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Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mithode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 THE ONLY TRUE LIKENESS OF Our Saviour^ Taken from one cut in an Kmerald l)y command of Tiherius Gvsar and which was given from the Treasury of Constantinople, by the Kmperor of the Turks, to Pope Innocent VIIL, for the redem;}tion of his brother, then a captive to the Christians. / > mt: • [!\1 J '7 . I). ^m ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Hr' - itU 111. ' • » THE GREATEST NAME IN THE WORLD. BY REV. JOHN W. MacCALLUM. WITH INTRODUCTION BY REV. JOHN POTTS, D.D. 7 TORONTO: WILLIAM BRIGGS, W«sLgY Buildings. *loHTii»Au : C. W. COAXES. 1898. Halifax : S. f . HUKSTIS. BRioos. at the Department of Agriculture. Co the CbviBtian fiouno People OF AMERICA, WHO ARE TO GUIDE THE DESTINIES OP OUR LAND FOR A BRIEF PERIOD AND WHOSE IMPRESS UPON THE TIME IN WHICH THEV LIVE SHALL MIGHTILY TELL FOR RIGHTEOUBNE88 AND THE SALVATION OF TAB WORLD, THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. In harmony with the urgent wishes of a great many friends, the author has submitted the following lectures to the generous public. There was but one single aim in their pre- paration and delivery, and that was to intensify the interest of young people in the life, Gospel, and universal reign of Jesus Christ. There are many thoughtful, earnest souls, struggling with difficulties arising from the' insinuations and sophistries of the multiform infidelity of to-day, which calls its ignorance " philosophic reason " and its stupid blindness "scientific doubt;" and if these addresses shall have helped them in any way to a clearer vision of the Truth, the author will not only feel justified, but also amply repaid for doing VI Preface. what has been done. As the (juotation marks will show, I have drawn freely from the writ- ings of others-jewels of thought to adorn and beautify these pages. To the authors, whose names it would be impossible always to specify. I herewith pay my humble and grateful acknowledgments. The picture of our Saviour is an exceedingly rare and valuable one, and was presented to the author by Mrs. Chas. P. Younge, of Utica, N.Y. May His gracious smile be upon the reader. Tor.nU, W,s. "^^"^ ^ MacCaLLUM. INTRODUCTION. Every book which has for a theme the Lord Jesus Christ is freighted with much blessing to its earnest readers. The Christ has attracted painters, poets, biographers, teachers and preachers, and all these have presented as best they could their ideal of the uni({uc and glorious character of the Saviour of the world. Much as has come into the worlds of Art and Literature illustra- tive of the Incarnate One, much more shall burst forth from the consecrated brains and loving hearts with an effort to express the faith and love of the adoring disciples of their adorable Lord. The accomplished Prof. Drummond wrote with exquisite literary skill and with Christ- like grace of "The Greatest Thing in the World," and now John W. MacCallum writes of '• The Greatest Name in the World." T 4 ^ Vlll Introduction. This little book is the author's tribute of loving homage to his Redeemer and Lord. The reader will soon find that it is a graceful tribute which will inspire similar thoughts of Christ to those so beau ti full}" expressed by the writer. May "The Greatest Name in the World" have many readers who shall ponder its stimu- lating contents until with Alfred Lord Tennyson they shall sing, " Strong Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen Thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove." John Potts. Toronto, February^ 1898. CONTENTS. Chapter I, The Greatest Name in the World - PAOR 11 Chapter II. Scepticism a Mystery -Miracle and Science Alike Attest His High Origin and Messiahship - . 22 Chapter III. Kxalted Expectations of What the Messiah Should be - 40 Chapter IV. A Perfect Ideal Chapter V. Greatest Among Teachers . What He Taught - Chapter VI. Chapter VII. His Power and Its Sources - . . . Chapter VIII. His Discourses Clear and Pointed -He Alone is Grea Chapter IX. What Napoleon Thought of Jesus Chapter X. Crowning Results of His Life's Work 55 68 81 89 reat - 98 109 120 " ^''°" «*"" <■«« *« nanu J£SUS."-Uke i. 31. "^ wawe */>/od bore." 20 The Greatest Name in the Worid. Tliat J<'HUs jKwscsHod 11 (livinity iihovt? all the ciidownn'MtH of all otluT men who had prece Italy), under the curtain of a dreadful storm — the Death Angel with his fingers on the black key board of the thunder-cloud, rolling forth a requiem, the tempest shrieking a pitiless dirge, while the convulsed deep, with ghastly, mocking sob, hushed the burdened cry of the overwhelm- ed soul, whose hollow laugh was at last and for- ever turned upon itself. )1 Scepticism a Mystery. 25 and frave ;hio> m — lack th a rge, ing Im- for- Hazlett missed his way into the kingdom by bhuidering into the plague-stricken jungles of scepticism. Voltaire said : "In twenty years Christianity will be no more. My single hand shall destroy the edifice it took the twelve apostles to rear," Imt he stumbled into the grave weeping over his fate. Gibbon, " with solemn sneer," devoted parts of his gorgeous history to sarcasm upon Christ and His followers. But the palpable blunders in that great work only too plainly demonstrate his ignorance of the true principles of Chris- tianity. Prejudice, Ignorance, and unrelenting Hate were the vultures that preyed upon the vitals of this modern Prometheus, who with the cliains of his iron will was bound to the tire- swept rock of Scepticism, in the arid waste of ])espair, where during long years of remorse and secret anguish he lay, until death mercifully broke the galling chains, and permitted the captive, with a long, deep, hollow moan, to drop into the grave, past whose dark, gloomy portals we dare not look. Wilmot, the infidel, when dying, lai! 7 »^.e\x)s, cleansing lepers, robbing death of its \^:viiir>-" \ iking the wave, hushing the tempest, 1 Scepticism a Mystery. 29 to to increasinor bread five-thousand-fold, blessing little children, weeping over Jerusalem, praying in the Garden, suffering on Calvary, marching out of the rock-ribbed tomb, ascending from Olivet, and blessing the earth, can keep from ejaculating : " Mighty Son of the Mighty God ! " Speechless wonder or bursting praise nmst always follow a glance at Him, in the depths of His love, or in the majesty of His sovereignty. At the mention of His name I have known the drunkard to start from his frenzy, leap out of the galling chains in which he has been bound for twenty years, and, clothed in his right mind, go forth, breathing the testimony of divine sav- ing to rescue thousands from death and illimit- able woe. At the name of Jesus, spoken to him reverently, I have known the maniac to cease his wild ravings and become as a little child, tender and submissive. In a revival, not long since, a helpless stammerer was suddenly cured of his impediment as he named the name of Christ in praise. I have seen men who had been bitterest enemies for years, suddenly fall weeping into each other's arms, their spite and hatred buried forever, just by the power of the name of Jesus. Oh ! it is a mighty Name ! Jesus ! Almost the first word a little child learns to speak. The orphan dries his tear and smiles as he hears that I i TT7 30 TJie Greatest Name in the World. uaine. Jesus ! The soother of all our woes. The old man, talking of the Dark River, and of departed friends, wholly unconscious of his watchers, suddenly opens his eyes with a gaze of intelligence at the mention of this Wonderful Nan»e. Sweetest word ! Uttered in prayer over the gaping tomb, whispered in benediction, lisped from dying lips, shouted by the rising soul, chanted by angels ! Mighty name ! We speak of its value, influence and power, but we cannot tell its eternal potency. Wonderful Births. This name immediately associates itself with all that is strange or weird or fascinating about our advent into this " poor citadel of man." We read of Solomon's birth, and of the birth of David and of Samuel, Joash, and John the Baptist, among prophets and kings of the Scrip- tures; and of the advent of Shalmaneser 1st and Nebuchadnezzer, Homer, Alexander the Great, Demosthenes, Plato and Cnesar, among the great lights of the heathen world. But the added mysteries, the splendors, the poverty, the honors, the shame, the regal magnificence of all, together with their wonderful records, sink into utter insignificance before the splendid, yet mysterious circumstances attending the adv^ent Scfpficisjii a Mysfciy. 81 of Clirist into this world. For, il' tliese caniu into tliis world as prodigies, to he wond(jrei»rt>sHed in night, To none connniniicahlt in eaitli or liuavun.' • •••••••• Enough is left beHideH to Heurch and know ; In nieaNiue wlmt the mind nmy well contain." — Par. Loist, li. 7, lines llJ0-2(), 129. This, indeed, is the Word, " made liesh and that dwelt }iniont( UH " (.lolin i. 15), but renieni- ber, when you be<^in your interpretation of Him as the " Word," that you assume to know (iod's unuttered thoughts; shoulder the mystery of eternity ; speak the inconceivables of Imman thought into existence, and stand as the reveaU'i- of the doings and counsels of the eternal ages, which are only known to God. While the expression, " The Word," may ofier a solution in itself, as indicating the means of communication between the creature and Creator, yet it is buried under the awful truth that, " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and that God was the Word." Science and the Incarnation. While I maintain that the Scripture contains enough evidence bearing on the Incarnation, to make it reasonable and acceptable, I also wish Srr/^fiiisiii a Mystery. 85 to cull your attention to tlio uiiiiiipeacliiihln testimony of science? to tlie possibility of such a hirtli, and also to the I'act tluit the miraculous conception of Jc^sus is in perfect accord with, and not unalterably opposed to the course or law of Great Nature. Above all othei- things, let us be clear. Merci- less consistency with ourselves will correct much of (air reli^nous and)lin<(, and strai<^hten out many a crooked and stony tj^ieolo^ical pathway. There is nothintjj connected with the miraculous birth of Christ which should sta<,r<;er any one who admits the absolute existence of even one miracle; for what, after all, is a miracle but a momentary interference with the ordinary course of some one particular law of nature by the Sovereion Creator, \Nhile He performs some beneficent deed for His sufi'erino- otispring ? None of Creat Nature's laws were any more violated in the Incarnation than in the (hvi and the whole structure falls. Personally, I prefer to remain on the old ship which has triumphantly emerged unscathed from nineteen centuries of satanic bombardment, than trust myself at this late hour to any of your narrow, leaky, little surf-l)oats whose only lif j-saving apparatus is an interrogation point. It has always seemed to me one of the monstrous freaks of reason — the most unwar- rantable and yet complete burlesques upon in- Scepticism a Mystery. 87 telligence — that a man being accessible to all the necessary scientific aids to faith, shonld, when walking through the tropical forests of revela- tion, boundless in their scope, but intersected by beaten paths, each of which leads to the Realm of Peace, and richly illuminated by the light of science, should tear down the trusty finger- boards at all section lines, destroy his compass, voluntarily seek the shadows, then throwing himself upon the ground, charge Inspiration with his folly and befogment, complaining meanwhile to the passers-by : " I cannot find my way home." While I hold to a belief in the goodness of God, I must believe that, although I cannot know all about the forest, there is a way out, and that I shall find my way back to my Father's House. Let us reverently approach this (juestion of the Incarnation, and under the light of modern science, and with the aid of the microscope, learn whether the origin of the life of our Lord is compatible with natural law. IVlany centuries before Christ, it was prophesied that he should be virginally born. Professor Huxley says : " Generation by fission and gemmation are not confined to the simpler forms of life. Both modes are common, not only among plants, but Sill •SI 1 38 The Greatest Name in the World. amon^ animals of considerable complexity."* "Throughout almost the whole series r* ^'ving heings we find agamo genesis, or, no ,exual generation. Eggs, in the case of drones among bees, develop without impregnation. "f Ex- amples of the origin of life without two parents are numberless. " When Castellet," says A. R. Wallace, Dar- win's coadjutor, " informed Reaumur that he had reared perfect silkworms from the eggs laid by a virgin moth, the answer was, ' ex nihilo nihil fit,' and the fact was disbelieved. It was contrary to one of the widest and best established laws of nature, yet is now universally admitted to be true, and the supposed law ceases to be universal. ":|: "Among our common honey- bees," says Hackel, " a male individual, a drone, arises out of the eggs of a queen if the eggs have not been fructified; a female, a (jueen, or a work- ing bee, if the Q^^g has been fructified. "i^ Take up your Lyell, your Mivart, your Owen, and you will read this same important fact which Huxley, Hackel and Wallace here asserts ♦Article, "Biology," Encyc. Britt., 9th ed., p. 686. t Ibid, p. 687. :{:A. R. Wallace, "Miracles and Modern Spiritualism," p. 38 ; London, 1875. §" History of Creation," Vol. i, p. 197. Scepticism a Mystery. 39 when they say that the law that individuals may be virginally born extends to the hi^dier forms of life. That great soul, the tender- spirited and sainted Lincoln, in his early days, with little knowledge, but great thoughtfulness' was troubled with this difficulty, and was almost thrown into infidelity, by not knowing that the law that there must be two parents is not universal. With throbbing heart I thank Almighty God— in whose unclouded presence the serene soul of the martyr now rests— for the instruments put in my hands and the grace with which He has enabled me to use them in flashing across the brows of men this new and gracious beam of light— the latest science concerning miraculous conception. I i CHAPTER III. EXALTED EXPECTATIONS OF WHAT THE MESSIAH SHOULD BE. It was in the Jewish and heathen mind a foregone conclusion that such a birth should have a tinge of the miraculous ; that it should take upon itself somewhat of the superhuman and divine, and that the circumstances con- nected with the birth should witness to its potency and declare its worth. The whole world, as if touched by a single chord, and nourished from a single source, con- fidently looked for a Great Deliverer. The Plebeians — the lower and oppressed classes of Roman dominancy — and the Jews, whose temple had been defiled and whose nationality had been absorbed by Rome, looked for one who would restore the first-named to equal rights and privi- leges, and transform the Jewish people into the governmental head of all nations. Just before the birth of Christ, Herod the King had made all Jews take the oath of allegiance to him and What the Messiah Should Be, 41 the Emperor, which act too fully spoke the fear of his mind as he anticipated the advent of this Heavenly Prince. See his consternation merg- ing into impotent rage, culminating in an order for the massacre of the male children throughout Judea, under the age of two years, all because of the events that celebrated This Wonderful Birth. Angels from the far-off portals of the skies put aside the drapery of clouds and announced to startled shepherds the Incarnation, while some of the best singers of a world where all sing, suddenly appeared under a canopy of light, and chanted a peace anthem, until hill, valley and plain echoed the hallelujah chorus. The burden of their song was : ' ' Glory to God in the highest, Peace o\\ earth And good-will to men." The news is speedily carried to the Imperial Courts, and the wisest of wise men in the east wend their way over the plains, led by a star, until at last in a stable they find the object of their search, and then devoutly bend their tired knees in worship before the infant Jesus, all the time " rejoicing with exceeding great joy." 42 TJie Greatest Xauie in the Worid. There is a beautiful legend about the birth of Christ : How that when Joseph and Mary reached Bethlehem, she requested him to remove her from the n^s on wliich she rode, which he did ; but the oni^ place that could be found was a cave, near the grave of Rachel, into which no light ever entered. Into this she went, and sud- denly the whole ^))<.^q was filled with beams of light, as if ol iv^ ^nn. which never departed while she remain v,'i tl-e'-e T cannot refrain from giving the story a.-^^ I re^^ '•'; so filled is it with beauty and suggcsti' i ii'--'jf^ . " In this cave the child was born, and the angels were round Him at His birth and wor- shipped the new-born, and said, ' Glory to God in the Highest, and peace on earth and good- will to men.' Meanwhile, Joseph was walking about seeking help. And when he looked up to heaven, he saw that the pole of the heavens stood still, and the birds of the air stopped in the midst of their flight, and the sky 'was darkened. And looking on the earth he saw a dish full of food, prepared, and workmen resting around i^, with their hands in the dish to eat, and those who were stretching out their hands did not take any of the food, and those w^ho were lifting their hands to their mouths did not do so, but the faces of all were turned upwards. IV/ia^ the Messitxh Should Be. 43 And he saw sheep which were being driven along, and the sheep stood still, and the shep- herd lifted his hand to strike them, but it remained uplifted. And he came to a spring, and saw goats with their mouths touching the water, but they diut faith in Christ as the Science of sciences came into the world to create a new philosophy, an entirely new field of thought which, \\ hile surpassing heathen (i.e., Greek and Roman) philosophies would, at the same time, crowd the soul with higher ideals and more uhlimely original thought. The early Christians, however, found it ex- tremely difiRcult to disabuse their minds of the cold, stilted philosophy of their time, when accepting the fresh, invigorating, rejuvenating faith of the Gospel, and not unfrequently had their hopes blasted by an attempt to blend all these contending factions into one soul-saving creed. Having dropped the right oars to ex- amine others, their crafts were engulfed in the foaming rapids, running wild to the whirlpool of death, before they could reach again the well- tried but discarded oars. (Nor should we censure very strongly this !■ 50 Tke Greatest Name in the World. attempt to reconcile these contending factions. Christian zeal has always sought peace, espe- cially on doctrinal points, notwithstanding the fact that this is the rock on which the Church has been wrecked scores of times. A few com- parisons of current Church history will furnish sufficient proof on this point.) The cold, dreamy, yet stilted philosophy of Aristotle had not the tender pathos and gleams of hope which characterized the work of Soc- rates, nor the stately grandeur of Solon's unself- ishness and humane laws, emphasized by the supreme dedication of his life to the good of humanity. None of these reached the heights of Plato's reasoning, nor surpassed him in his conception of an ideal philosophy which would combine in one system the better parts of all the others, thus amalgamating the minds of the whole human family into one common creed. But the result of each man's life was — as far as the bet- terment of a lost race is concerned — a failure. What could the people do other than what they had done ? They adopted new dates, declared the perfection of new systems, deified their heroes; they would find a new God, then, with true east- ern devotion, kneel at the shrine of their idolatry. To them there was no history aside from that of their successes as a people. The (question with W/iat the Messiah Should Be 51 jhe lole the 3et- iire. ■oes; them was not, How long since this globe was inhabited ? nor, How soon will it cease to be ? but, What place shall we fill in history which dates no farther back than the period of our inception ? Thus engrossed in themselv^es — each nation, as a person, having different likes and dis- likes, different ambitions and avocations, differ- ent hopes and fears, different views of present duties and of future existence, different ideas of life with its responsibilities, and death with its subsequent developments — is it any wonder that there should be a vast, incongruous mass of dates among these multitudinous factions that plunged the whole post-diluvian world into an inextricable labyrinth of cycles, periods and dates, from which none but the " Maker of his- tory " could produce a chronology of harmony or untie its Gordian-knots \ Dying Jacob told the whole story of the union of these contending factions into one great body when, projecting himself down through the centuries, he saw and foretold the fact in a single statement : " The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a law- giver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be." That this prophecy has been literally ful- filled none can intelligently deny. The life of Jesus — sinless, stainless, spotless, comprehending 52 TJie Greatest Name in the World, within itself a sublimely moving, creating force, at one and the same time showing the sterility of Judaism, crowding out all the forms of hea- then culture and philosophy, and giving in place a pure, refreshing soul-gladdening Gospel — is sufficient reason for the wonderful success of His cause, the greatness of His name and the division of all history into two parts, viz., that before Christ and that after Christ. I do not say that heathenism had no bearing upon the success of Christ's holy Gospel ; for God has ever made the wrath of the heathen to praise Him, Thus, while " Judaism was pre- paring salvation for mankind. Heathenism was preparing man for salvation." And just in pro- portion as men come into the kingdom of God do the histories of the world point to the Incar- nation. Indeed, so fixed a principle has it become throughout the world, that a great proportion of the Jews, and in fact all the civilized European nations, date their time from Christ's birth. Under a Jewish synagogue in one of our large cities I saw on the corner-stone this significant inscription : " Erected A.D. (in the year of our Lord) 1888." How forcibly the words of Jean Paul Richter comes to us in the light of these statements ? He exclaims : " The life of Christ concerns Him who, being the holiest among the W/iat the Messiah Should Be. 53 miglity, the mif^htiest among the holy, Hfted with His pierced hand empires oft' their hinges and turned the stream of centuries out of its cliannel, and still governs the ages." If, indeed, all the weeping centuries before the Incarnation, heathen and Jewish, looked for a " Divinity that would shape their ends," by de- livering them from their dark and dreary state into an intelligent appreciation of spiritual things, " and so bring peace " — and all the ages since Christ have pointed backward to the " manger in Bethlehem," are we not right in saying that " the full history of the world is a history of redemption " ; that every incident of moment, forming a date in history, is but a spoke in the wheel of events which has been instrumental in revolutionizing the whole his- tory of the human race ? To the casual ob- server of Providence, to the superficial reader of history, there appears no thread, no system, no continuity in it. One course of events is seen here and another there. Kingdoms play the clown on the stage of action : now, for the first, attracting attention ; next, great and powerful ; then the curtain drops, and they are forgotten. All is a series of splendid, chaotic rhapsodies, melodramas and tragedies, Xo less chaotic seems the history of the Church. i; 54 The Greatest Name in the World. Changes innumerable are continually going on within it and around it. But all is not chaos. The Christian student looks at the weird scene, and then draws from it that long chain of events, indissolubly connected, which brings every fragment of history into the great plan, sees it animated with one soul, and that soul is Providence. Thus does the light of a revealed Providence throw upon our pathway a radiance which, running forward to embrace the millennium, is greeted by a gold-glinted sunbeam, which points backward to a " Being " suspended on a cross, on a hill outside of Jerusalem, dying under the black curtain of a Judean midnight, midst the terror of tumbling thunderbolts, rending rocks, consternation of rising dead, and weeping worlds — a Being whose birth, life, death, resur- rection and ascension, ending the story of a wonderful life, stopped the flight of centuries, illuminated the ages, lifted humanity up to a never- before dreamed- of spiritual elevation, and inaugurated a new beginning of time, that be- gins and ends within a circle upon which is written this significant title, " The Year of Our Lord." CHAPTER IV. A PERFECT IDEAL. ! I One great reason why Christ has gained such an elevation, such a precedence, over all men of every age, is chargeable to the fact that He furnished a perfect ideal for humanity. Other men had excelled in a few things : Moses, as a lawyer ; Joshua, as a soldier ; Samuel, as a judge; David, as a poet; Demosthenes, as an orator ; Alexander the Great, as a general ; Herodotus, as a historian, and Solomon, as a king. But the example of each was only in part what we might have expected as a whole- Their imperfections were so palpable as to pre- clude the possibility of men finding in such persons a sufficient pattern for their lives. A model is a model only where it reaches the line of perfectedness. This is and ever has been a very busy world, and men will study men rather than books about men, generally gauging their lives by the status of some other life. History is only biography generalized. Our 56 The Greatest Name in the World. t B reading is made up out of what others have done. No kind of " studious entertainment does so generally delight as history," or the tradition of remarkable examples. Even those who have an " abhorrence or indisposition toward other studies, are yet often much taken with historical narration " — those narrations where the commanding spirit of some great man impresses and electrifies the reader. The history of Macedonia is fairly compre- hended in the life story of King Philip and Alexander the Great. The history of France from 1790 until 1815 concentrates in the biog- raphy of Napoleon. The biography of Wash- ington furnishes the history of American in- dependence. Where is the school-boy who to-day does not aspire to be a Henry, a Webster, a Lincoln, a Grant, a Beecher, a Talmage, a Brooks or a Moody ? So largely do we partake of the spirit of these ideal characters, that in our emulation of their deeds we insensibly be- come somewhat like unto them. The laws of gravitation do not belong to dull rocks and burning stars alone. They enter into humanity so thoroughly that, impressed with what de- lights us in the lives of other men, we, like the star as it nears the sun, unconsciously reflect the light, and become more like unto this beauti - A Perfect Ideal. 57 fill Sun which has so niao-netized and attracted our attention. Success in any profession depends largely, if not entirely, upon the nature and elevation of the ideal, whether it be the platform orator, general, or merchant prince. Imitation is a substitute for experience. The best forecast of the future is the history of the past. We steal our honors from no one, even though \ e copy the lives of the best. Parental experience is intended to be the ^e Pt FiNUER-BOARDS AlONG THE ROAD OF LiFE, which posterity must follow. The ancient Romans were accustomed to place the busts of their distinguished ancestors in the vestibules of their houses, that they might be continually reminded of their noble ^ave their ancestors such lasting fame. We are all children in this sense, and each and all seek examples from among both the living and the dead ; but none of us has ever found a human example whose complete life satisfies us. We grow sick at the sight of the failures of our best ideals. No history gives us the ideal man, whose every example and precept can be safely followed. The Bible alone reveals Him in the carpenter's Son — Jesus, the Nazarine. In Him the Highest Ideal is Realized. Would you seek the spirit of humility i Had any man greater reason for self-exaltation ? Yet, when Christ came into this wretched world, of all the miracles recorded in the Gospel He scarce did any for His own private relief ; and to show that He endured His sorrows for our sakes, and tasted the sting of stripes that we might be healed, " so were the joys He tasted in relation to us; we read not (which is highly observable) in the whole Gospel that ever He rejoiced but once, and that was when His returned disciples informed Him that they had victoriously chased devils and diseases out of oppressed moi'tals, and that by His authority A Perfect Ideal 59 men hiul been dispossesHed ()f ]x)th the tempter and punishment of sin," Would one seek a pliilantliropist ( See in tliis " despised Galilean" one who, being infinitely rich, for our sakes became poor that through His poverty we might be rich — who was so poor that to save Himself and His disciples from embarrassment He per- formed a miracle to pay the Roman tax. Be- sides that, see tlie pity of His great soul, often welling up in tears at the distress of His friends, and how many times He healed the sick and raised the dead to comfort breaking hearts ! In these, as well as in all other times, there has been much talk about "all-rounded me?i," ex- emplary men, men of unwavering and sanctified influences. Behold in this Israelitish Prince the uniformity of a virtuous life — all the strength and beauty, the pity and power, grace and glory, honesty and righteousness, the justifica- tion and sanctification, the meekness and wis- dom, the ardor and devotion, the earthly and heavenly, the human and divine attributes, blending and towering up, until, on our bended knees, we gaze upon His transfigured and glori- fied countenance in speechless praise. What comprehensiveness of all things that are lovely ! " He," exclaims Flavel, " seals up the sum of all loveliness ; things that shine as single stars with ''« If 60 TJie Greatest Name in the World. a particular ^'lory, all meet in Christ as a glorious constellation." Seeker after a perfect model, a perfect example, cast your eyes among all cre- ated beings. Survey the universe ; observe "strength in one, beauty in a second, faithfulness in a third, wisdom in a fourtl\," but you shall find none excelling in them all, as Christ does. Bread has one quality, water another, milk an- other ; but none has all in itself like Christ has. He is bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, a garment to the naked, healing to the wounded, sight to the blind, liberty to the captive, peace to the anguish-stricken, and whatsoever a soul can desire is found in Him. Although He strives not, yet He is everywhere victorious; quiet, yet when He speaks it wakes the dead : patient, yet He demands instant and complete submission to His will ; submissive, yet ruling over all ; enduring : considerate, tender to the weakest; loving, with that love which crowns all who follow Him to the end with everlasting life. To the end that we might have a divinely perfect pattern to imitate, God raised up His Son Jesus, furnished with rare endowments, and assisted by the Holy Spirit in the performance of this purpose. The records of the virtuous examples of this just Person were " written for our admonition — they were set before us as A Perfect Ideal. 61 copies to transcribe, as a light to guide us rightly. In the nature of the thing itself, this good example is of singular advantage to us, as being fitted to have a mighty influence upon us, in that it directs more pleasantly than precepts or connnands, while it inclines our reason to good conduct, commending itself to us by plaus- ible authority," thereby inciting our passions Jind impelling them onward in the performance of duty. It raises hope, inspires courage, pro- vokes emulation, awakens curiosity, afJects fancy, sets in motion all the springs of activity, stimulates faith, and impels us onward and up- ward in the pathway of life, until we reach the shining goal where gather and glitter, like the stars of the firmament, the ransomed innnortals, clothed and patterned like unto Him, *' Who among the sons of men Is fairest and first." Is it any wonder, then, that Christ should per- meate so entirely The Literature and Science of the Ages ? Reason it as you will, the obvious truth pre- sents itself, that a wonderful influence has been exerted upon the whole class of literature and science of the ages by the promulgation of the i» 62 The Greatest Natue in the World. •^ \ teac]nn«ijs of Jesus Christ. With the opening of the (lark a<^es, the Bible " retired from the world as an inspiring af]^(!ncy," or was imprisoned in a cell, from which l)ut a few Hickerin^j beams reached the outer world. Luther called it from the hiding-places into which it was never again to enter. Often had the attempt been made to break the weary didness and awful thraldom of the whole civilized world, but it was never fully successful, and the defeat left men in deeper darkness than before, 'i'he age of schoolmen and scientific inrjuirers, under the leadership and ai)proval of Roger Bacon and ])uns Scotus, did not lift the cloud nor emancipate the intel- lect of humanity. Their philosophy was too much of intellect and not enough of God. Phil- osophy is no more Christianity than is the tune- less sighing of the forest, under the black wings of the storm-king, the uplifted doxology of mortal worship. It can prepare men for the truth, but it cannot give men salvation. The tendency of Philosophic Spe(xxation is to blind the masses by the bright rays re- flected from one or more of its " suns," thus misleading the very ones it is intended to guide. // Pcrfrcf Idrnl. 63 re- What (Ux'H the uvcraix*' man care phout hi;;lj- sounding' discourses upon " a priori," and tho cverlastin^if " e//o," and tho " unrovditloved," and the "first (•(tnsc," atid tlie " aftsolitte," and the thousand coniplicat facts it once soufji^ht to disprove and destroy, lint these contendin<^ forces have been "piloted into the realm of the inysteric^s of the Gospcd, and apprehended as never before the close relation of these ^ireat truths with the central ideas of Chiistianity." Poetry, romance — the whole ran^e of literature — has been elec- trified l)y the presence of that mysterious intiu- ence emanating from the name of Christ. There can be a philosophy without Christianity, but there can bo no Christianity without a divine philosophy. Still there was much truth in the vM»'ious systems of philosophy, such as those u^lit by Confucius, Cato, Plat(j, Socrates and ristotle ; for what, after all, is philosophy, but a splendid attempt to unravel the mysterious dream of immortality. But science must have the *' Lit'^^t which lighteth every man that Com- eth int( the world," to precede it in all its 64 The Greatest Name in the World. essential developments, tmcl it is so, that all the various departments of science have been ani- mated by the touch of men, who, resting their liope on the statement, " Thy word is truth," have not been afraid to push their rigid investi- gation to the last door of geology, and have forced it to confess the truthfulness of the inspired record and the existence of an intelli- gent Creator. Among its expounders are Chal- mers, Whewell, Hitchcock and Pye Smitli, names emblazoned on tlie scroll of fame. Ever since Christ propounded the great mathe- matical problem, " How much will it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul. Or what shall a man give in ex- change for his soul? " (Mark viii .36, 37) mathe- matics have been " represented and elevated to he gem of sciences by the hand of such stal- w^art Christians " as Isaac Barrows, Roger Coles, Matthew Sijwart, while in the category of associates are the names of Faraday, Samuel Clarke, Carpenter, Fleming, Sir Wm. Thomp- son, Abbe, Picard, Priestly and Bradley, all of whom believed the Bible. In Poetry and Literature the debt is obvious. Could Milton have written " Paradise Lost " and " Paradise Regained," or A Perfect Ideal. 65 P- of lor Dante his " Inferno," or Cowper, Wesley, Mont- gomery, Toplady, Heber, sang the nation into ecstacy, if " Scripture had not presented a theme and suggested a way to use it ^ " Byron wrote under the " influence of the Hebrew spirit." Literature owes its existence, its permanence and its world-v/ide prestige to the greatest Name in the world. Says Dr. Mendenhall, " All literature has e(|ually shared in inspira- tions from this common source, though the debt is more obvious in some departments than in others. Let it be philosophical, historic, ethnic, religious and scientific, the department has been affected mor« or less by the commanding truths of Christianity, either modified by them, or vainly attempting to modify them ; but whether resisting or accepting them, whether harmony or struggle be the result of contact with them, the effect is marvellous and usual 1}^ visible. "Sceptical literature owes its possibility to that which it assails. Voltaire was possible, only because twelve apostles lived and died ; Renan had written nothincr had not Christ and Paul lived and taught : Hume had never discussed miracles had not the miracle-worker first ap- peared ; Matthew Arnold writes because there was a Christ. Again the incidental effect of the truths of revelation in literature is quite as 5 i 66 The Greatest Name in the World. impressive as the more direct and positive influ- ence. The majority of books, not religious, relate to subjects which it has suggested, and it is difficult to write on things entirely outside of it. Even the novelist gives a Christian tinge to his stories, or impregnates them with Chris- tian sentiment, as the means of commending them to public opinion. One lays down * The Tale of Two Cities,' by Charles Dickens, in tears, because the hope of the resurrection is mingled with the execution of a doomed man. ' Ben Hur,' by Gen. Lew Wallace, is but a tale of the Christ. The thought of God, as developed in the Old Testament, the character of Christ, portrayed in such simplicity in the gospels ; the thrilling ideas of inspiration, miracle, prophecy, retribution and immortality, find their way into public thought, crowd magazines, fill the news- papers, and multiply volumes without end." And when we think of the volumes, the piled- up libraries of the w^orld — written as " conmient- ary, expository, or in the defence and promul- gation of Christianity ; " of the printing presses, sending their white- winged messengers of peace to all lands ; of the multitudinous translations of the Bible and its aids into the languages of the people ; of the widespread diffusion of know- ledge through the energies of the universities, A Perfect Ideal. 67 colleges, free schools and academies, we are forced to concede the poignancy of the remark, Ihe Christian pen is mightier than the sword " that the name of Christ commands the attention love and reverence of the wisest men of all ages ' that His teachings will yet become the basis of the fundamental belief of all men, so entirely • will so be woven into the great structure of this world's hope, that to tear this name away would be to rend the world to its foundations CHAPTER V GREATEST AMONG TEACHERS. Besides this, the name of Jesus has been, and must ever be, the greatest among teachers. Under this head we can do nothing less than inchide His completed life ; for whether He broke bread, or taught on the mountain, or read in the synagogue, or passed the night with the wild beasts, or walked tlie wave, or stilled the tempest, or defeated death, or spoke from the cross, or mounted to the skies, He taught. Nothing short of Omnipotence can clothe Him in His proper vesture. Nicodemus, a ruler among the Jews, duly acknowledged Christ's claims when he addressed Him as " Rabbi " (i.e., my Master), and he spoke for the great San- hedrim when he said, " We know thou art a teacher come from God; for r.o man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with Him" (John iii. 1-5). Gamaliel evidently shared with Nicodemus this view, in his defence of Peter and the apostles before the Judges, when he Greatest Among Teachers. 69 said, " Refrain from tliese men and let tliem alone; for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to naught ; but, if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it" (Acts v. 88, 89). A monumental impostor cannot succeed as a religious teacher. The people found in Christ the culmination of all prophetic utterance, which gives a reason for the candid confession of the two great Jewish lights — His ready acceptance by the common people, and the spontaneous testimony of Peter, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. xvi. 16). EXCUHSIS. In another place, we spoke of the prevalent notions in Jewish and Gentile mind of the coming Messiah. Scriptures spoke of Him as Shiloh (Gen. xlix. 10), Prophet (Deut. xviii. 15), Immanuel (Isa. vii. 14), Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Isa. ix. 6), Desire of the Nations^ (Hag. ii. 7), Star and Sceptre (Num. xxiv. 17), a Shepherd in the Land (Zech. xi. 16), Ruler in Israel (Mic. v. 2). Has Scripture been verified { According to New Testament teaching, it has : for He is there called Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls (1st Peter ii. 25), Root and Ofispring of David, Briglit and Morning Star (Rev. i. 16), 70 The Greatest Name in the World. Faithful Witness, Prince of the Kings of the Earth (Kev. i. 5), Author and Finislier of our Faith (HeV). xii. *1), Advocate, Jc^sus Christ the Righteous (1st John ii. 1), Propitiation (1st John ii. 2), Son of God, True God (1st John v. 20), Author of Eternal Salvation (Heb. v. ix), De- liverer (Rom. xi. 26), Light of the World (John viii. 12), Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Rev. v. 5), Mediator ( 1 st Tim. ii. 5), High Priest (Heb. v. 10), Saviour (Luke ii. 11), Messiah (John i. 41), Lord God Almighty (Rev. xv. 3). The Mighty Angel clothed with thunder, visiting the earth a multitude of times, driving out of Eden the unfaithful tenants, condemning and branding Cain, trying Abraham's faith, wrestling with Jacob, visiting Lot, destroying Sodom, convers- ing with Moses in the liery bush, directing Joshua's assault upon Ai, upbraiding kings for wicked disobedience, wrapping in the dreamless sleep of death the hosts of Sennacherib, watch- ing with Daniel in the den of beasts, treading the seven-times-heated furnace with the three Hebrew children who came from the flames untouched; that spoke to Mary, and inspired the writing of Man's Treasure -House of Truth — this Mighty Angel is none other than Jehovah, the angel of the Lord, incarnated in the form and being of Christ, who, in the Gospel, goes Greatest Among TeaeJiers. 71 forth seek ill <( the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The Jews readily understood Christ to mean this when to them He cried, " Before Abraiii was, I am;" and the One who sealed His command to Moses, in his appointment as leader of Israel, by the title of " I am," is instantly recognized as the " Prophet whom the Lord would raise up " (as intimated by the dyintr chieftain in his farewell address to his people), as the great " I am," who was ordained to lead them in paths of peace, and teach them the way of everlasting life. Will you, at this very point, hear the straight- forward reasoning of Napoleon as he stands on the brink of eternity \ " Admit, however, as the scientific method requires you to do, that Christ was so exceptional a soul that God was in Him in a thoroughly exceptional manner ; admit with Rousseau that He lived a sinless life admit with the most scholarly of modern in- fidels, that God was in Him in such a sense as He never was in any other created being: admit this, and you have conceded enough to prove that you logically ought to regard this exceptionally holy and wdse Being as veracious ; and, therefore, that you, in consistency with your own admissions, ought to accept Christ's testimony concerning Himself. Take that, as li 72 Tke Greatest Name in the World. reinforced by the testimony of tlie ages to His work in the world, and perhaps you will not be at a loss for reasons for changint^ your word 'divinity' into 'deity' if you are lof^ical." Leibnitz said that those who deny the deity of our Lord and yet pra^^ to Him, may be good men, but that surely they are not good logicians. This seeming excursis brings us back to the Teacher with a more perfect knowledge of the deep rich veins of wisdom from which He drew the water of life that He poured forth for the refreshing and ennobling of all people ; and the right by which '•' He taught as one having authority and not as the scribes." Jesus, an Historic Person. One more question seems to present itself here bearing on the importance of His historic posi- tion. That Jesus was certainly an historical person of the period alleged none has ever denied. He was a Jew. His mother and Joseph were Jews. Joseph was a carpenter in humble circumstances. He was in the precinct of Jeru- salem when Jesus was born and cradled in a manger. There is no evidence of other educa- tion than that received with His then reputed father in the workshop, during the first thirty years of His life. " How knoweth this man Greatest Among Teachers, 73 letters, seein«^ He never learned," is a .fewisli f|uesti()n, which indicates their knowled<^e of His home and early life. About the age of thirty He left His home, announced His mission, and entered upon His public ministry. From that time He liad no home. The foxes had holes, the birds of the air had their nests, but He had not where to lay His head. For three years He went about doing good, healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out devils, performing miracles in attestation of His claim, prophesied the on His enemies, and take His re- deemed to rest forever with Him in His King- dom. ing ve; lan the ade sing lal ; gth ^ on and L-OUS •ds, ;s to e of His full the lew tlie the I to am - ute re- mg- CHAPTER VI. WHA T HE TA UGHT. He taught, that man's first duty was to God, not through consuming fear, but passionate love. If we serve Him through fear of punishment, we make Him a stern, implacable Judge, an un- feeling King, and bend a servile, trembling knee — not before the throne of mercy, but a bar of irrefragible justice, from which all shrink in deadly fear. But if we worship Him as " Our Father in Heaven," as taught by Christ, then with cheerful steps we hasten to the service of joy — to the delightful converse with the One who smiles His smile of ineffable r^p- ture into the heart of the weakest of all His children. An infinitely kind and indulgent Father we — poor, frail children of dust — have. The Scriptures, made up of sixty-six ])ooks, composed in several ages by n«l('rful works: and then will I profess unto them: I ne\iT knew you, depart from me, ye that work ini(|uity " (Matt. vii. 21-2o). The celebrated Wm. Jay, of Hath, ust'd to say, "Christ marks His sheep in two places — the '^« 86 The Greatest !\ame in the ]Vorld. oars Jiiid i'eet — ' tlioy hear my voice, and lollow me.' " While it is true that faitli in tlie Lord God will save a soul, without works (as in the case of Abraham, " who believed God, and it was imputed unto him for ri^jjliteousness "), yet works of love make the oreat measurino- line by which the world iud<4:es our Christian zeal an ITS SOURCES. A DREAMY sentence never fell from His fervid lips. His thought was always vivid; His pic- tures graphic : His illustrations terse, practical, (|uickly and easily understood, poignant and adapted to the ininiediate need. Nothing short of infinite powers of perception will enable us to penetrate the deep recesses of divine wisdom, which ever and anon focused its rays through His words, upon the breathless multitudes who hung upon His teachings their destinies of eternal life and death. Whether by Elijahian vision he saw on the blue scrolls of the sky, penned in words of liquid gold, the words which He spake, or whether from the deep depths of His imagination He drew the wa-ird, fascinating, pathetic, and some- times overwhelmingly awful pictures with which He drove home His teachings, that sometimes angered, sometimes charmed, and at all times enthralled the multitudes, and that ^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) /. ^ .5*^, 1.0 I.I 1.25 .1 i^ 25 12.2 M 1.8 U III 1.6 <^ ^P; '/ /S^ Pliotographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y 14580 (716) 872-4503 1. <° . "^.? !■» IP" 90 TJic Greatest Name in the World. n JiT iio I % lias lod tlie world into a bri<^liter light and higher hopes, we know not. He was intensely hunum in every respect, but proved the possibilities of an intimate union between God and man. Indeed, His perfect humanity revealed the liigher divinity in which we beheld the God. I think, however, these human utterances are the result of human imagination, ///s (lii'initij wats laid in Ilia miracles and in His impcrvlousness to sin. His hunianitii is told In the agonies He en- dured, and His keen knowledge of and deep sympathy for a snjfo'ing race. In iivcry sense. He was a man — teaching, laboring, suffering as men — only without sin. Therefore, I give to all His tremendous utter- ances a source in his human imaginative Ijrain. Yet how lofty, how superb, how majestic these were ! Imagination, in our sense of the term, is at once illustrative and creative. It "sees by intuition, it illustrates by metaphor, it speaks in nmsic." All great tluMight links itself instan- taneously to imager}^ and comes forth like Minerva, in a "panoply of glittering armor.' Without it, Innnan activity would be an ever- lasting impo.'^sibility. The brain is the battery wliere all the electric currents of life are stored, but imagination is the controlling and intelligent His Poivcr and Its Sources. 91 like lOV. vcr- jtery )i'ecl, Icfent power that puts eaeli of tliese eurrentH into its lawful place, ^ivint^ life ami impetus to all that makes us nobler than the brute. It ]mts thought into an intellit^ent and intellij^iblc shape an«l gives to man the domi nancy over all the forces of nature. Ail great thought is, in a word, poetical, and creates at once a rhythm of its own. With this explanation, we hold imagina- tion »^^o be one of the most God-like of powers, and it was with these very powers that He coined His pictures out of everything in nature, and gave to them a life that ever broadens as the 3'ears roll by. Before Him, natiu-e was a moving panorama of iuifale tlepths with all the secrets of its saving power, is only known to Go