Thoughts on the life and character of Jesus of Nazareth, by W. H. Furness ..

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THOUGHTS

ON THE ■ ;

LIFE AND CHARACTER

JESUS OF NAZARETH

W. H. FUEFESS

MINISTER OF THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL UNITARIAN
CHURCH IN PHILADELPHIA

BOSTON

PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & COMPANY

1859

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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858,

BY W. H. FURNESSj

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania.

In Exchaage
Brown University

C. SHERMAX & SOX, PRIXTERS,
Corner of Seyenth and Cheri^ Streets, Philadelphia,

THOUGHTS

When I entered upon the duties of the Chris-
tian ministry in Philadelphia, some three-and-
thirty years ago, I very early learned that there
was, belonging nominally to one or another of
the orthodox denominations, or having no con-
nection with any church, a growing number of
individuals who were in doubt, not as to the
claims of any particular form of Christian belief,
but as to the historical truth of Christianity itself.
Persons of this class had very little interest in
determining which of the interpretations of the
Bible, the Trinitarian or the Unitarian, were
correct. For, either way, it did not mend the
matter for them ; as they had pretty much made

4 THOUGHTS ON

up their minds that the Scriptures being, as they
suspected, scarcely anything more than a mere
collection of legends, were deserving of very
little credit.

In fact, what has now grown to be a conspi-
cuous mark of our times, was, even then, more
than a quarter of a century ago, becoming very
clear. The unworthy representations of our
religion, so long and widely prevalent, were
producing in rapid and rank abundance their
natural fruit, unbelief, — secret or openly ex-
pressed. It was not unusual to hear doubts
avowed as to whether such a person as Jesus
Christ ever existed.

Although the scepticism which false religion
had so abundantly generated, was not always
so ignorant as to go to the extreme of question-
ing the actual existence of Jesus Christ, yet that
there was anything in his history at all extraor-
dinary was very often denied. The wonderful
facts related concerning him were held to be all
of a piece with the fables usually obscuring the
early history of the established religions of man-
kind. Indeed, what faith there was remain-
ing among many intelligent men, or that was

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 5

professed, was hardly anything more than a
timid habit of time-serving. That religion
should be patronized in one form or another,
was considered highly respectable ; but then it
was not for any intrinsic truth which it was
believed to possess, but for mere reasons of
State, and because there was a vague, conserva-
tive impression abroad, that Churches and Sun-
days, somehow or other, conduced to the good
order of society. Under the rose, men had
their own opinions, and very free opinions
oftentimes they were ; and one of them was
that, in all probability, the author of Chris-
tianity was a wise and good man, but that his
history, as it is given in the New Testament, is
a tissue of fables, with only here and there per-
haps a filament of truth, and that the origin of
the Christian religion, like that of other long-
established religions, is lost in a cloud of fic-
tion.

I remember, years ago, asking an intelligent
gentleman, a highly respected resident of a
western city, what the state of religious opinion
was in his neighborhood, and whether there
were many adherents of liberal Christianity

1-^

6 THOUGHTS ON

there. His reply was, that thinking men in
that region had got quite beyond Unitarianism.
This tendency of opinion, towards the utter re-
jection of the historical truth of Christianity,
has, in the course of time, become more and
more strongly marked. On this side of the
Atlantic it has found its fullest avowal in the
writings of Theodore Parker, of whom, by the
way, it is only simple justice to say, that, while
he publishes the boldest opinions in theology,
and questions nearly all the historical details of
primitive Christianity, he shows by word and
work, a faith truly apostolic in those high and
broad principles of right and humanity, which
are the vital elements of the Christian religion.
Perceiving the state of mind, of which I
speak, all around me, among persons whose in-
telligence and culture commanded my respect ;
seeing also the very unsatisfactory representa-
tions of Christianity that were made, and upon
what erroneous grounds, and with what con-
tempt of natural reason its authority was urged;
aware too that there were some things which,
at first sight, afibrded a plausible justification
of these radical doubts, and, finally, desirous of

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 7

being thoroughly assured in my own mind, and
of finding out how much of truth there is in the
New Testament History, I was mioved, very
early in my ministry, to examine it anew, with
increased earnestness.

A direction was thus early given to my mind
which it has never lost. From that time, I
have always been most interested in endeavor-
ing to minister to the condition, rather of those
who find it difficult to believe Christianity at
all, than of those who are hesitating between
the liberal and the orthodox interpretations of
Christian truth. And what I have chiefly
wished to do is, not to pull down what I ac-
count error, but to build up what I have found
to be true; not to deny, but to affirm. In ac-
cordance with this wish, I have sought to ascer-
tain what may be affirmed beyond the possi-
bility of refutation, concerning Christianity,
considered as an historical fact.

While I have no love of destroying, merely
for the sake of destroying, yet, in the endeavor
to make manifest the historical truth of Chris-
tianity, whatever erroneous opinions or doc-
trines I find littering the ground on which I

8 THOUGHTS ON

would buildj I do not hesitate, with as little
noise or dust as possible, to put aside, so that
the truth may stand firmly based in its rightful
place, and in its full unobstructed proportions.

The result of my studies, in preparing for the
m.inistry in the Theological School at Cam-
bridge, under the late learned Professor Nor-
ton, had been a very satisfactory conviction of
the substantial truths of the New Testament
History. I was very early persuaded that there
were good reasons for this conviction, could
they only be worthily set forth.

I have always been of the faith also, that
truth of every kind must have marks of its
own ; and that, intrinsically, it must be as dis-
tinguishable from fable as light from darkness,
as the work of God from the work of man, as
Nature from Art and Artifice.

Strong in this persuasion, after I was settled
in the Christian ministry, I resumed, as I say,
the study of the Four Gospels. Since, amidst
endless confusion and conflict of opinions,
Jesus of Nazareth has always been recognized
by his followers, as the supreme authority in
regard to Christian doctrines, I desired, first of

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 9

all, to discover what he was. Accordingly, my
attention was mainly given to the Four Ac-
counts of his Life and Teachings. Taking
them in hand as mere human compositions,
and as I would any other books, I endeavored
to examine them as if they were then for the
first time placed before me, with freedom and
with candor, chiefly desirous to determine, not
what mistakes or contradictions they may con-
tain, but, the probable existence of mistakes
and contradictions being conceded, how much
of truth there is in these records.^ In the en-

* It is hardly necessary to say, that since I was of age to
take interest in such inquiries, I have never been able to
entertain the idea of the miraculous inspiration of the writers
of the New Testament, or indeed of any portion of the Bible,
— an idea which owes its existence to ignorance or oversight
of obvious and undeniable facts. As for example: For more
than a thousand years the Scriptures were perpetuated, not
by means of this comparatively accurate instrument of trans-
mission, the art of printing, but by the very imperfect and
fallible method of transcription. Of course they were liable
to countless errors, and they show these errors (of trans-
cribers) on every page. I question whether there be a dozen
consecutive words in the New Testament that read the same
in all the hundreds of MSS. which have been collated. The

10 THOUGHTS ON

deavor to ascertain the truth concerning Jesus
of Nazareth, whether it should prove much or
little, I have aimed to put out of view, as much
as possible, popular opinions and doctrines, all
disputed and disputable points, and, to use the
words of the wise and liberal Jortin, " to reduce
things to the venerable Christianity of the New
Testament."^

various readings amount to some hundreds of thousands, — an
alarming fact, bj the way, only to those who stickle for the
inspiration of the letter. (Amidst all these literal variations,
the sense remains substantially the same in all the MSS.)
But if these books were originally penned by the dictation of
the Holy Spirit, it is absolutely impossible now to determine
with absolute certainty which is the original and inspired
reading. Is it to be imagined that the Holy Spirit interposed
in the composition of the Scriptures, but took no care to pro-
tect them from influences which were certain to make that
interposition worthless ? But I am not going to discuss the
question in regard to the Inspiration of the Scriptures. I am
writing for those who are prepared to regard the narratives of
the Life of Jesus as human compositions, to be dealt with as
we deal with all other books when the aim is to ascertain their
contents.

^ ^' As the opposers of the Gospel have frequently had re-
course to arguments ad hominem^ and have taken advantage
from modern systems, and from the writings of divines of this

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 11

After delivering courses of week-day evening
lectures on the Four Gospels for four consecu-
tive winters, I published, in 1836, a small vo-
lume entitled, "Remarks on the Four Grospels,'^
in which. I gave some of the results of my
studies. Two years afterwards this work was
republished in a much enlarged form with
such numerous additions as justified the adop-
tion of a new title for the work. It was called,
"Jesus and his Biographers.'' After an interval
of twelve years, in 1850, I published "A His-
tory of Jesus ;'' and, in 1853, a new edition of
this work, with a brief introduction and a few
notes. In this last volume, as in the works that
preceded it, my purpose was to make the New
Testament history self-evident; to show, in
the life of Jesus, the unmistakable marks of
reality.

And now, as I look back to those publica-

or that persuasion, so the defenders of Revelation have often
found themselves under the necessity of reducing things to
the venerable Christianity of the New Testament, and of ad-
venturing no farther, and of declaring the rest as not essential
to the cause and to the controversy." — Remarks on EccL
Hist. Preface,

12 THOUGHTS ON

tions, how very defective do they appear ! How
far short do they fall of an adequate statement
of the truth ! Gould I only do justice to my
own convictions ! My present endeavor is to
supply, to some extent, the deficiencies of my
previous attempts. I return to the subject with
an interest which has lost none of its keenness,
and which knows no weariness. I would speak
out my thoughts of Christ utterly. Whether I
succeed in communicating them to others, the
bare attempt will be its own bountiful reward.
I shall not embarrass myself by undertaking to
write system-wise.^ The subject itself has no-

' '' There is an order of imperfect intellects, under which
mine must be content to rank. . . . The owners of the sort of
faculties I allude to, have no pretences to much clearness or
precision in their ideas, or in their manner of expressing
them. Their intellectual wardrobe (to confess fairly) has few
whole pieces in it. They are content with fragments and
scattered pieces of truth. She presents no full front to them,
— a feature or a side-face at the most. Hints and glimpses,
germs and crude essays at a system, is the utmost they pre-
tend to. They beat up a little game, peradventure, and leave
it to knottier heads, more robust constitutions, to run it down.
. . . They seldom wait to mature a proposition, but e'en bring
it to market in the green ear. They delight to impart their

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 13

thing systematic in it. There has always been
much talk of the Christian Scheme. Never was
phrase so entirely out of place. Jesus had no
scheme. It was no form of thought that he
constructed. It was a Spirit that he breathed,
a Life that he lived, free, genial, spontaneous.
He dealt, not in carefully elaborated arguments,
but in affirmations, that found their fullest ex-
pressions in his being, and which thus come to
the understanding through the heart.

I lay down, therefore, no plan to be filled
out. Whatever unity there may be in the exe-
cution of this work, must come of itself. I
shall endeavor not to repeat myself, at least in
form. I please myself with the hope that others
will find satisfaction in what gives me ever fresh
delight.

I suppose that much that I shall offer will be

defective discoveries as they arise, without waiting for their
full development. They are no systematizers, and would but
err more in attempting it." — C. Lamb, May I not quote
these words almost as much for the pleasure of quoting them
as for the sake of entering a plea for the rambling character
of the following pages, without a thought of arrogating any
peculiar fellowship with the fine genius that penned them?

2

14 THOUGHTS on

offensive to orthodox believers. I am sorry for
that. But I beg leave to say to all such, who
may chance to open this book, that it is written,
not for them, but for those whom the orthodox
creeds, so far from satisfying, have repelled
from the subject altogether, and before whom
the alternative lies, not between such views as
are here presented and the popular representa-
tions of Christianity, but between these views
and none.

I DO not consider that I regard the Man of
l^azareth with the admiring reverence that he
may justly claim. Far is it from my thoughts
to imagine that I have found, and that I duly
value, all the treasures of truth and beauty that
are, to use the pregnant phrase of Paul, "hid-
den in Christ." My reverence for him, I well
know, is very weak. It is, as yet, but in the
bud. Were it all that it should be, I should be
a man sanctified and inspired by a friendship
the most ennobling.

And yet faint as is my veneration for him.

TUB LIFE OF JESUS. 15

how seldom do I find any who speak of him as
he should be spoken of; any who appear cor-
dially to sympathize with even my inadequate
appreciation of him ! Kot that he is not spoken
of in the most exalted terms. The strongest
possible language of love and homage is
lavished upon him. But it is easy to see that
it is, to a great extent, formal. It has little that
is genial in it. It is without discrimination,
without an intelligent perception of his per-
sonal qualities. It is mere hearsay ; the hollow
echo of tradition and conformity. It is not in-
spired by any personal acquaintance with him.
How could it be otherwise ? At the hazard
of seeming arrogant, I avow my conviction that
I have myself caught, through the thick mists
of superstition that have been gathering round
him for long ages, a glimpse of his actual per-
son. Dim as it is, it makes my heart so burn
within me, at times, that my persuasion is irre-
sistible that it is a true vision and no illusion.
But how have I obtained it? By the long study
of years, by the possession of peculiar opportu-
nities, and by striving to free my mind from all
those prejudices of early education, which so

16 THOUGHTS ON

eifectuall}' prevent us from seeing with our own
eyes.

As then the little light that I have found has
been caught in this way, — by long and earnest
study, — how can it be expected that others,
who'have given the subject no special attention,
and who have been necessarily preoccupied with
very different things, should have any vivid
personal idea of Jesus of Is"azareth ; most espe-
cially, when for ages. Error has been weaving
its web all over the history of his life so thickly,
that the simplicity of the narrative is no longer
perceived, and the narrative itself has almost
ceased to be legible ; and this thick network of
error has been cherished as sacred truth, and,
generation after generation, men have been
educated to regard it so religiously, that the
influence of the error continues to trammel
them greatly, long after the error itself has
been renounced by their understandings. The
paralyzing pressure continues to be felt after
the weight has been thrown off.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 17

This subject does not command any earnest
attention even in the religious world, as it is
called. I do not find any persons who are
really interested in examining the History of
Christ — pursuing the study with a strong cu-
riosity, and in the full belief that there is yet
a great deal more light to break forth from it.
It seems to be settled in the general mind that
we know nearly all about it that is ever to be
known, that there is little or nothing left to be
explored.

When I perceive how little of intelligent
interest is shown in this study, I am sometimes
led to ask myself whether I do not exaggerate
its importance, whether it really have the worth
I ascribe to it, whether it lie in the nature of
the case that it should command any wide and
deep interest. And then I ask also, whether
they may not have reason on their side, who,
wearied out with the disputation that has af-
flicted the world in regard to Christ, and,
despairing of anything like satisfaction, appear
virtually to- say: "What is the use? Let us
give over the attempt to know the precise truth
concerning him." They have made up their

18 THOUGHTS ON

minds, apparently, to let his memory die out.
They would fain dismiss the idea of him alto-
gether, dim and confused as it is, as a. thing
which the world is outgrowing, and as no
longer competent to meet any human wants.
Indeed, to numbers of intelligent and not light-
minded persons, the subject has become a very
Gorgon's head. Present it before them, and
they are instantly turned into stone. They
have not a thought to utter about it.

But I cannot sympathize with this indiffer-
ence, or this despair, much as there is to pro-
duce them. I know and freely concede that a
false theology has given a false importance to
Jesus Christ, assigning him such a position
that, not only has the one Infinite Father been
hidden from human sight, but man, man him-
self, has been superseded. Transferring to
Christ his own incommunicable responsibility,
man has lost faith in his own competency to
see and think for himself But this is the in-
fluence of a false representation of the Man of
Nazareth. Rightly understood, he does not
hide the Infinite Goodness, he illustrates it. He
does not overpower men, he inspires them. He

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 19

breaks their chains, and invites them to a larger
freedom. But, without reference to the in-
fluence he exerts, I cannot endure to think that
such a person as Jesus has lived only to be mis-
represented, living and dead, only to be wran-
gled about for long ages; and now, at last,
without ever having been, since the Apostolic
age, really known as he was, to be spoken of
with a patronizing air, as if he were on the
whole a wonderful man for his time, but had
better now be dismissed as behind the age.
The idea ! 0 how long and w^earily does he wait
for an age to come in sight of him ! Mankind
cannot be so ignoble as this treatment of him
would imply. Multitudes there are, I doubt
not, who would leap to do him honor, were he
seen in his true character.

In the name of all that is just, let him not
vanish away before we have at least made an
earnest effort to do him justice. Let us try
sincerely, and without fear, to see him as he
was in simple truth. Perhaps we shall discover
a greatness in him beyond what, with all our
exaggerations, we have ever yet dreamed. At
all events let us be just to him, and strive to see

20 THOUGHTS ON

him as lie was. So much is surely due to a
character so extraordinary. After we have ar-
rived at some fair estimate of him, then, if
there be any in whom he creates no new senti-
ment of greatness and truth, in heaven's name,
let them part with company with him, and go
their way without the inspiration of his fellow-
ship. But so long as the memories of the great
and good are the world's most precious posses-
sions, the perennial fountains of its deepest life,
of all that have ever lived, let us not consent
that Jesus of ]!^azareth shall be forever neglected
or misunderstood.

I would have it distinctly seen that it is
chiefly for the sake of simple justice and honor,
that I now plead for a full recognition of Jesus
Christ. I am not speaking, in these pages, in
the interest of any theological system whatever,
or because I consider him to be necessary to the
religion of our time and place. I desire to
study him withoat reference to the exigencies
of any existing mode of religious faith, or to
any relation he may be believed to sustain to
the salvation of men. I wish to see him as he
was. So much, at least, is due to him and to

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 21

ourselves. I have no aim now bej^ond the pay-
ment of this debt.

The tendency of mankind to deify personal
greatness is so strong, and has shown itself so
unfavorable to individual independence, so con-
ducive to mental bondage, and in the case of
Christ in particular, that some minds appear to
be afraid to dwell, as I propose, upon the per-
sonality of Jesus, lest, magnifying it unduly,
they should be led themselves, or should lead
others, back again into the old error. But does
it not argue a mental weakness of the very
same sort that we dread, a want of mental self-
dependence, when we forego the enjoyment of
a truth from a fear that it may be abused, to
say nothing of the insensibility which it evinces
to be indifferent to the great and the good?
When w^e estimate them aright, there is, not
fear but love, not cowardice but courage, not
weakness but strength, the inspiration of the
Highest, in their communion.

22 THOUGHTS ON

And especially should Jesus Christ be tho-
roughly studied, and as accurately as possible
known, since, as I conceive, we have such sin-
gularly rare means of knowing him, if we will
only approach the study of him with the free-
dom and fairness which he loved, and upon
which he so generously relied.

Very brief, indeed, are the accounts of him
that have come down to us, — mere sketches,
put together with so little regard to order, that
it is impossible to say how long his public life
lasted, — collections of anecdotes, for the most
part told with exceeding brevity. And yet such
as they are, they let us into the personal cha-
racter of Jesus in a manner the rhost remark-
able. I do not believe that there has ever
existed a person, of whom, without having any
immediate personal knowledge of him, we can
form so vivid an idea as of Jesus of K"azareth.

This one fact that, in the providence of
heaven, the memory of Jesus has been pre-
served in the world as the memory of no other
person has been preserved, with an unequalled
distinctness, — does it not prove how valuable
his memory is? Its worth is shown by its

TII3 LIFE OF JESUS. 23

being perpetuated in such clearness of outline,
in such freshness of coloring. And this too in
the natural course of things, without any spe-
cial interposition, either in the composition or
in the preservation of the accounts of him
which have been published throughout the
world in almost every tongue.

I cannot imagine how anything could be
more entirely in the natural order of things
than the IsTew Testament narratives were, as I
regard them, both in their origin and in the
way in which they have been perpetuated.
When, precisely, they were written cannot be
determined with certainty. They made their
appearance, under the circumstances of the
case, as a matter of course. Supposing such a
person as Jesus to have had an existence, it
seems to me that, sooner or later, just such ac-
counts, as we have of him, must have made
their appearance. They are just what was to
be expected. It could not well be otherwise,
things being left to take their course, but that,
after a time, and before all the personal friends
of Jesus, or all their friends, disappeared from
the world, some written records of him, of his

24 THOUGHTS ON

sayings and acts, would rise into importance.
Such a life as his could not possibly fail to find
expression in the literature of the world. His
friends, however, were not, and from the
obvious facts of the case, it is evident could not
have been, educated men. Their literary quali-
fications for the work of his biography- were
exceedingly limited. They had no literary cha-
racter to make or to sustain, nor any know-
ledge of rhetorical rules to guide them. Con-
sequently, as the whole style and structure of
the Records show, the work was done with the
utmost simplicity of design, with no thought
on the part of the writers but to put into words,
as well as they were able, their honest impres-
sions. So much, at least, may be said of the
first Three Gospels. Of the Fourth Gospel, I
have a brief word to say by-and-by. Of the
first three, it may be said without qualification,
and of the fourth also, to a considerable extent,
that the result is, that narratives are to be
found in these books, constituting the sub-
stance of them ; narratives which, artless as
they are, — and they are as artless as the talk of
children, — furnish us with the means of form-

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 25

ing a wonderfully distinct idea of him, the story
of whose life they tell.

So it appears that his life had a natural truth,
so obvious and impressive that neither was any
special agency needed to prevent its being lost
or to perpetuate its memory ; nor, in order that
it should be reported correctly, were any pecu-
liar qualifications required beyond a certain
honesty of mind. It was of that quality, so
congenial to IS^ature, so surcharged with her
own life, that she could not let it die, although
there was no ready scribe at hand to record it,
and no one seems to have thought of any-
thing like a formal record of it until years after
the disappearance of Jesus from the earth. It
was in such perfect accord with the truth of
things, that all things, by a natural affinity,
took it up spontaneously, and floated it onward
on the stream of time. It was as natural for it
to continue, as it was for it to be, originally.
Once in existence, it instantly became a living
portion of the world's history. And it no more
needed any special aid from God or man, in
order that it should be perpetuated, than this

3

26 THOUGHTS ox

globe requires any interposing and added force
to maintain it on its annual way.

In this fact I recognize decisive evidence of
the special worth of Jesus Christ to the world.
The idea of him, rendered as it is with such
rare freshness in the New Testament, must be
vital, or it would never have taken such a hold,
stronger than adamant, upon the world, never
have so fixed itself with such distinctness and
prominence in the world's history; especially
when it had such obstacles to overcome, moun-
tains of ignorance, rivers and oceans of preju-
dice, partition-walls heaven-high, of custom,
temperament, and language, dividing the na-
tions. "What was it that I just now heard from
my window? A little colored child in the
street singing a hymn about Jesus, the Saviour.
Thus far away from remote, obscure l^azareth,
centuries back, out of the depths of the Past,
has his name come.

I no longer fear that, in studying his life and
character, I am carried away by a fancy, as-
cribing to his history an exaggerated impor-
tance. The fact of its having been written and
preserved as it has been without any extraordi-

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 27

nary intervention, I interpret as the well-nigli
articulate testimony of N"ature and Providence
to its worth. They claim it for their own. It
is theirs. And as theirs, ours.

For long ages the study has been to represent
him in contrast with Nature, and in opposition
to her. It has been, and still is, everywhere
thought to be essential to the vindication of his
authority, to prove that he was a supernatural
being, in the sense of exceptional and anoma-
lous. His acts are described as miracles, mira-
cles being defined as departures from natural
order, or violations thereof. He is represented
as differing from every other intelligent being
on earth in nature as well as in degree.

The consequence is such as we see all around
us. Jesus has become a nondescript being. He
is out of the sphere of our intelligent apprehen-
sions, out of the reach of all genial human ap-
preciation. Thus represented, he has ceased to
be of flesh and blood, and has faded away into
a vision vast but dim — but little more than a

28 THOUGHTS ON

name. We extend our arms to embrace him,
and nothing real meets onr grasp.

My purpose is directly the reverse. I seek to
reinstate him in Nature, fully. I would show
that, while he is new, original, in some most
important respects unprecedented, he is a tho-
roughly natural human being, in nothing at
variance with Nature, but always and in all
respects, even in regard to those great gifts
which are peculiar to him, '' subject to the law
of her consistency." Indeed, of all who have
ever lived, I hold him to be the most pro-
foundly natural, the fullest illustration of the
genius of Nature, of her highest laws, of her
most occult forces. And, viewing him thus, I
hold it to be indescribably interesting that he
should be seen as he is. How can we spare so
grand an illustration of the import of Nature !
We may spare the sun in heaven as well. He
is a sun in the empyreum.

When it shall be made clearly to appear that
he came and lived in conformity with natural
laws, not in violation of them, who can estimate
the benefits that must accrue ! How much will
be gained for him, for Christianity, and for the

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 29

progress of human thought ! It will be equiva-
lent to establishing on an impregnable founda-
tion the reality of his history, to show its con-
sonance with ITature ; since truth alone consorts
with that. And for the enlargement of the
human mind the advantage will be, that the
wonderful facts of the history of Christ, which
now stand apart by themselves, as barren excep-
tions under the name of miracles, will be re-
ceived as new and most expressive natural facts;
giving us significant hints of a high spiritual
philosophy, a philosophy of Life and of Death,
of matter and of spirit, and of the mutual rela-
tions of these two.

How completely a mechanical philosophy has
unhallowed Nature, how it has despoiled the
great Temple of all its religious symbols, dis-
placing its soul-inspiring harmonies with the
monotony of a huge mechanism of blind laws,
is disclosed by the fact that men deny the possi-
bility of any certain communication from the
Highest, except by a method that shall be seen
to be a departure from the method of Nature.

3*

30 THOUGHTS ON

As I look upon Christ, he comes, not in vio-
lation, but in the order, of Nature ; not to sus-
pend her laws, but to observe them; not to
interrupt, but to reveal the harmony of things.
He comes in the fulness of her genius, not an
interposed, but a natural and all-reconciling
Fact. And, in the light of his presence, the
Universe is no longer a complication of blind
mechanical forces, but slowly, grandly, the
Diorama changes, and there rises all around us
a majestic Sanctuary, not made with hands,
wherein angels are ceaselessly ascending and
descending in beneficent ministries, and glad
tidings of love and hope sound evermore.

I AM aware that I appear to many to handle
the New Testament histories with an unautho-
rized freedom; at one time rejecting passages
and incidents in a ' very arbitrary manner,
merely, as it has been said, to suit a very fan-
ciful preconceived theory ; at another time, lay-
ing the greatest stress upon some very slight
circumstance, or a mere turn of expression.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 31

I submit the following considerations in justi-
fication of the method which I observe.

1. Any one, who examines the Four Gospels
with any attention, cannot fail to perceive that
they are put together with very little care.
The carelessness which marks these books, and
of which numerous evidences might be ad-
duced, I consider as resulting from and mani-
festing the unsuspecting confidence of truth.
But however caused, or whatever it may indi-
cate, it is a very obvious feature of these narra-
tives.

2. It is equally undeniable, that for centuries
they were perpetuated in manuscript, and they
have, consequently, come to read so variously,
that we cannot be perfectly sure, in any case,
that we have the precise words of the original
records.

These things being considered, I have no
hesitation in rejecting passages and incidents
which are clearly at variance with the pervading
spirit and the plainest facts of the history. So
much, briefly, for the grounds upon which I
hold myself authorized to reject certain passages
here and there.

32 THOUGHTS ON

But, since the Gospels are constructed with-
out care, and the genuineness of the language
is more or less uncertain, why do not these con-
siderations, which have weight with me in the
rejection of passages, have the same force in
preventing me from laying stress upon minute
particulars, upon a phrase, perhaps, or a word ?
For very plain reasons :

1. Because, however careless the Gospels,
and however uncertain the original words, we
should, nevertheless, scrutinize the minutest
details, since, as frequent experience shows,
truth is discovered, and falsehood detected by
the very smallest accidents, which, being un-
designed, have a weight far beyond that of a
thousand formal witnesses.

2. And not only for this reason : because the
smallest fact, a mere word, may furnish a clue
to the truth, should we weigh every word ; but
also because the very carelessness, with which
these writings are put together, affords the
strongest presumption that any little details
that are mentioned, are mentioned only be-
cause they are true. Whether they are true or
not, must be determined by their accordance

THE LIFE OF JESUS. Sd

with the pervading spirit and the plainest facts
of the history. The Gospels are, to a most re-
markable degree, unstudied ; by which I mean,
that particulars are stated therein, evidently not
to serve a purpose or to make out a case, but
simply because they were true. They struck
and impressed the minds of the spectators, and
so they came to be transcribed into the records.
There is no other reason why they should have
been recorded. And, since they were of this
impressive nature, they must have had a forcible
significance at the time, a vital connection with
the main fact of which they were the par-
ticulars. To my mind it is clear, that the
events recorded in the Gospels, almost in the
literal sense of the word, recorded themselves.
With a vividness beyond everything of the kind
that I know of in human history, they stamped
themselves on the minds of men ; not always,
never perhaps in any instance making a com-
plete impression, but yet almost always leaving
the body or shape of some one or a few circum-
stances or features, and these sometimes not
the most prominent, so sharply defined, that
from one particular thus given, however mi-

34 THOUGHTS ON

nute, we may infer the whole event. I ask
attention to the following instances in illustra-
tion of what I say.

1. The direction of Jesus to the bystanders
to go to the assistance of Lazarus, when he ap-
peared at the entrance of the tomb, ''bound
hand and foot in the grave-clothes:" "Loose
hhn^ and let hivi go^'' is, in itself, a minute cir-
cumstance. There always seemed to me, when
as a child I read this account, to be a sudden de-
scent here to a very small particular. "Why did
Jesus give this direction ? Or why did the nar-
rator think it worth recording? These ques-
tions are more than answered, when, supposing
Lazarus to have actually appeared staggering
in his shroud, we bring into view the effect
which such an apparition must have had on
those present. They stood gazing there, in un-
utterable amazement, bereft of all presence of
mind, and it was natural that Jesus should have
recalled them to themselves, and bade them go
and help Lazarus. Can any one fail to see how
this brief incident attests the reality of the
scene?

2. The retaining of the very words of Jesus

TUB LIFE OF JESUS. 35

in the case of the restoration of the little
daughter of Jairus, '^ Talitha cumi;'' and in the
instance of the deaf man, " Uphphatha ;'' and of
the precise exclamation of Mary, when she first
recognized Jesus on the morning of his resur-
rection, " Rahhoni ;'' all translatable and im-
mediately translated, is to my mind wondrously
in accord with truth, and to be accounted for
only by the reality of the circumstances which
attended these utterances. {Jesus and his Bio-
graphers.)

3. In the account^ given of the blind beggar,
Bartimseus, whose sight Jesus restored, we are
told that when Jesus stopped and bade them
bring to him the beggar, who was calling aloud
and entreating his pity, the poor man, " easting
aivay his garment^'" rose and went to Jesus.
These few words, which I italicize, — do they not
reveal the natural and intense emotion of the
blind man ?

4. To mention only one other instance in
point. When, upon the departure of the
wealthy young man who came running to
Jesus, asking what he should do to inherit

* Mark x, 4G-52.

36 THOUGHTS ON

eternal life, Jesus declared that it was impos-
sible for the rich to enter the Divine kingdom,
the kingdom of the self sacrificing ; and when
the disciples were exceedingly amazed, because
the kingdom they were looking for was to
abound in riches, and when they expressed
their astonishment, exclaiming, ''Who then
can be saved?" i. e., Who then can be admitted
into the kingdom, if there are to be no rich
men there? it is recorded in the first Gospel
that Jesus ''beheld'' them; and, in the second,
that Jesus, " looking upon tJiem^ saith, &c/' Now
I infer, from the fact that his look on this occa-
sion is thus particularly mentioned in two of
the Gospels and yet with a variation, that it
must have been of so impressive a character
that it imprinted itself upon the minds of those
on whom it was fixed, and could not be forgotten.
But it is needless to multiply examples of
this sort. The Gospels are full of them. And
they stamp the records so deeply with the im-
press of reality, that, for my own part, I am
reconciled to all the obscurity in which the
origin and history of the Gospels are wrapt.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 37

In studying the New Testament history in
this manner, I seem to myself to be endeavor-
ing to restore some grand old work of Art,
a magnificent picture by some great master.
In one part, it is covered with the dust and
dimness of time. In another, rude hands have
distorted it with their false drawing, or be-
daubed it with barbarous color. The world has
insisted upon hanging it upside down, in a bad
light, and out of the reach of the eye ; its dis-
figurements have been mistaken for beauties,
and all honest examination has been denounced
as sacrilege. Nevertheless, here and there, by
such criticism as I am able to use, I discover a
hand, a foot, an eye, drawn to the life ; or, it
may be, a noble sweeping line, or a majestic
fold of a garment, or a gleam of color, — all
satisfying me that there is a masterpiece under-
neath, some day to be restored in its complete-
ness, or, so far as it was completed originally,
to witch the world with a vision of immortal
beauty.

The attempts which I have made in previous
4

38 THOUGHTS ON

publications to set forth my views of what are
called the miracles of Jesus, were very imper-
fect, owing in a considerable degree to some
obscurity in my own mind. My thoughts on
this subject have since become clearer; and I
trust I shall now be able to make myself better
understood.

I set no value upon the miracles of the New
Testament, considered as departures from the
order of nature. So far from contending for
them, in this sense, I do not believe that such
things as miracles, thus defined, are possible. I
hold the idea of a suspension or violation of the
laws of Nature, to be essentially incredible.
Although the word miracle is constantly used
in this sense, no such idea is expressed by it,
etymologically considered. According to the
derivation of the word, a miracle is simply a
wonder, nothing more. A thing may be won-
derful without being a suspension of the laws
of Nature. In the primary sense of the term,
all things, the most common and natural, the
laws of Nature themselves, are miraculous, and
miraculous, not only in the sense of being won-
derful, but also as they manifest the presence in

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 89

Nature of an unknown, supernatural, or rather,
supersensuous power. So far from rejecting
miracles in this sense, I believe in nothing else.

But not only is there nothing in the deriva-
tion of the word that requires us to consider the
events to which the term is applied in the New
Testament, as violations of the order of Nature,
I am at a loss to understand how we can pro-
nounce a fact to be a departure from natural
laws without first knowing all those laws. But
who presumes to know all the laws of Nature ?
Until we do know them all, we cannot assert
that any fact violates them. It may be a very
singular fact, such as has never been known
before. Nevertheless we cannot know that it
involves a departure from natural order. The
presumption is, that it is directly the reverse.
It may seem to violate what we consider the
laws of Nature ; just as the fact that water in-
creases in bulk, by being frozen, violates the
law that regulates the freezing of all other
bodies, and by which they are contracted in size

40 THOUGHTS ON

with the diminution of their heat. But there is
here no real, but only an apparent, violation of
natural laws. It is not Nature that is tran-
scended, but only our very limited knowledge
of Nature. So long at least as our knowledge
is comprehended within such very narrow
bounds, how can we presume to pronounce a
fact a miracle in the sense of a suspension of
the natural order of things ?^

But even were it admissible thus to pro-

* "In all apparent anomalies, the inductive pliilosopher
will fall back on the primary maxim that it is always more
prohahletliat events of an unaccountable and marvellous cliar-
acter are parts of some great fixed order of causes unlmown
to us, than that any real interruption occurs^ — [Essays on
the Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy , c&c, by the Rev. Baden
Poivell.) In the same work (p. 471), Professor Powell con-
demns Hugh Miller's '' Judaical" theology, because it does
not recognize the fact that " the great principle of natural
laws and the order of physical causes, is as entirely the ema-
nation of the Supreme Mind, as any supposed intervention
could be, and, in fact, the only true proof of it^ It is to be
regretted, by the way, that the Oxford Professor has not men-
tioned the names of a few of the " many eminent and orthodox
divines" to whom he alludes (p. 473), as regarding miracles,
not as " interruptions,'' but " as instances of the observance of
some more comprehensive laws unknown to us."

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 41

nounce upon facts, and to distinguish miracles,
I cannot perceive how outward miracles, ad-
dressed to the senses, can authorize moral state-
ments, verbal propositions. I cannot see how
any external demonstration of power can make
a thing true to me, which has no evidence, in
itself, of its being true. Power to produce the
most wonderful physical effects instantaneously,
does not imply or prove truth. Were a man to
come to me, commanding me to lie, steal, and
commit murder, in the name of God, what
miracles, so called, that he might work, could
attest his authority to enjoin these crimes as
my sacred duties ? "What would it avail him,
although he should turn the earth out of its
orbit ? I should suppose that either he was in
league with evil spirits, or had obtained com-
mand of some occult science. Either of these
suppositions would be far more probable than
that he had authority from God to impose upon
me immoral obligations.

It is not therefore because I need or desire
miraculous attestations, commonly so called, to
the authority of Christ, that I set a great value

4^

42 THOUGHTS ON

upon the wonderful works that were done by
him.

The value of the extraordinary works attri-
buted to Christ lies in this, that, as things done
by him, as his acts, they sustain a vital relation
to his character, which they most strikingly
illustrate, showing us the essential quality of
his spirit. In my view, they are identified
with his personal being; as, in the nature of
things, the acts and the remarkable acts espe-
cially, of a man, are part and portion of the man
himself. The conduct discloses the character.

This being premised, I cannot see how we
can dream of ascertaining the distinctive char-
acter of Christ, while we leave out of our esti-
mate of him the most extraordinary things
attributed to him. With just as much, nay,
with even more propriety, might we undertake
to leave out of view his precepts and parables.
These illustrate his truth and wisdom. But
actions, it is proverbial, speak louder than
words, and are much more satisfactory signs of
what a man is. It is in this respect that the

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 43

wonderful works of Christ create in me the
deepest interest, a very great curiosity to ascer-
tain what they really were, to know all about
them that is to be known.

The common idea is that they are valuable
mainly as displays of Almighty Power, suspend-
ing its own laws in order to attest a Divine au-
thority in Christ. Whereas, to my mind, their
chief interest lies, not at all in the power which
they exhibit, but in their moral quality, in the
motive that prompted them. They have a very
decided moral character, and the motive that
prompted them becomes plain upon examina-
tion. I find them to be as truly penetrated by
his spirit as his limbs were animated by his
blood. In and through them I catch sight of
the God-like greatness of his personal charac-
ter, and of an unselfishness as beautiful as the
same quality illustrated by his cross.

It is not at all as demonstrations of mere
power that I admire what are known as his
miracles. Demonstrations of mere power are

44 THOUGHTS ON

all aronud me, at all times, in all the aspects of
Nature, in my own body, in the inscrutable
miracles of sight, of articulate speech, and of
hearing, and of the communication of thought
by means of these, in the fact that I sit here at
this moment, inscribing these characters on
this page, with the idea of communicating my
thoughts to other minds distant and unknown.
Such familiar instances are just as wondrous in-
dications of a power above and beyond what
is visible, as any fact recorded in the New Tes-
tament. It is not, therefore, for their physical
power that I prize the miracles of Jesus.

I VALUE the wonderful works of Christ because
they disclose to me his character, because they
express his spirit.

The character of Christ is the exposition of
my religion, my Christianity. It is my Confes-
sion of Faith. As far as I am able to see, it
was the only religion of the first disciples ; it
was all that they received from him. They
were not instructed by him in any doctrines so

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 45

called. All that he ever taught them, by word
of mouth, was of the most informal character.
I»[othing can possibly be more simple and inci-
dental than his teachings. The sum of all that
he taught them was, that they were to love God
with their whole hearts, and one another as
themselves. He taught them no theology. But
there was one thing he did give them, one
new thing: he inspired them with an enthu-
siastic affection for himself. And this personal
sentiment was the germ of a new religion in
their hearts, sown there amidst a tangled
growth of old religious prejudices and supersti-
tions. In loving him, they loved what was true
and generous. Their simple affection for him,
which, it is most interesting to observe, he in-
spired them with unconsciously, not so much
by what he said and did as by what he was,
and which grew in them without any effort on
their part, without their being aware of it, be-
came the central spring of their existence, sanc-
tifying them and re-creating them. In one
word, it was their Religion ; and a Religion of a
Divine origin, the pure work of God, wrought
in them without the conscious agency of any
human will, either theirs or Christ's,

46 THOUGHTS OX

Multitudes since their time, multitudes now
clierish a strong feeling about Christ. There is
a great ado made about ''the love of Jesus."
But it is a very different thing from the natural
human affection felt for him by his first fiiends,
and springing up and growing in them, just
like the love that dwells among kindred. It is
incoherent, mystical, when it is not cant. It
does not spring from any intelligent perception
of his personal traits. It is a zeal for a creed,
for a church, for ''the religion of the fathers,"
or for the dogma of "the Atoning Sacrifice," of
which the name of Jesus has become the sym-
bol ; or for a social order and rights of property,
which he is thought somehow to conserve. His
name has long ceased to represent his personal
qualities as a man. ^"ere "the love of Christ,"
on which so much stress is laid, the result of a
clear insight into the generous attributes of his
personal character, it is quite out of the Cjues-
tion that those who cherished it could have
been so exclusive, time-serving, and cruel, as
Christians have been and are.

The truth is, the personal character of Jesus
has been lost to sight through the dogma of his

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 47

Supreme Divinity, in the confounding idea of
his Double Nature. The Unitarian denomina-
tion has been based and formed upon a denial
of the truth of these representations. It was
necessary, in the course of things, that this
denial should be made, as it has been made,
with signal ability. But no denomination can
long subsist on a denial. There is no religious
life, no spiritual nutriment, to be derived from
a negative. "We must have reasons for be-
lieving, as well as for not believing. So strong
is this necessity, that a tendency appears among
liberal Christians to return to the positive
grounds of orthodoxy. They are growing sensi-
ble of the want of a faith that affirms. " Ice can
make no conflagration." It is high time, there-
fore, that we should affirm, — affirm the hu-
manity of Christ clearly and broadly; lest,
halting on a barren denial, we become entan-
gled in the teasing shreds of the old dogma of
his mystical nature, and be drawn back again
into bondage to ''weak and beggarly elements.'*
"When the personal character of Jesus emerges
in its natural beauty from the clouds of super-
stition in which it has been hid, then to us, as

48 THOUGHTS ON

to his first disciples, it will become a spring of
all-purifying affection, a positive religion, exer-
cising all our sensibilities, and contributing to
that greatest of works, the regeneration of cha-
racter.

How wearisome is the sight of man's abortive
attempts to make himself holy ! I have lost all
confidence in them. Poor, ignorant, sinful
creature that he is, he sets to work in good
faith, and takes great pains to collect all sorts
of spiritual machinery, doctrines, and creeds,
and sacraments, '^ means of grace,'' as he calls
them, and I know not what. He sets himself
large tasks of self-denial and philanthropy and
devotion. He goes to work with an energy one
cannot but admire, building up, regardless of
expense, huge Bible and Tract societies ; but, in
and through it all, he is so keenly and sleep-
lessly self-conscious, that, at every stage of the
work, such an amount of self-conceit, like some
poisonous gas, is generated, that the whole
thing is spoiled through and through, and the
result is most pitiable. The cheapest thing that

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 49

he manufactures is better, of its kind, than his
religion. It makes a great show and noise, — a
perpetual grinding, but no grist. It has neither
beauty that we should desire it, nor strength
that we can lean upon. It inspires no respect.
It can stand no test. The worst passions shiver
it into atoms by their outbursts, or get control
of it and make it subservient to their base pur-
poses.

How beautiful and how sure is the Divine
method of making men good and religious !
Into a world full of ignorance and sin, men are
sent, — one man at least appears, who, by his
rare personal qualities, and by the mighty touch
of a nature common to him and to all men,
awakens reverence and faith, and makes the
whole world kin. Only consider how much is
done for men when there is created in them re-
verence for what is venerable, and love of what
is lovely. It is a good thing to be beloved, but
to love is far better. Mark, too, how beauti-
fully, beautifully because with the divine hu-
mility of Nature, this sacred sentiment, when

5

50 THOUGHTS 0]^

once planted in the heart and growing there, a
scion from the Tree of Life, bears fruit for the
sustenance of a man's whole being; fruit, of
which, when he once partakes, he will not hun-
ger and thirst any more. In the increasing
ardor of his affection, he forgets himself. He
no longer officiously busies himself with his
spiritual welfare ; and consequently, the Divine
work goes on in him uninterrupted by his inter-
meddling. So far from foolishly priding him-
self upon the growth he is making in every
grace, humility perhaps, whenever he looks at
himself, it is only to be humbled indeed at the
contrast between himself and the goodness
which he is learning heartily to revere. Never-
theless, he cannot learn to love what is pure
without parting with his own impurities. He
cannot reverence the large-minded and remain
narrow. He cannot love love, and continue
selfish. This is the way in which man is rege-
nerated in truth, and to the very centre. It is not
a speedy work, but it is genuine and sure. The
most imposing instances of it are those poor
fishermen of Galilee, who w^ere brought into
personal acquaintance with the Man of Naza-

THE LIFE OE JESUS. 51

reth; and thereby, be it forever remembered,
not so much by his saying and doing as by his
being, were changed into renowned Apostles
and martyrs of Eternal Truth. "What he was to
them, he may be again to us all. In his per-
sonal character, there is a natural spring of Reli-
gion, perennial and refreshing to every soul of
flesh.

Certain it is, that the best things that we
know of, the things that most nourish us, and
are most powerful in giving life to the world,
and in kindling man's aspirations, are the cha-
racters of the great and good. These it is that
' uphold and cherish' the world, and save men
in the darkest times from the loss of great ideas
and generous hopes. These it is, the great and
good, whose names are the mighty spells which
reanimate mankind when well-nigh borne down
and vanquished in the great struggle of life.

Among all noble human characters, the cha-
racter of this wondrous Jewish youth shines
pre-eminent in its great simplicity, simple in a
new and still most natural beauty. Were the

o2 THOUGHTS ON

heavens to open over our heads, what vision
could we behold there, which would give us
such a sense of the Divine as comes to us
through his human greatness !

Now, to this grand character of the Man of
Nazareth, the singular acts ascribed to him are
of indispensable importance, because they are
its manifestations. They illustrate it. "What
manner of man he was, — the quality of his in-
terior being, is to be ascertained through what
he did and his way of doing it.

How do we know that the wonderful things
related of Jesus actually happened? This is
the great question. How do I satisfy myself
that the miracles really occurred as they are
represented ?

To this inquiry, the first thing I have to say
in reply is, that, if the acts ascribed to Jesus
were not his acts at all, then they must be
fabulous exaggerations, accretions that rapidly
gathered from the wonder-loving atmosphere of
the age around the simple truth, distorting and

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 53

concealing it. And if they are fabrications of
this sort, they do not illustrate him, neither can
they. In this case, they resemble artificial
flowers fastened by children upon a living bush.
All very beautiful they may look to the chil-
dren. But there is no natural connection be-
tween them and the plant to which they are
attached. The sap of that does not circulate in
them. You can get no hint of the nature of
the plant from an examination of these flowers.
So I say, if the narratives of the miracles of
Jesus are fictitious, they can be no illustrations
of him. Or, if they are exaggerations so mon-
strous that we cannot now ascertain the actual
facts of the case, so far from illustrating his
character, they will only betray their own false-
hood by their obvious inconsistency with it.

But the fact is, these narratives, rightly
taken, do illustrate him. Improbable as these
extraordinary events at first sight appear, they
are found, upon a faithful examination, to be
eminently characteristic of him. And it is this
fact, that the miracles are not like the artificial
flowers that I just now spoke of, but show very
plain marks of being a natural growth, leaves

6^

64 THOUGHTS ON

and blossoms of the living tree with which they
are connected, that proves that they really took
place, being inseparable portions of his nature
and history.

Putting out of view all the miraculous parts
of the history, taking only the teachings of
Jesus, and those portions of the Records, which,
stating nothing out of the ordinary course of
things, are perfectly credible, and readily com-
mand assent, we are able to form some general
idea of him. "We see very clearly that he must
have been a person of eminent wisdom and
goodness. So much is admitted even by the
most sceptical.

ISTow, may we not use this general idea of
him which the most cursory reading of the New
Testament gives us, as a criterion by which to
determine the truth or falsehood of the stories
that are told of him ?

"Whatever a man does, depicts the man on
the minds of all beholders, and shows his
quality. Everything that he does, alwaj^s has a
certain consistency with all else of his doing.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 55

One and the same expression appears in every
act. He cannot wholly disguise his looks or his
gait. Accordingly, when any act or series of
acts is attributed to one whom we know, we
can at least tell, from what we know of him,
whether it be like him. Now, so simple and
elevated is the character of Jesus, as it may be
gathered from the general tenor of his history,
that it cannot be difficult to decide whether
acts, so new and strange as the miracles, be in
keeping with him or not ; whether they be like
him, so much like him, that in them we recog-
nize him.

Suppose any one were to set himself at work
to fabricate a variety of actions, and, describing
them circumstantially and as done in the most
public manner, like the miracles of the Kew
Testament, should attribute them to some per-
son with whose general traits of character we
were already familiar. I say nothing of the
difficulty of fabricating facts as various as the
works recorded in the Gospels, and of keeping
them consistent with one another in the midst
of a great diversity of particulars; although
this is a point not to be overlooked. But the

56. THOUGHTS ON

question now is : could such fabrications, even
if they harmonized one with another, be mixed
up with reality, and ascribed to an individual
of known character, without our being able to
decide whether it were like him to do such
things ?

Most especially would the facility of a deci-
sion in such a case be increased, if the acts in
question were of a peculiar kind, and, in the
fabrication of them, the inventor had no prece-
dents to go by. I think it would be absolutely
impossible to interweave fictitious miracles into
the life of a person of so simple and grand a
character as Jesus of Nazareth, without pro-
ducing an incongruity obvious to the most ordi-
nary understanding. The Apocryphal Gospels
prove as much. Two things, the most opposite
to conceive of: the character of Jesus on the
one hand, and the working of miracles on the
other ; the former thoroughly natural, the latter
to all appearances out of the course of Nature,
were to be brought together, and so commin-
gled that they should constitute one harmo-
nious whole. This was the problem. This is
the transcendent miracle which is believed to

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 57

have been wrought in the rude narratives of the
'New Testament, when it is maintained that the
remarkable facts contained therein are fables.

Suppose the miracles of Jesus to be mere
fabrications. They were invented then in a
superstitious and w^onder-loving age, for the
sake of making him appear more remarkable.
But is it conceivable that the passion for the
marvellous, which, like all human passions, is
blind to everything but its special object, could
tamper in the slightest degree with the beau-
tiful simplicity of his Life without deforming
it ? Would not such fictions inevitably destroy
its unity and naturalness ? Would not the bare
idea of making him appear greater, by ascribing
to him acts which he never performed, show at
once that the real beauty of his character was
not perceived ? And how could those who did
not understand his character fabricate facts that
should be in harmony with that character?

What I say is this : the wonderful things
which he is said to have done, so far from mar-

58 THOUGHTS ON

ring the symmetry of his being, do, with a few
exceptions, most luminously illustrate its great-
ness. They are in the most consummate har-
mony with all his known and probable quali-
ties. There is nothing that he said or did more
strikingly characteristic of him than his mira-
cles so called. ITo thing that is told of him
shows him to us more distinctly. Indeed, were
his miracles left out of view, we should lose the
most impressive means of knowing what man-
ner of person he was. I trust this will appear
in the following pages.

The miracles of Jesus being regarded, not as
fables but as actual occurrences, the question
arises: How were they wrought? By what
means did he produce these astonishing ejffects?

I answer, not by a power breaking through
or suspending the laws of N"ature, but hy means
of a natural gift. As he was endowed by
l^ature with great sensibility and extraordinary
quickness of apprehension, and clearness and
depth of insight, as, indeed, we all come into
life endowed with various powers, powers dif-

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 69

fering in different individuals in degree and
kind, but alike wonderful, alike miraculous^ in
all, so was lie naturally endowed witli a power
such as no other man has ever been known to
possess. lie could heal the sick, restore sight
to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and, under
certain conditions, raise the recently dead, and
all by a simple volition. The power of pro-
ducing these effects instantaneously was, as I
conceive, just as natural to him, just as much
a part of his nature, as the power to speak, to
hear, to move, is of ours. It was not a
power that he had acquired. It was a faculty
native to him. How it came to him he could
not tell, nor whence ; save that, like all other
power possessed by him or by any one, it was
from God. He himself gave no other account
of it. There was no other account of it to be
given. The source of all power, whether ordi-
nary or unusual, is God. The power of pro-
ducing such striking effects by a brief act of the
will was, in a word, the genius of Jesus. It
came to him as it comes to a child to walk or
to speak. It was a part and property of his
nature.

60 THOUGHTS ON

Although tliis natural talent or gift, this
magnetic force of will, was possessed by him as
by no other man, yet it was a gift identical in
kind with a power that exists in ns all; and,
indeed, I believe it to have been the same
power carried out and developed in him to an
uncommon deo;ree.

Whatever may be thought of the claims of
Animal Magnetism to be esteemed a science, it
has abundantly shown this much at least : that
the limits of the power inherent in the human
will are not yet distinctly ascertained. That
there is an untold amount of power in the will,
has been too fully attested to admit of a doubt.
Oftentimes, under peculiar conditions, that
power has been so suddenly and mightily
developed, as to cause instantaneously the most
astonishing physical effects. We have all heard
of cases in which violent diseases have been
completely cured at once through a strong im-
pression made upon the mind. We all know
how powerfully the mind acts upon the body.
I have myself had experience of the power of a
mental state to cause the sudden and entire
cessation of acute physical pain.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 61

Such was the fine organization of Jesus, so
exquisitely was he constituted, as his whole his-
tory shows, that the power which is only rucli-
mental in other men, flowered out into a beau-
tiful completeness in him; so that to efiect
instantaneous cures by his will was as natural
to him and as easy as to breathe. I repeat, it
was his genius, a gift that he was born with.

I INFER that he was naturally endowed with
the power of producing these great effects in-
stantaneously, from the manner in which he is
represented as using it. I judge that it was a
natural power, because it shows so naturall3^

It appears always to have been at his com-
mand. It required no preliminary formalities.
It came as easily to him as to speak. He uses
no formula of adjuration, no appeal to any
name or power above himself. He exerts his
power with a manifest air of personal authority,
as if there were nothing that he was so tho-
roughly conscious of as this power. At tlie
same time, he does not appear to have tliought

6

62 THOUGHTS ON

mnch of it himself. Or rather, he seems to
have been unconscious that there was anvthins:
special in it. He thought no more of it, while
he exercised it, than he thought of his feet
when he was walking, or of his voice when he
spoke. He shows no solicitude to prove to
others that he possessed this power. He fre-
quently attributed the striking effects that fol-
lowed the expression of his will, not to himself,
but to the faith of those on whom these efiects
were wrought, fie assured his friends that
they could do the same things, and even
greater, if they only had faith in the smallest
degree. In fine, the exercise of this singular
power by Jesus, is uniformly marked by the
promptitude, the ease, and the spontaneity,
which mark all natural action.

All this looks to me exactly like the action of
natural genius. The possessor of genius does
what his genius inspires him with the faith that
he can do, with so much ease, it comes so natu-
rally to him to do it, that the wonder to him is,
not that he does it, — for how can he help doing
it? — but that everybody else cannot do like-
wise. As far as his own consciousness gives

THE LIFE OE JESUS. 63

him any insight into the secret of his power, he
does what he does, because he has faith that he
can do it. This is as far as he knows ; and so
faith naturally seems to him to be all that is
necessary.

I BELIEVE then that the wonder-working
power in Jesus was a natural gift, like the
genius of Shakspeare, or the extraordinary
faculty of arithmetical calculation occasionally
manifested in individuals.

I hold also, and as an inevitable consequence,
that this great gift was subject to the same laws
which are illustrated in the action of all other
natural powers.

As for example. Before any power can be
exerted by man, he must be conscious of that
power, through the faith which it inspires. He
must believe that he can do what he proposes,
before he can do it. The power of Jesus was
exercised on this condition.

And then again, the vigor of any natural
power that a man possesses, depends upon its
being used in a natural way, rightly. The laAV

64 THOUGHTS ON

which Jesiis himself stated, when he declared
that to him who hath will be given and he will
have abundantly, w^hile from him that hath not
will be taken away even that he hath, applies
to the gift of Jesus equally with all natural
talents. It might have been abused ; in which
case it would have lost vigor, it would have
deceased. Has not this been the sad end, over
and over again, of the rarest gifts of genius ?
Happy is it for mankind that they can never
know how much they have lost in this way ! A
child comes into the world singularly endowed.
It very early show^s signs of its extraordinary
endowment. The things, which it is thus em-
powered to do, it does at first with ease and
simplicity ; never dreaming that it is doing any-
thing wonderful, because, when we first come
into life, there is no one thing more wonderful
to us than another. The child, however, ex-
cites the admiration of its parents and others,
who are not endowed in the same way, or to
the same degree. Their admiration is loudly
proclaimed. The child soon perceives the sen-
sation he is making ; he finds he can do w^hat
others cannot, that he is distinguished. His

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 65

self-importance is impressed upon him. His
vanity awakes. He discovers the delight of
power. He perceives that he can make gain, in
various ways, of his peculiar talent. Selfish
interests take possession of him.

See now how inevitable it is that his peculiar
power should languish and decay, when some
selfish purpose gets possession of him. To the
exercise of his power, a precedent faith in it is
indispensable. We succeed in doing things
that we have never done before, only through a
conviction that comes to us that we are able to
do them. Now this indispensable preliminary,
faith, is impaired, and in the end entirely lost,
when the mind comes to be engrossed and
ruled by things not within the legitimate and
natural sphere of our power. The attention of
the possessor of genius being diverted from the
simple, natural exercise of his genius, the pas-
sion for display or selfish profit having his heart,
he cannot retain command of his genius, be-
cause the faith in it, which is essential to its
exercise, is displaced, and becoming more and
more difiicult through the distraction caused by

6*

66 THOUGHTS ON

selfish aims. What treasures of power have
been lost in this manner !

ITow I say that the peculiar power possessed
by the Man of Nazareth, being a natural endow-
ment, was liable to be impaired and lost in the
same way. At the beginning of his public
career he ^vas tempted, as we read, to put it to
a selfish use. Had he yielded to the tempta-
tion, his power would have gone from him ;
because a mind, inflamed by false aims, and
diverted from the sphere of its healthy activity
by selfish interests, loses of necessity that single
faith in its own power which is essential to
its exercise. But he did not yield to the temp-
tation to consult his private advantage; and,
consequently, he did not suflfer any loss of
powder. He kept it in all its freshness and
vigor. He never abused it, and it was never
exhausted. His simple, natural, unconscious
faith in it was never lost in the feverish excite-
ment and bewildering anxieties of any personal
end. It was the healthy, unconscious faith of
a child. Had it been otherwise with him, this
extraordinary power w^ould have been taken
from him ; but by no arbitrary interposition of

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 67

Heaven. It would have gone from him, just
as all genius goes from its possessors, when,
giving their faith and service to wrong aims,
they lose faith in themselves, and can no longer
work the miracles with which they once de-
lighted and blest mankind.

That the peculiar power exercised by Jesus
was a natural gift, which he was born with, ap-
pears from this, that, instantaneous and asto-
nishing as were its effects, yet, Avhen it was
exercised upon living human beings, its action
was invariably in harmonious relation to other
natural powers. It paid respect to the inner
laws of our nature, and wrought in concert with
them, and its effects were realized through their
co-operation.

"When he healed diseases, he addressed him-
self to the minds of the diseased. When he
restored the withered hand, he did not exercise
his power upon the suflering limb, but he com-
manded the man to stretch out his hand. And
what a startling impression he must have made

68 THOUGHTS ON

upon the mind of this man becomes evident
upon a consideration of the circumstances as
they are stated, or may be fairly inferred from
the Records. When I depict to myself the
scene of this particular miracle, I find anything
easier than to doubt its reality. Just look into
that crowded synagogue, or Jewish church.
Behold that young man there upon whom all
eves are fastened with breathless interest. See
the little knot of the elders of the church, look-
ing at him askance, with aversion and dread,
watching for some opportunity to put him
down. In the midst of this excited assembly,
a man w^ith a withered hand, a private indivi-
dual, all unused to be an object for the public
gaze, is commanded by the strange young man
from K'azareth to stand forth before all present.
There he stands, trembling with wonder and
awe and vague expectation ; not knowing what
was to be done to him, except that his hand was
to be restored he knows not how. A pindrop
silence pervades the place. Then Jesus turns
to those elders, men eminent for their piety,
so zealous for the sanctity of the Sabbath, that
they considered it profaned by an office of hu-

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 69

mauitj^, and now ready to denounce Mm as a
Sabbath-breaker if he dared to heal the man.
Listen to the bold and searching appeal which
he makes to these men who were longing to
destroy him. ^'Is it lawful/' he asks them, ^^to
do well on the Sabbath day or to do evil, to
save life or to kill ?" As if he had said, '' Which
is breaking the Sabbath, you or I ?" They make
no reply, for there is no reply to be made.
There these pious leaders of the people stood, —
their spiritual pride in the dust, — silenced, con-
founded, cowering before the mingled glances
of his indignation and pity ! What a scene was
there ! It must have been awful, the humilia-
tion of these saints before all the people.
Deadly must have been the hate which Jesus
excited. As no answer came to him, he turned
to the man with a withered hand, and, in that
thrilling tone of authority which suited the
occasion, and which I cannot disconnect from
my idea of him, he commanded the man to
stretch out his hand. It was of course like an
electric stroke, to be thus suddenly and authori-
tatively addressed by that extraordinary person
and in that awestruck assembly. The man

70 THOUGHTS ON

stretclied forth his hand instantly, before he
knew what he was doing. The movement was,
hi a manner, instinctive.

And so it was always. Christ wrought upon
the body through the mind. And he attached
great importance to a certain state of the mind
in the sufferer, faith^ as instrumental to the
cure. His will acted upon and stimulated the
will of the diseased person ; and this it did the
more readily when the will of the person acted
upon was already stimulated by confidence in
the power of Christ. Again and again, where
those whom he relieved were, through the live-
liness of their faith, peculiarly sensitive to his
influence, the efiect was so immediate and deci-
sive, so wholly unaccompanied by any conscious
exercise of power on his part, that he attributed
their cure to their own faith alone.

There are two modes of thought, two systems

of philosophy, which divide the thinking world.

According to one, the material takes prece-

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 71

deuce of the immaterial; and the mind is re-
garded as nothing more than the result of the
bodily organization, just as music results from
the structure of a musical instrument. Accord-
ing to this, the material philosophy, " the brain
secretes thought pretty much as the liver se-
cretes bile," and the thinking power can have
no separate existence after the visible mechan-
ism of the body is broken up.

The other mode of thinking is directly the
reverse of this. It is the spiritual or transcen-
dental philosophy. It regards the mind, or im-
material thinking part of us, not as the result
or property of the bodily organism, but as tliQ
creative source, the originating and informing
life, the substance of the body. In conformity
to this way of thinking, the immaterial precedes
the material. It is through the vital energy of
the spirit that the body is originally constructed
and subsequently sustained.

I hold to the latter philosophy as by far the
sounder and the better supported, and infinitely
more inspiring of the two.

Accepting this way of thinking, I think I
perceive how it was that Jesus wrought those

72 THOUGHTS ON

instantaneous cures, and how naturally, and in
what harmony with natural laws they were
wrought. He stimulated into sudden and un-
usual activity the minds of those on whom he
produced these effects; and so, by an imme-
diate development of that spiritual power which
is the central spring of vitality, bodily diseases
were thrown off and physical defects were re-
paired. That diseases have been suddenly
cured in this way, by a sudden and powerful
influence exerted by the mind, there is, as I
have said, no question. In the case of Christ's
cures, the vitalizing power of the sufferers, who
applied to him, was excited into extraordinary
activity, not by fear or hope, but by the deepest
and by far* the strongest sentiment of our na-
ture, by the sentiment of veneration. How
powerful that is, and how powerfully he ap-
pealed to it, we can never know till we appre-
ciate the winning beauty, the commanding
greatness of his life.

I HAVE said that Christ did not apply his sin-
gular power to the suffering body, but that he
healed the body through the mind.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 73

There are some things, however, stated in
the Gospels, which appear to indicate the re-
verse. For instance, he touched the leper.
Again and again he laid his hands upon the in-
firm. In the ninth chapter of John we have an
account of a man born blind, whom Jesus re-
stored to sight. We are told that, in this in-
stance, " he spat on the ground and made clay of
the spittle^ and anointed the eyes of the Hind with
the clay^' and told the man to go and wash in
the pool of Siloam : and he went and washed,
and came seeing. In another instance, they
brought to him one that was deaf, and had an
impediment in his speech. And Jesus took
him aside from the crowd, and put his fingers
into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue,
and said unto him, Ephphatha, that is to say,
Be opened. And straightway his ears were
opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed
and he spake plain.^ Once more, they brought
a blind man to him. And he took the blind
man by the hand and led him out of the town ;
and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his
hands upon him, he asked him if he saw aught.

» Mark vii, 32-35.

7

74 THOUGHTS ON

And he looked up and said, I see men, as
trees, walking. After that he put his hands
again upon his eyes^ and made him look up :
and he was restored, and saw every man
clearly.^

These instances seem to contradict the asser-
tion that Jesus did not apply his power to the
diseased limbs or organs of those whom he re-
lieved. But the contradiction is only apparent.
In the case of the leper, it is not at all neces-
sary to suppose that the touch of Christ had any
miraculous efficacy. It was a natural, instinc-
tive movement on the part of Jesus, fitted and
possibly intended to give increased animation
to the sufierer's faith ; which it did, by express-
ing the perfect confidence of Jesus, by showing
that he had no fear of contracting that frightful
disease.

In the case of the deaf and the blind, it must
be borne in mind that the communication be-
tween him and them was broken, or at least
very much impaired. It was necessary that it
should be restored. Accordingly he used the
simple means mentioned in the cases referred

* Mark viii, 24.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 75

to above, not because there was any miraculous
virtue in them, but only to express his will to
the minds of those sufferers. The deaf could
not be impressed by the authority of his voice.
The blind knew not the power of his eye.
Therefore he made a palpable application to the
eyes of the blind, using the simplest means at
hand. And he put his fingers into the ears of
the deaf man ; and, as he had an impediment in
his speech also, he touched his tongue likewise.
These things I understand him to have done
solely to communicate his purpose to the suf-
ferer. They discharged the office of words.
His '' looking up to heaven*' in this latter case,
and his ''sighing^'' — were they not the means
which he took to convey his meaning to the
man, and to encourage him to make the needed
effort to speak? "Was the sighing anything
more than a long inhalation, which, accompa-
nied by a raising of the eyes, imitated the exer-
tion which the man was to make ? It was by
this pantomimic action that he signified to the
man what he was to do. Only so could he
make the deaf man and the stammerer under-
stand what he wanted of him — what it all
meant.

T6 TiiouanTS on

Thus regarded, these applications to the
bodies or suffering organs of those on whom
he exercised his power, offer no contradiction
to my assertion that Jesus healed the body
through the mind.

Taking the account which I have given of
the peculiar power of Jesus as the true account,
regarding it as a power that was naturally his,
a gift of genius, are we not prepared to perceive
in him a transcendent elevation of mind ? How
beautifully does a Godlike self-forgetfulness
here open upon us ! How far above all self-
concern he was, is shown in his manner of
using his great gift.

Not his possession of this power, hut his per-
fectly generous use of it^ renders him great in my
eyes. It is not for his rare gifts that I revere him^
hut for the pre-eminent superiority to those gifts^
which his manner of employing them shows in him^
and which could he shown in no other way so
strikingly. His miracles (so called), being such as
they are, teach me that he was far greater than
they. Where shall I find words to describe the

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 77

grandeur and pure moral beauty that irradiate
his character under this aspect of it?

Has there a man ever lived, before or since,
who, like Jesus, never seems to have considered
the possession of any peculiar power that he
may have been endowed with, as an ample war-
rant for a corresponding self-valuation ? When
an individual finds himself possessed of a gift
at all rare, and others deferring to him on that
account as an extraordinary person, he natu-
rally comes to see himself through the eyes of
others, as one, to whose preservation and for
whose honor ordinary men must sacrifice their
interests, and it may be their lives. Observing
everywhere the public sense entertained of his
value, how can he help accounting himself
justified by the possession of power in using it
to aggrandize himself? Even though he may
be far above all vulgar self-display, yet he can
hardly escape a false idea of his own importance ;
especially when he finds himself surrounded by
the stupid and the base, by men doggedly
standing in the way of all good, or purposely
misleading the world. How naturally does he
interpret his conscious power as his express

7^

78 THOUGHTS OX

cominission authorizing him to disregard the
rights and lives of inferior men, in order that
one so important as himself may be preserved
to the world. And besides all this, there is the
natural delight taken in the mere exercise of
power, which is always very seductive.

But consider how it was with the young Man
of Nazareth. Only about thirty years of age,
thus in the very bloom of life ; endowed with
keen sensibility and large sympathy, as the
whole tenor of his utterances shows; of obscure
birth, and so poor that he wandered about, not
knowing in the morning where he should rest
his head at night ; actuated by pure and
generous aims, perfectly conscious that he was
prompted to the course of life that he pursued
by no unworthy motive, but by the best, — thus
situated, thus moved, he found himself pos-
sessed of a peculiar power, enabling him to
produce instantaneously the most astonishing
effects by a word of his lips, by a brief act of
his will; a power, which, whenever he exer-
cised it, caused the greatest sensation, and made
him the wonder of the whole country.

And yet, — and here is the singular greatness

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 79

of this most original of characters, — youthful
and susceptible as he was, although he had
lived in retirement from his birth up to that
age, not only does he evince no sensibility to
the natural captivation of power, he is as wholly
unmoved by the public excitement, of which he
is the centre and the cause, as if he were
all alone in the world. And never is he found
using the peculiar gift which was native to him,
as if it entitled him to any deference beyond
what was due to his personal truth. Very clear
and strong in that, he did indeed demand to be
listened to with the respect which is the rightful
claim of personal integrity. But he never
makes the slightest parade of his power. He
uniformly uses it for no purpose but to serve
some impulse of common humanity, never to
obtain anything for himself. Had he employed
it for self-display, such a use of it would have
argued that he himself thought it admirable.
Whereas, never using it as if he thought there
was anything specially wonderful in it, he gives
us, like Nature herself, the idea of a reserved
power, and he is always seen to be far greater
than his works.

80 THOUGHTS ON

There is a delight, I say, in the mere exercise
of power, especially to the young. But to this
delight he shows himself insensible. Although
he used his singular gift for the sake of the
suffering, he did not eagerly seek opportunities
of exercising it, even in this way. How easily
might he have persuaded himself to use it more
frequently, since it was but humane to relieve
the suffering ! But no such plausible sugges-
tions had weight with him to betray him into
excess, or to give his power undue prominence.
There was evidently something that always
interested him far more than relieving bodily
sufferings. He was interested far more in
ministering to the diseases of the mind than in
healing the sick. And this too, although the
latter was sure to make him popular and the
former unpopular, even to the peril of his life.
He was far more concerned to speak great
truths than to work miracles. Accordingly he
withdrew himself again and again from the
great excitement which he caused. He sought
to avoid exercising his gift. It is true, if we
take the Gospels to the letter, we must infer
that the number of his miracles was very great.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 81

But we must allow for the exaggeration natural
in such cases. If a physician works only two
or three remarkable cures, rumor always multi-
plies them, and represents him as healing mul-
titudes. In his history, the teachings of Jesus
are more prominent than his miracles. His
character as a wonder-worker is subordinate to
his character as a teacher.

And when he did exercise his power, it was
with the utmost directness. He took no pains
to certify its reality, or to guard against mis-
representation. He went straight to his pur-
pose. Before the bystanders were aware almost,
the thing was done. He never magnified his
works. He was annoyed because people were
more impressed by his miracles than his teach-
ings. '^ Except ye see signs and miracles," said
he, upon one occasion, "ye will not believe.''
He virtually disclaimed, again and again, the
credit of the cures which he wrought ; telling
those who were relieved, that it was their own
faith that had healed them. He said of Jairus'
little daughter, that she was not dead but only
asleep.

And it is striking to observe that, in the

82 THOUGHTS ON

exercise of his power upon any one occasion,
there was never any excess. He never wasted
it. He used only so much power as was abso-
lutely necessary.^ In the case of the child just
referred to, there was no needless display. He
revived her, but he did not bring her back to
full health instantly. He exerted no unusual
power to do what did not require it. He barely
revived her, and then, relying for her entire
restoration upon ordinary means, directed those
present to give her food. So also, when he
called Lazarus out of the deep slumber, he
bestowed upon him no superabundant strength.
Lazarus awoke and arose at the call of his
friend, but there was no miraculous power in

* " The spider and the bee, the ant and the beaver, are
spendthrifts neither of time nor of toil ; and in all the works
of the Divine Artist around us, — in all the laws of matter and
of motion, — in the frame of man, of animals, and of plants,
the economy of Power is universally displayed. Nothing is
made in vain, — nothing by a complex process which can be
made by a simple one ; and it has often been remarked by
the most diligent students of the living world, that the infinite
wisdom of the Creator is more strikingly displayed in the
economy than in the manifestation of power." — Sir David
Brewster,

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 83

his limbs to enable him to come forth with
ease, "bound hand and foot" as he was "in
grave-clothes," and with a cloth covering his
face. At the vision of the dead man alive, and
staggering in the thick folds of his shroud, the
bystanders stood transfixed with amazement
and dread. And Jesus recalled them to them-
selves by bidding them go to the assistance of
Lazarus, and loosen the grave-clothes that he
might walk freely. Indeed, so frugal was he of
his power, that on one occasion, in the case of
a blind man, he had to repeat the effort to re-
store him ; as, after the first application of his
power, the man's sight was only partially re-
stored, and he could barely distinguish men
from trees. In the account of the extraordinary
multiplication of the loaves and fishes, one of
the striking incidents of that event, creating a
strong presumption of its truth, is the char-
acteristic direction of Jesus : " Gather up the
fragments, so that nothing be lost."^

' Rammohun Roy, in the Preface to his '^ Precepts of
Jesus," excuses himself for omitting the miracles, on the
ground that the Hindoos, for whose instruction that work was
prepared, would not be struck by them, as they were accus-

84 THOUGHTS ON

Like God, like Nature, is the unconscionsness
of doing anything remarkable that characterizes
Jesus, the wonder-worker. He produces those
striking effects as if nothing in the world were
more a matter of course. And although people
came to him in such numbers, and so continu-
ally, that he had not time so much as to eat,*
and although the crowd was at times so great
that there was no getting into the house where
he was,^ and some were in danger of being
crushed and trampled under foot,^ still no heav-
ing surges of public wonder could disturb the
singleness of his purpose, or put him under the
slightest constraint. He still extended his hand
to heal the sick, he still spoke to relieve the
suffering, with a manner as simple as if there
were not an eye to behold what he was doing,
nor a heart to beat with admiration and awe.

tomed to much more extraordinary miracles in tlieir own reli-
gion. A striking tribute to the homeliness and simplicity of
the works of Jesus.

^ Mark iii, 20 ; vi, 31. ^ ^i^^]. j^ 33 . jj^ 4^ 3 l^j^^ ^ii, 1.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 86

Indeed, dear as Truth was to Jesiis, and
wholly given as lie was to its service, yet he
did not avail himself of his power even to serve
that dear cause. He did not employ it in that
interest alone or primarily, if, indeed, ever.
Could we discharge our minds of all long-
cherished, preconceived opinions on this point,
I think the main impression left upon our
minds, by his history, would be, that his first
and chief inducement to the exercise of his
power uniformly was pure pity for the suffer-
ing that he witnessed. Just as any one would
instinctively reach forth his hand to rescue a
fellow-being in danger, so, just as naturally and
with no ulterior aim, Christ extended his hand
and exerted his will to heal and restore. I wish
to say distinctly, that the working of miracles
was wholly incidental with him to higher pur-
poses, that they did not make a part of his
plan, supposing that he had any plan. "When
he healed a sick person, it was not with one
eye upon the object of his compassion, and the
other upon the effect which the good work was

86 THOUGHTS ON

to have upon his own repute. Not double, but
single was his aim, and it was humanity alone
that moved him.

It has been so long taken for granted, as a
point beyond all dispute, that the miracles, so
called, were designed as the express credentials
of the authority of Jesus, that it requires some
effort to see them under the aspect in w^hich I
am endeavoring to present them ; and which, I
think, the Gospels authorize : as simple acts of
humanity.

It is true Jesus is represented as referring to
his works in attestation of the Divine favor.
This is not denied. " The w^orks that I do, bear
w^itness of me that the Father hath sent me."
" The works that I do in my Father's name,
they bear witness of me." ''If I do not the
works of my Father, believe me not. But if I
do, though you believe not me, believe the
works." Again, Jesus is described, in the
Book of the Acts of the Apostles, as " a man
approved of God among you by miracles and
wonders and signs which God did by him." It

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 87

is true an appeal was made to the works of
Jesus, in attestation of his truth. And it is
also true, that they do attest it.

But it by no means follows that it was his
motive and express design, when he did those
works, to prove his own authority. Any honest
man may justly appeal, as Jesus did, to his
character; to the good which he has done, or
endeavored to do, when maligned, as Jesus
was. But such an appeal does not, by any
means, render it necessary to suppose that his
motive in doing good was to prove his own
benevolence or honesty.

On the contrary, the worth of a man's good
deeds, as testimonials to his truth, depends en-
tirely upon his being actuated by no reference
to the eftect which they are to have upon his
reputation. When one performs a good act,
not with a single eye to it, but with a view to
the influence it will give him with others, does
it not instantly lose its worth as a good deed ?
It certainly shows him to be, not self forgetting
but directly the reverse, self-interested when he
professed to be disinterested. He cannot refer
to it as evidence of the pure benevolence of his

88 THOUGHTS ON

motive, for it is not. But when he discharges
kind offices for others without the slightest
thought of any credit it is to reflect upon him-
self, then, when his motives are impugned, he
may, without exposure to the charge of vain-
glory, appeal to what he has done, in attestation
of his innocence.

To apply these remarks to Jesus. It was
natural and just that he should refer those, who
charged him with corrupt designs, to his deeds,
and let them speak for him. He was accused
of sinister designs. He demanded to be be-
lieved. Very naturally he appealed to what he
was doing. ' If you will not believe what I say,
consider what I do. I refer you to my actions.
Are they the actions of a true man or a false V

Such, I conceive, was the purport of his ap-
peal to his works ; which, be it fully considered,
could not have had the slightest worth, as
vouchers for the purity of his aims, unless they
were what they professed to be, single-hearted
works of humanity. It was as works of pure
mercy that they showed themselves to be ' the
works of the Father,' accrediting him by whom
they were wrought. They were not Divine

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 89

works if the principal intent, with which they
were done, was, not to relieve those in whose
behalf they were wrought, but merely to dis-
play extraordinary power. God never does
anything in Nature merely to show his power ;
although it is very common to hear people
speak as if He did, as if He had arranged all the
planets and stars, and constructed every plant
and every animal for the sake of proving that
He exists to the satisfaction of man, as if the
Almighty were anxious on that point. The
pride of the little creature !

Do not the foregoing very simple considera-
tions render it clear that the reference of Jesus
to his works, in self- vindication, is not at va-
riance, but in entire harmony with the character
of those works as I have described them ?

I WISH to make it appear, for I believe the
New Testament history authorizes it, that, in
doing the extraordinary things attributed to
him, Jesus had no aim bej^ond doing what was
right and humane at the time. And it is on

90 THOUGHTS ON

this very account, because his eye was thus
single, beaming only with sympathy, that his
works show themselves to be divine. We lose
all thought of them as mere displays of power,
even as he himself made no account of them in
this respect. It was not for the sake of show-
ing his power, even for the plausible purpose of
convincing the people of the truth of his teach-
ings, that he performed these works. When
the sick and the lame and the blind were
brought to him, he was "moved hy compassion.''
It was from this sacred dictate of ITature that
he relieved them. This was his ruling motive,
— all that he thought of at the moment. It did
not occur to him, or, when it did occur to him,
it had no influence to distract his purpose, that
these beneficent acts would redound to his
credit. This is what I mean when I say that,
in doing these works of mercy, he had no ulte-
rior aim.

This idea, I think, is very strongly sustained
by the very careless manner — careless as to
effect — in which he wrought these cures. Had
he designed them as evidences, the most ordi-
nary wisdom would have required that he

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 91

should put them in the most convincing form,
and always in the clearest light. When he
intended, for instance, to raise Lazarus, he
should have announced his intention before-
hand, and invited the presence of the unbeliev-
ing. Whereas, it was purely accidental, appa-
rently, that any were present except his friends.
He should, at least, have seen to it that every
avenue to suspicion was closed. Instead of
proving his power to restore the dead to life
upon an intimate friend, he should have se-
lected a stranger, between whom and himself
there could be no suspicion of collusion. He
should not have wrought so many miracles in
private. He should have taken ordinary pains,
at least, to guard against mistake or misrepre-
sentation. Whereas, in fact, he was as indif-
ferent to misconstruction as ITature herself. In
the case of the daughter of Jairus, first saying
that she was not dead,^ he sent every one from
the room but her parents and one or two of his

* While our Common Version is generally marked by a
simplicity akin to that of the Original, it is sometimes a little
too rude, — ruder even than the Original. When Jesus told

92 THOUGHTS ON

own friends. Once and again he took infirm
persons aside and healed them in private,
merely because, I suppose, silence and quiet
were, in their cases, necessary to their effectual
and immediate cure. He never shows the
slightest anxiety to make his agency prominent.
Indeed, throughout, in the whole history of this
singular natural gift, there is no quality of the
finest natural action wanting. Grant that he
possessed this power, and all the rest is exactly
as it should be, in order to be in keeping with
his lofty character. All moves and breathes
and has its being in the style of I^Tature.

"While in the exercise of this great power
the manner of Jesus illustrates the simplicity of
Nature and a perfect singleness of mind, it is at

tlie professional mourners (corresponding to mutes at modern
funerals), collected at the house of Jairus, that the child was
not dead but only asleep, it is said, in our Version, that they
^^ laughed him to scoiii,^^ — rather a strong demgnstration for
such a cause, and upon such an occasion. The meaning
simply is, in modern phrase, they treated his decLaration with
derision.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 93

the same time marked by an impressive air of
authority, by the dignity as of a born king.
Never is his tone more commanding, never
more expressive of the consciousness of power,
than when he is giving utterance to his potent
will. "I will. Be thou clean.'' "Young man,
I say unto thee, arise!" "Stretch forth thine
hand!'' "Lazarus! come forth!" And his
manner was thus dignified because, in doing
these things, he was doing what was perfectly
natural to him. He was evidently born to the
power which he thus wielded. And it is proved
to be his by its being thus easy in him. How
could a fictitious power ever have been repre-
sented as harmonizing so gracefully to the very
life with his great mind ?

As conscious of his poAver as of his existence,
he was no more solicitous about the one's being
acknowledged than about the other's. And
here, I apprehend, is another reason why the
exercise of his power was so unstudied. The
only desire he expressed, so far as others were
concerned, was, in repeated instances, that
nothing should be said of it, — that those whom
he cured should tell no man. He saw what a

94 THOUGHTS ON

sensation was created. Instead of taking ad-
vantage of it, he did what he could to allay it,
by withdrawing from public notice, and by
charging those whom he relieved to say nothing
about what he had done for them.

It strikes me also as a very original quality
in him that, young as he was, and conscious as
he must have been of an unwonted personal
force, it seems never to have occurred to him
to rely upon anything else than the unmixed
power of Truth. Most manifest is it that that
was, in his eyes, immeasurably the greatest
power in the universe of things. So entire was
his reliance on that and that alone, that even
the unprincipled and ferocious opposition which
was made to him never suggested to him the
idea of securing, by his great personal power,
such an ascendency over the people as would
have rendered all opposition to him unavailing.
He is not greater for what he did than for what
he forbore to do.

What I say is this, that not only was he in-

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 95

sensible to every temptation to use his power
in order to increase his personal influence, but
he was thus insensible under the most trying
circumstances, in a position that would seem to
have justified him in using whatever means
were within his reach to fortify himself and his
influence. He never dishonored Truth by divid-
ing his confidence between her and any other
power. He loved the Highest with a whole
and undivided heart. He never infringed upon
the tribunal of reason and conscience to which
he uniformly addressed himself. His constant
use of the interrogative form of expression
shows how ever-present to his mind was that
high tribunal.

I do not challenge admiration for him be-
cause he never sought with all his great power
to inflict injury upon those who persecuted him.
But the wonder is, that, confronted as he was
by powerful and merciless foes, he was still as
serene and as unmoved by them, as if he
neither had an enemy on earth, nor any unu-
sual means of resisting hostility. To use his
great gift, save for some blessed office of mercy,
appears never to have been thought of by him.

96 THOUGHTS ON

How clear Ms vision, how pure his aim, never
to have been deluded into thinking that, as he
had the good of men so much at heart, he
would be justified in using all the means in his
reach to strengthen himself, and that those
who so wickedly withstood his generous labors,
deserved no consideration at his hands ! That
most plausible of errors, the error to which the
strongest and the wisest have so often yielded,
namely, that the end justifies the means, derives
not the slightest authority from him.

Where does unconsciousness of self show so
beautifully as in those who, in forgetting them-
selves, forget all the abundant means of self-
advancement which their own richly-endowed
but self-forgotten natures ofler? Surely it is
through such natures that Love manifests itself
as all divine.

The popular idea of Jesus as a being pos-
sessed of supreme divinity, or of a pre-existent,

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 97

super-angelic nature, has the effect, as it is
often remarked, to destroy the influence of his
personal character. When his nature is de-
clared to differ thus essentially from ours, we
lose all means of estimating his strength.

But no objection of this kind lies against the
representation here given, according to which,
the difference between Jesus and other men is,
not a difierence of nature, but a difference of
gifts. He was a human being, greatly en-
dowed. So far from being removed beyond
the reach of our sympathy on this account, he
is brought very near to us through the gene-
rosity and greatness of soul, which he shows in
the use of his uncommon power, far nearer
than if he had no such means of manifesting
that generous spirit which the humblest can
appreciate and be inspired by. It is small men,
men of few or no gifts, who are cut off from us
through their want of power to reach and hold
our hearts. But great men, really great men,
so far from standing aloof from us, are brought
down into our inmost souls by their greatness,
because it enables them to enter into our very
being by inspiring us with new sentiments of

9

98 THOUGHTS ON

reverence and love. The ricMy-endowed, when
they are faithful to their great power, are the
dearest friends of us all, of the lowest as well as
of the highest. Jesus of Kazareth is proved to
sustain no ordinary relation to mankind by the
fact that he possessed native powers, which he
so used as to create in all hearts the profoundest
veneration. Under God, he is the nearest rela-
tive of us all, our next of kin in the spirit, a
far closer relationship than that of flesh and
blood. He is bound to us by the affection he
inspires, by which he draws us nearer to Truth
and Goodness, and which belongs to the sacred
essence and soul of our being.

Is not Jesus Christ, then, a far greater bless-
ing to me than any gift of genius could have
been ? I would rather have the vision of his
Godlike Beauty and all that it discloses, than
his power of working miracles. If my friend
has rare genius and is true to it, then he en-
riches me and all men, and the least I can do
in return is to make him welconie to it, His

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 99

generosity is his title to his wealth, which I am
only too happy to attest. He himself is a
richer gift to every man, than any or all of his
natural endowments are to him, or could be to
any one. The love which he creates in us, is a
thousand fold more to us than the possession of
a genius even greater than his.

Although Jesus was indifferent to his power
in relation to himself, yet in relation to God, it
inspired him with a profound sense of the
Highest within him. In the consciousness of
singular power, he was singularly conscious of
God. In his inmost personality he recognized
the Eternal Divinity; Hence, while he said, ' I
am nothing,' he said also, 'I am the Truth,' 'I
am the Light.' We behold the Highest only
dimly and afar off, in the external frame of
Nature. He discerned Him in his own con-
scious being. He could not separate the two.
"I and my Father are one."

100 THOUGHTS ON

It has often been said, and by those who
have been disposed to question nearly all the
particulars of the New Testament History, that,
on the whole, the character of Christ is too
great to have been fabricated; that, were it
fictitious, the existence of such a fiction would
be even more difficult to be accounted for than
the actual existence of such a character.

Now I maintain that there is no respect, in
which the character of Christ is more decisively
elevated beyond the possibility of being a
fabrication than in the simple natural great-
ness of mind and manner that characterizes
him in the exercise of the extraordinary power
which he is recorded to have possessed. The
conception, in that or in any age, of the great-
ness thus manifested, if it had no reality, would
have been a greater wonder than any recorded
in the New Testament.

That some things are related of Jesus and
represented as extraordinary, which are either

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 101

pure inventions or common occurrences exag-
gerated, does not by any means cast any doubt
on the general truth of the history. On the
contrary, it is a proof that the main events of
his Life must have been of no ordinary char-
acter. Exaggerations and false rumors always
arise from the occurrence of unusual events.
Where there is smoke there is fire. The
story of the transfiguration of the person of
Jesus on a certain occasion, which grew, as I
believe, out of a dream of Peter's, presupposes
the truth of what precedes it and the extraordi-
nary character of the events which excited the
mind of Peter and occasioned the dream.

It is related in the seventeenth chapter of
Matthew that, in order to pay a tax or tribute
that w^as required, Jesus bade Peter go to the
sea (the Sea of Galilee) and cast in a hook, and
take the fish that first came up, and to open its
mouth, where he would find a piece of money,
with which he w^as to pay the tribute. This is
one of the passages which are either purely
fabulous or exaggerations of ordinary events.
It does not sound like Jesus. It is a petty and
needless display of power. It has the air of a

102 THOUGHTS ON

childish invention. Besides, it is not difficult
to see how this story may have arisen. Had
Jesus merely directed Peter to pay the tribute
by catching some fish to be sold for that pur-
pose, and had Peter, obeying the direction,
chanced to be so fortunate as to catch almost
immediately a fish valuable enough to furnish
the amount of money required, how natural is
it that the account of the incident should have
grown into its present shape. How stories
grow we all know from every day's experience.
There is a very satisfactory instance of it in the
account, or rather in one particular of the ac-
count, of the woman who came behind Jesus,
and was cured of a chronic disease by touching
his clothes. The fact that the woman was
cured, and instantly, I see no reason for ques-
tioning, but decisive reasons for believing. It
is not to the main fact that I now refer, but to
the mention which is made of virtue's going out
of Jesus. This is a fabulous addition to the
narrative as, I think, very plainly appears.
Matthew's account of this woman, which I con-
sider to be nearest the truth, says nothing about
virtue. He merely states that Jesus turned

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 103

round and asked who touched him, and the
woman came forward and confessed that it was
she. I suppose the woman, who must have
been all in a tremor of excitement, did not
merely touch his garments, but twitched them
convulsively, clutching for life. Jesus, feeling
something peculiar, and probably, from pre-
vious experience, surmising the truth, thus dis-
covered that he had been touched. But it was
very naturally inferred by the bystanders that
he discovered that some one had touched him
by the passing away of the miraculous power
from his person. Accordingly, in Mark's ac-
count, this inference is stated; and it is said in
so many words that Jesus asked who had
touched him, "because he perceived that virtue
had gone out of him." This inference being
once stated, it was a very natural step to repre-
sent Jesus as saying, in so many words, that he
felt the virtue go out of him. So it is related
by Luke, who states that Jesus actually said,
'^I perceive that virtue has gone out of me."
He could have said no such thing, as it is appa-
rent that the reason why he wished to know
who touched him was, that he might correct

104 THOUGHTS ON

tlie impression that the person who had
touched him was under, namely, that there
w^as a medical virtue in his very garments, and
that he might direct the person healed to the
true cause of the cure. " Thy faith hath healed
thee," was his language to the woman. Thus
we have an instance of the way in which a
story may grow.

Another incident, which it is not easy to re-
ceive as true, is the walking on the ivater. No
reason or motive therefor appears. It has an
air of display unlike him. At the same time it
is so connected with a characteristic act of
Peter's, that, while I cannot clearly discern the
truth of the fact, I cannot reject it.

Again. Fabulous as the story of the evil
spirits' entering the herd of swine appears, and
although no satisfactory explanation of it can
be given, yet some of the particulars which it
states, are strikingly probable from their natu-
ralness. To repeat very briefly here what I
have stated more at length elsewhere:^ the
power which Jesus exercised over the maniac

^ Jesus and his Biographers,

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 105

was exerted gradually. The man was not com-
pletely restored at the first bidding of Jesus.
He still talked insanely. There is a resem-
blance in this respect between this case and
that of the blind man to whom Jesus twice
applied his power. Again, that such a form of
insanity, caused by the popular belief in de-
moniacal possession, should have existed, is
very natural. This individual, it may be con-
jectured, being of a nervous temperament, had
had his imagination excited by the fear that he
might become the victim of evil spirits. The
dread so preyed upon him, that, losing mental
control, he had come' to believe that the posses-
sion of himself had passed into other and evil
hands. That he fancied that a whole legion of
spirits were in him, shows how strong his faith
was that he was possessed. Once more. The
proposition to send the spirits into the swine
was the suggestion of the insane man, and it
shows the cunning of insanity. He fancied,
doubtless, that he was speaking admirably in
character, when, speaking in their name and
according to their supposed unclean propensi-
ties, he asked to be sent into the swine, those

106 THOUGHTS ON THE LIFE OF JESUS.

unclean animals. At the same time, he desired
to have ocular proof of the departure of the
spirits. And thus it would appear that the
man could be restored to his wits only by a
compliance with his request ; so hypochondriacs
have been cured only by being humored. Al-
though these suggestions point to some basis of
fact in this passage of the history, yet it is very
difficult, and I cannot speak with any confi-
dence as to the degree of truth which it con-
tains.

There may be one or two other accounts of
miracles, more or less fabulous. The story of
the ITativity I have considered at length in the
work already referred to.

THOUGHTS

II

I WONDER tliat SO mucli importance has been
given to the inquiry, whether the Four Gospels
were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John. Even were this point settled, and in the
most satisfactory manner, still the truth of
these histories could be determined only by a
careful examination of the works themselves.
It would still remain true that they have been
exposed from the very earliest period to vari-
ous causes of corruption ; and it would be very
possible, and indeed not at all unlikely, that
they had suffered from interpolations, and that
the original text had undergone various changes,
especially during the centuries before the inven-

108 THOUGHTS ON

tion of the Art of Printing, wlien they were
multiplied by transcription. They may have
suffered more or less from all those liabilities
to error which Theodore Parker enumerates/
and from which he draws the conclusion, illogi-
cally, as I think, that there is no reliance to be
placed upon their historical truth. ^

Granting, in the language of Mr. Parker,
that there must be ''limitations to the accu-
racy" of these Records, inasmuch as they are
human works, (and what writings are there that
are not thus limited in accuracy, being human?)
that they " omit many things that Jesus said
and did," (what history was ever written with
no omissions?) that "the national, sectarian,
and personal prejudices of the writers must
color their narratives," (what historian has ever
yet written by the pure white light of truth ?) —
granting all this and more, still these writings

^ A Discourse of Matters pertaining to Beligion, pp. 230-
231. Fourth Edition^ 1856.

^ By the same mode of reasoning, the value of all historical
writings is destroyed, for they are all exposed to the very same
liabilities to error, and Theodore Parker himself is doomed to
become a myth.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 109

may contain truth, historical, circumstantial, as
well as moral. And it is possible, from an ex-
amination of them, if not to determine with
precision the amount of truth which they con-
tain, yet to approximate it very nearly. Be-
cause Error may have had a share in their com-
position, or may have corrupted them with its
glosses after they were written, it surely is not
a sound conclusion that they contain nothing
but fables. Even granting that there is very
little of truth in them in comparison with the
amount of fiction which they contain, still, al-
though the quantity may be small, the quality
— the subject of these writings being considered
— may suffice to compensate us bountifully for
any pains we may take to discover it.

I repeat my conviction that it is possible, by
a careful sifting of the contents of these books,
and by a critical analysis of their style and
structure, to ascertain with a very close ap-
proach to exactness wherein they are true and
wherein fabulous. In physical science, we have
advanced so far as to be able to determine with
exquisite accuracy, the exact proportions of the
different substances which constitute any mate-

10

110 THOUGHTS ON

rial compound. I believe there is a like possi-
bility of discovering the proportion of historical
truth, be it more or less, in these Four Histories
of Christ. On the very face of them, they are
of such a character, so abundant in detail, as to
render the success of the proposed examination
very certain. And my friend Theodore Parker,
with the strong reliance upon man's native
sense of truth of which he is constantly giving
us such abundant evidence, should be among
the very last to doubt it.

To the success of such an analysis as I pro-
pose, there is no theory respecting the origin
and primitive fortunes of the Four Gospels that
is of the slightest importance. It may be that
they were not written by the persons whose
names they bear ; or, if written by them, that
they were originally very different in form and
size from what they are now. Conceding all
this, I affirm that these books may be substan-
tially true nevertheless. To what extent they
are true is a question that may be answered.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. Ill

But I hasten to illustrate this position. Mr.
Parker asserts, that ^'the gospel ascribed to
John is of small historical value." Now, by
the same process by which he decides that
this gospel is not a history but a collection of
myths, an argument, or, I know not what, —
by a similar method, I discern in this book, and
in the most important portions of it, signs of
reality of the most decisive character. That
the thirteenth chapter of this gospel is a narra-
tive of actual incidents, I could not be better
satisfied, had I been present in person. It is in-
laid throughout with those marks of truth which
are discernible by a far more trustworthy sense
than the eye, and which, when they are found
in such numbers, create an irresistible convic-
tion of reality. Mr. Parker will say John never
wrote it. Very well. Aut Johannes aiit Dens.
I contend not for names. It is enough that
I have here a narrative of incidents which must
have impressed themselves on the mind of
some one present with the utmost force and
vividness, for here they are in the narrative, re-
produced with the precision of a die, with the
delicacy of an ancient gem.

112 THOUGHTS ON

1. In the first place, the act of washing his
disciples' feet, — how naturally was it suggested
to the mind of Jesus ! If there were any one
thing whicli he had most earnestly sought to
impress upon their minds, it was that they
should renounce their ambitious hopes and
their mutual jealousies. He had aimed to in-
spire them with fraternal confidence one toward
another. On a former occasion, when a dispute
arose among them which should hold the high-
est position in the magnificent empire which
they were passionately expecting him to esta-
blish, he beckoned a little child to him, and,
placing him before them, told them that so far
from being great in the Divine kingdom they
could not so much as enter it, unless they
became as free from all selfish ambition and as
docile as that little child. But notwithstanding
this lesson and others to the same purport, here
at the last, when he was to be with them only a
very little while longer, and when he would
have no more opportunities of instructing
them, — ^here they were, again quarrelling which
should be the first ! We are told in one of the
other gospels that at the last supper the disci-

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 113

pies disputed which should be the greatest. It
is allowable to surmise that the dispute occurred
just when they took their places at the table,
and that there was a struggle for precedence.
This conjecture is not at random. It is sug-
gested, if not directly authorized, by the mode
which Jesus took to rebuke them. That they
struggled for places is intimated by the fact
that he sought to correct them by performing
for them the humblest office of such an occa-
sion. It was characteristic of him thus to adapt
himself to the circumstances of the moment.
Observing their rivalry, which showed how
little they had been impressed by his teachings,
he seems to have determined to give them a
lesson they would never forget. So, selecting
a suitable moment, he silently rose and took a
basin of water, and knelt down, and began to
wash their feet. It was as if he said: ''Ye are
all aspiring to be masters. I will be your ser-
vant. Ye are ambitious of the chief places at
the table. I, whom you call master, perform
for you the most menial office of hospitality.''
The lesson, which he thus gave them, and the
form in which he gave it, — could anything be

more like him ?

10--

11^ THOUGHTS ON

2. The particularity, with which his prelimi-
nary preparations are mentioned, is finely ac-
cordant with the circumstances. His disciples,
not having the slightest idea what he was going
to do, naturally followed and noted every move-
ment. Observe how everything he did is speci-
fied. With every new movement the mystery
grew, and their curiosity grew also. First, it is
related, he rose from supper^ — then laid aside his
garments, — then took a towel, — then girded him-
self,— then poured water into a basin, — and then,
&c.

3. A delicate trait of Nature, revealing the
sentiments with which he was regarded by his
humble friends, is perceived in their silent sub-
mission to the discharge of this menial ofBce by
their master. How undesignedly is the pro-
found personal reverence, with which he had
inspired them, thus expressed ! They did not
dare to question anything that he did. Do we
not catch sight of the looks of wonder and per-
plexity which they exchanged? The utmost
they could imagine was, that he had some pur-
pose which they could not penetrate. But
what could it be ? All were struck dumb but

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 115

Peter. And even his amazement finds no
utterance until Jesus approaches him ; and then
he is unable to repress his emotion.

4. Very characteristic both of Jesus and of
Peter, is the brief conversation that takes place
between them. Every word is in most admi-
rable keeping with the occasion and with the
character of each. " Lord^ thou shalt never wash
my feetV We do not need to be told that it
was Peter who uttered these words. His Gali-
lean accent could not have been more marked.
This exclamation, accompanied, as I always
imagine, with a corresponding movement of his
feet, withdrawing them out of the reach of
Jesus, — how naturally does it burst from the
lips of one who, on a previous occasion, when
Jesus was telling his disciples of the fearful
fate that awaited him, exclaimed, ''Be it far
from thee, Lord ! This shall not be done unto
thee!" Equally characteristic is the reply of
Jesus, ^^ If I wash thee not^ thou hast 7io part with
me,'' Characteristic in this, that it is in con-
formity with that habit of his mind that ren-
dered everything that was said or done in his
presence suggestive of some spiritual truth. So

116 THOUGHTS ON

full was lie of spirituality, that at the slightest
touch his mind overflowed with it. !Not a
movement could take place before him, not a
lily wave, not a sparrow fall, without giving
him a spiritual hint. K'ot a sound could be
heard, that was not articulate with a meaning
that escaped the outward sense. Thus the
mention of washing suggested the thought of
the inward cleansing which every one needed,
who was to take part with him in his great
work. And it is as if he said : ' What ! will
you not let me wash you ? If I do not wash
you, wash you through and through, you can
be no friend of mine.' How perfectly in char-
acter, too, is the instantaneous revulsion in
Peter's mind ! How exactly like the person he
appears to have been, the exclamation, '' Lord^
not my feet only^ hut also my hands and my
head l''^ Failing to catch the spiritual import
of the words of Jesus, he is nevertheless sub-
dued at once, and made pliant to his Master's
will by the intimation that his friendship with

* ^ Not only my feet to run for thee, but my hands to work
for thee, and my head to think only of thee !'

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 117

him was in question. His feet are no longer
withheld. He offers his hands and his head to
the welcome office which is to pledge his devo-
tion to Jesus.

5. Observe how consistent with the very deli-
cacy of nature, and with the magnanimous
character of Jesus in particular, are the reluc-
tant allusions which he makes to the approach-
ing treachery of one of his friends. The first
allusion is very slight. It was suggested by his
talk with Peter about washing. When the im-
pulsive disciple offers his hands and his head to
be washed, Jesus, brought back to the literal
sense of the words, but still postponing an ex-
planation of what he was doing till the fit
moment, remarks, by way of excusing himself
from washing Peter's hands and head, that one
who is clean needs to wash only his feet. The
feet, exposed as they were by the sandals then
worn, often required to be washed when the
rest of the person did not. "And ye are
clean,'' he adds, " but not alV The allusion
here to the false disciple is very distant.
Shortly afterwards, having finished washing
their feet and explained his purpose in the act,

118 THOUGHTS ON

he refers, but more pointedly, to the fact that
there was a traitor among them. " I speah not
of you all^'' he says, '' / Tcnow tliose whom I have
chosen. The language of the Scripture is verified.
He that eateth bread with me^ hath lifted up his
heel against me!'' It evidently wounded him
very deeply that a personal friend, one who had
eaten bread with him, should prove false. How
manifest his reluctance to state the fact in so
many words ! Twice he approaches it, but
only allusively ; the second time, however, more
distinctly than the first. Evident is it also,
that not a breath of personal ilhwill stirs him
to disclose his knowledge of the meditated
treachery. The care he takes to avoid naming
the traitor shows this. He says in so many
words, that he tells them before it comes to
pass, that one of them was about to be false to
him, that, when it shall have happened, they
may continue to believe in him ; for they would
then perceive that he had been fully prepared
for all that was to take place. Having alluded
twice to the painful fact, in obscure terms, at
last, under the necessity of speaking plainly, he
becomes agitated, 'troubled in spirit^'' and with

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 119

much emotion, he declares outright, that one oi
them was about to deliver him up to his ene-
mies.

His knowledge, by the way, of the treacher-
ous design of Judas, it is not necessary to
suppose, was obtained in any extraordinary
manner. Much is omitted in the narrative. If
w^e knew all, we should probably see how easy
it was for Jesus, with his rare knowledge of
men, to penetrate the designs of Judas, and
how naturally too he might be acquainted with
circumstances fitted to throw light on them, but
not mentioned in the history.

But be this as it may, Jesus discloses his
knowledge of the intended treachery with
manifest sorrow ; and he only tells so much as
was necessary to preserve the faith of the rest
of his friends unshaken.

[In Matthew's gospel we read, that when
Jesus made the declaration that one of them
would betray him, his disciples instantly began
to ask, ''Is it I?" How expressive of the deep
personal reverence he had inspired was their
self-distrust ! So implicit was their confidence
in him that, although eleven of them knew

120 THOUGHTS ON

perfectly well in their own hearts that they had
no traitorous intent, yet they thought it more
likely that they were going to commit this
great crime than that he should accuse them
without reason. He knew them, they knew,
better than they knew themselves.]

6. Again. In entire consistency with the
characters of all concerned, are the incidents
that immediately follow upon his telling them
that there was a traitor among them. As he
did not answer their inquiries, Peter beckoned
to John (who was so placed at the table that his
head rested on the bosom of Jesus), to ask who
it was of whom he spake. Tliis question John
asked in a whisper, and, as it appears that no
one but John heard the answer of Jesus, Jesus
must have answered in the same way. Aware
that Peter and perhaps others were waiting
and watching for his reply, fearing also that
they might understand the motion of his lips,
it not being his intention to name the traitor,
Jesus avoids mentioning it, and bids John ob-
serve to whom, according, I suppose, to a cus-
tomary form, he was about to hand the morsel,
which he was then dipping into the dish. He

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 121

felt free to point out the traitor to John, his
best loved and most intimate friend, but he
evidently sought to avoid exciting any feeling
against Judas.

7. What a touch of nature is shown in the
remark: ''After the sop^ Satan entered into
Judas.'' The fear, the shame, the malignity,
that were beginning to be aroused in the bosom
of the traitor, must have shown their devilish
expression in his features then. But, even if
they did not, his whole appearance must have
undergone an instantaneous change in the eyes
of John. Then Satan first became visible in
him.

8. True to nature is the remark made by
Jesus to Judas : ''What thou doest^ do quickly.''
While Judas remained there, the course of
events must have seemed to Jesus to halt, and
the suspense must have been intolerable.

9. It is remarkable and in accordance with
the rare moral dignity of Jesus, that he de-
scended to no expostulation with Judas. He
knew, I think, that the wretched man had gone
so far that if the generosity, (where shall we
find its parallel?) with which he was then trcat-

11

122 THOUGHTS ON

iiig him, had no effect but to goad him on to
the treachery which he meditated, there was
nothing else that he could do, to save him from
the crime, that would be of any avail.

10. Nothing could well be more natural,
under the circumstances, than that Judas
should rise and quit the place just at the mo-
ment when he did. How could he remain an
instant longer in that presence, when he was
upon the brink, as he must have thought, of
having his treachery laid bare ! He had no ap-
preciation of the magnanimity of Jesus. Who
else but Jesus would have suffered the traitor
to quit the place at that juncture, without one
expostulatory or denunciatory word ! Is it not
natural to surmise that the fact of being
charged with a traitorous design before he had
committed any overt act, was caught at by
Judas as a great wrong done to him, an injus-
tice that warranted him at once in retaliating
the imagined injury by being the traitor he was
falsely called ? He went out with a heart hot
with kindling rage and revenge. As soon as
he had left the room, the dread course of
coming events must have seemed to Jesus no

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 123

longer to pause, but to resume its onward
movement toward the great issue. And then,
the heavy weight of suspense being lifted off,

11. How sublimely in character is the excla-
mation of Jesus, '' Noio is the Son of Man glori-
fied T' &c. "When Judas had retired, Jesus,
unlike any other man, yet still like himself, and
superior to all other mortal men, instead of
pointing after the retreating traitor and saying
that that was the man to whom he had just
alluded, instantly forgot his false friend in the
blaze of Divine glory that streamed from the
event which was at hand, and which the depar-
ture of Judas to consummate his treachery
must have brought very near. To all human
seeming, that event, a violent and ignominious
death, was the utter defeat of all the great pur-
poses of Jesus, for it was to take place before
he had fairly communicated any portion of his
own spirit to a single human being, as the inci-
dents of that very evening showed. To every
other eye, supposing it to have been visible to
others, that event was nothing but a horrid
mingle of blood and shame. But to him, the
blackness and the agony were lost in the god-

124 THOUGHTS ON

like glory of a martyrdom more triumphant
than a thousand victories. "With a clearness of
prophetic insight unparalleled in the history of
mankind, he penetrated through the thick in-
famy of the Cross and beheld the serene glory
of the Highest shining through. When Judas
had gone from his presence, and might well be
supposed to be busy in the execution of his
base design, Jesus saw his own doom more
clearly than before. And he not only saw it,
he put upon it that sublime interpretation, to
the truth of which all subsequent history has
borne most impressive testimony. The death
of Jesus on the Cross has touched the heart of
the world, and changed that vile instrument of
torture into a most sacred symbol. But, from
a vision of the glory to be manifested in his
death, and with a conviction that his hours
were numbered,

12. With what natural human emotion does
he turn to the little circle of his friends, now
no longer darkened by the presence of a traitor,
and with parental tenderness exclaim, " Chil-
dren ! I shall he with you now only a little ivhile
longer.'' Not for any length of time could he

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 125

forget them, even in the contemplation of the
unearthly glory that awaited him. From the
divine aspect of his near death he turns to the
human, and, at the thought of his now impend-
ing separation from them, his heart gushes
over with new tenderness, and, as is so natural,
he is made aware, as never before, how much
he loved them. "With this new and most
touching experience of his own love, it seems
to him that he had never commanded them to
love one another before, and he says: "A 7iew
commandment I give unto you^ that ye love one
another^ as I have loved you, that ye also love one
another.''

Thus have I endeavored to present some of
those marks of Truth and Nature, which pro-
duce in my mind an irresistible conviction of
reality. I see here real persons and real events,
and persons and events of a character inexpres-
sibly interesting. Let it be that we know not
the author nor the date of the gospel ascribed to
John. Say, too, that you find on its pages
traces of error and fiction. I say also that you
may discern here luminous signs of Truth. Al-
though on every other part of this Record you

11 '

126 THOUGHTS ON

should insist that you find proofs of the fabu-
lous, yet here, in this thirteenth chapter, I am
brought face to face with Truth. Here is a
piece of true narrative, full of nature, full to
overflowing of beauty. But this is only a
specimen of this Fourth Gospel. It abounds
throughout in similar marks of truth.

Although the date and origin of these Re-
cords be lost in darkness, they themselves
shine with the light of truth. The remains of
tropical animals are found in Arctic regions.
Whether or not you can tell liovv^ they came
there, that they are the remains of such animals
continues unquestionable.

[The twentieth verse of this chapter: '^ Ve-
rily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth
whomsoever I send, receiveth me; and he that
receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me," is, I
apprehend, an accidental interpolation. It has
no connection with what precedes or follows.
Substantially, the same declaration occurs else-
where.^ It may have been written in the mar-
gin of some very early MS., opposite the place
where it now stands. In making a copy from

' Matt. X, 40 ; Luke x, IG.

THE LIFE OF JESU;S. 127

that MS. J some ignorant transcriber may have
taken it for an omitted passage, and written it
in the body of his copy. This was one of the
ways in which, during the centuries when the
gospels were perpetuated by transcription, the
original text was liable to suffer from mistaken
interpolation.]

To the kind of evidence for the truth of the
New Testament narratives, of which I have
given a specimen in the foregoing section, and
which may be gathered almost everywhere
throughout the Four Gospels, and by which I
am impressed with a vivid sense of reality,
Theodore Parker shows not the slightest sensi-
bility. I cannot find, in his '^ Discourse of
Religion," that he attaches any weight to it. I
am not aware that he recognizes its existence.
Am I then carried away by mere fancies ? Is
there no force in such considerations as I am
suggesting? Is it, as a Reviewer of one of my
publications has asserted, that I am maintain-
ing, what he calls, ''a naturalism based upon

128 THOUGHTS ON

grounds so irrational and untenable that it is
hardly to be conceived that a second advocate
of it will ever be found ?"^

It should be borne in mind that these marks
of Truth and l^ature, which I have pointed out,
are not at all prominent in the narrative. I am
not aware that they have been noted before in
the light in which I have placed them. There
is no attention called to them by the narrator.
They are not enlarged upon. ISTor is there the
shadow of an appearance that the writer
dreamed of furnishing evidence to the truth of
his narration. Indeed, these signs of Truth
which I have just specified, so far from being
made conspicuous, are only intimated, not
directly stated, but left to be inferred; very
fairly inferred, but still they are only inferences.
And the conclusion is, that nothing but Reality
ever admits of inferences so unforced and so
self-consistent.2

' iV. A, FevieiVj vol. Vl, p. 464.

2 In order to see how these traits of Nature escape the
acuteness of the most critical commentators, let De AVette,

THE LIFE or JESUS. 129

The difference between the Fourth Gospel
and the others is striking. A vast deal of labor
and learning has been applied with very imper-
fect success, to the explanation of this differ-
ence. The idea which is given of Jesus in the
last gospel differs from that which is presented
in the other gospels, but I cannot perceive any
inconsistency between the two.

It is explicitly stated in this Fourth Gospel,
that its object is to prove that Jesus is the Mes-
siah.^ It is evident also, from the peculiar

for instance; on this very chapter, the thirteenth of John, be
consulted. [Exegetisclies HandhucJi znm JSf. T.) Amidst the
most elaborate minute criticism, only once is the internal
truth of this passage alluded to, and that is, where it could
not well be overlooked, in the exclamation of Peter: ^^ Not
my feet only^ hut also, c&c." — ^' a very characteristic trait,"
briefly observes the learned commentator. In consulting
these most erudite exegetical works, I find them so in-
geniously careful to avoid all allusion to the spirit of the
Scriptures, that I am forcibly reminded of the cunning
instinct with which the larvae, deposited by certain flies in
living animals and feeding on their bodies, take care to avoid
the vital parts.
* Ch. XX, 31.

130 THOUGHTS ON

phraseology of the introduction, that the writer
had certain contemporaneous opinions in view.

It appears also, from the whole tenor of the
book, that it is the work of a mind remarkably
spiritual, of just such a person as would have
been intimate with Jesus. He was, spiritually,
nearer to the great Teacher than any other of
those who were about him. He entered more
fully into his spirit, — understood him better.

N^ow supposing an account of Jesus and his
teachings to have been written by a person of
this character, a near personal friend of Jesus,
and with the design stated, and with an eye to
modes of thinking existing in his day, I think
it would have proved to be just such a work as
this gospel; more spiritual than the other gos-
pels, and yet showing Christ under the coloring
and shaping of the writer's peculiar character
and design, and of the existing opinions in the
midst of which he wrote.

"While an intimate friend of Jesus, one who
was peculiarly adapted to be on intimate terms
with him on account of a partial similarity of
nature, would seem to have been best qualified
of all his friends to w^rite his life, yet the feet

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 131

that he had a case to make out, a special design
to fulfil,^ and that he had his own ways of
thinking, would, in a degree, disqualify him for
the work. He would be apt to give us an idea
of Jesus, shaped and colored by his purpose
and by his own peculiar ways of thinking. He
would aim to state, not precisely what Jesus
said on various occasions, but what he would
have said according to the writer's thought.
The other Evangelists give us the words of
Christ, and whether they themselves under-
stood them, they give no sign. Whereas the
author of the Fourth Gospel evidently gives us,
in his own words, what he knew or believed to
be the thoughts of Christ. In the third chapter
of John, we have an account of a conversation
between Jesus and ISTicodemus. But, in truth,
there is very little said by either. From the
thirteenth verse to the twenty-first, inclusive ;
and again, from the thirty-first to the thirty-
sixth, inclusive, it is evidently not Christ, but
the author of the Gospel, who is discoursing.
The language used there is the language of the

' Ch. XX, 31.

132 THOUGHTS ON

First Epistle of John, not of Jesus. Again, in
the thirty-ninth verse of the seventh chapter,
we have one of the comments of the author of
the Gospel, explanatory of the words of Jesus;
a comment of doubtful correctness. In fine, in
the Fourth Gospel we have Jesus as John con-
ceived of him, looking at him w^ith a special
purpose and with reference to particular opi-
nions.

At the same time, a very large portion of
this gospel, like the other gospels, bears so
visibly the stamp of Truth, that it seems, like a
sheet directly from the Press, to be the imprint
of Reality, transferred with mechanical exact-
ness from the mind of the narrator to the page
on which he wrote.

It is of the first importance to a just estimate
of the Teachings of Christ, that what was pecu-
liarly his should be carefully distinguished from
what belonged to his country and his age. We
are bound to make this distinction with the
greatest care, certainly before we undertake to

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 133

criticise him. It has never yet been made with
any precision. And mainly for this reason :
because it seems never to have been sufficiently
considered, that certain modes of thinking give
rise and currency to corresponding modes of
sjpeecJi^ and that the forms of expression^ thus ren-
dered popular^ come^ in the course of time^ to he
employed hy those tvho neither consider themselves^
nor are considered by others^ as holding the ideas
or theories which those modes of speech^ in their
primary signification^ express.

For example, it was originally believed that
the earth is stationary, and that the sun moves
round it. This primitive belief gave rise to
corresponding modes of speaking which repre-
sent the sun as rising and setting, and which
continue in universal use now, long after it has
been ascertained that it is not the sun that
moves, but the earth. We all use these modes
of speech, but no one infers from our use of
them that we believe the sun actually to rise
and set. "We use these forms of language not
for their logical signification, but merely to sig-
nify facts.

Centuries hence, when the EnHish lano'uniro

12

134 THOUGHTS ON

shall have become a dead language, and our
literature shall have been swept into oblivion,
and opinions and modes of thought now com-
mon, will be ascertained only very imperfectly
and by laborious research, suppose then, should
such a state of things ever be, that some learned
critic should undertake the labor of deciphering
and translating a solitary copy, or fragment of
a copy, of some popular work of the present
day, dug up from the ruins of a past world.
Coming across such terms as ' diabolical,'
^fiendish,' if, after immense research, he should
be able to determine their literal meaning,
would it be a safe judgment if he should gather
from them that his ancient unknown author,
who possibly may have been a man believing
in neither good spirits nor bad, recognized the
existence of devils and fiends ?

And yet it is precisely by such unauthorized
inferences that Jesus has been represented as
teaching things which were not his, but be-
longed to his age.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 135

I DO not consider it at all essential to the
greatness of his character that it should be
shown that he did not share in the popular
opinions and beliefs of his age. It does not
impair my idea of the largeness of his mind, to
believe that, in regard to a variety of points, he
was as much in sympathy with the popular
mind as one could be, who was as much en-
grossed as he was wdth certain great thoughts
beyond his time. I see no necessity for re-
quiring that it should have been otherwise with
him. But what I do consider as a great mis-
take, and as doing him the greatest injustice, is,
to infer from his use of popular forms of speech
that it was his express design to teach what those
forms of speech^ literally interpreted^ express.

In the time of Christ, demoniacal agency had
long been such a matter of universal belief, as
the cause of almost every variety of bodily suf-
fering, that it hajd created and established in
popular use certain modes of speech, which

136 THOUGHTS ON

every one, who had to do with diseases, was
under the necessity of using, as there were no
other. They were employed and understood,
not as declaratory of individual opinion in re-
gard to the origin of disease, but simply to
represent facts. Accordingly, as to the personal
opinions of Jesus in relation to the causes of
disease, we can infer nothing, one way or
another, from his use of the established phrase-
ology of his day.

Without the slightest personal disparage-
ment, we may fairly presume that he had no
opinions of any kind, affirmative or negative,
as to the reality of demoniacal possession. It
was not a matter, it is reasonable to suppose,
upon which he thought at all ; he was wholly
occupied with much more important things.
Nor did his use of the popular language of the
time, in this respect, have the slightest influence
upon the belief of others.

We have very little hesitation in designating
as the offspring of ignorance and superstition
the theory of disease which had established

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 137

itself in the popular mind in those clays, and
which attributed bodily and mental disorders to
malignant spirits. And yet it is not wholly
without foundation. We may see good reasons
to reject the idea of personal spiritual existences
taking possession of men and deranging mind
and body. But that many diseases are caused
and cured by a spiritual agency, in other words,
through a mental influence or condition, admits
of no question. The old Jewish superstition
was, not so much a falsehood, as a distortion of
the truth. Many an error is only a truth in-
verted. The ancient Jews, with a wise instinct,
traced disease to the central vitality, the spirit,
although they erred in imagining that they
found there worse demons than themselves.
The immaterial part of us has much to do with
our physical derangements. Falsehood and
sin, in the heart, wear and tear the delicate
texture of the nerves, and trouble the currents
of the blood.

It is through forgetfulness of the fact which

I have stated respecting language, namely, tliat

12-x-

138

THOUGHTS ON

words, in passing into popular use, often lose
their original sense, that Jesus has been repre-
sented as designing to give the weight of his
express personal authority to the popular ideas
of the Kingdom of Heaven as a great political
institution ; so it was regarded by his country-
men.

My belief is that the idea of the Divine king-
dom, in its outward and temporal character,
had no living place in his mind, no vital rela-
tion to his thoughts. Under all the popular
phraseology, w^hich he used in speaking of it,
I think it is evident that what took possession
of his mind w^as the idea of a purely spiritual
empire, the moral government of the Highest.
In all his hints and descriptions of the Kingdom
of Heaven, his aim may be perceived, to render
some moral feature of it prominent.

There is one passage in his historj^, and a
very memorable one, which, duly considered,
forbids me to think that he participated in the
popular notions of his day in regard to the
Kingdom of Heaven.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 139

It is that passage that relates how the mother
of two of his disciples, full of the idea that he
was about to establish a visible empire, came
and asked him to promise the nearest places to
his throne to her two sons.' How promptly and
clearly does it appear from his answer to this
application, upon what ideas of glory and
dominion his mind was fixed ! How manifest
is it that the authority which he was thinking
of, was not an authority to be represented by
any visible splendor, but to be obtained through
sufiering! ''Can you^'' is his instant question
to the young men, " can you drink of the cup
that I shall drinh of^ and he baptized with the lap-
tism that I am baptized with V In other words :
" Can you drink of the cup of bitterness that I
am to drink ? Can you endure to be immersed
in the flood of suffering which I am to pass
through?" Thus incidentally, and all the more
strikingly because incidentally, is it disclosed
what ideas of power he cherished, and how they
were associated, nay, identified, with suffering,
and suffering such as he was to undergo for
Righteousness' sake.

Little dreaming of his meaning, the two dis-

140 THOUGHTS ON

ciples, simple-minded men that they were, an-
swer him in the affirmative, saying that they
are able — able to do and to endure anything
to secure the coveted honors. "Yes," he vir-
tually replies, " it is true, you will drink of the
same cup and pass through the same baptism of
blood and fire. But to sit on my right hand
and on my left is not in my gift. It will be
given to such as shall be found qualified there-
for in the providence of Heaven."

The other disciples were indignant at this
attempt of the two brothers to get an advantage
over the rest. And then it was that Jesus, per-
ceiving their ambition, gives them, — gives
them ? gives the world ! — that immortal defini-
tion of true greatness, the depth of whose
meaning is yet to be fathomed, and of which
his life is the only adequate illustration which
the world has yet seen. Yes, and he puts it in
the clearest light by contrasting it with the
worldly idea of power. " The nations," he says,
" have kings and lords, but it must not be so
among you. Whosoever among you would reign^
let him serve. He among you that would he chiefs
let him he your servant. Even as the Son of

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 141

Man came not to be served but to serve, to
serve even to the surrender of his life, to serve
not one, but many/' "With such a clear insight
into the nature of true power, how could he
have had any sympathy with the crude notions
of greatness popular in his time ? I shrink
from the thought. It is as absurd as it is un-
worthy.

Of this whole passage in which Jesus defines
greatness, I think it may be said without exag-
geration, that, if it were the only saying of his
that had come down to us, and, even if it had
been unaccompanied by the splendid illustra-
tion of his personal example, it would have
been recorded among the deathless sayings of
the world's best wisdom. Truly, he was a
world-teacher, and the world's wisest may sit at
his feet, finding all their wisdom anticipated.

That it was by spiritual ideas of the kingdom
that he was inspired, and that we are not to
infer from his use of the popular language of
his day, that he held the ideas which that Ian-

142 THOUGHTS ON

guage appears to express, is evident from this,
that, from the very first, he was impressed with
the certainty of the violent death that awaited
him.

The opinion has been intimated, and Mr.
Parker concurs with it, that Jesus had a poli-
tical aim.^ But what renders it highly im-
probable that he should have sought any
political success, is the fact, to which I now
refer, and which is made apparent in a very
striking way. The dark prospect of the fate
that he was to suffer, appears never to have
been long absent from his mind. If there be
any language of his which seems to show^, in
the words of Mr. Parker, that ''he had political
plans that lie there, indistinctly seen through
the mythic cloud which wraps the whole," I
hold it, all the circumstances considered, a
great deal more likely that his language has
been erroneously reported, especially as the
writers of the gospels actuallj- had political ex-
pectations, rendering them very liable to mis-
understand him, than that one, to whose mind

' Discourse of Religioiu p. 238. Fcurtli Edition.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 143

the idea of a speedy and violent end was con-
stantly recurring, should he cherishing political
plans.

It is striking to note the connection, in which
the occasional allusions to his death that he
uttered, are introduced. The coincidence is
curious. He is always found foretelling his
own death precisely at those junctures, when,
if he had had any political purposes at all, or at
any time, those purposes would have been be-
trayed. As soon as his little band of personal
attendants had, through Peter, avowed their
faith that he was the expected Messiah, — from
that moment he began to tell them of the fate
that awaited him."" On one occasion, when all
around him were filled with admiration of his
mighty power, he said to his disciples, ^Let
what the people are saying sink into your ears,
for the Son of Man will be delivered into the
hands of men.' It is popular applause that

' Matt, xvi, 27 ; xvii, 22. Mark viii, 31 ; ix, 31. Luke ix,
22, 43, 44.

144 THOUGHTS ON

bewilders and intoxicates, and suggests political
dreams. But wlien his friends avowed their
faith in him, or when the acclamations of a
crowd were ringing in his ears, it is singular, if
he had political aims, that he should be found
instantly alluding to his approaching death.
"When he entered Jerusalem, attended by an
immense multitude rending the air with their
shouts, instead of being moved by this imposing
demonstration, he was weeping.^

It is not his explicit predictions of his fate
that alone show how unlikely it is that his
mind was ever beguiled with visions of political
power. Far more impressively, because inci-
dentally and by obscure allusions, it appears
that no thought of temporal success possessed
his mind. Once, when ^Hhere went great mul-
titudes with him," curious to see what he would
do and to catch every word that fell from his
lips, he turned and told them that any one who
w^ould really follow him must take up his cross

^ Luke xix. 41.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 145

and come after liim to execution.' Could any-
thing show more decisively what lie expected
his own fate to he ?

That it was not upon anything of a political
nature that his thoughts were running, we have
impressive evidence in that passage that tells
us how he answered those who wanted to know
why his disciples did not fast like the disciples
of John. 2 To this question he replied, " Can
the guests at a bridal fast when the hridegroom has
come, and is in the midst of them ? But the days
are coming when the hridegroom will he taken
away from them, and then tvill they fast,'' This
was evidently said at a time when, attended by
admiring throngs, he must have appeared to his
disciples to be carrying everything before him,
and they were exulting in the most brilliant
expectations. They were as joyous as the at-
tendants at a wedding, and Jesus was among
them as a bridegroom among his friends, the
observed of all, the fountain of joy and honor.

' Luke xiv, 25, 27, ^ Matt. \x, 14-17.

13

146 THOUGHTS ON

To fast then, under sucli circumstances, was
wholly out of place. It would never have done
to pour the new wine of their gaiety into the
old bottles of fasting and penance/ It was no
time to fast. Had they attempted it, their
tumultuous and effervescent emotions would
have burst through the restraints of those
threadbare and gloomy formalities. "But the
time is coming," he added, and how touch-
ingly mournful the allusion! ''when the bride-
groom will he taken aivay from them^ and then
they will fast."

On three different occasions he was asked for
a sign.^ And it is very striking to observe,
first, that this demand was, on every one of
these occasions, made just after he had done
some extraordinary thing; and, in the next

* If the Pharisees understood him, I wonder whether they
were not shocked when he implied that the fastings which
they held so sacred, were no better than worn ont old wine-
skins and ragged old garments. His mode of expressing him-
self must have sounded very irreverent.

2 Matt, xii, 38 ; John ii, 18 ; vi, 30.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 147

place, that he always replied to this demand
with an allusion to his approaching death. His
answers at these times are all widely different
in form, but in spirit, in their meaning, sub-
stantially one and the same. At one time, the
reference is to the prophet Jonah ; at another to
the temple of his own body ; and, on the third
occasion, when the request for a sign is con-
nected with a reference to the sign given by
Moses in the manna that was supposed to have
fallen from heaven, he says, in reply, that the
manna which Moses gave to the fathers was
not the true bread of heaven, that he himself
was the true heavenly bread, and was about to
give himself for the nourishment of men. Here
again, as in the previous instances, his thoughts
turn to his death.

I do not know whether there be anything in
the whole ITew Testament history more impres-
sively indicative of truth than the harmony
among these incidents, hidden as it is from first
sight by their great diversity in form, language,
and circumstance.

ISTeither do I know how it could possibly be
shown more satisfactorily that the idea con-

148 THOUGHTS ON

stantly present to the mind of Jesus was not a
political empire but a violent death.

And what renders it still more improbable
that he should have indulged in any political
aspirations is the fact that, not only was his
mind possessed with the idea that his career
was soon to be terminated by death, not only
did he foresee his fate, and know that it was
inevitable, but, what is far more remarkable, he
knew that it was essential to his success. He
not only had made up his mind that he must
die, but he held his death to be as indispensable
to the triumph of his Truth, as it is to a seed, if it
is to produce fruit, that it should be buried in
the earth.' Mark with what solemn emphasis he
announces the necessity of his dying: '^ Verily ^
verily^ I say unto you^'' [Indeed^ indeed^ it is so) —
and by what a simple, natural analogy he illus-
trates it, — '' except a corn of wheat fall into the
ground and die, it ahideth alone; hut if it die, it
bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life

'' John xii. 24.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 149

will lose it^ and he that hateth his life in this ivorld
will keep it forever ^

When we have fathomed the meaning of
these words, when we appreciate the clear and
far insight which they attest in the speaker, we
shall see that he who nttered such sayings, and
was so single-hearted withal, is not lightly to be
suspected of political designs.

As Mr. Parker has remarked, ^'it lay in the
nature of things" that Jesus, speaking the truths
which he did, should have been persecuted and
put to death by the priests and Pharisees.
Since it was thus natural, under the circum-
stances, that he should suffer a violent death,
we see how natural it was that Jesus himself,
wise and clear-sighted as he was, should foresee
his own fate. To see that fate in the future re-
quired in him certainly no special illumination.

What a halo of sanctity invests his person
when it is considered that all those immortal
precepts of wisdom, all those renowned para-
bles, all those acts of a self-forgetting charity,

13^

150 THOUGHTS ON

were the words and works of a young man,
living that calm, coherent, and generous life
under the ever-deepening shadow of a terrible
doom, and fully aware of it all the time. Oc-
casionally, for a brief moment, he was agonized
at the appalling outlook, but habitually his
heart, instead of being hardened or broken, in-
stead of being crushed or self-absorbed, gushed
out in profoundest sympathy with the Highest
and the Lowest.

While there are the indications, which I
have mentioned, of a mind in Jesus far above
all worldly ambition, I freely admit that much
of his language respecting the kingdom of
Heaven seems, at first sight, to imply that he
shared in the popular impression of his day.
But that peculiarity of popular speech, of which
I have spoken, being kept in view, does it not
go far to show that he is not of necessity to be
understood as entertaining the popular ideas ?

In the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew's gos-
pel, there is a very imposing scenic represcnta-

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 151

tioii of the coming of the Messiah that the
Jewish nation was looking for with the ntmost
impatience. It begins thus : " When the Son of
Ma7i shall come in Ms glory^ and all the holy
angels with him^ then will he sit upon his glorious
throne^ and before him will be gathered all nations^

IsTow in this w^hole description, extending
from the thirty-first verse to the end of the
chapter, all, I conceive, that is specially taught
by Jesus, all that was novel and striking to his
hearers, is the declaration of the grounds upon
which the awards of that higher condition of
things that was expected, would be made. All
the rest is the now stiff and cumbrous Jewish
costume, which the central and prominent idea
took from the fashion of thinking popular at
the time, and which was then easy and grace-
ful. It was not at all the purpose of Jesus
in this passage to inform the people that the
Messiah was coming, and under the circum-
stances above described. Of all these things
they had long been so well assured, that their
faith neither needed nor received any confirma-
tion from him. But what he did intend to im-

152 THOUGHTS ON

press upon the minds of his hearers was, that
when the new order of things should come,
those who had a care for the lowliest would be
received, and those who neglected them would
be cast out with sorrow and shame. And this
was all that his hearers learned from him. The
kingdom described in this passage is the king-
dom of Righteousness, existing in the eternal
nature of things; in other words, ^'prepared
for the righteous from the foundation of the
world." With all its Jewish garb, we find in
this passage an idea of the kingdom very dif-
ferent from the popular idea of that day. After
the same manner of speaking, one might say
now that, Svhen the Judge shall be seated and
the book opened, we shall not be asked to what
church we have belonged, but whether we have
been just and humane.' In expressing this
sentiment in this form, it is not our purpose,
nor are we understood, to intimate our belief in
a literal Day of Judgment. That is not the
point.

It will help us to understand the position
which Jesus held in relation to the ideas of the

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 153

kingdom popular among his countrymen, to
consider how his personal disciples stood af-
fected towards these same ideas while he was
living and after his death.

So long as they were in personal attendance
upon him, their minds were filled with Jewish
visions of a temporal empire shortly to be esta-
blished. But, as it is easy and most interesting
to remark, there was, slowly and unconsciously,
formed within them a new interest. A new
love was germinating in their inmost hearts, —
the love of the True and the Good, exemplified
in Jesus, — which gradually and naturally dis-
placed their Jewish ideas. So that, after his
disappearance, although I do not suppose that
they ever, to the day of their death, formally
renounced their old Jewish conceptions of the
kingdom, yet, I think, they lost their interest
in them as they became interested in things
infinitely better. The old, gorgeous vision of a
temporal kingdom receded. The venerable
idea of Jesus was steadily taking the central
place in their affection. It so contented them,
that, while they still looked for the coming of
the great kingdom, and in that generation, as

154 THOUGHTS ON

many passages in tlie Epistles snow, they were
every day becoming more and more reconciled
to its indefinite postponement.

Now, just as tliis higher love in the hearts of
his disciples superseded their old ideas, so, I
conceive, in the mind of Jesus himself, the cen-
tral place was given to those great moral truths,
to the illustration of which his life was devoted.
It may be that Jewish ideas and visions still
floated within the sphere of his mind, but they
were very dim and distant. They had no
vitality. They interposed no veil to contract
the breadth of his vision. They had none of
his attention, except as they might help to set
forth those grand moral features of the Divine
kingdom which had his whole heart.

I cannot conceive how it could have been
otherwise. The truths of which he shows such
a thorough appreciation, and which his whole
history exemplifies, are, in their very essence,
of so regenerating an efficacy, that, w^hen they
once have entire possession of a man, as they
had of him, it must needs be that all narrow
modes of thinking retire before them. Truth
is of so beneficent and powerful a nature, that

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 155

it always enlarges and elevates the mind in
wliicli it is accorded its rightful place. It is
true, very often old prepossessions still remain,
but only as the old bark remains attached to
the tree long after it has been outgrown by
the new^ bark fully formed underneath. It has
no living connection with the tree. It does not
injure it, nor retard its growth. It only does
not fall wholly away at once. Is it not con-
stantly witnessed how, a new interest being
awakened in a man in the great Cause of Hu-
manity, for instance, which is now wrestling
with our age, he very soon grows indifferent to
those old theological fictions w^hich he esteemed
just now the essence of all truth? Truth is
intrinsically luminous, electric, vital, — there is
nothing so much so, — and does not dwell in a
man to no purpose. It enables him to distin-
guish.

That Truth, heartily embraced, as Jesus em-
braced it, expands and enlightens, and renders
the moral sense discHminating, we may learn
from perceiving how Error, on the other hand,

156 TPIOUGHTS ON

when embraced with a like heartiness, bliiicls
the understandings and dulls the moral senti-
ments, even of the ablest and most accom-
plished. To the fearfully blinding influence of
error, Theodore Parker, standing in the front
in the great Battle of Freedom, cannot be in-
sensible, perceiving as he must how the sanc-
tion given by the public opinion and law^of this
formidable nation to the monstrous wrong of
Slavery is, at this present, undermining the
moral faith and degrading the moral sense of the
civilized w^orld. The suffering which Slavery
inflicts upon its millions of victims is the least
of its curses. The horror of the thing is the
moral blindness which it produces in those who
advocate it, be they never so wise and learned.
Under the countenance of this people, sworn
as we are to maintain the Declaration of Hu-
man Rights, the revival of the African Slave-
trade, as a thing fit to be discussed, is shame-
lessly intruding upon Kings and Cabinets.
And there is no Power to cry : Hush ! From
this beacon of Liberty, as it professes to be,
darkness is raying out over the nations.

From this terrible eftect of moral error in

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 157

turning hearts of flesh into stone, and in
striking blind the most keen- sighted, scholars,
statesmen, and divines, we may form some idea
of the blessed influence of Truth, of a spirit,
self-sacrificing as was that of Jesus, in illumina-
ting the inward vision.

But not only is he charged with having had
political plans, it is intimated, in a general way,
that, although Jesus of ITazareth uttered some
great truths, taught certain very broad princi-
ples, yet that he did not himself appreciate
them in their breadth, but was in fact, in some
respects, an ignorant enthusiast, sharing in the
narrow ideas and prejudices of his nation.

In my view, it is vastly more probable that
any passage in his history, which may seem to
countenance such a representation of him, is
either misunderstood or erroneously reported,
than that this idea of his character should be
just. And I am not aware of saying this, be-
cause I have any disposition to claim for him
an impossible perfection. The simple truth is,

14

158 THOUGHTS ON

that he appears to me to have evinced on
numerous occasions such a clear, comprehen-
sive moral sense, as renders any supposition
more becoming and more probable than that
he should have had views and purposes so nar-
row and external as Mr. Parker attributes to
him.^ Here it is that the saying of Coleridge
becomes applicable : '^ When you cannot under-
stand a writer's ignorance, presume yourself
ignorant of his understanding."^ It is much

* Discourse of Religion, p. 239. Fourth Edition.

2 '^ Until you understand a ivriter^s ignorance^ presume
yourself ignorant of Ms understanding. This golden ride of
mine does, I own, resemble those of Pythagoras in its obscu-
rity rather than in its depth. If, however, the reader will per-
mit me to be my own Hierocles^ I trust that he will find its
meaning fully explained by the following instances. I have
now before me a treatise of a religious fanatic, full of dreams
and supernatural experiences. I see clearly the writer's
grounds and their hollowness. I have a complete insight
into the causes which, through the medium of his body, had
acted on his mind : and, by application of received and ascer-
tained laws, I can satisfactorily explain to my own reason all
the strange incidents v/hich the writer records of himself.
And this I can do without suspecting him of any intentional
falsehood. As when in broad daylight a man tracks the steps
of a traveller, who had lost his way in a fog or by treacherous

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 159

more rational, and a great deal more modest, to
suppose that either the language of Jesus has

moonshine, even so, and with the same tranquil sense of cer-
tainty, can I follow the traces of this bewildered visionary. /
understand Ms ignorance,

" On the other hand, I have been re-perusing with the best
energies of my mind the TiMyEus of Plato. Whatever I com-
prehend impresses me with a reverential sense of the author's
genius ; but there is a considerable portion of the work to
which I can attach no consistent meaning. In other treatises
of the same philosopher, intended for the average comprehen-
sion of men, I have been delighted with the masterly good
sense, with the perspicuity of language, and the aptness of the
inductions. I recollect, likewise, that numerous passages in
this author^ which I thoroughly comprehend, were formerly
no less unintelligible to me than the passages now in question.
It would, I am aware, be quite fashionable to dismiss them as
Platonic jargon. But this I cannot do with satisfaction to
my own mind, because I have sought in vain for causes ade-
quate to the solution of the assumed inconsistency. I have
no insight into the possibility of a man so eminently wise,
using words with such half meanings to himself as must per-
force pass into no-meanings to his readers. When, in addi-
tion to the motives thus suggested by my own reason, I bring
into distinct remembrance the number and the series of great
men, who, after long and zealous study of these works, have
joined in honoring the name of Plato with epithets that
almost transcend humanity, I feel that a contemptuous verdict

160 THOUGHTS ON

been incorrectly reported, or that it is not un-
derstood, than that one, who had such an in-
sight into man and the nature of true power,
one who, like Jesus, had fathomed ''the divine
depth of sorrow," and found dominion and
blessedness there, seeing distinctly an unearthly
glory shining through death and ignominy,
should have been under the gross Jewish delu-
sion of a temporal kingdom.

On the whole, very manifest is it to my mind
that Jesus, being of the people and speaking to
the people, used popular language, such forms
of expression as were current and alone intelli-
gible. In order, therefore, to avoid ascribing
things to him that he never taught, we must
keep in mind what I have stated, namely, that
words in common use are continually lo'sing the

on my part might argue a want of modesty^ but would hardly
be received by the judicious as evidence of superior penetra-
tion. Therefore, utterly baffled in all my attempts to under"
stand the ignorance of Plato, / conclude myself ignorant of
Ills luidersfandinr/r — Coloidge^ Blog. Lit.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 161

meaning which they originally expressed, and
coming in time merely to designate facts, with-
out involving any recognition of that theory of
the facts which they originally represented.
Thus we talk of" lunacy^'' "St. Vitus' s dance^''
"St. Antliony's fire^'' using these terms merely
to denote certain diseases.

Christ speaks frequently of the Evil one. In
the Lord's Prayer, "Deliver us from evil,"
should be, " Deliver us from the Evil one." It
has consequently been set down as a matter be-
yond all dispute that he taught the personality
of evil, and that this idea rests on his express
authority.

But the very plain truth is, that, as bodily
and mental diseases were in his times attributed
to malignant spirits, so moral evil w^as in like
manner ascribed to an evil being. And so
fixed and universal was this faith long before
the time of Christ that it had created and
moulded the forms of language, in which moral
evil was spoken of, and which soon came to be

1G2 THOUGHTS ON

employed merely to represent the facts of sin
and temptation. At the present day, I can
readily imagine Mr. Parker to say, for instance,
(it is not impossible that he has said it, there
is no doubt he thinks it,) that " the Fugitive
Slave law was enacted at the instigation of the
devil." I should hold him to be perfectly true
and honest in this assertion. At the same time,
I should not consider myself at liberty to infer
from his use of this mode of expression that
he believed in the personality of the devil. I
should understand him as employing this mode
of speaking, not by any means for the sake of
what it literally imports, but to emphasize a
fact.

So, when Jesus related to his friends his ex-
perience in the desert, whither he was impelled
after his baptism, he represented the evil
thoughts that occurred to him as the spoken
suggestions of the Evil one. But I have no
idea, either that he intended, or that his disci-
ples understood him to say, that Evil came and
spoke to him with an audible voice and a visible
presence. In the terms which were then the
universal form of describing temptation, he told

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 163

the story of his trials. And all that they who
listened to him, gathered from the account was,
simply, that he had been tempted by evil.^

I do not mean to assert that neither he nor
they entertained the idea of a personal evil
power, but only that it was not an idea which
he undertook to teach. The modes of speak-
ing which he employed, prove nothing, as to
his positive belief in the personality of Evil.
In all probability, he did have such a belief, if
that can be called a belief, which was the result
of no personal examination, into which no dis-
tinct thought entered, and which really had no
vital influence in his mind.

So, also in regard to other points upon which

* In order to understand how it is that the temptation of
Jesus should be told as it is, in the form of a dialogue between
him and the Evil one, it must be borne in mind that it is char-
acteristic of times and persons retaining any degree of primi-
tive simplicity, to represent the silent operations of thought
dramatically — to put them in words. The gospels abound in
examples in point. '' And they that sat at meat with him
began to say within themselves^ Who is ihisj^^ &c. Luke vii,
49.

164 THOUGHTS ON

Jesus is represented to have given positive in-
struction, I can readily imagine, without de-
tracting from his greatness, that he had no per-
sonal convictions, affirmative or negative. He
has been and still is understood to teach the
endless punishment of the wicked, and the
material fire of hell. But it is a point beyond
dispute, that he did not originate the represen-
tations of punishment and hell-fire which we
find in his teachings. They were the popular
ideas of the time ; or rather, they had ceased to
be definite, living ideas in men's minds, and
had become mere phrases, figures of speech,
into w^hich, by connecting them with those
grand and indisputable truths which he taught,
he breathed a new and spiritual significance ;
and they are to be interpreted in accordance
with those truths. They were the current coin,
worn smooth by long use, which, passing
through his mind, were re-stamped with the
cipher of his invisible realm, and are now to
receive their valuation from the standard of his
truth.

That he used the language of his day in the
manner I have described, is strikingly shown in
that passage in which, under popular forms of

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 165

speech, he refers to the temporal prosperity and
temporal decline of Capernaum: '^ Thou, Caper-
7iaum, which art exalted unto heaven, will he cast
dotvn to helV Is there any reference here to
the fiery hell of modern theologians ? Surely
not.

Let it be reiterated, if we would not fall into
the greatest mistakes in ascertaining what he
actually taught, that the use of long-established
forms of speech attbrds no certain index of in-
dividual opinion as to the precise ideas which
those forms of speech primarily signified.

I CANNOT refrain from expressing my aston-
ishment that Mr. Parker should refer to Mat-
thew vii, 13, 14, in proof that Jesus '' considered
God so imperfect as to damn the majority of
mankind to eternal torment."^ ''Enter ye in at

^ Discourse of Beligion^ p. 239. Mr. Parker is not always
careful in his statements. While in the passage referred to
he explicitly affirms the above to have been the doctrine of
Christ, elsewhere (p. 125) in alhiding to the dogma ^^ which
dooms the mass of men to endless torment/' he remarks, "the
wisest of the Heathen taught such a dogma as little as did
Jesus of Nazareth y

166 THOUGHTS ON

the strait gate, for tvide is the gate and broad is the
way that lead^.th to destruction^ and many there he
that go in thereat : because strait is the gate and
narrow is the way which leadeth unto life^ and few
there be that find it.'' I do greatly err in my
understanding of this passage, if there is the
slightest allusion here to anything like the Cal-
vinistic doctrine of the eternity of hell torments.
Is it anything more than a simple picture of
human life ? Does not every generation illus-
trate it ? Wisdom has her few followers. Folly
her hosts. Wisdom leads to life, Folly to ruin.
Ancient authors, Xenophon, Cicero, Seneca,
have given similar representations. Every
Latin schoolboy remembers a parallel passage
in the Tabula of Cebes.^

^ (7o\ d' eyoj iaMd \^oc(ov ipico^ fiiya vr^Tite lUpaiq.
Tr^v ixh Toi xavJnrira y,ai IXadov ianv ili(j{}at
prfidioj^' XsiT] jih odo^y jidXa d^ iyybd-L vaiet,
TYjq d^ dpSTTj^ lopaJra d^so'i 7:p07:dpoL-fh'^ If^^ryAWj
dd-w^aror fxaxpoz ^^ ^-cC^ opd-to^ ol'io^ err' ahzryj^
y.(U Tpyj^h^ TO TZpajzo'^' inry^ d^ el^ axpir^ uriat^
prj\dc7] di] eTzetra 7:iXstj yalzTi-q r.ep ioTxTa.

Eesiod, EFF. x. HM : 2G2.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 167

''Sell all thou Jiast^ and give to the poor and
follow me.''^ " But sell not all thou hast, except
thou come, and follow me ; that is, except thou
have a vocation, wherein thou mayest do as
much good, with little means, as with great. "^

I infer from Mr. Parker's criticisms of the
moral teachings of Jesus, that the above requi-
sition is regarded by him as overstrained. But
I cannot perceive how, under the circumstances,
Jesus could have enjoined anything else. It

TRANSLATION.

'^To thee now reflecting I tell very good things^ 0 simple
young Perses,

Badness is easily chosen, it's found in the greatest abundance.

Level and plain is the pathway, its entrance is open to all
men,

But labor in front of true virtue is placed by the Powers
immortal,

And narrow and steep is the road to it, and at first 'tis ex-
ceedingly rugged ;

But when after labor unceasing thou hast finally climbed to
the summit,

Then truly it grows very easy, though toilsome it hath been

aforetime."

[H. H. F.J
* Matt, xix, 22.

^ Of Goodness of Nalvrc. Baron's Essat/s.

168 THOUGHTS ON

was not the first injunction laid upon tlie rich
young man to whom it was addressed. He was
first directed by Jesus to obey the command-
ments. And when he said that he had always
done that, and desired to know what more he
could do, then it was that he was bidden to sell
all that he had. If he had thrown in his lot
with Jesus, he would have been forced to give
up his wealth. What wiser thing could he do
then, than to dispose of it first as Jesus directed ?
But even supposing this demand to be some-
w^hat too high-toned for our common human
nature, — the inability of the rich youth to
comply with it seems to indicate as much, and
Jesus himself declares that it was all but impos-
sible to the rich, — I think, for any exaggeration
there may be in it, the evidence which it fur-
nishes of the insensibility of Jesus to all mer-
cenary considerations is ample compensation.
It suggests a very striking contrast between
him and his modern followers. He did not
hesitate to impose upon the wealthy young
man, — and wealthy young men were not nume-
rous among his friends, — a requisition that
drove the youth away instantly, and lost him

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 169

his influence upon the young man's mind for-
ever. Christians at the present day take very
good care how they run the hazard of losing
wealthy converts by suggesting any such uncom-
promising conditions. Christian churches and
Associations, Tract societies, &c., account it
wrong to risk their influence with the rich and
powerful by insisting even upon what certainly
cannot be regarded as an exaggerated duty,
namely, that they should cease from buying
and selling their fellow-men, who chance to be
of a different complexion from their own.

Mr. Parker mentions as one of the " obvious
defects'' of Christ as a Teacher, that he bade his
disciples, when they should be arraigned before
magistrates and kings, to have no anxiety as to
what they should say, as it would be given
them what to say.^ Mr. Parker appears to re-
gard this as the extravagant promise of a mere
enthusiast.

As I read it, it is the language of truth and

' Discourse of RrJi(/io7i, p. 210.
IT)

170 THOUGHTS ON

wisdom. Jesus told his friends that they would
be summoned to answer for themselves before
high dignitaries of the Church and State. The
prospect might well fill them with dismay.
What were they, rude, simple men, to do in
such august presences ! Would they not trem-
ble from head to foot, and be bereft of all
power to articulate a word? But he assured
them they need feel no alarm. With the occa-
sion would come all needed power. It would
he given them^ that is, they would he ahle to acquit
themselves as they ought. Truth, ever boun-
tiful, would take care of her faithful servants.
The Cause, for which they would be carried be-
fore the civil and ecclesiastical tribunals, would
be a fountain of inspiration, full and overflow-
ing. It would not be they who would speak,
but the Truth, that great power of God.

I THINK it very important to consider, in
order to a just appreciation of the teachings of
Jesus, that what he taught is not true merely
because he taught it, but that he taught it

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 171

because it is true. His thoughts are not the
creations of his fancy. He does not express
opinions. He declares facts^ pre-existent and
irreversible laws. In every utterance of his,
I look for and I find, under all the stiff and
antiquated costume of the language in vv^hich it
is clothed, the truth that he teaches ; by this I
mean the thought which, when fully perceived,
offers evidence in and of itself to its truth, —
shines by its own light.

To perceive that Jesus taught only what is
intrinsically and eternally true, let the reader
of the Gospels substitute will for shall^ in the
Beatitudes, for instance : ' Happy they who
mourn, for they will be comforted!' 'Happy
the gentle, for they will inherit the earth !'
'Happy they who hunger and thirst for the
Eight, for they will be filled !' &c.

In other passages, too numerous to specify,
the same change may be made with great ad-
vantage. Shall expresses primarily authority.
It implies the exercise of an arbitrary will on

172 THOUGHTS ON

the part of the speaker. Whereas will is simply
significant of the future. It represents, not an
arbitrary promise ^or threat, but a certain conse-
quence. 'Happy they who hunger and thirst
for the Eight, for they ivill be filled,' i. e.,
naturally and of necessity. So is it in the un-
changeable nature of things. They who hunger
and thirst for other things are never satisfied.
But the very desire for righteousness refreshes.
The substitution of ivill for shall^ in disclosing
the indisputable truth of the teachings of Jesus,
relieves him from the appearance of making
arbitrary announcements, when he is only de-
claring the pre-established laws of the moral
world, teaching, in a word, the Religion of JS'a-
ture. " Strive to enter in at the strait gate, for
many ivill seek to enter in, and will not be
able." ''Many that are first will be last, and
the last, first.'' "Unto every one who hath
ivill be given, and he will have abundance, but
from him that hath not will be taken away even
that which he hath;" i. e., 'He who improves,
will increase in power, but he who does not
improve will lose what power he has.' An in-
disputable law of our nature. "Ask and ye

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 173

will receive, seek and ye will find." Not an
arbitrary promise, but a necessary result is here
signified. Open the Four Gospels at random,
and you cannot read a few consecutive verses
without finding occasion to make this substitu-
tion. Thus my eye has just fallen upon the
twenty-first verse of the twenty-sixth chapter of
Matthew. " Verily I say unto you that one of
you will betray me.'' Again, at the close of
the twenty-fifth chapter of the same Gospel,
" These will go away into enduring punish-
ment," &c.

[In citing this last passage, I read enduring
instead of everlasting^ because, as I believe, it
expresses exactly the meaning of the original
Greek word alw^^oq^ which is simply indefinite.]

Why is it that we are so ready, when any
beautiful thing in Nature or Art is before us, to
fasten our attention instantly upon its defects,
or what strike us as its defects ? I am slow to
believe that it comes from a depraved disposi-
tion, or from the absence of that charity that

15-^

174 THOUGHTS ON

finds pleasure, not in iniquity but in truth.
The artist, who hung one of his paintings out-
side of his door with the request that the
13assers-by would be pleased to mark its faults
on the canvas, and who was dismayed at night
to find it marked all over as one mass of faults,
was consoled the next night by finding it again
in the same condition, when, after erasing all the
marks, he had exhibited it a second time with
the request that people would be so kind as to
indicate its beauties. Unless there is some pas-
sion to be gratified, or some interest to be served,
men are as willing to note excellencies as faults,
indeed a great deal more willing. For our heart
and our flesh crieth out for the Perfect. Man
is made for the Highest, and nothing less can
long content him. And for this reason it is
that faults oflend us, and we criticise them as if
we were resenting personal wrongs. They are
trespasses on our birthright, which is Perfec-
tion. This is the inexorable demand which no
bribe can buy off*, no compromise satisfy.

Although the disposition so commonly shown
to dwell upon defects admits of so favorable a

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 175

construction, still the happier course and the
wiser is to seek first in all things the true and
the good, — to dwell upon beauties rather than
faults. We are not to be blind to faults, but to
estimate them aright. And this we can do
only by ascertaining first and always the good
there is in everything. Look for the evil first
and exclusively, and you will be sure to over-
estimate it ; thus error ensues, and evil multi-
plies itself. We find only what we seek. It is
a principle of criticism, essentially religious,
that no reviewer can deal justly with a book,
unless he first reads it in faith and love, as if he
himself had written it. We must endeavor to
ascertain what of truth there is in any work
before we can be prepared to tell its defects.
Here is a principle that applies to the least
thing as to the highest. If a new edible is
brought to you, and you put it to your lips as if
it were poison or a drug, it will be pretty sure
to offend the palate. To do it justice, and to
know the quality of its taste, you must take
one mouthful of it as if you relished it. Wisely
has it been said, that it is not enough to be able
to see that any opinion is false, the aim should

176 THOUGHTS ON

be to discover how it ever appeared true to any
one.

Able and learned men have formed them-
selves into committeesj and tried to settle the
claims of this new and strange growth called
Spiritualism. Their efforts have come to nothing.
They have satisfied nobody who was not satis-
fied before.

The reason of their failure is plain. Their
criticism has all been based upon the assump-
tion, openly made or secretly and uncon-
sciously, that the thing to be examined is an
unmitigated delusion. It followed of necessity
that their learning and ability, so far from
qualifying them to render a final judgment,
satisfactory to all parties, made it certain at the
outset that they would make good their ground.
Just in proportion to their ability and culture,
they were sure to accomplish this purpose. Of
what use is it to be wise and learned, if one
cannot maintain any ground he chooses to
take ?

Let those who undertake to investigate the

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 177

merits of Spiritualism, start with a different
aim. Let them assume that there is truth, fact,
ill it, of one kind or another. This assumption
does not foreclose examination. It authorizes,
nay, it invites the closest. It challenges the
utmost sagacity. When Truth is singly sought,
its existence must be presumed, and then it is
very certain to be found, although it may be
present in very small measure.

Undertake an examination of the New Tes-
tament history, assuming that it is all a fable,
and just in proportion to the completeness of
your critical apparatus and your ability, will
be your success in satisfying yourself, and all
who are of the same way of thinking, of the
soundness of your assumption.

All the attempts that have been made to
point out defects in the character and teachings
of Jesus have always betrayed a want of appre-
ciation of his real greatness, by being, more or
less obviously, directed not at him and at his
doctrines, but at the false representations that

178 THOUGHTS ON

have been made of these; the falsehood of
which would have been seen at once, had there
been a just estimate of him beforehand. Ob-
jectors find material for unfavorable criticism
of the Gospels only by putting into them
modern ideas, which have no right to be there,
and which the language of the Scriptures, cor-
rectly interpreted, does not express. Poor
Shelley raves against Jesus Christ as the enemy
of Truth and Freedom. I cannot be shocked at
the ravings of the young poet, I pity him so. It
is evident that he had suffered to be palmed oft*
upon him a monstrous fiction, created out of the
false theology of Christendom for the veritable
Man of l^azareth, the Bringer of Light and
Liberty.

The same is more or less the mistake of all
who have undertaken to speak or to write in
depreciation of Jesus. It is not Jesus himself,
but an erroneous idea of him, or a mistaken
interpretation of his language, which they are
found to be criticising. It will be time enough
to begin looking for the defects of this extra-
ordinary character, when, after studying it
thoroughly in reverence and love, we come to

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 179

appreciate its greatness. "When we have once
caught a glimpse of that, we shall hesitate long
before we presume to talk about its defects.

Jesus of Nazareth was human. Being hu-
man, he had limitations. He manifested not
absolute perfection, but the perfection of an
imperfect nature. " There is none good but
one, God."

All the imperfections, however, that I see in
the personal character of Christ serve only to
enhance his greatness, and render my sense of
the singular elevation of this wonderful man
only the more profound.

He was evidently a man of profound sensi-
bility. I observe in him constantly the strongest
emotion. Sometimes his anger was aroused,
and in no slight degree. When some of the
leading men, professed teachers of religion,
were watching to see whether he would perform
an office of humanity on the Sabbath, in order
that they might charge him with violating its
sanctity, first intimating that their thoughts

180 THOUGHTS ON

were murderous, "he looked on tliem with in-
dignation.'' The Greek word is a very strong
one, elsewhere translated wrath. On another
occasion, when he was rebuked by ' the ruler of
the synagogue' for healing a poor woman on
the Sabbath, it is difficult to imagine him as
speaking save in a tone of awful severity. He
stigmatized the man as a hypocrite, — called him
so to his face. Again, when his disciples would
fain have prevented certain women from bring-
ing their children to him, he was " much dis-
pleased." He was angry then with his own
friends; and that countenance, which, I doubt
not, was turned with a beaming smile of tender-
ness upon the little ones, was darkened a mo-
ment before with great displeasure. How
deeply he was moved at being charged with
being in league with Beelzebub, is evident
from the strong language in which he answers
the charge, pronouncing those who brought
it incorrigible, past all hope of mercy. It was
the language of intense feeling. And so ab-
sorbed was he on that occasion, that when he is
suddenly interrupted and told that his mother
wanted to speak with him, he seems bewildered

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 181

for a moment, and exclaims, "Who is my
mother!" Can it be imagined that his eye did
not flash — that there was no tone of severity in
his voice, when he said to Peter, " Get thee
behind me, Satan !" Or that he spoke without
passion, when he poured out upon the ruling
classes, the Scribes and Pharisees, those fiery
denunciations ? His language, the language of
a man shocked to the inmost at the depravity
which he describes, is so strong and so severe
that some have thought it did not become him.
But there is ample reason to believe that it was
strictly true. The horrible death which he suf-
fered shows how unprincipled they were, —
hearts of stone, — hesitating at nothing, — the
men who murdered him. His fate proves that
he described them in fitting words, for it shows
that they were ready for any enormity.

On more than one occasion ejaculations of
impatience broke from his lips : " O faithless
and perverse generation! how long shall I be

IG

182 THOUGHTS ON

with you ! How long shall I bear with you !"^
"I have a baptism to go through, and how am
I agonized till it be over !"^ '' What thou doest,
do quickly."^ What a cry of human weakness,
wrung from him by extreme suffering, rose
from his Cross ! " My God ! my God ! why
hast thou forsaken me?''^ What a revelation
of human infirmity, of a nature worn down and
well-nigh crushed, is that scene in the garden,
when he told his disciples that his distress was
so great that it seemed to him as if he should
die !^ '^ My soul is exceeding sorrowful even
unto death ; wait here and watch with me." He
wanted to be alone, and yet he could not bear
to be alone. In his agony he threw himself
prostrate on the earth, and the sweat fell from
him like heavy drops of blood.^ Three times,

' Matt, xvii, 17. ^ l^j^q ^ii^ 50.

3 Jolm xiii, 27. ^ Matt, xxvii, 46.

^ Matt, xxvi^ 38.

^ The narrative does not say that blood fell from him in-
stead of sweat, — blood could not have been distinguished in
the darkj — but that his sweat was like, ^ as it icerej great
drops of blood. (Luke xxii, 44.) How this circumstance
became known to the disciples in the dark, and when they
were, as they state, asleep, is one of those questions that may

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 183

not enduring to be alone, he went and awoke
his disciples with reproachful words at their
insensibility, thus turning from God to Tnan,
from man to God, in a state of mind bordering
on distraction. He had exhausted him.self in
comforting them. But they fell asleep and
could give him no comfort in return. So evi-
dent is his prostrate condition at this hour, that
orthodox Christians have said that his human
nature was then forsaken by his Divine nature ;
an explanation proposed, without any warrant
in the Eecord, merely to save a theological
theory which has as little foundation in Scrip-
ture as in Reason.

Again, he had seasons equally human, of

remain unanswered without invalidating the fact. It may
easily be imagined that when Jesus went to awaken his
friends, his sweat fell upon the face or the hand of one or
another, in a drop or drops so heavy and large as to seem like
blood. Had it really been blood, they would hardly have
thought of calling it sweat, or the mode of describing it would
have been reversed, and they would have said that blood fell
from him as it were sweat.

184 THOUGHTS ON

great exaltation of mind, bordering on ecstasy ;
as at his baptism, when every veil was drawn
aside and he looked into heaven, and a dove,
hovering within the sphere of his rapt vision,
as he came out of the water with eyes uplifted
in prayer, lost its familiar appearance and was
transfigured into a symbol of the presence of
the Holy Spirit ! "When the seventy, whom he
sent forth to announce the heavenly kingdom,
returned, and reported the sensation which the
annunciation caused, ^' I beheld Satan," he ex-
claimed, "as lightning fall from heaven!"^
Again, when the Samaritans came running to
him at the well, drawn by the report of the
woman whom he met there, how greatly was
he exhilarated ! The conversation of the woman
refreshed him so that his hunger vanished, and
his disciples had to entreat him to eat; the
moral field then seemed to him all ripe for the
liarvest. For the moment all difficulties van-
ished before him.

All these indications of our human nature,

» Luke X, 18.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 185

SO far from causing the slightest diminution of
our reverence for him, only render him the
more admirable, because they attest a nature
tender and susceptible, and heighten the eflect
of the great qualities which he uniformly
showed. It would have implied great insensi-
bility had he never been angry, never been
tempted, never moved to tears, never exalted
nor depressed. If no word of mortal passion
had ever come from him, it would have gone
far to prove that he was constitutionally hard,
different from other men. These manifesta-
tions of weakness command our sympathy by
showing us ourselves in him. They reveal his
near relationship to us. They make him one
with us. Descending with him into the depths,
the more reverently do we scan the heaven-
reaching heights to which he ascended.

The Man of Nazareth is remarkable not only
for the depth and breadth of his intuitions, but
also for the delicacy of his spiritual sense. It is
as delicate as it is strong. The leading moral

186 THOUGHTS ON

teachers of antiquity give one the impression,
together with a certain rugged grandeur, of a
boyish if not barbarian simplicity, that did
not always distinguish things indifferent from
vital truths. They are great, but they are
antique. With all their superiority to their
times, they still belonged to them. But in him
there is a fine finish of the moral nature which
is in advance of the world, even now after
eighteen centuries, and which tells less of a
Past than of a Future. No culture that has
yet been realized, however refined, can look
down upon him.

When even the gentlest of his friends was
ready to invoke fire from heaven to consume
the inhospitable Samaritans, " Te know not^'
said he, '^what manner of spirit ye are of.''^
Again, when a certain man begged him to
speak to his brother to divide their patrimony,
" Man^'' said he, ''who made me a judge or a
divider over you T"^

What a striking instance have we of the
delicacy of his mind in the way in which he
received the costly offering of Mary's rever-
ence !^ The suggestion, '' Why was not this

^ Luke ix, 55. ^ l^^|^q ^ii^ 14. ^ Matt, xxvi, 6-13.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 187

ointment sold and given to the poor?'' is so very
plausible that, at the first blush, one is inclined
to think that it would best become Jesus him-
self to have made it, seeing that he had so spe-
cial an interest in the poor. But no, he disre-
gards the suggestion, postpones the claims of
the poor, and accepts and appropriates to him-
self the precious ointment, declaring that Mary
was doing rightly.

We have here, by the way, one of those inci-
dents in the history which seem at first sight to
be at variance with the spirit of his character.
He is represented as being indiflferent to those
to whose welfare he was devoting his life. But
under the apparent contradiction, only a finer
consistency is revealed. All the circumstances
of the occasion being considered, we perceive
a tenderness of mind and a truth of feeling
which only a person of profound humanity
could have evinced.

In the coincidence of this act of Mary with
his situation as a man doomed to die, and that
so shortly that he seemed to himself all but
prepared for the last offices, he discerned a
significance so sacred as to outweigh far all the

188 THOUGHTS ON

good, of whicli the mere commercial worth of
the ointment might have been the means. Not
that any calculation of the different uses of the
costly ointment passed through his mind. It is
the delicate and yet healthy tenderness of his
sensibility, his "reason above reason," that im-
presses us. As the ointment, doubtless, was of
that costly kind kept almost exclusively for the
dead, when its rich funereal perfume struck his
sense, there was given in his mind the added
sacredness of death to the already holy senti-
ment of reverent affection, which prompted
Mary to the act ; a sentiment not to be frus-
trated for any ordinary reason, a sentiment
more nourishing to the world than a thousand
deeds of common charity. How natural was it,
in the then state of his mind, looking on him-
self as on the brink of the grave, that this act
of Mary's should impress him so profoundly !
He could not but have regarded it, at such a
moment, as an offering of affection, pure even
to sanctity, and as suggested rather by a Divine
impulse than by any common human feeling.
And what must have rendered it to the last
degree impressive, was the strong contrast in

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 189

which it stood out with the coarse-mindedness
that grudged him this last expression of per-
sonal affection.

Again. When he told his disciples that one
of them w^as about to prove false, — a fact,
which, as he said, he informed them of before-
hand, that they might continue to believe in
him afterwards, recollecting then, as they would
recollect, that he had been prepared for all that
happened, — the care he shows not to mention
the name of Judas, to avoid betraying his be-
trayer to the indignation of his fellow-disciples,
evinces a generosity so delicate, that, when we
once appreciate it, we shall hesitate long before
we venture to represent him as under any moral
delusion whatever. One, so clear-sighted as he
is seen to be on these different occasions, is not
to be charged with being misled by private
aims or strong national prejudices, certainly not
by any one who does not claim to possess a
moral sense equally delicate and true.

That he never shows his Hebrew blood in
his mind, that he was a stranger to the pride of

190 THOUGHTS ON

birth, for instance, so characteristic of the
descendants of Abraham, I am far from saying.
On more than one occasion, the Jewish senti-
ment is evident in him. But then the manifes-
tation of it is either perfectly innocent; or,
what is more striking, it is attended by circum-
stances which render the final impression one
of great liberality.

I say his Jewish blood shows itself sometimes
very innocently ; and, in so saying, I have in
mind his indignant address to the ruler of the
synagogue, who objected to the cure on the
Sabbath of the woman who had been a sufferer
for eighteen years. ''Hypocrite!" exclaimed
Jesus, '' is there a man of you that does not on
the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the
stall and lead him away to watering? And
ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abra-
ham^ whom Satan hath bound, lo ! these eigh-
teen years, be loosed from this bond on the
Sabbath-day?"^ In this allusion to the woman's
Hebrew origin, do we not catch a tone of the
proud ancestral instinct of the Jew ?

Again, the Jew is recognizable in the sur-

' Luke xiii, 10-17.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 191

prise whicli he expressed at the faith of the
Roman Centurion.^ He evidently did not look
for it. He had not thought it possible to find
such susceptibility to good impressions in a
Gentile. But then the liberal tendency of his
mind is seen in the grand hint which he catches
from the faith of the Centurion^ Through this
unlooked-for instance, as through a rent in the
veil of Futurity, he looks forth, and, in inter-
preting the faith of the Roman as a revelation
of human nature, he sees men coming to the
knowledge of Truth from the remotest quarters
of the earth. While his astonishment discloses
the Jew, with instinctive openness he leaps to
the largest inferences, and shows that he con-
templated an influence extending far beyond
his own nation.

He manifests his Jewish birth and culture in
the zeal for the sanctity of the Temple, that
prompted him to take a whip of small cords,^
and drive from the sacred inclosure those w^ho,
in the blind eagerness for gain, had encroached
upon it with their tables for the exchange of
money, and their doves, and other animals,

' Matt, viii, 10. ^ Jesus and his Biograpliers,

192 THOUGHTS ON

offered for sale to those who desired victims for
the altar. I suppose there was no one thing
that he did, more likely than this, to make him
popular with the masses. They could under-
stand an enthusiastic reverence for the Temple,
while they were insensible to the sanctity of
human rights. They were not peculiar in this
respect.

But the most marked manifestation of Jewish
feeling appears in his treatment of the Gentile
mother who came entreating him to heal her
daughter.^ She annoyed him, according to the
accounts, by her importunity. He was en-
deavoring to escape public notice. He had
some urgent reason, so the narrative authorizes
us to infer, — it does not state it, — to avoid being
recognized. ''He entered into a house and
would have no man know it. But he could
not be hid," because this woman called out
after him, imploring his pity. For a space he
took no notice of her. And when his disciples
begged him to send her away, he intimated in
reply that he should pay no attention to her
request, as his concern was, not for Gentiles,

» Matt. XV, 25 ; Mark vii, 25.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 193

but for ''the lost sheep of the house of Israeh"
But she came and threw herself down before
him saying, ''Sir, help me." He replied, "Let
the children first he fed^ for it is not meet to take
the children's hread^ and east it to the dogs.'' This
is the language of a Jew, of one who looked
upon Gentiles as dogs in comparison with
Israelites, the children of the great Household.
But Jesus either spoke thus, conforming with-
out thought to the mode of speaking belonging
to the place and the time, in order to repulse
this foreign woman, or curious to hear what she
would say, he used this phraseology to discover
whether she were in earnest. In either case, I
do not know which is most impressive, the faith.
of the woman which would not be repulsed, or
the promptness with, which he yielded to her
request, acknowledging her faith. Harsh as
his words sound, I doubt whether there were
any tone of harshness in his voice, any severity
in his look. The woman's senses, sharpened
by her great need, doubtless beheld in that
countenance the light, and heard in that voice
the music of his commanding humanity. After
all, however we may think of his words, liis act

n

194 THOUGHTS ON

was humane, and lie commended and rewarded
the woman's faith. Although he felt himself
bound to labor only among his countrymen, —
and it was the part of wisdom thus to concen-
trate his efforts, — yet he was not bigoted to this
restriction. He did not make it a matter of
conscience, or he would not have treated this
Gentile as a daughter of Abraham, as he did
when he yielded to her request.

But all these marks of his Hebrew blood
serve only to set off the predominant liberality
of his thoughts. Perceiving that he thus be-
longed to a nation as bigoted as the world
has ever seen, we are only the more struck
with the fact that he should have conceived, for
instance, the parable of the Good Samaritan.
What could be more offensive to Jewish pride
than the contrast made so boldly in this parable
between a Priest and a Levite on the one hand,
and a despised Samaritan on the other. The
Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican is
indicative of the same large, z^Tz-Jewish temper
of mind. It evinces the decisive superiority of
Jesus to the vulgar prejudices of his country-
men. The Pharisees were the leading men in

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 195

the religious world of the day ; and how per-
sonally insulting this parable must have been to
their whole body, it is not difficult to imagine.
They must have thought his language, in refer-
ence to them, very abusive.

After all, in the best sense of the name, he
was indeed a Hebrew of the Hebrews, 'the
bright consummate flower' of that great race
whose religious distinction it was that for the
Being they worshipped they knew no symbol.
As the nation went down in blood and ruin, its
spirit escaped and arose in him in full-orbed
splendor, and in him the lofty Hebrew element
is still vital in the world.

It may be asked, by the way, how the daugh-
ter of the Syro-Phoonician w^oman was healed
when she was not present. She was sufiering,
as I judge from the accounts, from one of those
nervous diseases which are peculiarly sensitive
to the influence of impressions made on the
mind. It surely is not difficult to imagine how
much the bare fact that her mother had gone

196 THOUGHTS ON

to seek the aid of one, the report of whose
wonderful power was everywhere causing the
greatest excitement, must have wrought to
elate the mind of the suffering daughter. If we
suppose, as we may very naturally, that the
confidence of the mother in the power of Jesus
had been expressed in the presence of her child,
before she left home, we can easily see how her
going for him must have so affected the daugh-
ter, that her cure may really have begun before
the mother's return. And when the mother
did return, every feature beaming with faith,
the cure was made complete. Thus, through
sj'mpathy, the faith of the mother sufficed for
the relief of her daughter.

So great was the faith of this woman that her
daughter would be well if Jesus only said the
word, that, upon receiving the desired assurance
from him, she went away perfectly satisfied. If
it be difficult for us to believe in the existence
of a faith so strong, it is so, only because we do
not duly consider the circumstances, nor bear
in mind the overpowering influence which a
great public excitement has upon individual
minds. Mr. Carlyle, in his History of the

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 197

French Eevolution — a work as extraordinary in
Historical Literature as the event which it
records was in human affairs, — has given us a
vivid idea of the frenzy of ' preternatural sus-
picion/ which then seized the French people.
The mind of the nation, wrenched away from
its old habitudes, at one time ascended into
a heaven of hope, and at another, went reel-
ing down, sweeping resistlessly along with it
the wisest and the most cool, into a very hell
of fear and distrust, in which the ravings of
madness were received as the inspirations of
wisdom. But is it necessary to refer to such an
extreme case in order to perceive how helpless
individuals are against any passion or belief
when once it has become epidemic ? The his-
tory of the commercial world, the last place one
would think to look for them, is full of instances
of men the most phlegmatic, entertaining as
the suggestions of prudence, speculations as
wild as the tales of the Orient.

Now I am at a loss to conceive how it could
have been otherwise than that, after a few only
of the wonderful works of Jesus had been wit-
nessed and rumored abroad, there should have

17*

198 THOUGHTS ON

arisen a very whirlwind of faith in the public
mind, by the force of w^hich, individuals, espe-
cially if they or theirs were suffering under any
physical infirmity, were caught up, lifted off"
their feet, raised to such a height of confidence
in the power of Jesus as is shown in the Roman
Centurion and the Syro-Phoenician woman, both
of whom required only a word from him to in-
sure the instant recovery of their absent chil-
dren ; and in the woman who came to Jesus
and was healed by a mere touch of his gar-
ments. What distinguished the public excite-
ment which he caused from those other in-
stances of a like nature, to which I have just
referred, was, that it was no delusion. There
was an adequate cause for it. It was the effect,
the reverberation of the transcendent faith of
Jesus himself.

Ix the account of the conversation between
Jesus and the woman of Samaria, the following
declaration is attributed to him : " Ye worship

THE LIFE OE JESUS, 199

ye know not ivhat ; loe know ivhat we ivorsJiip^ for
salvation is of the Jews,''^

I cannot persuade myself that lie ever uttered
these words, not merely because they are so
intensely Jewish, but also because they have no
living connection with the passage in which
they are found, but break violently in upon the
great thoughts expressed. They have all the
sound of an interpolation caused by some early
transcriber with a strong Jewish prejudice
against the Samaritans.

I HAVE remarked that no one has ever lived,
of whom, from the accounts that have come to
us, we may form so vivid an idea as of Jesus of
Nazareth. There need be no doubt as to his
essential qualities. And the reason is, that the
incidents which make up his history are singu-
larly personal. The history is never abstract,
but circumstantial from beginning to end.

Being of this description, the facts are found
to be just such as always impress themselves

' John iv, 22.

200 THOUGHTS ON

upon the minds of those who had part in them,
beyond the possibility of being forgotten.
There is scarcely an incident in the Four Gos-
pels, which, when fully considered, with all its
probable concomitants, is not perceived to be
precisely of this memorable character. The
powerful personality of Jesus took into itself
the circumstances that surrounded it, and com-
municated to them, with its color and life, its
immortality also. Whatever act he did and
whatever word he uttered instantly rendered
the spot and the moment remarkable, never to
be forgotten by those present. So that, had he
acted and spoken with a studied reference to a
science of Mnemonics, he could not have pro-
vided more efiectually for the preservation of
his words and works. He wrote nothing;
neither did he direct others to record his teach-
ings and his life. There was no manner of
need. The circumstances, in which he lived
and spoke, set off so many at least of his say-
ings and doings as have come down to us, in a
way so impressive that they were sure to be
recorded. And yet those circumstances were
not in themselves peculiar. Oftentimes they

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 201

were of the homeliest household sort. But
such were his utterances in connection with
them, that both together formed events of a
marked and imperishable significance. And
thus his every word became a Scripture, not
writ with hands, nor in artificial characters,
upon parchment or paper, but recorded, as all
God's Scriptures are, in actual Life, and beyond
the possibility of loss or erasure.

When, for instance, he turned and said to
the crowd that was pressing upon him, their
minds all burning with hopes of national deliver-
ance, '' If a man hate not his father and mother^
yea^ and his oivn life also, he cannot go with me.
He^ who ivould indeed folloiv me^ must tahe his
cross and come after me to execution^'" how was it
possible that such words, uttered under such
circumstances, could ever be forgotten ? Most
certain were they to be preserved in vivid
remembrance, and, though beld for a time in
solution in the living hearts of men, yet to be
precipitated at last, rather by a law of nature
than by human design, in w^ritten characters on
the page of history,

I think, as I have said, that nearly every

202 THOUGHTS ON

recorded incident of the Life of Jesus will vin-
dicate its truth and immortality by being found,
upon examination, to have been originally thus
striking.

And then again how much did the allegorical
style of his teachings insure their being re-
membered ? The truths which he taught were
thus given in the form of pictures, to seize and
retain which, the mind is by its very nature
prepared with as much nicety as the plates of
Daguerre for the action of the light. They
could not be forgotten. Jesus delivered no ab-
stract discourses. Everything that he touched,
were it with only the hem of his garment,
instantly started into life, prepared to do his
bidding. He made all things his heralds. All
joined his retinue, demonstrating his authority,
gracing the triumph of his truth.

Mr. Parkeii inclines to think that the loftiest
sayings of Jesus are genuine. But what if it
may be made to appear that nearly all his
recorded sayings are lofty ? Much that he said

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 203

and did is omitted. Granted. But according
to my friend's thinking and mine, it is only the
most striking things that have been recorded.
The probability is, that what is lost was not so
remarkable as what has been preserved. It is
only of the last few hours of the life of Jesus,
that we have anything like a regular narrative ;
which is as it should be. That was undoubtedly
the most momentous part of his history. Then
it was that his lofty spirit was put to the
severest test, and manifested itself most impres-
sively. The rest of the history is hardly any-
thing more than a compilation of separate inci-
dents, I suppose the most striking, put together,
with so little observance of any order, that, as I
have said, it is not possible to determine now,
with any degree of certainty, how long his
public career continued, whether two, three, or
four years.

As I have just remarked, the brief biogra-
phies of Jesus are made up of personal anec-
dotes, of precisely such particulars as not only
are best remembered, but as best give us an

204 THOUGHTS ON

insight into personal character. Incidents of
that personal kind which we so often miss in
the biographies of remarkable men, far more
significant than any ofilcial details, compose the
history of Jesus.

No one who has ever lived has proved to be
so truly a public personage as he. And yet
the Four Gospels are, to a singular degree, the
accounts of a private life. They disclose to us
his inmost heart, his most intimate personal
relations, his deepest privacy. Most of the
occasions on which he appears before us in
these histories, are domestic and incidental.
"We behold him with his personal friends ; we
listen to him in his conversations with private
individuals, in sudden and unlooked-for ren-
contres with strangers and with opponents, and
in his profoundest solitude.

Of almost all other eminent persons, the pri-
vate portion of their lives is commonplace,
having little forcible enough to cause itself to
be recorded. We know nothing of them, ex-
cept in some formal relation to the public,
which seldom enables us to know them as they
were. We see them only in some public posi-

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 205

tion ; and in that position so hidden under the
robes of office, so disguised and decorated and
put upon their best behavior, that we have a
misgiving all the time that the real persons are
not there. We long to see them in undress, in
their private and unguarded moments ; or when
we chance to see them thus, we find that, when
divested of their stars and ribbons, they are
stript of their greatness also.

In this respect, the case of the Man of Naza-
reth is most singular. His very heart is laid
bare to ns. We are permitted to look in upon
his awful solitude, on that last night, when in
his mortal agony he was all alone in the Uni-
verse with God ; and never is he greater.

What a world — what a very heaven of gene-
rosity is thrown open to us in him on the night
before his execution, when, although the black
Cross was so close to him that it covered him
with its shadow, he yet lost himself in the
generous office of comforting his aflrighted and
stricken friends, an office for which he received

18

206 THOUGHTS ON

no return, not even the solacing thought that
they appreciated his purpose and position.

By means of these artless narratives, we
penetrate the thick gloom of that saddest of all
nights, and, transported thither by the magnet-
ism of a common nature, we join that weeping
company, Jesus and the Eleven, as they wend
their melancholy way, in the dark, to the
garden which he loved. It is no wonder that
the memory of every other of his many visits to
that favorite resort was blotted out in the re-
membrance of the last. The tender tones of a
voice, modulated by the utmost sincerity and
the most devoted affection, come to us through
the night. Every word and every movement,
from the moment when, with his three most
intimate friends, he parts from the rest of the
disciples, are in thrilling unison with the laws
of our common humanity. The solitude and
the midnight hour have their natural effect
upon him. After the superhuman strength
with which, in order to comfort his dismayed
followers, he had held aside his own sorrows,
there came a natural revulsion, and they rushed
upon him with a crushing weight, and literally

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 207

prostrated him to the earth. His friends, be-
wildered by the darkness which had suddenly
gathered around all their bright hopes, were
utterly helpless to comfort him. The conscious-
ness of his lonely situation fills him with such
exceeding anguish that it seemed to him, as he
told them, that he should die. But they have
no word of consolation for him. Stupefied
and exhausted by grief, they fall asleep, and he
is left all alone in his agony. But out of that
midnight gloom, out of that deadly conflict
came the immortal saying, thenceforth the
sacred battle-cry of the soul's victory over all
mortal sorrows : ''Not my will, hit thine, 0 Crod,
he done r'

It is precisely this portion of his life that is
best fitted to show us just what manner of
spirit he was of, which is most minutely told.
In what other biography that was ever written,
are the retired and most private hours of the
subject of it so thrown open to our view?
What other human being has ever been shown
to us, so exactly as he was, to the very centre
of him, in his own isolated personality, cut off*
from all human supports ? "What other human

203 THOUGHTS ON

being has been thus probed to the very soul
and found to be so thoroughly true, so divinely
beautiful ?

The more I study these Notices of the Life
of Jesus, the more wonderful do they grow. It
must be owing to their exceeding simplicity
that we have failed to be impressed by their
truth. They are as simple as Nature, as simple
as Jesus himself. And therefore we have been
as unconscious of their intrinsic vitality as we
are of the air that we breathe, or of the light
which, invisible itself, reveals the beauty of the
world ; and we find fault with them because
they are not what we have ignorantly assumed
that they ought to be.

I cannot tell, — I hardly care to know, — when
they were written or by whom. The most
complete biographies of the authors of these
books could tell me nothing of them that could
increase the confidence and respect which the
books themselves inspire. How these writings
took their present shape is a mystery. I am

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 209

inclined to think that originally they appeared
not in their present shape but in a fragmentary
form. Luke states at the commencement of
his gospel that there were many accounts of
Jesus published, and that, others having under-
taken the work, he had determined to attempt it
also, as he knew the whole story. It is evident,
upon an examination of Luke's gospel, that
he made use of accounts previously published,
and arranged them according to his idea of
their connection, not always putting them in
their right places.

But whatever was the origin of these histo-
ries, it is clear that they are the works of hands
unpractised in the art of writing, and writing
with just such indifference to style and effect
as must exist where the sense of truth is so ab-
sorbing as to leave no room for other motives
to act. They are the writings of persons who
knew. They are very models of the careless,
unguarded freedom of Truth. Minute as they
are in their narrations, they constantly leave
numerous and important particulars to be in-
ferred. It is true they show themselves to bo
imbued with the errors and superstitions of

18^

210 THOUGHTS ON

tlieir times. Mixed up witli their histories are
things fabulous; and to ordinary events is
sometimes given the air of miracles. In John's
gospel, the writer not only narrates, he dis-
courses. He pauses to explain. And often his
style of thought and expression is so prominent
as almost to hide all trace of Jesus himself.^
Nevertheless, all these four books are made up,
for the most part, of circumstantial narratives,
wrought all over with those marks of truth
which, when rightly taken, produce a perfect
sense of reality.

Let the enigma then of the origin of these
writings remain unsolved and insoluble, their in-
trinsic character continues the same. Still they
show themselves to be inspired writings, full of
the inspiration of Nature and Truth. They
grew as naturally as any plant, and had the
same oririn.

It is no decisive proof that certain events

^ See John i, 1-18 ; iii, 13-21, 31-36. Traces of the writer
are discernible here and there, in ch. v and vi, and in chh. xiv,
XV, xvi, and xvii, and elsewhere.

THE LIFE OE JESUS. 211

have not happened, because they are imper-
fectly reported. All that can be affirmed with
truth is, that they may be so imperfectly re-
ported that it is impossible to form any distinct
idea of them, and therefore they might as well
have not happened at all as to any knowledge
that we can have of them.

I admit that the N"ew Testament reports are
defective. But are they defective to this ex-
tent, or in such a manner as to render it impos-
sible to ascertain the truth ? I answer,

1. They are not defective through any inten-
tion on the part of their authors to falsify ; nor

2. Are the facts themselves of a nature diffi-
cult to be correctly reported.

But they are defective because they are writ-
ten without art or care. As the writers arc
entirely off their guard, their very carelessness
being occasioned by their confidence in the
reality of what they relate, we may infer the
cause from its effects ; and their very omissions
and mistakes furnish us with the most satisfac-
tory means of determining the truth.

The character of the Four Gospels being
such as it is, I affirm that their contents arc

212 THOUGHTS ON

true, not although, but because they are imper-
fect. Supposing the events, which they record,
to have actually taken place, are not the Gos-
pels precisely such narratives as ought to have
been expected ? Who was there among those,
conversant with the facts, qualified to give us
any other than just such accounts as these?
There is a natural accordance between the facts
and the probable historians. Any other than
just such rude and artless narratives as these
would have been entirely out of place. A life,
spent as the life of Jesus is represented to have
been, among the lowly, could have found its
historians only among that class.

Thus artless, the Gospels are not always to
be taken to the letter. The writers are not to
be understood as if they were upon their oath.
When it is stated, for instance, once and again,
that 'great multitudes followed JesuSy and that he
healed them all^'^ the commonest degree of fair-

^ Matt, xii, 15 } xix, 2.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 213

ness forbids us to charge tlie narrator with
intending to say that the multitudes were all
suffering. The obvious fact is, that he wrote
with the confidence of conscious, or uncon-
scious, truth. Again, when, in the account of
the agony of Jesus in the garden, the historian
tells us that the only persons who were with
Jesus at the time were asleep, and yet informs
us of what he said and did on that occasion, it
is only common candor to suppose that their
slumber was not so unbroken but that one or
all were awake long enough to see and hear the
little that is related of him.^

There are numerous passages of this kind
which have given rise to captious objections,
only because the popular style and careless
structure of the Records have been lost sight
of, and a correctness of statement has been
looked for, inconsistent with the character of
the narrators. These cavils, which seem to me
to be unworthy of any intelligent reader,
abound in Strauss's Life of Jesus. They are
directed at difiiculties which may remain unex-
plained to the end of time, without involving

' Matt, xxvi ; Mark xiv ; Luke xxii.

214 THOUGHTS ON

the essential truth of the facts recorded ; diffi-
culties which, it is easy to see, a little more ful-
ness in the narrative would have precluded.
Some excuse, however, for the embarrassment
they occasion lay-readers, may be found in
those false ideas of the Four Gospels, which,
representing them as written under the dicta-
tion of the Holy Spirit, have authorized the
demand for perfect accuracy, and caused a
world of needless trouble.^

I SEE that the accounts of Jesus are fragmen-
tary. I concede that they relate only a portion
of his history, and that very briefly. The traces
of the ignorance and simplicity of their authors
are manifest.

And yet, with these drawbacks, I value these
writings not only as the most natural and as all
that could be expected under the circumstances,
but as absolutely the most satisfactory. Al-

^ And yet, in Heaven's good providence, not wholly need-
less. It is in the work of clearing away difficulties, that valu-
able evidences of truth are brouo^ht to lio:ht.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 215

though they tell us only a portion of his life, it
is by far the most important portion. And
what is lacking in completeness is made up in
effectiveness. "What is told is told in a way so
truthful that the essential qualities of Jesus are
rendered almost visible and palpable. The
same absence of art, that renders the Gospels
mere sketches, causes these sketches to be far
more true to the life, far more full of the spirit
of their subject than the most elaborately
colored portrait by the practised hand of the
most skilful artist. There is no study of effect,
no anxiety shown to observe consistency. What
they have to tell is shown with the freedom and
simplicity of light.

I CANNOT imagine any supposition more en-
tirely needless than that, in the composition of
these books, their authors were controlled by a
special inspiration. They did not need any
such inspiration. The idea that they wrote
under the miraculous dictation of the Holy
Spirit, and that no confidence can be put in

216 THOUGHTS ON

them unless tliey were so guided, implies that
the facts and teachings, which make up the
history of Jesus, were of so uncertain and ab-
struse a character, that it was beyond the power
of human observation, unaided, to report them
correctly. Whereas his sayings and works
were so simple, so easy of reception, both in
their spirit and in their form, that no special
provision was required to communicate the
knowledge of them to the whole world. They
needed no more care than Nature was sure to
take. They were like the seeds of the thistle,
which are tost to the wind to sow, and the
wind sows them.

Thus true to the method of ITature is the
manner in which the History of Jesus was
planted among mankind. The fowls of the air
were on the wing. The ground was stony and
thorns abounded. Nevertheless the living seed
was cast abroad amidst numerous influences
that threatened it with instant destruction.
And although much now seems ,to be lost that
he said or did, yet enough has remained to
bring forth a hundred fold, and to sow a world
with. New as his life was, yet was it so true

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 217

to Nature that it came to its own, and could not
but live in the memory of mankind. It took
root in the world by the necessity of things.

So far from there being any need of the
miraculous dictation of the Holy Spirit to com-
municate it, there was no need even of any
human accomplishments to qualify the authors
of the Gospels to tell the story truly. The
most ordinary natural faculties sufficed. Men
without any intellectual culture were abun-
dantly competent, nay, they were the best fitted
for the work, if they only had good sight and
hearing, and honest minds. Happy is it that
the truth of the story was not endangered by
any conceit of the pen. Heaven be praised that
Jesus lived neither among the rhetoricians of
Greece, nor the philosophers of Alexandria !
His history is wrapt in no scholastic sophistica-
tions. Had it been, what a mass of erudition,
beyond the capacity of any German brain,
would it have required to extricate it from that
subtle web ! How small would have been the

19

218 THOUGHTS ON

hope of getting any considerable part of it out
whole ! I would as soon have undertaken to
decipher the stone Scriptures of Ancient Egypt.
What would have been the result had learned
men had the writing of the Life of Jesus, we
may form some idea, from what happened to
Christianity when, in the course of time, it fell
among the Platonizing fathers, who, unlike the
thieves in the Parable, instead of stripping it
bare, left it so crushed under the cumbrous and
fanciful garments which they threw over it, that
it is no wonder that many have come and
looked at it and passed by on the other side,
without any recognition of it.

JSToTWiTHSTANDiNa all that I have suggested
to account for the fact that so much of the Life
of Jesus has been remembered, when so little
was thought of preserving the memory of it at
the time, it may still be thought difficult to be
accounted for, that we should have as much as
we have, and have it told so minutely.

The truth is, with our best endeavors, we can

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 219

form but a faint idea of the energy with which
the words and works of Jesus wrought upon
those who were in personal communication
with him. Only think, it went to the extent of
changing their personal characters. It drew
them away from their old habits of life and
made new men of them. Under the influence
of the Life of Jesus, they left the little lake of
Galilee, where they had toiled from boyhood,
catching a daily pittance of fish, and launched
boldly out into the great wild sea of the world,
where they became fishers of men, casting
abroad their nets amidst its foam and din, and
gathering in great and fierce nations. The
details, through which so commanding an in-
fluence wrought on them, must have stamped
themselves upon their minds with a vividness,
of which, those who have had no similar expe-
rience can form only the faintest idea.

THOUGHTS

HI

It strikes me as very natural that Jesus
sliould entitle that true spirit of mind which
was in his disciples, and which he said would
supply his place when he should he taken away
from them, ''another Comforter'' While he
was with them, and especially in those last
hours of their intercourse, he was their Com-
forter. When he should be parted from them,
the spirit of Truth, which had first led them to
him, would remain with them, leading them
forever on to still higher truth, interpreting for
them all their experience, making plain what
was at first inexplicable ; this true spirit would
be their heaven-sent Comforter and Guide, sup-

THOUGHTS ON THE LIFE OF JESUS. 221

plying, and more than supplying, his place. He
could not remain with them. It was necessary
for their sakes that he should be taken away,
for, so long as he remained, their Jewish dreams
would beguile them and keep them from as-
cending to higher hopes. But the true Spirit,
that other Comforter, would remain with them
forever.

This same Comforter and Teacher is as neces-
sary to us as it was to them. No learning, no
culture can compensate for its absence. We
cannot advance a step toward the Truth with-
out it.

^'I AM the resurrection and the life: he that
helieveth in me, though he were dead, yet will he
live, and whosoever liveth and helieveth in me, will
never die.'' A physician, who a short time
since had been watching with me the last mo-
ments of a friend, remarked to me afterwards
that, often as he had witnessed death, he had
never become familiar with it ; that it always
impressed him afresh with a sense of mystery.
Thus as death, although constantly occurring

19*

222 TnouGiiTS on

and constantly witnessed, never loses its impres-
siveness, so these loftj^ words of Jesus, asso-
ciated as they are with death and burial, never
grow commonplace. They always have the
sound to me of an unfathomed simificance.
There is a solemn charm in them which always
attracts me. I have a persuasion that they
contain the w^hole secret of our immortality.
Never have words come from the lips of man
so indefeasibly commanding. There is the ring
in them of an unearthly authority, — the utter-
ance of a king.

"Were it not so, — if they have not a great
meaning, a meaning that goes to the inmost
being of us in answer to the instinct of our
immortal nature, — in a word, if they are not
vital with a great truth, how is it that whole
nations and generations listen to them and re-
peat them with an unbidden reverence, with an
involuntary faith? How is it that minds most
elevated by culture and philosophy can by no
eflbrt make them sound otherwise than authori-
tative and grand? If they are not profoundly
true, what are they then, w^hat can they be but
the incoherent ravings of the wildest insanity !

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 223

Call to mind the circumstances in which, the
person by whom, and the place where, they
were uttered. A poor youth, of very humble
origin, and of no education apparently, in an
obscure part of a remote province of the Eoman
Empire, — it is such an one, who, surrounded
by a few unlettered villagers like himself, ad-
dresses these great words to a sister of a friend
of his who had just died. Nothing could have
been uttered more truly casual]}^, scarcely more
privately. There was no preparation made for
their utterance, no provision for their publica-
tion. The world was not hushed into silence
to hear. ISTo host of angels were in waiting,
the instant they fell upon the air to take them
up and sound them abroad over the whole
earth. They were spoken in a small circle of
private persons, and in the ordinary tone and
course of familiar conversation. And yet they
have fallen like drops of flame, and burnt them-
selves into the heart of the world. And now
at every Christian burial these words are re-
peated. Not an hour passes in which they are
not sounded as the cofiined remains of mor-
tality are borne to their last repose from luxu-

224 THOUGHTS ON

rious mansions or from the abodes of the poor;
in far-off wastes, in the wild mid-ocean. Every-
where, in many tongues, these words are
spoken amidst convulsive sobs and streaming
tears, and at their sound an air of sanctity fills
the place, and the crushing burthen of the
sorest bereavement is lightened, and breaking
hearts are soothed as by voices from heaven,
and visions of the departed and the lamented,
living again and transfigured, appear and dispel
the gloom.

Discharging for our sorrowing humanity this
consolatory office, these words may well claim
to be studied, for they must have in them the
vital energy of Truth. To suppose that they
could possess this power and yet be illusory,
the ravings of a madman, as they must be, if
they are not true, is to confound all distinctions,
and virtually to pronounce Delusion as consola-
tory as Truth.

I consider this passage as one of the numer-
ous instances in which, in our Common Ver-
sion, will may be substituted for shall with great
advantage. I cannot but be impressed, in con-
nection with this passage, with the fact that

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 225

Jesus, as I understand liim, never deals in arbi-
trary promises and threats. He only asserts
facts, the eternal laws of the spirit. I hold it
to be of the first importance to a right under-
standing of his teachings, that this character-
istic of his words should be fully apprehended.
It is a very simple point; but it affects our
whole view of his religion, and shows it to rest
on an immovable foundation. The doctrine of
his supreme divinity has been so long and so
widely prevalent, that, regarding him as the
Supreme God, men have naturally understood
him as announcing his own sovereign pleasure.
Whereas he only asserts what is, or what is to be,
independently of any will or choice of his.
Thus, in the passage upon which I am now
commenting, I understand him to affirm what
is true in the nature of things : ' He that be-
lieveth in me, though he were dead, yet will he
live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me,
will never die.' Not arbitrary decrees, but natu-
ral consequences are here expressed.

We know nothing of Lazarus but what is
contained in the brief statement that he was
beloved by Jesus. But what a volume is there

226 THOUGHTS ON

in that! He could have been a person of no
common character to stand in such a relation
to Jesus. Although it would seem that he had
no gifts qualifying him for pablic action, and
that he was of a class seldom known but to a
few, yet he must have been a man of no ordi-
nary worth. Those, whom Jesus loved, al-
though they may have had no ability to coope-
rate with him, and he never summoned them
to his aid, must, on this very account, have been
possessed of endearing qualities. That Lazarus
was susceptible of great strength of affection
the result testifies.

One of the inscrutable secrets of our being,
which, because it is so common, we overlook,
or never adequately appreciate, is the sympathy
of mind with mind. Galvanic and magnetic
currents are feeble and sluggish in comparison
with those spiritual sympathies that make us
one. Our life is not contained within our cor-
poreal frames. We live in those we love, and
they live in us. The life of our life is in beings
external to us, from whom we derive it through
our affections. It is a great mystery.

One of these intimate vital unions existed

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 227

between Jesus and Lazarus, — no superficial
relation, such as the world names friendship.
Think only what implicit confidence, what pro-
found veneration Jesus must have inspired.
Perfect sincerity, saintly purity, a godlike mag-
nanimity, and a woman's tenderness, — these
qualities could have created in the bosom of
Lazarus no every-day affection. Think too
what a power Truth must have been, coming
from such lips ! Through his veneration for
Jesus, Lazarus must have been made conscious
before he died of a life new and deep, since the
most vital sentiments of our being were in him
so mightily stimulated into activity. And when
he fell asleep in death, this deep, strong life of
the affections was all there. Through all his
illness, with the last wanderings of his mind,
when all grew dreamy, I doubt not, the idea
of his revered friend flitted perpetually before
him.

And did this strong inner life come to an
end when the lungs ceased to heave and the
pulse to beat ? "VVe do not know. We do not
know, unless indeed we gather some hint from
this great history, what effect death has upon

228 THOUGHTS ON

the immaterial part of us. How difficult is it
to bring men to perceive that they reallj^clo not
know what death is !^ AYe assume, but without

^ In order to know what death is, should we not first know
what Life is, since death is an event or change in the natural
history of Life? But '^the general notion of life is acknow-
ledged by the most profound philosophers to be dim and
mysterious up to the present time." ^^ Though Harvey's
glory rested upon his having proved the reality of certain
mechanical movements and actions in the blood, this dis-
covery, and all other physiological truths, necessarily involved
the assumption of some peculiar agency belonging to living
things, different both from mechanical agency and from
chemical ; and in short, something vitalj and not physical
merely. For when it was seen that the pulsation of the
heart, its systole and diastole^ caused the circulation of the
blood, it might still be asked, what force caused this con-
stantly recurring contraction and expansion V ^' We can
trace the motions of the animal fluids, as Kepler traced the
motions of the planets, but when we seek to render a reason
for these motions, like him, we recur to terms of a wide and
profound, but mysterious import." [History of the Inductive
Sciences, by W. Wheicell.) Since we are thus confessedly
ignorant of the central life of our being, it is assuming more
than we know to say positively how it is, or to what extent,
this unknown life is afiPected by death, unless indeed we bring
into view the great facts of the life of Jesus bearing upon this
point. Then light begins to shine into the mystery.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 229

authority, that it is the instant termination of
all life. But we really do not know. The
living sympathize with the dead. To the
living, the dead are still objects of thought and
affection. We do not so positively know that
death puts an end to all the life that is in us,
that we may not ask : Do not the dead, on the
other hand, still sympathize with the living?
Are we not present in their thoughts as they
are in ours ? It may not be affirmed that they
do not remember us; and in this passage in the
history of Jesus, holding it to be true, I have
positive grounds for believing that they do ;
that the dead are still mysteriously bound to
the living, even as the living are bound by the
mysterious tie of memory to the dead.

The presence of Jesus at Bethanj^, during the
sickness of his friend, was anxiously looked
for. He delayed his visit, however, until the
intelligence came to him that Lazarus was
dead. As soon as she heard that he was
coming and was near at hand, Martha, one of
the sisters of the deceased, hastened to meet
him. It was when she met him, that the con-
versation took place in which Jesus gave utter-

20

230 THOUGHTS ON

ance to the words whose meaning I seek to
penetrate. " Then said Martha to Jesus, Lord,
if thou hadst been here, my brother had not
died. But I know that, even now, whatsoever
thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.''
By this last remark she may have intended
merely to say that, although he had not come
to restore her brother to health, she neverthe-
less still believed that he could do whatever he
chose, — receive whatever he asked. But I
think she meant more than this, that she de-
signed distantly to hint that, if he so willed, he
might even then give back Lazarus to them.
But when in reply he declared, in so many
words, that her brother would rise again, she
is, very naturally, staggered. She could bear
to hint distantly herself at the restoration of
her brother to life, not fully appreciating the
greatness of the thought, or rather, not fully
stating it even to her own mind. But when it
was presented to her mind by another, in full
front, and in no half-light, it was too much
for her; she instantly recoiled from the bold
idea, and took refuge in a profession of her
faith in a final resurrection. ^^I know," she

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 231

rejoined, "that he will rise again in the resur-
rection, at the last day." Then came the
memorable words, immortal as the Spirit of
Jesus: " I am the resurrection and the life: He
that trusts in me^ though he were dead, yet will he
live, and whosoever liveth and trusteth in me, will
never die,'' Martha had just expressed the
familiar, established idea of a future resurrec-
tion, the popularly received doctrine of the day,
a resurrection to take place at some indefinite
future period. Instantly, in answer to Martha,
and in opposition, as I conceive, to the old
idea, Jesus asserted the possibility of an imme-
diate, present resurrection, of an instant de-
liverance from death : "I am the resurrection."
'I have that within me which, now, on the
spot, communicates an imperishable life both
to the dead and to the living.'

In the rare development of his moral nature,
in the fulness of his knowledge of the highest
Truth, and his entire identification with it, he
was conscious of that powerful life which there
is in Truth, and which death cannot touch.
Have we never had any experience that gave us
a hint, distant indeed, but still a hint of the pro-

232 THOUGHTS ON

found consciousness of life from which Jesus
spoke ? Have we never had the happiness of
having some great truth, some broad principle
of Eight, impress us so deeply as to create in
us a conviction that here was something inde-
structible— something which was of Eternity ?
Only let truth which is truth, high and large
and beyond all dispute, be once heartily re-
ceived, let the higher sentiments of our nature
be called forth, and we shall have a conviction
created in us that we too are in communica-
tion, I had almost said in palpable contact, with
the Infinite and the Everlasting. A profound
sense of Truth is a profound sense of Power, of
Life.

Such, I believe, was, not the occasional, but
the deep and settled consciousness of Jesus,
and hence he had his being in an eternal
sphere. In loving what he loved with such entire-
ness of affection, he loved the imperishable, and
his love, which ivas his life, consciously partook of
the immortal nature of its object. And so full,
full to overflowing, was this faith of his, not in
a future, but in a present immortality, that,
conscious as he was besides of that extraordi-

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 233

nary power with, which he was by nature en-
dowed, he knew, — he could not help knowing,
— that there was an inexhaustible spring of life
at hand. He felt it within him.

And that such was the case, I think is clearly
shown in the explanation he immediately pro-
ceeded to give of the lofty claim which he
makes. It was in no mystical sense, but in a
way perfectly simple and natural, that he w^as
the resurrection and the life. It was only as
he was believed in that he became thus power-
ful. He explains his meaning: ^'He that be-
lieves in me, though he were dead, yet will
live, and whosoever living believes in me, will
never die."

We must take care, in reading this passage,
to dismiss from our minds all theological defi-
nitions of faith. By belief is meant here the
reliance of the heart, not an assent of the in-
tellect, but an active sentiment, a profound
aflection for the Highest and the Holiest.

It is observable that, while Jesus expresses
himself in the form of general proposition, and
appears to be stating general truths, there must
have been in the mind of Martha an immediate

20-

234: THOUGHTS ON

and exclusive application of his words to her
dead brother and to herself. Nay, I believe
that Jesus himself, when he expressed himself
thuSj was thinking only of Lazarus, and of Mar-
tha to whom he was speaking. Lazarus was,
at that moment, the all-engrossing thought of
both. In fact, it may be inferred from the very
form of his expressions, indefinite, universal,
that he spoke from the deep emotion which the
occasion was fitted to awaken. When we are
greatly moved, nothing is more natural than to
give utterance to our excited feelings in terms
of universal import. It is the natural language
of deep feeling.

Thus, while Jesus, speaking from that trans-
cendent consciousness of life which glowed
steadily, like the Vestal fire, in his soul, declared
that whoever had faith in him would live,
though he were dead, and whoso living believed
in him would never die, he had exclusively in
mind at the moment his friend recently de-
ceased, and the present living sister of the
dead.

And she so understood him, — understood
him precisely as if he had said in so many

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 235

words : ' Thy brother, who believed in me,
though he is dead, yet will live again ; and
thou, who art living and believing in me, wilt
never die. Believest thou this?' Had she
taken from his words only the general ideas,
which from the general form of his language
seem at first sight all that was expressed, she
would have had but little difficulty in giving
them her direct assent. But it was because she
took his words, — as it was so natural for her to
do under the circumstances, — in direct applica-
tion to her buried brother and to herself, that
she was again staggered by the startling bold-
ness of his thoughts. Again she falls back
upon a general profession of her faith in him.
She could honestly say that she believed
what he said only by adducing the warrant of
her faith in him in a general way : 'Yea, Lord,
I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of
God that should come into the world.' And,
upon this, evidently becoming conscious of her
inability to sustain the conversation with him,
she retreated and went to summon her sister.
It is not stated that Jesus had expressed any
desire to see Mary. lie may have done so.

236 THOUGHTS ON %

But even if he had not, it was very natural that
Martha should have retired, as she did, and
told Mary that Jesus wanted her. Martha
knew how her sister always listened to him
with the profoundest interest, and seemed to
understand him so much better than she. Mary
therefore, she felt, was needed there.

Taking the words of Jesus in the application,
which they were originally understood and in-
tended to have, to Lazarus and Martha, I
understand Jesus to declare that Lazarus,
having passed into that mysterious condition,
which we name death, cherishing a confidence in
him, which was a confidence in the truth which
he represented, was, through that faith, still
living. Indeed, Lazarus was so truly and pro-
foundly living, his faith in Jesus was so ardent
and deep, that, when Jesus called to him in his
grave, Lazarus heard the beloved voice, and
was in such deep sympathy with Jesus, that his
life returned again to the body.

We insist that we know what death is. But
Jesus here, in language most emphatic, declares
that this event is so much aftected by what he
calls faith, that it is death, according to the

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 237

common understanding, no more. He asserts
the existence of a life in the individual being,
which death cannot disturb, a life so deep and
strong, that, in the instance of Lazarus, when
appealed to or stimulated by that singular and
more than magnetic power which Jesus pos-
sessed, it could be recalled and made to re-
animate the body, even so long after the physi-
cal event of death as the fourth day. In fine,
the idea of Jesus is, that death is not what it is
popularly represented to be. It is not the dis-
solution of the personal being. The personal
life is unaffected by it.

We thus have an exposition of the natural
law or conditions under which this great fact,
the resurrection of Lazarus, occurred.

Thus interpreted, this event, while it illus-
trates the simple and majestic bearing of Jesus,
pours a great light upon the mystery of death,
which we may now learn to regard as a mere
physical change in the natural history of the
human spirit, like birth, growth, and sleep.

Our true life, so the resurrection of Lazarus
attests, is not in the material frame but in our
moral affections, in that which is the indestruc-

238 THOUGHTS ON

tible germ of the body. It is in that interior
being which apprehends . the True and the
Eight, and is capable of loving infinitely and
aspiring forever.

We are all born into an imperishable life by
virtue of this higher nature, this power of
loving the Highest and Best with an ever-grow-
ing afiection.

But there is a great variety of degrees in tbe
growth and unfolding of the immortal part of
us. Some, after dwelling in this visible state
for long years, pass away with this immaterial
life only in the faintest degree developed.
They have never known any strong and inspir-
ing emotion of faith, and love, — never had any
of the earnestness which, is life. Spiritually,
they have been still-born. Others again die
with the higher nature more or less vigorously
active. It has been quickened by Truth.
Death is not the same — it cannot be — to both
these descriptions of persons. The latter pass
away all alive. There is a life in them which

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 239

not the most sudden or violent physical change
can affect. And just as persons, who go to
sleep at night with a great business to be at-
tended to on the morrow on their minds, aw^ake
at the right hour, so those who die with high
aims at heart, have in themselves the means
whereby they revive, and, reviving, re-eollect
themselves. They come to themselves and
find their place and understand what has be-
fallen them the sooner and the more completely
through this deeper life. Lazarus died with so
strong a personal affection that, in some inscru-
table way, it held him in sympathy with Jesus,
the object of his reverential faith, and kept him
still within the reach and influence of his
beloved friend.

Death, gentle and gradual as it usually is,
nevertheless involves so great a physical change
that, unless the life that is in a man is rendered
vigorous through faith, such a great revolution
in the mode of existence must confound and
scatter his dreamy thinking so much as to
obliterate from his memory, for a time at least,
all the past. His past life, slight and superfi-
cial, is as truly lost to him as his infancy w^as to

240 THOUGHTS ON

liis mature years. He has notliing to remember
it by. Whereas one who dies with a dear
object or friend at heart, passes through the
great physical revolution, in which the whole
physical organism is broken up, and is able to
preserve the continuity of his conscious exist-
ence uninterrupted.

Jesus called to Lazarus vnth a loud voice. Why
did he call thus loudly but that he expected
Lazarus to hear him ? It was no make-believe.
So strong was the affection of the dead man for
the living, so vital was the union of the two,
that the former, sunk though he was in the
deep slumber, heard the call of his revered
friend, and being still inscrutably present,
having still some mysterious relation to his
physical frame, which lay resting there, he re-
animated that, and came forth. Lazarus was as
dead as one could be, who was so full of life as
he. As men differ, while living, in degrees of
life, they differ also, when dead, in degrees of
death. May it not be that, as the voice of
Jesus was potent enough to recall Lazarus,
many of the departed hereafter may be awa-
kened from death through the sympathies bind-

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 241

ing tliem to the loved ones who have gone
before them into another condition of being ?
It is pleasant to think it.

It looks very much, — such is human nature,
— as if Martha hastened on this memorable
occasion to go and meet Jesus without letting
Mary know that he was coming, in order to gain
over her sister the little advantage of seeing
him first. She must have known how glad
Mary would have been to hear that he was
coming at last, and to accompany her. But,
from the jealousy she betrayed of Mary on a
previous occasion,^ I cannot help suspecting
that she felt that Mary was nearer to Jesus
than she, and that if Mary were there, she her-
self would be thrown in the background. So,
naturally, without being perhaps distinctly
conscious of the small feeling that alloyed her
motive in going to meet him so promptly, she
pleased herself with the idea that she would see
him and speak with him first, and have him,

> Luke X, 40.
21

242 THOUGHTS ON

for a little while at least, all to herself. This
state of mind was only too natural in one who,
like Martha, had, upon one occasion, been so
annoyed at seeing Mary seated, doing nothing,
only listening to Jesus, — when she herself was
so busy, providing for the entertainment of
their guest, — that she actually complained to
him of her sister, and met w^ith a mortifying
reproof.

If any little feeling, of the kind which I
suppose, had place in Martha's heart, she was
punished for it, as we always are for similar
littlenesses, by being made to feel that it had
betrayed her into a position in which she could
not sustain herself. When she met Jesus, she
was not equal to conversing with him. Every-
thing he said embarrassed her. And she was
forced to withdraw, and go and tell Mary that
she was wanted. She was compelled virtually
to confess that Mary would understand him
better, and ought to be there.

How glad Mary would have been to lose not
a moment in going to meet him, we may infer
from the fact that, as soon as Martha told her
he was come, ''she rose up quickly^'' and went

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 243

to liim. Her ea2:erness to see him was so
marked that her haste is twice alhided to.

If I have rightly interpreted the state of
Martha's mind, then we may see also how
natural it was that she shonld have called Mary
secretly. She retired from the presence of
Jesus with a feeling of self-dissatisfaction, —
crestfallen. Perhaps her mind misgave her
that she had not treated her sister generously.
She had been made to feel painfully her in-
ability to talk with Jesus. Instead of being
comforted by him, she had only been con-
founded. Consequently, there was no elation
of spirit, no loud announcing of his approach.
She merely whispers the tidings to her sister,
and thus betrays the chagrin she meant to con-
ceal.

Possibly I scrutinize her too curiously. But
I have no thought of disparaging Martha. The
weakness, thus undesignedly disclosed in her,
is so common and so natural that, in provoking
a smile of sympathizing recognition, and this is

244 THOUGHTS on

all the effect it lias in derogation of her, it only
renders the reality of her being the more vivid,
and brings her near to ns as a sister.

It may be that the only reason why Martha
whispered to Mary of the coming of Jesus is to
be found in the presence of the friends from
the city who were seated with Mary, condoling
with her, and who may not have been well
affected toward Jesus.

I HAVE said that Jesus wrought these won-
derful effects, styled miracles, never for the
sake of proving his power, or attesting his
authority, but simply as he was prompted by
an impulse of humanity.

But the restoration of Lazarus, the most
striking of these acts, has some appearance of
being an exception to this remark. The ac-
count tells us that, after Jesus had heard that
Lazarus was sick, he forbore to go to Bethany,
and that he did not go there, until he knew
that his friend was dead, and that then he told
his disciples he was glad for their sakes he was

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 245

not there, in order that they might believe.
And just before he called Lazarns forth, he
gave expression to his thankfulness for the
opportunity granted him to impress the minds
of the people.

Notwithstanding these circumstances, I find
no inconsistency here with his usual course of
proceeding. It certainly was not merely for
the opportunity of raising a dead man to life
that he thanked God. But what he was grateful
for was, that, in the providence of Heaven, an
occasion had arisen, when he could worthily
use his singular power, not for the display of
that power, but for a far higher end, — to mani-
fest the life-giving power of faith. His pre-
dominant motive in restoring Lazarus was per-
sonal friendship for him and for his sisters.
Out of love for them he recalled his friend to
life. And what he thanked God for was, that
circumstances were such, that one had fallen
asleep in death between whom and himself
those sympathies existed that enabled him to
demonstrate the power of faith and love. Un-
questionably he was glad of every opportunity
of that sort.

21-^

246 THOUGHTS ON

It is striking to see how lie could perceive
that what he did was fitted to cause the greatest
excitement, and yet do it nevertheless with en-
tire singleness of aim and an unconstrained
dignity of manner. Never, to my eyes, does
the form of Jesus so dilate with a majestic
simplicity as at the grave of Lazarus.

Individuals, devoted like Jesus to the great
work of Eeform, are so apt to esteem others
according to the interest which they take in
what interests them, that the friendship of
Jesus for the family at Bethany becomes a
beautiful trait in his history. Lazarus, I sup-
pose, had no apostolic qualifications. He w^as
not fitted for any public labor, a true, silent,
private man. Never man was devoted as Jesus
was to his work, and yet he saw worth in those
who took no part in it. He had friends, not
partisans.

Living as we do upon the surface, blinded as
we are by the god of Mechanism, whom the

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 247

age worships and the demonstrations of whose
power, it must be confessed, are imposing
enough to deceive the very elect and to destroy
all faith in the spirit, we have come to have the
feeblest apprehensions of the intrinsic and vic-
torious energy of a strong conviction of mind ;
or we should not find it so difficult as we do to
understand the power which Jesus ascribed to
faith when he declared that it delivers both the
dead and the living from death. "We mistake
opinions, fancies, dreams, for convictions of
truth. Opinions, fancies, are the thinnest va-
pors floating afar in the cold upper atmosphere
of the soul. But Faith is an internal, crea-
tive force. It melts. It crystallizes. It strings
nerves, vitalizes blood. It draws the power of
Almighty God down into human sinews and
muscles. It electrifies and animates. It is the
Divine Logos^ working forever through the
human soul, re-creating the world.

The commentators do not know how to ac-
count for the omission by the first three Gos-

248 THOUGHTS ON

l^els of all mention of this greatest of tlie acts
of Jesus, tlie resurrection of Lazarus. Neither
do I. But what then ? John's account is
stamped with the indelible impress of Truth.
And that should suffice us. I cannot explain
the omission. But I can readily believe there
was a reason for it, without supposing the reason
to be, that the story was not true. Its truth is
impressed upon its face.^

The decisive marks of truth, evident in the
narrative of the restoration of Lazarus, are
briefly these :

1. The perfect and obviously unintentional
consistency with which the characters of Martha
and Mary are preserved.

2. The representation of Jesus in the novel
act of raising a dead man to life, which he does,

* The common supposition is^ that Lazarus being alive
when the first three Gospels were written, they omitted to
mention his resurrection^ ^^ lest the Jews, who had consulted
to put him to death, should assassinate him. When St. John
wrote, it is probable that he was dead, and therefore he gave
a particular account of that resurrection."

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 249

not only witliout loss of personal dignity, with-
ont being belittled as he would be, were the
account a fabrication, but in a way so becoming
as to increase greatly our sense of his personal
greatness.

3. The direction of Jesus to the bystanders
to go to the help of Lazarus, which unde-
signedly discloses precisely that state of mind
in them which the appearance of the dead man
alive must have produced.

4. The honesty of the narrator in intimating
that upon some present the wonder made no
impression. And,

5. Lastly and chiefly, the intrinsic harmony
of the great fact with the highest laws of our
being. But the force of this, the strongest evi-
dence of its truth, will be felt only by those
who accept the representation of it which I
have given.

Great stress is always laid upon the title,
^ Son of God,' in its application to Jesus, as
significant of something peculiar, something

250 THOUGHTS ON

distinguisliing him from men as a being of a
different and superior nature. But it is worthy
of remark that, in the very first passage in the
New Testament in which this title occurs, it is
used as synonymous with 'Man.'^ "Ifthoubethe
Son of Grodj command that these stones be made
bread/' said the tempter. Jesus rephes, ''It is
written, Man shall not live by bread alone ;"
Son of God and man being employed as con-
vertible terms.

And verily man is the Son of God, not al-
though but because he is man. Jesus, in whom
a glorious development of humanity is wit-
nessed, is, emphatically, on this account, be-
cause so truly a man, the Son of God.

Some things in the New Testament narra-
tives, which appear to be miraculous, owe this
appearance entirely to the translators. We have
only to vary the phrase as we may without
affecting the meaning of the original, and the
miracle vanishes. Instances in point are af-

' Matt, iv, 3.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 251

forded by those passages in which Jesus is
represented as ' knowing' the thoughts of those
around him.^ In every case in which we so
read, the original sense is that Jesus saw or
perceived what was passing in their thoughts,
— saw it, where it was visible enough, in their
faces. It could not have been difficult for any
person of ordinary penetration, certainly not
for one so keen-sighted as Jesus, to divine the
thoughts of the Scribes and Pharisees, when he
performed some work that drew forth the ac-
clamations of the people. Who that had eyes
could fail to see their jealousy and their rage,
through the affected looks of pious horror
which they exchanged when he healed the sick
on the Sabbath! It shows a very imperfect
sense of the greatness of Jesus to suppose that
he never did or said the most common things
without special and supernatural aid.

Other things, again, are represented by the
original writers as miraculous which were not

* Matt, xii, 25 ; ix, 4 ; Luke vi, 8 ; xi, 17.

252 TIIOUGIITS ON

so ; which is as it should be. For what could
be more truly in keeping with the whole his-
tory than that, when so many really extraordi-
nary events were taking place, things ordinary
should be mistaken and exaggerated. The
account of the birth of Jesus, for instance, is
just such a fable as was to have been expected,
when it is remembered how wonderful his life
was. The more extravagant the stories told of
his birth, only the stronger is the presumption
that he could have been no common person,
for whose existence such an account was alone
thought worthy.

A very striking example of the disposition to
magnify the ordinary into the extraordinary, a
diposition which the exciting experience of the
disciples was powerfully fitted to produce, is the
story of the transfiguration of the person of
Jesus, w^hich arose, as I have endeavored else-
where to show, out of a vivid dream of Peter's.'

^ I beg leave to refer the reader again to a former volume,
' Jesus and his Biographers J To the explanation there given
I have nothing to add, except to suggest the great proba-
bility that the dream of Peter was caused by thunder and
lightning accompanying the cloud, which, it is related, came

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 2/33

It is curious to observe liow satisfactorily all the
circumstances mentioned in the narratives of
this incident, are explained, — how they all fall
into place upon this supposition. This mode

up on tliat occasion. We know that dreams, quite long and
circumstantial, oftentimes occupy an inappreciable space of
time. Electricity is only a very inadequate symbol of the
rapidity of thought under certain circumstances. Individuals,
who have been suddenly thrown into situations of extreme
danger, report nothing as more remarkable in such an expe-
rience than the instantaneousness with which a multitude of
thoughts pass with great distinctness before the mind. The
same thing is often observable in dreams. A noise that
awakens us produces often a vivid dream. A clap of thunder
accounts for the story of the transfiguration in a way per-
fectly natural. The incidents of that event, as they are told,
are all coincident. ^^ A singular fact has often been observed
in dreams which are excited by a noise ; namely, that the
same sound awakens the person and produces a dream which
appears to him to occupy a considerable time. The follow-
ing example of this has been related to me. A gentleman
dreamed that he had been enlisted as a soldier, joined his
regiment, deserted, was apprehended, carried back, tried, con-
demned to be shot, and at last led out for execution. After
all the usual preparations, a gun was fired, he awoke with the
report, and found that a noise in an adjoining room had both
produced the dream and awaked him.'' — [Inc[uirics concern-
inrj the T iitcJUcJnal Powers^ (f*c., hy J, Ahcrcromhie^ M.J).)

22

254 THOUGHTS ON

of understanding the story of tlie transfigura-
tioHj establishes much more important things
than it explains away. It requires not only the
actual existence of the actors in the scene, and
their presence on the spot, but also that exciting
events must have previously taken place, in
order to induce the state of mind which dis-
posed Peter to dream such a dream, and his
fellow disciples instantly to fall in with his im-
pression that it was all real.

It is a groundless fear that the discovery of
mistakes in these histories, tends to undermine
the credibility of the whole. I cannot perceive
the reasonableness of any such inferences; espe-
cially when it so plainly appears that the errors
discovered could not possibly have had an
existence, if the history were not substantially
true. They are the shadows caused by the
light, and could not possibly have existed with-
out it.

*^^Do the duty which lies nearest to thee, and
a new light w^ill rise for thee upon the doing of
all things whatsoever." ''Doubt can be re-

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 255

lieved only by action." What are these sayings
of modern wisdom, but different versions of the
thought of Jesus : ' If any man will do His will,
he will know of my teaching, w^hether I am
true or false. '^ We must act in order to know.

This great principle Jesus did not content
himself with asserting only once. What was
that memorable declaration to Pilate, ''Every
one who is of the truth, heareth my voice, "^ but
the same saying, namely, that the true man
distinguishes the Truth, and only the true
man? Again, when the people murmured at
his words, he virtually said to them, ' It is of
no use ; you cannot understand me unless you
listen in the same spirit in w^hich I speak ;'^ or
that other saying: ^Wisdom is justified of her
children, '"^ — what does it mean but that only the
wise perceive wisdom in its different manifesta-
tions, only the true understand Truth ?

It is this most singular clearness of vision
with which he saw that, let truth be stated
with the utmost plainness, only the doer can be
the knower, only the honest can distinguish the

' John vii, 17. 2 John xviii, 37.

3 John vi, 43, 44. ^ l^^i-^. y^i^ 35.

256 THOUGHTS ON

truth, that creates in me a sense of his profound
wisdom. Truly was it said of him that he
understood human nature, that he knew men.^

It was his distinct perception of the fact that
men come to know the truth only by being it,
that rendered him insensible to every tempta-
tion to intolerance. He knew that he was in
the right, and that those who opposed him were
in the wrong, yet no teacher that the world has
ever had ever paid such implicit deference to
the reason and conscience of mankind. And
he was pre-eminent in this respect, because he
read it in the nature of man, that truth can no
more be forced upon minds averse to it than a
plant can be drawn from the seed by mechanical
means. Accordingly he paid uniform respect
to man's native sense of the true and the right.
He invariably addressed himself to that tribunal,
and when, corrupted by passion or self-interest,
it rejected his appeal, he resorted to no other
means of producing conviction. He used
neither bribe nor threat, nor any force but the
force of truth. On that alone he relied.

This is one of the traits in him which im-

' John ii, 24, 25.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 257

press me witli the idea that he was a man of
wonderful illumination of mind, immeasurably
too enlightened to have taught the narrow
errors which Mr. Parker ascribes to him.
Through the brief and imperfect reports of his
sayings, instead of discerning traces of political
designs, I get glimpses of a mind singularly
large and elevated.

It is sometimes asked, with a childish igno-
rance of human nature, why, if he possessed
the extraordinary power attributed to him, he
did not descend from the Cross in answer to the
taunts of his enemies, and so silence and con-
vince them. To say nothing of the effect which
such a proceeding would have had in destroy-
ing the illustration which his death gives of a
self-sacrificing devotion to Truth, what reason is
there to suppose that those who, rather than
believe in him, had ascribed the instantaneous
cures which he had wrought to the agency of
evil spirits, would have hesitated to ascribe his
descent from the Cross, had such descent taken

258 THOUGHTS ON

place, to the same bad agency ? What evidence
is there, that Truth may present, so strong that
depraved minds will not pervert it? Do we
not daily see truths, which voices from heaven
could not render more plain, jBatly rejected by
those who have some interest to serve, some
passion to gratify by rejecting them? Why,
the great sun in heaven is hidden from a man
when his little pride is in the way. When un-
belief has become chronic, a second nature, you
must regenerate the individual before you can
expect any argument to convince, or any evi-
dence to be appreciated.

On the other hand, where there is the least
ingenuousness. Truth is received into the mind
upon the slightest hint. It cannot touch the
hem of her garment without feeling it through
and through. The sense of truth, when once
excited into action, grows steadily more and
more keen. This is plainly seen in the per-
sonal friends of Jesus. Uneducated, and par-
taking largely, as men of their class must have
done, in the prejudices of their time and coun-
try, they nevertheless had a childlike openness
of disposition that rendered them susceptible of

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 259

tlie Truth speaking from tlie lips and beaming
from the looks of Jesus. They were of that
temper for which Truth has a strong affinity.
They were growing constantly in the knowledge
of it, although they never wholly outgrew their
Jewish ideas.

When has our frail human nature ever been
so highly honored as it was by the confidence
which Jesus reposed in it? One of the loftiest
traits of his character is the faith, with which,
always, even in the darkest hour, he committed
himself to all good men and true, — to whatever
of goodness and truth there was in the world.
He believed in the existence of goodness and
truth, although he had so little reason. His
virtual appeal to '' every one that is of the
truth,'' when he stood before the Eoman Go-
vernor, and when there was not a soul in all
the crowd true/ind courageous enough to speak
a word in his behalf, strikes me as hardly less
than sublime.

In order fully to appreciate the moral courage
of Jesus, just think, (and we need not go far for

260 THOUGHTS ON

aid to our tlioiiglits,) wliat a reign of terror is
alwaj^s established by Falsehood and AVrong,
when they have once become established by
custom and law. Then the perversion of the
public and private conscience is extreme. The
clear-sighted become stone-blind to truths
plainer than the sun ; and the boldest tremble
at the least thought of resistance. It was
against such a terrible despotism that the
young Man of Nazareth stood forth fearlessly
and alone. 'Not for a moment was it doubtful
what his position was in relation to the mon-
strous abuses of his time. Against him, the
respectability, learning, wealth, and religion of
his country were arrayed. He kept no terms
with them. He laid bare the corruption of the
popular religious character of the day in burn-
ing words, indifferent to the deadly hatred
which he excited in the ruling class, and as
careless of their machinations as of the dust on
which he trod.

There is hardly any incident in his history
that has occasioned more embarrassment than
the carsing of the barren jig -tree.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 261

"Were it a pure fiction, it is a matter of won-
der that the author or authors of the fable,
while they were about it, did not represent
Jesus as causing figs instantly to appear on the
tree.

If, as I have endeavored to show, Jesus pro-
duced the wonderful eflects ascribed to him by
means of a peculiar gift that w^as native to him,
inseparable from his nature, then it follows that
he could not possibly give expression to this
rare vital energy, without its having its neces-
sary efiect. If, in an unguarded moment, he
gave utterance to a sudden volition, the thing
that he willed had to take place. The effect
had to follow the cause. Thus when, as he was
travelling, he became hungry, and, seeing a
fig-tree in the distance and upon reaching it,
finding no fruit thereon, was so disappointed as
to vent his vexation in an imprecation on the
tree, the tree was, as a natural and inevitable
consequence, just as certain to be destroyed as
by another man's axe when struck by it. Such
w^as the essential energy of his will. It could
not be expressed without producing its effect.
It was as if the tree had received a blow, or had

262 THOUGHTS on

been struck by lightning. It must needs wither
away.

The incident being admitted as a fact, such
is the explanation of it which is, not merely
suggested, but necessitated by the view which
I have given of the so-called miracles of Jesus.

The two accounts of this occurrence vary
very considerably. Their variations, however,
so far from being any evidence that the story
is not true, furnish a presumption to the con-
trary. Fables, intended to be received as facts,
are usually told pretty much in only one way.
They cannot afford to bear the weight of con-
tradictions and discrepancies.

Matthew relates that when Jesus found no
fruit on the tree he exclaimed: "Let no fruit
grow on thee henceforth forever!" Mark says
that Jesus said, "l^o man shall eat fruit of thee
hereafter forever !" Matthew gives us to under-
stand that the fig-tree withered away instantly.
Mark's account is, that it was not until the
next day that the disciples of Jesus saw that it
" was dried up from the root."^

' Matt, xxi; 19; 20 5 Mark xi, 12-14, 20, 21.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 2G3

Whichever of these exclamations we accept
as the words of Jesus, we should hardly infer
from them that he expressed himself passion-
ately. Especially, accustomed as we are to
read the New Testament with no accompanying
exercise of the imagination, we should be slow
to call his language on this occasion, a curse.
Yet so it sounded, and was spoken of by those
who heard him. "Master," said Peter to him,
" behold ! the fig-tree that thou cursedst is
withered away." As a curse then, prompted
at the moment by disappointed hunger, the
language, in which he gave utterance to his
vexation, could not have been spoken with
calmness. It is neither natural nor in accord-
ance with his character, that he should have
cursed the tree in cold blood.

There was no harm done, since the tree was
barren, as appeared from the fact that there was
no unripe fruit on it. The season of figs had
not come. If they had been in season then, it
would have been possible that the tree had
borne fruit, but that it had all been gathered.

The good that resulted from the act was in-
direct, and at the moment, I suppose, not in-

264 THOUGHTS ON

tended. It consisted in the striking instance it
afforded of tlie power of faith. Sucli was the
use Jesus made of the incident. He taught,
and the fate of the tree reiterated the lesson,
that a man can do whatever he believes that he
can do. An unquestionable truth. Whatever
he believes. But then it must be belief, not
fancy, not opinion, not delusion. Faith cannot
exist without a foundation. A man can do
whatever he believes that he can do. True,
because, in the nature of things, a man cannot,
properly speaking, believe in his ability to do a
thing unless he possesses the ability. The
power, dwelling in us and making itself known
to us through our consciousness, involuntarily
as it were and unconsciously creates in us the
faith essential to its development.

"Whether Jesus knew, or took into considera-
tion beforehand, what would be the effect of
the curse which he pronounced upon the tree,
or whether the imprecation was only the ejacu-
lation of his disappointment at finding no fruit,
I cannot tell. I think the latter was the case ;
he spoke hastily. And if it were so, then this
incident gives us a vivid impression of the for-

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 2b5

bearance which he habitually exercised in the
use of his singular power. If weakness is
shown here, so is strength, and far more im-
pressively. It is grand to think that, although
there was a power in him that could uproot
mountains, he was yet so exalted above every
thought of using it for his pride or passion,
that only once, when he was vexed at finding
no fruit on a fig-tree, was he betrayed into a
hasty and passionate exertion of his mighty
will. He becomes even more wonderful for his
forgetfulness of his great power than for his
exercise of it.

This explanation of the withering of the fig-
tree throws light upon other passages which
relate how Jesus wrought upon inanimate mat-
ter. Let it be borne in mind that in the opi-
nion of some of the wisest philosophers, matter,
in the last analysis, will be found reducible to
points of force. But force is the attribute or
distinctive property of mind, not of matter as
popularly defined. There is then the relation
of one and the same nature between matter
and mind. Through this occult relation the

2?)

268 THOUGHTS ON

will of Jesus operated to produce the effects
which he wrought on inanimate objects.

Certain very scrupulous persons once in-
quired of Jesus why his disciples disregarded
the traditions of the elders by omitting to wash
their hands before eating.

He answered this question by asking another.
And the question he asked shows as strikingly
as anything else in his history how far beyond,
not only his day but ours, his religious idea
was. ''Why do ye also^'' he demanded, ''trans-
gress the commandment of Gfod by your tradition ?
For Grod commanded^ saying^ Honor thy father
and mother : andj He that curseth father or mo-
ther, let him die the death. But ye say, Whoso-
ever shall say to his father or his mother^ It is a
gift by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me^
and honor not his father or his mother, he shall be
free* Thus have ye made the commandment of
Grod of none effect by your tradition.''

It appears that the veneration of the Jews
for their temple and its ceremonies w^as so ex-

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 267

cessive that their leading men considered the
duty to that more important than the duty of
children to their aged parents ; and they taught
accordingly. A monstrous perversion. We can
hardly suppose it possible. The savage tribes,
among whom children are authorized to destroy
their parents when old age threatens them, are
not so depraved. For their motive is to relieve
the aged from sufferings, for which, in their
rude way of life, they can provide no other alle-
viation.

Gross and almost incredible as this perver-
sion of feeling among the Jews appears, I
nevertheless think it indicates no ordinary
strength of mind in Jesus that he saw through
it and exposed its falsehood. For, profess as
we may to look upon those ancient Jews with
contempt for their blindness, the very same
monstrous corruption of feeling is manifested
now in full force and in the most enlightened
communities; there is the same tenderness for
artificial forms, the same disposition to uphold
them at the cost of the most sacred duties. At
this hour, so excessive is the reverence of the
people of this country for the edifice of their

268 THouGnTS on

Civil Union, (no temple of Religion,) that, for
the sake of it, laws are passed absolving us
from the obligations of common humanity !
As distinctly as God, speaking by the voice of
Nature, hath commanded us to honor our pa-
rents, so also hath he said, without any qualify-
ing clause : "• Do to others as ye would have
them do to you.'' ^'Love thy neighbor as thy-
self/' ''Let the oppressed go free." But this
nation says, 'Whosoever shall say to his bro-
ther-man or sister-woman : It is a gift, conse-
crated to the maintenance of the Union and
Constitution, by whatsoever thou maj^st be pro-
fited by me, he shall be free, free from the
obligation to deal justly with his fellow-men,
free to buy and sell and hunt them at his plea-
sure.' Thus are the sacred dictates of ISTature,
the holy commandments of the great God,
made of none effect by our political traditions,
the enactments of men being maintained by
the educated and the religious as the highest
law. The moral sense of the Man of Nazareth
was manifestly in advance, not only of his own
day, but of our blazing nineteenth century
noontide.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 269

Numbers there are, whose moral perceptions,
from one cause or another, are so confused
that they are at a loss to decide to which they
owe their allegiance, the commandments of
God written in the heart, or the political tradi-
tions of the fathers, inscribed by frail hands on
perishable parchment and paper. If they, who
are thus unable to decide between the two,
were to pray for a revelation from heaven to
enlighten them, I can imagine no lesson which
they could receive or desire more directly to
the purpose than this most pertinent incident
in the Life of Jesus.

I HAVE said that the closing hours of this
wonderful Life are the only portion of it, of
which we have in the Gospels a history that
approaches to a regular narrative. And the
reason of it is the extraordinary personal great-
ness by which those closing hours are glorified.
At every step the person of Jesus glows with
some new manifestation of moral beauty more

23^

270 THOUGHTS ON

resplendent than tlie last, and yet all is as
natural and unforced as tlie morning light.

If his simple history had not been so dis-
torted by superstition, and if, in the reading of
the N^ew Testament, the imaginative faculty,
which is in us all, were not entirely paralyzed,
if it were excited into the slightest activity, it
would be scarcely possible to read the last few
pages of his life aloud. The voice would break
into sobs of unutterable admiration and pity.
IsTo triumphal procession, glancing at every step
with the spoils of kings and with the banners
of victory, no coronation pomp, no august reli-
gious ceremonial, no jubilant Te Deum, no
wailing Miserere could symbolize the grandeur
and the pathos of that series of events, which,
beginning in the garden of Gethsemane, ter-
minates in that other garden near the hill of
the Crucifixion.

Behold him emerging from the deep shadows
of the trees. The torches of the armed band,
come to arrest him, flash upon his erect form

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 271

and liis calm pale countenance, as, suddenly
advancing towards them, he asks whom they
are seeking. And when, upon their saying,
Jesus of Nazareth, he replies, ^I am he,' who
wonders as he reads that, at that unlooked-for
apparition, at the sound of that commanding
voice, which no fear made tremulous, the armed
men were brought to so sudden a halt, and
thrown into such confusion, that some of them,
borne backward, were thrown down. Coming
to arrest a man rumored to possess strange
powers, and coming in the night, they were
doubtless huddled very close together; and
were naturally enough seized with a temporary
panic, when the person whom they had come
out to apprehend with arms and in numbers,
thus suddenly presented himself before them.

And then observe how instant is his conside-
ration for his disciples. "If you want me, let
these go their way." And is there not a natural
tone of contempt, almost of bitterness, in the
language which he addresses to his captors?

272 THOUGHTS ON

"Do yon come out against me witli swords and
clubs as against a thief? In the daytime when
I was in the Temple, within your reach, you
did not dare to touch me. You have chosen
your fitting time, the hour of darkness."^ Such
appears to be the purport of his words. It is
right that he should have thus evinced a sense
of the indignity with which he was treated.

Follow him when he is led bound into the
presence of the High Priest, and there again
witness the divine temper of this wonderful
man. "With the grossest injustice that digni-
tary would fain have made Jesus his own
accuser. But to the questions which the High
Priest put to him, Jesus replied : ' I have
spoken openly before the world. I have always
taught in the synagogue and the temple, whither
the Jews all resort, and in secret I have said
nothing. Why do you inquire of me ? Ask
those who have heard me. They know what I

' Luke xxii; 52, 53.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 273

have said.' This language of simple truth, so
directly to the purpose, unanswerable, and
fitted to make the High Priest look very fool-
ish, some ignorant partisan of his, standing by,
knew no better than to understand as an insult
to his master, and to resent by striking Jesus
with the palm of his hand, in plain words, by
slapping him in the face, exclaiming at the
same time, ^Is that the way you answer the
High Priest?'^ I see the blood, stirred by the
blow, mantling the cheek. I see those clear
eyes turned full upon the man, while to this
brutal treatment are returned the immortal
words, ^'If I have spoken falsely, declare it; if
truly, why do you strike me ?"

When Jesus is arraigned before the Eoman
Procurator, the contrast is so striking between
the restless, boastful, and cowardly judge and
the self-possession of the prisoner, that the rela-
tion is reversed, and it is the judge who is con-

' John xviii; 22.

274 THOUGHTS on

demned and the prisoner who passes sentence.
"We should infer from the opposite characters of
the two that the looks, the demeanor of Jesus,
overawed the weak mind of Pilate, even if the
history did not intimate as much. I gather
from the account that the Governor was under
a species of fascination. Had the prisoner
been any ordinary individual, Pilate would
have dispatched the case very soon, with very
little compunction. But he evidently did not
know what to make of Jesus. The dignified
silence he maintained was a mystery to the
magistrate, who seems to have been impelled,
hardly knowing why, to make repeated efibrts
to save him from the fate to which the priests
were clamoring to consign him.

'^Are you a king then?" asks Pilate. ''Yes,"
he replies, ''I am a king." His whole air at-
tests his inborn royalty. Had the blood of a
long line of kingly ancestry filled his veins, he
could not have borne himself more regally.
"For this end was I born, and for this cause
came I into the world to be a witness of the
truth, and every true man listens to my voice."
A king indeed, reigning over all true men,

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 275

acknowledged as a sovereign by all whom
Truth makes free, wielding a sceptre never to
be broken. He stood there utterly forsaken by
every earthly friend ; but he could not be un-
kinged. Unkinged ! It was his coronation day.
His own blood was the oil of consecration, and
a vile cross was the throne prepared for him,
from which he was to rule the ages. The con-
sciousness of being then and there a martyr to
the Truth, to reign forever by divine right in
every true soul, was the token of his preroga-
tive, more significant than any crown of gold.
Alone, misunderstood, surrounded by savage
men, thirsting for his life, amidst that horrid
din and with that grim death before him, not
for an instant does he lose his generous faith in
good men and true. He still leans with perfect
dignity upon all loyal hearts. This is kingly.

To observe how true it is, as I have said, that
at every step of the way from the Garden to
Golgotha, in every attitude of Jesus, whether
standing arraigned as a criminal or staggering

276 THOUGHTS ON

under the weight of the cross, or hanging on
that horrid instrument of death, a new illumi-
nation of truth and greatness transfigures his
person, we have only to recall his words to the
women who followed him weeping : " Daughters
of Jerusalem^ iveep not for me^ lueep for yourselves
and your children^'" and that prayer of forgive-
ness which floats forever on the atmosphere of
the world like the music of an ascending angel:
"Father ! forgive them! they know not what they
are doing!'' I believe this ejaculation burst
from his agonized lips just as they were nailing
him to the Cross, and that it had reference to
the ignorant brutal men who were inflicting
upon him that torture.

On one occasion, as we read, he forgot his
mother. It was when, excited and shocked by
the incorrigible perversity of certain Pharisees
who had charged him with being in league
with evil spirits, he was wholly absorbed in
what he was saying, as the strength of his lan-
guage shows, and some one most impertinently

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 277

interrupted him, telling him that his mother
was there wanting to speak to him. For a
moment he speaks as if he had forgotten the
most sacred of all human relations, as if his
mother were a stranger to him. His forgetful-
ness of his mother on this occasion was, how-
ever, in the very spirit of his own declaration,
''Whosoever loveth father or mother more than me^
is not worthy of me.'' These words which he
addressed to his disciples, Truth addressed to
him.

But although his ardent devotion to the
truth made him momentarily forgetful of his
mother, no extremity of physical torture could
have the same effect. After he was hung upon
the Cross, in the gasping agony of that posi-
tion, he caught sight of his mother, standing
near with his dearest friend, and when life is
rapidly ebbing away, and he is only able to
utter an ejaculation at intervals, in brief, broken
words he commends her to the care of his
friend: "Woman! lot thy son!'' he called to
her, and to John, '' Lo ! thy mother !" Though
able, chiefly from the torture, but in part per-
haps from filial emotion, only to articulate a

24

278 THOUGHTS ON

word or two at a time, he was understood, and
John ever afterwards cherished Mary as his
mother. "When Jesus was most human, then
was he most divine.

Reading the N"ew Testament, as we are all
in the habit of doing, mechanically, with so
little accompanying aid of the imagination, we
seldom represent to ourselves what must have
been the power of the personal presence of
Jesus, of his voice, of the expression of his
face, of his eye. As ^ the mind shows itself
through the body, he must have been pre-
eminent in the highest kind of beauty, the
beauty that is found not in the visible features,
but which, indefinable, shines through these
with infinite variety and with a power penetra-
ting to the soul whence it comes. His inner
being was all aflame with Truth and Love.
These beamed through his eyes and played
through every lineament of his countenance,
and poured their thrilling music through the
intonations of his voice, and gave unconscious

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 279

grace and dignity to his whole bearing. I can
readily understand how he must have taken the
hearts of all ingenuous persons who saw and
heard him. Looks and tones expressive of
sincerity have a captivation which not even the
hardest can resist.

Does the wish sometimes rise within me that
I could have seen that face which expressed
the very love of God, that I could have heard
that voice, every tone of which must have been
full of a thrilling sensibility? And yet had I
lived in those days, what could have saved me
from those prejudices which blinded so many
to the fascination of his presence, and made
them deaf to the music of that voice? Rather
let me pray for the pure heart and the single
eye that will enable me to discern the same
beauty of God in the features of living men,
and to catch tones of the same ravishing sweet-
ness of Heaven, in voices now speaking in the
world.

I WONDER how often readers of the ^ew
Testament represent to themselves with any

280 THOUGHTS ON

distinctness the great difference between the
estimation in which Jesus is held now and the
way in which he was looked upon when he
was livins: and travellino; about in Galilee and
Judea. iSTow his name is so sacred that, like
the name of the Highest, it is accounted pro-
fane to utter it with levity; so profound is the
universal sense of the sanctity of the Man of
K'azareth. But then, when he was living, no
religious associations had gathered around the
new and, to all but Jewish ears, barbarous
name of Jesus. Spoken of by the respectable
and pious as a blasphemous person, fond of
wine, an associate of the worst characters, an
unprincipled demagogife aiming to stir up the
people to treason, he represented the very re-
verse of all that is worthy and religious. To
numbers of good people, good as the world
went, he was an object of aversion and horror.
To have said then that he was a pious man,
would have been considered as convicting one-
self of impiety. Piety ! that was the attribute
of the good orthodox people of those days, the
Pharisees. To the many, Jesus was worse then

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 281

than an Abolitionist is now in the eyes of
Southern planters.

The name of Christ has now everywhere
become such a mere word, that no slight effort
is required to understand what a power it was
when it was a new name, full of significance,
standing for ideas that stirred up the very deeps
of the soul. Whoever, in the days of the Apos-
tles, spoke that name aloud, with respect, in-
stantly aroused and concentrated on himself
the fiercest hatred. It turned natural affection
into bitterness. And therefore it was that
Jesus, whose experience enabled him to foresee
that state of things, told his friends that they
must be prepared to suffer to the uttermost on
account of his name.

But there is another use of his name which
is not so readily understood. He bade his dis-
ciples pray in his name^ assuring them that
whatever they should ask m his name they
would receive.

It has been inferred from this language that

24-

232 THOUGHTS ON

lie represented himself as so powerful that what
the Eternal Father would not give out of his
own goodness. He would give out of considera-
tion for Christ, that his name would be an in-
dorsement of prayer insuring its acceptance.
There is not the slightest necessity of drawing
any such inferences from the passages referred
to.

While the mere sound of his name excited
his enemies to madness and bloodshed, to his
friends it was a sound all alive with the most
inspiring ideas. It suggested the best thoughts.
It created the profoundest emotions. His name
thus became a spirit. It was identical with all
the truth and power which Jesus himself repre-
sented. So that, when he told his friends they
would receive whatever they should ask in his
namcy so far from intending to represent him-
self as so powerful that, no matter what they
prayed for, they would receive it if they only
connected his name with the prayer, he evi-
dently limits the promise to such things only as
should be ashed for in that spirit which his name
then expressed and inspired.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 283

It is worthy of note that, while it is expressly
stated in the gospel of John that the things
contained therein were written to prove Jesus
to be the Messiah/ no allusion is made in this
Gospel to that most emphatic assertion of his
claim to the title, which the other Gospels tell
us he made to the High Priest.^

The Gospels are all obscure and unsatisfac-
tory in regard to the Messiahship of Jesus. He
himself continually spoke of the Christ in the
third person. He did not say, the Christ has
come ; but the burthen of his teaching was, the
kingdom is coming. ''When the Son of Man
Cometh," he asked on one occasion, ''will he
find faith on the earth?'' i. e., 'When the Mes-
siah comes, will he find people prepared to
believe in him V At the same time he calls
himself the Son of Man. But this was not a
title belonging exclusively to the Messiah.
Only on two or three occasions is he recorded

' John XX, 31.

2 Matt, xxvi, 64 ; Mark xiv, 62 ; Luke xxii, 70.

284 THOUGHTS on

to have avowed himself to be the person whom
his countrymen were expecting/

Some interesting questions arise. On what
grounds was the Jewish expectation of a Mes-
siah based ? Was it prompted by a certain un-
erring instinct, looking always for the highest
good to come through man, the highest created
being that we know ? The ancient prophecies,
which were believed to justify this expectation,
are very obscure and indefinite, and have their
origin, so far as they are prophecies at all, in
the same instinct. The existence, however, of

^ While he is represented in one passage by Matthew (ch.
vii; 22, 23) as speaking in the character of the Messiah^ and
saying, " Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have
we not prophesied in thy name," &c. Luke, in his account
of what appears to be the same language (ch. xiii, 25-28),
represents him as speaking in the third person : ^^ When once
the master of the house is risen up and hath shut to the door,
and ye begin to stand without and to knock at the door say-
ing. Lord, Lord, open unto us j and lie shall answer and say
unto you," &c. As the writers of the Gospels held him to be
the Messiah, it is easier to see how, when he spoke in the
third person, he should be reported as speaking in the first
than the reverse.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 285

this expectation, and beyond the borders of
Judea, is, I believe, unquestioned.

Did this hope, in the hidden nature of things,
work to its own fulfilment? And was the
physical organization, the whole nature of the
Man of Nazareth, fashioned and informed by
this great hope which, as the central life of the
nation, poured its inspiration into the lowliest
private heart, — into the soul of Mary ? "Who
can tell the influence which great ideas, burn-
ing in the national heart, have upon the phy-
sical constitution of individuals ?

If Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, born to
fulfil the great public hope of the East, how
came he to be assured of his claims ? By what
means did he know himself to be the Christ?
Not by external and supernatural displays of
power, which at the best are uncertain, was
truth borne into the mind of Jesus. It was
within, through his own clear and sure con-
sciousness, that the Highest was manifested to
him. And it could only have been in this way
that he knew himself to be qualified, by the
truth which he possessed, to satisfy the hope
not of liis country alone but of the whole world.

286 THOUGHTS ON

Was it so ? "Was the Truth loved by him so
devotedly, had he such experience of its power,
that he could not help knowing it as the com-
plement of humanity, making that whole ?

Or, may it be that Jesus did not claim to be
the Messiah in any Jewish sense of the word,
but that the passages, in which he is reported
as directly or indirectly assuming that office,
have taken their form and hue from the writers,
who, being full of their Jewish ideas, were very
liable to misunderstand his allusions to the
heavenly kingdom ?

That he far transcended the Jewish idea, that
he was more than their Messiah, is very clear.
"Whether clothed in any official dignity or not,
he is Heaven's best gift to us all, the brightest
revelation that we know of the Highest.

I HAVE said that Lazarus was recalled to life
by means of the strong life there was in him
when he died. And that life was the inspira-
tion of the revering affection which he cherished

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 287

for Jesus. I believe that Jesus himself came to
life again after his crucifixion, by similar
means.

That he was alive, and that he was seen and
spoken with by Mary on the morning of the
first day of the week, I hold to be established
as a fact by the strongest possible evidence. I
have endeavored to exhibit this evidence in
detail elsewhere.^ I shall not repeat it here,
although I can hardly refrain, — the story of the
resurrection of Jesus, as I gather it from the
Four Gospels, is so wondrously true to nature.
I content myself with saying in this place that
it is wholly out of my power to conceive or
desire more satisfactory proof that Jesus was
alive and present on that memorable morning,
than that which is woven into the whole fabric
of the narratives of the event. I believe in the
fact because the evidence compels me to believe
it. I think an undue importance has been
given to the fact. It is represented as the corner-
stone of all faith in a life after death, and as
having occurred with the express design of

^ Jesus and his Biographers, and A History of Jesus.

288 THOUGHTS on

confirmino; that faith. I cannot so reo-ard it.
Received as a fact, it certainly shows the supe-
riority of the spirit over the flesh. But what
was its special purpose I do not undertake to
affirm.

As far as I am able to see, Jesus returned to
life, moved bj^ affection for his personal friends,
to reassure them. His death confounded and
crushed them. And had he not re-appeared, I
think they would have gone back to Galilee,
and resumed their old occupations. His re-
appearance put a new aspect upon the whole
thing in their eyes. They were impelled per-
force to assert the fact of his resurrection, and
in testifying to that, they came, almost insen-
sibly, to be witnesses before the whole world to
his life and teachings. My belief is, that,
through the singular power with which he was
naturally endowed, he was inspired with the
faith that he could return to life again after
death, if he so willed. He willed it therefore.
He had the purpose before his death to return
after that event. He died with that purpose at
heart. And as one goes to sleep resolved to
awake at a certain hour, and at the proposed

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 289

hour does actually awake, so Jesus breathed his
last with a like purpose. And it was this pur-
pose, living in the hidden strength of his affec-
tion, that awoke him. Do I mean to say then,
that I believe him to have been actually dead
upon the Cross ? Certainly. He was as truly
dead as one could be who possessed in unprece-
dented fulness that interior life, which death, a
mere physical event, cannot destroy, and which
was so strong in him that it conquered death
and repaired the physical derangement which
death caused, and enabled him to awake as
from deep sleep.

This representation of the way in which
Jesus was restored to life will, I suppose, be
considered an extravagant speculation. But it
comes naturally from that account of his pecu-
liarly endowed nature which I have given in
these pages. It is in conformity too with the
interpretation which I have put upon those
momentous words of his addressed to Martha,
and with the account given of the restoration
of Lazarus.

Let it once be admitted that there was a
peculiar power in Jesus, inherent in his being,

25

290 THOUGHTS OX

as a substantive fact, like any other force exist-
ing in nature, and it follows of necessity that
there was a life in him that made it impossible
that he should die as ordinary men die. The
death-agonies of crucifixion could not reach
that inner life, nor rob it of its essential power.
And as it was able, while he was living, to
repair the mutilations and diseases of others, it
had power over his own physical frame to re-
animate that.

How long did he continue on earth after his
resurrection? "Where was he and what was
the mode of his existence from his resurrection
to his final disappearance? "What was the
manner of his final departure? Questions
which we can neither repress nor answer.

The popular belief in the Christian world is,
that he ascended visibly into the sky and so
disappeared. But there is no authority for this
belief in the Four Gospels. Matthew says not
a word of his final disappearance, neither does
John. Mark says, "he was received up into

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 291

heaven and sat on the right hand of God."
There is no intimation in these words that he
rose visibly into the sky. "When he was seen
no more, the natural inference was that he had
gone to heaven. We are accustomed to speak
in the same way of our friends when they take
their final departure. The language of Luke's
Gospel is similar: ''And it came to pass, while
he blessed them, he was parted from them and
carried up into heaven." That is, he was taken
from their sight, and, as they very naturally
concluded, was carried to God.

It is not easy to understand how no account
of any visible ascension should be found in any
one of the Four Gospels, if such an event
actually occurred; but it is easy to see how
inferences should grow into facts, and the story
extant in the first chapter of the Book of the
Acts of the Apostles should have arisen out of
the brief statements first made respecting his
final disappearance.

The popular belief upon this point being thus
without foundation in the Gospels, the question
remains: What became of Jesus after his resur-
rection ? How, when, and where did he finally

292 THOUGHTS ON

disappear? I can suggest no answer to these
inquiries.

All that I have to say is, that whatever was
the mode of his life after his resurrection and
before his final disappearance, and however in-
scrutable the manner of his final dissolution, —
granting that, in these particulars, his history
was wholly out of the ordinary range of human
experience, nevertheless, I believe that it in-
volved no miracle, in the popular acceptation of
the word. Singular as his state must have
been, it violated no natural law; but, on the
contrary, it was in harmony with pre-established
laws, laws which, as we may suppose, come
into operation only at very great intervals.

That there are laws or methods of action
which come into exercise only at intervals of
thousands of years, the first individuals of the
human race, and indeed the first of every race
of animated beings, attest. The first pair or
pairs of human kind must have been brought
into existence by a method entirely diverse
from that, by wdiich all subsequent human
beings have been and are produced. But al-

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 293

though diverse, yet equally natural, equally in
conformity to the established order of things.
Such was the state of the planet at the time,
that, although it is beyond our power to conjec-
ture how it could have been, human beings
appeared as a natural result of causes existing
and active only at that juncture. It was just
as natural for them, although without parents,
to come into life then, as it is for a child to be
born now in obedience to the now operating
laws of generation. ^^"We are led," says Sir
John Herschel, ^'by all analogy, to suppose
that the Creator operates through a series of
intermediate causes ; and that, in consequence,
the origination of fresh species, could it ever
come under our cognizance, would be found to
be a natural^ in contradistinction to a miracu-
lous^ process ; although we perceive no indica-
tions of any process actually in progress which
is likely to issue in such a result." ^- As in the
natural world," remarks Professor Powell, 'Hhe
only indications we have of the operations of
the Divine mind are the manifestations of
order; so whatever we ascribe to the same

25^

29-1 THOUGHTS ON

source we can only conceive as worked out in
accordance with the same principles."^

As in the first appearance of man on this
earth we have an instance of the operation of
causes which came into action then, and for the
action of which, the due conjunction of condi-
tions may not occur again for a myriad of years,
so, in the peculiar condition of Jesus after his
resurrection and in the manner of his final dis-
appearance, why may we not have an illustra-
tion of similar laws ? I repeat, I do not know,
nor am I able to guess, what was the mode of
his existence after his resurrection, or in what
way he took his final departure from our world.
But, whatever were the facts, that they were as
truly in accordance with the natural order of
things as the most ordinary facts are now, I
have no question.

Jesus himself was a new fact in the world, of
a most remarkable character. Powers, new on
this earth, were developed in him. There was
in him a stronger life than mankind had ever
known. And it is not for us to assume that

* Essays on the Spirit of the Inductive Fliitosopliy^ tC'c.

THE LIFE OF JESUS.

such a life, a life so intense, could present no
new and unprecedented manifestations.

Baptism. — I cannot gather with certainty
from Mr. Parker's remarks upon Baptism and
the Lord's Supper in his '^Discourse of Religion^''
whether he believes that Jesus instituted these
rites or not. The amount of what he says is
that if Jesus did magnify these forms, it is a
pity. If he did not, so much the more honor
to him. He seems inclined, on the whole, to
think he did not. But surely this is a question
which, in simple justice to the great Teacher, it
is worth while to decide. Mr. Parker would
certainly claim, if persons should undertake,
now or hundreds of years hence, — it makes no
difference, — to comment upon his opinions,
that they should at least take pains to determine
what those opinions are.

There is nothing in regard to the Man of
Nazareth, which more satisfactorily appears, in
my view, than that he prescribed no forms, —

296 THOUGHTS ox

instituted no ritual. And herein did he mani-
fest his consummate wisdom, and show that he
so fully appreciated those great laws of Justice
and Love which he taught, that he never
thought of exalting any ceremonial observances
to a level with them. His aim was not to
create any positive institutions either as to
times, places, or ceremonies. In this respect
the Apostle Paul understood him perfectly.
That great man, the first to catch the import of
the Life of Christ, saw clearly, notwithstanding
his rigid Jewish culture, that the observance of
times and places is utterly at variance with the
spirit of Christ's teachings, and that to lay
stress upon any mere external observance was
to show oneself ignorant of their meaning.^
Baptism and the Lord's Supper are everywhere,
save among the followers of Fox and Penn,
accounted Christian Institutions. But what-
ever may be said in their behalf, the authority
of Christ, rightly understood, cannot be claimed
for them.

Baptism was a Jewish observance. It was

* Rom. xiv, 0, 6 ; Galat. iv, 9; 10, 11.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 297

used especially by John the Baptist, who pre-
ceded Jesus. Although he was himself bap-
tized, Jesus baptized no one.^ There are only
two passages in which he is recorded to have
mentioned Baptism ; and these are found in the
last chapters of Matthew and Mark. The genu-
ineness of the last chapter of Mark, from the
ninth verse to the end, is disputed, as it is
wanting in many of the most accurate Greek
MSS. But w^ithout dwelling on this fact, al-
though it is worth noting, I think it of much
more importance to consider, that single verses
and phrases are not to be relied upon unless
they harmonize with the general tenor of the
Records, because the writers evidently never
studied to be literally exact, and if they had,
we cannot now be sure that we have their pre-
cise words. In reference to this very subject of
Baptism, John states three times in so many
words that Jesus baptized.^ And yet, after all
these repetitions of the assertion, he contradicts
it, and declares that Jesus himself baptized not:
—a very remarkable instance of the popular

' John iv, 2. 2 John iii, 22 and 2G, and iv, 1.

298 THOUGHTS ON

and ■Qngiiarded way in which the IsTew Testa-
ment histories were composed. "We are bound,
therefore, to take care how we give any weight
to single passages, which are not only not sup-
ported by the pervading spirit of these books
but in manifest inconsistency with it.

As baptism, the bathing of the outward per-
son in sign of inward cleansing, was a form
familiar among the Jews, which John had
rendered popular at the time, and by which
the people signified that they cleansed them-
selves in preparation for the coming kingdom,
it is not difficult to see how, in the only two
passages, strictly speaking in the one only pas-
sage, in which Jesus is stated to have enjoined
this observance, words to this efiect may have
been attributed to him which he did not use,
and when all that he said was, that his disciples
should publish the Truth and bring all men to
the acknowledgment of it. Had he attached
the least importance to the sign, to the cere-
mony of Baptism, how is it to be accounted for
that he made no mention of it in the very par-
ticular directions which he gave to his apostles

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 299

in the tentli chapter of Matthew. Be it ever
remembered that he never baptized any one.

And besides, John the Baptist states in very
striking language the difference betw^een him-
self and Jesus. ^'I," he says, in effect, ^'bap-
tize you Avith water, but he, w^ho is coming
after me, and is so much my superior that I am
not worthy to carry his shoes, will baptize you
as with wind and fire from heaven. Water is
the symbol of my influence, water, which,
cleansing as it is, affects only the outward per-
son, but the symbols of his influence are more
penetrating elements, wind andj^r^.''

[The Greek word, translated as it is 'Grhost,'
or, as it maybe, ' Spirit ^^ in Matt, iii, 11, and
in John iii, 5 and 8, has no word in English
that entirely corresponds to it. It is intrans-
latable except by a paraphrase. Its general
signification is air, breath, wind, spirit. But it
represents air both in its subtle nature as air,
and in its strength as wind. In the passage in
John, above referred to, it is first translated
wind, and afterwards spirit : ' The wind bloweth
where it listeth,' &c., the allusion is primarily
to the wind or material atmosphere to which

300 THOUGHTS ON

the immaterial life, the spirit, [spiritus^) is de-
scribed as analogous.]

In brief, as I understand the Eecord, Jesus
neither enjoined Baptism nor forbade it. But
he did condemn ao;ain and ao;ain with solemn
emphasis all formalism, the putting of the sha-
dow for the substance, sacrifice before mercy.

The Lord's Supper. — I seek in vain for any
evidence that Jesus designed formally to insti-
tute what is now observed as a sacrament. The
word saeramentj from a Latin word that signi-
fies the oath by which the Eoman soldier bound
himself to the service of his commander, no-
where occurs in the l^ew Testament. The "Do
this in remembrance of me," has no sound to
my ear of command. I cannot hear in it the
tone of one devising and instituting a ceremo-
nial observance. It comes to me as the breath-
ing of affection, the agonized yearning of a
lonely heart, on the brink of a terrible death,
for a place in affectionate and grateful hearts.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 301

There is no hour in the world's history less
marked by formality than that, when Jesus
asked to be remembered.

Let the hour and the circumstances be con-
sidered. He was seated for the last time at
supper with his few personal friends. Although
they were very devotedly attached to him, yet
they did not understand him. In the things
nearest and dearest to him, he was utterly
alone. He had no human sympathy in what
most interested him. And yet who was ever
made for sympathy as he was, he, who felt so
deeply for all the sorrows that burthened the
hearts of men ! How greatly would he have
been cheered, had he been surrounded, as the
Grecian sage was, by friends, fully appreciating
and warmly approving ! He longed, I believe,
to repose upon some human heart, and to feel
that that heart understood his purposes and
entered into his trials. I discern this longing
in the desire which he expressed for remem-
brance.

It may be gathered from his history that the
fearful fate that awaited him, was, from a very
early period, constantly presenting itself to his

26

302 THOUGHTS ON

mind. When tlie people thronged around him,
expressing their wonder at some extraordinary
cure that he had wrought, and gazing at him
with admiration, we find him talking to his dis-
ciples about the violent death that he was to
suffer.^ As the end drew near, everything that
occurred reminded him of his death. Thus,
when Mary, in the spirit of a munificent hospi-
tality, and to express her reverence for him,
poured the costly ointment upon his person, it
instantly reminded him of his burial. In the
same way, when, seated with his disciples, at
their last supper, he broke the bread and poured
out the wine, instantly, according to the obvious
habit of his mind, he saw a resemblance, be-
tween these and his body about to be lacerated
and his blood to be shed upon the Cross. ^'It
is my body," he says, '^it is my blood." And
then with the most natural feeling in the world
he gives the bread and wine to his friends, as
the mementos of his love. Alone as he was,
since he could not have any immediate sym-
pathy, deprived of the reality, he comforted

' Luke ix, 44.

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 303

himself with the hope of having his labor of
love gratefully cherished in remembrance when
he himself should be on earth no more. I can-
not well imagine anything more incongruous
with such a state of mind than the formal insti-
tution of a rite.

It is because I look upon him as thus moved
on that memorable evening, that the observ-
ance of a commemorative service, having him
for its object, and founded upon this touching
incident of the last supper, has, in my view, an
obvious propriety. It may be of the simplest
character possible. Some form is requisite to
make the occasion social. The simple exhibi-
tion, at stated times, of a broken loaf of bread
and a cup of wine would suffice for the purpose.
It is not necessary that either should be tasted.
Let them be placed in view, and let a voice be
given to these mute memorials by those who
unite in the observance. Let no thought be
entertained of excluding any who desire to be
present. The observance can stand only on a
level with other social religious exercises, to
which all are made equally welcome.

I have no idea that any thought passed

304 TnOUGHTS ON

tlirougli the mind of Jesus, either of restricting
the remembrance of him to his immediate
friends, or of perpetuating and extending it.
One only thought possessed him, and that was,
that it should be held in affectionate remem-
brance that, as bread and wine nourish and
refresh, so he had given his body and his blood
for the benefit of men. 'Not a formal, but a
personal recognition he longed for. His appeal
was, in a manner, addressed to the universal
heart of humanity, and must be felt by all who
are impressed by the divine beauty of his life.
Therefore, a service, having for its object the
commemoration of Jesus, if observed at all,
should be observed, not as a positive duty en-
joined in a tone of authority, but as a sacred
offering of gratitude and friendship, not because
there is any mystical virtue in the bread and
wine, but only because they make an occasion
for communing with his Godlike Humanity.

TUB LIFE OF JESUS. 305

Is it any wonder that Jesus of Nazareth is
not even yet understood ? No great man ever
was understood all at once. In the moral
world, as in the material, greatness requires, in
order to be appreciated, that the spectator
should not stand too near. The world has
always had to take time to understand great
men. The way of the world is, when they first
appear, to treat them with ridicule and abuse,
and hunt them out of life as fiercely as possible,
and then, after a space, to rush to the other
extreme, and confound all intelligible ideas of
them by extravagant adulation.

In no instance has this way of the world
been more strikingly shown than in the case of
Jesus of Nazareth. But the fact that it is now
nearly two thousand years since he lived, and
that, during all this time, men have been
wrangling about him, and have not yet come
to any clear and general decision as to who or
what he was, — is it not a most impressive tri-
bute to his greatness ? Does it not show that
he was no ordinary person, to be measured and

26^-

306 THOUGHTS ON

seen through at a glance? His dimensions
must be sublime to have cast so huge a shadow
over the ages.

And yet that the world is so slow in coming
to a right understanding of him is not owing to
any mystery in him. The special mark of
Greatness is Simplicity; and Jesus is the
greatest because the simplest of human beings.
His truth is transparent as crystal. All Nature
shines through it. His character is indivisibly
single. And for this very reason, because he
was so profoundly imbued with the simplicity
of Nature, even in the very respects in which
he was new and original, men, sophisticated by
their arts and artifices, have failed to under-
stand him. By the insatiable passion for the
strange, which is unable to perceive the stupen-
dous miracle of the visible Universe because it
is familiar, we are blinded to the simple beauty
of the Man of Nazareth. So far astray are
men thus led from the divine simplicity of
Truth, as to believe that he was the very God-
head, Uncreated and Incomprehensible, while
every line of his history is the history of a
suffering, dying man !

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 307

According to the representation given of
Jesus in these pages, he had no means of reli-
gious certainty differing in kind from the means
of certainty open to all men. That is to say,
as we are, so was he, in this world, surrounded
by the same silence, the same darkness, exposed
to the same questionings, liable to be bewil-
dered by the same mysteries. I do not believe
that any more direct communications were
made to him than may be made to us all, or
that any method of religious knowledge was
possessed by him that was out of the course of
Nature, and not provided by the established
laws of the spiritual world.

In so saying, I am not intimating that he had
not the strongest grounds possible for the con-
victions which he cherished, grounds, to which
no conceivable miracle could have added any
strength. He knew himself to be in the right,
beyond the possibility of doubt. Knowing
this, he knew with equal certainty that he was
speaking the word, doing the will of the High-
est. This he knew by the decisive testimony

308 THOUGHTS ON

of his own consciousness, the strongest possible
testimony, the surest foundation of faith. Sup-
pose that he had read the divine will written
out in visible characters on the sky, and an
articulate voice had spoken to him out of a
cloud, when the vision and the voice had
ceased, if he had not had the interior and ever-
present evidence of his own sense of truth,
what could have saved him from suspecting
that he had been the dupe of an illusion ?

Therefore I say, it was upon no uncertain
basis of sensible appearances and audible
sounds that the faith, or rather knowledge of
Jesus, reposed. As truth comes to us, so it
came to him, from within. And as it required,
so it indicates the greatest spiritual strength in
him to maintain himself unmoved at the lofty
point of personal conviction which he reached.

Consider the case. There he stood, a young
man, having a faith which no one understood,
an ideal far above what the world even yet has
realized. What was truth to him was truth to
no one else in anything like the same degree.
He was moved from within, without the shadow
of a misgiving, to say and to do what aroused

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 809

the most determined opposition. He was con-
scious of no purposes but the most beneficent.
And yet he was instantly met with fierce con-
tradiction from all that the world esteemed
pious and honorable. Wonderful is it that he
never faltered, and was never driven to the
madness of doubt and denial. Only once, and
that was only for a moment, in his extremest
agony, did he express himself as if he were for-
saken of God. If man ever breathed, who had
reason to question the Eternal Providence, it
was he. And yet he not only retained his self-
possession under this terrible trial, but retained
it so perfectly that the sweetness of his hu-
manity was never embittered, the loftiness of
his ideal never abated ; and, utterly dark as his
outlook must have been, he never beheld the
Overruling Power in any other light than as
Infinite Goodness symbolized by the tenderest
of all relations, the relation of a parent. In the
desolation of a solitude more complete than
was ever before or since endured by man, he
was calm and wise, and as full of trust in the
Truth as if he were cheered by the sympathy
of the whole world, never losing faith in God

310 THOUGHTS ON

or man. In tlie centre of this immeasurable
mystery of Being, his personal life, rounded ofi*
into a consistency with itself and with all
things, as simple and grand as Nature herself,
stands a finished representation and image of
the True and the Perfect, and is the one fact
external to us, on which, as on a rock amidst
storm-tost billows, we may repose in inexpres-
sible peace. Although light should break from
no other point on earth and in heaven, here,
from the personal character of Jesus of Naza-
reth, fashioned to so marvellous a beauty in the
darkest circumstances, so lofty and so symme-
trical, comes an illumination that extends far
and wide, down through the mysteries of Life
and Death, and up to the Infinite God. The
words of Jesus, to which the Eternal voice
within bears witness, being transmuted into a
life and forming that into harmony with all
nature, and irradiating it with beauty, are thus
shown to be the words of Truth.

Thus actualizing the holiest Ideal with an
unprecedented grace and completeness, the
Life of Jesus, addressing the highest that is in
us, is invested with great power, power to sus-

THE LIFE OF JESUS. 811

tain and cheer us when we reel and totter,
bewildered amidst the yawning depths and im-
minent heights of Being. Sympathy is a neces-
sity of our nature, and very few are there who
do not sometimes need something without to
reflect the light within, — something external to
lean upon. Is it an instinct ? Is it a weakness ?
"Whatever it is. Glory to God in the highest
that, amidst the multitude of doubtful supports,
beliefs and no-beliefs, that are offered us, there
is One support, for the sufiiciency of which we
have every voucher that the reason, the admi-
ration, the reverence, the love, — every good
instinct and sentiment of our nature, — can
supply !

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