Yet that Jesus Christ is thus presented in the New Testament is apparent from the most casual perusal of its pages. Nor is this merely accidental to its teaching, but of the very essence of it. The Synoptic Gospels, which have been represented as depicting Him in a less divine aspect, represent Him as claiming a right to supersede every tie which binds man to man in favour of Himself; and as grounding that claim on His own inherent worthiness, even to the extent of demanding unlimited sacrifice of self as due to Him. His whole deportment as depicted in these Gospels is that of one who feels that He has an inherent right to reign; and the fourth Gospel and the Apostolic epistles do little more than unfold the idea which runs through the discourses of the Synoptics. It is impossible therefore to affirm that the idea of representing Jesus as the centre of obligation is an aftergrowth on Christianity. Every record which we possess proves that it formed part of its primary and original conception: yet the originality of the idea is startling, for it is the one solitary attempt to do so known to history. But further: since it has been made, it has not had a single imitator.

The question of fact therefore becomes one of the highest importance. Has the attempt proved a success? Has Jesus Christ energized in history as the mightiest of moral and spiritual powers? Is the evidence clearly legible on its pages? Further, I ask, is it, or is it not a fact, that He is the mightiest incentive to holiness, and self sacrifice, which is energizing at the present hour? There can be no doubt what must be the answer. To remove the action of Jesus Christ out of the history of the last eighteen centuries would be to reduce it to a blank. Whether his character, as depicted in the Gospels, be an ideal or an historical one, does not in any way affect the fact that its energy has been mighty, and that this one solitary attempt to exhibit a character as the highest incentive to virtue and holiness, has proved a great success. I will state the answer of history in the words of Mr. Lecky. "The brief record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate

and soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers, and than all the exhortations of moralists."

Who with the history of the past in his hands can doubt the truth of this statement? Jesus Christ has stamped His impress on the entire range of modern civilization, its modes of thought, its legislation, its social customs, and its morality. If we survey the efforts that have been made for the amelioration of mankind, and the self-sacrifice by which these efforts have been carried out, it is not too much to say that nine-tenths of it-it would probably be more correct to say ninety-nine hundredths of it-have been called forth by attachment to Him, and by this alone.

I ask you specially to observe that this result has not been due to the mere teaching of Jesus, great as its influence has been. It has been the result of a personal influence, seated in the record of a life. To this the entire history of Christendom bears witness. This alone has made Him capable of acting as a power, mighty to inspire devotion, love and adoration. Apart from this, His doctrines and His moral teaching would have exerted as little influence as those of the philosophers and moralists, for what mankind stand in urgent need of is, not wise precepts for the regulation of life, but a moral and spiritual power, capable of making obedience to it an actuality. Nor is His unique power seated in a mere fond reminiscence of departed worth which perishes after a lapse of time; but in selfsacrifice rendered to one who is capable of recognizing that sacrifice which He has Himself evoked.

And, I ask, is He not energizing at this moment? Although we cannot see Him with our eyes, we can verify His present power in the facts of daily experience. The noble army of self-sacrificers in the Christian Church may be counted by hundreds of thousands. Wherever Christianity exists, its rank and file may be found.* Let us put the

It is worthy of remark that this is the case even in the most degraded forms of Christianity, and has been so in every age. The divine rays which issue from the person of its Founder succeed in

question to them, What is impelling you to your self-denying exertions? They will answer with unanimous voice, We are constrained by the love of Jesus Christ, and His divine attractiveness-His self-sacrifice for us impels us to sacrifice ourselves for Him. This is a fact which each of us may verify for himself, and it is unique in the history of man. These modern times have set up a phantom called the religion of humanity, whose great moral principle is altruism, or the sacrifice of self to the idea of human nature, i.e., the sum total of men and women who have existed in the past, or will exist in the future-a mere caricature of Christianity. But it is powerless! Where is its army of selfsacrificers? It stamps on the ground, but no legions appear at its bidding. All that its adherents have yet succeeded in accomplishing is to draw largely on the bank of hope.

It follows therefore, inasmuch as the idea of making an individual the centre of a great moral and spiritual power is unique in the history of man, and when tried in the person of Jesus Christ, the only being known to history in whom the experiment was possible, has as a matter of unquestionable fact, exerted a mightier influence for good than all philosophers and moralists united, that the power thus manifested in Him must be superhuman.

5. One more fact is noticed by the historian-While the Christian Church, like all other societies which have ever existed, has been infected and defaced by various corruptions, it differs from every other in that it possesses in the character and example of its Founder an ever-enduring principle of regeneration.

Here again the facts of history are indubitable. The Church has been frequently overlaid by superstition; she penetrating those mists of darkness and superstition which have brooded over the Church. Although these have grievously obscured the light, they have never been able to extinguish it. The reason of this is, that the person of Our Lord is so essential to Christianity, that even its most degraded forms cannot wholly destroy His personal influence; and wherever the bright lineaments of His character disclose themselves they are necessarily an influence for good.

has sanctioned practices which her Founder expressly forbade: she has, terrible to say, unsheathed the sword, which He expressly enjoined her to put up into its scabbard. All this is true and its truth only increases the marvellousness of the fact which the historian brings to our notice, that she has ever found in the person of her Founder an enduring principle of regeneration. There is a depth of meaning in the person and teaching of Jesus Christ, which has transcended the actual Christianity of every age-something in fact which soars high above the discordant Babel of her sects. It has been the universal law of human institutions that their corruptions have resulted in their slow and gradual dissolution. Hence empires have passed away; institutions have become effete; religions have become corrupt. But a principle of ever-renewing vitality has been seated in the bosom of Christianity; and the effect of the unveiling of the person of its Founder before the eyes of men, just as He has been depicted by the Evangelists, free from the false lineaments in which He has been enshrouded by human folly and human sin, ever has been and ever will be, the source of a new social life to the Church which He has founded. In this respect the Church of Christ differs from every merely human institution.

Finally let me ask you to observe that each one of these manifestations of a superhuman power shining forth in Jesus Christ, does not stand by itself solitary and alone. Even if it did, its evidential value would be great. But the whole of this evidence (and it is only some of the most striking portions of it which I have adduced) possesses a cumulative force. I ask you fully to estimate the weight of the whole of it taken together, centring as it does in the person of Jesus Christ. From Him issues, not a single ray of divine light, but a mass of rays all converging in a common focus. Before the brightness of the light which He emits, all other illuminations grow dim, like the stars in the presence of the sun; all other activities are feebleness. There are only two alternatives before us. I will simply

state them, and leave it to yourselves to choose which is the most philosophical and rational; Jesus Christ must be either the manifestation of a superhuman power, or of the ordinary forces which act in man, which have energized only this once in His production, and then ceased from their activity for

evermore.

There is, I am aware, one other alternative which unbelief propounds, but which space prevents me from discussing here. It is that the Jesus of the Gospels is an ideal character, devoid of historical reality. What does this mean? Its meaning, stripped of all disguises is, that the mightiest power which for eighteen centuries has energized for good, nay more, which at this moment is the cause of nearly every institution for good which exists in Europe, is based on a delusion. This theory when examined in its details and tested by philosophy and fact, hopelessly breaks down. will be sufficient here to say, that until it can be shown that some such shadowy creation has exerted a mightier influence for good during the ages of the past than the most strenuous exertions of the wisest and the best have been able to accomplish, the objection is dashed in pieces against the facts of history and the realities of human life.

It

But this alternative which unbelief propounds-the only one which it is able to propound-is terrible to contemplate. If it be true, human life is a delusion. It means this, and nothing less :-If the Jesus of the Gospels is an ideal creation, and not an historical reality, then a phantom and a shadow has been the centre of a mightier power, and has exerted a mightier influence for good, than all the realities which have ever existed. Good and wise men have struggled hard, but the results of their combined efforts have been as nothing compared with those which have been accomplished by this unreal creation of a number of distempered brains. If this be so, one thing is true, and one only —that man is walking in a vain shadow and disquieting himself in vain. Why then struggle for truth? for delusions are mightier than realities. Let us therefore take refuge