossuet that I quote. He says again: 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 113 
 
 “ Man finds himself so shut up and limited, that 
 his pride is mortified at finding himself confined to 
 such narrow limits ; so as he can add neither to his 
 height nor bulk, he tries to satisfy his vain imagina¬ 
 tion of greatness by amassing as much as he can 
 around him. He fancies, so to speak, that he incor¬ 
 porates with himself all the riches that he acquires.” 
 
 This is what causes us to be specially affected 
 by privation of earthly possessions, and which 
 leads us to think that the earthly deprivation of the 
 Son of Man consisted in His poverty. It is affect¬ 
 ing to think that He had neither patrimony nor 
 property, nor provision for the future, and that 
 His condition was that which we consider so 
 pitiable among the poor. 
 
 But He who reminded His disciples how God 
 feedeth the birds of the air, and clotheth the grass 
 of the field, and who added, with divine wisdom : 
 “Take no thought, saying, what shall we eat, or 
 what shall we drink ? for after all these things do 
 the Gentiles seek; ”* He who taught them to ask 
 
 * Matt. vi. 31, 32. 
 
 I 
 
Si 14 
 
 THE SON OF MAN ,. 
 
 day by day their daily bread, had other ideas than 
 ours, and it would be doing Him injustice to 
 count among the number of His sorrows and pri¬ 
 vations the absence of those luxuries of well-being 
 with which we encumber our existence. 
 
 But, besides this, is there not a satisfaction in 
 our daily bread, a natural and legitimate compen¬ 
 sation for the fatigues of life, which seems denied 
 to no one here below ? The labourer who gains 
 his bread by the sweat of his brow, finds his wife 
 and children around his miserable hearth after his 
 daily toil; his countenance brightens, his heart 
 expands, all his being relaxes. He reposes for a 
 time by the side of his rough path under the 
 shadow which God has prepared for him. He 
 has his cup of cold water in the desert of life. 
 The man who devotes himself to the noble 
 labours of the mind, is consoled for sorrow and 
 illusion by being absorbed in meditation. The 
 storm rages without; his fields are devastated, 
 his hopes destroyed; but he enters into his study 
 as into a sanctuary, and having made an effort to 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 
 absorb himself in his favourite studies, he forgets 
 the whole world, forgets himself, and succeeds in 
 cheating his heart by the austere satisfactions of 
 the mind. He has a place where to lay his head. 
 
 Look where you will among human lives, and 
 show me one man who has not his secret resource, 
 his retreat, his last resort, if you will; some spot 
 or other where he can find rest for the sole of his 
 foot. 
 
 We are all something like the dove after 
 the flood had devastated the earth, and who had 
 to find a new resting-place. But it need not be 
 that she find again the fragrant bowers which 
 were formerly her predilection. A point of rock, 
 a branch, a ruin is enough for her to rest her 
 wing. We should have to enter into the details 
 
 I * 
 
 of a humiliating and melancholy vulgarity to 
 explain, what in default of other things may 
 suffice as a solace for the mind of man in this 
 vale of tears. But high or low, broad or narrow, 
 noble or vulgar, whatever it be, you will not find 
 any solace in the life of the Son of Man. 
 
ii6 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 He sat at the tables of the rich, He entered 
 many hospitable abodes, the towns and villages 
 opened their gates to Him, nature herself .was 
 transformed into a palace to lodge Him, and a 
 table to feed Him; but retreat in the true sense 
 of the word, a solace for His soul He had not. 
 And this is what He meant when He said with a 
 deeper meaning than at first appears: “ The 
 foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have 
 nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay 
 his head.”* 
 
 And why was this, my brethren ? For a very 
 simple reason; because the pre-occupation of 
 His mind did not permit Him to think of earthly 
 things. The work to which He devoted Himself 
 was incompatible with any of the refreshments of 
 our pilgrimage. Domestic joys, artistic culture, 
 profound study, every solace which we have in 
 our lives, would have been for Him a distraction 
 and a defection. It was necessary that He should 
 sacrifice everything, and He did sacrifice everything. 
 
 * Matt. viii. 20. 
 
THE MAN OF SORRO WS. 117 
 
 But His disciples, you will say. After all, is not 
 the best solace that man can find on earth, the 
 affection of His fellow men ? To be understood, 
 to feel that another is sharing with you the weight 
 of the thought which oppresses you. Oh, what a 
 relief. It is not essential, as you know, that 
 sympathy should come from above; it is the 
 charm of this admirable consoler, that the weakest 
 can offer it to the greatest and the strongest. 
 Had not Jesus the Twelve? Doubtless.' But 
 when did they touch His burden with one of their 
 fingers ? “ God forbid ! ” they exclaimed in as¬ 
 
 tonishment. 
 
 The Twelve with their carnal hopes, their 
 dreams so naive that they excite a smile; the 
 Twelve who disputed about the first places in 
 some imaginary kingdom; the Twelve who, until 
 a long time afterwards, did not understand that 
 He was preparing them for the future. 
 
 During His life it was He who supported them, 
 and He never knew what it was to rest upon 
 them. Once only He called upon them to watch 
 
T 18 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 and pray with Him; you will remember it was in 
 Gethsemane. His human heart thirsted for 
 human sympathy, distant, imperfect as it might 
 be. Three times, counting upon them, He found 
 them sleeping on His pillow of agony. Troubled, 
 disconcerted, by the little that they had seen and 
 heard, they felt nothing but insurmountable 
 fatigue; a striking testimony to the absolute 
 isolation in which, in the depths of His soul, the 
 Son of Man had always felt Himself amongst 
 them. No, if He had no place where to lay His 
 head, neither was there any heart on which His 
 heart could repose. 
 
 But hope, you will say again, hope is also a 
 solace for man. It is the consolation of those 
 who have no other. Could not Jesus console 
 Himself for the afflictions that He endured, by 
 the prospect of the satisfaction to which they 
 tended ? Humanly speaking, the contrary was 
 the case. All the power of foresight that He 
 possessed, could only disclose to Him in the 
 future, deceit, darkness, and catastrophe. 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 119 
 
 \ 
 
 The Son of Man has been represented as sus¬ 
 tained at first by enthusiasm, and embittered at 
 last by dis-illusion. This is a profound and 
 twofold error, which gratuitously ascribes our 
 weakness to Him, and it cannot be sustained 
 by facts for a moment. Is it possible that 
 He, who knew the hearts and prejudices of the 
 people so well, could have looked for temporal 
 success; that He could have imagined a triumph, 
 an achievement of His work, in which He could 
 have reposed in peace before His death ? Do 
 you not feel that this would be to make a puerile 
 visionary of Him, a dreamer from the other 
 world? No. He knew well, and no one knew 
 it so well as He, that humanly speaking, His 
 enterprise was a desperate one. He knew that 
 He should find insurmountable obstacles. He 
 knew that the chiefs of the people would be 
 against Him, that the inconstant populace would 
 forsake Him, that His disciples would abandon 
 Him, that His enemies would get the advantage 
 of Him, and would one day load Him with the 
 
120 
 
 THE SON OF MAN . 
 
 double weight of their contempt and hatred. 
 Will you hear from His own lips the expression 
 of His hopes ? “The good shepherd,” He said, 
 “ giveth his life for the sheep.”* “ Except a corn 
 of wheat fall unto the ground and die, it abideth 
 alone.”t “The Son of Man shall be betrayed into 
 the hands of sinful men, and they shall kill him.”J 
 These were the prospects with which His soul 
 was nourished. While His disciples at His side 
 were dreaming of crowns, He saw more and more 
 plainly a cross preparing for Him. His hour 
 (every man is expecting the golden hour, which 
 may or may not come, but the hope of which 
 sustains him nevertheless), you know what Jesus 
 called His hour—His hour, towards which He 
 had marched with a firm and unhesitating step, 
 arrived at last. All that He had foreseen, all 
 the solitude and sorrow that He had scented 
 afar off, was suddenly realised. 
 
 He could, doubtless, if He had wished it, have 
 made a place for Himself upon the earth, He 
 * John x. ii. f John xii. 24. I Matt. xvii. 22, 23. 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 121 
 
 might have established Himself as other men 
 establish themselves in life. Imagination calls 
 up a thousand tranquil destinies, approved, pro¬ 
 tected, rich in sweet affection, in legitimate satis¬ 
 faction, honours perhaps, that a moment of 
 hesitation might have opened to Him. He re¬ 
 nounced them all; He was destitute of every- 
 
 t 
 
 thing. It makes one giddy to see Him alone 
 on those solitary heights. We cry out in despair 
 when the world seems desolate, and the future 
 closes before us. But what are our most desperate 
 situations compared with His ? 
 
 Poor, sick, mourners, all you who are dis¬ 
 heartened and disinherited, come and count your 
 riches in comparison with the destitution of the 
 Son of Man. Look well around Him. What 
 remains to Him ? His soul, certainly, His soul 
 intact, His holiness (of which I tried in vain the 
 other day to give you a faint idea), but His soul 
 absolutely stripped of everything in order that 
 it might appear before us clothed with His 
 righteousness alone. 
 
122 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 Still all this is what I call the negative side of 
 the sufferings of the Son of Man. It is simply 
 that He did not possess earthly happiness. To 
 what blows, to what external storms was He 
 exposed ? 
 
 Sooner or later, everyone here below is called 
 to measure himself with adversity. Our first 
 steps in the path of life lead us into an enemy’s 
 country. We no sooner open our eyes in the 
 
 V y 
 
 world than hostilities begin. We fall into snares, 
 we are hemmed in on every side. One is 
 struck down on our right hand, another on our 
 left. It is impossible to retrace our steps, we 
 must go on. Soon all around us are wounded, 
 languishing, dying. And what an infinite variety 
 of wounds, O my companions in suffering ! if you 
 were to recount your own and those which you 
 see around you. Who has not a sad lugubrious 
 story to tell, too often that of his own life. Wealth 
 destroyed, hearts wounded, physical pain, moral 
 suffering, sword thrusts, envenomed stings, lives 
 struck down by the thunder-bolt, broken by the 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 123 
 
 storm, gnawed at the heart by a destroying 
 worm! 
 
 Among all the woes to which we are exposed, 
 from which we are suffering to-day, or may be 
 to-morrow, which can aspire to be compared with 
 His ? Everyone brings his own grief here, no 
 doubt, thinking it the greatest. You will agree 
 that no one could be subjected to all at once. 
 But here is sorrow, if you consider it well, that 
 unites in itself the bitterest woes; that which 
 Plato selected, as possessing so complete and 
 absolute a character that it leaves nothing to be 
 desired. We shall see Him exposed to the most 
 unjust, cruel, triumphant persecution, seasoned 
 by the blackest treason, accompanied by the 
 most atrocious circumstances, crowned by the 
 greatest outrages during the horrors of the final 
 sufferings. And to add the last drop to the 
 bitterness of this cup, it was necessary that by 
 the very benefits He conferred, He should make 
 Himself in some sort the artificer of His own 
 calamities. It is quite in order that the sins of 
 
124 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 the wicked should fall upon their own heads, and 
 bring about the tragic results of their career of 
 vice. But this is a hew result of a beneficent 
 life. This time it is the treasures of mercy 
 itself, prodigally showered around Him by the 
 Holy One and the Just, which are gathered to¬ 
 gether in the heavens in a fearful storm of ven¬ 
 geance and blood. Behold this Sower who goes 
 on His way, spreading abroad compassion, health, 
 and consolation, in order to see suspicion, calumny, 
 treason, and cruelty arising around Him. Soon 
 this harvest will grow and stifle Him. Inde¬ 
 fatigable benefactor, He will perish, crushed by 
 the weight of His own benefits; the messenger 
 of salvation, crucified by the hands of those 
 whom He snatches from perdition. Shall I re¬ 
 late this history to you ? Before undertaking 
 it, there is one thought to which I cannot refrain 
 from drawing your attention. Nothing is arbitrary 
 in the history of the Son of Man; everything in 
 it reveals a profound logic, which illuminates 
 every portion of the field of truth. It has been 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 125 
 
 asked, whether this disease, which has so eaten 
 into the vitals of humanity that it is impossible 
 to contest its presence, whether sin is really as 
 we proclaim it to be, a revolt against the laws 
 of goodness; if it is a fact that the creature has 
 wandered from the right path, and is in a state 
 of permanent revolt against the will of the 
 Creator, or whether sin may not be regarded as 
 a simple imperfection, necessary but transitory, 
 from which man may aspire to rid himself by a 
 judicious exercise of his own powers; a sort of 
 twilight between the impenetrable darkness of the 
 past, and the full light of day towards which, with 
 slow but sure steps, he is advancing. It has been 
 asked, whether it is necessary to have recourse 
 to all this process of sacrifice, redemption, and 
 regeneration, to reconcile man with his God. 
 Reconcile ! Ah ! who says that he is not already 
 reconciled. Let us leave these hard words alone. 
 Let us take things more simply. Let us have a 
 little regard to the weakness and frailty of the 
 creature, give him a pattern, a support, lend him 
 
126 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 a hand, shew him the end of the way, and you 
 will see with what a firm and joyous step he will 
 
 pursue that noble path which leads to perfection. 
 
 » \ 
 
 Here then is the pattern. What do you say to 
 it? It is the Holy One and the just. People 
 will surely assemble around Him, applaud and 
 follow Him. First, those most advanced in the 
 path of morality, the Pharisees, the Scribes, the 
 doctors of the law, who in their turn will draw 
 others after them, down to the lowest scale of 
 the ladder. If there is any hesitation at first, 
 He will be more beloved and respected as He 
 becomes better known. It is but truth and pro¬ 
 gress that men are seeking; we must look for 
 ever-increasing enthusiasm and adhesion to Him. 
 They will transport Him from Galilee to Jeru¬ 
 salem in order to make the light more conspicuous, 
 and there no doubt they will enthrone Him. 
 
 I appeal to every candid man, to every well- 
 constituted mind, is not this the course things 
 ought to have taken, and which it seemed as if 
 they must inevitably take ? Explain, then, how 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 127 
 
 it was that precisely the contrary took place ? 
 Explain how it was that when light came into 
 the world, it was not received ? Explain how 
 it was that in proportion as the perfection of the 
 model was recognised, He was left alone, and 
 the more He convinced all hearts, the higher 
 did the flood of persecution arise to engulf Him. 
 Explain how it was that they finally crucified 
 the Holy One and the Just, instead of adoring 
 Him. It is not a fact suspended as it were in 
 
 the air, there must be a cause for it. And what 
 
 \ 
 
 was this cause, if it was not a revolt of the heart, 
 which would not be troubled, as it walked in the 
 ways of perdition, until it was broken, changed 
 and brought back by the power of God unto 
 salvation. 
 
 We will put the spirit of the Holy One and the 
 Just to the test, by observing how He bore the 
 most unjust persecution. In order that this dis¬ 
 pensation should be complete, it was necessary 
 that it should begin by the contrary. Thus, you 
 see, that at first, the Son of Man was approved. 
 
128 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 John the Baptist, the revered prophet, bore witness 
 to Him. “This is he,” he cried, “of whom I said, 
 After me cometh a man which is preferred before 
 me, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy • to 
 unloose.”* Some sincere disciples attached them¬ 
 selves to Him, and left all to follow Him. His 
 first journeys in Galilee seem only to presage an 
 easy triumph. Multitudes, touched by the benefits 
 He conferred, and thirsting for His words, assem¬ 
 bled around Him. Even those who felt the first 
 symptoms of resistance arising in their hearts, 
 agreed that never man spake like this man; and 
 if they threatened more than once to suffocate 
 Him, it was only with empressement and enthu¬ 
 siasm ; the multitudes once even concerted to 
 proclaim Him king, and He only escaped a veritable 
 ovation by hiding Himself and withdrawing, to 
 pass long hours in prayer alone on a mountain. 
 
 But soon one group grew cool and forsook 
 Him; then another and another; a camp of adver¬ 
 saries, or rather of conspirators, was formed 
 
 # John i. 27, 30. 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 129 
 
 against Him; it increased daily; the crowd of 
 admirers vanished, and was gradually succeeded 
 by the exasperated crowd of His executioners. 
 
 We will observe them as they pass one after 
 the other; it is quite a cortege. 
 
 The Pharisees at the head—you know why; 
 they are the elite of the nation, the leaders of 
 opinion. They take umbrage at this new comer; 
 and, being types of self-righteousness incarnate, 
 they feel their pride especially condemned and 
 their hypocrisy unmasked by the implacable sin¬ 
 cerity of the meek and lowly Master. Despairing 
 of attaching Him to their ranks, they combine to 
 crush Him with the cold cruelty of a party against 
 an individual, and the concentrated rage of the 
 strong against the weak. Wherever they meet 
 Him, war is declared—war to the death, and 
 without quarter. Afterwards come the Sadducees 
 —the materialists of that age—the men of plea¬ 
 sure, the sceptics of loose morals. They form an 
 unnatural alliance with the fanatics and insincere 
 devotees to annihilate their common enemy; for 
 
 K 
 
13 ° 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 i 
 
 He came to interfere with their comfortable 
 philosophy and their voluptuous lives, by speaking 
 to them of judgment and justice, while He dis¬ 
 played the accusing light of true holiness before 
 their eyes. After these come the rich, the chief 
 men, the people of importance, who see them¬ 
 selves placed by Him in the alternative of re¬ 
 nouncing either themselves or the kingdom of 
 heaven. At first they withdrew in sadness, like 
 the young man in the Gospel, but returned furious 
 and exasperated against Him who told them the 
 parable of Lazarus and the wicked rich man, and 
 who thought more of the widow’s mite than of 
 their ostentatious charity. Every class of the 
 nation took part against Him, one after the other. 
 Even among the common people whom He loved 
 so much, among whom He lived, as belonging to 
 their ranks, to whom He spoke His most tender 
 words, and whom He loaded with His richest 
 benefits; the people—the family, as it were—pre¬ 
 pared to receive great characters, but changeable 
 and fickle, impulsive both in enthusiasm and 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 131 
 
 hatred, going to extremes both in its cruelties and 
 its favours—there were those even among the 
 people, who, after making Him one day their idol, 
 turned against Him the next, to heap the most 
 wicked outrages upon Him, and with the blindest 
 fury to demand His death. 
 
 All is now ready. The victim is prepared. 
 He has to face the world, which is risen up against 
 Him, alone. Observe the organisation of the 
 conspiracy; follow its dark doings; listen to its 
 murmurs. The last scene is approaching. The 
 hour is come; He says so Himself. Irreproachable, 
 let Him be suspected of every crime. Let Him 
 walk with a firm step to the tomb encompassed 
 by false accusations, but still virtuous ! 
 
 What is the Son of Man doing? On His knees 
 in a garden of olives, during the shades of night, 
 He waits in prayer. It is in this attitude that the 
 fury of His enemies will surprise Him. The 
 disciples whom He asked to watch with Him one 
 hour are asleep, before flying like sheep from the 
 wolf. One alone watches; Judas—he who will 
 
132 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 give the signal by a kiss, which is a greater out¬ 
 rage than the spitting in the judgment hall. 
 
 He is assailed by men armed with staves. He 
 submits like a lamb led to the slaughter. Even 
 those who come to take Him are struck by His 
 gentleness. They hesitate a moment, then return 
 like a flood; rush upon Him, bind Him, drag Him 
 away, and make Him walk to the palace of the 
 High Priest. When there—let us veil our faces 
 my brethren—oh! scenes of shame and infamy, too 
 often presented to us, but never enough pondered in 
 the silence of our hearts. Oh! the height of wick¬ 
 edness, cowardice, and blindness. Oh! spectacle of 
 horror, such as has never since been seen, doubt¬ 
 less because so much of strength and meekness, 
 of grandeur and peace, have never since been seen, 
 as were displayed in those dark depths. Humanity 
 undertook for once to give an example of its 
 infamy, in order to bring out the unexampled 
 sublimity of the virtue of the Son of Man. 
 
 Now, then, you who have your part to play in 
 this scene, assemble together from the four winds 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 133 
 
 of heaven—Pilate, Herod, Caiaphas, kings and 
 priests, senators and servants, soldiers of the 
 Pretorium, the dregs of the people, villains con¬ 
 demned to execution, cowardice, treason, hypo¬ 
 crisy, cruelty, all the monsters to which sin has 
 given birth; bring hither your sarcasms and instru¬ 
 ments of torture, come and cast every one your 
 
 stone and your insult at the Holy Victim; strike 
 
 ♦ 
 
 Him and mock Him, throw yourselves at His feet, 
 and spit in His face; study to multiply His suffer¬ 
 ings, to complicate and refine them, exclude every 
 possible amelioration, add torture to torture; let 
 Him not be crucified until He has been scourged; 
 let Him not suffer the treatment of slaves, until 
 He has been condemned as more infamous than 
 the worst malefactor; add the sting of irony to 
 your cruelty; pierce His heart at the same time 
 that you pierce His shuddering flesh; in your 
 looks and words let Him taste a gall more bitter 
 than that with which you moisten His dying lips; 
 heap upon His head such an accumulation of 
 tortures, that at length the earth trembles and the 
 
134 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 sun veils its face in horror; you will not succeed 
 in exciting in His loving heart anything more than 
 fresh depths of meekness and peace; not a com¬ 
 plaint, never a word of discouragement, never a 
 trace of bitterness, never the shudder of restrained 
 anger; never any other answer to your atrocious 
 provocations; never anything but the unsurpass¬ 
 able expression of charity: “Father, forgive them, 
 for they know not what they do! ” 
 
 Do you know anything of the heart of man, 
 my brethren? It is a den of lions. They often 
 slumber, but when pain awakes them, though the 
 doors may be closed, the prolonged echo of their 
 groans may be heard from afar. Suffering never 
 awakened anything in the heart of the Son of Man 
 but what the Scriptures in their expressive lan- 1 
 guage so admirably call the Lamb of God. 
 
 We have as yet only presented what I will call 
 the exterior side of the sufferings of the Son of 
 Man. It remains to penetrate, if possible, into 
 the interior, to consider another aspect, and this 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 135 
 
 time the real aspect of what has been so well 
 called His passion. 
 
 The first thing to be said is, that all that 
 we have seen heretofore is as nothing compared 
 with what remains to be contemplated. This 
 
 complete desolation, this cruel persecution, this 
 attack on a defenceless victim by hatred and 
 passion, the suffering upon the cross, of which I 
 have not even tried to depict the horrors, all this 
 is but the frame of the picture, not the picture 
 itself. The bodily pain, great as it was, was but 
 an envelope; it is in the mental torture that we 
 must seek for the essence, the real cause of His 
 sufferings. 
 
 Experience has doubtless taught you that it is 
 in our hearts that we suffer the most. There is 
 a limit to physical pain. It does not seem as 
 if there were any to mental pain. The body 
 dies, when the measure is full. There is an 
 undying part of us, which is capable of enduring 
 suffering without being able to see the depth or 
 the limit of it. 
 
136 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 A martyr in early times, threatened with 
 the most frigditful tortures, answered calmly: 
 “ Threaten me, then, with something more ter¬ 
 rible, for as for tortures they can but lead me 
 to death, which I await as a blessing.” Did not 
 Jesus say Himself: “Fear not them which kill 
 the body?” We all hold this in the main. And 
 it is not one of the least signs of our greatness, 
 that it gives us a glimpse of sufferings infinitely 
 greater than those which come to us from without, 
 through the medium of the senses. Man is so 
 constituted that he can sing for joy on a funeral 
 pile, and shed burning tears in the abodes of 
 opulence; and by a contradiction which has 
 its mysterious aspect, the greater the mind, the 
 deeper the abyss into which it may fall. The 
 power of suffering being thus a standard of the 
 power of loving. If, then, you recur to the Son 
 of Man, you will easily understand how it was 
 that Ilis mental sufferings were greater than 
 those of any other man. 
 
 We will pass over the poignant details which 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 137 
 
 present themselves at every step in the path of 
 the passion—the sleep of the disciples, the kiss 
 of Judas, the denial of Peter, the farewell to His 
 mother. These are but the thorns of the crown. 
 Let us go to the centre, and fix our attention on 
 the suffering which crowns all the rest; that 
 which Plato seems to have vaguely foreseen, when 
 he says of his ideal righteous man: “ I would 
 expose him to infamy and its torturesand 
 which Holy Scripture, in its language of divine 
 boldness and exact precision, expresses in these 
 terms: “He was made sin for us who knew 
 no sin.”* “Who his own self bare our sins.”t 
 “ Being made a curse for us.”f 
 
 Rest assured, my brethren, that I shall not 
 attempt to explain a mystery to you, of which 
 the angels themselves can but, as it were, ap¬ 
 proach the edge. We do not understand it, but 
 we may, nevertheless, gain instruction in our 
 efforts to comprehend it. We are on the edge 
 of an abyss. I am trying to find a path which 
 * 2 Cor. v. 21. f i Peter ii. 24. X Galatians iii. 13. 
 
THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 will lead us, not to the bottom, but from which 
 we can look down into the depths. 
 
 You are acquainted with sympathy—that virtue 
 
 which lightens mental burdens, and relieves those 
 
 who are in danger of succumbing, by transferring 
 
 % 
 
 the load to those who love them. It enters 
 into the number of our sufferings, but only in 
 exact proportion to our love, and this explains 
 at once, why it generally forms so small a pro¬ 
 portion of them, and why it represents immeasur¬ 
 able suffering in the case of the Son of Man. If 
 we come in contact with a profoundly miserable 
 being, our hearts immediately bleed with his ; 
 
 i * 
 
 but such is the marvellous elasticity of our 
 egotism, that even at the moment when we feel 
 most keenly, we are inwardly consoled by the 
 thought, that, after all, it does not affect us, 
 and that as soon as we have turned away, other 
 objects will arise to absorb us and to divert our 
 minds from painful impressions. We remain so 
 short a time under the weight of the sufferings 
 of others, and dispose so lightly and naturally 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 139 
 
 of the burden, that it was once said that a mind 
 was only sympathetic by reason of and in propor¬ 
 tion to its mobility. Our sympathies are alms 
 offered in passing, precious alms no doubt; let 
 us not despise them, what have we better to give 
 or to receive ? But they are far indeed from that 
 gift of sacrifice, that permanent gift of self, the 
 realisation of a true substitution. 
 
 We must imagine a mind really perfect and 
 absolutely deprived of all consolation. We must 
 imagine sympathy at work, without any possible 
 counterpoise of egotism, lightness, or lassitude. 
 Does it not appear to you that such a mind will 
 become the focus in which all griefs, whether 
 real or imaginary, will be accumulated, condensed, 
 and concentrated ? 
 
 O my Saviour! when I see Thee troubled 
 in spirit when Thou lookest upon one of those 
 crowds, the sight alone of which recalls to Thy 
 mind the infinitely varied sorrows of so many 
 other crowds; when I see Thy eyes fill with 
 tears at the grave of Lazarus, because it recalls 
 
140 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 to Thee the tears shed by so many others at 
 other graves; when on the way to the cross 
 I hear Thy voice betraying compassion for the 
 griefs of those who lament for Thee, I compre¬ 
 hend those words of the prophet, so profound 
 even in their simplicity: “A man of sorrows 
 and acquainted with grief. Surely He hath 
 borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”* 
 
 It is in this especially, that the fundamental 
 difference is shown between our sympathies and 
 those of the Son of Man. Because we are not 
 ourselves holy, we fear to compromise qjid con¬ 
 demn ourselves in some sort, by a commiseration 
 which descends to the impure source whence 
 human misery flows. We pity the unfortunate; 
 we repulse the sinner; we do not wish to have 
 anything to do with him. 
 
 But in the case of Him who knew no sin, you 
 will feel that we may especially reckon upon 
 His sympathy with the degraded human soul, 
 given up as a prey to its foul and cruel adver- 
 
 * Isaiah liii. 3, 4. 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 141 
 
 saries. We may reckon upon His sympathy 
 with death and curse, the wages of sin. We 
 must see Him bearing our sins and tasting the 
 curse. To bear the sins of others and taste the 
 curse of them ; the very idea is revolting! And 
 yet is it not from such experiences of life that 
 we learn the tortures suffered by bruised and 
 broken hearts, which are enough to make even 
 the most callous shudder? 
 
 Look at that old man whose noble head appears 
 to be crowned with shame, and whose back is 
 bent as if loaded with an invisible but intolerable 
 burden. You do not venture to ask him the cause 
 of his sorrow, and you do well. He has, as it 
 were, death in his soul, and within this body, half 
 consumed with tears and sighs, he bears this in- 
 
 r 
 
 expressible grief—the sins of a prodigal son. 
 
 Feeble and incomplete image, as far removed 
 from the truth as we ourselves are removed from 
 perfection. Thou, O man! art the true prodigal 
 son, in the infinite variety of the paths thou 
 takest to perdition The real broken heart is 
 
142 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 Thine, O Jesus! Saint of saints, the Beloved of 
 God, who bearest in Thy human breast the heart 
 of our Father. 
 
 Consider how in proportion, as He became 
 acquainted with life, the abysses of the bottomless 
 pit of the miseries of sin were gradually revealed 
 to Him. I have just depicted to you the con¬ 
 spiracy of His enemies as it was insensibly formed 
 around Him, how it then became general, burst in 
 a howling tempest, and nailed Him to a cross. 
 Here is another conspiracy a thousand times more 
 formidable, the conspiracy of hell, which is formed 
 by degrees, increases, assumes infinite proportions, 
 then bursts with indescribable fury. The in¬ 
 nocent (why should we not henceforth give it its 
 true name?) the divine soul of the Son of Man, has 
 met successively in the path of life, shame and 
 baseness in sinners, and men of evil lives, volup¬ 
 tuousness in the woman who was a sinner, and 
 the woman taken in adultery, hypocrisy, pride, 
 and self-righteousness among the Pharisees, per¬ 
 fidy in Judas, blindness and cruelty among the 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 143 
 
 populace. The monster sin thus came by degrees 
 out of his abyss; he also became incarnate in 
 human form, in order to present himself before the 
 immaculate conscience of the Son of Man. 
 
 A moment arrived when they met and re¬ 
 cognised each other. What a moment! All is 
 silence. One would think that heaven and earth 
 would be suddenly depopulated to leave all space 
 for these two adversaries. I only see face to face 
 the man of salvation and the man of the fall, the 
 first and second Adam. But why do I speak of 
 them as adversaries ? Are they not rather two 
 brothers, who meet once more. Let not the in¬ 
 sensate fury of the one blind us for an instant to 
 the infinite compassion of the other. It is thy¬ 
 self, my brother. It is thyself in this mire and 
 darkness, torn with passion and pain, lost, cursed, 
 cursing and crucifying thy own image. Oh, what 
 a lamentable history is thine; a past of shame, 
 a future of darkness, bitter reminiscences of lost 
 innocence, the first errors followed so promptly by 
 a chain of irreparable consequences; the pearl of 
 
144 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 great price trampled in the mud; every passion 
 unchained, a flood of suffering of every sort, 
 remorse, fear, bondage, pangs of death, and dread 
 of curse. “ My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even 
 unto death.”* 
 
 You see Him stand, not hesitating, but as if 
 Himself dismayed at the travail of His soul and 
 the fruit of His love. 
 
 It is night in Gethsemane. 
 
 All the bitterness that can be distilled from sin 
 pervades His spirit, like a potion of which He is 
 not willing to lose a drop. 
 
 It is the hour of mystery, before which every 
 conscience is arrested, and, in its trouble, feels 
 impelled to throw its burden on to the head of a 
 holy victim. “ If it be possible, let this cup pass 
 from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou 
 wilt.”t As Thou wilt, that is to say that I offer 
 ' my soul as an oblation; as Thou wilt, that is to 
 say that I submit if it must be ; let me bear the 
 burden of my brother. He is silent. The silence 
 * Matt. xxvi. 38. f Matt. xxvi. 39. 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 145 
 
 is prolonged. The chill of death congeals the 
 blood in His veins. He is “ exposed to infamy 
 and its torments.” 
 
 His limbs are covered with sweat, not like ours; 
 the sweat of His brow was like that of His heart, 
 which was breaking. Great drops of blood were 
 seen upon Him when He arose, calm and vic¬ 
 torious, to walk to the sacrifice. 
 
 Let them immolate Him now! Let them load 
 Him with insult and curses! Let them insult 
 even His righteousness. It is not He, it is our¬ 
 selves, it is sin ! He must die, He feels it, He 
 must and will. Some few sighs escape His lips: 
 “I thirst;” “ My God, my God, why hast thou 
 forsaken me ? ” 
 
 Then, “ It is finished! ” The heavens are 
 veiled, the earth trembles, He bows His head, 
 He succumbs, He expires ! 
 
 The Son of Man is dead ! Dead of our death ! 
 dead of that mysterious annihilation which leaves 
 nothing of us on earth but a corpse; but at the 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 same time of a violent death, the result of His 
 work and the result of His righteousness. It was 
 necessary that He should die, and that He should 
 die in an extraordinary manner, that He should 
 die of death. 
 
 Mark well that death does not appear to be in 
 His case, what it inevitably is in ours—the 
 accidental or natural term of our condemned ex¬ 
 istence, a surprise of weakness, a final and 
 irrecoverable failure of strength. His death is a 
 dispensation, so closely united to all the exigen¬ 
 cies of His idea, of the part He played, of His 
 person itself, that it is clothed with a unique and 
 truly touching character. In the combination of 
 circumstances in which it took place, it comes 
 before us in these apparently contradictory terms, 
 but for the truth of which there is irrefragable 
 proof: the wages of sin necessarily paid to the 
 hero of righteousness, and by Him willingly 
 accepted. 
 
 That which with us is necessary par excellence, 
 was with Him a spontaneous act, voluntary par 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 147 
 
 excellence, and that which with us is the ripe fruit 
 of condemnation, in His case appears to me to be 
 the flower of righteousness in its fullest bloom for 
 the first time. Jesus did not die so much because 
 He was a man, as because He was holy; but, 
 because He was holy, He died in such a way 
 that He only among men could say: “ I lay down 
 my life, no man taketh it from me. I have power 
 to lay it down.”* 
 
 Try to imagine the Son of Man by some means 
 escaping from this twofold condition, of a death 
 voluntary, yet necessary, flavoured with all the 
 bitterness of sin, and at the same time absolutely 
 holy, and you will have taken away His crown. 
 
 Imperfect or weak, one.or the other, or like us 
 struck unawares by death, He would not have 
 known the depth of our misery, or having seen it 
 would have turned away without descending into 
 it. In either case, He would not have been raised 
 above the common lot, He would have been 
 absorbed and lost in the mass of men; He would 
 
 * John x. 17, 18. 
 
14B 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 not have illumined our dark abyss; He would 
 have left to suffering all its problems, and to death 
 the dread name of the King of Terrors. 
 
 We thus perceive a new, unique, and absolute 
 sense in which it may be said, that it was 
 necessary that Christ should die. And I will 
 conclude by saying (however strange this pro¬ 
 position may sound), that in a world like ours, a 
 death like His, was nothing less than the very 
 crowning act of His perfection, and the supreme 
 consummation of His plan of redemption. 
 
 Let us not explain any farther, my brethren. 
 Let us fall on our knees and adore Him. 
 
 To this mystery of the holy compassion of our 
 God, the intellect may take exception, but the 
 heart, the conscience, and the soul exclaim with 
 holy ecstasy in the language of the psalmist: 
 Righteousness and peace have met together, 
 mercy and truth have kissed each other! * 
 “ Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, 
 whose sin is covered ! ”f 
 
 * Psalm lxxxv. io. f Psalm xxxii. i. 
 
THE MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 149 
 
 But there is another result, new and un¬ 
 expected, of this tragic end of the Son of Man; 
 it is that in thus dying, He draws us after Him. 
 If He henceforth shows us the way of salvation, 
 it is only by leading us to death. All that we 
 have previously said culminates in this. And 
 if, in my previous discourses, I have abstained 
 from practical applications, it is that I have left 
 them for this point, which resumes and embraces 
 all the others. 
 
 According to the measure in which we enter 
 into the ideas of the Son of Man, according to 
 the measure in which we partake of His holiness, 
 according as we comprehend the sublimity and 
 the self-denial of His sacrifice, in that proportion 
 do we condemn ourselves to death with Him, to 
 a conscious death, at once necessary and volun¬ 
 tary, holy and yet crucified. A Christian is, in 
 fact, but the dying disciple of a Master who does 
 but teach him to die. 
 
 This is self-evident, no doubt; all the logic of 
 the life of the Son of Man, with transparent and 
 
150 
 
 THE SON OF MAN 
 
 majestic unity, conducts Him straight to death. 
 If we approach Him, we must be on our guard. 
 This logic will seize us, will surround us with 
 its irresistible force, and conclude with us as it 
 did with Him. But if my reasoning has left 
 you incredulous, if you want other proof, you 
 have but to open the Gospels. What does Jesus 
 Christ say ? If any man will deny himself, let 
 him take up his cross and follow me.* What 
 does that signify ? What do the apostles say ? 
 “ Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an 
 example that ye should follow his steps.”t “ If 
 one died for all then were all dead.”J To be 
 crucified with Christ, to partake of His suffering, 
 to be made conformable unto His death: what 
 does this signify ? To repent, to deny ourselves, 
 to give our lives, to be weaned from earthly 
 things, to groan being burdened, to desire to 
 depart; what does all this signify, if not to die, 
 to die with Christ Himself, who died first to 
 teach us to die ? 
 
 # Matt. xvi. 24. 
 
 t 1 Peter ii. 21. 
 
 X 2 Cor. v. 14. 
 
THE MAN OF SORRO WS. , 151 
 
 But does it all end here ? Is death the end of 
 all, of the Gospel as well as of the rest ? And 
 the Son of Man, like a Prince of death, did He 
 only appear amongst us, did He only attract the 
 human race to His feet, to draw them more 
 quickly with Himself into the depths of the 
 abyss. 
 
 My brethren, this would be the meaning of His 
 life, and the end of His work, without the funda¬ 
 mental fact of the resurrection, which will occupy 
 us in the next discourse. 
 
 9 
 
 I have examined it with care, and have con¬ 
 firmed the evidence of it for myself. If I had not 
 found it firm and irrefragable, God is my witness 
 that I would to-day finish my interviews with 
 you, by saying as St. Paul said to the Corinthians: 
 “ Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” 
 
 If I have the courage to say to you instead: 
 “ Die to-day,” it is because from this day I can 
 say to you with a good conscience : “To-morrow 
 you will live.” Amen. 
 
IV. 
 
 €J)c Etsen SDne. 
 
 ‘‘If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain.”—i Cor. xv. 17. 
 
 E left the Son of Man expiring on the 
 
 V V instrument of torture. After a death 
 comes the funeral. 
 
 A rich man who had known Jesus, obtained 
 authority from the governor to take charge of 
 His body. They took it down from the cross, 
 wrapped it in a linen cloth, and placed it in a 
 new sepulchre, which was sealed with the stone 
 which was to conceal Him to the end of time. 
 
 Is this all ? 
 
 The historians to whom we owe these details 
 are unanimous in relating that on the next day 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 H 3 
 
 but one, some persons having come to the sepul¬ 
 chre, found the stone rolled away and the body 
 gone. At the same time, He who had been dead 
 showed Himself alive to His former disciples. 
 On several successive occasions He made Himself 
 known to them, He eat with them, and allowed 
 them to touch His wounds. He quitted them at 
 last, after having said to them: “ Ye shall be 
 witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in all 
 Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost 
 parts of the earth.”* 
 
 We next see this handful of simple men 
 scattered abroad, who without credit or eloquence, 
 without prestige of any sort, were to proclaim the 
 reign of Christ, and to change the face of the 
 world. They have but one text for their sermons : 
 Jesus is risen, and we are His witnesses. 
 
 This is what they preach at Jerusalem, at 
 Corinth, at Rome ; it is this that they proclaim 
 to Jews and Gentiles, to the most refined minds 
 as well as to barbarians. It is the new word, the 
 
 # Acts i. 8. 
 
*54 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 creative word of the apostleship. It was this that 
 gave it originality and force, but it must also be 
 confessed that in some cases it was an occasion of 
 reproach. 
 
 Let us now follow St. Paul to Athens, the 
 metropolis of ancient culture. We shall, doubt¬ 
 less, have occasion to admire his infinite tact and 
 exquisite urbanity amongst the citizens of the 
 wise Socrates and the divine Plato, but he will 
 not change for them the ground-plan of his 
 teaching. Conducted to the Areopagus, called 
 upon to expound his doctrine before the most 
 polished and learned assembly in the world, he 
 proclaimed to them that God had given an in¬ 
 fallible proof of the august mission of the Son of 
 Man on earth by raising Him from the dead. 
 Up to this point, they listened with curiosity, 
 even with favour; but as soon as he spoke of 
 one raised from the dead, they interrupted him. 
 Some mocked, and others said: “We will hear 
 thee again of this matter.”* 
 
 * Acts xvii. 32. 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 155 
 
 My brethren, there are Athenians in the 
 Church to-day, and I do not know that I shall 
 venture beyond the limits of strict truth, in 
 presuming that there are some in this assembly. 
 The great discussion which agitates Christian 
 thought in our day, tends with irresistible logic 
 to concentrate itself more than ever on the fact 
 which served for the basis of apostolic preaching. 
 There is a numerous class among us of cultivated 
 and enquiring minds, priding themselves on 
 common sense rather than on depth, who would 
 lend a willing ear to Christian teaching on con¬ 
 dition that it would disencumber itself of all that 
 distinguishes it from philosophy, and especially 
 from the narrative of the resurrection of Jesus 
 Christ. On the other hand, there is a new school 
 of authors of merit amongst those who are 
 charged to teach Christianity, who, glorying in 
 their sympathy with the most admired representa¬ 
 tives of contemporary philosophic literature and 
 fashionable science, some of them openly deny, 
 and others simply cast into the shade, the 
 
THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 156 
 
 miraculous event, which until now, whether justly 
 or not, has been considered by the Christian 
 Church to be the foundation of its faith and 
 hope. Let us hasten to explain. I do not 
 speak of railers or impious persons, not even of 
 
 adversaries, in intention at least. They wish to 
 
 / 
 
 be Christian, they profess to live as Christians, 
 “ but,” they ask, “must we believe in the resur- 
 tion ? ” 
 
 There is certainly an advantage in putting the 
 question in a definite form like this. It is perfectly 
 clear. But it is impossible to conceal from our¬ 
 selves that it resolves itself into a question of 
 extreme gravity. Let us consider the following 
 questions, before any discussion of the subject. 
 If Christianity was introduced into the world by 
 the preaching of the resurrection of Jesus Christ; 
 if it resolved itself at the time of its first expansion 
 and first fervour, into a formula expressive of 
 faith in the resurrection cf Jesus Christ; if it has 
 never existed anywhere independently of this 
 faith—and these are matters of fact which do not 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 157 
 
 admit of dispute—have we not a right to ask 
 whether, if faith in the resurrection were to disap¬ 
 pear from the world, Christianity itself—or what 
 has hitherto been called by that name—would not 
 disappear with it ? This is, you will say, a question 
 of experience. I do not deny it, but it is not 
 God’s will that it should ever be determined by 
 experience. Meanwhile, we will try to put it to 
 the proof of reason. 
 
 Without the resurrection, what of Christian 
 doctrine would remain? Jesus Christ, you will 
 say, His admirable person, His admirable history, 
 His admirable words; these would always cause 
 Him to remain a unique personage, and give Him 
 an exclusive empire over men’s hearts and con¬ 
 sciences. I think, my brethren, that in speaking 
 thus, you do homage unconsciously, and, by a 
 happy inconsequence, to the incomparable prestige 
 which, for eighteen centuries, Christ risen has 
 maintained for that portion of the human race 
 which invokes His name. You will not dispute 
 that to this day, no one else has a prestige like it, 
 
i5« 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 any that it would not be insane to compare with 
 it. Nevertheless, this prestige must not magnify 
 Him in your eyes, for perhaps after all it is the 
 result of a lie—an inconceivable false opinion— 
 a dense vapour of illusion which must be dis¬ 
 pelled. 
 
 We will not allow ourselves to be too much 
 prejudiced in favour of Christ. And, since you 
 reduce Him to -a simple mortal, we will take care 
 not to apply any other standard to Him than 
 that which is applicable to simple mortals.' 
 
 I take His own words. One fact strikes me at 
 once. He predicted His resurrection. It is the 
 counterpoise with which He always accompanied 
 the prediction of His violent death, when He 
 announced it to His disciples. He told them that 
 “The Son of Man shall be betrayed into the hands 
 of men, and they shall kill him, and the third day 
 he shall be raised again.*” 
 
 Is this an impostor, deceiving them? Is He an 
 enthusiast, who deceives Himself? In either case 
 
 * Matt. xvii. 22, 23. 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 159 
 
 He would not be the admirable personage whom 
 you think you can retain. 
 
 How did He come Himself to entertain this 
 faith in His resurrection? I need not explain it 
 to you. The fact is, that He believed in it just as 
 He believed in the tragic catastrophe which was 
 so soon, to all appearance, to annihilate the effects 
 of His efforts. I do not draw this conclusion 
 solely from a few detached words, however precise 
 they may be. I draw it from His teaching and 
 conduct as a whole. This is a fact to which suffi¬ 
 cient attention has not been paid. Jesus never 
 spoke or acted, during His short career, like one 
 who had time before Him, but invariably as one 
 whose davs were numbered. Provision for old 
 age, even for mature life, was at least as foreign 
 to Him as provision for early death is to ordinary 
 mortals. But, on the other hand, He never spoke 
 or acted as if death would be to Him a termination, 
 but always as if it were a point of departure. His 
 life was constructed on the basis of His death; 
 everything had reference to it. That which to 
 
i6o 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 others is a disappearance, will be to Him a great 
 and signal manifestation. He always conducted 
 Himself as if He were to be the victim of to¬ 
 morrow, but as if He were to be the Risen One 
 the day following. Now, can you imagine that the 
 end of all this was to deceive? To deceive whom? 
 Everybody? In whose interest? The idea is an 
 absurdity. 
 
 What then remains but to consider Him an 
 enthusiast, a sublime dreamer, cherishing the 
 most naive illusion, anticipating the most colossal 
 deception that ever was. What is life, my brethren, 
 with the clear foresight of death? The games of 
 children building castles of sand upon the shore, 
 to see them demolished by the waves. We open 
 our eyes to the light, our minds to science, our 
 hearts to love; for a little day we are the centre 
 of all things; we construct an ideal, we seem to 
 grasp it; a little sooner or later, a wave of the 
 great ocean passes over it, and reduces all to ruin. 
 “The last act is tragic, however comic all the rest 
 may be. We throw dust upon our heads at last, 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 161 
 
 and there it is for ever!” Catastrophe, contradic¬ 
 tion, mystery. 
 
 I cast my eye on the brief career of the Son of 
 Man, so monumental in its narrow limits, and I 
 only see in it an example among many memorable 
 ones of these capricious reverses. What was the 
 use of this ideally beautiful conception of life ? 
 What was the use of this wealth of holiness, of 
 suffering, of wisdom, of greatness ? Of what use, 
 above all, was this sublime dream of a resurrection 
 which was to crown His work and insure His 
 reign so marvellously? Was all this to vanish in 
 its turn, in the impenetrable darkness of the im¬ 
 penetrable future ? Was all this to disappear on 
 the shores of the unknown, neither more nor less 
 obscurely than the lowest of mankind ? Oh ! 
 melancholy conclusion of a brilliant beginning. 
 To all our experience of illusions, it adds one more 
 which surpasses all the rest, and proclaims for the 
 thousandth time, but with extreme emphasis, the 
 inexorable decree of our nothingness. There was 
 a man greater and wiser than all the rest—a man 
 
 M 
 
THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 162 
 
 without fault or sin—a man who, in mind and 
 heart and life, was worthy to wear the crown in 
 the kindom of his fellows, and to exercise over 
 them a universal empire of love and adoration. 
 There was a man unique among men—in a word, 
 there was a perfect man—but he made shipwreck 
 in face of death, and disappeared as we shall one 
 day disappear. Death finally attached him to 
 his car like an illustrious captive, and he served, 
 like all the rest, to illustrate the sinister majesty 
 of the king of terrors, and furnished the most 
 brilliant ornament of his triumph. 
 
 Such as Christ is, such is Christianity. 
 
 Take awav from our convictions the faith in 
 
 j 
 
 a risen Saviour, what remains ? Faith in im¬ 
 mortality ? Alas ! this was not so securely 
 seated before, and I fear you give it a blow such 
 as it will not recover. Faith in immortality! 
 vague expression of the desire to live which 
 exists at the bottom of the human mind, which 
 has been the subject of a hope, even of a pre¬ 
 sumption with some rare geniuses ; faith in im- 
 
 1 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 163 
 
 mortality is so closely identified with faith in 
 the resurrection of Jesus Christ, wherever His 
 name has been proclaimed, that to take away 
 this support is to take away every support. 
 
 It is true that Jesus spoke of the future with 
 a certainty and authority which no one had 
 ever dared to adopt before Him. But of what 
 use are these affirmations, contradicted by His 
 own defeat ? What did He know after all ? what 
 did He demonstrate any more than any one else ? 
 If He was so grossly deceived Himself in His 
 predictions of triumph and of resurrection, who 
 will guarantee that He was not also deceived in 
 His pretended revelations of heaven, of the house 
 of our Father who is in heaven? Whatever He 
 said, death remains for Him and for us, with its 
 veil of mystery and its dark abysses. I may 
 admire His confidence in the face of this im¬ 
 penetrable and silent unknown land, but I confess 
 that I feel more attracted by the sincere doubts 
 of Socrates, who, when conversing with his 
 friends of the chances of immortality, prolonged 
 
 m 2 
 
164 
 
 \ 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 his discourse in order to intoxicate himself, as he 
 said, with the hopes that he drew from his own 
 mind. In spite of him and after him, the question 
 remains just as it was. We may still reason 
 again and again, exercise our minds, analyse the 
 infinite, intoxicate ourselves with hope or with 
 despair, penetrate into the gulf until we are the 
 victims of illusion or of vertigo. 
 
 Consult your learned men, who introduce learn¬ 
 ing into the sanctuary. Ask them what they 
 have learnt from their dusty books and the smoke 
 of their night watches. 
 
 They will tell you that the problem of the 
 destiny of mankind has made no progress for 
 them since the time of Socrates, who made no 
 advance upon his predecessors. Then bring this 
 conclusion before the tribunal of common sense. 
 Ever since reason has been consuming itself in 
 efforts to pierce the future, it has not discovered 
 or demonstrated anything. Does it then become, 
 day by day, more probable that there will be an 
 immortality for man? No, indeed! You know 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 that the answer will be that it becomes therefore 
 more and more improbable ; and with so much 
 doubt it is the safest way to abstain from hoping. 
 Bad logic, I admit, for in such a case, if there be 
 but one chance in a thousand, we ought to take 
 that chance. But can you say that this is not 
 the reasoning which arises in men’s minds ? Do 
 
 4 
 
 you not know that the world is there, the passions 
 are there, that a thousand specious pretexts, a 
 thousand excuses present themselves ? Do you 
 not know that lust has also its logic, too often 
 triumphant over evidence itself, how much more, 
 then, over demonstrated uncertainty ? And if 
 you take away this foundation, do you not feel 
 that everything is shaking, and is ready to fall 
 to the ground with it ? If, in future, we are to 
 see the great lines of Christian conviction vacil¬ 
 late, do you not feel that by a powerful necessity 
 and an inevitable rebound, they vanish in the 
 provisional region of a present which no longer 
 knows what remains to look forward to? I appeal 
 to your fairness and quick perceptions to perceive 
 
THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 166 
 
 at once the vast train of consequences which time 
 fails me to unfold to you. 
 
 Christianity is the religion of a personal God. 
 But how will you henceforth retain this per¬ 
 sonal God ? Does it not seem to you that He 
 loses His footing upon earth, and mounts up into 
 the regions of silence and darkness, where every 
 
 * 4 
 
 living figure disappears ? 
 
 Christianity is the religion of reconciliation. 
 Reconciliation of whom and with whom hence¬ 
 forth ? Vain word, which no longer has any 
 meaning when we hear it, unless it means the 
 dis-illusion of a soul which thought it had need 
 of a reconciliation, in the expectation of falling 
 into the hands of a living God after death. 
 Christianity is the religion of love and devotion. 
 But what becomes of the love of a God who 
 becomes cold in death and vanishes away ? Do 
 you not feel that the purpose for which. He came 
 would be entirely frustrated ? 
 
 What becomes of those spiritual affections, 
 which are only bound together by the love of 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 167 
 
 God, who is love ? What becomes of self- 
 sacrifice ? In what sense can we take these 
 words, which sum up in themselves the essence 
 of practical Christianity: “To lose life in order 
 to find it ? ” 
 
 I know that in the world of mind, as in the 
 world of matter, night does not always succeed 
 to day without twilight. For a long time after 
 the sun has disappeared from the horizon, light is 
 diffused over the earth. And if it were possible 
 that faith in Christ risen should disappear from 
 Christendom to-day, it would not be to-morrow 
 that we should experience the extreme con¬ 
 sequences of the irreparable loss. Our children, 
 our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren 
 would perhaps remember something of the light 
 that shines on us, and would anxiously cherish 
 its last faint reflection. 
 
 But that you may not deceive yourselves, my 
 brethren, this door closed upon the future world 
 makes night. This breach in the walls of our 
 prison once closed, death has seized his prey 
 
168 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 again. It subjugates us once more, shuts us up, 
 stifles us in the inexorable bondage of this dismal 
 dungeon, let us rather say this leaden coffin, which 
 we call the earth. 
 
 A Christ without a resurrection ! Christianity 
 without the Risen One ! Do we know what it 
 means ? 
 
 Providence sometimes prepares instruction for 
 us, which is so much the more admirable because 
 it is drawn from the most unexpected sources. 
 Just at the time when, in our privileged western 
 world, doubts are spreading under the shadow of 
 learning about the fact and the importance of 
 the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God, who is also 
 the Master of learning, my brethren, and guides 
 her in her boldest researches as well as in her 
 proudest victories, with the wise patience of a 
 father who spells their lesson word by word to 
 his children, God, I say, has judged it opportune 
 to turn the attention of the learned to the 
 profound darkness of the east, in order to bring 
 to light the noble and touching figure of a man 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 169 
 
 who has been sometimes compared to Jesus 
 Christ; and he might almost form a pendant to 
 Jesus Christ, if it were not for the resurrection 
 and the splendours which radiate from this point 
 of light. Do you know the history of Buddha 
 Sakyamouni ? 
 
 He was the only son of a king, born for great¬ 
 ness. Handsome, clever, adored by his relations, 
 he was gifted with a most tender heart and 
 generous mind. He was at an early age so pro¬ 
 foundly affected by the spectacle of the miseries 
 that afflict the human race, that he conceived 
 the idea of devoting his life to relieve them. 
 
 He therefore quitted his father’s house, re¬ 
 nounced the throne to which he was heir, and 
 despoiled himself of everything, in order that by 
 sharing them he might study the miseries which 
 he proposed to relieve. His attention was soon 
 attracted to death, that supreme calamity, in 
 which all the rest seem to be swallowed up, 
 and round which they revolve as round a mys¬ 
 terious centre. He tried to sound its depths, 
 
170 
 
 THE SON OF MAN 
 
 and to discover its secrets. He demanded of it a 
 god, he demanded a hope, he demanded a law, he 
 asked'for something for the soul of man. But he 
 received for answer, “ There is nothing.” He con¬ 
 cluded, therefore, that the highest wisdom must 
 consist in detaching oneself from everything, in 
 order to make oneself equivalent to nothing. With 
 his own hands he dis-interred a corpse, took off the 
 winding-sheet, and made himself a mantle of it. 
 For some years he retired into inaccessible places, 
 and gave himself up to the singular occupation of 
 stifling within himself every desire, every wish, 
 every affection, every recollection, all fear and all 
 hope, even the consciousness of his own existence. 
 
 When he thought that he had attained his 
 object, he gathered a few disciples together, and 
 initiated them into the processes of contemplation, 
 by which they gradually attained the vertigo of 
 annihilation. He then travelled about: with them, 
 preaching and evangelising, led an admirable 
 life of renunciation, gentleness, and perseverance. 
 He discovered and propagated that celebrated 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 171 
 
 doctrine of annihilation, which still weighs heavily 
 upon three hundred millions of human beings, 
 which is nothing less than death, death itself 
 taking possession of the brain of man in the form 
 of a fixed idea. 
 
 When after this, I read again those words of 
 St. Paul: “ If Christ is not risen our faith is 
 vain,” I tremble. As I look, I seem to see thick 
 darkness arising again to enfold the world, and 
 to see out precious, our holy, our best-beloved 
 faith losing ground, fading away, vanishing at 
 last behind the victorious shadow of death. Our 
 faith ! the support of the desolate, the peace of 
 the dying, is it then destined to perish ? God 
 forbid ! But in the shudder that you have ex¬ 
 perienced, you have felt, I am sure, that it is 
 the vital question that we are discussing to-day. 
 
 Have we not all already given too many pledges 
 to death ? This is a matter concerning our wives 
 and children. We are fighting for our hearths. 
 Let us advance to meet the enemy; it is time 
 to measure our strength with his.. 
 
172 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 What have you to object to the teaching of 
 the Holy Scriptures ? What are your motives 
 for doubting the resurrection of Jesus Christ? 
 In answer to this query, I think I see appear in 
 the first place, the imposing form of learning. 
 Her brow is charged with thought, and her arms 
 are loaded with books. 
 
 “We have examined the narratives which re¬ 
 port the pretended resurrection of Jesus Christ,” 
 she says, “ and we find that their authenticity 
 is doubtful. The date of them may be many 
 years later than that which your tradition assigns 
 to them, which throws the first doubt on their 
 historic value. Further, we have observed, that 
 the narratives do not entirely agree. They men¬ 
 tion various details, even some that seem on 
 several points to contradict each other. We 
 conclude from this, that these narratives may 
 be only the expression, tardily committed to 
 writing, of legends and myths which gradually 
 arose in the simple minds of the first Christians. 
 However this may be, it is a historical problem 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 173 
 
 of the most complex and difficult kind. We are 
 examining, comparing, criticising. Pickaxe in 
 hand, we are clearing the ground. Afterwards, 
 we shall amass materials, and if ever we succeed 
 in constructing a solid edifice, your remotest 
 posterity will thank us for the shelter.” Thank 
 you ! Until then, we think it will be wise to 
 suspend our judgment. 
 
 Be re-assured, my brethren; I do not propose 
 
 \ 
 
 to give you the spectacle of a learned passage 
 of arms. This redoubtable figure that we have 
 just called up before us is nothing but a phantom. 
 We have nothing to do with it. Let learning 
 make its attacks and defend itself in the arena of 
 learning. There it will find equals to cope with. 
 We must have books for adversaries, and thank 
 God, the contest will not cease for lack of com¬ 
 batants. Let it suffice us, then, to learn, that from 
 this quarter, the news is good. The triumphs of 
 truth do not always belong to those who make the 
 most noise. 
 
 Metaphor apart, the question which occupies us 
 
174 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 is not one of erudition; it is purely a question of 
 common sense and judgment, entirely within the 
 capacity of poor laymen like ourselves. Observe 
 that it is a question of fact—of a fact reduced to 
 its most simple expression. Was Jesus Christ 
 raised? Yes or No? Now, the fact rests upon 
 evidence entirely sheltered from the attacks of 
 learning—and this is admitted even by learning 
 itself, and that of the most advanced kind. It 
 must not be forgotten that the resurrection of 
 Jesus Christ was preached long before the com¬ 
 pilation of the sacred text, the date of which is 
 discussed, and the details criticised. The letters 
 written by the apostles, and which were only one 
 form of their preaching, make a faith of it, and 
 have an irrefragable apologetic value. 
 
 Bossuet brought forward this consideration. He 
 says, with much good sense: “The epistles of St. 
 Paul alone, so animated, so original, so full of the 
 time, and of the affairs and interests that existed 
 then—in a word, of so marked a character; these 
 epistles, I say, received by the churches to which 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 175 
 
 they were addressed, and by them communicated 
 to other churches, should suffice to convince 
 candid minds that all is sincere and original in 
 the writings left us by the apostles.” 
 
 This is true in a general way, and how much 
 more in particular for all that concerns the resur¬ 
 rection of Jesus Christ. 
 
 From among the epistles of the great apostle, I 
 select one, up to this time absolutely undisputed; 
 the first to the Corinthians. I open the 15th 
 chapter, and this is what I read. Paul recalls to 
 his readers the ministry which he had exercised 
 among them, and the teaching by which he had 
 brought them to the faith. He says: “For I 
 delivered unto you that which I also received ; 
 how that Christ died for our sins according to the 
 Scriptures: and that he was buried, and that he 
 rose again the third day according to the Scrip¬ 
 tures; and that he was seen of Cephas, then 
 of the twelve: after that he was seen of above 
 five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater 
 part remain unto this present, but some are 
 
176 
 
 THE SON OF MAN . 
 
 fallen asleep. After that he was seen of James, 
 then of all the apostles. And last of all he was 
 seen of me also, as of one born out of due 
 time.”* 
 
 What do you say to this passage, taken indiffer¬ 
 ently from among a hundred others ? Do you not 
 find in these words, written twenty years after the 
 event, by an eye-witness, invoking the testimony 
 of five hundred other eye-witnesses known to 
 him; do you not find in these words the most 
 simple and indisputable confirmation of all that 
 the book of the Acts narrates to us of the preaching 
 of the first apostles ? This is so plain that every 
 one agrees in it. “This is the entire teaching of 
 the apostles,” says one of the most learned authors, 
 but also one of the most advanced in the path of 
 negations. “This is the entire teaching of the 
 Apostles; the book of Acts has preserved it for us 
 in an elementary and simple form: ‘ You have 
 killed the Christ,’ said the disciples to the Jews; 
 ‘but God has released Him from the tomb, to 
 
 # 1 Cor xv. 3—8. 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 177 
 
 raise Him up to the heavens.’” You understand 
 this is the entire teaching of the Apostles ! 
 
 Have I not a right to say to you, after such an 
 admission from learning, that we can now very 
 well dispense with it for a moment, and may 
 politely beg it to retire? It has put us in pos¬ 
 session of a gift, the value of which we can appre¬ 
 ciate without its help, and from which we know 
 what conclusions to draw. It only requires a 
 little attention and candour, things which the 
 least member of the flock, a merchant, or a man 
 of the world, is quite as capable of possessing, 
 and is as competent to exercise, as the most con¬ 
 summate critic, or the most profound philosopher. 
 Go, then, ye learned men, and attend to your own 
 affairs, while you leave ours to us. We will call 
 you again if we want you. But, of all things, do 
 not come and throw the dust of your libraries in 
 our eyes, for we feel ourselves to be in the presence 
 of one of those things which God, in His wisdom, 
 has seen fit to make especially plain to straight¬ 
 forwardness and honesty, and these we possess as 
 
 N 
 
i 7 8 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 well as you. The question for us, is to prove the 
 historic evidence of a fact. In order to render an 
 inquiry as impartial as possible, we will at present 
 consider neither the supernatural nor religious 
 character of the event. Let us divest our minds 
 of all prejudice of whatsoever kind. 
 
 We are investigating an event of past times, 
 which does not more personally interest us, is 
 nothing more to us than some celebrated battle, 
 or some famous incident of antiquity. 
 
 All historic certainty rests upon two grounds: 
 testimony on the one hand ; on the other the re¬ 
 lation of the event to the course of contemporary 
 history. Thus, you believe that Julius Caesar 
 was assassinated in the senate of Rome, just when 
 he was about to possess himself of absolute power. 
 Why? 
 
 First, because you know that the historians 
 who have reported this tragic end to us, were able 
 to receive the narrative from eye-witnesses, whose 
 veracity you have no reason to suspect. Next, 
 because this violent and premature death is woven 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 179 
 
 so naturally into the woof of contemporary history, 
 it is in such close relation to what goes before 
 and after, that if by any possibility you could be 
 assured that Caesar was not assassinated, you 
 would find yourselves in the presence of an 
 enigma. 
 
 To ask any other proofs than these of a fact, 
 would be simply absurd. And when these two 
 proofs are found together with a certain degree of 
 authenticity, they corroborate each other, and 
 produce upon the mind a conviction which gener¬ 
 ally places the event beyond the reach of doubt. 
 
 Now, apply this double inquiry to the resur¬ 
 rection of Jesus Christ. Have we in this case 
 witnesses worthy of credit ? To put the question 
 is to answer it. 
 
 Recall to your minds the passage from St. Paul 
 which I quoted just now. “ It must be,” says 
 Pascal, “that the apostles were either deceivers 
 or deceived.” 
 
 Deceived! When five hundred persons—if it 
 were twelve only—when twelve persons sound in 
 
THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 180 
 
 body and mind, capable of the coolest observation, 
 I may say pre-occupied with ideas the most con- 
 tradictary to the fact; when twelve persons tell 
 us that they have seen, and not only so but heard, 
 and not only that but touched; when their testi¬ 
 mony is accompanied by such narratives as the 
 conversion of St. Thomas, and the restoration of 
 St. Peter. If they do not speak truth, they must 
 be liars indeed. 
 
 Deceivers ! My brethren, you know them, you 
 have seen them at their work, they are your 
 brothers, your friends. Will you give them the 
 lie ? Ah ! the whole Roman senate which attests 
 the death of Caesar, is not to be compared for 
 weight of character, to one of these men so candid 
 and so tried, whose names are St. Peter, St. John, 
 and St. James; who carry their sincerity so far 
 that they tell us of their doubts before they tell us 
 of their faith, and who take care to inform us of 
 their weaknesses and their prejudices, before 
 telling us of their greatness and their heroism. 
 Besides, is it not an insult to their martyrdom to 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 181 
 
 suspect their good faith ? One blushes to think of 
 it. Pascal says again on this point : “I believe 
 witnesses who incur the danger of death.” Do 
 you say that martyrdom does not always prove 
 the truth of a doctrine ? So do I. People give 
 their lives for error as well as for truth, when they 
 mistake error for truth. 
 
 But it is not a question now of the truth of a 
 doctrine; it is a question pure and simple of the 
 sincerity of witnesses; it is a question whether 
 the apostles died guilty of flagrant imposture; it 
 is a question whether they endured all the labours 
 of their apostleship, and the tortures of martyr¬ 
 dom for the absurd obstinacy of repeating every¬ 
 where and during the whole of their lives, that 
 they had seen with their own eyes what they had 
 not seen. It is a question whether St. Paul had 
 been lying all his life, when he said in prospect of 
 martyrdom : “ Of the hope and resurrection of the 
 dead I am called in question.”* “ But none of 
 these things move me, so that I might finish my 
 
 -r* 
 
 Acts xxiii. 6. 
 
THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 132 
 
 course with joy, and the ministry which I have 
 received of the Lord.”* 
 
 It is a question whether they all agreed to lie 
 all their lives, when, threatened with death for 
 their testimony, they replied, by the mouth of St. 
 Peter, to the Sanhedrim, which only commanded 
 them to be quiet: “ We ought to obey God rather 
 than men. The God of our fathers raised up 
 Jesus; and we are his witnesses of these things.”+ 
 
 I ask every sincere man, and every well-con¬ 
 stituted mind, whether in the history of the 
 human race, there is any fact so well attested as 
 the resurrection of Jesus Christ ? 
 
 But, as we have said, the most credible testi¬ 
 mony is not the only condition of historic evidence. 
 However faithfully we may believe a fact to have 
 been reported, it only acquires the highest confir¬ 
 mation, when it comes before us so closely con¬ 
 nected with what precedes and follows it, that it 
 offers the most natural explanation of it. The 
 materials of history are like the materials of a 
 # Acts xx. 24. f Acts v. 29, 30, 32. 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 183 
 
 building. They support each other reciprocally 
 in such a manner, that if one piece is wanting all 
 the rest are affected by it. They call the absent 
 to account. It is a testimony of another sort, a 
 blind and necessary testimony of things by the 
 side of the free and intelligent testimony of men. 
 After the proof it is a counterproof. Now, has the 
 event which we are considering received this con¬ 
 firmation ? Does it take its place in history like 
 a link of a chain ? Does it accord with what 
 
 t x 
 
 precedes and follows it ? 
 
 May I not say in this case also, to ask the 
 question is to answer it ? The place of the resur¬ 
 rection of Jesus Christ among the events which 
 accompany it! It is like the key-stone of an 
 arch. Its place is such, that with it perfect 
 equilibrium is maintained; take it away and 
 everything is disjointed and disturbed. Whether 
 you consider the prophecies of the Old Testa¬ 
 ment, their strange paradoxes, their inexplicable 
 contradictions, the mysterious antithesis of a 
 servant of the Lord, in turn, cut off out of the 
 
THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 184 
 
 land of the living and prolonging His days; 
 satisfied with the travail of His soul, after having 
 made His soul an offering for sin, taken from 
 prison and from judgment, afterwards to found 
 the universal kingdom of righteousness and peace; 
 whether you consider the life of the Son of Man, 
 this surprising confidence in the power of His 
 death, to bring about the triumph of all His plans; 
 this incomprehensible pre-occupation which made 
 Him invariably postpone His glory, and the ac¬ 
 complishment of His promises until after His 
 apparent defeat, by a real descent into the sepul¬ 
 chre ; whether you consider the despair of the 
 disciples, and their re-assurance after the short 
 space of three days, which seemed to place upon 
 them alone all the weight of destiny; or the 
 prodigy of the establishment of Christianity by 
 the simple proclamation of the Son of Man as' 
 the Son of God, by the power of His resurrection 
 from the dead:—without this royal and primor¬ 
 dial fact, each of these facts becomes but a 
 problem, and each series of facts a series of in- 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 185 
 
 soluble problems. Suppress the resurrection of 
 Jesus Christ, you will decapitate history; and 
 not only contemporary history, but in truth, 
 universal history also. 
 
 9 
 
 You will see, that I shall never finish if I enter 
 into the details of this demonstration. It is a 
 work for your leisure. I will only bring forward 
 one point by way of example, to give you an idea 
 of the value of considerations of this sort. I ask 
 how you will explain the faith of the first preachers 
 of the Gospel, if you take away from this faith 
 the basis of the fact which they proclaim. You 
 will not accuse me of exaggerating the terms of 
 a problem, by an artifice of declamation. I quote 
 from an opponent, one of those who has wandered 
 the furthest in the lost paths of the negative 
 science, but also one of the most sincere, the 
 most serious, and most profoundly respectable 
 even in his wanderings.* This is the exposition: 
 
 “ Let us imagine, if we can, the state of mind 
 of the little flock of believers on the evening of 
 
 * Scherer. 
 
THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 186 
 
 the day of their Master’s execution, the day 
 after the crucifixion. What a blow! What a 
 shipwreck of illusions! They had placed all 
 their hopes upon the meek preacher of Galilee. 
 
 “Jesus had given Himself out as the Messiah, 
 and they had naively believed His declaration. 
 They were sure that their Master would, sooner 
 or later, cause His character to be recognised, 
 and that He would be carried with acclamation 
 to a throne. They saw in Him a Monarch in 
 disguise, the inheritor of the magnificent promises 
 of God. A few weeks, a little patience, and they 
 will see the wonders of the last days. They 
 will themselves participate in these honours— 
 but no, all this is but a dream; the critical 
 moment has arrived, and Jesus has succumbed. 
 Instead of being enthroned, He has been executed 
 —He is dead. You comprehend, He is dead 
 who was to have lived for ever. He who was 
 to have reigned in more than earthly glory has 
 perished upon a cross, like the worst of criminals. 
 It is not much that He is dead, His promises 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 187 
 
 have perished with Him. Poor disciples, He 
 has deceived you. You would be happy if you 
 had only lost the head of the family, the friend, 
 the revered master. But you have not even the 
 consolation of admiring Him; you are compelled 
 to doubt Him, to regard Him as insane, even 
 as an imposter. 
 
 “ Three days have passed, days of sorrow and 
 shame, of which we can form no idea; three days 
 have passed away and all is changed! These 
 same men, yesterday confounded and in despair, 
 doubting Christ, God, and themselves, these same 
 men have regained everything. They believe 
 again, and more firmly than ever. They triumph. 
 Henceforward nothing can shake them. And this 
 conviction which they have themselves, they will 
 succeed in communicating to others. Listen, O 
 world ! Thou art going to hear accents of per¬ 
 suasion so irresistible, that thou wilt have to 
 end by submitting to them. 
 
 “Such was the day after the crucifixion, and 
 such the day after that. What, then, had passed 
 
188 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 between these two moments ? ” Here common 
 sense seems to have forsaken our author, and 
 replies with us; the resurrection, the real fact, 
 the palpable, brilliant miracle of the resurrection, 
 which has been fully confirmed. What would 
 you put in its place ? Listen, I quote again : “ It 
 appears that the tomb in which the body of Jesus 
 had been placed, was found empty—this empty 
 sepulchre became a ray of light for the disciples.” 
 In plain language, they worship and believe ! 
 They worship, and “henceforth nothing can shake 
 them.” 
 
 They worship—“ Listen, O world! thou art 
 going to hear accents of persuasion so irresistible, 
 that thou wilt have to end by submitting to them.” 
 
 These men, “confounded, in despair, doubting 
 Christ, God, and themselves”—“ a ray of light at an 
 empty tomb”—“ and they have regained everything. 
 They believe again, and more firmly than ever. 
 They triumph ! ” It is this ray of light which will 
 guide them to the conquest of the world. This is 
 the ray of light that will not be extinguished by 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 189 
 
 oceans of blood! This is the ray of light which 
 will sweep away the temples of the false gods, 
 which will make kings tremble on their thrones, 
 will change the course of history, decide the 
 destiny of nations, will judge the world, and 
 renew the face of the earth. This is the ray of 
 light which will traverse the ages and the universe 
 from east to west, raising man to the heavens, 
 and shedding upon the earth, as the least of its 
 benefits, the boasted marvel of modern civilisation. 
 What think you of this ray of light, my brethren ? 
 
 I have seen the star of day arrived at the end of 
 his course, descend to the horizon to lay himself 
 down on his sepulchre. Nature, which contem¬ 
 plates it, appears as if immediately drawn down 
 with it. Dense shadows spread over its inanimate 
 face, engulfing soon the highest summits of the 
 mountains, and rendering darkness itself visible 
 in the depths of “those unknown spaces whose 
 eternal silence terrifies thought.”* At the same 
 time life itself seems dried up at its source. 
 
 * Pascal. 
 
THE SON OF MAN . 
 
 190 
 
 Man himself becomes benumbed, and sleeps. It 
 is night, sister of death, when no man can work. 
 But soon, on the opposite side of the abyss, we 
 see one peak gilded with light, then another, and 
 another. What is happening? See in the distance 
 waves of light, which descend and spread over the 
 sides of the mountains, rush into the valleys, and 
 spread themselves like a flood; then suddenly they 
 send their rapid messengers to the ends of the 
 earth with this appeal: “Awake! awake! ye who 
 sleep, and arise from among the dead!” The 
 earth opens its eyes, all the sounds of life are 
 heard again, man goes forth from his dwelling, 
 the birds sing, creation breaks forth again with its 
 joyous hymn of life. What, then, has happened? 
 Nothing, I tell you. Perhaps a dream of light 
 while you slept. Anything you like, except the 
 rising of the sun. 
 
 I say, my brethren, that the resurrection of 
 Jesus Christ, attested by witnesses worthy of all 
 credit, is the best explanation of the chain of 
 historic events amidst which it took place. I say, 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 191 
 
 therefore, that it unites in the highest degree the 
 two conditions which establish the evidence of a 
 past event. I say, indeed, that if it were a 
 question of any other event of the sort which 
 make up the annals of humanity, we should hold 
 any mind desperately obstinate which refused to 
 adopt this conclusion. 
 
 Why, then, will you not believe in the resur¬ 
 rection of Jesus Christ? Because it is a super¬ 
 natural event? Ah, here we have the word pro¬ 
 nounced at last. Supernatural! After this word, 
 people will listen to nothing more, it is an answer 
 to everything. I really believe it is a method 
 adopted to oppose all demonstration, and to be 
 thrown, in case of need, in the face of evidence 
 itself. 
 
 We must take care what we are about when 
 we handle such weapons. 
 
 Is there or is there not a supernatural order, 
 above that which in our stammering ignorance 
 we call the natural order ? This is nothing less 
 
THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 192 
 
 than the gravest question which has agitated the 
 mind of man since there was a mind of man to 
 agitate, for it is really the question of religion. 
 When we speak of religion, we speak of relation; 
 relation between whom, I ask, if it is not between 
 the inferior and dependent order of nature, and 
 the supernatural and sovereign order which the 
 mind conceives as above nature? Is this superior 
 order a reality, a possible object of some kind of 
 religion? Does it imply free interference with the 
 conditions of natural order, the indispensable con¬ 
 dition of all religion ? 
 
 These are questions into which I shall not 
 enter. The brains of metaphysicians are used 
 to them, while mankind in general gives an 
 affirmative answer which also has its weight. 
 But I will console those who do not recoil from 
 the admission of a supernatural event, by telling 
 them that they are in good company. There 
 are great minds, you need not doubt, among the 
 number of those who acknowledge that the 
 Father of Spirits has the power to work miracles, 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 193 
 
 which signify wonderful things, even the resur¬ 
 rection of His Son. Are there, on the other 
 hand, minds equally great, geniuses equally 
 profound, who have demonstrated to themselves 
 the necessary immobility of the Highest, so that 
 they have reduced the Creator to be no more, 
 as has been said, than the “ contemplative 
 servant of the works of His right hand ? ” It 
 may be so. But, after all, it is not a question 
 of great minds or profound genius; it is a 
 question for us, my brethren, who simply belong 
 to the class of thinking beings. If the reasons 
 for our opinions are not particularly profound, 
 they are ours nevertheless, and therefore the only 
 ones that it suits us to examine and weigh 
 attentively. What are they ? Why do we say 
 that the admission of a supernatural event, such as 
 the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is repugnant to us ? 
 
 We say so because of the infirmity of our faith, 
 of faith in everything that is raised above the 
 earth, faith in the invisible, faith in the strict 
 sense of the word. Shut up in the prison of our 
 
 o 
 
194 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 five senses, we make what we can see and touch, 
 the measure of what is. 
 
 We take our infinitely small, our microscopic 
 every-day experience, for the normal condition 
 of things. We call this good sense ! Yes, if that 
 is good which draws us downwards. It is the 
 good sense which Vinet somewhere calls, “the 
 inspirer of the most commonplace moments of 
 life, and the genius of the dullest members of 
 society.” 
 
 We talk of the implicit faith of the ignorant. 
 Do you not suppose that they also have their 
 incredulity ? Go and tell one of them that the 
 earth turns round the sun, he will shrug his 
 shoulders. Does he not see that it is just the 
 contrary ? Go and tell him that three thousand 
 miles away there are people walking with the 
 heavens beneath their heads and the earth above 
 their feet; he will be angry, and probably ask you 
 if you take him for a simpleton. We are all 
 more or less infected with this vice; we do not 
 like to believe what we cannot see. Well, be it 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 195 
 
 so. Only we must be willing to go where this 
 leads us. And take care that you do not strain 
 at the gnat and swallow the camel. 
 
 You have not witnessed the resurrection of 
 Jesus Christ, nor have I; then we will not believe 
 it; this is what is said. But, on the other hand, 
 it is understood that we believe what we do see. 
 Now I am going to tell you what I see, and 
 which you must see also. 
 
 Jesus conceived a plan. He understood the 
 execution of it, and it has been carried out with 
 the most complete success. 
 
 In order to make this clearer, I quote from an 
 illustrious author, Bourdaloue, who in his turn 
 quotes St. Augustine: “When Jesus Christ, at 
 the age of thirty years, after an obscure and 
 hidden life, willed at length to manifest Himself 
 to the world and to preach to it an entirely new 
 law, to what did He aspire ? To the most 
 astonishing thing, to nothing less than to creating 
 a new world, to abolishing superstitions more 
 ancient than the memory of man, with which the 
 
196 
 
 THE SON OF MAN 
 
 people held that all their happiness was con¬ 
 nected, which they preserved like the heritage 
 of their fathers, for which they fought with more 
 ardour than for their lives, which they considered 
 to be the foundation of their republics and their 
 states. It was necessary to bring them to re¬ 
 nounce errors which the custom of almost every 
 age had sanctioned, which were supported by 
 the example of all nations, which favoured all the 
 interests of nature, and the possession of which 
 could not be disturbed without almost disturbing 
 the universe. This was what had to be pulled 
 down. But what was it that had to be built up ? 
 An austere and inconvenient law, a blind faith, 
 a religion contrary to all the inclinations of the 
 flesh. What an enterprise ! and what was 
 necessary to the achievement of it ? It was 
 necessary that He should be exposed to having 
 all the powers of earth for enemies,—the wisdom 
 of politicians, the authority of sovereigns, the 
 cruelty of tyrants, the zeal of idolators, the im¬ 
 piety of atheists. 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 197 
 
 “ ‘ If then,’ ” says St. Augustine, “ ‘Jesus Christ, 
 before taking the first step towards the execution 
 of this great design, had communicated with one 
 of the philosophers of that age, a man of good 
 sense and judgment, had opened His mind to 
 him, telling him besides that He would not 
 avail Himself of any of the means dictated by 
 human prudence, that He would rely neither 
 upon credit nor riches, learning nor eloquence, 
 would not this philosopher have treated the enter¬ 
 prise as a chimera and a folly? Nevertheless, 
 this is what was done, this is the marvel that we 
 are contemplating.’” 
 
 What is to be said now ? Alone with His 
 secret thoughts, with a superhuman skill and 
 foresight that confounds us, He succeeded in 
 destroying the indulgent and ancient superstitions 
 which humanity had invented for itself, and 
 which were a shelter at once for its aspirations, 
 its inclinations, and its vices ; and in substituting 
 something else fashioned with infinite skill, 
 taking possession of souls and moulding them at 
 
198 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 will, attracting them at first, to subjugate them 
 afterwards to its yoke. 
 
 He succeeded in making men believe in a living, 
 free, and holy God, whose apparently singular and 
 
 capricious decrees must be adored by all as the 
 
 « 
 
 unquestionable decrees of wisdom itself; whose 
 goodness must be praised even in the lowest depths 
 of suffering and distress. He succeeded in making 
 men believe in a life to come, inaugurated by a 
 terrible judgment leading to an eternity of joy or 
 an eternity of pain, for which, therefore, every¬ 
 thing here below must be sacrificed. 
 
 He succeeded in imposing a life of renunciation 
 
 \ 
 
 and of self-sacrifice, quite as contrary to nature 
 as all the prodigies called miracles. He suc¬ 
 ceeded in commanding even for His person an 
 unheard-of respect, in causing Supernatural powers 
 to be attributed to Him, and even in causing 
 Himself to be worshipped in consequence of an 
 asserted resurrection. For the establishment of 
 this doctrine He caused oceans of blood to flow, 
 and whose blood ? The blood of His disciples ! 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 199 
 
 But a living God, a life to come, a retribution, 
 a resurrection: all these are things which we 
 cannot see, which are never seen; empty phan¬ 
 toms, therefore, on which we have but to breathe 
 to cause them to disappear with the rest. You 
 cannot believe what you cannot see ! What do 
 you see now in the success of the enterprise of 
 Jesus Christ? Henceforth you will only be able 
 to see one thing in it; the most cruel and the 
 most colossal mystification* Humanity is the 
 victim of the darkest enterprise, conducted with 
 the most consummate perfidy. It struggles under 
 the pressure of I know not what power from 
 without, of a veritable vampire which has at¬ 
 tached itself to its soul to devour it. It is beset 
 by a dream which it cannot dissipate, and to 
 which, meanwhile, in its naive illusion it sacrifices 
 everything. Oh! what has not already been 
 sacrificed to it! 
 
 I do not know what impression this view 
 
 produces on your minds. As for me, when I 
 
 \ 
 
 lend my ear to those words whose simple depth 
 
200 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 rends my heart: “ If in this life only we have 
 hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable,”* 
 I turn involuntarily to the form of Jesus Christ, 
 and I see Him clothed with a new greatness, 
 equal to the first, but this time it chills and 
 frightens me. It is not merely an impostor that 
 I see before me; it is the genius, what shall I 
 say ? the very god of imposture. 
 
 Rouse yourselves, you whom He still seduces. 
 I remind you of the sighs, the tears, the blood 
 which He has already drawn from millions of our 
 brethren, and raising the standard of a holy 
 revolt, I exclaim with you : “ If there is yet time, 
 let us crush this infamous person.” 
 
 You will not have supernatural light ? 
 
 On the strength of this evidence, which places 
 the soul of man, as regards Jesus Christ, in the 
 alternative of absolute hatred or entire adoration, 
 I draw you after me, and will not permit you to 
 stop till you are in supernatural darkness ! You 
 will cry out against this, I know. You will ask 
 
 * i Cor. xv. 19. 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 201 
 
 me, as if I had robbed you of your property, for 
 those shreds of the doctrine of Jesus Christ, of 
 His moral teaching, of His work, which you 
 profess to preserve, although they can really no 
 longer be maintained on the principle on which 
 you reject His resurrection. 
 
 You will not believe what you have not seen; 
 still you believe in a personal God whom you have 
 mot seen. You will not believe in what you have 
 not seen; but still you believe in a life to come, 
 which no man has ever seen. You will not 
 believe in what you have not seen; but, never¬ 
 theless, you believe in a plan of wisdom and 
 goodness contradicted every day by what you see. 
 You are ready to believe in all these things, yet 
 you argue against a fact on account of its super¬ 
 natural character—supernatural it is, it is true 
 like the rest; but on account of its supreme im¬ 
 portance in comparison with the rest, God has 
 willed that it alone shall be attested by witnesses 
 most worthy of credit, and that it shall reach you 
 supported on the basis of the most convincing 
 
202 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 historic certainty ! Oh ! rare, admirable, sublime 
 inconsequence! 
 
 Who knows whether we must not say that you 
 will not believe, precisely because you are afraid 
 of seeing too much or too clearly. In any case it 
 is impossible that you can have escaped the im¬ 
 pression which pierces the soul like a sword: If 
 Christ is raised—God! He is God ! I have seen 
 Him, He has passed, He was there ! Yes,, my 
 brethren, if Christ is raised, God is there, He is 
 in Christ, He has looked upon, He has en¬ 
 lightened, I had almost said He has judged the 
 earth ! If Christ is raised, death is but a veil, 
 man lives again behind it. A future awaits him, 
 no more doubts, no more uncertainty, no more 
 excuses! If Christ is raised, all the words of 
 Christ are raised with him. They shine as true 
 words of life beyond and above time. Let heaven 
 and earth pass away; henceforth the words of 
 Christ will not pass away! If Christ is raised, 
 all the invisible world is filled with light. 
 It is like the brightness of the sun suddenly 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 203 
 
 breaking forth after the feeble light of the 
 stars. 
 
 / 
 
 Now, we do not like too much light for our 
 souls. Twilight suits us better. A little light 
 for the invisible guest which reminds us of im¬ 
 mortality, but a little darkness also for the vulgar 
 inhabitant of earth who wishes to enjoy life while 
 he holds it. A little light for prudent foresight 
 for to-morrow, but a little darkness for the press¬ 
 ing desires of to-day. 
 
 There is that in us which would die in total 
 darkness, but there is also that in us which would 
 die in perfect light. 
 
 And if we do not wish that our souls should 
 perish, neither do we wish that sin should perish. 
 I have named it, sin; that is to say, the lust of the 
 flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, 
 the love of this world, whether it be empty and 
 frivolous, vulgar or refined; sin; that is to say, 
 earth, time, ourselves, the present age, interest, 
 ambition, idleness, the bondage of habit, and the 
 bondage of opinion. Sin ! it is this which’ closes 
 
204 
 
 \ 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 our eyes to evidence, and our hearts to the most 
 touching appeals; this it is which perpetually 
 throws shadows on the too brilliant points of 
 truth; this is what now disparages the august 
 form of Christ, now banishes it into inaccessible 
 heights, rejects, effaces it, tries to render it in¬ 
 tangible for fear of being seized by it. 
 
 This it is which, after having vainly tried during 
 the course of ages, to rob Him of the crown of His 
 divinity or of the garments of His humanity, has 
 now changed its tactics, and concentrates all its 
 efforts on the resurrection, knowing that to deny 
 Him this glory, at once human and divine, is to 
 deny Him all the rest. It is sin, the old tempter; 
 this is the enemy that I have long been seeking. 
 I have discovered him at last, I see and recognise 
 him. 
 
 But in face of this well-armed adversary whom 
 I have just unmasked, I confess that I feel myself 
 all at once powerless, all my strength has vanished, 
 all my resources are exhausted; there are no more 
 arguments in my mind, nor expedients in my 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 205 
 
 faculties, no more words ; my arms fall down by 
 my side, and I acknowledge myself vanquished. 
 And if instead of the feeble champion of truth, 
 who, after fighting according to his strength, 
 avows himself defeated, you had before you in this 
 chair, one of the masters of language, even were 
 he the very genius of language, arrived at this 
 point, in prospect of the final encounter, even he 
 would have to surrender arms and commence a 
 retreat. 
 
 When sin holds the ground, my brethren, there 
 is neither man nor angel, there is no power 
 either in heaven or earth, capable of convincing 
 an understanding, or of persuading a heart so 
 well guarded. God alone can then carry on the 
 contest, God alone can gain the victory. 
 
 We were speaking of the supernatural. It is 
 here especially that we must do so. But I believe 
 in the supernatural, I believe in it with all my 
 heart. 
 
 And this is why I have asked of God to take 
 His own cause in hand, and to gain Himself this 
 
206 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 victory over you, which I know beforehand that I 
 shall have to renounce. 
 
 Would that I could, in my acknowledged and 
 demonstrated weakness, give you an idea of the 
 ineffable privileges that await you in faith, in a 
 Saviour “ who was delivered for our offences, 
 and was raised again for our justification. ”* 
 Ah ! if our lost souls require a spirit of regenera¬ 
 tion, our regenerate souls require no less an 
 assurance of resurrection. They want a guide in 
 traversing the narrow defiles of death. I have 
 presented this Guide to you. How well He has 
 been selected! It is precisely He whom our 
 hearts would have demanded. 
 
 Admire the infinite wisdom and the infinite 
 goodness of God in the adorable prodigy of His 
 infinite power. Was it not natural, was it not in 
 order that the Son of Man, the Holy One and the 
 Just, the Man of Sorrows, the hero, the victim, 
 He who voluntarily plunged into the darkness of 
 condemnation, by holiness, by love to sound its 
 
 * Romans iv. 25. 
 
THE RISEN ONE. 
 
 2 07 
 
 depths, and to confront its terrors in our stead, 
 was it not divinely wise that He should also be 
 the real initiator for us of the evidences of im¬ 
 mortality ? Was it not for the Prince of Life, 
 the second Adam, who came to expiate the 
 
 miseries of the first, by plunging with him into 
 
 • 
 
 the regions of the dead, to find for him the lost 
 path to life ? We find this so just, so consequent, 
 
 so natural (I purposely repeat the word), that we 
 
 \ 
 
 cannot comprehend how it could have been other¬ 
 wise. Contemplating His death, we await His 
 resurrection. Contemplating His resurrection, we 
 await our own, as if we beheld it already. We 
 who are quickened with Christ, do we not also 
 feel ourselves, as St. Paul says, raised up together 
 with Him ? 
 
 Ah! if in reconciling us to death, He did 
 not also reconcile us to life, what would hinder 
 us from perpetually sighing with all our might 
 for the blessed hour of our departure ? Oh! 
 beyond ! beyond ! on the other side ! 
 
 Here we give up our lives, there we shall re- 
 
208 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 cover them! Here we sow in tears, there we 
 shall reap with songs of triumph ! Here we part 
 among the tombs, there we shall meet again in a 
 paradise of delights! Here we bear our crosses, 
 there we shall receive crowns of glory! Here we 
 die daily with Christ, there we shall eternally 
 reign with Him ! And what is it that separates 
 us yet in this sad present from this other side, so 
 much to be desired ? It is that which was once 
 most terrible and alarming. But henceforth all 
 is changed. 
 
 There was once a famous cape reputed to he 
 the fatal barrier to the navigation of the ocean. 
 Of all those whom the wind or the currents had 
 drawn into its waters, it was said that none had 
 reappeared. It was called the Cape of Storms. 
 A bold navigator determined to surmount the 
 obstacle. He opened the route to the East 
 Indies, acquired for his country the riches of the 
 world, and changed the Cape of Storms into the 
 Cape of Good Hope. 
 
 In this great, this glorious voyage to a happy 
 
THE RISEN ONE . 
 
 209 
 
 eternity which we are all taking, there will be in 
 one part a stormy cape to double. But let us 
 henceforth give it its true name. Christ re¬ 
 christened death on that day, when by death 
 itself He brought life and immortality to light. 
 
 p 
 
V. 
 
 C&e King. 
 
 “ Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a King then ? 
 Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a King. To this end 
 was I born .”—JoJm xviii. 37. 
 
 W E are arriving at the end of our study. 
 
 It only remains rapidly to sum up our 
 conclusions. And these conclusions are so plain, 
 that they shine by their own light. The Son 
 of Man, if I may use the expression, has proved 
 His thesis. He has come forth victorious, in the 
 most complete and absolute sense of the word, 
 from that threefold trial under which we all 
 succumb. The trial of sin by His perfection; 
 of suffering by His sacrifice; of death by His 
 
THE KING. 
 
 21 I 
 
 resurrection. The result of this victory is royalty. 
 
 If He had been extinguished in the grave, all 
 His promises and all our hopes would have been 
 extinguished with Him. To be raised again was 
 to receive and leave a testimony—the sovereign 
 testimony of God Himself. It was to affirm with 
 indisputable authority, that this present life is 
 not a comedy, which is over when the lights are 
 extinguished, but a solemn scene on which the 
 actual drama of eternity is represented. If Christ 
 were dead, we must do as the disciples did, go 
 back to our affairs with one reminiscence the 
 more, and one great illusion the less. If Christ 
 was raised, we must also do as they did; believe, 
 be converted, lose our lives that we may find 
 them. This was why the resurrection was con¬ 
 sidered the vital point in early times, and for 
 the dawning of eternal life on earth, it will ever 
 
 remain what air and light are for the blooming 
 
 » 
 
 of a flower. 
 
 Nevertheless, it was before the resurrection 
 that the words “ It is finished!” were pronounced. 
 
212 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 And in order fully to understand the consumma¬ 
 tion of the work of the Son of Man, which we 
 will try to give an account of to-day, we must 
 go back a few steps, and fix our attention on what 
 I have already called the culminating point in 
 His earthly career; on that extraordinary death 
 to which we have seen Him led, by the exigencies 
 even of His human perfection, expecting that 
 He will be led thence to a glorious eternity and 
 a definite triumph. 
 
 You have often observed that remarkable title 
 which was placed (need we say whether by His 
 blind enemies, or by His more clear-sighted 
 adorers?) over the head of Jesus on the cross. 
 There might be read in the three languages of 
 the world: “This is the King of the Jews.” 
 There are only three words too many in the 
 sentence. For strict truth, it would have been 
 sufficient to have written: “ This is the King.” 
 But the error is more apparent than real, for 
 the King whom the Jews expected, and who had 
 been promised to them, was not to be the King of 
 
THE KING. 
 
 213 
 
 their nation only, but the King of the whole earth. 
 All nations, according to the ancient prophecies, 
 were to range themselves under His banner. 
 
 Strange and paradoxical truth ! This Crucified 
 One is the King, in the true and absolute sense 
 of the word. The King of humanity, the King 
 of Kings. All the greatness before which men 
 have hitherto prostrated themselves, crumbles 
 into dust on the appearance of this new majesty. 
 The greatness of the gods is that which is most 
 abased. Where now are your altars, your sanc¬ 
 tuaries, your carved images, ye gods of Olympus 
 and the Pantheon, now that the growing shadow 
 of the cross of Golgotha covers the earth ? It 
 has been said with reason, that the gods departed 
 from the day when the Crucified One was lifted 
 up on His throne of ignominy. The greatness 
 of men is brought low also, for all greatness 
 which does not consist in self-renunciation, has 
 been convicted by it of folly and littleness, and 
 all true abnegation was but a distant homage 
 rendered to that unsurpassable prodigy of abnega- 
 
214 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 V % 
 
 tion. Before Him, indeed, everything is dimi¬ 
 nished or eclipsed. 
 
 And what is especially remarkable, is that 
 this is not an accidental co-incidence. The cross 
 is truly a throne. The Crucified One reigns 
 because He was crucified. By reason of the 
 constitution of the world, such as sin has made 
 it, it was necessary that He should be crucified. 
 
 Innocent humanity would not have prostrated 
 itself, regenerate humanity will not prostrate it¬ 
 self, except before a King of glory. Fallen 
 humanity, humanity in process of being raised 
 up, could only prostrate itself before a King of 
 sorrows and humiliations. It must not be said 
 that Christ reigns in spite of His cross, but in 
 virtue of it. He announced this Himself, with 
 a depth and accuracy of pre-vision which con¬ 
 founds the imagination, when He said at one 
 time to Nicodemus: “As Moses lifted up the 
 serpent in the wilderness, even so must the 
 Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever be- 
 lieveth in him should not perish, but have 
 
THE KING. 
 
 215 
 
 eternal life;”* and at another time to His disci- 
 
 * \ 
 
 pies: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, 
 will draw all men unto me.”+ 
 
 Some hours before this novel sort of elevation, 
 Pilate asked Him: “Art thou a King then?” 
 “ To this end was I born,” He replied, as if He 
 would say: “I am of royal rank; I have the 
 vocation to royalty; I only wait for the diadem 
 and the sceptre.” The day of His crucifixion 
 was, in fact, the day of His coronation; on that 
 day, contrary to their own intentions, the powers 
 of earth resigned Him and clothed Him with the 
 
 • f , 
 
 insignia of a new royalty, before which they were 
 all to bow down or to be crushed. The prophet 
 had said: “The kings of the earth take coun¬ 
 sel together, against the Lord and against his 
 anointed.• ' 
 They take counsel with infamy and contempt, 
 to crush Him whom they have rejected in their 
 blindness. 
 
 “Yet,” saith the Lord, “have I set my king 
 * John iii. 14, 15. + John xii. 32. J Psalm ii. 2. 
 
THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 2Ij5 
 
 upon my holy hill of Zion. I shall give thee 
 the heathen for thine inheritance, and the utter¬ 
 most parts of the earth for thy possession. Be 
 wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed 
 ye judges of the earth. Kiss the Son, lest he be 
 angry. Blessed are all they that put their trust 
 in him.”* 
 
 Now, this reign is nothing else than the realisa¬ 
 tion of His plan, as I explained it to you in the 
 first discourse. We will now consider successively, 
 the nature and duration of it. 
 
 I will define the nature of the reign of Jesus 
 Christ in one word:—Jesus Christ is the legiti¬ 
 mate sovereign of souls. 
 
 To say this, is especially to say that He only 
 exercises an empire by consent, freely accepted 
 by a people possessed of free will. Any idea of 
 constraint is contradictory to the idea of the 
 reign of Jesus Christ.* 
 
 There are in man three powers, which come 
 in turn to the foot of His cross, to render to Him 
 
 * Psalm ii. 6, 8, io, 12. 
 
 
THE KING. 
 
 217 
 
 the free homage of absolute submission. These 
 three powers constitute man. Whoever possesses 
 them, possesses the soul itself. He is master of 
 that kingdom. 
 
 Conscience is the first. It is the minister of 
 justice in the internal government of our lives. 
 It is this which proclaims the law of duty, and 
 enjoins the accomplishment of it. It may be 
 resisted, but not dethroned. It says to the 
 creature : “ Thou oughtest;—obey.” It is the 
 noblest and most precious relic of man, that 
 sublime monument of the past which Cicero has 
 so magnificently defined in his actual state, by 
 calling him a mind in ruins. It is to this that our 
 illustrious compatriot Jean-Jacques Rousseau bore 
 witness in these immortal words: “ Conscience, 
 conscience! divine instinct, immortal and celestial 
 voice; sure guide of an ignorant and shallow, 
 yet intelligent and free being; infallible judge 
 of good and evil, which renders man like to God. 
 Thou art the cause of the excellence of his 
 nature and the morality of his actions. Without 
 
2 l8 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 thee, I know of nothing that will raise me above 
 the beasts, except the melancholy privilege of 
 falling into error after error by the aid of an 
 understanding without a guide, and a reason 
 without principles.” 
 
 But at the foot of the cross every conscience 
 bows down, and has no wish but to be a docile 
 interpreter of the evidence which subjugates it. 
 It is silent, for it is endeavouring to comprehend 
 a new lesson which will supersede all others. 
 This extraordinary Being, crowned with righteous¬ 
 ness and infamy, dying because He loves us, 
 dying because we do not love Him, captivates, 
 moves, and troubles it, and draws forth sighs and 
 tears. We have seen the sinner weep in shame 
 and remorse, but the righteous, or he who 
 thought himself so, weeping tears of repentance 
 and love; it required the cross of Jesus Christ to 
 give such a spectacle to the world. 
 
 Now, some power of God stirs up the most 
 ancient memories, the most hidden thoughts, the 
 secret things of the soul, in such a manner as 
 
THE KING. 
 
 219 
 
 to cover with confusion the conscience of ap¬ 
 parently the most exemplary lives. Count up 
 the penitents who come here to smite upon their 
 breasts. You will meet together with the lowest 
 among men, the first among saints, and it will 
 not be the latter who will shed the least bitter 
 tears. You will no longer hear each one accusing 
 his brother, but each accusing himself, as if 
 desirous of finding himself the most guilty, of 
 obeying a novel sort of emulation. And really 
 this must be a strange spectacle to those who 
 have not the key to it. Here is St. Paul, the 
 most righteous and exemplary of the model 
 Pharisees, with the best opinion of himself, and 
 blessing God for his virtues. He meets upon his 
 way with the cross of Jesus Christ; immediately 
 he begins to speak of himself as the chief of 
 sinners, sold under sin, one in whom dwelleth no 
 good thing. And how often this has been re¬ 
 produced. As often as a soul is awakened to 
 salvation by the only name given amongst men, 
 Jesus Christ crucified, and in exact proportion to 
 
220 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 the earnestness and sincerity of the look fixed 
 upon Him. 
 
 But do not suppose that He wounds con¬ 
 sciences to break them. Another prodigy. He 
 only wounds in order to heal, just as a spirited 
 horse can only be trained by being subdued. 
 
 We said not long ago that there is no true 
 holiness here below, but a crucified holiness. 
 Before the cross of Jesus Christ this truth is 
 made plain to the conscience with the force of a 
 revelation or of a discovery, which suddenly takes 
 possession of it, and opens to it the prospect of 
 being raised up and perfected. 
 
 It passes in review the cruel drama of Calvary, 
 enters into it, takes part in it, and longs to share 
 the sorrows of the Man of Sorrows by being 
 crucified with Him. It longs to use the bold 
 expression of St. Paul : “ To fill up that which 
 is behind of the afflictions of Christ.”* 
 
 And in proportion as it plunges into this sacred 
 source, it learns in turn renunciation, by associating 
 
 * Col i. 24. 
 
THE KING. 
 
 221 
 
 itself with the abasement of the Son of Man; 
 submission, by associating itself with voluntary 
 submission ; the spirit of sacrifice, by associating 
 itself with this complete gift of Himself. As 
 Christ abases Himself, not by rejecting life but 
 by sanctifying it, the disciple will learn to use 
 this world as not abusing it, will know how to 
 bear poverty or riches, how to be abased and how 
 to abound, in whatsoever state he is, therewith 
 to be content. As Christ submitted to what was 
 apparently the most unjust dispensation, not as 
 to a blind necessity, but as to the wise will of 
 His Father, the disciple will see in everything the 
 holy will of the supreme Lord of circumstances; 
 and by the spirit in which he will accept the 
 most mysterious trials, he will know how to make 
 them conduce to his good no less surely than the 
 richest blessings. 
 
 As Christ summed up His entire work in the 
 gift of Himself, as He gave His life an oblation 
 for His own, and did not shrink from death to 
 save them from condemnation, the disciple will 
 
222 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 feel himself by degrees detached from self; he 
 will understand that charity consists in giving 
 his life, and that in Christ no man liveth to 
 himself, but to Christ; that is to say, for those 
 suffering members of His body whom He has 
 left us to seek out, to solace, and to save. 
 
 We shall see at length what was never yet seen. 
 We shall see the saint; an image always more or 
 less imperfect of a reality which presents itself 
 to the mind with perfect precision. Where is 
 the Christian so little advanced that he does not 
 say in the depths of his soul: “To me to live is 
 Christ ? ” 
 
 Ah ! we are far enough indeed, no doubt, from 
 this life, which is Christ. But, however far the 
 idea may be raised above us, in the recesses of 
 our minds, in our highest aspirations and our 
 thoughts, it appears clear, practicable, reasonable! 
 I do not appeal only to confirmed Christians, I 
 appeal to the indifferent, I appeal even to adver¬ 
 saries, and I draw from them this avowal, that 
 Christ is the light which lighteth every man that 
 
THE KING. 
 
 223 
 
 cometh into the world, a light which will never 
 be surpassed. He is to the conscience what 
 conscience is to man, He is the ruler of con¬ 
 sciences, let us say He is the ruler Himself of 
 humanity. He is seated upon the highest throne 
 within us, He reigns, and will never be dethroned. 
 
 A second centre in us is the heart; rarely in 
 accord with the conscience, indeed, habitually 
 at war with it. Jesus did not establish His 
 empire less legitimately over the heart; He reigns 
 by love, after having conquered by repentance. 
 
 Have you ever reflected on the unique and 
 touching phenomenon of the attachments which 
 the Son of Man inspired for His name and per¬ 
 son in the bosom of humanity. An illustrious 
 orator, Lacordaire, struck with the ephemeral 
 
 t 
 
 character of our affections, which even the best 
 of them appear to be only abortive attempts, 
 condemned to be dissolved sooner or later in 
 the cold shadows of the sepulchre, has taken 
 pleasure in bringing out in a page almost sublime, 
 the different character of those which Jesus has 
 
224 
 
 THE SON OF MAN 
 
 in all ages inspired. He says : “ There is a Man 
 whose ashes after eighteen centuries are not cold, 
 and who is born again daily in the thoughts of 
 an innumerable multitude of men. There is a 
 Man whose steps are followed by a considerable 
 portion of the human race without ever wearying, 
 and who, entirely disappeared though He be, 
 beholds Himself followed by this crowd into all 
 the scenes of His former pilgrimage. There is 
 a Man, dead and buried, whose sleeping and 
 waking are watched, whose every word vibrates 
 still, and produces more than love—produces 
 virtues which fructify in love. There is a Man 
 who was fastened, ages ago, to a gibbet, yet 
 millions of adorers take Him down every day 
 from the throne of His execution, kneel before 
 Him, prostrate themselves so low that the blood 
 rushes to their faces, and kiss His bleeding feet 
 with invincible ardour. There is a Man beaten, 
 killed, crucified, whom an unspeakable passion 
 resuscitates from death and infamy to enthrone 
 Him in the glory of an unfailing love, which 
 
THE KING. 
 
 225 
 
 finds in Him, peace, honour, joy, even to ecstasy. 
 There is a Man pursued in His execution and 
 in His tomb by an inextinguishable hatred, and 
 who, asking for apostles and martyrs among all 
 posterity, finds apostles and martyrs in the bosom 
 of all generations. In a word, there is a Man, 
 and He is the only one who has founded His 
 love upon earth; and this Man, it is Thou, O Jesus 
 —whose name, at this moment, moves me to 
 tenderness, and draws from me these accents 
 which trouble me and which I do not compre¬ 
 hend.” 
 
 This is the fact. It strikes us so little, because 
 we are so accustomed to contemplate it. But 
 a moment’s attention will render it wonderful. 
 
 To gain a heart, is it not one of the most 
 rare and difficult things? To gain the heart of 
 one man; to obtain an affection, not only of 
 caprice or interest, but the permanent gift, the 
 entire sacrifice of a heart—can we hope ever 
 really to attain it ? Imagine yourself the object 
 of this enterprise. Your heart is the conquest 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 to which one of your fellows aspires. What 
 art must he not employ in his approaches ! How 
 you will bargain for yourself. What inward 
 reserves you will make, inclining only to give 
 yourself conditionally, always ready to take your¬ 
 self back, which is really not to give yourself 
 at all. Then, how many influences will come 
 afterwards to wear out the sentiment; time, 
 habit, absence, presence, weariness, deception, 
 reciprocal exigencies. Let us make our confes¬ 
 sions without reserve, to bring out the glory of 
 the Saviour, who claims as His own the entire, 
 the absolute gift of our hearts, the heart of every 
 man in every age, and who succeeds in obtaining 
 them in the exact measure in which He succeeds 
 in convincing their consciences of sin, and in 
 raising them by sanctifying them. 
 
 But what attractions, what charms, what re¬ 
 sources unknown before, does He employ to work 
 this prodigy ? What attractions ? Does it not 
 appear as if He had engaged to clash with all 
 the inclinations, and to succeed against all the 
 
THE KING. 
 
 22 7 
 
 rules of love ? The prophet said of Him : “There 
 is no beauty that we should desire him.”* Never 
 was anything more truly said, to judge by the 
 natural and ordinary course of things. Men love 
 that which recalls the pleasures of sense; He 
 presents to them only images of mortification 
 and suffering. Men love beauty; He presents 
 to them a spectacle of horror. Men love suc¬ 
 cess, triumph; He offers them the spectacle 
 of a most humiliating defeat. And, nevertheless, 
 the heart of man is thus made. Beauty is a 
 great thing; but there is something for the 
 heart of man above the most striking beauty. 
 Natural affection is a great thing; but there is 
 something for the heart of man above the most 
 natural and tender affection. There is something 
 for the mother above her child; there is some¬ 
 thing for the wife above her husband. Enthusi¬ 
 asm for genius is a grand thing; we press upon 
 the steps of great men, we regard them with 
 an admiration almost superstitious; but there 
 
 * Isaiah liii. 2. 
 
228 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 is something for the heart of man greater than 
 the halo of the greatest men in the greatest 
 prestige of their glory. And what is this, then, 
 for the heart of man which is above everything 
 else ? Above everything else, my brethren, there 
 is the Crucified One. But above Thee, O Jesus, 
 for the heart of man, there is nothing. 
 
 It is well known how this consideration struck 
 the Emperor Napoleon, who so well understood 
 men. In the solitude of St. Helena, reviewing 
 the past and meditating on the history of the 
 most illustrious of the heroes of antiquity, and 
 comparing the sentiments which they inspired 
 with those which Jesus Christ inspired, he found 
 the contrast so great that he required nothing 
 more to convince him of the divine and super¬ 
 natural character of Jesus Christ. He says: 
 
 The Christ speaks, and henceforth generations 
 attach themselves to Him, by bonds closer and 
 more intimate than those of blood, by a union 
 more sacred and more imperious than any other 
 union whatever. 
 
THE KING. 
 
 229 
 
 “ He lights the torch of a love which causes 
 self-love to die, which prevails above every other 
 love. The founders of other religions had not 
 even an idea of this mystic love, which constitutes 
 the essence of Christianity under the beautiful 
 name of charity. It is because they were not 
 inclined to run themselves aground. It is be¬ 
 cause in the task of making himself beloved, 
 man has a profound conviction of his powerless¬ 
 ness. Thus, without contradiction, the greatest 
 miracle of Christ is the reign of love. All those 
 who sincerely believe in Him, feel this wonder¬ 
 ful supernatural love ; inexplicable phenomenon, 
 impossible to the reason or strength of man: 
 sacred lire kindled upon earth by this new Pro¬ 
 metheus, of which time, the great destroyer, can 
 neither lessen the force nor limit the duration. 
 
 “As for me, Napoleon, this is what I admire 
 the most, because I have often thought of it, and 
 this is what proves conclusively to me the divinity 
 of Christ.” 
 
 At length, the last power of man, that of the 
 
230 
 
 THE SON OF MAN . 
 
 mind, follows the two others, to pay homage to 
 Jesus Christ. I say follows, intentionally. 
 
 I know that in announcing this third sovereignty 
 of the Son of Man, I shall probably provoke a 
 smile of incredulity from more than one of my 
 hearers. What! He the master of the intellect, 
 who said: “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” who 
 chose fishermen and ignorant men for His first 
 disciples. Who said Himself of His doctrine: 
 
 “I thank thee, O Father, because thou hast hid 
 these things from the wise and prudent, and hast 
 revealed them unto babes!” It is supposed that 
 because Jesus Christ did not disdain the most 
 humble beings, that He Himself merits the con- J 
 tempt which superior minds are pleased to bestow 
 on the immense majority of their fellow-men. 1 
 This is because we do not reflect that it is the 1 
 most uncommon and clearest sign of a truly royal 
 intellect, to comprehend all minds, in order to | 
 illuminate them with the same light. 
 
 Do not remind me of your philosophers, and the 
 profundity of their conceptions, for it is precisely 
 
231 
 
 THE KING. 
 
 ■ — —- 
 
 in the inaccessible profundity of their conceptions 
 that I find the most palpable testimony to their 
 powerlessness in the arduous enterprise of founding 
 intellectual sovereignty. These famous words of 
 one of those who have been called the masters of 
 modern thought, are well known. When on his 
 death-bed, surrounded by his most illustrious dis¬ 
 ciples, he said to them, with sadness: “I carry 
 one regret with me to the grave,—that of having 
 been understood by but one man in the world; 
 and he only half understood me.” Is this what 
 you call subduing minds and founding the universal 
 empire of thought ? 
 
 And observe, that these are not mere casual 
 words. Under an appearance of simplicity, they 
 express a general truth, and every philosopher 
 might say as much, even by reason of the depth 
 and originality of his conceptions. 
 
 The most sage of sages, Socrates, leaves a 
 representative of his ideas, Plato, who compre¬ 
 hends him in a manner, and modifies him according 
 to his liking; he leaves behind him again a dis- 
 
THE SON OF MAN 
 
 ciple, Aristotle, who subjects him to a new process 
 of transformation, which his disciples, in their 
 turn, take up, until the most diverse, opposite, and 
 adverse schools—the black and white, in fact— 
 appear upon the theatre of philosophy as the con¬ 
 tradictory fruits of the tree which the first planted. 
 The fact is, that everyone developing his own 
 powers, and following the bent of his genius, 
 makes a kingdom of his own thoughts, where he 
 reigns, no doubt, but as a solitary monarch; every 
 one sheds around him a relative light, tinted with 
 the personality of his genius, imperfectly received 
 by the first whom he enlightens, and of a nature 
 that will inevitably be changed in contact with 
 other minds; everyone, as is natural, takes himself 
 as the point of departure, and wishing in his turn 
 to construct an edifice, glories in building upon 
 the ruins of his predecessors. Hence this flux and 
 reflux of human thought, oscillating perpetually 
 between the invisible poles by which eternal 
 wisdom has seen fit to limit it, as it set bounds to 
 the ocean; hence those gigantic evolutions which 
 
THE KING. 
 
 233 
 
 the ages are ever making, never wearying but 
 never arriving at a definite conclusion, where the 
 mind might at length find equilibrium and repose. 
 Magnificent spectacle, true Titanic labour, both 
 from the prodigious efforts which it presupposes, 
 and the prodigious relapses to which it is periodi¬ 
 cally subjected in its vain attempt to scale the 
 heavens. 
 
 Heaven, the heaven of thought as well as of all 
 the rest; repose in the truth; heaven, this is what 
 Jesus gives, but He gives it to all with equal 
 liberality. He reveals it in the light of day. 
 
 The privilege of the simple—and do not disdain 
 it—will be to attain it by repairing to Him. The 
 privilege of genius—and do not disdain that either 
 —will be to attain it under His guidance, by 
 applying to it the vast resources of the greatest 
 intellects. You will see the school of Jesus 
 Christ collected together, repeating the same 
 lesson, which at the same time satisfies and 
 delights the noble faculty of thought; and you 
 will see the simple artizan, whose mind is just 
 
234 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 awaking, and the profound doctor of this age, 
 whose mind is reposing after his labours, learning 
 to stammer it together. How often have the 
 experiences of St. Augustine been repeated since 
 his time. It was a common thing in the early 
 ages of the church to see wearied intellects, after 
 having tried in turn all schemes of philosophy, 
 come and take refuge humbly in the words of 
 Jesus Christ, like weather-beaten mariners coming 
 into port after a storm. 
 
 If the ministers of Jesus Christ understood their 
 task better, if in a peaceable and faithful spirit, 
 having at the same time a respect for human 
 thought, they knew better how to testify of the 
 deep satisfaction, the pure and ineffable joys that 
 intercourse with Jesus Christ procures for the 
 noblest faculties of the mind, who can tell but 
 that in our age, so similar in many respects to 
 the age of the decadence of Greece and Rome, 
 our tormented age condemned to the forced labour 
 of a sterile thought, we might not see that miracu¬ 
 lous fishing renewed, which, in rescuing so many 
 
THE KING. 
 
 235 
 
 disheartened geniuses from the shipwreck of false 
 wisdom, give to the Church her most brilliant 
 lights and most firm supports. 
 
 Yes, there is a noble labour, a sacred labour of 
 thought; there is a perilous, but always legitimate 
 and laudable ambition to exercise the pure faculties 
 of the intellect in the search for, and meditation 
 on truth. Do not let us discourage this spirit, 
 even when it loses its way. To discourage mind 
 is to encourage matter, it is to commit a crime 
 against humanity. But let us insist by our teach¬ 
 ing, by our example, by our calm and enviable 
 possession of the truth, that Jesus is not less a 
 master in this domain than in the others. It has 
 been admirably said, that great thoughts come 
 from the heart; is it not natural that the queen 
 of thoughts should proceed from this royal heart, 
 to which all hearts feel constrained to render 
 homage ? 
 
 It could not be but that in demanding our 
 hearts He should also demand our minds. What 
 He wishes, in order that He may establish His 
 
236 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 reign, is not the abdication of reason (take care 
 not to think so, take care not to suggest such 
 an idea), but the abdication of the personal sense, of 
 a selfish spirit, the abdication of pride, presump¬ 
 tion, prejudice, of pre-occupation with earthly 
 things, of all that enslaves the mind or gives 
 it a false direction. It is not slavery that He 
 offers us, He has said Himself it is emancipation: 
 “ The truth shall make you free.” * And let not 
 the words deceive you. The true free-thinkers 
 are not those who are at war with Jesus Christ. 
 Let not appearances deceive you either ! People 
 talk to-day about the defeat of Jesus Christ on 
 the battle-field of ideas. Do you, then, imagine 
 that you will be assisting at the first of these 
 senseless revolts ? Do you not suppose that in 
 the last century, in the age of renaissance , in the 
 age of the gnostics, in every age, there have been 
 vain intellectual enterprises against this illu¬ 
 minator of the intellect ?—clouds which have 
 passed over the face of the sun without dimming 
 
 * John viii. 32. 
 
THE KING. 
 
 237 
 
 its brightness or turning it for an instant from 
 its majestic course. You will hear pretended 
 sages crying upon the house-tops, that Christianity 
 has had its day; you will hear the schools of 
 scepticism deny that there is any truth; you will 
 hear the materialistic schools deny that there is 
 any spirit; you will hear the pantheistic schools 
 deny God. When it is true that the evil is as 
 widely spread as the noise it makes, make a 
 careful search ; you will find somewhere a child 
 on its knees repeating “ Our Father!” This 
 child preserves the depot of truth for the philoso¬ 
 phers and profound thinkers of the future. 
 
 Jesus is the centre. We wander for a time 
 about the circumference, but whether we will or 
 not, we always return to Him. The mind of 
 man has taken this bent, and will retain it. 
 
 Thus, the three powers within us render homage 
 to the Son of Man, like three ministers who bow 
 down to the legitimate sovereign. But do you 
 know what this triple and free homage of the 
 conscience, the heart, and the mind is ? This is 
 
THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 238 
 
 what is called adoration. When man has offered 
 
 that, he has offered all. He has offered himself. 
 
 And such is the nature of the kingdom of Jesus 
 
 Christ. Man has found his God again, in finding 
 
 such a man. The kingdom of God and the 
 
 kingdom, of Jesus Christ are the same thing in 
 
 the language of the Gospel. 
 
 • , \ 
 
 To have determined the nature of the kingdom 
 
 of Jesus Christ, is to determine the duration of 
 
 it, for an empire founded on the mind of man is 
 
 an empire founded upon a rock. As long as man 
 
 is man, as long as there is within him this triple 
 
 base of the conscience, the heart, and the mind, 
 
 Jesus will be the King of it. The shortcomings 
 
 of the kingdom of Christ will henceforth be the 
 
 shortcomings of humanity, and the triumphs of 
 
 the reign of Christ will be the progress and 
 
 triumphs of humanity itself. 
 
 It has been well said of those who have become 
 
 celebrated conquerors of history, that it was the 
 
 art or the genius, with which they possessed 
 
 themselves of the aspirations and the genius of 
 
THE KING. 
 
 239 
 
 the people, which led to the accomplishment of 
 their ambitious designs. Nothing can resist a 
 nation which is incarnate in a man ; nothing can 
 resist a man who is for the time the head and 
 the heart, the living representative of a nation. 
 Let him be called Alexander or Napoleon, he will 
 obtain prodigies of those who devote themselves 
 to him because they see themselves glorified in 
 him. And it requires nothing less than the 
 greatest errors, and the most unheard-of catastro- 
 phies, to break the charm of the magical alliance 
 which might otherwise almost threaten the equili¬ 
 brium of the world. What, then, will not be the 
 superhuman power of Him who has succeeded in 
 possessing Himself, not of a people and its 
 ephemeral schemes to lead it on to the senseless 
 objects of a personal ambition, but of the human 
 mind itself in its permanent condition, to lead it, 
 by regenerating it, to the conquest of its legitimate 
 glory and its immortal elevation ? Obstacles , 
 will doubtless present themselves, gigantic, in¬ 
 cessant, and threatening. The prince of this 
 
240 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 world wishes to retain his prey, and puts every¬ 
 thing in train to prevent its being taken from 
 him. But the enterprise is conceived in such a 
 manner that the gates of hell shall not prevail 
 against it, and man will disappear from the 
 earth before he will defeat the victorious plans 
 of the Son of Man. 
 
 Hence this astonishing spectacle which is pre¬ 
 sented by the history of the human race, the 
 unique history of the establishment and the 
 development of the reign of Jesus Christ. Here 
 is a power against which everything rises up, 
 and which triumphs naturally, and with majestic 
 superiority. Here, for the first time, is a power 
 which borrows nothing from the ordinary methods 
 by which power is established, and which has 
 nothing to fear from the ordinary enemies by 
 which every earthly power is sooner or later 
 destroyed. 
 
 The first of these means, the first of these 
 enemies is force. Empires are founded upon force, 
 until force overturns them. Such was Rome, 
 

 THE KING. 241 
 
 this monster of iron, which, for a moment, nearly 
 attained to crushing the whole world under 
 its weight, and which appears to have received 
 from Providence the mandate of existence, but 
 to put to the proof at the time of its greatest 
 power, the people of Christ at the time of their 
 greatest weakness. What were the first armies 
 of the Crucified One when they spread themselves 
 over the earth ? A handful of sheep sent forth in 
 the midst of wolves, a few men dispersed abroad, 
 artizans by trade, calling themselves the weak 
 things of the world, the offscouring of the world, 
 the things which are not; raising up against 
 themselves, in the first steps that they took, the 
 most frightful, destructive machine, which had 
 ever been seen on the earth. They are seized, 
 beaten, are about to disappear—but no, the party 
 is not equal. Tertullian has said: “ The blood 
 of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Weak¬ 
 ness will prevail. Two centuries of persecution, 
 and Rome will count more Christians than soldiers 
 
 1 
 
 in her empire. Eighteen centuries of effort— 
 
 R 
 
242 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 eighteen centuries, during which the trial has 
 been repeated—and strength at last will let her 
 arms fall down by her side, saying: “ I give it up.” 
 Do you allege that the Church, in its worst days, 
 has sometimes tried to use the weapon of which 
 she ought to have known nothing but the threats 
 
 and blows ? Ah ! when she tried to support her- 
 
 * 
 
 self by force, she ran the risk of greater perils 
 than she ever suffered from it. 
 
 And if she wishes to assure her triumphs in the 
 world, she must become as she was in her early 
 days, the weak thing of the world, suffering, sub¬ 
 missive, but free, as the soul is free when she 
 believes. 
 
 The second means by which established powers 
 on earth recommend themselves, the second 
 enemy which sooner or later menances them, is 
 prestige ; that which dazzles the eyes, astonishes 
 the mind, carries the imagination captive; the 
 prestige of art, of skill, of learning. All the false 
 religions have had their prestige, until the day 
 when, it having disappeared, their priests could 
 
THE KING. 
 
 243 
 
 not look each other in the face without laughing. 
 Do you ask what is the prestige of the religion 
 which is called Christianity ? Its sole prestige 
 has been to have none. 
 
 Its most astonishing feature, and what will 
 always be the most surprising when it is closely 
 examined, is its simplicity, its extraordinary, not 
 to say offensive simplicity. What does it offer 
 to the sight, what does it offer to the imagination, 
 or to the intellect ? Look closely at it. It offers 
 the bleeding image of the Crucified One, which was 
 to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks 
 foolishness, and which its adversaries have always 
 represented as ridiculous or odious. There it is, 
 nevertheless. It is on this that the eyes must be 
 fixed, and to this the attention must be directed. 
 There, according to the expression of St. Paul, is 
 His wisdom; the wisdom of God, it is true, and 
 the power of God unto salvation to every one that 
 believeth.* 
 
 Do not stumble at the almost heathen pomp 
 
 * 1 Rom. i. 16. 
 
244 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 with which so considerable a portion of Christianity 
 encumbers its worship. I agree that it is prestige, 
 but a threatening prestige, a prestige which would 
 have been a thousand times stifled without the 
 hidden virtue, which made it rise up for our fathers 
 from this gilded coffin, and does not permit it to 
 perish absolutely, even for those who are still led 
 astray by its false traditions. 
 
 Do not stumble either at the deafening echoes 
 of so many celebrated speculations, ancient and 
 modern, which, during the course of ages, have 
 disputed its name. This is a prestige too, the 
 prestige of science falsely so called, which, in every 
 age and in every form, has tried to introduce error 
 into the sanctuary, and up to the very throne of 
 truth, and which would have succeeded a thousand 
 times, if the soul of man, ever the same with its 
 profound needs, had not been there to reclaim its 
 possession, while the King was there to preserve 
 it for him. 
 
 In a world which only lives, as it seems, for 
 eclat and novelty, what seductions have not been 
 
THE KING. 
 
 245 
 
 tried against the austere ascendancy of Jesus Christ, 
 and what attempts have not been made to draw 
 away the hearts which attach themselves to Him! 
 But a power, stronger than all the power of se¬ 
 duction, always has dissipated, and always will 
 dissipate, as in sport, the deceptive mirages which 
 every age has endeavoured to oppose to it, both 
 in the world of mind and in the world of sense. 
 
 Time, to which Jesus Christ owes nothing, be¬ 
 cause He appeared from the first day such as He 
 will be to the end (and though everything in time 
 was prepared for His coming, nothing in time 
 explains it, because it was produced by nothing)— 
 time, which founded nothing, will destroy nothing. 
 Have you ever reflected on the attitude of time in 
 relation to Jesus Christ? It is a very striking 
 thing! 
 
 Time, the great enemy, as it has been called by 
 a celebrated diplomatist; this slow thunderbolt, 
 which, as has been said again, spares nothing; 
 time, which wears out everything, ruins every¬ 
 thing, buries everything, empires as well as 
 
246 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 systems, the monuments of thought as well as the 
 monuments of stone; time, when it meets Jesus 
 Christ, is at a stand, he has recognised a master, 
 and suddenly changes all his ways. For the first 
 and last time, he employs himself on what he had ' 
 never made. One thing is confided to him which 
 will not grow old in his hands. He will take care 
 himself to preserve for it the brilliance of un¬ 
 fading youth. Here is something of which, for 
 the first time, assuredly, it may be said that in 
 the keeping of time, although it grows old it never 
 ceases to be new. Here is something—Jesus 
 Christ and His church—which time will hence¬ 
 forth bear lovingly over the torrents of ages, to 
 deposit it intact on the shores of eternity, as the 
 waters of the deluge bore the ark over the abysses 
 which engulfed the ruins of the old world. 
 What can I more say? Here is something which 
 time itself increases daily without altering, bring¬ 
 ing to it unceasingly new reinforcements and fresh 
 supports. All the progress, all the conquests of 
 civilisation, serve the reign of Jesus Christ, which 
 
THE KING. 
 
 247 
 
 in its turn accelerates the onward march of 
 humanity, henceforth chained to the car of its 
 destinies. Continue, then, your labours, all ye 
 agents of progress in human society! Continue 
 your labours ye learned men, consume your lives 
 in night watches; penetrate by your calculations 
 into the splendours of the firmament; descend 
 into the bowels of the earth; extract from nature 
 her secrets, describe her wonders to us, let us 
 know more of the admirable harmony which pre¬ 
 sides over her laws. 
 
 Labour on ye working men, bring classes and 
 nations nearer together; discover more rapid 
 means of conquering space and publishing thought; 
 you will only be giving new wings to that angel 
 flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting 
 Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth !* 
 
 Labour on, ye learned men, grow pale over your 
 books; teach us the languages of all nations, their 
 manners, their traditions, the souvenirs of their 
 past and their aspirations for the future. 
 
 Rev. xiv. 6. 
 
248 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 Labour on you also who preside over the com¬ 
 merce of the world. Send your fleets over the 
 seas; henceforth you will not bring the riches 
 which corrupt without taking in exchange the 
 riches which consist in life eternal. 
 
 Work on, then, all creatures together; the Son 
 of Man enrolled you when He enrolled the soul 
 of man. Work, work ! There is no one on earth 
 who is not a labourer in His kingdom, and a 
 soldier in His conquests. 
 
 We also, my brethren — and, let it be well 
 known, we especially—rejoice in the true progress 
 of light, and in all fruitful employment of human 
 activity. We applaud it with sincere joy of 
 heart, we urge it forward with all our strength. 
 Those are blind who do not perceive the direct 
 connexion which unites the cause of Jesus Christ 
 with every movement of life on the face of our 
 planet. They work at it themselves, no doubt, in 
 their own fashion, but like the dyke, which only 
 restrains the torrent on condition of precipitating 
 its course. When Rome tried to set bounds to 
 
THE KING. 
 
 249 
 
 thought, she caused the blessed Reformation to 
 break forth. If we try once more to fetter the 
 legitimate aspirations of humanity, we shall again 
 prepare the way for some unexpected triumph in 
 the sacred work of enfranchising humanity, and 
 its regeneration in Jesus Christ. So true it is 
 that all things work together for good to those 
 whom God has predestinated to be conformed to 
 the image of his Son. So true it is that the day is 
 coming, it draws near, it is here, when, according 
 to the prophecies of the Old as well as of the New 
 Testament, all nations will bow down before the 
 Saviour of the world, and the knowledge of the 
 Lord will cover the earth, as the waters cover 
 the sea. 
 
 But why do we speak of earth ? Earth is only 
 a place of waiting and preparation. It is not here 
 that the eternal destinies of humanity will be ful¬ 
 filled. Christ is risen ! Man survives death with 
 Him. Let us open the gates of the temple of 
 the future. 
 
 “ After death, the judgment,” says St. Paul. 
 
250 
 
 1 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 And Jesus Christ Himself speaks in these terms of 
 this solemn and supreme manifestation of His reign. 
 
 “ When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, 
 and all the holy angels with him, then shall he 
 sit upon the throne of his glory. And before 
 him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall 
 separate them one from another, as a shepherd 
 divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall 
 set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats 
 on the left. Then shall the King say unto them 
 on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my 
 Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you 
 from the foundation of the world. Then shall he 
 say also unto them on the left hand, Depart 
 from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, pre¬ 
 pared for the devil and his angels. And these 
 shall go away into everlasting punishment: but 
 the righteous into life eternal.”* 
 
 Figures of speech, do you say ? 
 
 Yes, my brethren, grand and solemn figures, 
 representing the greatest and most solemn reali- 
 * Matt. xxv. 31—34, 41, 46. 
 
THE KING. 
 
 251 
 
 ties. Let us respect these figures which God 
 Himself has traced for us, not being able by 
 reason of our infirmities to make us understand 
 without them. Judgment, throne, books opened, 
 sentences pronounced and followed by eternal 
 accomplishment, these are sublime monuments 
 of the future, as the narratives of the creation 
 and the fall are sublime monuments of the past. 
 Let them be engraved upon our minds, let us 
 constantly fix our attention upon them as upon 
 the prospect of the most solemn moment of our 
 lives. It is only some most frivolous, or most 
 superficial minds, who under a pretext of some 
 spurious spirituality, repudiate these striking im- 
 pressions and these urgent precepts. 
 
 Besides, do you not feel what imposing realities 
 are hidden, or, if you like it better, displayed, 
 beneath the mantle of these prophetic revelations ? 
 It is in face of these realities that I place myself, 
 and there I wish to leave you, before saying 
 Amen to these discourses, which God will bring 
 to an end to-day. 
 
252 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 In the first place, I see shine forth the 
 sovereign and eternal glory of Him whom, with 
 the Scriptures, we have hitherto called the Son 
 of Man, but to whom the Scriptures give also 
 another name, for they call Him indifferently the 
 Son of God. 
 
 Faithful to our programme, we have strictly 
 confined ourselves to the study of the human 
 character and destiny of Jesus Christ; although, 
 no doubt, you have more than once been on the 
 point of allowing the exclamation of adoration to 
 escape you, which I wished to reserve for the 
 moment when our subjugated souls could no 
 longer suppress it. Now the veil is rent. Our 
 eyes are opened. Who, then, is He whom you 
 contemplate on the throne of judgment to come, 
 consecrated to this supreme and supernatural 
 ministry by these words: “The Father hath 
 committed all judgment unto the Son, that all 
 men should honour the Son, even as they honour 
 the Father ? Is He a man ? Yes, doubtless, 
 
 * John v. 22, 23. 
 
THE KING. 
 
 
 but what a man ! You know Him henceforth, 
 you have read His mind and followed His steps 
 in the path of life. 
 
 You have seen the perfection of His righteous¬ 
 ness, the mystery of His sufferings, the triumph 
 of His resurrection. Who is this Man to whom 
 every man must look in order to live ? Who is 
 this Man, unique among men ? Who is this 
 Man, whose name alone, given to or taken 
 from the world, makes light or darkness, holiness 
 or corruption, hope or despair, life or death ? 
 Is not this a truly extraordinary and manifestly 
 supernatural humanity ? Man in every age, in 
 every place, has found at once his Model, his 
 Master, his Judge, his Saviour, his King, his all, 
 one to whom he owes heart, and mind, and soul, 
 for time and for eternity. Must we not bow the 
 knee, and veil our faces, exclaiming like the in¬ 
 credulous apostle, after the resurrection: “ My 
 Lord and my God ? ” 
 
 This conclusion arrived at, the Son of Man 
 reigns. I see no premises to reason from other 
 
254 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 than those placed by St. John in the frontispiece 
 of his Gospel: “ In the beginning was the Word, 
 and the Word was with God, and the Word was 
 God. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt . 
 among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of 
 the only begotten of the Father, full of grace 
 and truth.”* 
 
 That humanity should one day, without know¬ 
 ing it, have given birth to the Sage of sages, the 
 Saint of saints, the King of kings, to whom it 
 finds itself irrevocably united by the bonds of a 
 natural and eternal dependence, is this a prodigy 
 more easily explained, than that which in our 
 ignorance we call the incarnation ? Will in¬ 
 telligence be for a moment in suspense, between 
 such a miracle of chance and the wise interven¬ 
 tion of love ? I have only wished to see Thy 
 humanity, 0 my Saviour, and it has brought me 
 to my knees before the throne of Thy glory. 
 
 Do not ask me how this is to be explained, or 
 how it takes place; I cannot tell you, I do not 
 
 * John i. 2, 14. 
 
THE KING. 
 
 255 
 
 know, but I adore. I do not know, but I bow 
 down before something which in those heights 
 where thought is powerless, remains clear to my 
 eyes with a certainty of faith which is equal to 
 evidence. Before something which everything 
 demonstrates to me, and without which I should 
 henceforth doubt everything. 
 
 Jesus Christ fills the world of spirits; He is the 
 centre, the summit, the life and the light. It is 
 He consequently who fills all things for man, up 
 to the limits of this present life, and at His ap¬ 
 pearance on the threshold of immortality, every 
 knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess 
 that He is Lord, waiting until He shall deliver up 
 the kingdom to God, even the Father, that God 
 may be all in all.* 
 
 But, my brethren, if the power of judging has 
 been conferred on Him, in order to manifest His 
 glory on the confines of eternity, and that all men 
 should honour the Son, even as they honour the 
 Father', there is a profound meaning in that 
 
 * 1 Cor. xv. 24—28. 
 
256 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 declaration of Scripture, that the power of judg- 
 ment has been committed to Him because He is 
 the Son of Man; that is to say, as a normal and 
 natural consequence of His work of redemption 
 accomplished on the earth. This is the confirma¬ 
 tion of the royalty that He has acquired. 
 
 It is part of the idea of this royalty that it can 
 be resisted. It is over minds that its authority is 
 exercised; that is to say, upon free wills, free to 
 submit, free to refuse. 
 
 There are those who have known Jesus Christ 
 from their infancy; there are those who have 
 been followed during the whole of their lives by 
 the most pressing appeals; there are those who 
 have been inundated with that brilliant light 
 which He sheds in floods on our paths, and who, 
 nevertheless, have closed their eyes, preferring 
 darkness to light; there are those even who under 
 His eye, and so to speak in His society, have 
 
 4 
 
 hardened themselves like Judas, forsaken Him like 
 Demas, or turned a deaf ear like the multitude. 
 
 Then, there is a category, doubtless, too nu- 
 
THE KING. 
 
 257 
 
 merous, of Christians in name, who cling to life 
 and tremble at the thought of death. And what, 
 then, do they so much fear in death ? Ah ! it 
 appears to me that what they have to fear above 
 everything is meeting with Jesus Christ. For 
 them to meet Jesus Christ is to meet the evidence 
 of their own condemnation. Is it not to meet at 
 the same time all the remembrances of. His mercy, 
 and remorse for their own impenitence ? Is it not 
 to meet the certainty that they themselves, by 
 their own fault, are the authors of their own ruin ? 
 Unhappy beings ! You have seen His face, you 
 have heard His words, full of grace and truth. 
 Your conscience spoke, your heart was moved, 
 your reason was ready to surrender, you might, 
 by a sincere conversion and by a true sanctifica¬ 
 tion, have united yourselves to Him, have been 
 changed into the same image from glory to glory. 
 You did not wish it! You preferred darkness, 
 sin, death ; you preferred perdition, you will find 
 that which you have sought. The Son of Man 
 has but one thing to say to you : “I know you 
 
 s 
 
258 
 
 THE SON OF MAN. 
 
 not. Depart from me ! ” He reigns, but there are 
 two faces to His royalty. He has a terrible face, 
 and it is that which concerns you. 
 
 But He has above all an adorable face. And 
 how full of sweetness the thought of Jesus Christ 
 appears to me to be, for those who have learnt on 
 earth to say: “To me to live is Christ,” and who 
 have, as the Apostle expresses it, “ Loved his 
 appearing.” To meet Jesus Christ, to see Him, 
 to hear Him, after having loved Him so much; to 
 see Him better than we see with our eyes, to hear 
 Him better than we hear with our ears. To meet 
 Jesus Christ after having so much desired Him. 
 To be with Him where He is for eternity, to plunge 
 with Him into the oceans of life and love. To 
 meet with Jesus Christ after He has been the 
 peace, the joy, the inexhaustible satisfaction of 
 the soul—it is to have found heaven itself. And 
 how well I comprehend the holy rapture of 
 St. Paul when he exclaims: “I desire to depart 
 and to be with Christ; ”* “ Who shall separate us 
 
 * Phil. i. 23. 
 
THE KING. 
 
 259 
 
 from the love of Christ ? I am persuaded that 
 neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities 
 nor powers, nor things present, nor things to 
 come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, 
 shall be able to separate us from the love of God, 
 which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”* 
 
 To meet Jesus Christ, is as you see, the judg¬ 
 ment. It is salvation or perdition, life or death. 
 Behold, then, Him that “declareth unto man what 
 is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness.” 
 “Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.”t To meet 
 Jesus is the most solemn moment of a solemn 
 eternity. 
 
 What remains for me to say to you, if it is not 
 that to hear the words of Jesus Christ, to learn to 
 know Jesus Christ, to come into contact with Him, 
 is the most solemn thing of the present life. We 
 have together applied ourselves to it. You and I 
 have been led by the goodness of God to turn our 
 thoughts towards this Divine Saviour. According 
 to His promise, He has been with us and has 
 
 * Rom. viii. 35, 38, 39. 
 
 f Amos iv. 12, 13. 
 
26 o 
 
 7 HE SON OF MAN. 
 
 made us feel His presence. Have not our hearts 
 more than once burned within us by the way, 
 like those of the disciples of Emmaus, on this 
 path that we have trodden with Him ? Yes, 
 O Jesus, our eyes have seen Thee, our consciences 
 have acknowledged Thee, our souls have exclaimed: 
 ‘ ‘ Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words 
 of eternal life.”* 
 
 Is it possible that we can deny Thee now, and 
 only increase our own condemnation ? 
 
 No, it is not possible. Will you not say so, my 
 brethren? We shall not separate without having 
 engaged to be faithful to Him in life and in death. 
 And God, who has begun in us this good work, will 
 perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ.t Amen ! 
 
 # John vi. 68. 
 
 f Phil. i. 6. 
 
THE 
 
 TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED 27TH SEPTEMBER, 1867, 
 
 AT THE 
 
 INAUGURATION OF 
 
 LA SALLE DE LA REFORMATION, 
 
 AT GENEVA. 
 
 FRANK COULIN, D.D., 
 
 MINISTER OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH OF GENEVA. 
 
THE 
 
 TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 I AM come here to speak of the Teaching of 
 Jesus Christ. As to the problem which the 
 opening of this Hall recalls, the problem of the 
 evangelisation of the masses of the people by 
 the ministry of the Word, it has appeared to us 
 natural to begin by humbly placing ourselves 
 before the example of the Saviour. Before His 
 example—but in the first place before His person. 
 
 Yes, to Jesus Christ, Son of God, Son of Man, 
 the Word made Flesh, the eternal Word, who 
 “ took upon him the form of a servant, humbled 
 himself and became obedient unto death, even 
 
264 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 the death of the cross,”* “be glory, and honour, 
 and thanks” forever and ever. Amen. “There 
 is none other name under heaven given among 
 men, whereby we must be saved;”t “He is the 
 beginning and the ending,’’J “ the way, the truth, 
 and the life.Ӥ 
 
 The work which He accomplished during the 
 short years of His life and the infinite hours of 
 His passion, is so great and so closely united 
 in all its parts, that it may seem rash to analyse 
 it and to make any distinctions in it. 
 
 But do not fear. The least of the sun’s rays 
 pays homage to the sun himself. It is impossible 
 to study one detail, one aspect of the Saviour’s 
 life, without being led to look at it as a whole, 
 in its nature at once divine and human, as His 
 work of redemption. He did not fear to reveal 
 Himself gradually. He began by descending in¬ 
 to the lowest parts of the earth, like the humblest 
 of men, and it was by a gentle and imperceptible 
 ascent that He led His disciples gradually up out 
 Phil. ii. 7, 8. t Acts iv. 12. X Rev. i. 8. § John xiv. 6. 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 265 
 
 of our vale of misery to the shining summits, 
 where they could behold His glory in His eternal 
 beauty. 
 
 Shall we, in speaking of the teaching of Jesus 
 Christ, be putting Him on a level with those 
 human teachers, whom He Himself too justly 
 described as blind leaders of the blind ? By 
 no means. In this respect, as in all others, 
 to compare Him, is to show how incomparable 
 He is. Jesus spake, and God be praised for it, 
 for “never man spake like this man.” And 
 since He did speak, His words remain for His 
 disciples the rule for all speaking, as His example 
 will ever be the realised type of all true holiness. 
 
 Before entering on the subject, there is a pre¬ 
 liminary remark, the austere and melancholy 
 evidence of which should be frankly brought for¬ 
 ward, in order to dispel all illusion and to es¬ 
 tablish us at once on the firm basis of truth. Our 
 hearts are saddened by the sight of society 
 tainted, like all other human society, alas! by 
 the malady of sin, under its infinitely diverse and 
 
266 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 lamentable forms. Unbelief, immorality, the 
 darkness of perdition, prevail among the mul¬ 
 titudes who escape us, and who are sinning, 
 suffering, dying around us. The preaching of 
 the Word, no doubt, arrests some, but it seems 
 to us not to reach the masses, and it attracts 
 but a very limited number of souls, when we 
 want to gain all. We flatter ourselves, that with 
 new means, we shall obtain fresh results. But 
 do not let us flatter ourselves too much. All 
 that it was possible to do, for the spread of the 
 words of eternal life, was done by Jesus Christ. 
 Moved with compassion at the sight of that 
 crowd, which, like all other crowds in His time 
 and in ours, filled the cities and peopled the 
 country, it was to the people that His most 
 tender, most pressing, and most popular appeals 
 were addressed; He tried to reach all consciences, 
 to gain them for the kingdom of heaven; but 
 His words were heeded by but a small number, 
 
 and the places most favoured by His teaching, 
 
 / 
 
 Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum, have rendered 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 267 
 
 -themselves famous by the disappointments He 
 met with in them. Let us take heed to this. 
 The Master Himself met with insurmountable 
 
 obstacles, not only with a few, but with the 
 
 / 
 
 larger number. He, the first among teachers, 
 notwithstanding the apparently irresistible force 
 of His gentleness and authority, saw invincible 
 obstacles rising up around Him. Self-righteous¬ 
 ness, which His spirit could not convince of sin, 
 frivolous minds, on which the earnestness of His 
 appeals made no impression, hearts so hard that 
 the sword of the Word could not pierce them, 
 even when wielded by His divine hands. When 
 He went forth to sow, for one seed that fell 
 upon good ground, four were lost among thorns 
 or by the wayside. Did He not Himself point 
 out the multitude pursuing the broad path that 
 leads to destruction ? Did He not exclaim: 
 “ Light is come into the world, and men loved 
 
 darkness rather than light, because their deeds 
 
 ^ * 
 
 were evil?”* Do not let us be surprised, then, 
 
 * John iii. 19. 
 
268 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 if it is the same now. If all our efforts to gather 
 together the children of our beloved country were 
 to fail, we could not weep more bitter tears over 
 Geneva, than Jesus wept over the city that killed the 
 prophets. This is the heroic state of the Church, 
 ever since she has had a crucified Master for her 
 head. She knows that she will never triumph upon 
 earth, yet that she must never give way to despair. 
 
 This said, and this reservation made, it was 
 nevertheless by preaching that Jesus proclaimed 
 the coming of the kingdom of heaven, and by 
 preaching that He ordained the propagation of it 
 in the world. Having preached Himself, He sent 
 His disciples to preach after Him, and it is to us 
 as well as to them that He issued the command: 
 “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to 
 every creature.”* We cannot refuse to obey it 
 without condemning ourselves. But, if we feel 
 ourselves unequal to the task, our resource will 
 always be to go humbly to Him, and say: “Master, 
 teach us to preach.” 
 
 * Mark xvi. 15. 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 269 
 
 There was no assumption of greatness either in 
 the mind or the preaching of Jesus Christ; this 
 word that “shall not pass away;” there was 
 nothing of mystery either in His views or in His 
 person. There was in Him, according to the pre¬ 
 diction of Isaiah, “no form, nor comeliness,, and 
 no beauty that we should desire him.”* If the 
 sages of the world have sometimes tried to attract 
 attention and insure a welcome by a prestige of 
 attitude, costume, or external things, there was 
 nothing like it with Him. He is so simple and 
 natural, and aims so little at effect, even amongst 
 the Jews, accustomed to see their teachers 
 clothed in flowing robes with broad phylacteries, 
 and speaking from Moses’ seat, that we might 
 sometimes be scandalised by it. Thus, we learn, 
 that when He returned to Nazareth, the town of 
 His childhood, and undertook to teach in the 
 synagogue, some one who recognised Him, said: 
 “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?”t 
 After long years passed in obscurity, and without, 
 # Isaiah liii. 2. f Matt. xiii. 55. 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 as it appears, in any way making known His 
 future plans; arrived at a mature age, He went 
 forth without any recommendation, a stranger to 
 all the religious and political parties of His time, 
 habited like a simple artisan, and began by sur¬ 
 rounding Himself by other simple artizans. 
 
 Though the prophet of the desert bore witness 
 to Him, His witness was restricted to the narrow 
 circle of His first adherents. We know now the 
 idea which filled His soul, and which was to fill 
 His life. He who came to seek and to save that 
 which was lost, to reveal the Father in heaven, 
 and to found the kingdom of God upon earth, had 
 indeed something to say. Nevertheless, this idea, 
 which ages will not suffice to unroll to its whole 
 extent, was only brought to light gradually, natur¬ 
 ally, providentially, without either precipitation 
 or hesitation, and in accordance with circum¬ 
 stances. This life, so short but so full, is, properly 
 speaking, nothing but the free development of a 
 soul which expands and devotes itself day by day, 
 until it was offered up entirely at Golgotha. And 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 271 
 
 as it expanded in action, so also it expanded in 
 teaching. 
 
 Speaking is too often, even with the best of men, 
 a difficulty, an effort. In the case of Jesus—and 
 this is one trait of His perfection—words rise up 
 and flow from His soul, as a spring from its 
 source. They radiate, as it were, from truth, to 
 enlighten us; a halo of eternal life surrounds 
 Him; and as He goes on His way, it illumines 
 with a divine light everything in this life, from its 
 most humble to its most solemn scenes. When 
 He enters the hospitable abode at Bethany, a 
 woman is so eager to entertain Him, that she 
 forgets everything else, even her soul: “Martha, 
 Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many 
 things; but one thing is needful: and Mary hath 
 chosen that good part which shall not be taken 
 away from her.”* These are words of life eternal; 
 such as you will also find in the Sermon on the 
 Mount, in the parables, in the last instructions to 
 the Apostles, in the prayer at Gethsemane, in the 
 
 * Luke x. 41, 42. 
 
272 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 cries of anguish at Golgotha; everywhere and 
 always appropriate. I know nothing but the 
 conscience that presents a distant analogy to such 
 a method of teaching. 
 
 It is from this cause that the teaching of Jesus 
 Christ, such as it has been preserved to us in the 
 few pages that are called the Gospels, is presented 
 to us under every imaginable form of language. 
 First, under that of dialogue. Fie is sitting in 
 the middle of the day on Jacob’s well; a woman 
 comes, with her pitcher on her shoulder. The 
 Saviour is thirsty, and asks her to give Him drink. 
 This is an opportunity for one of those casual con¬ 
 versations that we meet with at every step; for 
 Him it was an opportunity to utter those profound 
 but simple words, which were to awaken the con¬ 
 science and open the mind and soul of the Samaritan 
 woman, and of many others after her, to the com¬ 
 prehension of the true God, and of life eternal. 
 
 He has sought a night’s repose in a grove of 
 olive trees, near the gates of Jerusalem. A 
 friendly but timid Pharisee comes in secret to 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 273 
 
 open his mind to Him. Perhaps it was the 
 garden of Gethsemane; the leaves flutter in the 
 breeze; you hear that incomparable lesson on the 
 necessity of a new birth, effected by the Holy 
 Spirit, in every soul which looks upon the Son of 
 Man lifted up, as Moses lifted up the serpent in 
 the wilderness. 
 
 If an order, a plan carefully conceived and 
 followed out, is to be discovered in the Saviour’s 
 teaching, it is nowhere more evident than in that 
 part of .it clothed in the form of simple conversa¬ 
 tions. I should like to analyse if it were but a 
 single one of these conversations, but time fails 
 for such details. If one may use such expressions, 
 what art and what faithfulness, what tact and 
 what intense spiritual pre-occupation in these 
 admirable tete-a-tete. With a grace and natural¬ 
 ness which never fails, He seems to pursue, with 
 a holy jealousy, the double object of His ministry, 
 to bear witness to the truth and to save the lost. 
 He will doubtless know how to knock at the doors 
 of a thousand hearts at once, when He has a 
 
 T 
 
274 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 thousand hearts before Him, but when He has but 
 one, whether it is that of a common-place woman, 
 or of a refined Pharisee, it is then that He sur¬ 
 passes Himself, if indeed, the Saviour can surpass 
 Himself. 
 
 My brethren, would you know one cause of the 
 limited popularity of the preaching of the Gospel ? 
 Do you wish for advice which will cause it to 
 penetrate into the minds of which the society 
 around us is composed ? Let us learn to mingle 
 it better with our conversation. Does not con- 
 versation form a large part of the words which we 
 utter? We who preach, well know the imper¬ 
 ceptible influence our sermons produce compared 
 with that produced by our conversation. Our 
 sermons are always more or less prepared, or if 
 not, they are supposed to be. Our conversation, on 
 the contrary, is the most natural expression of our 
 habitual state of mind. Now, it is this habitual 
 state of mind that we must needs know, to ap¬ 
 preciate at its true value the expression of our 
 convictions. 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 275 
 
 Our sermons fall from too great a height, are 
 too loud and too far between. They are like 
 storms, when the rain strikes the ground as it 
 falls, and glides over the surface. But to pene¬ 
 trate the parched and arid ground of the hearts of 
 the multitudes around us, we must have those 
 gentle, fine, continuous, irresistible rains, to 
 which the blessed influence of our conversations 
 might be compared, if instead of leaving them to 
 the caprices of the moment, we knew how with 
 fidelity and gentleness, according to the advice of 
 St. Paul, to let them be always with grace, 
 seasoned with salt. 
 
 If we look now at another form which the 
 Saviour’s teaching took, not less worthy of atten¬ 
 tion nor less applicable to ourselves, we shall find 
 Him surrounded, not by a family (He renounced 
 that when He left Nazareth), but by the group of 
 His disciples. What an instructive study might 
 he made of the relations of Jesus to those twelve 
 Galileans, whom He took from their boats and 
 their nets, to make them, to use His own ex- 
 
276 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 pression, fishers of men, the spiritual conquerors 
 of the earth. 
 
 What an admirable training He gave them, 
 both in patience and in courage, during the three 
 years which He seems to have measured out ex¬ 
 pressly with relation to them. What constant 
 care, not only to ripen their faith and to guide 
 them to attain their own salvation, but to mould 
 them for the work of the ministry which He 
 reserved for them in the world after Him. Never 
 a moment lost. Without illusion, but without 
 discouragement; without haste, but without 
 weariness; He instructed, He exercised them, 
 He combated and reformed their prejudices, He 
 associated Himself with them, however unworthy 
 they seemed of it; above all He attached them 
 to Him, and caused them to say: “Lord, to 
 whom shall we go ? thou hast the words of eternal 
 life.”* 
 
 Attentive to draw instruction from every cir¬ 
 cumstance, having them always in His thoughts, 
 
 * John vi. 68. 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 277 
 
 we might almost say that it was solely for them 
 that He worked miracles and delivered His dis¬ 
 courses. With the future always in view, He 
 was continually casting into their minds the seeds 
 of the most lofty thoughts, and even at the time 
 when they were the furthest removed from such 
 ideas, He prepared them for the most vast and 
 sublime conceptions. You may see Him now 
 walking with them on the roads of Galilee, 
 talking to them by the way with ease and 
 simplicity like a father to his children, always 
 bringing forth good things out of the treasure 
 in His heart. 
 
 Now He sends them to preach the Gospel of 
 the kingdom without Him in order to exercise 
 them, like an eagle teaching her brood to fly— 
 then assembling them with Him in the upper 
 chamber at Jerusalem, to give them His final 
 instructions, celebrating a last Passover with 
 them, communicating His spirit to them, causing, 
 so to speak, His soul to pass into their souls, and 
 gradually bringing -them to that point when He 
 
278 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST 
 
 had nothing more to say to them than : “ It is 
 expedient for you that I go away.”* 
 
 Do you not suppose that the words of Christ 
 would have taken a far less hold in the world, if 
 He had not taken this special care to deposit them 
 as living germs in the living souls of those who 
 may be called His intimate friends ? Come into 
 the world to bear witness to the truth, He 
 knew that His witness would be indefinitely 
 multiplied and extended by the witness that 
 others in their turn would bear to Him. He 
 arranged and disposed beforehand the echoes 
 which were to repeat again and again His words 
 after Him. With His own hand He lighted the 
 torches which were to preserve the light, and 
 transmit it to future generations from age to age, 
 till the end of time. 
 
 Bearing in mind the differences, and allowing 
 every one to judge for himself how far the 
 analogy exists (though it would be an exaggeration 
 to insist on it too strongly), do we not find in this, 
 
 * John xvi. 7. 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 27 
 
 fresh instruction singularly applicable to us all. 
 Have we not all our intimate friends, our family 
 perhaps, or if not, a familiar circle among whom 
 the least germ of faithfulness ought to make us 
 carry on the work which we have at heart, each 
 •in his own way, and in accordance with his 
 character ? 
 
 If Jesus, who had all supernatural means at 
 His disposal, had thought fit to dispense with this 
 natural method, and had not trained disciples, we 
 might say: It is quite intelligible. He did 
 employ it, no doubt, to make us feel to what an 
 extent He submitted to the conditions of humanity. 
 (He did so entirely submit to them, that it did not 
 rest with Him to prevent that among the number 
 of the disciples, there should be, alas ! a devil.) 
 Does not His example speak aloud to us, and is 
 there not the more reason why we should follow 
 the same method ? We wish to do a work of 
 evangelisation in the world, then let us begin with 
 our neighbours. We ask God to send labourers 
 into His harvest; but they will not fall from 
 
280 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 heaven, they must be found upon earth. Our 
 
 * 
 
 children, our friends, the circle of those who 
 gravitate around us, are part of the harvest, for 
 it is a harvest of souls. It is for us to sow, to 
 plant, to tend, and perhaps it will be given to 
 them after us, to do that which we have tried in 
 vain to accomplish. I am much mistaken if this 
 subject does not make an earnest appeal to our 
 consciences, and if it does not furnish the key to 
 incalculable blessings, if not for to-day, at least in 
 time to come. 
 
 I come now to the public speaking of Jesus 
 Christ; for He, as you know, was called upon to 
 speak to the multitude. The numberless benefits 
 He conferred,. His unfailing sympathy with all 
 human sorrow, the confidence which His cha¬ 
 racter and person inspired, the gentleness, the 
 earnestness, the divine charm and divine au¬ 
 thority of His teaching, caused Him to be sur¬ 
 rounded by an increasing number of aspirants to 
 the kingdom of heaven, who attached themselves 
 to Him in crowds and followed Him everywhere. 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 281 
 
 This appeal: “Come unto me, all ye that labour 
 and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, ye 
 shall find rest to your souls; ”* this appeal, which 
 resounded through the towns and villages, passed 
 from mouth to mouth, and which, so to speak, 
 filled the air wherever He passed; this was the 
 call by which, on the shores of the Lake of 
 Tiberias or the hills 'of Galilee, He summoned 
 around Him the varied and popular audience to 
 whom He addressed those incomparable homilies, 
 of which the type has been preserved for us in 
 the Sermon on the Mount. There were not many 
 of the rich among them, not many learned, but 
 many exercised souls. Nicodemus and Joseph 
 of Arimathea, and others like them, were the 
 disciples of the twilight. But in the light of day, 
 we should have seen mostly the poor, the little 
 ones, publicans and sinners ; in a word, the real 
 crowd, the people, the people who since His time 
 have been destined to occupy an increasing place 
 in human society, who threaten to escape us, 
 
 * Matt. \i. 28, 29. 
 
282 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 but whom it is the ambition of us preachers to 
 gather together and bring to His feet. 
 
 If it is in His character and in His daily 
 devotedness that we must look for the secret of 
 His popularity, the form which He so well knew 
 how to give to His discourses was no less adapted 
 to preserve His ascendancy. Who ever spoke 
 their own language to the people, like the Son 
 of Mary? Not, indeed, that He ever abated an 
 iota of the austere exigencies of truth to bring it 
 down to the level of what we should call inferior 
 minds; but putting Himself as regards their 
 experiences and their needs, on a level with the 
 people, ignorant of their grandeur and nobility, 
 He seized with a firm hand the natural links to 
 which He afterwards attached the most sublime 
 teaching. 
 
 Look at this multitude whom the Master has 
 just made to sit down on the grass at His feet; 
 they are the poor of the country—men, women, 
 and children, the sick, men with broken hearts 
 and troubled consciences, eyes wet with tears, 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 283 
 
 and hearts big with sighs, Nathaniels, Israelites 
 in whom was no guile, faces exhibiting the 
 candour of infantine simplicity. He casts a long 
 and sympathetic look on these varied types of 
 spiritual pre-occupation, and He is moved. At 
 length His lips are opened. He begins with the 
 words: “ Blessed are the poor in spirit: Blessed 
 are they that mourn: Blessed are the meek: 
 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after 
 righteousness.”* Then, taking them by the hand, 
 He makes them traverse in spirit the paths of 
 the kingdom of heaven, leading them in turn 
 into the most mysterious depths of conscience, 
 and to the serene heights of communion with our 
 Father in heaven. 
 
 When He speaks, we might often say that He 
 does but serve as interpreter to the spirit within, 
 and to nature without. He lends to the most 
 distant echoes of conscience, to the most every¬ 
 day scenes of life, to all creation, a language 
 
 % 
 
 which will not cease to be heard as long as there 
 
 * Matt. v. 3, 4, 5, 6. 
 
284 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 is a voice of God in the universe or a human 
 soul to listen to it. Hence His admirable 
 parables, a method of teaching the divine char¬ 
 acter which we have never sufficiently brought 
 out. They bring to light, with a clearness which 
 betrays omniscience, the profound accords which 
 exist between these two domains of God’s govern¬ 
 ment, the realm of nature and the realm of grace. 
 They inundate with light, one after another, heaven 
 and earth, thus giving to the truth testimony as 
 immutable as the idea of Him who, in the 
 beginning, created the heaven and earth. 
 
 What do you think of the corn of wheat that 
 must fall into the ground and die, of the sower, 
 of the mustard seed, of the tares of the field, of 
 the prodigal son ? 
 
 It would seem as if this language, so simple, so 
 transparent, which reaches the mind as light 
 reaches the eyes, must be intelligible to all. Still 
 we must have eyes to see even the sun, and 
 we must have a spiritual sense to understand 
 a spiritual revelation. The Saviour’s words 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 285 
 
 are always cloudless, so clear, as to render 
 inexcusable those who are not convinced by 
 them. But when it is a question of its eternal 
 interests, the soul of man, possessing the re¬ 
 doubtable prerogative of blinding itself, can 
 only, as has been said, be convinced by being 
 
 • 1 1 , 
 
 vanquished.* 
 
 Hence the cardinal, the absolute importance 
 that the Saviour attaches to spiritual docility. 
 It is in His eyes to so great an extent the 
 necessary condition for the comprehension of the 
 things that belong to salvation, that He does not 
 hesitate in many of His discourses to make it the 
 condition, par excellence, of entrance into the 
 kingdom of heaven. It is the man who heareth 
 His words and doeth them, whose house is built 
 upon a rock. “Not every one that saith unto 
 me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven ; but he that doeth the will of my Father 
 who is in heaven.”t “ If any man will do his 
 will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be 
 * Vaincne , convaincue . f Matt. vii. 21. 
 
289 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 of God.”* Heavenly things are revealed unto 
 babes, hidden from the wise and prudent. 
 
 Publicans and sinners go into the kingdom of 
 God before the Pharisees. Not, indeed, that 
 there is respect of persons with God, in favour of 
 ignorance and degradation ; but the minds of the 
 little ones, the sinners, in opposition to the others, 
 are open to the truth, and they will allow it 
 without hindrance to bring forth the blessed fruits 
 of repentance and amendment. 
 
 The teaching of Jesus Chrst, such as I have 
 depicted it, in a manner far too summary and yet 
 at too great a length, does not, as you perceive, 
 in its external form much resemble the teachings 
 of human doctors. Indeed, whether we speak 
 of His public teaching, of His more direct in¬ 
 fluence upon individuals or upon His disciples, 
 it is less teaching properly so called, than an 
 education to which He submits them, a discipline 
 under which He places them, in order to lead 
 
 * John vii. 17. 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 287 
 
 them by the paths of repentance and conversion, 
 to that peace, to that joy, to that righteousness, 
 in which, according to St. Paul, the kingdom 
 of heaven consists. 
 
 Here, then, is our pattern. We shall never 
 speak like the Saviour. But let us take heed 
 that our efforts tend to approach the example 
 which He has left us, and not to widen our 
 distance from it. This example clearly teaches 
 us, that we are called upon to evangelise souls 
 rather than to indoctrinate them, and that it 
 is far less our task to increase the number of 
 the orthodox than the number of the converted. 
 
 In speaking thus, it may almost seem as if 
 I were favouring that school now so much in 
 vogue, which, condemning all precise assertion 
 and settled formula, makes the strange preten¬ 
 sion of having the sovereign example of the 
 Master on its side, in contrast to the bad example 
 of His disciples. “ Let us,” they say, “ leave 
 alone the disputed systems of human wisdom ; 
 let us leave alone even the laborious deductions 
 
288 
 
 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 of St. Paul; and let us return to those living 
 words, so nicely graduated, so practical, and 
 which, because there is no dogma expressed in 
 them, shall not pass away.” 
 
 I confess I am not sorry, in approaching the 
 ground-work of the teaching of Jesus Christ, 
 to find an opportunity of unmasking the dan¬ 
 gerous sophism, which may be speciously pre¬ 
 sented under the guise of a real and important 
 truth. When the undogmatic character of the 
 teaching of Jesus Christ is insisted on, what are 
 we to understand by it ? If it means that 
 He did not express in formulas a complete and 
 coherent system of doctrine, nothing is more true. 
 To do that, He must have written a book, and 
 so far as I know, He did not write one. He did 
 what was much better. Being Himself the truth, 
 He simply put Himself in contact with souls, 
 to enlighten and save them according to the 
 infinite variety of their needs. 
 
 But if it means that the Master’s words do 
 not contain an implicit and explicit, that is to 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 289 
 
 say, most dogmatic answer to all the great ques¬ 
 tions that oppress the soul of man in the field 
 of religious thought, if it means that He did not 
 settle the basis and trace the main lines of a 
 definite doctrine—the only doctrine which, pro¬ 
 ceeding from Him, deserves the name of evan¬ 
 gelic—then I do not know of any pretension 
 
 more manifestly erroneous. 
 
 \ 
 
 Let us take as examples, two or three of the 
 questions of which I have just spoken; let us 
 select them from among those of the gravest 
 character, and therefore the most passionately 
 agitated; and let us see whether it is true that 
 the Master has left no solution of them. 
 
 The question of sin for instance. The point is, 
 whether man, in the condition in which we see him, 
 answers to the ideal of his Creator ? whether God 
 made him such as he is ? whether the evil which is 
 in him and which stains his life, may not be con¬ 
 sidered a natural imperfection, which ought to 
 disappear in the course of life, like an innocent 
 shadow destined to be gradually effaced by the 
 
 u 
 
290 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 dawn of righteousness, as night before the day ? or 
 whether we must conclude that there has been 
 a fall, a revolt, and a catastrophe, the shipwreck 
 of man’s soul in the darkness of perdition, en¬ 
 tailing consequences of infinite misery. Do you 
 pretend that Jesus Christ had no categoric answer 
 to this question ? To what purpose, then, was 
 His whole life consecrated ? “ The Son of Man 
 
 is come to seek and to save that which was 
 lost.”* Do you hear this ? What does He 
 make the condition of entrance into what He 
 calls the kingdom of heaven? “Verily, verily, 
 
 I say unto thee, Except a man be born again,” 
 (mark well the expression, “born again”) “he 
 cannot see the kingdom of God.”t Who, then, 
 was it who spoke in such fearful terms of “ outer 
 darkness,” of “ gnashing of teeth,” of “the fire 
 that is not quenched,” of “ the worm that dieth 
 not,” of “ eternal punishment?” 
 
 Suppress this most clear and trenchant doctrine 
 in the teaching of Jesus Christ, try to replace it 
 
 * Luke xix. io. 
 
 f John iii, 3 
 
I 
 
 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 291 
 
 by vague notions of your own, replace, for ex¬ 
 ample, the words perdition and new birth, by 
 imperfection and progress—you will have utterly 
 turned upside down the edifice of His teaching. 
 
 The question of pardon. The point is, whether 
 the goodness of God, His tender and paternal 
 character, is not sufficient, whether the whole 
 Gospel is not contained in these words : “ Go 
 
 in peace, thy sins are forgiven thee?” whether 
 it is really necessary to encumber it with all 
 this apparatus of a mediation, a sacrifice, of a 
 Saviour “ who was delivered for our offences, and 
 was raised again for our justification ? ” * 
 
 Will you venture to say that on this point 
 Jesus Christ had no doctrine; that is to say, a 
 categoric assertion ? What did He mean, then, 
 when, on His entrance on His ministry, He laid 
 so much stress on recalling the prophecies an¬ 
 nouncing the coming of a Redeemer, to show 
 the accomplishment of them in His person? 
 
 What did He mean, then, by demonstrating 
 
 * Romans iv. 25. 
 
 U 2 
 
292 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 so many times and by so many methods, both 
 before and after the event, that “it behoved Christ 
 to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day?”* 
 What did He mean by presenting Himself as 
 the object of the faith which justifies and regene¬ 
 rates the sinner ? “ As Moses lifted up the 
 
 serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son 
 of Man be lifted up : that whosoever believeth 
 in him should not perish, but have everlasting 
 life.”t What did He mean by instituting the 
 supper on the eve of His sacrifice, and by after¬ 
 wards giving it as a mission to His disciples, to 
 testify to the world of His death and resurrection ? 
 Suppress the clear and decisive doctrine in the 
 teaching of the Son of Man on this point, and 
 for the second time you will have turned the 
 edifice upside down, you will have reduced it to 
 ashes. 
 
 The question of the nature of Jesus Christ 
 Himself. We want to know whether He who 
 came to seek and to save us is a more or less 
 * Luke xxiv. 46. f John iii 14, 15. 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 293 
 
 fabulous person; a man who is still not a man, a 
 divine Being without divinity; a sage of an excep¬ 
 tional character; a demi-god, who came from the 
 ranks of celestial creation, to inhabit our earth for 
 a time; or whether by a mystery which I do not 
 undertake to explain, but which I adore, He is 
 Emmanuel, God with us, the eternal Word who 
 made Himself man, truly man, for our salvation. 
 Will you venture to say that Jesus Christ has no 
 doctrine—that is, a categorical assertion on this 
 point? You will not say that Jesus Christ was 
 not a man, for then we should have to ask you 
 whether you are a man yourself. Have you not 
 seen, have you not touched, have you not heard 
 Him? Jesus Christ is a man. But what did this 
 man like myself, my brother, say of Himself? 
 For every man in his inward language says some¬ 
 thing of himself; carries about with him, true or 
 false, the consciousness of what he is. One says: 
 “I am of noble birth.” Another: “I am one of 
 the people.” There have been some who have 
 said to themselves from childhood: “I am an 
 
294 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 emperor.” What, I ask, did He say? It is 
 purely a question of fact. What did He say 
 when He called all men upon earth, created after 
 the image of God, to come to Him, as the inex¬ 
 haustible source of all refreshment, of all light, of 
 all strength, of all peace, of all life ? What does 
 He say when He does not fear to attribute to 
 Himself the power of judging all things, of 
 pardoning sins, of raising the dead, of founding 
 the kingdom of heaven ? What did He mean 
 when He provoked, without repressing, that excla¬ 
 mation of a scandalised crowd: “Thou, being a 
 man, makest thyself God.”* Or when He allows 
 a disciple to fall at His feet, with the exclamation: 
 “My Lord and my God.”t Or again, when He 
 uttered these unheard-of words: “If ye had known 
 me, ye should have known my Father also.”| 
 “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” || 
 What does He say within Himself, if it is not, 
 “I am God?” Exclaim if you will, and say, with 
 
 * John x. 33. f John xx. 28. X John viii. 19. 
 
 || John xiv, 9. 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 295 
 
 the Jews, that He blasphemes; but, at any rate, 
 you cannot refuse to receive the evidence, and 
 must agree that to take away from the teaching of 
 Jesus Christ this primal assertion, will be for the 
 third time radically to change its nature. 
 
 One question more. Let us see, what shall it 
 be? The authority of Scripture? Whether the 
 living Word bore testimony to the written Word ? 
 This is too obvious, we will take another. Let 
 us take justification. The question is, whether 
 man is justified by works, or whether he has need 
 before God of that faith, the roots of which are 
 plunged into repentance, and which bears fruit by 
 regeneration. Do you pretend that Jesus Christ 
 has no doctrine on this question—that is to say, 
 as plain an affirmation as you can desire? Who, 
 then, spoke with more disheartening irony of the 
 presumption of those who flatter themselves that 
 they are righteous because they are so in their 
 own eyes, or those of others? Who was it who 
 represented the work of salvation as something 
 so great, so fundamental, that He formally declared 
 
296 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 it impossible with man, and possible with God 
 alone? Who said: “This is the work of God, 
 that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.”* 
 “I am the vine, ye are the branches, abide in me, 
 for without me ye can do nothing.” t 
 
 Read once more the conversation with Nico- 
 demus, and find me a more authoritative exposition 
 of salvation by faith, and of the theory of regene¬ 
 ration. Although a large part of the Saviour’s 
 teaching has less reference to the salvation of the 
 individual than to the constitution of the kingdom 
 of heaven, the plan of which He traces in the 
 Sermon on the Mount, whose essential features 
 He portrays in a vast number of parables, whose 
 foundations He secures in His last conversations 
 with His disciples, yet try to take away from it 
 the conditions of salvation, such as on so many 
 occasions He defines them to be—the twofold 
 conditions of faith in Christ, and Christ crucified, 
 and of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, and .see 
 what remains. 
 
 * John vi. 29. 
 
 f John xv. 5. 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 297 
 
 No. If doctrine — that is to say, dogmatic 
 assertion—is not seen at first sight in Christ’s 
 teaching, a moment’s attention will suffice to show 
 that it is pervaded by it, and that its decisiveness 
 and firmness constitute its majesty and strength. 
 Like the skeleton in the human frame, it does not 
 appear outwardly, yet it is always there to sustain 
 all the rest. Jesus does not propose problems for 
 the intellect; all problems being solved for Him, 
 and by Himself. But doctrine—if I may use the 
 word again—doctrine is the very basis of His 
 teaching. And it is not enough, to say that it is 
 the basis. We must say that it is the soul, the 
 life, the cause of its existence, its existence itself. 
 As a sovereign master, as king of souls as of 
 everything else, His mode of asserting His claims 
 is simply to appear. And His words being but 
 one form of His manifestation, it is in them, no 
 doubt, but not in them alone, that I contemplate 
 His teaching; it shines resplendent before my 
 eyes in His person altogether, in His entire work. 
 He proclaims the truth that man is a lost sinner 
 
29S THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 by coming to seek and to save him. He proclaims 
 that He possesses divinity by becoming incarnate 
 to accomplish a perfect work of reconciliation. 
 That a sacrifice was needed for the expiation of 
 sin, He proclaims by Himself consummating this 
 sacrifice upon the Cross, after having announced, 
 and in some sort, instituted it beforehand. That 
 man can only be saved freely by means of faith, is 
 a truth, henceforth the hope of the world, which 
 He establishes and proclaims by presenting to the 
 world the object of this faith, which is to give it 
 life—Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 
 
 Our work is doubtless very different from that 
 of Jesus Christ. We are not the Saviour, but 
 simply disciples called upon to bear witness to 
 Him. But on this point His example certainly 
 does not furnish us with a lesson of indifference 
 as to doctrine, but with plain and precise in¬ 
 structions. On the contrary, it is doctrine trans¬ 
 formed into conviction which alone confers on us 
 the right to speak. Without it there would be 
 no dignity, I had almost said no sincerity, in the 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 299 
 
 ministry of the Gospel. May our yea be yea, and 
 our nay, nay. We cannot give too much care to 
 the building up and confirmation of our convic¬ 
 tions by the labours of the study, by prayer and 
 meditation. But after all, let us learn from Jesus 
 Christ that doctrine is less what a preacher says 
 to others, than what he says to himself, and let 
 us take care that our convictions do not become 
 simply the livery of our words, when they ought 
 to be their soul, their life, the essence of their 
 existence. What is the work in question? To 
 proclaim the doctrine of original sin ? To prove 
 the divinity of Jesus Christ? To spread sound 
 views upon expiation ? By no means; you may 
 get all that when you want it with very little 
 pains, and to very little profit. The work is to 
 awaken men’s consciences, to bring souls captive 
 to the obedience of Christ. It is to persuade 
 poor sinners, desperately lost, to accept an un¬ 
 hoped-for and indispensable substitution. This 
 is the work in hand. This it is which alone will 
 rejoice the angels in heaven. This alone it is 
 
300 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 which for eighteen centuries upon earth has been 
 called evangelisation. 
 
 If we inquire what was the general impression 
 produced by the words of Jesus Christ, there is 
 one trait in them which in spite of, and perhaps 
 because of the simplicity of His exterior, was 
 equally striking to crowds and individuals. This 
 was the authority with which He spoke. They 
 compared Him to the teachers of His day, and 
 exclaimed with a mixture of surprise and admira¬ 
 tion : “ Never man spake like this man.” In 
 human affairs, skill in the use of language may 
 suffice; but in proportion as the subjects of which 
 we treat are lofty, we require more simple 
 
 methods of persuasion, more impressive and lofty; 
 
 \ ' 
 
 when we speak of salvation and of heaven, there 
 is but one method of persuasion to be desired, 
 that which Jesus Christ possessed in so great 
 a degree. Who will teach us to speak as 
 He did with authority ? I should like to in¬ 
 vestigate in what this characteristic impres¬ 
 sion which the Saviour’s words made on His 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 301 
 
 auditors consisted, so far as it is applicable to 
 ourselves. 
 
 The authority of the words of Jesus Christ 
 resulted, if I mistake not, from their incomparable 
 accent of truth. I do not mean by this that He 
 always spoke the truth ; this would be an almost 
 inappropriate eulogy, for with Him sincerity 
 reached the point of perfection. But without 
 falsehood, and without intentionally altering the 
 expression of their ideas, it is very rare for human 
 orators to preserve what I will call the exact 
 
 v 
 
 equilibrium of truth. Thus, it must be allowed 
 that the great emotion caused by public speaking 
 implies a sort of excitement, a mental rapture, 
 causing the speaker to be for the time, as it 
 were, raised above himself. This is our strength, 
 but it is also our weakness. Jesus was never 
 raised above Himself. Hence this calm strength, 
 superior to all eloquence, this perfect equanimity, 
 this august serenity, this profound simplicity, 
 which inspires confidence, and which always 
 gives a definite emphasis to His words. 
 
302 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST 
 
 Again, possessing the reality as well as the 
 semblance of truth, He never had to search for 
 truth, but simply to produce it. One might say 
 that His words do but illumine outward things by 
 the internal light which He bears within Himself, 
 and which is, indeed, as St. John says, the true 
 light. Look carefully, and see if from the simplest 
 things to the most inscrutable mysteries, He 
 did not without effort throw upon them the 
 exact measure of light that they require. If, for 
 instance, there is a dark impenetrable place like 
 man’s conscience, He pierces it, searches it, 
 brings its most hidden secrets to the light of 
 day, so that we have but two courses to take, 
 either to fall at His feet or to turn away from 
 Him. Recall the scene of the woman taken in 
 adultery. Since the law of God is perfect in 
 itself, He neither adds anything to it, nor takes 
 anything away ; but with the eye of a Master He 
 invariably looks at the spirit of it, that it may 
 shine forth before the eyes of the sinner who 
 thought himself secure because he had observed 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 303 
 
 the letter. If in the most distant recesses of 
 heaven there is an inaccessible object, the face 
 of the unknown God which no man can see and 
 live, with a few words: “ Our Father which art 
 in heaven;” “He that hath seen me hath seen 
 the Father,” He annihilates the distance, He 
 withdraws the veil, He opens our eyes, and we 
 are constrained to exclaim: “Behold, He is here!” 
 It is the same with everything. When a soul 
 listens to Him, and becomes attentive to His 
 voice, the sun rises for it in the invisible world. 
 How can it but be subjugated? Jesus speaks 
 with authority because He naturally speaks the 
 very language of evidence itself. 
 
 Let us remember this, and ourselves possessing 
 
 0 
 
 Him who calls Himself the truth, let us not 
 forget that our mission is not to argue but to 
 enlighten. Let us leave those who trust to their 
 
 own wisdom, and who build upon philosophic 
 
 % 
 
 doubt, laboriously to establish their pretentions. 
 Firmly seated on the Rock of Ages, wise with the 
 wisdom of God, we have something better to do. 
 
304 THE TEACHING OF JESVS CHRIST. 
 
 When the shadows are thickening around us on 
 every side—shadows of sin, shadows of self- 
 righteousness, shadows of science falsely so called, 
 shadows from within and shadows from without, 
 do not let us waste our time in trying to create 
 light, as if it had not been given to us. It is for 
 us to receive it, and humbly and faithfully to 
 spread it. It is for us to place ourselves simply 
 as mirrors beneath the heavenly rays, to reflect 
 them if possible in all their transparence and 
 purity. 
 
 In order that we may the better serve the truth, 
 we cannot strive enough to become more and 
 more true. But, after all, let us acknowledge that 
 Jesus Christ offered to souls by a sincere soul, is 
 the simple secret of indisputable authority. 
 
 ' The authority of the Saviour’s teaching re¬ 
 sulted doubtless, in the second place, from the 
 perfect holiness of His person and life. A man’s 
 teaching is, or ought to be, of the same value as 
 the man himself. And it is not surprising that 
 the words of Jesus Christ had such infinite weight 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 305 
 
 with His hearers, when we consider the infinite 
 value of Him who uttered them. Never the least 
 incongruity between what He is and what He 
 does, nor between what He does and what He 
 says. Everything about Him is so consistent 
 and so entirely corresponds, that we may say that 
 we hear perfection expressed by perfection lived. 
 There are words so simple as to be almost trite, 
 which on His lips are sublime in their aptitude : 
 “ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see 
 God.”* The first moralist might have discovered 
 that; but does it not startle us to think of the 
 lips which could have ventured to pronounce them 
 for the first time ? On the other hand, His most 
 extraordinary precepts cease to be extraordinary, 
 and fall into the region of the natural, because 
 they naturally find their illustration in Himself.* 
 From whose mouth should we accept, as from 
 His, these precepts which He Himself deprived of 
 their unheard-of character ? “ Love your enemies, 
 
 bless them that curse you, do good to them that 
 
 * Matt. v. 8. 
 
 \ 
 
 X 
 
306 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 hate you, pray for them that persecute you, 
 that ye may be the children of your Father 
 which is in heaven. Be ye therefore perfect, 
 even as your Father which is in heaven is 
 perfect.”* 
 
 Even if it seems like a truism, so self-evident it 
 
 is, we cannot too often repeat it, beginning by 
 repeating it to ourselves: the true authority of 
 our words is that which comes from character, 
 and in religious matters especially from holi¬ 
 ness of character. We hear that formerly the 
 garb, the title, the office of a minister was re¬ 
 spected; now, nothing external commands respect, 
 we want solidity and truth. The more corrupt the 
 world becomes, the more keen is it in detecting 
 the inconsistencies of those who aspire to reform 
 
 it. It has too much interest in finding us at fault 
 not to watch us with lynx-like eyes. If it can 
 possibly accuse us of luxury, sensuality, indolence, 
 pride, or want of amiability; if it can but detect 
 anything of adulteration in our tones, our atti- 
 
 # Matt. v. 44, 45, 48. 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 307 
 
 tudes, our language, an undefinable something 
 which results from contact with every day matters, 
 it is sure to be laid to our charge. The most 
 brilliant preaching does but add to the scandal. 
 If, then, we have it at heart to raise the moral 
 level of contemporary society by preaching, let us* • 
 remember that there is no preaching of the Gospel 
 like that of a Gospel life. The reform that we 
 have the holy ambition to bring about, imposes on 
 us the holy ambition always to begin with our¬ 
 selves. 
 
 It will only be said of us, as it was said of Jesus 
 Christ: “Never man spake like this man,” but in 
 exact proportion as it can be said of us: “Never 
 man lived like this man.” 
 
 If the holiness of Jesus Christ had only con¬ 
 sisted in an abstract moral superiority, it would 
 only have conferred on Him an absolute authority 
 without real result. That the same holiness 
 which, according to an apostle, made Him separate 
 from sinners and higher than the heavens, trans¬ 
 formed into charity caused Him to descend into 
 
308 THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 the lowest parts of the earth to mingle with the 
 worst of sinners, was what gave such an as¬ 
 cendancy to His person, and especially to His 
 teaching. It is a wonderful thing when we think 
 of it, that in a world so given to laxity and mis¬ 
 trust, no one should have possessed the secret of 
 inspiring confidence in the wretched and in rais¬ 
 ing the degraded, like the Holy One and the Just. 
 Ancient fable tells us of a divine minstrel, who 
 attracted and charmed by the tones of his lyre 
 the most ferocious denizens of the forests and the 
 deserts. When the Gospels represent to us the 
 Lamb of God, surrounded by publicans and 
 sinners, who everywhere quitted their haunts at 
 His approach to follow His steps; who grouped 
 themselves around His feet wherever He tarried; 
 and, subjugated by His words full of grace and 
 truth, preceded the Scribes and Pharisees into the 
 kingdom of God, does not the Gospel present to 
 us a prodigy of moral authority which leaves the 
 poetic legends of Greece far behind ? All true 
 success in preaching the Gospel must spring from 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 309 
 
 the same source as this prodigy ; and the source 
 
 % 
 
 from which it springs, is charity. 
 
 The worst of men (and woe to them who do 
 not feel themselves to be the worst) are not 
 merely wicked; they are distrustful, suspicious, 
 always ready to become savage. Present to 
 them the image of holiness, and they feel at once 
 that they are in the presence of a master, the 
 sight of whom disturbs them. They are seized 
 with fear, and feel a mental irritation. But this 
 austere and formidable image of holiness, by a 
 metamorphosis as natural as it is unexpected, 
 transforms itself into the image of charity, who 
 understands and makes herself understood, who 
 blesses us, and pardons and devotes herself; and 
 you will first see surprise succeed to fear, peace to 
 irritation, curiosity to stubbornness; perhaps, at 
 length, you may see life take the place of death, 
 and the glorious liberty of the children of God 
 succeed to the bondage of Satan. If we have 
 been vanquished ourselves, we ought to know how 
 to vanquish others, and that it is only by charity 
 
V 
 
 3 io THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 that they can be vanquished. Not indeed by our 
 own charity. We did not accomplish the sacrifice 
 of redemption, and it is not our name that is given 
 unto men whereby they may be saved. But the 
 charity of Christ—and this again is one of the 
 marvels connected with it—must always be pre¬ 
 ceded, accompanied, and recommended by the 
 charity of His disciples. Charity delights in em¬ 
 ploying us, doubtless, to do us good, in doing 
 good to others. “Now then we are ambassa¬ 
 dors for Christ.”* 
 
 I will conclude by applying this last reflection 
 to the subject which has occupied us this evening. 
 Called to carry on in the world the work of Jesus 
 Christ, let us always take heed that we walk in 
 
 His steps. If His is the only name given unto 
 
 \ 
 
 men whereby they may be saved, He no less 
 demands that we shall partake of the travail of 
 His soul. And it constitutes our nobility and 
 glory, as Christians, to be able to work not only 
 
 * 2 Cor. v. 20. 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. 311 
 
 for Him, but with Him, and in Him. Let us not 
 deceive ourselves. What is wanted in this gene¬ 
 ration is not so much new institutions, nor more 
 men of genius, nor fresh miracles; it is above 
 everything else a fresh manifestation of the Spirit 
 of Christ in our words as well as in our works, in 
 private life and in public, in our individual as well 
 as our collective activity. “He that abideth in 
 me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much 
 fruit.”* Now the Spirit of Christ is not the 
 monopoly of pastors. It is the soul of the 
 Church to transform into the image of Christ, 
 the soul and the life of every one of its members. 
 
 * John xv. 5. 
 
 UNWIN BROTHERS, PRINTERS, BUCKLERSBURY, LONDON, E.C.