sfcfrR< THE s» ; ■Hill m JHBBii HHBMi liiMiil *m FROM THE LIBRARY OF REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON, D. D. BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO THE LIBRARY OF PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY JESUS, 88*24 1936 .>_ THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY BY W. H. FURNESS From that great Life flow forth Immortal harmonies, of power to still All [discords] born of earth, And draw the ardent will Its destiny of goodness to fulfil. From the Spanish: Bryant. PRIVATELY PRINTED PHILADELPHIA: PRESS OF J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 1882. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library http://archive.org/details/jesusheartofchriOOfurn JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY Such is the overruling Providence, and such the constitution of man and the world, that the sources whence comes a quickening influence, animating all our best faculties and affections, are — great men. The visible universe, sublime as it is, mightily as it stirs our wonder and our awe, has no such power to move us as the ex- alted personages who have appeared from time to time in the history of the world. These it is who reach the inmost heart, awakening the con- science, kindling the imagination. Their ap- pearance is prophetic of the salvation of the least and lowest. It is the greatly gifted, the richly-inspired ones, from whom spring institu- tions, civilizations, religions. Their influence 4 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. long survives their mortal existence. Though dead, they live on in generations of men. So that it has been said that the history of man- kind is the history of a few robust persons. Among these, through whom the imperishable life of the infinite God is breathed into our race, and high above all is he from whom Christen- dom sprang. This claim which we make for him may well seem questionable if measured by the extent to which his influence has spread over the globe. The religion of Buddha, it is computed, is the religion of four hundred millions of human be- ings. So far then as numbers are concerned, Christendom must yield to the religion of Asia, and Christ to Buddha. But it is upon no ground of this kind that we claim precedence for Christ. While the religion of Buddha resembles the religion of Jesus in teaching that charity is the root of all human goodness, there is a w T ide difference between the two. " Christianity is founded upon hope, Bud- dhism upon despair." Moreover, among all the religions of the world, the religion of Christ stands alone and above all as the religion of JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 5 progress. Amidst the clamor of ignorance and superstition that still fills the Christian world, and would fain drown the voice of Jesus, the cry ever sounds from the inmost heart of our re- ligion : "Arise and depart, for this is not your rest." Accordingly in Christendom as in no other part of the world, knowledge is constantly increasing, and the means of improvement and happiness. But again I say, it is not on these accounts that we hold Jesus to be first. Not for the ex- tent of his influence, nor for the excelling wis- dom of his teachings, but for what he was, is he to be thus exalted, for the power of his personal being, the unequalled charm of which lies in this : that he was profoundly human. Men are slow to read aright their own consciousness. They think that it is the preternatural, the super- human, that moves them the most powerfully. But it is the human element in Christianity that, amidst all our creeds and ceremonials, touches the heart most deeply. This it is that sets fire to the imagination, and it is tmq* imagination that gives birth to dogmas and symbols. Noth- ing so affects us as that which comes, not from l* 6 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIAXTIY. alleged preternatural sources, but from the in- most heart of human nature. It is the humanity which the Madonna and the Crucifix represent, human suffering and human love, the tenderest, a mother's, — this it is that endears and consecrates those symbols. And it is in his thorough hu- manity that the pre-eminent power of Christ is felt. He is never more entirely one with our human nature, than when he appears to be most above it. He is emphatically the Eevealer of Man. He shows us our human nature in its fullest development on this earth. By the ven- eration he inspires we are brought into sympathy with his great qualities, and are made to know what real solid things truth and faith and self- sacrifice are, and all the nobleness which his life exemplifies ; and thus he creates in us faith in human nature and its illimitable possibilities. The unrivalled personal greatness of Jesus is undesignedly attested in two ways : First, by the fact that he was so simple, natural, human, in all that he said and did and Buffered, that in- stinctively he won human sympathy and so ex- cited the imagination that it has exalted him to the loftiest height. Generations of men, wise JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 7 and simple, have found no difficulty in believing that the poor peasant of Judea, the carpenter's son, was the Infinite God himself. And again, what hut a force of character, for a parallel to which we look in vain, could have saved Christianity, as the character of Christ has done, from being crushed into the dust under the weight of error, superstition, and corruption which have been heaped upon it and stamped with its name ? With the increase of general enlightenment, it is beginning to be perceived that Christianity is not a form of opinion or of observance, neither a creed nor a sacrament, but a Spirit, an Ideal, embodied not in any form of words, but in the person of Jesus. He is the Vital Principle of the Christian Faith. Whatever of moral power, whatever of hope, is derived from this faith, comes through sympathy with him. Religious names and forms, doctrines, ecclesiastical organizations, are of quite secondary importance. They may help more or less the propagation of his spirit, but only as they bring us acquainted with him. Only 8 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. as men have bis spirit, do they have experience of the power and peace which he specially com- municates. It is, therefore, of the first importance and of the deepest interest to study to know him as fully as we may. He is mainly conceived of in his alleged official character, or merely as a great teacher. But what we would ascertain is : What manner of man was he ? And this, owing to the dogmas which have gathered like mists around him, it has been all but impossible to discover. They must be penetrated and dispersed, that we may come at the recorded facts of his history, through which, and not through his teachings only or chiefly, his spirit breathes upon us with sympathetic power, and he is brought within the embrace of our affections, and we become con- scious of him as a living soul, one with us. When we have thus learned to know him, his words cease to be trite, and come charged and overflowing with his personal life. It is in the Four Gospels alone that the re- quired information concerning Jesus is to be found. But here again these Records arc, like JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 9 him, obscured by the errors which have long and widely prevailed in regard to them. I hope in the following pages that some light may be thrown upon their origin, character, and con- tents, and consequently upon the person of Jesus. I. If, according to the universally received opinion, the Gospels were not written until years after the events narrated took place, then, for obvious reasons, there may well arise a doubt of their historical truth, to be dispelled only by the most decisive internal evidence of their cred- ibility. Admitting what we are told by scholars, that there is no historical evidence of the existence of the Four Gospels before the second century, a fact which is held to be fatal to their credibil- ity, nevertheless, considering how strongly in all ages men are impelled, as by an irresistible in- stinct, to avail themselves of all the means within their reach to express and publish the impression which events at all remarkable make on them, I cannot but think it very unlikely, to say the least, that nothing was put into a written 10 JESUS, THE HEAKT OF CHRISTIANITY. form about Jesus until a hundred years after his time. It must be borne in mind that there is all the difference in the world between the method of publication then and now. Now the intelli- gence of any event is flashed instantly upon the wings of the lightning to the four quarters of the globe. But then there were no means of advertising like ours, no newspapers, no printing- press; consequently the manufacture and multi- plication of any writing must have been exceed- ingly slow, and it must have been in existence a long time before it became so multiplied and so extensively circulated as to arrest public recognition. These things being so, that the Gospels are not mentioned by any writer before the second century, does not preclude the possibility of their being composed of writings that came into ex- istence and were slowly multiplied, and passed from hand to hand long before. That such is actually their character, that they are compila- tions of narratives that had been more or less in circulation long before the second century, is to my mind abundantly evident from their internal characteristics. The whole spirit and structure, JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 11 of the first three Gospels especially, show that they were, substantially, composed well-nigh contemporaneously with the events narrated. They are warm with the impress of the facts which they tell. I find them to be inspired, plenarily inspired, not preternaturally, but ple- narily inspired by Nature and Truth. I care little for their external history. They have in them- selves the evidence of their credibility. They are their own credentials. A man skilled in precious stones does not need to know the history of a diamond in order to tell whether it be a diamond or not. It is told of Alexander the Great that, when lie visited the tomb of Achilles, he wished that he mi glit have such a herald to sing of his ex- ploits as Achilles had in Homer. An idle wish. Wisely has it been said, " Do great deeds, and they will sing themselves." Great things said and done strike all who hear and behold them ; and hearers and beholders there always are, who cannot keep to themselves what they have seen or heard. They are driven by the irresistible force of nature, which is the inspiration of God, to report and record them, — to publish them in 12 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. all possible ways. This is what is meant by creat deeds sin grins: themselves. And this is what the history of Jesus is a most impressive instance of. Such incidents as make up the story of his life could no more foil to be instantly published by every means then known than the sun could fail to give light. "Written narratives did not wait till there was an external demand for them. They created the demand. As I have paused over the different scenes of his career, and have been touched to the heart by the Godlike bearing of this Man of men, it has seemed to me that if men had held their peace, the very stones in the streets, over which walked those blessed feet, would have cried out. But men did not hold their peace. They could not. And consequently by word of mouth, and by written words as well, the world has rung with the immortal story. Unhappily, we are so familiar with it, we read it and hear it read over and over again in such falsetto tones, with no sense of what it really sig- nifies, that we have but a faint idea of the pro- found sensation that the appearance of Jesus made. Who has not often wished that he could JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY, 13 read this history as if it were for the first time put into his hands? It is hard to read it thus, but it is not impossible. We must summon to our aid all the power of the imagination and learn to read between the lines. Disentangling our minds from all traditionary associations, we must study to go back and mingle with the crowds that thronged the steps of Jesus. As we succeed in doing so, we shall be more and more impressed by the power there was in him, in all that he said and Buffered and did. Invol- untarily our hearts will glow with veneration and love, and there will be seen in the events narrated, and in the way in which they are nar- rated, luminous evidence of their truth. II. Another reason why the credibility of the New Testament fails to be perceived, is to be found in the accounts they contain of alleged miracles. Now miracles, in the sense of departures from the established order of nature, are no longer believed in, nor can they be, upon any rational grounds. Truman knowledge advances only to discover at every step the universality of law, the 14 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. uniformity of nature, a consummate order. Every- thing that is, is in harmony with all else that is. To show that anything is true, it must be shown to be, actually or probably, in conformity with all else that we know to be true. To pronounce an event out of the natural, God-instituted order of things is to put it beyond the possibility of being shown to be true. For then it is not to be distinguished from a creation of the imagination. But while I cannot believe in the possibility even, of a miracle, considered as a departure from the laws of nature, I do not hold myself authorized to reject any new fact as a fable be- cause it appears to be out of the natural order of things. Where would Science be now, what progress would it ever have made, if it had re- fused to accept new facts because they seemed to be at variance with known laws? When facts having this appearance are fully substantiated, then the inevitable conclusion is that they are due to some law unknown. To my mind, the so-called miracles of the New Testament arc proved to have actually occurred by evidence which I cannot resist. I believe that the sick, the lame, the blind were instantane- JESUS, THE IIEAKT OF CIIRrSTIAXITY. 15 ously relieved,as is reported, that Lazarus awoke from the Bleep of death at the summons of Jesus, and that Jesns himself reappeared after his cru- cifixion. The evidence upon which my faith rests is inlaid in the structure of these narra- tives. Things must he true that are so truth- fully told. No coin, no medal, ever showed the stamp of the die more sharply than the Gospels, rightly read, show the impress of the facts which they relate. So satisfactory is this evidence that even could I catch no glimpse of the law in conformity with which these wonderful events occurred, I should feel none the less hound to accept them, and wait patiently for the discovery of the law. But the fact is. we are not left wholly in the dark as to the way in winch the extraordinary physical phenomena that attended the career of Jesus were produced. We have most significant indications that they happened in ohedienee to a law with which we are familiar, and of the oper- ation of which we have all heard, if we have not witnessed, very striking instances : namely, the law of the influence of the mind over the body, of spirit over matter. Not to any preter- 16 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. natural gift possessed by Jesus are the wonder- ful tilings that occurred attributable. lie made no pretensions to any such power. Most em- phatically did be declare over and over again that it was in the faith of those who were" re- lieved that the healing virtue lay. The miracles, therefore, related in bis history are not violations of natural laws, but natural facts. Not only so, but of all facts they arc the most natural, since they are illustrations of the highest known law of Nature. * It is the charm, the beauty of this view of them, that, thus regarded, they illustrate the lofty character of Jesus, and, as they most as- suredly would not do were they mere fables, they create a higher idea of him. Indeed, there is no respect in which he seems to me greater than in his attitude amidst the astonishing effects that accompanied him. A young man, living in retirement till bis thirtieth year, or thereabouts, he appeared in public only to see things occurring in his presence, at a word of his lips, at a touch of his hand, that causrd multitudes to burst forth in shouts of admiration and to ascribe to him extraordinary power. But so far from taking JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 17 any credit to himself, lie is evidently struck only by the mighty power of the faith of the people. That was tin' agency that tilled his eye and mind to the exclusion of all thought of himself. To my mind, this absence of the slightest inclina- tion to sec himself through the eyes of the mul- titude, and to take advantage of the popular enthusiasm betokens a force of character, a magnanimity, only surpassed by the kingly dig- nity of his bearing at the last, when, instead of the Hosannas of the people, the savage yell, "Crucify him! crucify him!*' was ringing in his ears, and he stood there, confronting death in a most horrid shape, as calm and silent as the heavens above him. Thus it appears that, without violence to the record, in fact by its explicit authority, the mir- acles so called admit of being so viewed that, so far from being inconsistent with his high char- acter, so far from belittling him and making him appear as a mere vulgar wonder-worker, playing upon the rude passion for the marvellous, as they certainly would do were they mere fables, they create in as a new and deeper sense of his great- ness of mind. Were they mere fictions, woven 2* 18 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. into the history to make him appear to be pos- sessed of preternatural power, could they possi- bly have thus harmonized with our highest idea of him ? Would not the result have been di- rectly the opposite, — to lower and mar our con- ception of his exalted character? I could more easily imagine that one of the immortal creations of Grecian Art could escape mutilation, were a child to take the chisel and undertake to im- prove it, than that the divine character of Jesus, God-fashioned as it was, could be otherwise than fatally injured by the endeavor to magnify it by the interpolation of crude human fictions. That the first written reports of exciting events should lack order and fulness, and partake of the hasty and fragmentary character of the first oral reports that go abroad, lies in the nature of things. In the case of Jesus, it is so natural to expect that his immediate disciples, those who, having been in constant attendance upon him, were best qualified to tell the story of his life, would be the first to write it, that it lias always been taken for granted that such was the fact, that there was nothing written about him before JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 19 they wrote. But, while they were, doubtless, always talking about their Master, they were, for a special reason, the last to think of putting anything in writing. Possessed with the idea that he was the glorious Messiah, whose reign was shortly to commence, they were in absorb- ing expectation of events that would cast all that preceded them into the shade. Their Epistles show how fully the primitive disciples were en- grossed with the future. Their eyes were fast- ened upon what was coming. They make no allusions to past events. The only past event referred to in the Epistles of Peter (ii. 1, 18) is the Transfiguration, and that is alluded to be- cause it was conceived to be a fore-vision of Jesus in the coming glory of his Messiahship. I conclude, therefore, that it was not the personal followers of Jesus who were the first to put his acts and sayings into a written form : it was un- committed spectators, outside the little circle of his immediate disciples, who, struck by the extra- ordinary character of the things said and done by him, were moved to record them, for no partisan purpose, by a -ingle and irresistible sense of truth. While it is thus evident that, as certainly as 20 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. the incidents of the career of Jesus would be published by word of mouth, they would be pub- lished also in a written form, I believe that many of those earliest written narratives are still ex- tant. Here they are in our present first three Gospels. These Gospels are almost entirely made up of them. That the immediate disciples of Jesus are always spoken of in the third person intimates that the materials of which these Gospels are composed were written by others than they. Of the first three Gospels, only one bears the name of a personal disciple, and he was one of the least eminent ; and although the fourth Gos- pel bears the name of the beloved disciple, it is a question whether John had any direct hand in writing the Gospel ascribed to him; all which is in accord with the idea that the immediate dis- ciples of Jesus took so tardy and so feeble an interest in putting the particulars of his life on record that not until, in the course of time, a demand was made for written accounts of him, did they give any heed to the work, and then it \v;t> left to one of the least eminent among them, Matthew, and to the nephew of an Apos- JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 21 tic, Mark, and to Luke, a companion of Paul, neither of whom was of the original twelve, to prepare the needed accounts. Not that it was thus arranged by convention, but so it naturally chanced. And they who prepared our present Gospels did hardly anything more than compile the accounts already in circulation, and known to have been obtained from authentic source-. However this may be, our present Gospels, — I speak of the first three, — have all the air of hav- ing been written very closely in time upon the events which they relate. Had they been com- posed a hundred, or even fifty years later, they would have borne the stamp of that later time.* There would have appeared in them traces of objections that would have naturally arisen, and of explanations that would have come to be de- manded. They would have given it to be seen in one way and another that they were written in the presence of doubters and scoffers. There would have been something of a controversial hue about them, and of an anxiety to make out * See "Indirect Testimony of History to the Genuineness of the Gospels," by F. Huidekoper. 22 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRrSTIANITY. a case. As it is, I am at a loss to know how they could more plainly appear to owe their ex- istence to the pure force of truth. They declare their birth in every feature, marked strongly by the first impression made, before opportunity was given for speculation and partisanship to tamper with the facts recorded. In fine, they are just such accounts as would first go abroad, supposing the things told actually occurred. They are oral reports written down. We may judge of what a different character the first three Gospels would have been, had they been written at a later period, from the peculiar character of the fourth Gospel, which is in great part explained, I conceive, by reference to its later origin. As the first three bear marks of having been written when the events related were fresh, before time was given for any theo- rizing, the fourth bears equally unmistakable siince it is thus attested. But that these four narratives, if they are fictions, horn of delusion and the blind passion for the marvellous, should be found in their minutest details to be in entire, seamless consistency with the truth of nature,— this I cannot believe. It is taxing my credulity too heavily. If I am mistaken, if the Gospels are mere fictions, then are they the crudest fictions that were ever invented, and I do not wonder that they are so regarded by those who have never explored their wealth of internal evidence. Consider for a moment the story in the first Gospel of the first Reappearance of Jesus. It gives us to understand that the guard stationed at the tomb and the women were all present when the supposed angel appeared and rolled away the stone, that the guard were frightened to death, and that the angel told the women that Jesus had risen. But when, according to this story,— when did he rise and leave the tomb? The stone had just been removed. Where was time for him to rise and come forth? We turn to 28 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. the three other accounts, and we find that they all agree in stating that the appearance of the Angel and the removal of the stone took place before the women came. Accepting this state- ment, we have only to consider how, upon the occurrence of exciting events following one an- other in swift succession, time is forgotten and the most startling particulars are told all in a breath, in order to see how natural it is that just such a report as this in the first Gospel, telling all the most striking incidents at once, should have been made. But taking this first story by itself, without the light thrown upon it by the other narratives, regarding it as an invention, was there ever a clumsier fabrication ? It un- dertakes to tell how a dead man came to life, and by its own showing the fact is impossible ! Assuredly, if the authors of the Gospels were so stupid as this comes to, nothing could be easier than to tear their work to shreds, and hold it up to the derision of the simplest of mankind. If these books that profess to tell us about Jesus are fabrications, they arc, I repeat, as this passage of the first Gospel shows, fabrications of the poorest description, instead of discovering JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 29 in them, as we do, numerous imprints of the deli- cate hand of nature, unconscious harmonies with truth and prohahility, contradictions and absur- dities would dare upon us from every Bentenee. It is only the creations of the rarest genius that counterfeit the workmanship of nature so cunningly as hardly to be distinguishable there- from. But there are things in which even this is not possible to the most inspired of men. When it comes to matters of fact and circum- stance, such as the Gospels abound in, even Shakespeare never attempted the impossible, never presumed to emulate nature in this re- spect, but took for the plots of his dramas either the events and personages of history, or such old-time stories as came to hand, however rude and unnatural they might be. In the world of the imagination he ranged and ruled as a god. But so far was lie from dreaming of inserting fictitious events into the God-woven web of things so that they should be indistinguishable from actual occurrences, that he treated the unities of time and place as if no such things were. That such simple-minded and unculti- vated writers as the authors of the Gospels 3* 30 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. should produce inventions all of a piece with truth and nature, nay, inventions that would not be seen at a glance to be in flat contradiction of truth and nature, — why, I could as readily ac- cept in all seriousness the supposition of a wor- shipper of Goethe's, that " if the Almighty, when he made the world, had created no birds, but had said to that great man, ' My dear Goethe, there is a void in Creation. Fill it up,' Goethe would instantly have proceeded to make birds just as the Almighty has made them." Doubtless stories may be invented that shall wear an air of truth. There is Robinson Crusoe, for instance, which, as Dr. Whately has remarked, reads more like a veritable history than any work of the kind that has ever been written. But to create this appearance, the author had to lay the scene of his story in a lonely island where he was free to invent all his circumstances without coming in contact and contradiction with known facts. But even with this advantage, the story in various particulars, — Dr. Whatcly enumerates eight, — violates truth and probability. Whereas the Gospel history is laid in the very thick of affairs, and numerous individuals are concerned JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 31 in it, and the action goes on in many places, and what is the most remarkable of all, the facts re- lated are of no every-day order, but facts extraor- dinary, unprecedented. And yet all is in accord with truth and nature. That these abundant marks of truth arc wholly undesigned is apparent from the fact that they are far from being obvious. Had they been in- tended to make the history appear true, they would have been rendered conspicuous. Many of those which I indicate appear never to have been noticed before. It is true, so long as this history has been held to be a miraculously in- spired composition, in a peculiar sense the word of God, men have not cared to find in it traces of human nature. The evidences of its truth have not been sought for in this direction. Now, when the character of the Gospels has come to be understood, and they are regarded as purely human compositions, the marks of truth with which they are inlaid are found to be as un- designed as they are striking. Furthermore, what puts the coincidences of the Gospels with truth and nature beyond the suspicion of being fabricated is the fact that in many instances they 32 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. result from a collation of four different and inde- pendent narratives. II. The Gospels are written not in the dialect that Jesus used, but in a tongue foreign to his. Does not this fact render it uncertain whether we have what he really said ? That the story of his acts and sayings is told in ever so many different languages, and is the same in all, testifies to its plainness, and justifies our confidence in its substantial fidelity. Again, it is evident, on the face of the Gospels, that their authors were persons of no literary cul- ture. They had but a scanty vocabulary. They had not verbal wealth enough to afford to make excursions. Had they had a copious supply of words, and had they known the art of literary composition, they would have been tempted to color their narratives and to forestall our ad- miration. They would have had an eye to effect. There is no trace of any such bias.* It follows * Except in the disposition naively shown, especially in tho first Gospel, to find in the incidents mentioned verifications of pa -ages in the Old Testament. JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 33 that the translation from the dialect used by Jesus into that of our present Gospels is alto- gether literal. Indeed, the Greek of the New Testament is not pure Greek. It abounds in Hebraisms, a list of which makes a goodly sized volume. There is another thing that goes far to assure us that the utterances of Jesus are faithfully re- ported in the first three Gospels, although in a language which he did not speak. It is emi- nently characteristic of his teachings that they are not abstract and general, but either simple stories or identified with occasions. Now these are precisely the forms that render things said easy to be remembered, hard to be forgotten. Years ago there came to Philadelphia a teacher of Mnemonics : the art of remembering ; and the one principle of his method was drawn from the experience, familiar to us all, that the memory of things and words is readily preserved when there are incidents by which we remember them. III. It is to be borne in mind in the reading of the Gospels that large allowance must be made for the mode of narration characteristic of such 34 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. unpractised writers as the authors of these books show themselves to have been. Writers of this class always narrate scenically. This peculiarity will best be shown by an instance or two. Take the so styled Calling of the first four disciples of Jesus. It is told thus : " And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon, icho was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the lake : for they were fishermen, and he said, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they immediately left their nets, and followed him. And going on, he saio two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, mending their nets, and he called them,. And they immediately left the boat and their father, and followed him" Taken to the letter, as this passage commonly is, it has a look of the miraculous, as if it meant that Jesus exercised a sudden and supernatural power over these men. But this appearance is owing, I conceive, to the scenic style of the narration. As the borders of the lake were familiar to Jesus, a little reflection suggests the improbability of his being unacquainted with the people of the neighborhood. We may well suppose that he had known these men for some time, that he had JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 35 talked with them frequently, and that it was from personal acquaintance with them that he selected them from his limited circle as the best fitted for his purpose. His invitation to them implies as much. Their readiness to throw in their lot with him presupposes their previous knowledge of him. To outsiders, ignorant of the private and gradual manner in which they were brought to give in their adhesion to him, the change made in their lives may well have seemed sudden. All that is here related would have been told by a practised writer somewhat thus : " On the shores of the lake of Galilee, Jesus became acquainted with certain persons, Peter and Andrew, broth- ers, and with two others, the brothers James and John, sons of Zebedee, fishermen all, and he in- duced them to quit their boats and nets and go with him, promising to make them fishers of men." The same peculiar style of narration appears in the passage which tells of the ass that Jesus procured to ride into Jerusalem. It is only the way in which it is told that gives it an air of the miraculous. The incident is mentioned simply enough in the fourth Gospel. There it is merely 36 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. said that " Jesus, when lie found a young ass, sat thereon." In the second and third Gospels there is great particularity. Related in modern style, the passage would read thus : " As Jesus approached Jerusalem, he sent two of his disciples to a neighboring village, where, at a certain place, they would find an ass with her colt. He bade them bring the animals to him, and if any one objected, to say that it was he who needed them." It is reasonable to suppose that he was known to the owner. Jesus had friends in the neighbor- hood of the capital ; Lazarus and his sisters, for instance, in Bethany, which village it was prob- able that he was approaching.* It was in conformity with the same peculiar mode of narration, characteristic of uneducated people and children, that the unspoken thoughts of men are cast into verbal forms, as in Luke (vii. 49): "And they that sat at meat with him began to sag within themselves, Who is this that for- giveth sins also V In other words, " the persons * No reason is so much as intimated why Jesus wished to ride, hut the simple reason was, I suppose, because as he drew near to the city the crowd so Increased thai his progress would he less impeded if he rode than if he went on foot. JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 37 present at table wondered who this man was who arrogated to himself authority to forgive sins." TV. We fail to understand these ancient wri- tings unless we also hear in mind that, in accordance with Hebrew modes of thought, familiar, natural facts are spoken of in forms of speech very different from ours, and yet pre- cisely the same things are meant by both. Thus, in the thirteenth chapter of the first Gospel, where his disciples are said to have asked Jesus why, in speaking to the people, he used parables, his answer is: " To you it is given to know the hidden things of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given." According to our ways of thinking and speaking, the same sense exactly is expressed by the words, " You are able to know, etc., but they are unable." Jesus adds: " Whoso- ever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath," which has an arbitrary sound to the common reader. But, making due allowance for the modes of thought and speech <>t' that time, we have here a state- ment of the natural law of which Mr. Darwin 4 38 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY, makes so much use, and by which every organ, every faculty, is strengthened by exercise and atrophied by disuse. The Hebrews knew nothing of our mechanical theories of nature. They rested in no secondary causes. They referred all things to God. Man's ability was in their view a direct gift from above, given when exercised, taken away when not exercised. To the Hebrew Law-giver and to the Prophets a conviction of mind was the word of the Lord. All evil, physical and moral, was ascribed to spiritual agencies. It may be doubted, by the way, whether their spiritual way of looking at things led them farther astray than our mechanical theories are now threaten- ing to lead us. Infinite difficulty has been found in understanding the narrative of the spiritual conflicts of Jesus in the desert. It has all come from not allowing for the manner of thinking, and consequently of speaking, prevalent then and there. When he described those severe experiences of his, which were obviously alto- gether natural, he was not understood, nor did lie mean to be understood y as saying that they were out of the ordinary course of things. He JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 39 used the forms of thought and speecli in which all such farts were then clothed. And so, when he speaks of the devil's coming and snatching away the good seed sown in the heart, and of Satan's desiring to sift Peter like wheat, he is speaking, in the modes of expression then in use, only of familiar moral experiences. It is a mistake to understand these and similar passages as if they were designed to assert the existence of a personal spirit of evil. This is not the point nor purpose. V. Another thing to be considered, which helps greatly to open the Gospels to us and give us an insight into the character of Jesus, is the fact that the ejaculations of passion take pre- cisely the same forms of speech, make use of the same general and universal terms, in which the deliberative intellect enunciates its abstract propositions. When we speak from deep feeling, the cause of our emotion dilates into a world-embracing fact, hiding from us for the moment all exceptions, all qualifying considerations, and we express our- selves accordingly. AVhen, for example, we 40 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. are deceived by one in whom we trusted, how naturally do we exclaim, " There is no truth in man!" Those who hear us know at once from our whole manner that we are giving utterance to a hurst of feeling, not to a coolly-formed opinion. But those to whom our words are re- ported, ignorant of the circumstances and of our manner, fail to make due allowance, and conse- quently misapprehend us. Thus Jesus has been greatly misunderstood. He has been supposed to be announcing universal truths, articles of faith, when he was only relieving deep emotion by strong exclamations. Thus, when he said that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, he was not deliberately asserting that it is absolutely impossible for the rich to enter the heavenly kingdom, but naturally and strongly expressing the deep sense of the moral obstacles in the way of the wealthy, with which the case of the rich youth before him, whom to look upon was to love, had suddenly and most forcibly impressed him. The most striking instance in point is the JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 41 passage in which he declares the sin against the Holy Spirit is never to be forgiven, a passage which has wrung with terror many tender minds, and driven them to despair and madness. "When we turn to the circumstances of this declara- tion, we perceive the cause and the character of this strong language. Certain Pharisees charged Jesus with being in league with the Devil. And why? What was the ground of the accusation? An act of humanity which he had just performed. Good was devilish in their eyes. Could human depravity go any further ? It shocked Jesus to the last degree. In reply, he held up the shame- ful charge before all the people, exposing its base- ness and absurdity through and through; and his indignation grew so, that, while he thus relieved it, he ended by pronouncing those hardened ca- lumniators past forgiveness then and ever. lie spoke as he was moved, and is not to be taken to the letter. What is more natural ? Are we not often prompted, in the heat of passion, caused only by some slight personal offence, to exclaim, "It is unpardonable!" But it was no personal offence that kindled into a blaze the heart of Jesus. He said in the same breath that they 4* 42 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. might revile him, — as, doubtless, they were con- tinually doing, — and be forgiven. But to revile God, the very spirit of God, to call that devilish, — that was past forgiveness. Not that there is any sin, which, being repented of, will not be forgiven, — repentance and forgiveness are one, so he taught (Luke vii.), — but because the per- versity of these Pharisees struck Jesus as past repentance. What access could repentance gain to hearts which denounced the good spirit which alone inspires penitential feelings? How profoundly Jesus was moved on this oc- casion, into what a heat of sacred passion he was thrown by the vile charge, is strikingly mani- fested, — and here is one of those unconscious harmonies with the truth of nature in which the Gospels abound, and which defy imitation, — by the manner in which he was affected by certain interruptions that occurred. When some one called out to him that his mother wanted him, transported for the moment out of himself and of all his natural relations, he exclaimed, " Who is my mother?" And when a woman in the crowd, upon bearing mention of his mother, cried out, " What a blessed woman your mother must be JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 43 to have such a son !" he turned upon her with the exclamation, "Blessed rather are they who hear the word of God and keep it!" What thought not in accord with the emotion that then absorbed him could then have been suggested that would not have seemed to him utterly out of place ? Least of all could he then endure the intrusion of any allusion to himself personally or to his personal relations. When Jesus appears to be calmly enunciating universal truths, mere generalities, it will almost always be found that he is, in reality, deeply moved, and giving utterance to the strong lan- guage of passion; and this is never to be taken without abatement. To see how human, how real he was, we must keep in mind that he spoke not from any external dictation, but as he was prompted from within, out of the abundance of a heart so full that at every touch it brimmed over. When I pause over such strong language as the following : " If a man hate not his father and mother . . . he cannot be my cUscipl ;" and again, " If ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, y< shall say in this sycamine^tree 3 Be thou plucked up by the 44 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. roots, or to this mountain, Be thou cast into the sea, and they wiR obey you" — [observe, by the way, how pointed this language is; " this sycamine" " this mountain." Were this latter utterance not his own, but put into his mouth after his time, would it have had this particularity? Would it not have been trees and mountains in general that would have been instanced ? Why a syca- mine ? Why this sycamine ? Why this moun- tain ? For the plain reason that a sycamine and a mountain were near at hand, in full view, at the moment,] — is it conceivable, I ask myself, that such language would have been attributed to Jesus if he had not uttered it; and if he uttered it, accompanied as it doubtless was by the com- manding emphasis of the voice and the eye, it must needs have buried itself deep, as it has done, in the memory of mankind. To my ear, passages of this kind have the thrilling ring of the pro- foundest passionate conviction, of a faith which these forms of speech, bold as they are, only feebly express. It is worthy of note that, when gasping in the agonies of a violent death, he who declared hatred of father and mother the condition of JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 45 fellowship with him, spent his last breath in care for his own mother, and that, while he set no bounds to the power of faith, so far from ever being represented as uprooting trees or overturn- ing mountains, or committing any similar ex- travagance, he never even sought occasions, but rather avoided them, to display even the least extraordinary instances of a power which he described in such unqualified terms. I may be reminded here of the story of the fig-tree withering at his word. What is to be said of that? Does not that represent him as exercising a somewhat extravagant power ? Is it not a fable or an exaggeration ? Perhaps. But it is to be observed that it contains not a word intimating that Jesus had any thought of exert- ing an extraordinary power. Xo effect of his imprecation was visible at the time. Neither was it he, but his disciples, who called attention to the tree the next day. The story is that, upon finding no fruit on the tree, he cursed it. So Peter designated the action, which it would seem, then, was an ejaculation of disappoint- ment. If we presume to sit in judgment upon him therefor, we must give him the benefit of 46 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. the extenuating; probability that the exclamation was wrung from him by extreme exhaustion and his sore need of refreshment. Were I to affirm that the tree withered through an inscrutable affinity between it and the powerful nature of Jesus, I might appeal, in support of the idea, to distinguished naturalists, who have so much to say about the nerves of plants, and are so busily gathering proofs that it is the touch, not of Nature alone, but of Science as well, that is making all organized forms of existence, down to the lowest, kin. Here I am led to say that I do not think it essential to a just sense of the greatness of Jesus that he should be thought never to have suc- cumbed to the unavoidable infirmities of the imperfect nature that he shared with us all. There is none good but One. It is conceded b} T those who find but little that is credible in the Gospels that the most remarkable things con- tained therein, being, morally regarded, too great to have been invented, arc probably true. But to my thinking, it is only the great things in the life of Jesus that are recorded. Only such had the force to get written. There were, I JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 47 doubt not, many small occasions in his life, as there are in the life of every breather on this earth, when there were visible in him the com- mon weaknesses of our nature. But they were lost to sight in the exceeding lustre of his great qualities. Fully recognizing this probability, I do not find my sense of his unrivalled moral elevation lessened thereby, but deepened rather. It brings him all the nearer to us, and we see more clearly how great he was. Even in his public career, in the course of his great work, he had severe struggles with human weakness, when it seemed to him as if he should die, and the cup that was given him to drink had a deadly bitterness. The wonder and the glory of it all was that, impassioned as he was, he was never confused nor incoherent, never lost himself, save in the Highest which is self-gain, — was never taken off his feet by the tumultuous tide of public feeling, whichever way it turned, but was always sovereign master of himself and the situation. VI. I have adduced, as evidence of the early origin of the Gospels, the absence, in the first three especially, of explanatory comments. They 48 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. never discuss, but only relate incidents; never stop to connect or reconcile them with one another, paying' little regard to any order, even to the order of time, — all which accords with the conclusion that they are memorabilia, compi- lations of various separate accounts which were in existence and circulation before the followers of Jesus began to speculate about his life, and the history to crystallize into systematic and dogmatic shapes, the tendency to which began very early, as the peculiar character of the fourth Gospel testifies. The style of the first three Gospels, which thus leads to the conclusion that they were written well-nigh contemporaneously with the events they narrate, is interesting in another respect. It is precisely this anecdotical character of the Gospels which enables us to form ideas of the actors in the scenes narrated, far more distinct and vivid than could be had from the most elab- orate description of their persons. It cannot be supposed that the writers had any thought of portraying character. Had they attempted it, and had they been ever so well qualified for the work, they never could have >ucceeded in JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 49 producing such lifelike portraits as we may now gather from the facts narrated. No mention whatever is made of the personal qualities of these individuals ; but from what they are re- ported as saying and doing we learn at once what manner of persons they were. Consider, for example, the case of Mary and Martha as instances of this unconscious por- traiture of character. Here, I trust, I shall be pardoned for quoting myself; I do so with less hesitation, as the publications from which I quote are, I believe, nearly or wholly out of print. Of these two women we have only one or two notices, and yet how finished the result ! " Of Mary it is related that on a certain occasion she came, and, standing behind Jesus, as he reclined at table, poured a very costly and fragrant oint- ment upon his head in token of her profound veneration for him. AVe are also told that, at another time, when he was visiting these friends of his, Martha, busying herself in the oflices of hospitality, was hurt with Mary, and complained of her to Jesus, because she sate idly at his feet and gave her (Martha) no assistance in pro- viding for the company. This is all that is 50 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. told of these two sisters, save the mention of them in the account of Lazarus, to which I shall shortly refer. " But little as it is, no writer of fiction, not even Shakespeare, has ever by such slight and so few strokes produced such lifelike portraits. We understand what manner of women Martha and Mary were as readily as if we had long been personally acquainted with them. We distinguish them at a glance. Martha was of a matter-of-fact nature. When so eminent a person and so dear a friend as Jesus came to see her, her first and only thought was to provide most hospitably for his bodily comfort. She set herself at once at work to place before him the best and all that the house afforded. It was not in her to think that she could show him any greater attention. Mary was of a very different nature, full of sensibility, appreciating the exalted qualities of Jesus, for- getting everything in his presence but the charm of his discourse. The food that was to her taste her sister knew not of. "Observe now how admirably, and all the more admirably because undesignedly, the respective characters of these two women are maintained JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 51 in the passage of the history that relates the Eaising of Lazarus. When word came that Jesus was on his way to the house, it is Martha who was the first to go to meet him. At first sight we should expect that it would have been Mary who would be the first to hasten to wel- come him, as her interest in him was by far the deeper. But that Mary, mourning for her brother, should have been secluded in a retired part of the house, as the custom of the time and country allowed, is in accordance with her char- acteristic sensibility. She went ' quickly,' how- ever, to meet Jesus the instant she was told of his approach. But Martha heard of his coming first, because her nature, rendering intolerable to her the quiet which Mary sought in her grief, caused her to find her comfort in her active household cares, and consequently she was in that part of the house where the coming of Jesus would be first announced. It is not likely that Martha forgot Mary, or that it did not occur to her what comfort it would be to her sister to know that Jesus was at hand. But Martha neither went nor sent to let Mary know that he was coming. She started off by herself to go and 52 JESUS, THE HEAKT OF CHRISTIANITY. meet him; And it is so entirely in character with the jealousy of her sister, which she had shown on the only other occasion in which she appears in the history, that we may naturally surmise that she went to meet Jesus without first letting her sorrowing sister know of his coming in order that she might see him all by herself, without having Alary present to engross his attention. When Jesus was with them, and Mary was present, holding converse with him as Martha could not, the character of Martha authorizes the suspicion that she had an uncom- fortable feeling of inferiority, especially if she were the elder. Whether older than Alary or not, she was probably accustomed, by virtue of her practical temperament and Mary's indiffer- ence to household cares, to take the lead in do- mestic concerns; and, therefore, it could hardly have been agreeable to her, especially when company was present, to appear to occupy a subordinate position. " Observe again, when Jesus and Martha met, how strikingly it appears, and yet without the narrator's giving the slightest sign that he was aware of it, that she was wholly unable to sustain JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 53 any conversation with him. Everything he said staggered her. She could not take in what he said. It was too great for her. When he told her that her brother would rise again, she shrank from the idea, and sought relief from it in her traditional faith in the final resurrection. And when he went on to say (in those profoundly significant words) that He was the resurrection and the life, and (virtually) that her brother, though dead, yet having had faith in Him, would still live, and that she herself, living and be- lieving in Him, would never die, and then de- manded of her whether she believed this, again, confounded by the new, great thoughts he pre- sented, she took refuge in a general confession of her faith in him as the Messiah, — and re- treated. Is it not evident that he startled and overpowered her? He was too much for her. She could not talk with him. She quitted his presence, and went and told Mary that Jesus was coming, and that she was wanted. Mary might understand him, she could not. So she was forced to feel, and the virtual confession of her discomfiture, which she had to make in having to call Mary, could not, chagrined as she 5* 54 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. was, be uttered aloud. And therefore it was that she spoke to Mary, ' secretly,' — in a whisper. " Again, we have a glimpse of Martha's nature in the objection she interposed to the removal of the stone from the tomb, — as if Jesus did not know what he was doing. Mary's silence speaks, and tells us what manner of person she was more significantly than any words. " Never, in any work of fiction, with strokes so few and delicate, has personal character been so exquisitely and yet so incidentally preserved." In the same way Pontius Pilate is undesign- edly porti\Tyed. "A man of the world, asking, What is truth? and indifferent to the answer: indifferent, because, restless and uneasy in the embarrassing circumstances in which he found himself, he was in no mood for so general a question, having put the question without really any strong interest in it at any time, least of all then; — a sceptic, probably, as to the gods, and yet seized with a vague, superstitious dread that here might be some deity in disguise, when, utterly at a loss to comprehend the silent self- possession of the prisoner in such awful circum- stances, he was told that tlie man had called JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 55 himself the Son of God, and word came to him in the judgment-hall from his wife, bid- ding him beware how he dealt with the person standing before him, as she had had a remark- able dream about him ;— in his embarrassment catching at the weakest and most discreditable subterfuges to evade the responsibility of sen- tencing this inscrutable person to death ;— will- ing that Herod or the Jews should do the deed, if°he might only escape doing it himself; sacri- ficing his pride to his fear by sending Jesus, as an overture of kindness, to Herod, with whom he was on no good terms ;— made blind by the same selfish fears to common justice, pronounc- ing Jesus innocent, and ordering him in the same breath to be scourged, in the hope that some- thin- less than the fatal Cross, the scourge, would appease the Priests, when, as a concession on his part, it would be sure to encourage them to persist;— poorly hiding under a ridicule of the royal pretensions of Jesus, which we may well suspect to have been affected, his terror at the representations that might be made to his imperial master at Rome, the most suspicious of despots, were he to let a man go free, charged 56 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. with making himself a king ;— in attempting to force Jesus to tell whence he came, betraying his weakness by vaunting his power ; — over- coming his vague awe of Jesus by his more defi- nite dread of Caesar ; — yielding Jesus up to be crucified, flattering himself that he could cleanse his conscience of innocent blood as easily as he could dash water from his hands; — and, finally, for the humiliating straits to which he could not avoid being conscious of having been driven by the hated Jews, meanly revenging himself upon them by causing to be affixed to the Cross, over the head of Jesus, an inscription, of which he refused to allow any alteration, written in Latin and Greek, as well as in Hebrew, so that it- might be read by foreigners as well as natives, and the ridicule be cast upon the proud Jewish people of having a miserable man, covered with the ignominy of crucifixion, for their king. Such was the Roman Procurator, Pontius Pilate, as undesignedly described in the Gospel narra- tives. Every act and every word ascribed to him are in entire consistency with the idea of a weak man suddenly confronted with an occasion to which he was wholly unequal, a man, not JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 57 naturally cruel, but rendered so, in the circum- stances, by fear and utter want of moral prin- ciple." I remember seeing, when I was a child, a card upon which was painted a picture representing a funeral urn overhung by a weeping willow. It was designed in France in the time of the old Revolution. On close examination, the outlines of the urn and of the branches of the willow formed the profiles of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. It was a covert tribute paid by the royalists to the memory of the king and queen. It is in a similar way that the likenesses of the actors in the Gospel narratives are portrayed, with this great difference however, that while those royal profiles were produced by design, the portraits in the Gospels are drawn without design, unconsciously. They are accidental to the scenes described. The writers have told more than they knew that they were telling. AVhat more decisive proof of the historical truth of these Writings can be desired than this, that, without stretching or straining, by the light thrown upon them by familiar principles of human nature, the persons who figure in them 58 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. pass before us, distinct, natural, self-consistent individuals ? Brief and sketchy as they are, and just because they are so, — because they state only matters of fact, with never a thought of depicting a single feature of any person introduced, — they give us such a knowledge of the persons whom they mention that, once thus seen, these persons are as recognizable as so many familiar ac- quaintances. Could a disjointed collection of fables by any possibility yield such a result ? It is in the same way that we are made ac- quainted with the central personage of the his- tory. To my mind, as I have repeatedly taken occasion to say, the character of Jesus is hardly more wonderful than the manner in which it is portrayed. Not an attempt is made to describe him. Various scenes, of which he is the centre, are related, thrown together with scarcely any arrangement, and how sublime the result ! A character as natural as it is original, as human as it is divine, — an Ideal which Christendom is now struggling to realize, and which, were it realized, would create a new heaven and a new earth ! It would be out of the course of human ex- JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 59 perience to suppose that the narrators have never put words into the mouth of Jesus which he did not use, or that they have not here and there stated, not what he said, but what they under- stood him to mean. That we shall ever attain to so intimate a knowledge of him as to be able, usins: our knowledge as a criterion, to distinguish with precision what belongs to him and what to his reporters, in other words, that we shall ever have it in our power to extricate him entirely from the medium through which his imao;e is transmitted to us, I hardly venture to predict. There is one respect, however, in which this can be clone with considerable confidence. Certain passages of his history show, as one trait of his character, his singular freedom from that pride of race, which was the distinguishing mark of his countrymen, a pride all the more bigoted for having its root in religion. One of his first public utterances, — it was in the syna- gogue at Nazareth, — was a rebuke of that fierce Jewish sentiment, — a rebuke so bold that his hearers were filled with wrath, and ready to tear him in pieces on the spot. He was guilty in their eyes of profaning their Holy Writings by quoting 60 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. them to prove that the God of Israel had once and again passed by his chosen people to show favor to base Gentile dogs. Mark, furthermore, the grand inference that he instantly drew from the faith in him mani- fested by the Roman centurion. There was at once unveiled before him a vision of the nations flocking from the East and the West, from the North and the South, to the divine kingdom. Again, the parable of the feast from which the chosen guests were excluded, and to which the poor from all the highways and hedges were summoned, and, still more pointedly, the im- mortal parable by which the Jew was made to acknowledge the odious Samaritan, rather than priest or Levite, as his neighbor, to be loved as he loved himself, prove how for Jesus was in advance of his country and his time in the recog- nition of the brotherhood of mankind. That his was no " closet philanthropy, dream- ing of impracticable reforms, and grudging the cost of effectual relief," no barren abstraction only intellectually discerned, but a profound, active conviction, close to his heart, is seen in the readiness with which he put it into any shape JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 61 that occasion might require. It was in daily practical use. We are justified, therefore, in regarding his freedom from Jewish exclusiveness, his recognition of human brotherhood, not merely as a precept or doctrine which he taught, but as a vital principle of his being, as a component of his character, distinguishing him not only as a teacher, but as a man. Here then is one respect in which his personal character, being thus known, becomes a touch- stone whereby it may be determined whether, in certain cases, he really said or did what is attributed to him, or whether he was misunder- stood, and consequently not correctly reported. His reporters were Jews; and it is much more likely that they should put a Jewish construction upon his words or acts than that he should have spoken so entirely out of character as, for ex- ample, he is recorded to have done in the fourth chapter of the fourth Gospel, where, in the midst of one of his grandest utterances, a narrow Jewish word occurs. The time is coming, he told the woman of Samaria, when neither the Jerusalem of the Jews nor the Mount Gerizim of her coun- trymen would be specially hallowed, when not 6 62 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. the place but the spirit would be acceptable. " God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit.'' I cannot believe that inspired, filled as he was at the moment with this great truth, it could have occurred to him to make the invidious distinction which is made in what he is further reported to have said to the woman : " You (Samaritans) ivorship you know not what. We know what we ivorship,for salvation is of the Jews." I suspect this to be a marginal comment of some Jewish transcriber that has crept into the text. In order to render the appeal to the character of Jesus, in any questionable case, as a test de- cisive and satisfactory, it will not be enough, I admit, to allege an inconsistency, we must be able to show with a good degree of probability how he came to be erroneously reported. Take, for example, the story of the Transfig- uration. It is on the face of it inconsistent with the spiritual character of Jesus. His glory is moral. An external, visible illumination of his person is at variance with the inward scope and tenor of his teachings. But I cannot dismiss the story altogether on this account alone. The JESUS, THE HEAHT OF CHRISTIANITY. 63 question remains : How came such a story to be told ? There must have occurred something that gave rise to it. Upon a critical examination of the different narratives of the scene we find good reasons for believing that the alleged transfig- uration of the person of Jesus is resolvable into a dream of Peter's, occasioned in part by a cloud that passed over the mountain attended by thun- der and lightning. The grounds of this inter- pretation of the passage I have stated at length elsewhere, and will not repeat them here. Suf- fice it to say that it appears to me to be required by sound principles of criticism. It is not re- sorted to merely to avoid the literal understand- ing of the passage and to explain away a miracle. In the passage which tells of the suffering woman who went behind Jesus and touched him in the belief that the touch would cure her, one of the Gospels puts into his mouth certain words (I perceive that virtue has (join out of me) which wo may be confident he never uttered. The woman, suffering under an infirmity pronounced unclean by the Jewish law and unwilling that it should be known, trusted to being secretly relieved by touching his clothes. A wild fancy it seems. 64 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. But when we duly weigh the probable circum- stances of the case and consider what extraor- dinary things were taking place, how all men's minds were excited, with what awe and trans- porting hope the sick and diseased were regard- ins; Jesus; how this woman, having exhausted all known means of relief, was moved by all that she had seen and heard done by him, we shall perceive that it was simple human nature in her to seize the idea that she could be thus healed. When she pressed through the crowd, all in a tremble, with her whole soul in the act, is it conceivable that, when she got near enough to him, she barely touched him with her finger-tips? Through some gap in the throng she clutched at his garments with a grasp made convulsive by her emotion, and at the touch the secret vital forces of her nature were shocked into overpowering activity, and she felt that she was well. It was by the quick, energetic twitch that she gave his clothes that Jesus divined that it was given with a purpose. He instantly stopped and demanded to know who it was that had done this thing. Surmising the true state of the case, that it was some one JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 65 who expected some benefit from the act, he de- sired to know what it meant. When the woman came forward and acknowledged that it was she who had caught at his garments and told her story and declared herself relieved, he assured her that it was her own faith that had healed her, thus correcting her impression that there was a miraculous healing power in him. He could not, therefore, have said that he felt the virtue go out of lam. How he came to be reported as so saying it is easy to see. The bystanders, like the woman, believed that he was possessed of a peculiar gift, that a miraculous power dwelt in him. One of the three narratives relates the incident briefly and says nothing of the virtue's going out of him. Another mentions it, but does not say that Jesus said anything about it. It states it obviously as the inference of the peo- ple. When we consider how accounts of even ordinary incidents always grow and vary, we see how natural it was that the impression should have gone abroad that Jesus said that he per- ceived the virtue go out of him, and that it should be so reported. This passage is one of those which many have 6* 66 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. no hesitation in pronouncing fabulous, and there is indeed an element of the fabulous in it. But it is this fabulous particular that proves the reality of the incident. The idea that the woman was cured by a medical virtue emanating from the person of Jesus, — that is fabulous. Does not this misconception necessarily presuppose the fact misconceived ? What more indubitable signa- ture of truth could a narrative show ? The nar- rators have related an incident which they did not understand. Can fabricators of fictions pos- sibly misunderstand their own inventions ? To turn to another passage in which language is attributed to Jesus, which it is doubtful whether he ever used. On a certain occasion Peter asked him what he and his fellow disciples, who had left all to follow him, were to receive in return. According to one of the Gospels, the reply of Jesus was a simple, emphatic statement of the law of compensation. They who followed him, he said, would receive a hundred fold in this world, and an enduring life in the world to come. The self-sacrificing service of Truth is its own exceeding reward now and forever. But in one Gospel he is reported as saying further, that the JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 67 Twelve should sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel; and in another he is rep- resented as appointing them to these offices. I cannot believe that he ever made such a promise or such appointments, because it is so unlike him. He looked for no worldly offices nor honors either for himself or for his friends. He accounted himself and them doomed to suffering and death. "When two of his disciples petitioned him for the two highest places in his kingdom, " Can you drink of the cup that I am to drink of," he instantly exclaimed, " and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with ?" Service, — self-sacrificing service, was the onlj^ greatness in his eyes. Besides, it is plain how this promise came to be ascribed to him. His disciples, infatuated with the idea that he was the magnificent Messiah, were following him in the confident expectation that he would enrich and ennoble them. Accordingly, when he assured them they would be paid a hundred times over for all that they had given up for his sake, they had but one idea of the reward they were to re- ceive. They could conceive of no other. They were to be compensated with worldly honors. 68 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. This was what they doubted not that he meant; and consequently they have reported him as say- ing what they understood him to mean. To mention one instance more. I doubt whether he said certain things that are ascribed to him in the accounts of the Last Supper. No part of his history has been more sadly misunder- stood, or given occasion to more monstrous errors. It does not appear ever to have been considered what an hour of agonizing emotion that was to him. The awful end was at hand. He was momentarily expecting to be arrested and dragged away to a lonely and violent death. The traitor who was plotting against his life was there before him. For the sake of his humble friends, from whom he was about to be torn, he w r as, with unheard-of strength of mind, crushing down an agony of suspense so terrible that it seemed to him, — as he said after they had left the table and were in the garden, where the long-sustained tension of his mind gave way utterly for a while, — as if he should die. His soul was sick unto death. Images of horror rose before him; the commonest objects became omens and portents. Most touchingly characteristic is it of him and of JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 69 our human nature, that the broken bread and the red-flowing wine should speak to him of hie own lacerated flesh and streaming blood. So vividly did the resemblance flash upon his tortured im- agination that for the instant the visible vanished behind the invisible, the signs disappeared in the grim presence of the things signified; and as he broke the bread and poured out the red wine he exclaimed, "It is my body! It is my blood! Take ! eat ! drink ! I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine." So much only do I feel sure that he said. The words, " till 1 drink it m w with you in the kingdom of God;' are a qualifying clause which I find it more natural to suppose was added by his disciples, who could not endure to think that he did not contemplate feasting in the coming kingdom, than to believe that any such proviso could have occurred to him at a moment of such intense emotion. The further declara- tion that his blood was " the blood of the new testa- ment shed for many for the remission of sins," lias an explanatory, didactic, dogmatic air, alike incon- gruous with the profoundly emotional state of his mind. I think I perceive how it came to be at- tributed to him. His disciples, I conceive, were 70 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. shocked by this sudden and startling allusion to his blood. They knew not what to make of it. What could it mean? The only con- struction they could put upon it after his death was that it was an allusion suggested by the season of the Passover to the blood of the Pas- chal lamb. Conceiving this to have been his meaning, they have again reported him as say- ing in so many words what they believed that he meant. VII. Whether we have yet so intimate a knowledge of the character of Jesus as to au- thorize interpretations like the foregoing may be a question. There is one quality of his, however, which gives out a strong light, putting life into the Gospel narratives and harmonizing the whole history ; I do not say that it has wholly escaped notice, — that could hardly be, — but no adequate weight has been given to it. I refer to the extraordinary personal power of Jesus, to the native strength of his character, that natural force which is common, in every variety of degree, to all men, and which, sig- nified chiefly through the voice and the eye, is JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 71 felt even by brutes. It existed in Jesus in an unprecedented measure. Strange is it, by the way, that one who was distinguished above all men by bis native force, one, in comparison with whom we are but phan- toms, should now have faded away in the view of so many into a dim vision. It is plain how it has happened. The errors that have gathered so thickly around him have so obscured and dis- torted the idea of him that his native human qualities have ceased to be discoverable. His extraordinary force of character is proved not by any direct notices of it, but again and again altogether undesignedly on the part of the writers. No fact could be more decisively established. That he was a person of commanding and attractive presence, that there was that in his countenance, in his voice, in his whole manner, that arrested notice, inspired confidence, won admiration and love, is apparent throughout, wholly unconsciously, and consequently far more satisfactorily than could have been made to appear by the most elaborate description of his person. The common people flocked to him in 72 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. crowds. "Women brought their infants for him just to touch them. One poor, outcast woman threw herself at his feet and covered them with her kisses, and bathed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. Another believed that if she could only touch the hern of his garment it would do more than all the physi- cians in the world to relieve her of the infirmity under which she had long been a sufferer. It is a remark of Hume's that " admiration and ac- quaintance are altogether incompatible towards any mortal creature." In contradiction of this assertion, which is made even more positively by a common proverb, they who were daily in attendance upon Jesus, instead of becoming familiar with him, regarded him with a rever- ence that deepened into awe. How revering the trust was with which he had inspired them is seen in the ever memorable incidents at the Last Supper, in the silence, unbroken save by one, with which they submitted to the menial office which he knelt to discharge for them, and in the cry "Is it I? Is it I?" which, when he told them there was a traitor among them, broke forth all around the table, and which, far more JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 73 emphatically than any direct asseveration of their faith in him, tells us how instinctive was their conviction that they might prove the basest of traitors sooner than he could breathe a syl- lable that was not true. What a tribute to the dignity of his presence was the confusion into which they were thrown who were sent to arrest him ! How kingly must have been his silence when, friendless and forlorn, with the yell of demoniac bigotry, athirst for his blood, ringing in his ears, he stood before Pilate, and that magistrate, to whom, proud Roman that he was, there could hardly be a more contemptible ob- ject than a miserable Jew, shrunk from passing sentence upon him, and resorted to every subter- fuge to avoid doing so ! That silence, by the way, which Jesus main- tained when standing before Pilate, seems to me not to be appreciated. Nothing more appears to be seen in it but a verification of the words of the prophet : " He teas led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not Iris mouth" But it tells of a great deal more than unmurmuring resignation to the inevitable. I see in it a self-respect, a magnanimity, of which 7 74 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. I know no equal instance. Xo self-concern, no dread of the gathering horror, could move him to pay any heed to his priestly accusers. To reply to them would have been a waste of breath which that supreme hour was no time for. He might as well have trifled away those last moments in talking to the senseless stones. To all the cal- umnies of his enemies, his blood would be his answer. Is it any wonder that Pilate, weak man that he was, was overawed by Jesus, and utterly unable to understand the greatness of mind which the calm, self-possessed behavior of the prisoner in that terrible crisis betokened ? Thus these special and undesigned illustrations of the person of Jesus strengthen the belief, which would be justified even if we had not these particulars, that he, whose name has been such a power through all these centuries, must have been a man of extraordinary force of char- acter. Could the common, vague idea of him be displaced by a just sense of the quality of his person, we should be prepared to perceive how it was that at the sound of his voice, at the glance of his eye, at the touch of his hand, at his pres- ence, nay. at his bare name, all depressed spirits JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 75 were exhilarated, disordered minds recovered their soundness, and the vital forces of the sick and the lame and the blind were stimulated to unwonted sanative activity. To my mind, the Gospels are all the more credible for the ac- counts they contain of such consequences at- tending him. "When due consideration is given to the per- sonal quality of Jesus, the secret of his so-called miracles is solved, and the idea that he was pre- ternaturally gifted is found to be needless. The force that was native to him, the power belonging to him by virtue of his being the man he was, and which was felt in one way or another by all who approached him, — a power inherent in human nature, — fully suffices to account for the sudden recovery in his presence of the nervously diseased at least. The instances of this kind are remarkable. They may justly be termed mira- cles in the primary sense of the word, as synony- mous with wonders. But they were as plainly natural as any effect in nature. It argues but a feeble faith in that mystery in man which we name Spirit to doubt, when it was present in so full a measure as it was in Jesus, whether it was 76 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. equal to the production of those changes in the deranged and the sick. That some of the cases are exaggerations of ordinary incidents, or even fictions, is not im- probable. It would be strange if, in the univer- sal excitement, when wonder ruled the hour, there had gone abroad no exaggerated and even groundless reports. Still, I say, had we an ade- quate sense of the illimitable power existing in all men in various degrees, and in Jesus in the highest degree, we should be prepared even for the most extraordinary of the demonstrations of it related in the Gospels, always provided that the accounts of them bear intrinsic marks of being true. Holding the marvellous effects that waited on his steps to be due to the powerful personality of Jesus, and to have followed him naturally, — some of these reported effects being produced by him even involuntarily, — we are enriched with a new sense of simplicity and truth as we mark the wonderful strength of mind which he evinced in relation to them, — more wonderful even than the effects themselves, and to which I have already had occasion to refer. When alone, JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 77 he suffered severe mental conflicts. But so com- plete was the self-mastery in which they resulted, that when he returned from them and was con- fronted with distracting realities, not a tremor of undue self-elation or of self-distrust disturbed the perfect balance of his mind. It is clear to me that, having at heart only high, spiritual aims, he had not anticipated such remarkable physical effects. They took him by surprise in the first instance, and he retreated from them to solitude and prayer. Certainly nothing apparently could be more accidental and unlooked-for than the first in- stances of his personal influence which are recorded. The account of his first appearance as a teacher and of what followed thereupon is of exceeding interest, it throws so strong a light on all that succeeded. Upon the occasion of his first speaking in the synagogue, he was suddenly interrupted, and the decorum of the place broken in upon, by a crazy man, who was so affected by the appearance and discourse of Jesus, rendered all the more impressive by the awed silence of the assembly, that, losing control of himself, and giving expression to the admiration in which we may infer from the eftect upon him that all pres- 7* 78 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. ent shared, he spoke out in the character of the evil spirit by which he imagined himself to be possessed, and addressed Jesus as the Holy one of God; and when Jesus instantly virtually com- manded him to hush, when the personal influence of Jesus, which had already impressed him so powerfully, was thus turned full upon him, he was so much the more agitated that he shrieked and fell down in a fit. The convulsions into which he was thrown, regarded by all present as the violent efforts of the foul spirit, by which he was held to be possessed, struggling against the authority of Jesus, succeeded as they were by the man's restoration, at once created in every one an awful sense of the power of the speaker. The rumor of this startling incident ran like a wind- fanned flame. The sick heard it in their beds, and the springs of life in them burst forth with a new energy. In the house whither Jesus, — followed by a crowd, doubtless, — went from the synagogue, there lay a woman sick with a fever. Upon his entrance into the chamber, at his pres- ence, at the thrilling touch of his hand, she threw off the fever, forgot her weakness, rose to her feet, and instantly was able to take active JE8UB, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY, 79 part in the offices of hospitality. At sundown, when the Sabbath was ended, crowds gathered round the house, " the whole city," the record states. Among them persons Buffering under the influence, as was imagined, of malignant spirits, were relieved, I can readily suppose, by the bare sight of Jesus. Taking this account as it stands, without allow- ing ourselves to be biased by preconceived and traditional representations of these scenes, we cannot but perceive that these remarkable effects were produced well-nigh involuntarily on the part of Jesus, apparently with no consciousness of having exerted any extraordinary power. Amidst the storm of public feeling he remained calm and erect. Its only effect upon him was to deprive him of sleep that night. The next morning, " a great while before day," he left his bed and sought seclusion, to ponder the situation and seek strength from the Highest. The result was that he decided not to return then to the scene of that unlooked-for excitement. It is interesting to note that, as, after the heaven- revealing experience of his first public step, his baptismal self-consecration, he was driven into 80 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. solitude to collect himself, so now, after his next step, which brought an experience almost as ex- citing, he was driven again, and from his bed, to seclusion and prayer. When lie returned in a few hours from his retirement, and similar scenes were repeated, and the popular enthusiasm surged around him, un- conscious as he was of having caused it by any intended exercise of extraordinary power, so far from availing himself of it to advance his influence with the people, his whole attention was fixed, to the forgetfulness of self, upon the faith which they put in him, and which wrought these sud- den and powerful effects. Then it was, I con- ceive, that it broke upon him as a revelation : the Power of Faith. This was what he learned from what he witnessed. With what emphasis did he always afterwards magnify faith ! He might well do so, seeing what imposing demon- strations of it were daily passing before his eyes. VIII. We are so accustomed to dwell upon the influence which Jesus has had, that we make no account of the influences which acted upon him, or of the manner in which he was affected JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 81 and educated by his surroundings. Indeed, the dogmas that have prevailed concerning hia nature and offices have caused us to overlook the fact that he waa sent into being, as all men are, to live and to learn, for his own perfection as well as for the sake of others. To him, as to every soul of flesh, life was a discipline. And when was there ever one so docile as he, so quick to catch the import of events ? He read off the deep meaning of Suffering at Bight and got it instantly by heart. He learned the ways of the eternal Providence from the sunshine and the rain, from a falling sparrow and a grain of mustard-seed. The lessons which the most fa- miliar incidents taught he understood as readily as if they were articulated in his mother-tongue. We call him the great Teacher. He was the greatest of teachers, in that lie was the greatest of learners. He "learned Obedience," the im- mortal lesson ! and was perfected by all that he saw and Buffered,— in a word, by his experience. And what an experience was his ! Of the first thirty years of his life we know little or nothing. However secluded that pe- riod may have been, however limited its op- 82 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. portunities, the whole tenor of his subsequent career presupposes that it was a period of steady, spiritual growth, of natural, unconscious prepa- ration for the life which he entered upon in his thirtieth year or thereabouts. That those early years were not spent in any ascetic prac- tices, away from the concerns of common life, in absorbing meditation upon the mysteries of life, is evident, first, from the character of his publjc teachings, and, in the next place, from the manner in which he illustrated them. It was with no vague abstractions, no abstruse nor mystical speculations, that he dealt, when he began to talk in public. He had evidently learned what a dead, putrid, formality the re- ligion of the time had become; how the plain commandments of God were made of no effect by human traditions; how false to God and to man were they who assumed to give the law to the people. He read the hearts of the dominant classes like a book. It was no new things that he professed to reveal, but truths written from the first in nature and the human soul, — truths the most practical, and searchingly applicable to the moral needs of the time. He affirmed the JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 83 violated law of God, the two commandments, — the love of God and the love of one's neigh- bor, — than which lie declared there were none greater. Seeing the ruin which the corruption of the ruling classes and of religion was work- ing, he foresaw, what was foreseen also by John, who preceded him, and, doubtless, more or less clearly by others also, the coming providence or kingdom of God in the downfall of the nation. Humble and confined as were the aspects of life to him in the first private period, still he was then daily learning to know men and things. That his quick and extraordinary insight, his instinctive aptitude in interpreting the signs of the time were due to an exquisitely organized, highly-gifted nature, there is no doubt. Xever- theless, as there is no sphere of life that is not disciplinary, that he was growing in those early years ever more and more interested in the great truths which had his heart, ever stronger in faith and in sympathy with his suffering fellow-men, it is only natural to conclude. As the truths which most interested him thus indicate how his early life was spent, so, like- wise, the manner in which he was wont to pre- 84 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. sent them shows how familiar he was with Na- ture and with Life. He found his illustrations in the flowers of the field and the birds of the air, in the wind, in the light, in the seed cast into the earth, in the net thrown into the lake, in the city set on a hill, in the candle lighted in the house, in the leaven put into the bread, in the wine in the wine-skin, in the garments that were worn, in festive and bridal occasions, and in children playing in the market place. Does it not all show as plainly as if it were recorded in so many words that he was living during those thirty unknown years in the world, not out of it, and that by the ceaseless ministry of Nature and Life he was being educated for his great career ? At last the inevitable hour came when he could be silent no longer, when he must quit the sphere to which he was confined, turn his back upon kindred and home, and go forth and warn and comfort the people, and deliver them from their fatal delusions respecting the coming kingdom, and from the soul-destroying bondage of the letter under which they were crushed. JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 85 Seeing clearly the sore need there was of the publication of the truth, he could not but have foreseen, long before he publicly appeared, that, such was the temper of the governing classes, it would be at a perilous cost to undertake this work. He knew his own purpose. He knew the ruling spirit of the time. Consequently, he must resolve to meet that spirit in deadly collision. Suddenly, travellers, coming in from the des- ert, brought report, startling the whole country, of a voice heard there crying aloud and warning the people to prepare for the Divine Comma- which, to those who read the signs of the time, cast a shadow of darkness and wrath before, but which the people fondly imagined was to intro- duce a glorious national empire. From all parts of Galilee and Judea, and from the distant capital, Jerusalem, the people nocked to that strange figure that appeared, like one of the great prophets of the Past, clad in a garment of camel's hair, girt with a leathern girdle, and subsisting on the produce of the desert, locusts and wild honey. And he bathed the people in the Jordan, the sacred river, in token of inward cleansing and newness of life. It was a ff reat 86 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. religious revival which swept all classes before it. Even Pharisees and Teachers of the Law, wrapt round and round in spiritual pride though they were, yielded to the popular stream, and, for fear of risking their popularity, were found in the multitudes that thronged the banks of the Jordan. This state of public feeling determined the mind of Jesus. And now, when lie stands upon the threshold of a new life, is it to be conceived that he ceases to be a learner ? If, in that humble sphere where he saw so little of the world, he was con- stantly growing, gathering wisdom in the meanest places, how much more must he have learned in that larger and public sphere upon which he now entered ! How new and all-searching and all-inspiring must his experience be now ! To most of those who went to John, baptism, I imagine, was more or less a mere form, super- stitiously observed. But to Jesus it was a deed of the saintliest heroism, the beginning of a new era in his life. It was the first step, the step that costs, the " conversion of his conviction into act/' by which he bound hinlself irrevocably, beyond the possibilit} 7 of retreat, to the fulfil- JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 87 ment of his great purpose. The one thing, that he must do or die, could be done only by the unreserved surrender of himself to the Supreme Will as that was signified by the voice within. He saw, — he could not help seeing, — the danger, the death that awaited him. It was, therefore, not formally, hut with the whole force of his will in the act, that he deliberately, solemnly, pub- licly, thus expressed his inward cleansing from all hesitation and weakness. And the consequence was that there instantly welled up within him an ineffable peace, unlooked for and more profound than he had ever before experienced, the natural warrant of so pure an act of self-renunciation. It could not otherwise be than that, when the truth of God filled all his soul, there should come with it the peace of God that passeth all understanding. Accordingly, it seemed to him as if Heaven itself was thrown wide open to him, and so raised was his imagina- tion that a dove, hovering within the sphere of his uplifted vision, was transfigured into a sym- bol and messenger of the Divine Spirit, and there was borne in upon him, as by a voice speaking, the revelation of a relation between 88 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. him and the Highest, which could be repre- sented only by that of a son to a father. Thus he had the sure witness of the spirit within that he was a Son of God. And so in him, as in no other, the Sonship of all Humanity, and con- sequently the Fatherhood of the Highest, are revealed. I have dwelt much and often upon this passage in the life of Jesus. And still I want words to tell the sense of truth which it creates in me. Nowhere in all his history does he seem more real, more human, more divine, than when com- ing up out of the baptismal waters. The manner in which I view this scene is of special interest on this account : it shows us how he arrived at the full consciousness of his inti- mate relation to the Highest, and that it was no abnormal state of mind, no hallucination, the product of fancied visions and alleged preter- natural communications,#but was as natural and human as it was divine. The open heavens, the descending *dove, the voice from heaven, were not phenomena ad- dressed to the uncertain bodily senses, the mi- raculous causes of the consciousness produced in JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 89 Jesus, but they were the effects of that conscious- ness, the forms of speed), the creations of the imagination, suggested and necessitated by it. Deep feeling always craves expression in bold figures of speech, and the bolder they are the more easilv may we gauge the depth of feeling from which they spring. How pure and earnest must have been the purpose, how ecstatic the peace attending this first step towards its fulfil- ment, when that peace could be described only as the very heavens above unveiled, and the very Spirit of the Highest descending in bodily shape ! Thus we see that life was to him what it is to all men ; that his spirit, like his body, grew ; that as he passed from meditation to act, as he pro- ceeded to execute his high aims, a new and all- inspiring experience was his. A consciousness was created in him of oneness with the Greatest and Best, which the boldest figures of the im- agination, and the dearest natural relations, were all inadequate to represent. His retirement to the desert after that high act of self-consecration was the natural consequence of the change then wrought in him. He could not go back to his old home and resume his 8* 90 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. accustomed place there. The former compara- tive repose of his mind was gone. His instant need was solitude. Of the manner in which he spent the time passed in the desert we have only a brief sketch. Only a few prominent particulars are noted, after the manner of such simple, unskilled writers as the authors of the Gospel narratives evidently were. That nothing was known of him during those forty days, that his mother and kindred felt no concern for him, are suppositions altogether improbable. It can hardly be doubted that they knew where he was, that they went occasionally to see him, and to carry food to him, although he ate so little that it could be said, speaking popu- larly, as the authors of the Gospels wrote, that he ate nothing. Such circumstances were of too ordinary a character to be noticed by writers who evidently thought only of relating such incidents as struck them as remarkable. The result of his retirement was the conquest of every temptation to be false to his great purpose. How marked the difference between Jesus and John the Baptizer! The fervid temperament of John could brook no accommodation to the com- JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 91 mon ways of life. He could find no fit dwelling- place but in the desert, away from his fellow-men. To Jesus solitude was only an occasional neces- sity, to repair the exhaustion of his spirit, and keep its high tone by communion with the Highest. He dwelt in the desert only for a time, and returned to Galilee full of spiritual power. When at home again, he adopted no peculiar mode of life in order to gain public attention. He waited for the Sabbath, and the synagogue which he was accustomed to attend. Of the impression made by his first appearance as a teacher, and of the effect upon himself, I have already spoken. Here it is, at the very beginning of his public life, that we have illus- trations of his personal greatness hardly less im- pressive than those which mark the closing hours of his life. Young and without any previous similar experiences, upon his first appearance he was greeted by the most imposing demonstrations of popular favor. Such startling incidents attended him that he was at once the object of all men's wonder. They crowded around him from all quarters. The rumor of his words and acts ran 92 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. like wildfire, losing nothing, we may be sure, of the marvellous as it spread. At one time, we are told, there was such a coming and going, that he and his attendants had not time " so much as to eat." Again, the crowds were so great that they trampled one upon another. He had to keep a boat in waiting upon the shore of the Galilean lake, where he first appeared, that he might escape when the pressure of the multitude became too great. And when he made use of the boat to cross to another part of the lake, instantly the lake was covered with boats filled with people, determined not to lose sight of him, while he himself, so exhausted was he, fell into a sleep so deep that the uproar of a sudden squall upon the lake could not awaken him. The whole country heaved with the sensation lie was causing. He saw deranged minds, through the faith that was put in him, restored to sanity, and limbs withered, and swollen with leprosy, and sightless eyes, recover their soundness. How could it be but that such an extraordinary state of things must have affected him greatly? It did affect him profoundly. But with a god- like insight into the truth, he put no self-serving JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 93 construction upon it. It was a revelation to him of the mighty power of Faith. Divinely uncon- Oil \l scious of what it was in himself personally that had all at once inspired this boundless trust in him, unaware of any peculiar difference between himself and others, he appears never once to have thought of accrediting himself with these sudden cures, but was filled with wonder at the power of the confidence reposed in him. This, I reiterate, this it was that took his eye as the all-powerful agency. Thus his faith in Faith was deepened beyond measure. It penetrated to the inmost of his being, and awoke there a sense of power which only such a person, with such an experience, could have. And it was, I sacredly believe, in the unrivalled energy of his own faith, quick- ened into all-conquering activity by his extraor- dinary experience that he called Lazarus from the grave and awoke himself from the deep slumber. It is comparatively easy to appreciate the great- ness of mind which illumines the last hours of his career, and which has changed the vile cross into the world's most sacred symbol. But, in 94 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. truth, the very beginning of his public life, when, in his youth and inexperience, he was hailed with the acclamations of the people, manifests no less impressively the same imperial character. He was alike unmoved by the horrors of a lonely and violent death and by the blandishments of the most enthusiastic popular favor. When the admiring wonder of a great multitude is concen- trated upon him, he shows no consciousness of the ordeal to which he is subjected. The shouts of the people make no more impression upon him than if he heard them not. He is as deaf to those seducing voices from the very first as he is to the imprecations of his priestly persecutors at the last. In fine, he is always, under the most trying circumstances, so perfectly self-possessed, so wholly himself, that we fail now to be struck by a greatness of mind as uniformly and as natu- rally sustained as if it were the merest matter of course, and nothing else were possible. We are insensible to it even as he himself was uncon- scious of it. Not until we recollect his tempta- tions in the wilderness at the first, and his agony in the garden at the last, are we made to feel how great he was in the early period as well as JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 95 in the later, and how entirely his greatness in both was due to no phlegmatic insensibility, but to a nature as tender as it was strong. The truth which I emphasize is, that the strength, the wisdom, the spiritual elevation, that distinguished him, he gathered through the ministry of life. His verbal teachings are of the loftiest excellence. But, taken apart from him, they have no more weight than the wise sayings of any other of the great teachers of mankind. As to their practical influence, separate from him, they might as well have come down to us anonymously. But when we view him, as we have now been doing, as a man living to learn, tried and edu- cated as all men are, then we perceive that his utterances were no hearsays of tradition, no commonplaces of custom and authority, but the ejaculations of his own life. He spake what he knew from his own experience, what he himself felt profoundly. His words come weighted with a quite peculiar personal power. They effervesce with his own life. He thus communicates himself to us. There is a deep significance in the Apos- tolic phrases, Christ in us, Christ formed within us. 96 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. It was recently remarked in a distinguished periodical that the life of Jesus was uneventful. What did the writer mean ? The Life of Jesus, an event second to none in all history, whether we consider what has come of it or what it was in itself, uneventful ! Was that high act of self-consecration, with which the public period of that life began, and from which pours a flood of light upon the identity of the human and the divine, — was that not an event ? Or that other baptism of blood, a like revelation, — was that no event? Was not the triumph of that young man over the adoring homage of multitudes on the one hand, and over bigotry and hate, armed with all the sanctities of the Church and all the powers of the State on the other, — were not these, events ? Was not his every step, his every word, eventful? The truth is, what with the superstition and the scepticism which paralyze, the one the imagination and the other the common intelligence of men, it seems as if these wonderful records might as well never have come down to us. The Letter is dead. Is it a waste of time and labor to endeavor to bring it back to life ? Must we give up the dear hope of JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 97 the world's being blest by beholding actualized in Jesus the divine possibilities that may be real- ized in all men ? " There is something in the character of Christ," says an English writer,* " more likely to work a change in the mind of man by the contemplation of its idea alone, than any to be found in history, whether real or feigned, a sublime humanity such as was never seen on earth before nor since." Are we never to have a clear vision of this all-saving charm ? To quote the wisdom of other great teachers to prove that Jesus was not original is altogether aside from the true idea of him. Wise as are his words, and wonderful as were the effects he produced, it is not what he said or did, but what he was, I repeat, that distinguishes him from all others, and which has wrought with such telling power. Herein he stands above comparison among all born of woman. George Eliot some- where contrasts in happy phrase " the assiduous restlessness of doing with the serene dignity of being." To Jesus are we indebted for a new sense of the power of being. He had no scheme * Hazlitt, Dramatic Literature. 9 98 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. to carry out, no creed to be argued, no church to organize, no collections of money to make, no machinery to set in motion. He lived a divinely human life, saying and doing the best the hour called for as naturally as he breathed, turning all occasions, even the most common, the most sud- den, the most adverse, into opportunities so fit- ting that it seems now as if all Nature and all Life reverently waited upon him at every step. His words were but imperfectly understood, cast abroad upon no welcoming soil. His acts the saints of the day ascribed to the Devil. Never- theless, through his whole being there breathed a mighty life as constantly and unconsciously as the breath of his lungs. As unconsciously, both on his part and theirs, was it communicated to those who were within his personal sphere ; and then by the silent, unacknowledged method of nature, as swells the seed, man knows not how, they grew up out of the darkness, in which they were sunk, up into the immortal air and bound- less sunshine of a new world, a world one with his. Through them, by the same divine method, his spirit was conducted through an ever-broad- ening circle. So the kingdom of God came. JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 99 So a Religion sprang from him, which is neither a creed nor a form, but a spirit, a spirit, not of fear, nor of bondage, but of "love and power and a sound mind," a spirit, in which all may share, be they Catholic or Protestant, Trinitarian or Unitarian, Free Religionist, Jew, Hindoo, Parsee, or Mahometan. If there ever existed a man who passed in his day for the rankest of Radicals, it was Jesus, the Nazarene. And yet for what ultra Conservatism has his authority been claimed now for centuries ! That such an institution as the Roman Catholic Church, with its Hierarchies, Ceremonials, and Inquisitions should have followed upon his life, is one of the most amazing facts in the history of mankind. It only proves the omnipotence of Character : God manifest in the flesh. Jesus set the mind of the world aflame. He kindled on the earth a fire, through the smoke whereof his figure looms, huge, formless, and men, prostrate before it, have lost their reason in the consuming heat of the imagination. IX. Apart from its religious interest, the his- tory of Jesus has a scientific interest ; a special 100 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. interest at this hour, when theories of the Uni- verse are suggested by leading men of science that seem at least to threaten death to the religious sentiment ; when men are losing faith in a living God, and even in their own existence, conscious- ness being defined to be a fleeting accident, a tem- porary " reflex action" in the ceaseless changes of matter, which alone is held to be immortal. Now, if there has existed such a person as I believe Jesus to have been, it is a fact which we shall do well to weigh before we resign ourselves to these tendencies of modern thought. If, be- sides uttering the divinest wisdom and living a life of stainless purity, and suffering with regal dignity a martyr's death, he, by a brief word of his lips, by the touch of his hand, restored health to the sick and sight to the blind, if he broke the mysterious sleep of the grave, and reappeared himself alive after death, and if all this was, as I conceive, not in violation of the natural order of things, but in entire conformity thereto and illus- trative thereof, then is he a Fact in Nature, and any theory of Being is radically defective that gives no heed to the significance of so extraordi- nary a phenomenon. JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 101 So long as it is held to be essential to our Christian Faith to conceive of him as out of the order of nature, he is out of the sphere of natu- ral science and philosophy. There is no place for him there. But should it appear that, peer- less and original as he was in his whole being and working, he was, in all respects, entirely natural, then is he a Fact, not only not to be ignored in any attempt to construct a theory of Nature and of man's position therein, but, of all facts, claiming the first consideration as a pre-eminent illustration of the deepest laws of nature. Whatever else the forces of matter may explain, they do not explain him. lie is an original demonstration of the power that we name Spirit, distinct and apart from the forces proper to matter, native to him as a human being, and consequently, native, though latent, to all of human kind. It is, in a word, the Divine in man, the inspiration, the life, of the Living God. The Idea of Jesus, which his history, as I read it, gives me, obviates the materialistic tendency of the time, and is in direct antagonism thereto. I honor our great men of Science, but when their 9* 102 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. speculations tend to the annihilation of God and man, I turn, for faith in both, to one greater than they, — to one in whom there is disclosed a foundation for that faith at once objective and subjective. In Jesus we have an Ideal and a natural Fact. To a healthy and complete faith, the one is as necessary as the other. From the Gospels we obtain a flesh-and-blood representa- tion of what he was. In what he was we have a vision of his ideal and undying life, — and ours. Many, who put but little faith in the record, yet speak of him in very exalted terms. Where they obtain any idea of his person it is hard to discover, seeing that they reject as fabulous nearly all that is told of him. Surely it must make the greatest difference in our idea of him whether such passages of his history as those, for example, that narrate the Raising of Laza- rus and the Resurrection of Jesus himself be received as true or dismissed as fables. These events and most of the alleged so-called miracles being accepted as natural facts, there results an Idea of Jesus incomparably more powerful than the dim, impersonal glimpse of him caught from the meagre materials which are all that the seep- JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 103 tically inclined admit. Upon our conception of him, the Representative not of one age or race, but of all mankind, depends, of course, our con- ception of man universally. Those extraordi- nary particulars of his history, in throwing light upon man and upon man's position in Nature, throw light also upon all Nature. It is in vain, therefore, that we think to separate Religion and Science and keep them each to a domain of its own. Their intimacy is involved in the intimacy of matter and mind, in the unity of Nature vis- ible and invisible. The Idea of Jesus is the corner-stone of sound philosophy as well as of pure religion. What a mighty revolution is that which began with him upon whose claims we have now been dwelling, a revolution still proceeding upon an ever-enlarging scale, novel and extraordinary in the grandeur of its aim, in the simplicity of its method ! It came forth from the solitary heart of one man, and though clouds and darkness have gathered around it, it has advanced as the day ad- vances, or the Spring time. Systems of theology, huge organizations including ages and nations, 104 JESUS, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. have sprung out of it, but it could not be shut up in any of these. Being in accord with "the human soul of universal earth," it steals away from them like the light and the air, and ap- pears again in quarters far outside of them, in some despised Nazareth, perhaps. The person of him who is the soul of it, inspiring faith, veneration, love, appeals to all men, and steadily, by re-creating the individual, effects great social reformations. Finally, one thing is plain, simply this : The more vividly we reproduce the particulars that illustrate the God-like qualities of Jesus, the sooner he is seen to be as he was, a tried, suffer- ing?, all-conquering man, the more powerful will be his personal influence, the more fully will his spirit be breathed into the private heart, the more rapidly will the great revolution proceed, the new Creation, over which, harmonizing as it does with the divine order of the world, the morning stars sing together and all the sons of God shout for joy. HYMNS Invocation. What is the world that it should share Hearts that belong to God alone? What are the idols reigning there, Compared with Thee, Eternal One ? Fountain of living waters! We To earthly springs would stoop no more. A thirst, Ave humbly turn to Thee, Into our hearts Thy Spirit pour : The Spirit of Thy boundless love, The Spirit of Thy truth and peaee, Conic, blessed Spirit, from above, And every earth-bound soul release. 1822. 107 108 HYMNS. Jesus, Our Leader. Feeble, helpless, how shall I Learn to live and learn to die ? Who, God, my guide shall be? Who shall lead Thy child to Thee? Heavenly Father, gracious One, Thou hast sent Thy blessed Son ; He will give the light I need, He my trembling steps will lead. Through this world, uncertain, dim, Let me ever learn of him ; From his precepts wisdom draw. Make his life my solemn law. Thus, in deed, and thought, and word, Led by Jesus Christ the Lord, In my weakness, thus shall I Learn to live and learn to die: Learn to live in peace and love, Like the perfect ones above. Learn to die without a fear, Knowing Thee, my Father, near. 1828. HYMNS. 109 The Want Within. I feel within a want Forever stirring there ; What I so thirst for, grant, Thou who nearest prayer ! This is the thing I crave, A likeness to Thy Son ; This would I rather have Than call the world my own. Like him, now in my youth, 1 long, God, to be, In tenderness and truth, In deep humility. 'Tis my most fervent prayer, Be it more fervent still, Be it my highest care, Be it my settled will. 1822. 10 110 HYMNS. Communion. Oh for a prophet's fire ! Oh for an angel's tongue, To speak the tender love of him Who on the Cross was hung. In vain do we attempt, In language meet, to tell How through a thousand sorrows burned That flame unquenchable. Yet would we praise that love, Beyond expression dear. Come, gather round this table, then, And commune with it here. These symbols of his death, Oh with what power they speak ! Prophetic lips and angels' lyres, Compared with these, how weak ! 1845. HYMNS. Ill Rom. viii. 38. Yes, that our souls might live, Those sacred limbs were torn. That blood was shed and pangs untold Were by the Saviour borne. O Thou who didst allow Thy Son to suffer thus. Father, what more couldst Thou have done Than Thou hast done for us? "We are persuaded now That nothing can divide Thy children from the boundless love Revealed in him who died ; Who died to make us sure Of mercy, truth, and peace. And from the power and pains of sin To bring a full release. 1845. 112 HYMNS, The Soul. What is this that stirs within, Loving goodness, hating sin, Always craving to be blest, Finding here below no rest ? Naught that charms the ear or eye Can its hunger satisfy ; Active, restless, it would pierce Through the outward universe. What is it? and whither? whence? This unsleeping, secret sense, Longing for its rest and food In some hidden, untried good ? 'Tis the soul ! Mysterious name ! Him it seeks from whom it 'came; It would, Mighty God, like Thee, Holy, holy, holy be ! 1840. HYMNS. 113 1 As the hart panteth after the water-brooks^ so panteth my soul after Thee" As for the water-brooks The hart expiring pants. So for my God my spirit looks, Yea, for His presence faints. I know thy joys, O Earth, The sweetness of thy cup ; Oft have I mingled in thy mirth, And trusted in thy hope. But ah ! how woes and fears Those hollow joys succeed ! That cup of mirth is mixed with tears. That hope is but a reed. What have I then below. Or what but Thee on high ? Thee, Thee, Father, would I know, And in Thee live and die ! 1840. 10* 114 HYMNS. Penitential. Kichly, oh, richly have I been Blest, gracious God, by Thee ; And morning, noon, and night, Thou hast Preserved me tenderly. Why shouldst Thou thus take care of me, A weak and sinful man, Who have refused to render Thee The little that I can? The love that Thou alone canst claim To idols I have given ; And I have bound to earth the hopes That know no home but heaven. Unworthy to be called Thy son, I come with shame to Thee ; Father, O more than Father, Thou Hast always been to me. Forever blessed be Thy name, For all that Thou hast done ! That Thou wilt pardon me, I know Through Jesus Christ, Thy Sou. HYMNS. 115 Help me to break the heavy chains The world has round me thrown. And know the glorious liberty Of an obedient son. That I may henceforth heed whate'er Thy voice within me saitb, Fix deeply in my heart of hearts The mighty power of Faith. Faith that, like armor to my soul. Shall keep all evil out, More mighty than an angel host Encamped round about. 1823. Dedication. To the High and Holy One, To His Spirit, to His Son, Be this place forever given, House of God and Gate of Heaven. To the Truth that makes us free, To the Love that leads to Thee, 116 HYMNS. We this temple dedicate And Thy blessing, Lord, await. Canst Thou be approached by men ? Angels and archangels, when God His glory on them sheds, Veil their faces, bow their heads. Yet, Eternal One, Thou art Present in the humblest heart, There- dost Thou delight to reign Whom the Heavens cannot contain. Be our hearts the temple, where, Witnesses that Thou art here, Come like angels from above, Holy Truth, and Faith, and Love. These shall decorate this place With a more than mortal grace, Eadiant thus with light divine, Be this house forever Thine! 1840. HYMNS. 117 Ordination. Thou only Living, only True. Far, far away, and yet bow near ! Life of our life to will and do, AVe thirst to have Thy witness here. Baptize our brother in Thy love, Unveil Thy heaven to his eye, Spread Thy wings o'er him like the dove. And his whole being sanctify. Then in Thy glorious liberty, A well-beloved son of thine, The tidings of Thy Truth shall he With power declare and love divine. Sorrows, temptations, he must meet, The gloomy wilderness pass through, Thine angels then uphold his feet, And keep him pure, and strong, and true. 1868. 118 HYMNS. Mark x. 16. Blessings on thee, gracious Lord, Every child shall bless thy name For thy gentle smile and word When to thee the children came. Happy child ! upon whose head, As he sate upon thy knee, Thy kind hand was softly laid, Blessing him, how tenderly ! Hark ! that voice is raised in prayer, That could hush the maniac wild, Lo ! that mighty hand is there. Laid in blessing on a child ! Blessings on thee, gracious Lord, Every child shall bless thy name For thy gentle smile and word When to thee the children came. 1830. HYMNS. 119 Morning. In the morning I will raise To my God the voice of praise ; AVith His kind protection blest. Sweet and deep has been my rest. In the morning I will pray For His blessing on the day ; What this day shall be my lot. Light or darkness, know I not. Should it be with clouds o'ercast, Clouds of sorrow gathering fast, Thou, who givest light divine, Shine within me, Lord, oh. shine! Show me, if I tempted be, How to find all strength in Thee, And a perfect triumph win Over every bosom sin. 120 HYMNS. Keep my feet from secret snares, Keep my eyes, O God, from tears, Every step Thy grace attend, And my soul from death defend ! Then when fall the shades of night, All within shall still be light ; Thou wilt peace around diffuse Gently as the evening dews. 1840. Evening. Slowly by Thy hand unfurled, Down around the weary world Falls the darkness. Oh, how still Is the working of Thy will ! Mighty Maker ! ever nigh ! Work in me as silently ; Veil the day's distracting sights, Show me heaven's eternal lights. From the darkened sky come forth Countless stars, a wondrous birth ! So may gleams of glory dart From this dim abyss, my heart. HYMNS. 121 Living worlds to view be brought In the boundless realms of thought ; High and infinite desires, Flaming like those upper fires. Holy Truth. Eternal Right, Let them break upon my sight ; Let them shine, serene and still, And with light my being fill. Thou, who dwellest there, I know, Dwellest here within me. too; May the perfect love of God, Here, as there, be shed abroad. Let my soul attuned be To the heavenly harmony, Which, beyond the power of sound. Fills the Universe around. 1840. 11 122 HYMNS. 1 John iv. 16. Oh, how far are we below Him ! Him no thought of ours can reach, Never, never can we know Him, Far beyond all sight, all speech. Yet the secret of His presence Is with those who dwell in love : They, embosomed in His essence. In Him ever live and move. Thus in Him to have our being, Choosing love for our abode, More than knowing Him or seeing Is it thus to dwell in God. 1874. HYMNS. 123 1878. Matthew vi. 22, 23. Let thine eye be single, And no earth-born visions mingle With thy pure Ideal. Then will its undimmed light ]\fake all within thee bright. And all around thee real. But if thine eye be double, Black care will rise to trouble And veil that light. Then blindly wilt thou grope, Cheated of faith and hope By phantoms of the night. 1 24 HYMNS. Seeing the Unseen. Thou who dost all things give, Be not Thyself forgot ! JSTo longer may Thy children live As if their God were not ! But every day and hour, Since Thou dost bless us thus, In still increasing light and power, Reveal Thyself to us ; Until our faith shall be Stronger than words can tell, And we shall live beholding Thee, O Thou Invisible ! 1860. HYMNS. 125 Funeral Hymn. How frail arc all our mortal ties! In vain heart fondly clings to heart. Borne onward by the rushing tide. Friends, who are standing side by side. Are swiftly, rudely swept apart. And so our life is full of fears. And so our eyes are dim with tears. Ah ! blest are those in God who sleep ! As flowers we flourish and we fade. The wind, it blows and we are gone ; Mute farewells we exchange and then No more are we beheld of men. We vanish in the grave, alone. But God still lives, and in His arms No mortal fear the soul alarms. Ah ! blest are those in Him who sleep. 1881. 11* 126 HYMXS. Invocation. Holy Father! Gracious art Thou ! Hear us, hear us, When before Thy throne we bow, Hal low' d be Thy name forever ! Let no thought unholy, rude, On this sacred hour intrude. May Thy Spirit, Like a dove, from heaven descending, Dwell within, All its grace and beauty lending, Free from every stain of sin. Adapted to the quartette : Holder Friede, etc., in Romberg's music for Schiller's " Song of the Bell." 1849. HYMNS. 127 Supplication. Ah! this life is full of danger. Ah! how narrow is the pathway; Lord, our prayer to Thee ascending Seeks Thy grace, our souls defending. All our way to guard and guide. May we ever more abide 'Xeath the shadow of Thy wings. And in all our wanderings, Father, may Thy love attend us, Be with us forevermore. In temptation's hour befriend us, On our hearts Thy Spirit pour. For without Thy mercy o'er us We no strength. O God, can boast. All our joy must turn to sorrow, All our hope, our heaven, be lost. The contralto solo: Ach ! die Gattin ist's ) etc., in the same piece of music. 1849. 128 HYMNS. Supplication. Have mercy, O Father, To Thee do we cry, Faint, weary, and wayworn, To Thy wings we fly, Speak peace to our souls, Without Thee we die. We wander in darkness, Oh, grant us Thy light ! We stray from the pathway, Lost, lost in the night, Oh, be Thou our guide, And lead us aright. 1849. HYMNS. 129 The Peace of God. AVe would rise. O God, to Thee, Earnest, contrite, lowly. Thou. Thou alone, art holy, How poor, how weak, are we ! We come Thy Peace imploring, The Peace to angels given, The Peace that fills all heaven. In us. oh, may it be! Through the Universe around, Like a plenteous river, Forever and forever. It flows without a bound. Oh, come. Thou blessed Spirit, Into our souls descending, And every step attending, Our way with Peace surround ! 1849. 130 HYMNS. On the Death of R. T. F., at the Age of Fourteen. That voice like music sounding, We hear that voice no more, That form in grace abounding Time never will restore. Those eyes so bright with feeling. Suffused with tenderness, In every look revealing A spirit come to bless, — Their light is quenched, and on us They never more will beam ; The star that rose upon us, How transient was its gleam ! That one so rich in promise, So lovely and so pure, Should thus be taken from us Oh, how shall we endure ! She is not dead, but sleepeth, Why in your hearts this strife ? He who hath kept, still keepeth The never-d} r ing life. HYMNS. 131 And though that form must moulder And mix again with earth, In faith you may behold her In glory going forth. For what to us seems dying Is but another birth, A spirit upward flying From the broken shell of earth. We are the dead, the buried, We who do yet survive. In the grave of sense interred, — The dead, — they are alive ! A world of shadows leaving. Up to the Fount of Light, Death's cloud with strong wing cleaving They take triumphant flight. Why weep ye then, heart-broken. When one so pure has gone? It is from Heaven a token, An angel there is born. 1834. 132 HYMNS. [Sung at the Opening of " The Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind" (1833), an Institution owing its origin to mem- bers of the First Unitarian Church : John Vaughan, and Jacob Snider, Jr., and liberally endowed by my friend and parishioner, William Y. Birch.] O Thou great and gracious Being, To all creatures ever kind, Source of vision to the seeing, Friend and Father, of the blind. Joys of sight, — the} 7 are denied us, — Let Thy holy Will be done ! In the darkness Thou dost guide us, Thou, O God, our Light, our Sun ! Through the sounds that fall and linger On the eager, listening ear, Through the quick-discerning finger Bidding darkness disappear, Through the friends whom Thou hast given. And whose hearts Thy love controls, Thou art pouring down from Heaven Light celestial on our souls. HYMNS. 133 Now our hearts no sorrows sudden. They can know no painful fears. Though our eves no sunbeams gladden. They shall stream no more with tears. * * "The eyes, which are never gladdened by light, should never stream with tears." — Sydney Smith. mm '411 HR MSB RHHi