The Christ of English Poetry: Being the Hulsean Lectures Delivered Before the University of Cambridge MCMIV-MCMV (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Christ of English Poetry: Being the Hulsean Lectures Delivered Before the University of Cambridge MCMIV-MCMV

Is it not the central Presence of a unique and a compelling Personality felt through every page of those informal memoirs, which we know by the name of the Four Gospels? Personality is the mightiest force which God can bring to bear upon man, and the supreme Personality in all history, the most potent factor in all civilised change and progress is that of Jesus Christ. It is of this Personality that the evangelists speak to us. In the Gospels Jesus Christ Himself is the Gospel. And from first to last the spell Of His story on our hearts and consciences never lessens.

We feel it as we begin to read the records of the infancy, where in the Prologue of St. Luke's Gospel, the Spirit of Hebrew poetry, in sacred canticles, in bursts of lyric joy, in the still sweeter stranger music falling from the magic sky, 13 vocal above the manger-cradle Of Bethlehem. We feel it more strongly as we read on through the historic narrative of later years, where, as in St. Matthew's Gospel, a Royal Figure moves, claiming homage from all good men, by signs of power, by deeds of mercy, by words of love; a Prophet, Whose message is always Life means mission, Love means service; a Teacher whose sayings because of their moral insight and spiritual beauty are always Vibrant down the cen tuties; a Legislator whose gift to His people is not a model code of laws, but a law - making power inherent in the disciplined human character. We feel it again when with an added touch of dramatic realism St. Mark takes up the tale to tell us of the strong Son of God, the Lord of Patience and of Pity, who wins His throne of spiritual royalty, and through suffering.

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