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ECCE HOMO"

Reprinted from "Good Words'

"ECCE HOMO"

By the Right Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE

flnafiarn,

STRAHAN & CO., PUBLISHERS
56 LUDGATE HILL, LONDON
1868

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"ECCE HOMO."

PART I.
\T O anonymous book, since the " Vestiges
of Creation," (now more than twenty-
years old) — indeed, it might almost be said
no tlieological book, whether anonymous or of
certified authorship — that has appeared within
the same interval, has attracted anything like
the amount of notice and o( criticism which
* " Ecce Homo : a Survey of the Life and Work of
Jesus Christ." 8vo. Macmillan & Co. 1866. A

'ECCE HOMO.

have been bestowed upon the remarkable
volume entitled ''Ecce Homo."
Probably we should have to travel much
further back in order to find a work . which,
having drawn forth commendation so warm,
and censure so sharp, had both acquired
the one and incurred the other from the
most directly opposite quarters. The fact,
however, is undisputed, and the instances
familiar enough : and the phenomenon ad
mits, perhaps, of some explanation, though it
may perhaps be a partial explanation only.
On the one hand, it is plain that the author
repeatedly uses language which could not con
sistently be employed in treating of Christi
anity from what is termed the orthodox point
of view; and the offence which many have

ITS RELATION TO SOCIETY.

taken on this account has, in such cases un
happily, put a dead stop to any real investi
gation of the work in its general bearings.
Or, if the process has been continued, yet a
determined adhesion to fixed and unelastic
modes of thought has made it so repulsive, as
to ensure its ending in thorough-paced con
demnation. On the other hand, what is
loosely called society, and is represented by
the literature, if not of the age, yet of the
moment, has been making of late much of
what may be termed proud flesh ; a sign of
ungoverned effort, and of life indeed, but of
somewhat crude and disordered life. Into
this tissue of proud flesh the work cuts, per
haps more deeply than any other production
of recent years ; not by direct insertion of the

"ECCE HOMO."

knife, but by bringing home to the reader's
mind, with a wonderful force and freshness, this
impression, that there is something or other
called the Gospel, which, " whatever it may be,"
as was said by an old Pagan poet of the Deity,
has very strong, and what may even turn out
to be very formidable, claims, not merely on
the intellectual condescension, but on the loyal
allegiance and humble obedience of mankind.
To drive home this impression to the hea<t
and mind of the nineteenth century, now
already grown elderly and growing old, dis
turbs the self-complacency of a mind deter
mined upon comfort, and naturally enough
constitutes a grave offence in the. views of
those to whom the chequered but yet impos
ing fabric of actual Christianity, still casting

AGGRAVATING CIRCUMSTANCES. 5
its majestic light and shadow over the whole
civilised world, is a rank eyesore, and an in
tolerable grievance.
This offence, serious in itself, is attended
with aggravating circumstances. There is a
tone of familiarity, to say the least, at the
outset of the volume, and particularly in the
Preface, which naturally tends to raise hopes
that. the history of Him to whom so many
lands, and so many ages, have bowed the
knee, is about to receive a- very free handling.
And, indeed, the author, it is observed, actually
by implication calls himself a critic. He ap
parently proposes " to accept those conclusions
about Christ, not which church doctors or
even apostles have sealed with their autho
rity, but which the facts themselves, critically

'ECCE HOMO.

weighed, appear to warrant." And yet this
" critic," forsooth, we by and by discover,
does not conform to the first law of theolo
gical criticism, which seems to be with many
not far from this : that every question of
history or creed, hitherto held affirmatively,
and now admitted to examination, is to be
determined in the negative. Or, more point
edly, he does not conform to the canon which
Dr Strauss lays down as a postulate, if not
an axiom, in his "Life of Christ composed
for the German People,"* where we have the
following proposition : " A personality, which
on one side indeed is of a man, but on the
other is a being of higher order, a God or

* "Das Leben Jesu fur das Deutsche Volk bearbeitet."
Von D. F. Strauss. 2 Auflage, Leipzig, 1864. P. 1.

VIEWS OF CERTAIN PARTIES.

Son of God, and which, though born of a hu
man mother, is. begotten of no human father,
such an object we hand over to fable and
to poetry, but never think of making it the
theme of a serious historical treatment." This
staggering proposition our author does not
adopt : nay, he believes in miracles, or at
least has registered no vow to disbelieve them.
Now this seems like taking the shibboleth of
a party, and then turning out no better than
a traitor in the camp. In fine, to the abso
lutely .stereotyped forms both of faith and
scepticism, to the " high and dry " believer,
and to the "high and dry" non-believer, the
author of " Ecce Homo " has been a most un
acceptable visitant, for apparently he has caused
to both a good deal of vague perturbation.

'ECCE HOMO.'

This, however, as has been said, is but a
partial explanation, especially as regards the
objector on the side of orthodoxy. To him
in particular this volume, quite apart from
those occasional offences (as we will call
them) of language that have already been
mentioned, delivers a most serious challenge.
Undoubtedly it exhibits the character of our
Lord on the human side. It purports to.
show, and it actually shows Him as man :
and it leaves us to see, through the fair
curtain of His manhood, what we may. The
objection taken to this mode of treatment, in
substance, perhaps amounts to this : that our
Saviour is not a mere man, but is God made
man ; and that He ought not to be exhibited
in any Christian work as a man only, but

THE HUMAN ASPECT PREDOMINANT. 9
as God and man. And justice compels us
to add, that those who challenge the author
of " Ecce Homo " on this ground are not
always persons whose judgment can be sum
marily put aside on the score of bigotry
and blindness.
Now, as to the matter of fact, the simple
question, namely, whether this writer exhibits
our Saviour as man only, let the objector, at
any rate for argument's sake, have his way.
It is plain that, to say the least, the human
aspect so predominates in this volume, as to
be at first sight almost the only one. But on
the rights of the case, as distinguished from
the bare matter of fact, there is much to be
said. It is very difficult, it is, humanly speak
ing, almost impossible, to maintain a just

'ECCE HOMO.

balance, together with a close union between
two ideas of such immense disparity as God
and man : the wailing infant, and the supreme
Creator: the Victim of Death, and the Lord
of Death : the despised of all, and the Judge
of all. Heresy from an early date cut the
heart of 'this difficulty by denying the di
vinity of Christ. The Christian Church, with
its force undivided, and its attention concen
trated on subjects of controversy, which then
were as conspicuously few as they were pro
foundly vital, did indeed make good for itself
a clear and solid theological standing-ground,
in strict correspondence with the idea of an
Emmanuel, or God with us. But the stu
dent of ecclesiastical history, or even the
mere cursory inspector of the records of a

PROCESS OF DOCTRINAL EXPRESSION. II
few of the councils of the fourth century,
knows that it was not until after many a
fearful, and even what, to human eyes, might
seem many a giddy reel, that a nearly
unanimous Christendom settled down upon a
centre of gravity in doctrinal expression, which
has been perfectly stable through all the vicis
situdes of fifteen hundred years, and which
to all appearance nothing can now shake,
except there come a shock under which all
definite Christianity shall crumble. This com
bined belief in the divinity and humanity of
Christ has survived the impact and strain of
all the convulsive forces which rent East from
West, or as the Eastern " Christians would,
with more show of reason, say, West from
East ; which then broke off from the great

'ECCE HOMO.

Western mass so many integral parts of its
closely articulated structure ; and which have
profoundly disorganised so much even of
what they did not actually sever. Yet it is
very difficult for the subjective Christianity of
individuals, or even for systems, to maintain
with precision the equilibrium which has been
so laboriously won for its members by the
action of the early Church. In the Roman
communion it has long seemed to observers
from without, as if much of what belonged to
the humanity of Christ in the first forms of
Christian belief, and according to the com
mon creeds, were virtually intercepted by de
votion addressed in the first instance to in
termediate objects, and too often apt to rest
there. In England, and, as some think, still

EXPOSTULATION WITH OBJECTORS. 13
more in Scotland, there is on the other hand
a tendency among imperfectly informed Chris
tians practically to merge the humanity in
the divinity of our Lord, to underrate or
overlook its continued existence and action,
in some cases even to suppose that it ter
minated with the theophany, or manifesta
tion of the Divine Person in the flesh.
If this be so, then, perhaps, on the part of
a book like '' Ecce Homo," it may be right
to retort a friendly expostulation, and to en
treat objectors to consider with themselyes
whether their impatience of a detailed picture
of our Lord in His humanity is really so un
equivocal a sign of orthodoxy as they sup
pose; or whether, on the contrary, it may
rather be a token that the religious mind

14 "ECCE HOMO.

among us has, from want of habitual cultiva
tion, grown dry and irreceptive on that side
of the Christian creed, so that the kind of
writing which they encounter with rebuke and
suspicion is, possibly, the very kind which is
needed to bring us back to the full vigour of
that mixed conception of the character and
person of our Lord, which in reality forms,
according to the acknowledgment of nearly
all communions carrying the Christian name,
the central idea of the Christian system.
It may, however, be further said, and it
may even be true, that the author of "Ecce
Homo" does not throughout handle the sub
ject of our Saviour's humanity with the care
and caution of language which would be ob
served, and ought to be observed, by a sound

THE AUTHORS OBJECT. 15
believer, not to say by a trained theologian.
And this form of the indictment brings us at
length near, by the reply which it suggests, to
that which, speaking without any special in
formation, and merely using the materials of
judgment which the work supplies, we should
take to be the true position of the writer, and
the legitimate office of the work.
In his brief preface the author of "Ecce
Homo" has informed us that he wrote it for
the satisfaction of his own mind. The work
then was the work of one who felt his way,
and made his road as he went along ; it was
a tentative work, and a tentative work can ill
afford to be judged by the rules applicable to
one which is didactic. The didactic writer is
in possession when he begins of all the know-

l6 "ECCE HOMO.''

ledge with which he ends ; the tentative writer
gathers as he goes. The first is bound by the
same rules all along; the other enlarges the
scope of his vision at each step he makes, and
may naturally and justifiably have employed
language and assumed a tone when he com
menced his labours which would be unbecom
ing from the more advanced position that he
occupies at the close. Nor ought he of neces
sity to go back upon and recast his diction,
so as to give himself one colour and one atti
tude from first to last; for if he did so he
would be likely to efface from his composition
those lineaments of truth and nature on which
its effect as a whole might in great measure
depend. For in such a work, which is essen
tially a work of self-education, that which,

INDEX TO AUTHORS MIND. 17
above all things, the reader ought to see is
the progression of effect, which the study of
the subject, exhibited in the composition of
the book, has had upon the mind of the
writer. He should be placed in a position to
measure with some accuracy the distance be
tween his author's point of departure and
point of arrival ; and, in order that he may
do this, he must know the actual whereabout
of the one as well as of the other. Now the
very language by which the author of "Ecce
Homo*' has, it may be, pained or startled the
minds of numerous readers, may perhaps be
no more than a true index of the unformed
but upright state of mind in which he ad
dressed himself to a subject, never, it would
seem, effectually brought home to his under- B

l8 "ECCE HOMO.'

standing through those channels of tradition
and authority which with most of us have been
the earliest, and with some, it may be feared,
the only, avenues of access for the Christian
religion to our intellects as well as to our hearts.
I ought perhaps to ask pardon from this
most able, and honourable writer for the free
dom of these assumptions, which cannot plead
as their warrant any knowledge except such
as has been derived from the pages of the
work itself. Yet, whether they are in them
selves excusable or not, they may, at least,
have the effect of accrediting the acknow
ledgments of obligation, and the professions
of admiration by which they will in the main
be followed.
The chief objection, then, which is thought

CHIEF OBJECTION TO THE WORK. 19
to lie against this work from the side of the
ancient Christian belief is, that it exhibits our
Lord in His human nature, or on the human
side of His person only. And, as has been
observed, probably those who urge this objec
tion would follow it up by urging that the
" word of truth " is to be " rightly* divided,"
that the several parts of religion ought to
be exhibited in their due proportions, that
the severance of its limbs is fatal to its
vitality, that the licence to teach half-truths
is all that Falsehood can desire, and that, in
point of fact, all the havoc made by Error
has been effected by the use of this very
method. Now the answer to this reasoning, so far as
it is of a general character, appears to be

20 "ECCE HOMO."
obvious enough. The teaching of half-truths
is, indeed, indefensible and mischievous, when
they are taught as whole truths. But there
is an order and succession in the process
of instruction : and that which is not good
as a resting-place may be excellent and most
necessary »as a stage in an onward journey.
It was not at the commencement of His
career, but it was on the very evening of His
passion that our Lord Himself was pleased to
say to His disciples, " I have many things to
say unto you, but ye cannot bear them
now."* Indeed, the negation of this principle
would throw every established method of ac
quiring knowledge into confusion, and, if en
forced and persevered in, would condemn the
* John xvi. 12.

THE OBJECTION DEALT WITH.

human understanding to a hopeless and im
becile sterility. For the doctrine that all the
parts of a subject must be presented at once
can only be reduced to practice by excluding
from view all that is really elevated and
advanced,- by dwelling perpetually in the
circle of the merest rudiments, and by pre
senting even these rudiments in forms which
are at once extravagant and stunted.
Let us allow, then, that the author of " Ecce
Homo " approaches the character of our Savi
our on its human side exclusively. This may
sound as nearly an equivalent to exhibiting
our Lord only in His human nature. The
difference between the two will presently,
perhaps, become more visible. For the pre
sent it may be enough to deal with the

ECCE HOMO.

objection only in the first-named of these two
forms. When so stated, the assertion it in
volves may be true. But the grave question
remains, Is it really a just objection ? Can
no work which confines itself to approaching
the character of our Saviour on its human
side, have its just and proper office in the
Christian teaching of this or of any period of
Christian experience ? Or would it be too
bold to assert, in direct opposition to such
an opinion, that, while such a mode of treat
ment is open to no insurmountable pre
liminary objection, it is one eminently suited
to the religious exigencies of the present
times? Further still. If it be well accom
modated to the needs of the time in which
we live, does it purchase that accommodation

MANIFESTATION OF "THE MYSTERY." 23
by the sacrifice of anything which more per
manent needs would require ? Does it in
volve a departure from the spirit of the
original and great Evangelium of the Gospels
themselves ? Nay, does it involve a depar
ture from their very form ?
In order to answer these questions aright,
we must humbly endeavour to consider what
was, in fact, according to the Gospels, the
mode and process of manifestation chosen in
order to open up the bosom of that which
St Paul so freely describes as " the mystery "
of God, and to introduce to the world that
Messiah for whom not only the pious and the
worldly among the Hebrews, each according
to his own conception, were in active long
ing, but whom, as we know from heathen

24 "ECCE HOMO.

sources,* " an ancient and constant opinion
rife throughout the East" taught even the
common run of men to expect.
For this was no light question. No ques
tion of a meteor flitting or flaring across the
sky, mounting in glare, and then descending
into gloom. No question of an appeal to the
rough-and-ready strength of passions and of
prejudices, which, evoked and organised with
skill,, might have changed the surface, but
the surface only, of society. The astounding
fact of the manifestation of the Lord of Glory
in the veil of human flesh may, and does,
stagger in some minds the whole faculty of
belief. Those minds, however, guided by
equity, will admit that if this great Christian
* Suetonius, "Life of Vespasian," c. 4.

IDEA OF THE INCARNATION. 2$
postulate be sound, much must follow from
it. For then we must in reason expect to
find, not only an elaborate preparation in the
outer world for an event which, by the very
statement of the terms, dwarfs the dimensions
of every other known transaction, but like
wise a most careful adjustment of the means
by which, being so vast in itself, it could find
entrance into the human mind and heart.
The religion of Christ had to adapt itself to
the least as well as to the largest forms of
our life and nature, while its central idea
was in very truth of such a largeness, in com
parison to all we are or can be, as to make
the absolute distance between the greatest of
human greatness, and the smallest of human
littleness, sink into insignificance. No more

26 "ECCE HOMO."

in the inner than in the outer sphere did
Christ come among us as a conqueror, mak
ing His appeal to force. We were neither to
be consumed by the heat of the Divine pre
sence, nor were we to be dazzled by its bright
ness. God was not in the storm, nor in the
fire, nor in the flood, but He was in the still
small voice. This vast treasure was not
only to be conveyed to us, and to be set
down as it were at our- doors ; it .was to
enter into us, to become part of us, and that
part which should rule the rest; it was to
assimilate alike with the mind and heart of
every class and description of men. While,
as a moral system, it aimed at an entire
dominion in the heart, this dominion was to
be founded upon an essential conformity to

RESTORATION, NOT INNOVATION. 27
the whole of our original and true essence.
It therefore recognised the freedom of man,
and respected his understanding, even while
it absolutely required him both to learn and
to unlearn so largely ; the whole of the new
lessons were founded upon principles that were
based in the deepest and best regions of his
nature, and that had the sanction of his
highest faculties in their moments of calm,
and in circumstances of impartiality. The
work was one of restoration, of return, and
of enlargement, not of innovation. A space
was to be bridged over, and it was vast : but
where all the piers, and every foundation-stone
of the connecting structure, were to be laid
in the reason and common sense, in the
history and experience, of man.

28 "ECCE HOMO."

This movement, then, was to be a revolu
tionary movement, but only in the sense of a
return from anarchy to order — it was to re
constitute society upon that principle of
obedience to the great Father, and of corres
pondence with His will, which had been
almost effaced from the high places and from
the outer aspect of the world, and too
sorely impaired, even when it lingered here
and there in some shadowy retreat. But
while, in this sense, revolutionary as to its
aim, it was under the strictest restraint as
to its means. It was tender, careful, and
considerate of all that it found in the world,
neither "breaking the bruised reed," nor
"quenching the smoking flax," respecting so
much of it as had any title to respect, and

THE BASIS NOT NEW. 29
enduring with much patience, " for the hard
ness of their hearts," all such evils as could
only have been removed at the cost of
introducing greater evils.
These conditions of progress were suffi
ciently severe. But even these were not all.
Provision had to be made not only for estab
lishing aright the relation of Christianity to
the world which it was to conquer, but for
the subsequent regulation and due balance
of the internal forces by which the new com
munity was to live and work. " Other foun
dation can no man lay than that which is
laid, even Jesus Christ." The basis of the
kingdom of God was to lie in Emmanuel,
God with us, God made man, God in a
human form, assumed and worn for our

30 "ecce homo."

sakes. Now, this idea was not a new one.
We know that it was not new to the Jew,
from the written promises and narratives of
the Book of Genesis ; from the fourth Figure
that moved in the fire with the Three Chil
dren ; from the strain of prophecy ; and
from the oral tradition of the Jews. Neither
was it new to the Gentile. The old my
thology of Greece, casting off the worship of
the elements to the right, and animal worship
to the left, had for its central figure, in . a
carnal way, that very idea which the Gospel
was to revive in a Christian way — namely,
what is called anthropomorphism, or the
humanising of its gods, with the counterpart
of an equally established deification of its
heroes. This close union of the two worlds

A FACILITY AND A DANGER. 31
and the two natures had supplied the Greek
poets with the chief part of their materials,
and had been the inspiring principle of Greek
art. Now, the fact that both Jew and
Gentile were, each in his own way, supplied
with a form ready made (so to speak) in
the mind, into which the idea of a Divine
Deliverer clad in the flesh might drop, while
on the one hand it gave a facility, on the
other hand certainly constituted a danger,
to the infant religion. For the rule itself
by which all was to be measured had gone
awry ; the form or matrix was itself de
formed, and in receiving the idea was but
too likely to deprave and distort it.
This was so in the case of the Jew, be
cause with him Divine dispensations were

32 "ecce homo.

regarded as fundamentally national ; and,
inasmuch as the foot of the Roman was
on his neck, the first and leading charac
teristic in his idea of the deliverance to be
wrought by the Messiah would naturally be,
and was, deliverance from the Roman supre
macy ; restoration to that political liberty
which the Jew of our Lord's time — not the
exceptional, but the ordinary Jew, not the
Simeon or the Nathanael, but the Annas
or the Caiaphas — so incurably believed to.
be his birthright, that he was able, while
claiming as his own a history which con
tradicted him in every page, to boast be
fore our Lord, "we were never in bondage
to any man."* There was a danger that,
* John viii. 33.

THE UNEQUAL CONTEST. 33
acting in this sense> and accepting the Gospel
thus conceived, the Jews would at once go,
as it is well known that the popular fanati
cism with one or more false Messiahs did
go, into fierce collision with the Roman
government. In this way not only would the
new religion have been exposed to an unequal
contest of physical strength with the one
great power of the world, but it would
.have been placed in an entirely false posi
tion from the outset as a kingdom of this
world, appealing to force and not to reason
for its means of rule. It may then be said,
without presumption, that a necessity of the
highest kind existed to make provision
against that perversion of the great Gospel
idea among its Jewish recipients which, to
C

34 "ECCE HOMO.

the vulgar eye, to the eye of the great as
well as the little vulgar, would have seemed
to be its acceptance, but which would in
reality have been its utter depravation and
corruption. For reasons entirely different, a process not
less ruinous had to be guarded against in
the case of the Gentile. The theanthropic
idea, the idea of God made man without
ceasing to be God, was, as I have said,
familiar and, indeed, fundamental to the old
mythology. But the old mythology, which
was sadly corrupt, and sadly corrupting even
while it continued to be a religion,, had in
the days of our Saviour ceased to be a re
ligion at all. This proposition must be re
ceived with some, but not great restraint.

OLD MYTHOLOGY EFFETE. 35
Not only under the gross outer husk of an
idolatry covering a land is it conceivable
that there may be in the individual mind
kernels of residuary belief and of humble
obedience, but also, when even an idolatrous
system has ceased to be real for a com
munity at large, yet with respect to smoulder
ing sparks of a true religious fire, if we are
unable to affirm that they will still exist,
neither must we venture to deny that they
may. But, as regarded the mind and thought
of man at the period of the advent of Christ,
it is probably little beyond the most literal
truth to say that the old mythology had, in
the time of Tiberius Caesar, ceased to exist as a
religious power. The Roman letters and philo
sophy of that date appear to leave no room

36 "ecce homo.1

for doubt on the subject. But if this were
so, and when along with this there still abode
in the world the speculative idea ,of mani
festations of God in human form, associated
at every point, as in the later shapes of the
mythology it was associated, with everything
most foul and loathsome, how terrible would
have been the consequences, if the tidings of
this new and greater Epiphany of a Divine ¦
Person had gone forth, so to speak, pre
maturely, that is to say, if our Lord had
found His way, as under the all-admitting
system of Roman policy He would have
found His way, into the catalogue of ac
cepted divinities, before the deep and strong
and' even stern lines had been effectually
drawn, which were to fix an impassable

A STUMBLING-BLOCK. 37
gulf between Christianity and the virulent
corruptions that were now in the very heart's
core of the popular system, and that it came
to subdue and to extirpate. It may in
deed be said with truth that the Cruci
fixion would have been a stumbling-block in
the way of such reception as has been here
supposed. This is probably true. That
scratched caricature which was drawn mpon
the wall of a vault or chamber of the
Palatine Hill in Rome, and by which some
Pagan soldier probably mocked the faith
of a Christian comrade, illustrates, more
aptly than could any commentary, the de
claration of the Apostle that Christ crucified
was to the Greeks (and the Greeks at this
period in every question of mind led, and

38 "ECCE HOMO."

therefore represent, the Romans) foolishness.
But the falsified idea of an incarnate God,
to which reference has been made, might,
with the full and glorious list of the signs
and wonders that He did, long before the
end even of our Lord's brief course, have
gone forth into the world, and, by its seem
ing coincidence with the old and first
thought of the Hellenic mythology, have
worked an inextricable confusion, an irrepar
able mischief.
Thus, then, the period of our Lord's com
ing, though it was in many points a period
of advanced civilisation, was one at which
the world was dark, very dark, in regard to
what constitutes either the abstract truth or
the practical form of a religion. The pupil

ANTICIPATIONS. 39
of the general eye was contracted ; and it
had to be trained by time and care to
admit the light: most of all, to be trained
so to admit it, that the light, after being
admitted, should not then become darkness,
for "great would have been that darkness."
These ideas, however, as I have stated
them, are anticipations only, or showings forth
of what — with a view to the utmost purity
and durability — Christianity behoved to be.
Such anticipations are of little moment in
comparison with the facts, or unless sup
ported by them. In speaking of the facts, I
mean simply the facts as represented in the
Gospels. Possibly the language used by the
author of " Ecce Homo," in his Preface,
may have created, and also may even have

40 "ecce homo.

warranted, an expectation that he was about
to undertake an examination of the external
evidence, and of the critical evidence generally,
for their authenticity and genuineness. It
implies no disparagement • of that sphere of
labour, or of those who' have worked, or
who work in it, to assert that there is
another sphere or office quite distinct from
it, and perfectly legitimate. It is to weigh,
not the credentials of the messenger, but the
nature of the message ; to leave for a moment
to others the seal and superscription, and to
take a glance at the contents; to inquire
what may be the moral and practical evi
dences of truth which they bear upon their
front. And I cannot but presume to think
that this is a business exceedingly im-

BARRIER TO BE REMOVED. 41
portant even in its critical aspect. For the
intrinsic nature of the documents, and of
the lessons to be derived from them, may
in itself supply the most powerful testimony
with regard to their authorship and authority,
or may, on the other hand, leave or dis
close a gap in that testimony difficult or
even impossible to be filled.
It is well, however, to remove out of the
way a preliminary barrier in the way of a
right approach to the question how the char
acter of our Saviour is exhibited to us in
the Gospels. In this country, amidst an in
finitude of real blessings and solid privileges,
we have also a fair, and perhaps rather a full,
proportion of palpable counterfeits, and of
assumptions that will not bear the application

42 "ECCE HOMO.

of a moment's thought. For example, because,
through the mercy of Providence, we have a
perfectly free access to Holy Scripture, we
comfortably assume that we are in fact well
acquainted with the sacred pages. And with
this we join another assumption, scarcely less
comfortable, — namely, that, being thus familiar
with the Bible, we have had and have no
concern with tradition, which, for us, is sup
posed to have no existence. But we little
know the breadth of meaning that lies in the
word, or the relation in which we each and all
stand to it. The truth is, that we are all of
us traditioners in a degree much greater than
we think. Few, indeed, are there among us
whose religious belief and system has actually
been formed either from Scripture as a whole,

'TRADITIONERS. 43

or even from that limited and singularly pre
cious portion of it with which alone we are
at this moment concerned. What we suppose
to be from Scripture is really, as a general
rule, from the catechism, or the schoolmaster,
or the preacher, or the school of thought in
immediate contact with which we have been
brought up ; or, perhaps, it has come from
the pastor or from the parent, and in some
happy cases by the living and affectionate
contact of mind with mind. But even then
it has been tradition ; that is to say, the
delivery by them to us of truth in a form in
which they possessed it, and in a form which
they deemed the best for us. Now suppose
they were right in the choice of that form, still
it does not follow that what is now the best

44 "ecce homo.

for us, after Christianity has been rooted in
the world for nearly two thousand years, was
also the best shape and the best order of in
struction for those to whom it was a novelty,
and who were to be its first propagators, as
well as its first receivers.
Even within the compass of the New Testa
ment we see the Christian system presented
in various stages of development by its various
books, to those- for whom they were originally
intended. One of these, the earliest, is ex
hibited to us by the three first, or, as they
are now commonly and conveniently termed,
the Synoptical Gospels. Another by the- Acts
of the Apostles — a book in which we find our
religion advanced to the stage of corporate
or collective action. We find here the first

ST JOHN'S GOSPEL. 45
form of that great society, the Church, which,
under the name of the Kingdom of Heaven,
our Lord had Himself, not established, but
predicted. The two remaining stages are re
presented by the Gospel of St John and the
apostolical Epistles respectively. As between
these it is not now necessary to consider the
question of priority. The one may be re
garded as crowning the Synoptical Gospels,
and the other the Acts of the Apostles.
For the apostolical Epistles, together with
the Apocalypse, both exhibit in detail the
nature and workings of the Christian society,
and supply the most comprehensive model of
that practical instruction which was given by
the earliest and greatest fathers of the Church.
The Gospel of St John, on the other hand,

46 "ecce homo.'

supplies a fourth biography of our Lord. It
was certainly given to the Church, accord
ing to the general judgment of Christendom,
after the three other Gospels ; and it also
presents the teaching of our Saviour under
a new aspect, much more doctrinal, and also
more abstract, than that which it bears in the
works of the Synoptical writers, to whose
compositions it adds little in matters of fact,
unless when special teaching was connected
with them, or when, as in the two closing
chapters, the Evangelist had to record cir
cumstances immediately connected with the
foundation of the Church. In this simple
description, I seek to avoid wholly the con
troverted questions whether this was a sup
plementary Gospel, intended by its author to

THE SYNOPTICS AND ST JOHN. 47
fill up what his predecessors had left unsup-
plied of the history of our Lord's life ; or
whether it was a polemical Gospel, written for
the confutation of heresies then already bud
ding in the Church ; or whether its aim was
one purely didactic, but with views more com
prehensive and profound than those of the
preceding Evangelists ; or in what propor
tions and modes either or all of these pur
poses may have been combined in its com
position. It is quite enough for the present purpose
to refer to a matter of fact which cannot be
confuted, though it may be, and has been,
exaggerated, namely this — that there is a
difference between the general strain of the
Synoptical Evangelists (so far as it is common

48 "ECCE HOMO.'

to the three) and of the fourth, and that this
.difference consists in a greater development,
in deeper soundings, in a higher elevation.
M. Renan, in his work on the Life of
Christ, which he himself ingenuously declares
to be the production of one who is not,
though he has been, in the ordinary sense,
a believer,* and which some persons have,
as I think most unaptly, compared with the
" Ecce Homo," treats this difference as de
structive of the truthfulness either of the
earlier or of the later picture. To my mind,
though there is no real difficulty in either, the
notable reciprocal correspondence of the first
three Evangelists would seem quite as apt to
suggest suspicion as the marked distinctions
* " Vie de Jesus," Introduction, p. Iviii.

st john's picture of Christ's 'love. 49

of the fourth. Of the fact there can" be no"
question. It (has, if I mistake not, beei*'-'
pointedly noticed by Coleridge ; on whose re
fined and penetrating mind the Gospel of St
John exercised a most happy influence in
bringing him to the belief of the accepted
Christian doctrine. But why should it be in
credible, or even Strange, that of any teaching
whatever, much more then of such marvellous
teaching as our Lord's, some elements should
pass more easily into some minds, and others
into other minds of a different complexion or
affinity? The disciple whom Jesus loved has
given us the fullest and deepest picture of His
love, and together with His love, of His Per
son. • But it has been justly remarked by
Dean Alford that there are scattered over the

50 "ecce HOMO."

pages of the Synoptics a certain number of
passages, which are in precise correspondence
with the general strain of St John. And it
cannot be too carefully borne in mind, that
while St John discloses to us a more inward
aspect of the doctrine of our Lord, and sup
plies many propositions that we could not
directly gather from his predecessors, the
moral and practical bearings of the Four
Evangelists are in close and thorough corres
pondence. They have the very same ethical
basis, and they go to produce the very same
frame of mind and course of action ; and
by this very fact, the case of the Gospels is
for ever separated from any true analogy.
with the rival representations of Socrates in
the works of Plato and of Xenophon respec-

FAVOURABLE PRESUMPTIONS. 51
tively, where the ethical bearings of the two
systems appear to be widely different, if not
altogether irreconcilable. But I have, per
haps, pursued too long this interesting sub
ject, of which a fuller development would
on this occasion be out of place.
It is enough for us to perceive that . the
communication of our Lord's life, discourses,
and actions to believers, by means of the four
Gospels was so arranged, in the order of God's
providence, that they should be first supplied
with biographies of Him which have for their
staple His miracles and His ethical teaching,
while the mere doctrinal and abstract portion
of His instructions was a later addition to the
patrimony of the Christian Church. So far as
it goes, such a fact may serve to raise pre-

52 "ecce homo.'

sumptions in favour of the author of "Ecce
Homo," inasmuch as he is principally charged
with this, that he has not put into his fore
ground the full splendour and majesty of the
Redeemer about whom he writes. If this be
true of him, it is true also thus far of the
Gospels. But now let us carry the investigation
further. Let us pass from the biographies to
the life— from the picture to the Person ; and
let us inquire whether in any and in what
degree it is true that- the method pursued also
by Him, and if so then the method which an
absolute and perfect wisdom prompted, was a
method of graduation, a method in which the
great Christian ideas were presented not simul
taneously, npr in a mass, but with a certain sue-

summary. 53

cession, and a studied order. If so, and if we
can find what it was, and if we can also, in
some slight degree, perceive the advantages it
received and the dangers it avoided, we shall
derive from our humble labour new cause for
thankfulness and new grounds for contem
plating with reverence and adoration the
providential action of the Most High.
Thus far, then, I have endeavoured to show
that the method and order of religious teachr
ing may vary, as between the period of first
introduction, on the one hand, and of estab
lished possession and hereditary transmission
on the other; that there were reasons in the
state of the world at the period of the
Advent for a careful and delicate regulation
of the approaches for the new religion to

54 "ecce homo.

the mind of man ; and that in the matter
and succession of the Gospels we may find
a succinct testimony to this system of pro
vidential adjustment.
It will remain principally to examine how
far the manner, in which the author of " Ecce
Homo" exhibits the picture of our Lord,
finds analogies and support in His own
method of teaching; and how far the re
currence to such a method in such a work
is well or ill adapted to the needs of the
time in which we live.

PART II.
\T7E have now to inquire, what was
the order or economy observed by the
Saviour in making known to the world the
religion He had come on earth to found.
That religion is, indeed, summed up in His
own Person. M. Renan has told us a truth we
should hardly have . expected to hear from
him. " He did not preach His opinions : He
preached Himself." * . In yet fewer words —
* " Vie de Jesus," p. 76.

56 "ecce homo.1

Christianity is Christ. St John did not teach
rhetorically, when he delivered the two-edged
saying : " Every spirit that confesseth that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God :
and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus
Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God."*.
But true as this is of the faith full formed and
born into the world, it is not in just the same
manner true of the embryo. We must go back
from the language to the alphabet of religion ;
and must observe in what shape and order the
Master conveyed the first elements of divine
knowledge to the stammering lips of a blind
and bewildered race. And many, perhaps,
among those to whom the subject may be
new, will be struck with the reserve and limita-
* 1 John iv. 2, 3.

DIVISION OF SUBJECT. 57
tion that attends the teaching of our Lord, as
reported by the Synoptical Evangelists, in
regard to the central and fundamental doc
trine concerning His own Person.
Let us proceed to examine the question
briefly under each of the following heads : —
1. The personal history of our Lord as
given in the first three Gospels.
2. The discourses of the first three Gos
pels : and certain summaries given in them
of our Lord's teaching.
3. The injunctions often delivered to those
who had been the subjects or witnesses of
miraculous cure or relief.
4. The method of teaching by parable.
5. The commissions or charges given to the

ECCE HOMO.

twelve Apostles, and to the seventy ¦ dis
ciples. 6. The distribution of doctrinal teaching in
the Gospel of St John.
Those portions of the narrative in the Sy
noptical Gospels, which principally bear upon
the Divinity of our Lord, refer to matter which
formed, it will be found, no part of His public
ministry. Such are the account of His birth
and infancy in the first two chapters of St
Matthew, and the first two chapters of St
Luke : the Baptism, as it is recorded in the
third chapter of St Matthew, the first of St
Mark, and the third of St Luke ; the Tempta
tion, in the fourth of St Matthew, and the
fourth of St Luke : and the Transfiguration, in
the seventeenth of St Matthew, and the ninth

exclusive knowledge. 59
of St Mark and St Luke respectively. Now
of these great occasions, not so much as one
appears to have been known even to the whole
of the Apostles at the time of its occurrence.
The birth and infancy speak for themselves.
The baptism seems to have preceded the
calling of the very earliest among them*
The temptation was a part of that mysterious
training of the Saviour, in which He trod the
wine-press alone, and none could share with
Him. Lastly, the transfiguration was reserved
for the three leading Apostles, St Peter, St
James, and St John ; and we are told that
" Jesus charged them, saying,' Tell the vision
* Cf. Mark i. 16. And observe that St Peter (2 Ep. chap. i.
vers. 16-18), establishing his own authority as a witness, refers
only to the voice at the Transfiguration, and not to the voice
at the Baptism.

6p "ecce homo.'

to no man, until the Son of Man be risen again
from the dead." * This injunction is most of
all remarkable when we call to mind that it
excluded from knowledge of the event the
nine remaining Apostles, besides the Mother
and the nearest relatives of Christ. And we
happen to know that it was obeyed : for says
St Luke, " They kept it close, and told no
man in those days any of those things which
they had seen."+ Until after the transfigura
tion, that is, until a somewhat advanced period
of our Saviour's ministry, He does not appear
to have predicted or indicated to them in any
manner His own impending death. The full
and glowing confession of Him by St Peter as
the Son of the living God, has all the appear-
* Matt. xvii. 9 ; Mark ix. 9. f Luke ix. 36.

RETICENCE AS TO DIVINE NATURE. 6l
ance of a great progression newly achieved
in that ardent soul ; and it was met accord
ingly by a reward in the famous announce
ment of Matt. xvi. 17-19. But this remarkable
confession was not yet to be given to the
world. For the Evangelist proceeds to say,
" Then charged He His disciples that they
should tell no man that He was Jesus the
Christ." *
No doubt the entry into Jerusalem on the
day of Palms was a very solemn and very
suggestive assumption of the character of
Messiahship ; but it belongs rather to the
Passion than the Life : it is the beginning of
the end, the opening act of the closing scene.
If we pass on from the great events of our
* Matt. xvi. 20.

62 "ECCE HOMO.'

Lord's personal history to His teachings, as
recorded in His discourses and sayings by
the Synoptic writers, we shall find that they,
too, are remarkable for the general absence
of direct reference to His Divinity, and, in
deed, to the dignity of His Person alto
gether. The very first notice of our Saviour's teach
ing by St Matthew, gives us to understand
that He began His ministry by simply echoing
the words of the Forerunner, St John Baptist :
"Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand."* And when He unfolded the true
meaning of that wide and deep word, "Repent,"
in the Sermon on the Mount, He asserted,
indeed, His own authority as a teacher, His
* Matt. iv. 17 ; comp. iii. 2.

SELF-ABNEGATION. 63
title to be heard, whatever the seeming relation
of His teaching to the established traditional
lore, and to be heard without appeal : but
He asserted nothing more. And even
this was done by implication only ; not
dogmatically. While His precepts are sus
tained by the assumption of authority, and
this assumption in its turn is (so to speak)
buttressed by His miracles, He makes as yet
no separate claim to the reception or recog
nition of Himself, and He tells no tale about
Himself. In a word, for the time, He Himself,
as apart from His sayings, is nowhere. In the
weighty and even awful comparisons with the
house upon the rock, and the house upon the
sand, which form the climax of the discourse,
the cases which they illustrate are those of the

64 "ECCE HOMO.:

man who receives, and the man who does not
receive, His sayings, not His Person. It is
only in the tenth chapter that we find even an
allusion to the reception of Himself— -"He
that receiveth you receiveth me: and he that
receiveth me receiveth Him that sent me" * And
this is in an address to His disciples, not in
a discourse to the people. To them He is for
the present more like what His ministers are
now. He is a messenger, and His only present
concern is about His message, His only pre
sent duty to carry and deliver it to those for
whom it is intended. He has not yet told the
multitude that He is the Son of God : He
speaks of "your" Father, and "thy" Father,
not, as afterwards, or elsewhere, of "my
* Matt. x. 40.

'K /. -: '- v --''
THE THREE FIRST EVAWteELJt&TS. ' 65

Father." * He has not yet told them He is the
Son of Man, in that pre-eminent sense which
was to connect Him with the House of David,
and to make Him the Heir of the promises,
and the representative of the race. Yet in
the midst of this remarkable abstention, He
laid by that discourse the foundations of a
morality far transcending the rarest and the
best among all the rare or good of what had
yet been delivered to mankind ; and thus He
set about constructing, as it were, the strong
and stable pedestal, on which thereafter His
own glorious image might be securely raised,
and exhibited for the worship of the world.
St Mark -f- gives an account, almost verbally
* With one exception only, near the close (Matt. vii. 21), not
found in St Luke. t Mark i. 15. E

66 "ECCE HOMO.'

the same with St Matthew's, of the opening of
our Lord's ministry. St Luke seems to pass
by what they have recorded, and commences
his narrative with the reading, in the syna
gogue at Nazareth, of the prophecy : " The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He
hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to
the poor ; He hath sent me to heal the broken
hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,
and recovering of sight to the blind, to set
at liberty them that are bruised, to preach
the acceptable year of the Lord."* On which
His only comment was, " This day is this
Scripture fulfilled in your ears/' This is a
clear and undeniable declaration of His claim
to be a Teacher sent from God, and of certain
* Luke iv. 18, 19, 21.

CHRIST APPEALS TO RESULTS. 67
strongly-marked moral results, which were to
be, not the consequence only, but also the proof
of His mission. " The Spirit of the Lord is
upon me, because He hath appointed me" to
convey the blessings before enumerated. Yet
here we find, not alone that He keeps silence
on the subject of His Deity, but that even for
His claim to Divine sanction and inspiration
He appeals to results. . Nor was this principle
less remarkably exemplified in the answer
which He gave to the disciples of John, when
they asked Him, (whether it was in their own
name or in his need not now be inquired,)
"Art thou He that should come, or do we
look for another ? " Whereupon He replies,
not by an arbitrary ipse dico, an unsustained
assertion of His own Messiahship : all such,

68 "ecce homo.'

as we presently find, He rebuked when
He said, "If I bear witness of myself,
my witness is not true."* Neither did He
reply by an argument resting only or mainly
upon the power which marked His acts,
but upon a paramount regard to their bene
ficent and loving character, upon His care
for the lowly, and His constant war against
the mass of suffering in the world, to hem it
within narrower and yet narrower bounds.
" Go and show John again those things which
ye do hear and see: The blind receive their
sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are
cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are
raised up, and the poor have the Gospel
preached to them." f On these premises rests
* John v. 31. f Matt. xi. 4, 5.

THE FASHION OF HIS HUMILITY. 69
the sequel : " And blessed is he, whosoever shall
not be offended in me."* Truly this was the
crown of the Lord's humility, that He was
content in this lowly wise to solicit, through
the assent of our understanding, the allegiance
which He was entitled, as Creator and Master,
to command. But in that humility did there
not lie the wisdom of the Master Builder, who
proceeded precept upon precept, line upon line ;
who was minded to set, each in their proper
place and degree, the stones of the spiritual tem
ple, so that " the whole body " might be " fitly
joined together and compacted by that which
every joint supplieth, according to the effectual
working in the measure of every part ? " f
Thus far what we seem to see is almost a
* Matt. xi. 6. t EPn- iv- l6-

70 "ECCE HOMO.

total suppression of the personality of our Lord
•
in His oral teaching, except upon the single
point, which was essential to His purpose from
the first, that He should not descend into the
arena of mere argumentative disputes with ad
versaries, but' should assume authority. This
claim is involved in the whole strain even of
the Sermon on the Mount, which is couched in
the language of command, and of inappellable
assumption of His right. It is repeated as
often as we find the words, " I say unto you."
But it seems, independently even of His words,
to have been expressed also in His manner,
to have "been made legible in the midst of all
His meekness. It is not only mentioned by
St Matthew * at the close of the Sermon on
* Matt. vii. 28.

THREE PREFERRED APOSTLES. 71
the Mount, but it is also recorded by St Mark
in a place where that Evangelist gives not
even a hint as to the matter of His teaching.
" He entered into the synagogue and taught.
And they were astonished at His doctrine : for
He taught them as one having authority, and
not as the Scribes."* Beyond telling them
this of Himself, we may thus far say, He
told them nothing. He set a picture before
their eyes : He left them to be the judges, by
the composition, the drawing, and the dolour,
from whose hand it came.
Yet even of His work, as distinguished from
His person, He did not, to all eyes, exhibit
the whole. Though the general rule was a
free exhibition by our Lord of His miraculous
* Mark i. 21, 22.

72 "ecce homo.

powers, yet when in the case of the daughter
of the ruler Jairus,* He proceeded to exercise
them in a conquest over death, only the three
preferred Apostles were allowed to be wit
nesses, together with the parents of the maiden,
to this exercise of His might ; the people
having been put forth. On the parents He laid
the charge, "that they should tell no man
what was done." There was but one other
occasion, until close upon the end of His
career, when He exercised a like power :
namely, the case of the widow of Nain.
We have now seen how in one great miracle
in which He set Himself against the last
enemy, He had cast a veil over the exercise
of His power, and had told it only as a man
* Matt. ix. 25 ; Luke ix. 51, 58. .

WITNESS-BEARING. 73
tells a secret to a few. But this reserve ex
tends much farther. On the Gentile centurion,
indeed, whose faith He so greatly commends,
and whose servant He healed, He laid no in
junction of secrecy. There was no fear that
a good soldier of the Roman army would
fall into the snare that beset the Hebrew, or
would clutch at the idea of a carnal or poli
tical Messiahship. Other considerations may
have borne upon the case. The preparation
of the centurion's mind, it is evident, was
greatly advanced ; and perhaps we shall be
right in thinking that such an one could be
trusted, while others could not, to make a
judicious and discriminating use of the won
der he had seen. On the evil spirits, who
"believed and trembled," we are told that

74 "ECCE HOMO."

He laid an injunction that they should not
bear witness to Him. Even the proclamation
of the truth was not to proceed from the
tainted source of a rebellious will and intelli
gence. "And He healed many that were sick
of divers diseases, and cast out many devils:
and He suffered not the devils to speak, be
cause they knew Him."* Knowing Him, they
knew that He was God as well as man ; and
not even from His own lips had this truth yet
proceeded in His popular teaching throughout
the land. On men, too, He had in many
cases laid similar commands. For example:
in the first miracle recorded by the first
Evangelist we find these words: "See thou
tell no man : but go thy way, show thyself
* Mark i. 34. In Luke iv. 41, is an equivalent declaration.

PUBLICITY THE RULE. 75
to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses
commanded for a testimony unto them."*
Of course it is not meant to be. asserted
that our Lord's miracles were generally secret.
For where would then have been that sad respon
sibility of Capernaum and Chorazin and Beth
saida, which gave them a place before Sodom
and Gomorrah on the awful roll of the divine
judgment ? The rule of the miracles was pub
licity; but the exceptions to the rule are re
markable, and seem to mark out clearly the
bounds within which they were meant to
operate. Without doubt, as we know from
a multitude of passages of Scripture, not less
than from the reason of the case, they were
meant to produce in all men the conviction
* Matt. viii. 4.

76 "ecce homo."

so well expressed by Nicodemus : " Rabbi,
we know that thou art a teacher come from
God : for no man can do these miracles that
thou doest, except God be with him."* The
purpose of the exhibition of miraculous powers
seems to have been to produce this very con
viction ; and perhaps it was, in the first instance,
to produce nothing more. Rapidity of move
ment was no part of the providential design.
Like the seed to which Christ himself compares
the Gospel, all the early stages of its life were
to be silent and to be slow. Gradually to lay a
broad basis of such evidence as ought through
all time to satisfy the reason and the heart of
mankind, seems to have been the object with
which our Saviour wrought. The general, if he
* John iii. 2.

BELIEF IN DIVINE MISSION. 77
be a good general, and has his choice, will dis
play his whole army on the battle-field before
any portion of it begins to fight. The hot and
fierce assent of a few enthusiasts might doubt
less have been had on easy terms : like a fire
of straw, come and gone in a moment, and
leaving neither light nor warmth behind. Are
any startled at the idea that our Lord's first
object may have been in the main limited to
fixing well in the minds of His hearers the
belief in His divine mission only? Will they
say in answer, that by His reply to the con
fession of Nicodemus He emphatically teaches
that ruler the insufficiency of the belief to which
that ruler had attained ? For the answer of
Christ is not a commendation or an acqui
escence, but a solemn monition : " Verily, verily,

78 , "ECCE HOMO."

I say unto thee, Except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God."* As
much as to say, " It is not enough that you
have examined my credentials, and that, ap
proving them, you own me as a teacher carry
ing a commission from on high. You must
accept deeper results of my mission than any
you have yet thought of, and must give your
mind and spirit to be translated into the region
of a new and better life." Such is, I suppose,
an approximation to the sense of our Lord's
reply. The confession, then, of Nicodemus was
insufficient. But so is the first step of a flight
without those that are to carry us onward to
the level above ; yet the laying well and solidly
the first steps without any visible regard to
* John iii. 3.

DELICACY OF PROCEDURE. 79
those that are to follow, may be the way, and
the only way, to construct a practicable and
durable ascent.
There is, however, a peculiar delicacy, if this
phrase may be allowed, in this method of pro
cedure adopted by the Great Teacher. Along
with that element of superhuman power which
was to establish a superhuman origin for His
mission, there was combined a certain character
of love, of pity, of unwearying help, of tender
and watchful care, which is to be read in the
deeds of our Lord from first to last ; the
only two exceptions, which may have had ex
cellent reasons of their own, being those of the
fig-tree and the swine ; exceptions not touching
the race of man. Now the gross and carnal
temper in man is far more easily caught by

.'  ¦  r^ 
'80 . "ECCE homo."

power than- by love. To a certain extent, then,
tSer"di§play of power, intended to show that
Christ had come from God to carry us back
along with Himself to God, tended to counter
act that very object, if it should relatively lower
in our minds the force of the attraction of love ;
if, of the two great functions of Deity exhibited
in the miracles, the one which was more splen
did and imposing should eclipse the one more
modest, but more precious and more authentic.
Hence, perhaps, it is that we find a certain
veiling of the power that was in Christ, by
these reserves and injunctions of secrecy. In
the rude repetition of the miracles from mouth
to mouth, they would have fared as the picture
of some great artist fares when it is copied at
second, • third, and fourth hand : the finer and

THE PARABLES.;,^ ' 8l
 ?,,'-»•¦ I
_  —,  .  _ 
'T P *
deeper graces disappear ; the dotlfigf af jfche
idea disappears, and only a coarse outline sur
vives. And so it really seems as if our Saviour
had desired to place considerable checks on
the circulation of mere report concerning the
miracles ; and in lieu of its confused and be
wildering echoes, to trust rather to each man's
seeing for himself, and then calmly reflecting
on so much as he had seen.
What we have thus far observed in the dis
courses and the miracles, we shall further see
in what still remains to be surveyed of our
Saviour's pastoral career. Let us try ne.xt the
Parables. It is not necessary here to dwell on
the characteristics of this method of teaching ;
to show how they win a way into the willing
soul ; how, waiving immediate and striking F

82 "ecce homo,1

effects, they provide the means of illumination
for the meditative mind as the sense of the
allegory gradually opens on it ; how they sup
ply the indolent with an excuse for his indol
ence, and, as if it were judicially, exasperate
the contempt and aversion of the proud. But
there is another characteristic of the Parables,
which appears to be strictly germane to the
purpose of these remarks. In all of the greater
ones, which present their subject in detail, He
himself, when they are interpreted, fills a much
higher place than that simply of a teacher
divinely accredited. They all shadow forth a
dispensation, which, in all its parts, stands re
lated to, and dependent on, a central figure;
and that central figure is, in every case but two,
our Saviour Himself. He is the Sower of the

THEIR CHARACTER. 83
seed, the Owner of the vineyard, the House
holder in whose field of wheat the enemy inter
mixed the tares, the Lord of the unforgiving
servant, the Nobleman who went into a far
country and gave out the talents and said,
" Occupy till I come ; " lastly, the Bridegroom
among the virgins, wise and foolish. In every
one of these, our Saviour appears in the atti
tude of kingship. He rules, directs, and fur
nishes all ; He ¦ punishes and rewards. Every
one of these, when the sense is fully appre
hended, repeats, as it were, or anticipates the
procession of the day of Palms, and asserts
His title to dominion. They must be con
sidered, surely, as very nearly akin, if they are
not more than nearly akin, to declarations of
His Deity. Two others there are which have

84 "ecce homo."
not yet been mentioned. One is the parable
of the householder, who planted a vineyard and
went into a far country, and sent his servants
to receive his share of the produce. In this
parable our Lord is not the master, but the
master's heir, the person whose the vineyard
is to be, and who, being sent to perform the
office in which the other messengers had failed,
is put to death, by the cruel and contumacious
tenants.* But this parable, if it sets forth
something less than His kingship, also sets
forth much more, and embodies the great mys
tery of His death by wicked hands. There is
also the parable of a certain king, which made
a marriage for his son : f a relation which in
volves far more, than had commonly been ex-
* Matt. xxi. f Matt. xxii. I.

THEIR RESERVE. 85
pressed in the direct teaching. Upon the
whole; then, the proposition will stand good
that these parables differ from, and are in ad
vance of, the general instruction respecting the
person of the Redeemer in the three Synoptic
Gospels, and place Him in a rank wholly above
that of a mere teacher, however true and holy.
They set. forth that difference from previous
prophets and agents of the Almighty, which
has been noticed by the Apostle to the He
brews, where he says that "Moses verily was
faithful in all his house as a servant ; but Christ
as a son, over His own house."* Now, we
have to sum up this branch of the inquiry with
observing that, in that very chapter of instruc
tion where the proper dignity and weight of
* Heb. iii. 5, 6.

86 "ecce homo."

the Redeemer in one of His high offices,
namely, as a King, begin to be significantly
conveyed, there is a veil interposed, as if to
cast the scene into shadow. The truth is
there ; but it ceases to thrust itself upon the
mind, and stands rather as the reward to be
obtained in after-thought by a docile atten
tion. Upon the field, then, which we are now
examining, our Lord does not so much teach
Himself, as prepare the way for the teaching
of Himself, and act once more, though from a
different point, and in a new relation, the part
of His own forerunner. There is yet another
portion of that field, upon which we have to
cast a glance. During the brief course of His
own ministry, our Saviour gave a commission

THE EARLY COMMISSIONS. 87
to His twelve Apostles, and likewise one to
the seventy disciples. Each went forth with a
separate set of full and clear instructions. The
commission to the Twelve will be found most
fully given in the tenth chapter of St Matthew :
that to the Seventy in the tenth of St Luke.
In conformity with what we have already
seen, both are silent in respect to the Person
of our Lord. They seem to aim at repro
ducing in miniature His own ministry. To
the Apostles He says, " Preach, saying, The
kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick,
cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out
devils." * To the disciples He says, " Heal
the sick that are therein, and say unto them,
The kingdom of God is come nigh unto
* Matt. x. 7, 8.

88 "ECCE HOMO.'

you." * The announcement of a society,
not founded, but about to be founded
upon earth, the obligation of the hearer
to believe in what is announced,! the
exhibition of works of relief and love, that
love taking effect through a preternatural ex
ercise of power, — here is the Gospel as it was
ordered to be preached by the followers of
our Lord during His lifetime, and before He
had begun to open, even tb the Twelve, the
awful picture of His coming death.J Notable,
indeed, is the difference, it might almost be
said the contrast, between these commissions,
and those which were given after the resurrec
tion, as they are related in St Matthew xxviii.
18-20; St Mark xvi. 15-18; St Luke xxiv.
* Luke x. 9. t Matt. x. 33 ; Luke x. 10-16. i Matt. xvi. 21.

THE SEVERAL STAGES. 89
45-49; St John xx. 21-23, and xxi. 15-17.
In these latter commissions, the Person of
Christ has emerged in all its grandeur, from
the shadow to the foreground : it is His power
that is given over to them, into Him they are
to baptize, in His name they are to preach
repentance and remission of sins.
To sum up, then ; there was a twilight
before the dawn, and a dawn before the
morning, and a morning before the day.
The contrast between the two classes of
commissions, that we have just seen, re
ceives its most vivid illustration on _ the day
of Pentecost, which may perhaps not unfitly
be termed the birthday of the Church. This
contrast is really a proof, not of dissonances
in the Divine counsels, but of an harmonious

90 "ecce homo.

and adapted progression in their develop
ment, and thus of their essential and steady
oneness of design. During our Lord's life,
the bulwarks of the kingdom of evil were
being smitten again and again by constant
exhibitions of His command over the seen
and unseen worlds ; and its foundations were
being sapped by the winning force of His
benevolence and love. Even before this
work approached its ripeness, He cried, in
prophetic anticipation of His triumph, " I
beheld Satan like lightning fall from
heaven."* When He had died, and risen,
and ascended, then the undermining pro
cess was complete ; and the rushing noise
of Pentecost f was like the trumpet-blast
* Luke x. 18. f Acts ii. 2.

THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 91
about the walls of Jericho, when "the wall
•fell down flat, so that the people went up
into the city, every man straight before him ;
and they took the city."*
It is time, however, to turn to a brief
consideration of the question, how far this
representation is set aside or modified by
the contents of the Gospel of St John. And
here I venture on this general proposition :
that, transcendent as is the elevation, and
inestimable « as is the value of the contents,
of that Gospel, it is the works of the three
Synoptical writers, and not the Gospel of St
John, which exhibit to us, so far as a judg
ment can be formed, the ordinary and aver
age tenor of our Saviour's life, and the true
* Joshua vi. 20.

92 "ecce homo."

picture of its daily exhibition to the world.
Let this assertion be substantially if rudely
tested by a brief glance at the structure of
that Gospel. Of the general character, how
ever, of our Lord's teaching contained in it, so
much as this may, perhaps, be said by way
of preface. It appears as if our Lord com
monly was employed in those kinds of word
and deed which, repeated in substance over
and over again in a large number of places,
and before great multitudes of witnesses,
Were to constitute the main ground of His
appeal to the conscience of the world, and
the first basis of the general belief in Him;
the basis, upon which all the rest was in due
time to be built up. But while He thus
wrought from day to day and from place

VARIETY OF AUDIENCES. 93
to place, He was also at times employed in
sowing a seed which was to lie longer in the
ground before the time of germination. Some
times He set Himself to sow it in capable
minds and willing hearts, like those of the
Apostles, or like that of Nicodemus ; some
times to let it fall apart from the common
beat of the chosen people, and where it could
not be choked by their peculiar prejudices, as
with the woman of Samaria. But also in Jeru
salem itself, at least by one series of dis
courses, He was pleased to state sufficiently,
in the hearing both of the people and of their
guides, the dignity and claims of His Person ;
so that this authentic declaration from His
own lips, of the truths which were after the
Resurrection to be developed in apostolic

94 "ecce homo.

teaching, might accredit that teaching to
minds that would otherwise have stumbled
at the contrast, or would have been unable
to fill the void between such doctrine posthu
mously preached, and the common tenor of
our Lord's words and acts as they are given
in the Synoptical Gospels. In this view, such
portions of St John's Gospel, as I now refer
to, may be regarded as the golden link be
tween the Sermon on the Mount, and the
theology of the Apostolic Epistles.
Though the strain of St John's Gospel, and
of the teaching of Christ in it, is very even,
the occasions and audiences are very different.
The last ten chapters, or nearly one-half of
the whole, consist entirely of the narrative of
the Passion and its sequel, together with

THE EARLIER CHAPTERS. 95
discourses and acts wholly of the inner circle,
addressed, that is to say, not to the world,
or to the adversaries of Christ, but to those
whom He had specially elected to be His
friends and followers. In the first two chapters
nothing in the way of narrative is contained
to distinguish His lessons here from those
of the earlier Gospels. The third is com
posed of discourses to selected persons ;
namely, to Nicodemus, and to c.ertain dis
ciples of the Baptist. When, in the fourth,
our Lord spoke to the woman of Samaria,
and afterwards to the people of the city, the
effect produced was remarkably powerful
and distinct. It was not only (as in the
Synoptical Gospels) that they were as
tonished, or that His fame went abroad,

96 "ecce homo.'

or that " they glorified God which had given
such power unto men," * or even that in
general terms they believed on Him ; they
went further, and said, as St Peter had said,
"We know that this is indeed the Christ,
the Saviour of the world." f But the subject
matter of this our Lord's only visit to the
outcasts of Samaria, with whom the Jews
would not hold intercourse, could have no
effect on the general impressions concerning
Him in the places of His ordinary travel
and resort through Judea or Galilee.
The exceptional teaching, as I would ven
ture to call it, of our Lord among the Jewish
people, which would materially tend to modify
(by deepening and enlarging them) such im-
* Matt. ix. 8. + John iv. 42.

CHAPTERS FIFTH AND SIXTH. 97
pressions as men would naturally take from
the acts and discourses of the Synoptic Gos
pels, is really contained in the six chapters from
the fifth to the tenth. When we examine
these six chapters, we seem to find in them
a kind of progression, as if with a view tb some
special purpose. In the fifth, after the miracle
He had performed on the cripple of Bethesda,
He conveyed Himself away, "a multitude be
ing in that place."* But He declared to the
Jews, no great number of them we must
suppose, within the temple, His Sonship, His
being invested with the authority of judge
over the world, and His claim to the pro
mises and predictions of the Old Testament.
In the sixth, He delivered the wonderful dis-
* John v. 13.

98 "ecce homo."
course of the "bread of God" at Capernaum,
to such of the people forming the five thou
sand of the day before as remained, and as
were able to follow Him by ship across the
lake.* But a ray of light is let fall upon the
general circumspection and measure in the
lessons of our Lord, when we learn that a
great reaction followed this discourse, not only
among the multitude, but among the disciples
of our Lord. "From that time many of His
disciples went back, and walked no more with
Him."-f- Here is one sad and sufficient reason
for the careful graduation of His course of
teaching. He then, after a visit to Galilee,
goes up to Jerusalem for the feast of taber
nacles,! and resumes His discourses or con-
* John vi. 15, 22-25. + John vi. 66. J John vii. 10.

CHAPTERS NINTH AND TENTH. 99
versations in the temple, to much the same
general effect as in the fifth chapter. He pro
claims Himself the light of the world, He
dwells on His special relation to the Father,
and He points to the lifting up of the Son of
Man. After which, says St John* many be
lieved on Him ; but after a little more dis
course, when He had told them " before Abra
ham was, I am," they took up stones to cast
at Him.-|- Then come the ninth and tenth
chapters, in which, having given sight to a
man blind from his birth, He finds Himself
again in conflict with the spirit of unbelief
among the Jews. He now delivers the dis
course of the tenth chapter, in which He is
the Good Shepherd, and mankind are His
* John viii. 30. t John viii. 59.

ECCE HOMO.

sheep ; and He gives them eternal life ; and
this is by His Father's ordinance ; and finally
reaching the climax of the doctrine, He and
His Father are one.* But mark the end,
" Then the Jews took up stones again to stone
Him." "Therefore they sought again to take
-Him ; but He escaped out of their hand, and
went away again beyond Jordan." f
All this portion of our Lord's instruction,
then, is profoundly charged with doctrine con
cerning His Person. It is full and large in
instruction for all times and all persons. But
it seems to have been delivered to no great
number; perhaps, too, within a limited space
of time. It stands in marked distinctness from
the general tenor of His teaching; and it
* John x. 14, 16, 28-30. t John x. 31, 39, 40.

RECEPTION OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. IOI
stands also in contrast with that teaching as
to the mode of its reception. It shows that,
for the reception of such instruction, the field
was not as yet white to the harvest. The
scandal and offence were doubtless incurred
for the wisest purposes, but they seem to have
been the general result ; while in the case of
the lessons conveyed in the other Gospels, we
find no such consequence ; but we see there a
disposition to hear, and to give praise to God,
which was a preparation, at the least, for full,
intelligent, and durable belief. Nor does it seem
rash or unreasonable to suppose that while, with
a view to completing the solid chain of testi
mony, it behoved our Lord, during His career,
thus to bear an explicit testimony to His own
personal dignity and claims,- and this before

ECCE HOMO.

persons who were not already His partisans;
it also behoved that, because of the weakness
of the flesh, and the dulness of the eye, and
the slackness of the will of man, the perform
ance of that duty should be confined within
narrow limits, and that all beyond these limits
should be reserved for a happier season.
I have not yet noticed the most touching
among all the touching and loving acts of
Christ. It is the raising of Lazarus, recorded
in the eleventh chapter of St John. In this
narrative we may remark a method of pro
ceeding quite different from that which had
been pursued on the occasion of raising the
daughter of Jairus* Many of the Jews were
about Martha and Mary to comfort them
* John xi. 19, 31.

RAISING OF LAZARUS. IO3
concerning their brother. They attend the
Saviour at the grave : far from repelling
them, He appeals to His Father in their
presence,* and renders thanks in order to
be heard by them : the miracle is performed
before their eyes, and many believed, f while
some went to warn the Pharisees. , But the
time of the great offering was now hard at
hand ; and it is probable, if not plain, that at
such a time the reasons for limiting the dis
closures of the all-conquering power of Christ
would cease to operate.
It appears, then, on the whole, as respects
the Person of our Lord, that its ordinary
exhibition to ordinary hearers and spectators,
was that of a Man engaged in the best, and
* John xi. 41, 42. t J°nn xi- 45; 46-

104 "ECCE HOMO.'

holiest, and tenderest ministries, among all the
saddest of human miseries and trials ; of One
teaching in word, too, the best, and holiest,
and tenderest lessons ; and claiming, unequi
vocally and without appeal, a paramount
authority for what He said and did ; but, be
yond this, asserting respecting Himself nothing;
and leaving Himself to be freely judged by
the character of His words and deeds.
It may be for the same reasons, or for
reasons of which these form a part, that we
find that very remarkable adjustment in the
Gospels, and in the Gospel of St John as
well as in the Synoptical writers, under
which the kingdom of our Lord, while it is
abundantly predicted, is nowhere explained ;
and the doctrine concerning it is kept even

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 105
in a deeper shade than the doctrine respect
ing the Person of Christ. John the Baptist
had prophesied of the Christian Baptism as
one differing from and much excelling his
own : but our Lord did not renew the pro
phecy, and the baptism administered during
His lifetime by His disciples appears to have
been of the same character as that of the
Forerunner. It seems that the minds of the
Apostles themselves stood in need, on this
subject, of peculiar preparation. For not even
in discourse with them does our Lord ex
plain the nature of His kingdom. Nay, the
remarkable promise to St Peter, which fol
lowed upon and sealed his confession of the
Messiahship, was imparted in figure, and was
calculated rather to be retained and pondered

106 i "ECCE HOMO.'

in the heart, than to convey immediate light
to the mind : nor was it incompatible, as we
see, with an energetic protest from the Apostle,
following immediately, against the coming
humiliation of his Master, or with the rebuke,
bordering upon sternness, in which that Master
apprised him that he then still savoured of,
not the things which be of God, but the things
which be of men. So late as in the great dis
course of the Last Supper, Christ tells His
disciples, " I have many things to say unto
you, but ye cannot bear them now ; " and it
is only in the very last stage of His adorable
career, and when He has now put His scholars
through the severest trial of their faith by
His Death and Resurrection, that during
those forty days before the Ascension, which

DISCLOSED IN THE PARABLES. 107
once were called the great forty days, He
dwelt among them, and " spoke of the things
pertaining to the kingdom of God."*
I would presume, in this place, to make an
addition to what has been already said of the
large use of parable by our Lord as a vehicle
of instruction. Another leading feature in
almost all the parables is the social and col
lective aspect of Christianity, incorporated in
what the Gospels ordinarily call the Kingdom
of Heaven. The parables are so contrived
that, without explaining in detail the constitu
tion of that kingdom, they familiarly impress
the mind with its idea ; with the image of
some scheme or system into which men were
to be brought, so that they should habitually
* Acts i. 8.

108 "ECCE HOMO."
live in it, and that they should ultimately be
judged by the laws appointed for its govern
ment. The kingdom as well as the kingship,
the appointment of a new dispensation of
brotherhood among men, as well as the su
premacy of our Lord in that brotherhood, were
thus, as it were, things sown and stored in the
mind of the Apostles to abide their time;
t
like the spark laid up in ashes to await
the moment when it should be kindled into
flame. If the reader has patiently followed the
argument to this point, it is now time to re
lease him by proceeding to apply it to the case
of "Ecce Homo." Supposing, then, that the
author of that work has approached his sub
ject on the human side, has dealt with our

ARGUMENT APPLIED. 109
Lord as with a man, has exhibited to us
what purport to be a human form and linea
ments, is he therefore at once to be con
demned ? Certainly not at once, if it be true;
as it seems to be true, that in this respect
he has only done what our Lord himself,
by His ordinary and usual exhibition of
Himself, both did, and encouraged the
common hearer of His addresses, and be
holder of His deeds, to do. The question
whether this writer is to be discarded as an
auxiliary in religious inquiry, or whether, on
the contrary, we are his debtors for an elo
quent, earnest, searching, and stirring " Survey
of the, Life and Work of Jesus Christ," cannot,
then, be decided until we have considered
whether his method, being one admissible in

ECCE HOMO.'

principle, is also one suited to the needs of
the times in which we live.
Before concluding with a few words ad
dressed to the solution of that question, two
observations require to be made. The first is
that the defence and apology (in the polemi
cal sense of the word,) which have here been
offered, are of a general nature, and do not
extend to the manner in which the task has
been executed, but only to the principle on
which the execution has been based. The
language and the general tone must be judged
on their own merits. On some points of ex
pression I might not care to defend ; on
others I might even presume to differ. But
to those who have dealt in broader censures
would at least suggest their inquiring of

THE AUTHOR'S MANNER.

themselves, whether all their zeal in the
matter has been according to knowledge : and
whether in some cases where we are inclined
to jar with the author, the cause possibly
may be that he has taken a wider and more
adequate measure of the conditions of our
Saviour's humanity than we have. I will ven
ture upon a single, and at first sight it may
be a rather startling instance. In his second
chapter,* on the Temptation, the author
says : —
"We are to conceive Him, therefore, as
becoming now for the first time conscious of
miraculous powers."
, Such words may, at the first sight or hear
ing, send a chill through the blood of some.
* "Ecce Homo," p. 12.

ECCE HOMO.

It is so far now to travel back from the glory
of His triumph and His reward, His ever
lasting Priesthood and government in heaven,
to the dark and depressed career, and to the
earliest and most depressed stages of the de
pressed career, on earth.. But if He did not
despise the Virgin's womb, if He lay in the
cradle a wailing or a feeble infant, if He
exhausted the years of childhood and of
youth in submission to His Mother and to
Joseph, if all that time He grew in wisdom
as well as in stature, and was ever travel
ling the long stages of the road to a perfec
tion by us inconceivable; if, even when the
burden of His great ministry was upon Him,
He has Himself told us that as His divine
power was placed in abeyance, so likewise a

SPECIMEN EXAMINED. 113
bound was mysteriously set upon His know
ledge — what follows from all this ? That
there was accession to His mind and soul,
from time to time, of what had not been
there before : and that He was content to
hold in measure, and to hold as a thing re
ceived, what, but for His humiliation in the
flesh, was His without limit, and His as
springing from within. And, if so, might
it not well be, that in this crisis of the
Temptation, when His normal use of miracu
lous power had not yet begun, the wicked
suggestion to abuse it might give rise to a
vivid consciousness in His mind, such as had
not been there before? So considered, per
haps, this declaration is really within the
limits marked out by the Sacred Text itself,
H

114 "ECCE HOMO.

when it tells us that Christ was straitened
in spirit at the view of the baptism that
He was to be baptized with, until it were
accomplished ; and that His soul grew heavy
and sorrowful, even unto death, as the dread
image of the Passion came upon His nearer
view. And thus the revulsion in our minds,
upon the first perusal of such words, will
have been a proof, not of their irreverent
use, but of our too narrow acquaintance
with the great truth of our Lord's humanity,
and will itself have been a discipline for
which we have to thank our author.
Is, then, his method — this alone remains to
ask — suited or unsuited to the needs of our
particular day and generation ? To trie it ap
pears to be eminently suited to those needs ;

TRADITIONAL INT'LUENCES. 115
and, with much deference to the judgment and
authority of others, I will endeavour to explain
the reason.
The mighty change which Christ achieved
in the whole frame and attitude of the human
mind with respect to Divine things, was trans
mitted from age to age, but not by effort and
agony like His, or like the subordinate but
-kindred agency of those who were chosen by
Him to co-operate in the great revolution.
Sometimes it was, indeed, both sustained and
developed by the great powers and by the faith
and zeal of individuals, and by a constancy
even unto death ; but in the main it passed on
from age to age by traditional, insensible, and
unconscious influences. As the ages grew, and
as the historic no less than the social weight

n6 "ecce homo.'

of Christianity rapidly accumulated, men, by
no unnatural process, came to rely more and
more on the evidence afforded by the simple
prevalence of the religion in the world, which
was in truth a very great one; less and less
upon the results of any original investigation
reaching upwards to the fountain-head. The
adhesion of the civil power, the weight of a
clergy, the solidity and mass of Christian in
stitutions, the general accommodation of law
to principles derived from the Scripture, that
very flavour of at least an historic Christianity
which, after a long undisputed possession,
pervades and scents the whole atmosphere
of social life, — all these in . ordinary times
seem to the . mass of men to be, as proofs,
so sufficient, that to seek for others would

PRESENT BESETTING DANGERS. 117
be waste of time and labour. If there be un
reason in this blind reliance, there is probably
not less, but much more unreason shown,
when the period of reaction comes, and when
a credulity carried to excess is replaced in the
fashion of the day by an incredulity that wan
ders and runs wild in the furthest outbreaks of
extravagance : an incredulity, not only which
argues from the narrowest ¦ premises to the
broadest conclusions, but which, oftentimes dis
pensing with argument altogether, assumes that
whatever [in religion has. heretofore been be
lieved to be true is therefore, likely to be false,
and exhibits a ludicrous contrast between the
overweening confidence of; men in their own
faculties, and their contempt for the faculties
of those out of whose loins, with no intervening

n8 "ecce homo."

change of species, they were born. I do not
suggest that a description so broad could be
justly applied tothe present age. But it is in
this direction that we have been lately tending ;
and we have at least travelled so far upon the
road as this, that the evidences purely tradi
tional have lost their command (among others)
over those large, classes of minds which, in
other times, before a shock was given, or the
tide of mere fashion turned, would perhaps
most steadily and even -blindly have received
them. Their minds are like what I believe is
said of a cargo of corn on board ship. It is
stowed in bulk, and in fair weather the vessel
trims well enough ; but when there is a gale
the mass of grain strains over to. the leewardi,
and this dead weight increases the. difficulty

SUITABLENESS, OF THE WORK. 119
and the danger, and does it this way or that
mechanically, according to the point of the
compass from which the wind may blow-
In such a time, there is a disposition either
to deny outright the authority which Chris
tianity may justly claim from its long historic
existence, and from its having borne triumph
antly the strain of so many tempests, or else,
and perhaps with more danger, silently to slight
them and pass them by, and to live a life
deprived alike of the restraints and the con
solations of a strong and solid belief. Under
these circumstances, may it not be the duty
of the scribe rightly instructed in the things
concerning the kingdom of God, when the old
weapons cease for the moment to penetrate,
that he should resort to other weapons which

'ECCE HOMO.'

at the time are new, though in reality they
are the oldest of all, and had only been laid
aside because they were supposed to have
done their work ?
Such I understand to be the position as
sumed by the author of " Ecce Homo." He
thrusts aside with a hand certainly not too
reverent, — perhaps even somewhat brisk and
rough, — all intermediate testimony of whatever
kind. He invites his reader to consider for
the moment all Christian tradition, all Chris
tian institutions, all the long and diversified
experience of the Faith in the world, as non
existent : to ascend with him the stream of
time for more than eighteen hundred years;
and to go direct into the presence of Christ,
not such as He now presents Himself to us,

METHOD OF DIRECT ACCESS. 121
bearing iri His hand the long roll of His con
quests, but such as beside the sea of Galilee,
or in the synagogue of Capernaum, or the
Temple of Jerusalem, He then offered Him
self to the ordinary Jew, with no other arms
but those of His commission and His char
acter, and the character of His acts and
words. This is the journey that the attentive
reader of " Ecce Homo " has to make under
the author's guidance. He passes into the
presence of Jesus of Nazareth, and there, with
out any foregone conclusion, either of sub
mission or of dissent, gives that heed to the
words and acts of the unfriended Teacher,
which the honest Jew would give when those
words were spoken, and those acts were done.
And what is the result ? I appeal for the

'ECCE: HOMO.

answer to the book. I. appeal to a vitality,
an earnestness, an eloquence, a power, all of
them: derived from' the deep and overflowing
life of the wondrous Figure which it con
templates and sets forth. Yes, even as to
this hour " The world's unwithering countenance
Is fresh as on creation's day,"
so the unwithering countenance of Christ
beams upon us in the pages of this latest
exposition of His character with the virgin
freshness and the penetrating power that it
might have presented to- the view, when
instead of being among the oldest, it was
the latest birth of time. True of the Gospel,
as it here appears: to us,, is that which was
nobly said of one of its harbingers,, at the

EFFECT OF THIS METHOD. 123
time when, as measured by years, old age
was upon him, " Its eye is not dim, nor its
natural force abated."*
Doubtless, when we ask about results from
such a work, we come to a question which
must be settled in the last resort by the
individual mind for itself. By argument we
may, I have thought, show, that to approach
our Lord, and to paint the sacred portrait,
on the human side, is no unlawful process ;
and likewise,, that when the secondary and
intermediate authorities are disregarded, it
may be wise thus to seek at once for access
to- the presence of the Great King, and to
sit among the listeners at His feet. But
the question of questions remains : When we
* Deut. xxxiv. 7.

124 "ECCE HOMO.'

arrive in that presence, how does it make
good its claims to supreme majesty and
supreme command? To me it appears that
each page of the book breathes out as it pro
ceeds what we may call an air, which grows
musical by degrees, and which, becoming more
distinct even as it swells, takes form, so in
due time we find, in the articulate conclusion,
" Surely this is the Son of God : surely this is
the King of Heaven." "And they shall call
his name Emmanuel, .which, being interpreted,
is, God with us."*
So, then, through the fair gloss of His
manhood, we perceive the rich bloom of His
divinity; and from the author we accept his
own moving precept: "Cling to Christ, cling
* Matt. i. 23.

GENERAL RESULT. 125
ever closer unto Christ." And surely this we
may say : if He is not now without an assail
ant, at least He is without a rival. . If He be
not the Sun of righteousness, the Physician
of souls, the Friend that gives His life for
His friends, and that sticketh closer than a
brother, the unfailing Consoler, the constant
Guide, the everlasting Priest and King, at
least, as all must confess, there is no other
come into His room. And we may reason
ably hope to find that the present tendency
to treat the old ' belief of man with a pre
cipitate, shallow, and unexamining disparage
ment, is simply a distemper that infects for a
time the moral atmosphere; that is due, like
plagues and fevers, to our own previous folly
and neglect ; and that, when it has served its

126 "ecce homo.'

work of admonition and reform, will be allowed
to pass away. Towards this result the author
of " Ecce , Homo," if I read him right, will#
have the consolation and the praise .of having
furnished an earnest, powerful, and original
contribution.

PART III.
T N the two former chapters I have presumed
in some sense to speak for the author
of "Ecce Homo." In this the third and last
he will speak for himself, in passages which
I shall select by no means with a view to
exclude what may be open to criticism or
objection, but in the hope of exhibiting a
fair sample both of the matter and manner
of the work, with something like a con
nected idea of its contents.

128 "ecce homo.'1

After a brief chapter on John the Baptist,
which appears to be scarcely equal to the
general standard of the work, our author
comes to the Temptation, and here he
glances at the subject of miracles : —
"Miracles are, in themselves, extremely
improbable things, and cannot be admitted
unless supported by a great concurrence of
evidence. For some of the Evangelical
miracles there is a concurrence of evidence
which, when fairly considered? is very great
indeed ; for example, for the Resurrection,
for the appearance of Christ to St Paul, for
the general fact that Christ was a miracu
lous healer of disease. The evidence by
which these facts are supported cannot be

ON THE TEMPTATION. 129
tolerably accounted for by any hypothesis
except that of their being true. And if
they are once admitted, the antecedent im
probability of many miracles less strongly
attested is much diminished. Nevertheless
nothing is more natural than that exaggera
tions and even inventions should be mixed in
our biographies with genuine facts." (P. io.)
The general view taken of the Temptation af
fords a pointed example of what may be termed
our author's naturalistic method of handling : —
"Now the story of Christ's temptation is
as unique as Christ's character. It is such
a temptation as was never experienced by
any one else, yet just such a temptation as
Christ, and Christ in those peculiar circum- 1

130 "ECCE HOMO.'

stances, might be expected to experience.
And further, this appropriateness of all the
circumstances hardly seems to be perceived
by - the Evangelists themselves who narrate
them. Their narrative is not like a poem,
though it affords the materials for a poem ;
it is rather a dry chronicle.
"Let us consider the situation. We are
to fix in our minds Christ's peculiar char
acter, as it has been gathered from the
Baptist's description of Him. His character
then was such that He was compared to a
lamb, a lamb of God. He was without am
bition, and He had a peculiar, unrivalled,
simplicity of devout confidence in God. Such
is the Person to whom it is now announced
by a great prophet that He has been called
4

ON THE TEMPTATION. 131
to a most peculiar, a pre-eminent career.
But this does not fully describe the situation ;
a most important circumstance has yet to be
mentioned. From the time of* His tempta
tion Christ appeared as a worker of miracles.
We are expressly told by St John that He
had wrought none before, but all our author
ities concur in representing Him as possessing
and using the gift after this time. We are
to conceive Him therefore as becoming now
for the first time conscious of miraculous
powers. Now none of our biographies point
this out, and yet it is visibly the key to the
whole narration. What is called Christ's temp
tation is the excitement of His mind which
was caused by the nascent consciousness of
supernatural power." (Pp. n, 12.)

132 "ECCE HOMO.

Another and perhaps less startling specimen
of his method is supplied by the account of
the Third Temptation, in which our Lord was
solicited to fall down and worship Satan : —
"We are perhaps to understand that He
was tempted to do something which on re
flection appeared to Him equivalent to an act
of homage to the evil spirit. What, then,
could this be? It will explain much that
follows in Christ's life, and render the whole
story very complete and consistent, if we sup
pose that what He was tempted to do was to
employ force in the establishment of His
Messianic kingdom. On this hypothesis, the
third temptation arises from the same source
as the others; the mental struggle is still

ON THE THIRD TEMPTATION. I33
caused by the question how to use the super
natural power. Nothing more natural than
that it should occur to Christ that this power
was expressly given to Him for the purpose
of establishing, in defiance of all resistance,
His everlasting kingdom. He must have
heard from His instructors that the Messiah
was to put all enemies under His feet, and to
crush all opposition by irresistible God-given
might. This certainly was the general ex
pectation ; this appeared legibly written in the
prophetical books. And, in the sequel, it
was because Christ refused to use His super
natural power in this way that His country
men rejected Him. It was not that they ex
pected a king, and that He appeared only as
a teacher ; on the contrary, He systematically

134 "ECCE HOMO.'

described ' Himself as a king. The stumbling-
block was this, that, professing to be a king,
He declined to use the weapons of force and
compulsion that belong to kings. And as
this caused so much surprise to His country
men, it is natural that He should Himself
have undergone a struggle before He deter
mined thus to run counter to the traditional
theory of the Messiah, and to all the preju
dices of the nation. The tempter, we may
suppose, approached Him with the whisper,
' Gird Thee with Thy sword upon Thy thigh ;
ride on, and Thy right hand shall teach Thee
terrible things.'
"If this was the temptation, then again
how characteristic of the Lamb of God was
the resistance to it, and at the same time

ON THE THIRD TEMPTATION. I35
how incomparably great the self-restraint in
volved in that resistance ! One who believes
himself born for universal monarchy, and
capable by his rule of giving happiness to
the world, is entrusted with powers which
seem to afford the ready means of attaining
that supremacy. By the overwhelming force
of visible miracle it is possible for him to
establish an absolute dominion, and to give
to the race the laws which may make it
happy. But He deliberately * determines to
adopt another course, to found His empire
upon the consent, and not the fears, of man
kind; to trust Himself, with His royal claims
and His terrible purity and superiority,
defenceless among mankind, and, however
bitterly their envy may persecute Him, to

136 "ECCE HOMO.'

use His supernatural powers only in doing
them good. This He actually did, and evi
dently in pursuance of a fixed plan ; He
persevered in this course, although politically,
so to speak, it was fatal to His position, and
though it bewildered His most attached fol
lowers ; but by doing so He raised Himself
to a throne on which He has been seated
for nigh two thousand years, and gained an
authority over men. greater far than they
have allowed to any legislator, greater than
prophecy had ever attributed to the Messiah
himself." (Pp. 15-17.)
Next we take the immeasurable divergence
of His own idea of the coming kingdom from
that current among His adversaries and critics : —

ON THE ROYALTY OF CHRIST. I37
" It will soon become necessary to consider
at leisure in what sense Christ understood His
own royalty. At present it is enough to re
mark that, though He understood it in a very
peculiar sense, and though He abdicated many
of the functions of a sovereign, He yet re
garded it as a royalty not less substantial,
and far more dignified, than that of His an
cestor David. We may go one step further
before entering into the details, and note the
exact ground of the quarrel which the Jews
had with Him. He understood the work of
the Messiah in one sense, and they in another,
but what was the point of irreconcilable dif
ference ? They laid information against Him
before the Roman government as a dangerous
character; their real complaint against Him

138 "ECCE homo.'

was precisely this, that He was not dangerous.
Pilate executed Him on the ground that His
kingdom was of this world ; the Jews procured
His execution precisely because it was not. In
other words, they could not forgive Him for
claiming royalty and at the same time reject
ing the use of physical force. His royal pre
tensions were not in themselves distasteful to
them ; backed by a military force, and fav
oured by success, those pretensions would have
been enthusiastically received. His tranquil
life, passed in teaching and healing the sick,
could not in itself excite their hatred. An
eloquent Teacher, gathering disciples round
Him in Jerusalem, and offering a new and
devout interpretation of the Mosaic law, might
have aroused a little spite, but not the cry of

ON THE ROYALTY OF CHRIST, 139
' Crucify Him ! ' They did not object to the
king, they did not object to the philosopher ;
but they objected to the king in the garb of
the philosopher. They were offended at what
they thought the degradation of their great
ideal. A king who neither had nor cared to
have a court or an army; a king who could
not enforce a command; a king who preached
and lectured like a scribe, yet in His weakness
and insignificance could not forget His dignity,
had His royal title often in His mouth, and
lectured with an authority that no scribe as
sumed ; these violent contrasts, this disappoint
ment of their theories, this homely parody of
their hopes, inspired them with an irritation,
and at last a malignant disgust, which it is
not hard to understand." (Pp. 28, 29.)

14° "ECCE HOMO.

The author is struck by three points espe
cially in the design of Christ : —
"When we contemplate this scheme as a
whole, and glance at the execution and results
of it, three things strike us with astonishment,
First, Its prodigious originality, if the expres
sion may be used. What other man has had
the courage or elevation of mind to say, 'I,
will build up a state by the mere force of
my will, without help from the kings of the
world, without taking advantage of any of the
secondary causes which unite men together —
unity of interest or speech, or blood-relation
ship. I will make laws for my state which
shall never be repealed, and I will defy
all the powers of destruction that are

ON THREE POINTS IN HIS DESIGN. 141
at work in the world to destroy what I
build!' " Secondly, We are astonished at the calm
confidence with which the scheme was carried
out. The reason why statesmen can seldom
work on this vast scale is, that it commonly
requires a whole lifetime to gain that ascend
ancy over their fellow-men which such schemes
presuppose. Some of the leading organisers
of the world have said, ' I will work my way
to supreme power, and then I will execute
great plans.' But Christ overleaped the first
stage altogether. He did not work His way
to royalty, but simply said to all men, 'I am
your King.' He did not struggle forward to
a position in which He could found a new
state, but simply founded it.

142 "ECCE HOMO.

"Thirdly, We are astonished at the pro
digious success of the scheme. It is not more
certain that Christ presented Himself to men
as the Founder, Legislator, and Judge of a
divine society than it is certain that men
have accepted Him in these characters; that
the divine society has been founded ; that it
has lasted nearly two thousand years ; that
it has extended over a large and the most
highly civilised portion of the earth's surface ;
and that it continues full of vigour at the
present day." (Pp. 41, 42.)
This chapter, on "Christ's Credentials," is
the noblest we have yet encountered. We
must be content with giving the paragraph in
which it is summed up : —

ON CHRIST'S CREDENTIALS. 143
"To sum up the results of this chapter/
We began by remarking that an astonishing
plan met with an astonishing success, and we
raised the question to what instrumentality
that success was due. Christ announced
Himself as the Founder and Legislator of
a new society, and as the Supreme Judge
of men. Now, by what means did He pro
cure that these immense pretensions should
be allowed ? He might have done it by
sheer power; He might have adopted per
suasion, and pointed out the merits of the
scheme and of the legislation He proposed
to introduce. But He adopted a third plan,
which had the effect, not merely of securing
obedience, but of exciting enthusiasm and
devotion. He laid men under an immense

 jefe-
144

m g % 
jJECCE HOMO."

tigatio% .He convinced them that He was
."a- Eersryri^ilf- "altogether transcendent greatness ;
one who needed nothing at their hands ; one
whom it was impossible to benefit by con
ferring riches, or fame, or dominion upon
Him, and that, being so great, He had de
voted Himself of mere benevolence to their
good. He showed them that for their sakes
He lived a hard and laborious life, and
exposed Himself to the utmost malice of
powerful men. They saw Him hungry,
though they believed Him able to turn the
stones into bread ; they saw His royal pre
tensions spurned, though they believed that
He could in a moment take into His hand
all the kingdoms of the world and the glory
of them; they saw His life in danger; they

on Christ's cre

— -.XL*. .' <<A Ji

saw Him at last expire in "a^iie^ thouSlK
they believed that, had He so \>w&OL^P
danger could harm Him, and that had He
thrown Himself from the topmost pinnacle
of the temple, He would have been softly
received in the arms of ministering angels.
Witnessing His sufferings, and convinced by
the miracles they saw Him work that they
were voluntarily endured, men's hearts were
touched, and pity for weakness blending
strangely with wondering admiration of un
limited power, an agitation of gratitude,
sympathy, and astonishment, such as nothing
else could ever excite, sprang up in them ;
and when, turning from His deeds to His
words, they found this very self-denial which
had guided His own life prescribed as the
K

146 "ecce homo."
principle which should guide theirs, gratitude
broke forth in joyful obedience, self-denial
produced self-denial, and the Law and Law-
Giver together were enshrined in their in
most hearts for inseparable veneration." (Pp.
50, 51.)
Here is a beautiful conception of faith,—
faith in its initial stage, but as including
moral elements : —
"Justice is often but a form of pedantry,
mercy mere easiness of temper, courage a
mere firmness of physical constitution ; but
if these virtues are genuine, then they indi
cate not goodness merely, but goodness con
siderably developed. A man may be poten
tially just or merciful, yet from defect of

ON FAITH. 147

training he may be actually neither. We
want a test which shall admit all who have
it in them to be good whether their good
qualities be trained or no. Such a test is
found in faith. He who, when goodness is
impressively put before him, exhibits an in
stinctive loyalty to it, starts forward to take
its side, trusts himself to it, such a man has
faith, and the root of the matter is in such
a man. He may have habits of vice, but
the loyal and faithful instinct in him will
place him above many that practise virtue.
He may be rude in thought and character,
but he will unconsciously gravitate towards
what is right. Other virtues can scarcely
thrive without a fine natural organisation and
a happy training. But the most neglected

148 "ecce homo.'

and ungifted of men may make a beginning
with faith. Other virtues want civilisation, a
certain amount of knowledge, a few books ;
but in half-brutal countenances faith will light
up a glimmer of nobleness. The savage, who
can do little else, can wonder and worship
and enthusiastically obey. He who cannot
know what is right can know that some one
else knows, he who has no law may still have
a master, he who is incapable of justice may
be capable of fidelity, he who understands
little may have his sins forgiven because he
loves much." (Pp. 66, 67.)
The following passages compare the pleas
for toleration in cases of belief and of con-
duct : —

ON TOLERATION. 149
" We ought to be just as tolerant of an
imperfect creed as we are of an imperfect
practice. Everything which can be urged in
excuse for the latter may also be pleaded for
the former. If the way to Christian action-
is beset by corrupt habits and misleading
passions, the path to Christian truth is
overgrown with prejudices, and strewn with
fallen theories and rotten systems which hide
it from our view. It is quite as hard to think
rightly as it is to act rightly, or even to feel
rightly. And as all allow that an error is a
less culpable thing than a crime or a vicious
passion, it is monstrous that it should be more
severely punished ; it is monstrous that Christ,
who was called the Friend of publicans and
sinners, should be represented as the pitiless

150 "ECCE homo.

enemy of bewildered seekers of truth. How
could men have been guilty of such an in
consistency ? By speaking of what they do
not understand. Men, in general, do not un
derstand or appreciate the difficulty of finding
truth. All men must act, and therefore all
men learn in some degree how difficult it is
to act rightly. The consequence is that all
men can make excuse for those who fail to
act rightly. But all men are not compelled
to make an independent search for truth, and
those who voluntarily undertake to do so are
always few. They ought, indeed, to find pity
and charity when they fail, for their under
taking is full of hazard, and in the course of
it they are too apt to leave friends and com
panions behind them, and when they succeed

ON TOLERATION. 151
they bring back glorious spoils for those who
remained at home criticising them. But they
cannot expect such charity, for the hazards
and difficulties of the undertaking are known
to themselves alone. To the world at large
it seems quite easy to find truth and inex
cusable to miss it. And no wonder ! For by
finding truth they mean only learning by
rote the maxims current around them." (Pp.
72, 73-)
The author is greatly struck with the
peremptory and universal character of the
institution of baptism, which he perceives
to be made " as indispensable to member
ship as that spiritual inspiration which is
membership itself" in the new and "Divine

152 "ECCE homo.

Society." The method of this society he
considers to be broadly distinguished from
that of the moral philosophy which has
often laboured to improve mankind. The
whole argument of the ninth chapter on
this contrast will well reward perusal. The
subjoined are two passages from it : —
" Philosophers had drawn their pupils from
the elite of humanity ; but Christ finds His
material among the worst and meanest, for
He does not propose merely to make the
good better, but the bad good. And what
is His machinery? He says the! first step
towards good dispositions is for a man
to form a strong personal attachment. Let
him first be drawn out of himself. Next

ON THE PERSONAL INFLUENCES. 153
let the object of that attachment be a
person of striking and conspicuous goodness.
To worship such a person will be the
best exercise in virtue that he can have.
Let him vow obedience in life and death
to such a person ; let him mix and live with
others who have made the same vow. He
will have ever before his eyes an ideal of
what he may himself become. His heart
will be stirred by new feelings, a new world
will be gradually revealed to him, and,
more than this, a new self within his old
self will make its presence felt, and a change
will pass over him which he will feel it
most appropriate to call a new birth. This
is Christ's scheme stated in its most naked
form; we shall have abundant opportuni-

154 "ecce homo.

ties in the sequel of expounding it more
fully." " Of these two influences — that of Reason
and that of Living Example — which would
a wise reformer reinforce ? Christ chose the
last. He gathered all men into a common
relation to Himself, and demanded that each
should set Him on a pedestal of his heart,
giving a lower place to all other objects of
worship, to father and mother, to husband
or wife. In Him should the loyalty of all
hearts centre, He should be their Pattern,
their Authority, and Judge. Of Him and
His service should no man be ashamed,
but to those who acknowledged it morality
should be an easy yoke, and the law of
right as spontaneous as the law of life ;

ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLEASURE. 155
sufferings should be easy to bear, and
the loss of worldly friends repaired by a
new home in the bosom of the Christian
kingdom ; finally, in death itself their sleep
should be sweet upon whose tombstone it
could be written, '.Obdormivit in Christo.'"
(Pp. 98, 101, 102.)
Having thus far traced, as he considers,
the rise of the Monarchy of Christ, in
his second part, which commences with
the tenth chapter, the author professes to
treat of the legislation by which that
Monarchy is governed. The Christian philo
sophy of pleasure is strikingly handled in
the following passage : —
"This paradoxical position — that pleasure

156 "ECCE homo.'

is necessary for us, and yet that it is not to
be sought ; that this world is to be renounced,
and yet that it is noble and glorious — might,
if it had been taken up by a philosopher,
have been regarded as a subtlety which it
would be impossible to act upon. But as the
law laid down by a King and Master of man
kind, every word of whom was treasured up
and acted out with devotion, it has had a
surprising influence upon human affairs. In
the times of the Roman Emperors there ap
peared a sect which distinguished itself by
the assiduous attention which it bestowed
upon the bodily wants of mankind. This
sect set the first example of a homely prac
tical philanthropy, occupying itself with the
relief of ordinary human sufferings, dispens-

ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLEASURE. 157
ing food and clothing to the destitute and
starving. At the same period there appeared
a sect which was remarkable for the contempt
in which it held human suffering. Roman
magistrates were perplexed to find, when it
became necessary to coerce this sect by penal
inflictions, that bodily pains, tortures, and
death itself were not regarded as evils by its
members. These two sects appeared to run
into contrary extremes. The one seemed to
carry their regard for the body to the borders
of effeminacy ; the other pushed stoical
apathy almost to madness. Yet these two
sects were one and the same — the Christian
Church. And though within that body every
conceivable corruption has at some time or
other sprung up, this tradition has never been

i58 "ecce homo.:

long lost, and in every age the Christian
temper has shivered at the touch of Stoic
apathy and shuddered at that of Epicurean
indolence." (Pp. 118, 119.)
He shows how little had yet been accom
plished towards establishing the true brother
hood of mankind, notwithstanding the mar
vellous achievement of the Romans in con
solidating so many nations into a political
unity ; without which it is indeed difficult to
see how the physical and social barriers to
the spreading of Christianity could have been
surmounted : —
"A number of nations which had before
waged incessant war with one another had
been forced into a sort of unity. What

ON THE ROMAN RULE. 159
court-poets call a golden age had set in.
Round the whole shore of the Mediterranean
Sea, and northward to the Danube and be
yond the British Channel, national antipathies
had been suppressed, and war had ceased,
while the lives of men were regulated by an
admirable code of laws. Yet, except to court-
poets, this age did not seem golden to those
who lived in it. On the contrary, they said
it was something worse than an iron age ;
there was no metal from which they could
name it. Never did men live under such a
crushing sense of degradation, never did they
look back with more bitter regret, never were
the vices that spring out of despair so rife,
never was sensuality cultivated more metho
dically, never did poetry curdle so readily

160 "ecce homo."

into satire, never was genius so much soured
by cynicism, and never was calumny so abun
dant or so gross or so easily believed. If
morality depended on laws, or happiness
could be measured by comfort, this would
have been the most glorious era in the past
history of mankind. It was in fact one of
the meanest and foulest, because a tone or
spirit is necessary to morality, and self-respect.
is needful to happiness." (Pp. 132, 133.)
And now, what followed ?
"The city of God, of which the Stoics
doubtfully and feebly spoke, was now set up
before the eyes of men. It was no insub
stantial city, such as we fancy in the clouds,
no invisible pattern, such as Plato thought

ON THE DAWNING OF THE CHURCH. l6l
might be laid up in heaven, but a visible cor
poration, whose members met together to eat
bread and drink wine, and into which they
were initiated by bodily immersion in water.
Here the Gentile met the Jew, whom he had
been accustomed to regard as an enemy of
the human race ; the Roman met the lying
Greek sophist, the Syrian slave, the gladiator
bora beside the Danube. In brotherhood they
met, the natural birth and kindred of each
forgotten, the baptism alone remembered in
which they had been born again to God and
to each other." (P. 136.)
In the closing pages of this chapter (xii.)
the question of slavery is ably dealt with. Per
haps the whole history, may be summed up
L

162 "ecce homo.'

in this. The Gospel was its death-warrant ;
and execution was only delayed until the reli
gion, then infant, was adult, and had strength
enough to deal the blow.
In the thirteenth chapter the author ap
proaches that doctrine of enthusiasm, or pas
sionate devotion, which has been regarded as
so peculiarly his own. Christianity did not,
he says, leave us a code of morals, in the
ordinary sense : —
" Instead of giving laws to His Society, He
would give to every member of it a power of
making laws for himself. He frequently re
peated that to make the fruit of a tree good
you must put the tree into a healthy state,
and, slightly altering the illustration, that

ON THE DOCTRINE OF ENTHUSIASM. 163
fruit can only be expected from a fruit-tree,
not from a thistle or thorn. The meaning of
this plainly is, that a man's actions result from
the state of his mind ; that if that is healthy
they will be right, and if not, they will be
wrong. Such language was new in the mouth
of a legislator, but not at all new in itself.
It was an adoption of the style of philosophy.
Philosophers had always made it their study
to bring their minds into a healthy condition,
'frui emendato animo! When, however, we
inquire what Christ considered a healthy con
dition of the mind to be, we do not find Him
in agreement with philosophers. The law
making power of which mention has been
made, which, raised to predominance, issues
in an unerring tact or instinct of right action,

164 "ECCE homo."

was differently conceived by Him and by
them. They placed it in reason, and regarded
passion as the antagonistic power which must
be controlled and coerced by it. Christ also
considers it necessary to control the passions,
but He places them under the dominion, not
of reason, but of a new and more powerful
passion. The healthy mind of the philoso
phers is in a composed, tranquil, and impar
tial state ; the healthy mind of Christ is in
an elevated and enthusiastic state. Both are
exempt from perturbation and unsteadiness, but
the one by being immovably fixed, the other by
being always powerfully attracted in one direc
tion." (Pp. 144, 145. See also pp. 253, 254.)
This enthusiasm was justified by the char-

ON THE DOCTRINE OF ENTHUSIASM. 165
acter of the object proposed to the eyes and
hearts of men : —
"Did the command to love go forth to
those who had never seen a human being
they could revere ? Could His followers turn
upon Him and say, How can we love a
creature so degraded, full of vile wants and
contemptible passions, whose little life is
most harmlessly spent when it is an empty
round of eating and sleeping, — a creature
destined for the grave and for oblivion when
his allotted term of fretfulness and folly has
expired? * Of this race Christ Himself was
a member; and to this day is it not the best
answer to all blasphemers of the species, the
best consolation when our sense of its degra-

166 "ECCE HOMO.'

dation is keenest, that a human brain was
behind His forehead, and a human heart
beating in His breast, and that within the
whole creation of God nothing more elevated
or more attractive has yet been found than
He ? And if it be answered that there was
in His nature something exceptional and
peculiar, — that humanity must not be meas
ured by the stature of Christ, let us remem
ber that it was precisely thus that He wished
it to be measured, delighting to call Himself
the Son of Man, delighting to call the
meanest of mankind His brothers. If some
human beings are abject and contemptible, —
if it be incredible to us that they can have
any high dignity or destiny, do we regard
them from so great a height as Christ ?

ON THE DOCTRINE OF ENTHUSIASM. 167
Are we likely to be more pained by their
faults and deficiencies than He was? Is
our standard higher than His ? And yet
He associated by preference with these
meanest of the race; no contempt for them
did He ever express ; no suspicion that
they might be less dear than the best and
wisest to the common Father; no doubt that
they were naturally capable of rising to a
moral elevation like His own. There is
nothing of which a man may be prouder
than, of this ; it is the most hopeful and
redeeming fact in history ; it is precisely
what was wanting to raise the love of man
as man to enthusiasm. An eternal glory has
been shed upon the human race by the love
Christ bore to it. And it was because the

168 "ecce homo.''

Edict of Universal Love went , forth to men
whose hearts were in no cynical mood, but
possessed with a spirit of devotion to a
man, that words which at any other time,
however grandly they might sound, would
have been but words, penetrated so deeply ;
and along with the law of; love the power
of love was given. Therefore, also, the first
Christians were enabled to ; . dispense with
philosophical phrases, and instead of saying
that they loved the ideal of man in man,
could simply say and feel that they loved
Christ in every man.
" We have here the very kernel of the
Christian moral scheme."
" Few of us sympathise originally and
directly with this devotion ; few of us can

KERNEL OF THE SCHEME. 169
perceive in human nature itself any merit
sufficient to evoke it. But it is not so hard
to love and venerate Him who felt it. So
vast a passion of love, a devotion so com
prehensive, elevated, deliberate, and profound,
has not elsewhere been in any degree ap
proached save by some of His imitators.
And as love provokes love, many have
found it possible to conceive for Christ an
attachment, the closeness of which no words
can describe, a veneration so possessing and
absorbing the man within them, that they
have said, 'I live no more, but Christ lives
in me.' Now such a feeling carries with it
of necessity the feeling of love for all human
beings. It matters no longer what quality
men may exhibit ; amiable or unamiable, as

170 "ecce homo.'

the brothers of Christ, as belonging to His
sacred and consecrated kind, as the objects
of His love in life and death, they must be
dear to all to whom He is dear. And those
who would for a moment know His heart
and understand His life must begin by think
ing of the whole race of man, and of each
member of the race, with awful reverence
and hope." (Pp. 164-167.)
The consequence has been a product alto
gether new in the world ; that of holiness,
exhibited in the human life and character : —
"But that Christ's method, when rightly
applied, is really of mighty force may be
shown by an argument which the severest
censor of Christians will hardly refuse to

ON HOLINESS AS ITS FRUIT. 171
admit. Compare -the ancient with the
modern world ; ' Look on this picture and
on that' One broad distinction in the char
acters of men forces itself into prominence.
Among all the men of the ancient heathen
world there were scarcely one or two to
whom we might venture to apply the epithet
'holy.' In other words, there were not more
than one or two, if any, who besides being
virtuous in their actions were possessed with
an unaffected enthusiasm of goodness, and
besides abstaining from vice regarded even a
vicious thought with horror. Probably no one
will deny that in Christian countries this
higher-toned goodness, which we call holiness,
has existed. Few will maintain that it has
been exceedingly rare. Perhaps the truth

172 "ECCE HOMO.

is, that there has scarcely been a town in
any Christian country since the time of Christ,
where a century has passed without exhibit
ing a character of such elevation that his
mere presence has shamed the bad and made
the good better, and has been felt at times
like the presence of God Himself. And if
this be so, has Christ failed ? or can Chris
tianity die ? "
"His biography may be summed up in
the words, ' He went about doing good ; '
His wise words were secondary to His,
beneficial deeds ; the latter were not in
troductory to the former, b,ut the former
grew occasionally, and, as it were, acci
dentally, out of the latter. The explanation
of this is that Christ merely reduced to

SUM OF THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 173
practice His own principle. His morality
required that the welfare and happiness of
others should not merely be remembered as
a restraint upon action, but should be made
the principal motive of action, , and what
He preached in words He preached still
more impressively and zealously in deeds.
He set the first and greatest example of
a life wholly governed and guided by the
passion of humanity. The very scheme and
plan of His life differed from that of other
men. He had no personal prospects, no
fortune to push, no ambitions. A, good man
before had been understood to be one who,
in pursuit of his own personal happiness, is
careful to consider also the happiness of
those around him, declines all prosperity

174 "ecce homo.'

gained at their expense, employs his leisure
in relieving some of their wants, and who,
lastly, in some extreme need or danger
of those connected with him, his relations
or his country, consents to sacrifice his
own life or welfare to theirs. In this
scheme of life, humanity in its rudimentary
forms of family feeling or patriotism enters
as a restraining or regulating principle ; only
in the extreme case does it become the
mainspring of action. What with other good
men was the extreme case, with Christ was
the rule. In many countries and at many
different times the lives of heroes had been
offered up on the altar of filial, or parental,
or patriotic love. A great impulse had
overmastered them; personal interests, the

ON THE LAW OF PHILANTHROPY. 175
love of life and of the pleasures of life,
had yielded to a higher motive; the names
of those who had made the great oblation
had been held in honour by succeeding
ages, the place where it was made pointed
out, the circumstances of it proudly re
counted. Such a sacrifice, the crowning act
of human goodness when it rises above itself,
was made by Christ, not in some moment of
elevation, not in some extreme emergency,
but habitually. This is meant when it is
said, He went about doing good ; nor was
the sacrifice made for relative, or friend,
or country, but for all everywhere who bear
the name of man." (Pp. 171, 187-189.)
The author's view of the law of philanthropy,

176 " ECCE HOMO."

and of the adaptations which it acquires from
the circumstances of modern society, is to be
found in the seventeenth chapter, which will
not bear being represented by extracts, and
in chapters nineteen to twenty-three.
The subject of Authority, and its place in
regulating the moral action of the world, has
not been evaded. The broad and distinct
general proposition with regard to its weight,
which is contained in the following extract,
will tempt many readers to wish for a fuller
development :—
" Preaching is moral suasion delivered for
mally at stated intervals. In good education
there is an equal amount of moral suasion,
delivered far more impressively because de-

ON THE PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY. 177
livered to individuals and at the moment when
the need arises, while besides moral suasion
other instruments are employed. Of these
the principal is Authority, a most potent and
indispensable agent. We have traced above
the process by which mankind were ripened
for the reception of Christianity. For many
ages peremptory laws were imposed jupon
different nations, and enforced by a ma
chinery of punishment. During these ages,
out of the whole number of persons who
obeyed these laws very few either knew
or inquired why they had been imposed.
But all the time these nations were forming
habits of action, which gradually became so
familiar to them that the nations who wanted
similar habits became to them objects of con-
M

178 "ECCE HOMO.'

tempt and disgust as savages. At last the
time came when the hidden principle of all
law was revealed, and Christian humanity be
came the self-legislating life of mankind. Thus
did the Law bring men to Christ. Now what
the Law did for the race the schoolmaster
does for the. individual. He imposes rules,
assigning a penalty for disobedience. Under
this rule the pupil grows up, until order,
punctuality, industry, justice and mercy to his
school-fellows become the habits of his life.
Then when the time comes, the strict rule
relaxes, the pupil is taken into the master's
confidence, his obedience becomes reasonable,
a living morality." (Pp. 219, 220.)
The law of the Christian Sabbath is also

ON THE POSITION OF WOMAN. I'79
touched, too briefly for our desires, in p. 222 ;
as is that commutation of " personal service in
the cause of humanity" (p. 224) for money
payments, often none of the most copious,
to which the modern arrangement of work
ing by societies, in many respects excellent,
and apparently indispensable at the pre
sent day, yet cannot but afford an unhappy
facility. The depth of the mercy of Christ to women
who have compromised their own peculiar
glory, is exhibited in discussing two incidents
which, says the author, may be seen as speci
mens of Christ's redeeming power. And here
we come upon that great issue, which ought
in truth to be used as a touchstone of all
religions and of all states of society, their

180 "ecce homo.:

effect upon the character and social position
of Woman : —
"The female sex, in which antiquity saw
nothing but inferiority, which Plato considered
intended to do the same things as the male,
only not so well, was understood for the first
time by Christ. His treatment brought out
its characteristics, its superiorities, its peculiar
power of gratitude and self-devotion. That
woman who dried with her hair the feet she
had bathed in grateful tears has raised her
whole sex to a higher level. But we are
concerned with her not merely as a woman,
but as a fallen woman. And it is when we
consider her as such that the prodigious force
and originality of Christ's mercy makes itself

ON THE POSITION OF WOMAN. 151
felt. For it is probably in the case of this
particular vice that justice ripens the slowest
and the seldomest into mercy. Most per
sons in whom the moral sense is very strong
are, as we have said, merciful ; mercy is in
general a measure of the higher degrees of
keenness in the moral sense. But there is a
limit beyond which it seems almost impos
sible for mercy, properly so called, to subsist.
There are certain vices which seem to indi
cate a criminality so engrained, or at least so
inveterate, that mercy is, . as it were, choked
in the deadly atmosphere that 'surrounds
them, and dies for want of that hope upon
which alone it can live. Vices that are in
corrigible are ' not proper objects of mercy,
and there are some vices which virtuous

ECCE HOMO.

people are found particularly ready to pro
nounce incorrigible. Few brave men have
any pity to spare for a confirmed coward.
And as cowardice seems to him who has the
instinct of manliness a fatal vice in man, as
implying an absence of the indispensable con
dition of masculine virtue, so does confirmed
unchastity in women seem a fatal vice to
those who reverence womanhood. And there
fore little mercy for it is felt by those who
take a serious view of sexual relations. There
are multitudes who think lightly of it, and
therefore feel a good deal of compassion for
those who suffer at the hands of society such
a terrible punishment for it. There are others
who can have mercy on it while they contem
plate it, as it were, at a distance, and do not

ON THE POSITION OF WOMAN. 183
realise how mortal to the very soul of woman
hood is the habitual desecration of all the
sacraments of love. Lastly, there are some
who force themselves to have mercy on it
out of reverence for the example of Christ.
But of those who see it near, and whose
moral sense is keen enough to judge of it,
the greater number pronounce it incurable.
We know the pitiless cruelty with which vir
tuous women commonly regard it. Why is
it that in this one case the female sex is
a
more hard-hearted than the male? Probably
because in this one case it feels more strongly,
as might be expected, the heinousness of the
offence; and those men who criticise women
for their cruelty to their fallen sisters do not
really judge from the advanced stage of

184 "ecce HOMO.'

mercy, but from the lower stage of insensi
bility. It is commonly by love itself that
men learn the sacredness of love. Yet,
though Christ never entered the realm of
sexual love, this sacredness seems to have
been felt by Him far , more deeply than by
other men. We have already had an oppor
tunity of observing this in the case of the
woman taken in adultery. He exhibited on
that occasion a profound delicacy of which
there is no other example in the ancient
world, and which anticipates and excels all
that is noblest in chivalrous and finest in
modern manners. In His treatment of the
prostitute, then, how might we expect Him
to act? Not, surely, with the ready tolerance
of men, which is but laxity ; we might expect

ON THE POSITION OF WOMAN. 185
from Him rather the severity of women, which
is purity. Disgust will overpower Him here,
if anywhere. He will say, 'Thy sin's not
accidental, but a trade. . . . 'Tis best that
thou diest quickly.' There is no doubt that
He was not wanting in severity ; the grati
tude that washed His feet in tears was not
inspired by mere good-nature. But He found
mercy too, where mercy commonly fails even
in the tender hearts of women. And mercy
triumphed, where it commonly dies of mere
despair." (Pp. 247-249.)
Worthy of special notice is the treatment
in pp. 267-8 of the Pharisees, as what may
be called the "sepulchre-builders," with their
successors in all times : but let us hasten on

186 "ecce homo.'

to the concluding chapter. Once more he
presents to us a glowing picture of the Christ
of the Gospels : —
" Once more, how is this enthusiasm kindled ?
All virtues perpetuate themselves in a manner.
When the pattern is once given it will be
printed in a thousand copies. This enthu
siasm, then, was shown to men in its most
consummate form in Jesus Christ. From Him
it flows as from a fountain. How it was
kindled in Him who knows ? ' The abysmal
deeps of personality' hide this secret 
But since Christ showed it to men, it has been
found possible for them to imitate it, and
every new imitation, by bringing the marvel
visibly before us, revives the power of the

ON THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPELS. 1S7
original. As a matter of fact the enthusiasm
is kindled constantly in new hearts, and
though in few it burns brightly, yet perhaps
there are not very many in which it altogether
goes out. At least the conception of morality
which Christ gave has now become the uni
versal one, and no man is thought good who
does not in some measure satisfy it.
"Living examples are, as a general rule,
more potent than those of which we read
in books. And it is true that the sight of
very humble degrees of Christian humanity
in action will do more to kindle the enthu
siasm, in most cases, than reading the most
impressive scenes in the life of Christ. It
cannot, therefore, be said that Christ is the
direct source of all humanity. It is handed

'ECCE HOMO.

on like the torch from runner to runner in
the race of life. Still it not only exists in
Christ in a pre-eminent degree, but the cir
cumstances of His life and death gave pre
eminent opportunities of displaying it. The
story of His life will always remain the one
record in which the moral perfection of man
stands revealed in its root and its unity, the
hidden spring made palpably manifest by
which the whole machine is moved. And as,
in the will of God, this unique Man was
elected to a unique sorrow, and holds as
undisputed a sovereignty in suffering as in
self-devotion, all lesser examples and lives
will for ever hold a subordinate place, and
serve chiefly to reflect light on the central
and original Example. In His wounds all

ON HIS UNIQUE MANHOOD. 189
human sorrows will hide themselves, and all
human self-denials support themselves against
His cross." (Pp. 321, 322.) i
This passage appears to us, without assert
ing, to disclose — and thus to teach more
winningly than if it drily asserted — that dis
tinction in kind between the life and char
acter of our Lord, and the lives and char
acters of other men, good and great in their
measure, which forms at once the most natu
ral and the most solid ground for the new-
conviction of His Deity in minds that have
yet to learn the Christian alphabet, and
which strengthens and refreshes that con
viction, where it has been from the cradle up
wards an original and primal truth. I have

190 "ECCE HOMO.

omitted the few words which fill the blank :
" It was the will of God to beget no second
Son like Him ; " for they seem to deal with
things that we know not of, arid are ill able
to touch.
Presently the author gives us a solemn and
much-needed warning :—
"The creed which makes human nature
richer and- larger, makes men at the same
time capable of profounder sins ; admitted
into a holier sanctuary, they are exposed to
the temptation of a greater sacrilege ; awak
ened to the sense of new obligations, they
sometimes lose their simple respect for the
old ones ; saints that have resisted the
subtlest temptations sometimes begin again,

GENERAL RESULTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 191
as it were,, by yielding without a struggle
to the coarsest; hypocrisy has become ten
fold more ingenious and better supplied with
disguises ; in short, human nature has inevit
ably developed downwards as well as up
wards ; and if the Christian ages be com
pared with those of heathenism they are found
worse as well as better, and it is possible to
make it a question whether mankind has
gained on the whole." (P. 326.)
Yet I venture to record dissent from the
concluding words. No doubt wickedness is
more wicked now, as well as goodness holier
and higher, than it was in ante-Christian
times. But surely the question, whether
" mankind has gained on the whole ? " is one

192 "ECCE homo.

that we may regard as carried by the airs
of heaven out of the ocean of argument
into the haven, for us at least, of admitted
truth. It is enough to appeal to social
changes of a palpable character and of the
broadest range. Take, for instance, the up
lifted idea and state of woman ; the second,
and we may trust final, triumph, now all but
accomplished, of the Gospel over slavery in
its modern and most insidious form ; the
general retirement of social infamies into the
shade ; the acknowledgment of the obligation
to provide systematically for the sick, the
sorrowing, and the very poor; the creation
and visible growth of some, idea of right as
between nations, however separated ; the ac
knowledgment of peace, and not war, as the

GENERAL RESULTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 193
natural and normal state of man ; the en
deavour, not always unsuccessful, to create by
municipal law a legal and judicial equality
on behalf of all members of the community,
in despite of all the contrasts of fortune and
even of character. These are some of the
changes effected by Christianity in the very
same regions, and among the same races,
and now become part of the patrimony of
civilisation, which appear to be in themselves
decisive. And if they are in themselves de
cisive, the force of the decision is much en
hanced, when it is borne in mind that all
this ground has been made good at a time
when, through the wider prevalence of a
quickened intelligence, a far more extended
scope and range than the old world ever
N

194 "ECCE HOMO.

knew have been given to those temptations
to selfishness and sin, (in every form except
that of violence,) which beset on the right
hand and on the left the path of every human
pilgrim as he travels towards his home.
Finally, it is in no narrow spirit that the
author exhibits to us the Church of Christ
standing in the midst of the triumphs of
which it has been the organ : —
" The triumph of the Christian Church is
that it is there, — that the most daring of all
speculative dreams, instead of being found
impracticable, has been carried into effect,
and, when carried into effect, instead of being
confined to a few select spirits, has spread
itself over a vast space of the earth's surface,

ON THE CHURCH. 195
and, when thus diffused, instead of giving
place after an age or two to something more
adapted to a later time, has endured for
two thousand years ; and, at the -end of two
thousand years, instead of lingering as a mere
wreck spared by the tolerance of the lovers
of the past, still displays vigour and a capa
city of adjusting itself to new conditions ; and
lastly, in all the transformations it under
goes, remains visibly the same thing, and
inspired by its Founder's universal and un
quenchable spirit."
"The achievement of Christ, in founding
by His single will and power a structure so
durable and so universal,' is like no other
achievement which history records. The mas
terpieces of the men of action are coarse and

196 ." ECCE HOMO."

common in comparison with it, and the mas
terpieces of speculation flimsy and unsub
stantial. When we speak of it the common
places of admiration fail us altogether. Shall
we speak of the originality of the design, of
the skill displayed in the execution ? All
such terms are inadequate. Originality and
contriving skill operated, indeed, but, as it
were, implicitly. The creative effort which
produced that against which, it is said, the
gates of hell shall not prevail, cannot be
analysed. No architects' designs were fur
nished for- the New Jerusalem, no committee
drew up rules for the Universal Common
wealth. If in the' works of Nature we can
trace the indications of calculation, of a
struggle with difficulties, of precaution, of

ON THE CHURCH. 197
ingenuity, then in Christ's work it may be
that the same indications occur. But these
inferior and secondary powers were not con
sciously exercised ; they were implicitly pre
sent in the manifold yet single creative act.
The inconceivable work was done in calm
ness ; before the eyes of men it was noise
lessly accomplished, attracting little attention.
Who can describe that which unites men ?
Who has entered into the formation of speech,
which is the symbol of their union ? Who
can describe exhaustively the origin of civil
society ? He who can do . these things can
explain the origin of the Christian Church-.
For others, it must be enough to say, 'The
Holy Ghost fell on those that believed.' No
man saw the building of the New Jerusalem,

198 "ecce homo.'

the workmen crowded together, the unfinished
walls and unpaved streets ; no man heard the
clink of trowel and pickaxe ; it descended out
of heaven from God!' (Pp. 327, 329, 330.)
With this , noble specimen of the author's
eloquence the volume closes. I have already
spoken of the method it pursues with refer
ence to its main object — the exhibition of the
august, though simple, figure of our Lord in
His Life and Work. Next to this in power
is his conception of the institution to which
the prosecution of that work from the day
of Pentecost onward was committed, and by
which the most ethereal and sublime specu
lation ever opened to the flight of the
imagination was reduced to a body of fact

HIS VIVID CONCEPTION OF IT. 199
without rival in human experience. Nor
should the reader pass unnoticed the broad
and masculine grasp with which this work
handles the subject of Christian morality,
both personal and social. And it is doubt
less needful that popular theology, which,
like everything else, tends to settle down
into mere formulas, should thus be shaken
up from time to time, and measured and
adjusted by its eternal standards : that we
may come at least nearer to a sense how
truly the treasure is divine which is lodged
unworthily in us poor earthen vessels : how
the dispensation provided for us in Christ
our Lord, without in the least pretending to
solve off-hand all the problems that surround
and perplex our state, yet is thoroughly

ECCE homo.

adapted to all our capacities as well as all
our practical and present needs : how lofty
it is, and yet how lowly ; how sublime, and
yet how solid ; with its head in the highest
heavens, and with its feet upon the solid
earth. I must not close without wishing the
author well in what remains unaccomplished
of his work. What and how much that is
the public is unaware ; and in what manner
he will acquit himself we can only augur
from the powerful specimen of his handiwork
which is already before us. It is to be
hoped that the consciousness of his strength
will not lead him to attempt too much. To
trace historically and philosophically the con
struction of the Christian system in institu-

A RECORD OF SERVICE DONE.

tions and in doctrines, would be the work, not
(so to speak) of stolen leisure, but of a life ;
and would require not less of reverence than
of courage, of caution than of comprehen
sion. Let us, however, leave to the exercise
of his freedom one whom we have already
thanked for his use of it. To him, or to any
of us, it will be a great calamity should he
in such a matter be misled. But what has
here been written, if it could be supposed to
have a value, is not a retaining fee : it is
simply a record of service done, and of grati
tude gallantly and fairly earned.

Ballantyne and Company, Printers, Edinburgh.

Sevenpence, Monthly, Illustrated,
GOOD WORDS',
Edited by NORMAN MACLEOD, D.D.,
One of Her Majesty's Chaplains.

CONTENTS OF JANUARY PART.
ALFRED TENNYSON—'
THE VICTIM.
RIGHT HON W. E. GLADSTONE—
"ECCE HOMO." Parti.
THE DEAN OF CANTERBURY—
THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE.
C. J. VAUGHAN, D.D.—
EARTHLY THINGS AND THINGS HEAVENLY.
THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN"—
THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. A Love Story. Chaps. I. II. III.
CHARLES KINGSLEY-
CHR IS TMA S-DAY.
HON. AND REV. W. H. LYTTELTON-
NOTES ON THE FIRE. Stray Thoughts and Parables for the
Winter.
GEORGE MAC DONALD—
THE TURN OF THE YEAR.

STRAHAN & CO., 56 LUDGATE HILL.

YALE UNIVERSITY I

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